Hi, so for our next patch we have already a lot going into it.
Tutorials is the big one, we are starting this with what we are calling a series of 1-turn puzzles. They will start easier and get harder and teach the nuances of the game and its depth while also spoon feeding the concepts.
We have 5 of them ready for internal testing now and we are hoping for about 5 to 8 of them ready for next patch.
We also have one more single player scenario coming, this one will feel more like playing against an opponent and you get to use barracks to try and hold back the swarm. Should be a moderate challenge and feel more dynamic than the existing scenarios.
Discard pile view: alas still had a game-stopping bug in it before the patch came out, but it is super close to being ready! Just need to resolve the last bug or so and then it will be out in no time (we hope next patch!)
Sectors: these were heavily re-factored in the last patch and we already have some rebalancing to do. We want to reduce the chance that asteroids/nebula appear further to make them a bit less common, and we also want to increase the resources sectors do to be much closer to 2 most of the time. The new resources curve for planets/nebula/asteroids will become:
Resources generated ->
Asteroids: 1 unless a planet, then usually 2
Nebula: 1 unless a planet, then usually 2
Planets (any size): usually 2, sometimes 1 or 3
This will make predicting how many resources a map generates also more predictable for deck building, but there will still be some variability within this.
Balance changes:
We may add more to this list, but so far we have two cards getting some power reduced:
- Craft Complex is going up to cost 5 and
- Ti Chamber is having its hull reduced and the infantry point swapped for a star.
Draw cost changing:
Right now it costs 2 to draw a card. It's been that way since time immortal. But now that the game has just a single resource type, it means you can dump silly amounts of resources to draw as much as you like in a single turn. This can lead to crazy top-decking situations where you roll the dice hard for a win and the cost of doing so isn't as severe as it used to be before when you would need to exchange to keep drawing.
So what we are working on is getting an icon over the deck with the current draw cost. Every two times you hit the deck to draw a card, the cost will go up until the turn is over, then it resets to 2 again. So the cost will start at 2, then be 2 the second draw, then 3, then 3 on the fourth draw, then 5 etc. 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5 ... basically we are adding some friction to the built-in draw mechanic. Note that indirectly this makes cards that draw you card a little better because they bypass the draw-tax. (Star Map etc.)
This code is ready for next patch, the only thing left to do is to add a UI element to display the costs to you very clearly. So if this is done in time, it will be in patch 0.7.1.5
UNDO button says "bye bye and thanks for all the clicks"
We like our undo button, but it adds a lot of bugs to the game we need to fix. But we also keep adding situations where an UNDO can't be allowed because you reveal hidden info. Right now we want to focus our time on more important things like tutorials, more UI feedback, easier ways to learn the game and making sure it doesn't break/crash etc. So we will be turning the UNDO button entirely off for the forseeable future. If we get to a stable point, with good revenues and people want it back - we will look into it at that time.
Bugs?
And as always, we are fixing bugs and prioritizing the big ones as fast as possible. The game is still a lot more stable if you play in one sitting than if you save and load the game over multiple sessions. This is because loading a game and restoring the state involves a lot more code and that code is still being ironed out. That said each week we have less bugs than the week before, so things are getting close to stable. We will continue to release fixes for critical issues each week or two until we can see the game is finally free of any critical issues. (that will be a good time!)
So if you want the least risk of bugs, hop over to our Discord channel, and find an opponent and play together in one sitting. A small map will take you about 20 to 40 minutes to play. (less with the timer).
More multi-player maps?
We plan on releasing at least one if not two more multiplayer maps in the near future, probably in two or three patches from now once the tutorials and single player missions feel better fleshed out.
More content?
We have a second 30 card pack planned (10 cards, 3 copies each) plus a special 2 card pack with two new commanders. the commanders will drop first, followed after by the 2nd card pack.
We've just been focusing on the bugs and getting tutorials and some more single-player content first before we release them. Once we feel we have enough of the fundamentals addressed, you can expect to learn more about them and get a prediction on their drop release/date!
Thanks everyone for playing!