Hello Builders! Last month was incredibly productive for Gate Builders. Some of you may have already enjoyed some of the new improvements, as I released a few mini updates along the way. In addition to implementing quality of life features that aim to make the game more enjoyable and user-friendly, this update introduces four exciting new gameplay features. I'm thrilled to showcase everything that's new and can't wait for you to try it out.

Gameplay:

Speaking with neutral outpost mayors:

Exploring the map and meeting neutral outposts just got even more rewarding! You can now speak with the mayor of each outpost to uncover a wealth of information about the game world. They can share valuable details with you, such as the locations of your competitors, pirates, and secret space anomalies. This new feature adds a layer of depth to the game and gives you even more reason to venture out into the unknown.

Ruins:

When discovering a derelict station, some of the buildings may be in disrepair. Clearing these ruins can be a daunting task, but it's worth the effort. In the future, if your station takes too much damage during an attack, some of your buildings may become destroyed beyond repair and turn into ruins.

New spaceship - The Mining Barge:

Don't want to spend a fortune building a full space station just to mine a few resources from a stray asteroid? We've got you covered with the Mining Barge! This spaceship comes equipped with a heavy mining laser, which can extract a small random amount of resources from any asteroid every week. Keep in mind, though, that it's not the most reliable option out there. One word of caution: if you attempt to mine an asteroid where some citizens are working on, they may end up getting fried to a crisp.
This initial version does not have a fancy beam graphic yet, but it is fully functional.

Station Progression:

Running a huge city takes a lot of bureaucratic power, so we've had to impose some restrictions on newly funded stations. These stations are now limited to a maximum of 8 different buildings. But don't worry, you can expand this limit back to the classic 12 buildings by upgrading the city center. Invest wisely to get the most out of your new station!

Quality of Life:

Global liberty feeling:

The level of individual liberty on each of your stations have a significant impact on your production efficiency. It will become even more important as we develop the feature that lets you win the game by declaring independence from your investor and winning the independence war. To help you keep track of the global liberty feeling across all of your stations, I've added it to the main interface.

Snap!

A big thanks to Wheffle for suggesting a game-changing feature that improves the overall gameplay experience! We have added a new movement indicator to make it easier for you to move your spaceships with precision. The new movement indicator snaps to the maximum distance that your spaceship can move on a single turn, eliminating the frustration of guessing the right amount of movement. But if you need to make more precise movements, simply press the shift button to override the snapping feature.

Indication of price fluctuation in the Homeworld:

To help players keep track of the changing prices of resources, I have added a new feature to the Homeworld screen. Each resource now has a background indicator that shows whether the price is experiencing a high or low spike. Additionally, the default base price of each resource is visible in its tooltip. This should make it much easier for players to determine the best prices of the week without needing to remember each resource's default value from memory.

Citizen XP visualization:

Citizens in the game learn and gain experience from their jobs, and can earn promotions to become more productive. However, before this update, it was difficult for players to keep track of each citizen's job history and optimize their work assignments. To address this issue, a new feature has been added that allows you to view a citizen's job experience history by simply right-clicking on them.

New ship tooltip:

Thanks to player Fresch's suggestion, we've added a new tooltip to help new players easily identify ships on the main map. Now, when you mouse over a ship, a tooltip will appear with the ship's name and the name of the player who owns it. No more confusion about which ship is which!

Ability to drop cargo in space:

Tired of resources cluttering your cargo hold, or missing out on valuable items floating around in space because there's no room to pick them up? Need to transfer cargo between ships? Well, now you can! Just drop your cargo in space. Although it won't last long in the void, it's an incredibly handy solution to your cargo problems!

Graphical Improvement:

Visual Asteroid Miners:

Citizen assigned to work on asteroid in a space station are now visible in the belt map!

New Sponsor Screen:

The Sponsor Screen is brand new and much easier to read.

Small feature changes:

• You can now hide the interface using Alt+U
• Added a sentence that explain what a building does in the building tooltip
• Fix a bug that added infinite colors in the color wheel
• Prevent citizen transport to pickup floating crates
• Prevent citizen transport to start a trade route
• Fix a glitch in the update of the end turn button
• Added a warning for new player about map size/density
• Update the game Intro to match Intro the new Font and UI style
• Added a new Academy lesson: Sponsor and Pantheon
• Added a new Academy lesson: Fighting enemy ship
• Added new Sponsors
• Fix a bug preventing Water Tower to recycle water
• Use Gatepedia info in the contruction selection menu: better info on buildings and units
• Add a "Repeat" option to construction project in a station.

Conclusion:

I always value your feedback, so please let me know if you have any comments on the game! Your input greatly helps me to improve it. Moving forward, I plan to focus on enhancing diplomacy and the independence war in the coming months. To get in touch and chat with the community, join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/eqxF58uqjC Lastly, if you're waiting for a sign to add the game to your wishlist, this is it! :)