Hello Spacers,
It’s become very clear over the last few days that many of you feel hurt by the announcement on Monday concerning our updated development plans. These plans have not changed: we will still be moving on to our Carriers update and then returning to an overarching multi-skirmish game mode. Singleplayer content has not been cut, as some have claimed, only delayed. This is our first missed development target ever.
However, because so many of you were so invested in Conquest as it was originally conceived, after consulting with our publisher and some other individuals we trust, we have decided to release the current unfinished build of Conquest as-is on a special beta branch. This build is still very incomplete and unstable, but if you wish to play it you will now be able to.
To be clear about our intentions for this build:
• This build is released as-is, and represents an incomplete product.
• We will NOT be releasing further updates or bugfixes on this beta branch.
• Regardless of positive public reaction, work on this branch will NOT resume.
• Modders are free to do as they wish, but please mark workshop items appropriately.
The unfinished Conquest build can be accessed via Steam’s betas feature, just as you would access the public testing branch, under “conquest-unfinished-build”.
This is an 80% solution of Conquest (and as many know, the last 20% takes 80% of the time). If you are looking for a balanced and challenging war simulation, you won’t find it in this build. It even still has the bandaid of selecting random skirmish maps to fight on so it’s not 24/7 Abyssal. But if you just want to manage your own custom space navy and mash spaceships together, this might be enjoyable enough.
To reiterate: singleplayer content has not been canceled. We are still hard at work on a redesign for our overarching game mode which will provide context to individual skirmish battles. We will not be releasing information on the design until we have done actual prototypes and we are more confident it will actually be fun. The goal of the new design will be to mesh much more gracefully with Nebulous' core gameplay alongside the return of many of the most interesting mechanics from Conquest mode's original design including officer veterancy and intelligence, a persistent fleet with logistical concerns, and an actual narrative thread and objectives. Once the design is more solidified and we're confident in its bones, we'll discuss the plans in-depth in a future devlog.
See you in the battlespace,
- The NEBULOUS Team