Author: EsKa

Devlog: Tech Groups and User Interface

EsKa

Snap783Weekly devlog, also a bit of design.

I am fixing the few issues specific to the 0.7 release, improving the GUI and adding more options to define the maps. More importantly I am slowly implementing Tech Groups. Normally, ship and dock designs are mostly locked to specific faction, with the exception of ISA ships which are available to all races which elect to use them. Instead I am going assign them to tech groups. Each AI faction will, of course, have its tech group, so no change here. However, the player will be allowed to choose its own group at the beginning of the game. So if he wants to use Drath or Sirak designs, he can. This new feature will also allow the player to buy designs from other factions later on. Read More …

Unending Galaxy 0.7.0 Released !

EsKa

Snap747If you follow the website, you already know it is a very large update that mainly focus on the diplomatic and warfare parts of things. However there’s a large chunk of improvements that have been made in other areas as well. As usual, the full article will go into the details, but here are the most important bits:

  • Diplomacy between factions with alliances, cease fires, and more
  • Heavily improved how factions handle their military fleets
  • Military production depending on the economy
  • Proper solar systems with planetary colonies bringing bonuses
  • Rebalanced the ships and weapons and added new ones
  • A new faction (Neo-SPQR) and a new huge map (Galaxia).
  • Faster navigation thanks to the new short range jumpdrives
  • Much better performances and stability

Download the Alpha – Updated Documentation  – Full Changelog

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Devlog: Fuck Cancer

EsKa

Snap748This devlog will be shorter than usual and it’s likely that the next ones will be too. I don’t exactly feel comfortable talking about personal stuff here, but it has a direct impact on this project so I guess it’s fair to be frank about it: My mother has been admitted to the hospital last week, and has been diagnosed with a breast cancer that has already spread to the spine. I spent most of my time at said hospital, and I am going to do the same next weeks and most probably months too at another hospital where she will be treated as best as it’s possible. So, yeah.. It’s not exactly the best summer I can think of. I still code a bit at night because it’s basically the only other thing I can still somewhat focus on lately. But I am very far from my former 8 or so hours a day, and I am not exactly in the right mindset to write lengthy articles..

So I am not sure when the beta version will be ready, but I will still piece together the current in-house alpha and release it, probably during this week if I manage to find some time to do so.

Anyway, sorry for this rather grim introduction and let’s get to the recent improvements.

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Devlog: A massive amount of stuff done

EsKa

medmapYeah, I know my titles are getting worse and worse 🙂

Good news first, I added proper solar systems, planets with colonies having different effects on the faction controlling them. Ships can jump short distances without using a warpgate. A new faction with its own ships has been implemented. I also fixed a bunch of issues, further improved the performances and did a ton of misc improvements.

The bad news is that mid September for the proper beta version is probably a bit optimistic. While the empire management / RTS part of the game is improving nicely, the exploration / single ship is still quite bland and incomplete. I may have to push back to October instead so I can incorporate more missions and the reputation system properly. As a result I may publish another alpha relatively soon so you can see what has been done so far by yourselves.

Anyway, let’s get to it !

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Devlog: Swarm, shipyards, and diplomacy

EsKa

Snap729Hi there, it’s time for our usual devlog !

Despite what has been a really bad week IRL, I still managed to make quite a lot of progress on Unending Galaxy. A bit unfocussed, but progress nonetheless. I am more or less done with the diplomatic portion of the game that I explained in the previous post.  I also implement the new Swarm baddies featured in the screenshot. More importantly I added a proper shipyard component and menu with the ability to queue ships to build and so on. There’s also a bunch of misc optimizations, rebalancing, and fixes.

As usual, those changes will be detailed in the article.

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Design: Diplomacy in Unending Galaxy

EsKa

Snap726I am writing the diplomatic part of UG right now, which is a nice change from the last week spent pinpointing the crash on more or less random machines. So, instead of talking about bugs, let’s talk about diplomacy in games and more particularly in Unending Galaxy.

As with all design documents I post, not everything I am writing about here is finalized. Some of it may be changed, improved or even scrapped altogether.

Enjoy 🙂

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Unending Galaxy 0.6.3 Released !

EsKa

Snap724Sorry for those multiple updates in such a short time, but a major bug that was running wild for quite a while needed to be fixed asap. If you had no issues with the previous versions, you may as well wait for the September release as there’s no major gameplay changes here. However if you experienced extremely poor performances, flickering, or the game flat out refusing to go past the loading screen until now, this new version should fix these issues completely. Thanks goes to Frederikam for helping out in finding what was causing that.

While at it, I fixed a few additional bugs and memory leaks. I also improved the rendering of text, added some needed information in some menus, this kind of stuff. That said and due to the fact that I am using a newer version of the library that was causing the crashes on some systems, there may be side effects I am not aware of yet. If you find anything weird, please tell me through the forum.

And, there won’t be a devlog this week, as most of my time has been spent clearing this particular issue.

Download the Alpha – Updated Documentation – Full Changelog