Hello everyone! 0.7.1.6 is out, here is a summary of everything that went into it:
Rising Stars
This mini-pack brings you two new commanders to play with Sokura and Kiroz.
Sokura is a new Coalition Sapien Commander who specializes in warfare. Kiroz on the other hand generates critical resources by occupying enemy space. Combined with the original two Commanders players now have four Commanders to pick from when building their decks.
We hope you will enjoy them! Let us know what you think and as always, we will be monitoring their play stats and your feedback to ensure equal balance.
New sub-economy
This patch brings in another substantial change to the game: sub-type resources. These are resources that are not flexible and can only be spent on specific things. You must find a way to use them, or they are lost at the end of your turn, similar to your more general Resources you produce. They cannot be exchanged using pre-Alpha 7 exchange-interface (for those of you who know our game from back in Alpha 1 to 6).
The new sub-resource types are:
- Components
- Fuel
- Research
Use Components to build Ships and Developments. Fuel to move Ships and Research to buy new tech cards or to buy cards from the top of your deck. If you roll your mouse over these sub types, it will tell you how many of each type you are generating.
Core set round-out
A number of cards in the core set were patiently waiting for this code to be refactored. We are happy to say that now all cards in the core set should finally be close to where they need to be and some of them got re-designed to use the new sub-type rules.
The cards that got redesigned include:
Ti Matrix and Ti Conduit: now produce Fuel.
Fruit of the Void: now creates 2 Fuel.
Mining Station: Produces Components.
Eco Plaza: Produces Components and Fuel.
Builders: now draws a Development and gives you 3 Components.
War Engine: now draws a Dreadnaught and gives you 5 Components.
Fabricator Complex: Consumes 4 Research to produce 10 Components.
Sectors adjusted
Inline with the above new economy, we went through all the sectors again, and amended some of them to produce specific resource sub-types. This helps to give each planet you discover more flavor.
All sectors contain a planet
This is a big change to the game, now all Sectors, including Asteroids and Nebula, contain a planet. This means that all Sectors generally produce more value and all have at least 1 Development slot. This will make building decks around Developments more consistent and it will mean you are less hurt by a map that spawned against you. It should also be an indirect buff to Coalition, since they rely more-so on developing position.
Commander hull increased
All Commanders raised to a 30 baseline hull value from 20. This will make it less easy for your opponent to one-shot kill your commander in a single turn. Gala Collider is a game of call-and-response, so we needed to raise your Commander hull to let players still have at least a one-turn opportunity to counter your move or punish the rush.
Deck size increased to 20 cards
Decks were 18 cards but we just raised those up to 20. This will make Tech2 a little slower and Tech1 cards a little more relevant before the first reshuffle. We might still tweak this value again but we also feel like we're very close to the final sweet spot.
Scenarios easier / shorter
We did another pass through the single player missions to make them all a bit easier and shorter. We still plan on adding more missions too.
Balance changes
In addition to the above refactoring of cards we also put into place a number of balance changes in this patch:
- Pellin Yurr changed to generate 4 Resources and 2 Fuel instead of 6 Resources.
- Echo now pays 2 to move instead of 1.
- Goliath's Cove changed to increase Attack instead of Bombard value, but can no longer buff Frigates.
- Vanguard lowered to 5 hull.
- Incision lowered to 2 Nukes.
- Ursa lowered to 4 Torps.
- Coalition Building can now only be played if none of your sectors are contested.
UI improvements
- Sectors now also have roll over information to help new players.
- Draw-card button now shows a light to warn you when the cost is about to increase.
- Sectors and Development cards now display the resources they generate on the card-art.
Bug Fixes
- Sectors that discard cards from your main deck now correctly move the card to your discard pile.
- More fixes to the code to help prevent cards moving between decks incorrectly.
Save-load vs. real-time games
As with the last patch, the game is still quite stable when you play it in real-time, meaning in a single session, but there are still bugs blocking a smooth experience if you save a game and try to come back to it later. We're still hard at work on this and we will be thrilled when the game is finally stable when reloaded from a saved-state.
Next?
Coming up we will be working on:
- More scenarios, puzzles, tutorials, maps
- First time player features: more popups, improved rule book, etc.
- XP3: another expansion pack, this time with 30 cards.
- Save-load bugs and issues.
On our Trello board you can also review other items we have planned for the future - if we can get more in the next patch, we will!
https://trello.com/b/yRRW8g7n/gala-collider-bugs-and-release-radar
And as always, if you want to jump in on a game, find us on our Discord.