We've been making plans for 0.7.0/0.7.1/0.7.2 for many months, and we've finally agreed on a rough outline of all the changes we want to make to the game. We're still in a very early stage, so we can take your feedback into account! We'd love to know what you all think of the plans.
1.) Colonist requirements
The only thing currently required to recruit a colonist is a bunch of food. This is relatively hard to get for new colonies, but larger colonies can often recruit many dozens of colonists simultaneously. We'd like to scale the requirements as the colony grows. Colonists will be cheaper for small colonies, to speed up the first stage of setting up a colony. We've heard many players say that the early game is pretty slow and boring, and that it gets way more interesting later on. We'd like to help players get to that stage faster.
We'd like to increase the colonist recruitment cost for larger colonies. Apart from food, other items like clothing, tools and a small amount of coins could become required. We'd like to increase the cost gradually. Colonist 250 should be more expensive than colonist 150, which should be more expensive than colonist 50.
2.) New world generation
The world generation has barely changed in more than a year. We'd like to put a lot of effort in a more interesting world. Different mountains, new cliffs, random fields of wheat or flowers, interesting "sub-biomes" like swamps or an oasis in the desert, etc.
In every direction, you should eventually find an interesting different "top-biome" where a new colony can be started. There should be an arctic area in the north, a tropic biome in the south, a "far east" obviously in the east, and a "new world" to the west.
Each of these biomes should have distinctive items and resources. This makes sure every colony has a unique purpose. Every biome should have special items in each of these three categories:
- Local items/food like rice in the far east and potatoes in the new world.
- Resources for weapons. For example, poison plants for poisonous projectiles in the tropics, freeze missiles from the arctic and obsidian in the new world for powerful armor penetrating projectiles.
- Resources for more modern technologies, like rubber, cobalt for batteries and 'importanium' for energy production.
Of course, this will require new features to let players start multiple colonies, trade and travel between them, and to manage them from a distance.
Built in the temporary 0.6.3 testserver
3.) New monsters and guards
We'd like to add new monsters. These are the ones we're pretty sure about:
- Monsters with more HP. The strongest monsters are now killed in one shot by the matchlock gun. We'd like to add "boss monsters" that are perhaps 10 times stronger.
- Armored monsters. This allows us to add more differences between projectiles, because they will now also require armor penetration.
- Monsters that fire projectiles at guards and the player. It would be nice if the monsters have some way of fighting back from the middle of a maze. They shouldn't have a very long range, so a properly designed defense can keep your colonists save.
We might also add slightly more "magical" monsters. These monsters might have "magical armor", or they could perhaps buff/heal/revive other monsters.
These monsters of course require new guards. We'd like to add:
- Guards that do armor penetration damage, with for example obsidian projectiles.
- Guards that fire poisonous projectiles, to damage monsters over time.
- Guards that fire freeze projectiles, to slow down monsters.
- Guards with area of effect damage, to damage multiple monsters simultaneously
If we add "magical" monsters, we'll certainly add guards to counter them as well!
4.) New technology
When you've built a global empire with colonies all over the world, you should be able to combine resources from different biomes to invent and use somewhat more modern technology. You should be able to generate small amounts of electricity with machines running on coal. This electricity can be used to power new jobs like better furnaces, to activate lanterns or as a weapon.
These simple generators should give players a taste of what is to come. If they want to use significant amounts of electricity, they'll require more advanced machines that can turn 'importanium' into electricity. This will require a complex process where importanium is refined and enriched before it can be used. This process will require resources from multiple colonies, like rubber and cobalt.
5.) The endgame: an infinitely upgradeable jetpack
You've explored the entire world. You've found and processed all resources. Your colonies are defended by every available type of guard. You've got advanced jobs powered by importanium. You've unlocked all the science. What could your next goal be?
We'd like to add a new kind of scientist that can only be unlocked at the end of all the other content. This scientist will require high amounts of electricity and other resources to do his job. He has access to unique science which can be repeated many times. This science could for example make other jobs more efficient, in many small steps.
A fun option could be a jetpack. By default, the capacity of its battery is very low and it can only sustain a short flight. The "end game scientist" can be used to upgrade the battery in many small steps, and perhaps other stats like speed and height as well. This will give your 'empire' a reason to keep producing large amounts of electricity and resources.
What's your opinion of the changes proposed above? Please share it in a comment or on our Discord!
Built by Suryezon and DrSwam
This week
We purchased Unity 5 multiple years ago and have been using it for a long time now. Since then Unity started a monthly subscription version which got a lot of updates and features we didn’t get. This week we decided to switch to this newer version, hoping that this will help us squash a few of the hard to fix bugs.
The last couple of days we tried different versions of Unity to see which would benefit the game the most. 2018 being the newest, but a bit unstable. We decided to go with 2017.4 for now, and hope it will fix a couple of weird errors in Colony Survival. For example, it doesn't work when people have got FaceIt installed. These problems might have been fixed in Unity, and might thus be solved in Colony Survival 0.7.0.
Another problem that keeps occurring is corrupted savegames, especially when a server is stopped in an unexpected way like by a Windows Update. We'll probably require you to start a new world in 0.7.0 (older worlds can always be accessed by rolling back to an older build!), so this is a great moment to fix that problem by switching to a different format for our savefiles.We've been exploring possible alternatives during the last couple of days.
A couple of months ago, we said we felt like we were stitching up Colony Survival after a surgery. Now we feel the exact opposite. We're preparing Colony Survival for the biggest surgery it has ever had. It'll take many months, but we're excited for the outcome, and we'd love to have your feedback on our plans!
Bedankt voor het lezen!