Hi everyone! Mark here with a Development Update news post about what's coming for Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus!
Players who have been keeping tabs on us or chatting with Glenn and me in our Steam Discussion forums already have a good idea of what we're currently working on (and that's definitely the best way to stay abreast of what we're up to), but we know not everyone has the time to hang around and chat with us—and it's been a while since our last formal update—so we wanted to do a Development Update news post to let you know what we're working on and what you can look forward to in the next update.
Parallel works
There are some things we're both working on together, in parallel with things we're working on individually.
Single-player Campaign
The first and foremost of these parallel works is a massive bucket of work that we tend to refer to as the Single-player Campaign work—broadly speaking, Glenn is working on 3D art assets for the campaign while I'm working on delivery of the story elements and mission structure.
The single-player campaign is not yet ready for release. This will be the focus of the next Major Update, which will most likely be the last Major Update before we hit Version 1.
Campaign story and artworks
While we're discussing the single-player campaign, I can let you know our story and script were approved a while back (and we're REALLY happy with how both of those have turned out!). At that time, we engaged a fantastic artist for the campaign story art, Tazio Bettin, who many of you will know from his work in the 40K comics arena. Tazio is an extremely talented artist and we're really enjoying working with him.
We can't wait for you to experience the story and its art when the campaign is ready to play!
Individual works
Final iterations of Reaver and Warhound
One of Glenn's major efforts over the past few months has been in finalising the Reaver and Warhound, in order to bring those models into line with the quality of the final Warlord and Banelord, which have been in the game for a good while now.
The process of finalising Titan models is a painstaking one and not something that can be rushed, so we very much appreciate the patience you have all shown in waiting for these.
The good news, then, is that the next update will feature the final Reaver model, and I know Glenn can't wait for you to see it in all its glory!
The final Warhound model will be featured in a later update—most likely the one following.
Improved Multi-player Lobby
One of the most requested feature improvements we see in the Discussion forums is for an improved Multi-player Lobby system that allows players to choose the battlefield on which they play. For me, this has been a major focus for the next update, and I'm very happy to say that this feature improvement is now in internal release testing!
In the next update, you will be able to set up your game in a New Game dialog, which allows selection of the battlefield from a dropdown list.
User-defined keybindings
Another often-requested feature, particularly for those playing in non-English countries, is user-defined keybindings. This has been my second major focus for the next update, and I'm again very happy to say that this feature is now in internal release testing!
In the next update, from the Options dialog, you will be able to open the Keybindings dialog. In this dialog, you will be able to review default keybindings and re-bind any of them to suit your keyboard layout or just your personal preference.
This feature has been a long time coming (mainly because it was really hard to get right!), so I'm particularly happy that this is included in the next update. For those of you playing in non-English languages, I hope you will accept my heart-felt apology that this has taken so long—I am extremely grateful for the patience you have shown me.
And I haven't forgotten about content localisation, by the way—that feature is coming in a future update.
Localisation!
Yes, I have fiiiiiinally implemented localisation, adding German, French and Spanish language support, and this will be an important feature of the next update.
We will discuss our plans for other languages a bit further into development.
Bug-fixes
Of course, the next update will have as many bug-fixes as I can squeeze into it.
The focus of this update is on Multi-player issues, so the majority of the bug fixes are for that mode; however, there are also fixes for a few of the more serious issues that have impacted single-player games, most notably an issue that was affecting the turn sequence.
Lots to look forward to!
So that's it for this update. We hope you're looking forward to the updates discussed above, and we'll of course be keeping an eye on your feedback.
Glenn and I are always extremely grateful to our player community for your patience and your continuing support for us and Adeptus Titanicus: Dominus through this Early Access journey. We remain greatly appreciative of the feedback you share with us, via your Steam reviews and Discussions forum posts, as well as for your enthusiasm for what Glenn and I are trying to achieve with Dominus. Thank you.
We hope you will continue to add your voices on our Steam Discussions forum, in Discord, on Facebook and on Twitter, sharing your thoughts and opinions with us, and your suggestions as to how we can further improve.
— Mark & Glenn