Yesterday, Unity announced a new update to their terms of use. In this update, they provided information on a new fee that will take effect from January 1st 2024, the "Unity Runtime Fee". This fee is retroactive, even for developers that have previously agreed to different terms.

How will this fee affect Merchants of Sol?
It is hard to say exactly how much this fee will affect Merchants of Sol, nor any other developer. However, as an indie developer, this could have a substantial impact on the future of the premonitions series. While the fee seems insignificant at $0.2 after $200,000 of sales. This fee applies to installations rather than sales. If a player installed their game on two devices this would amount to a fee of $0.4. If they reinstalled the game on a device that it had previously been installed on then the fee would, again, double. Unity says:

"The installation and initialization of a game or app on an end users device as well as distribution via streaming is considered an install."

This change will take effect on January 1st 2024. By that time, Merchants of Sol will have migrated to Unreal Engine 5.

What will happen now?
Given the extremity of this fee over the lifetime of a games development and release, Merchants of Sol will be migrated to Unreal Engine 5. This is going to delay the release of Merchants of Sol substantially.

This news is disappointing, to say the least. It has severely affected my trust in Unity, especially that they would retroactively apply this update to developer licenses that have already been agreed. Therefore, until further notice, releases under the title Premonitions will be made using Unreal Engine 5.

While it is possible for me to circumvent these changes by changing engine, it will not be so easy for other developers, especially those who have already released their games, to make this change. From the 1st of January, these developers will be subject to the Unity Runtime Fee, and there will be little that they can do about it. Even if these developers had release their game many years ago, even if that game had been long since forgotten about, these fees will still apply to that game. So, finally, I'd like to ask that you support these developers however and wherever you can. One such action could be to contact Unity directly in order to file a complaint against these new fees. However, I would also like to ask that anyone who takes action to support these developers remember that, if you do contact Unity, that you are speaking to another human being. Please try to be civil in any action you take in supporting developers against this change.

As always, thank you all for listening. Feel free to discuss the changes both to unity and to Merchants of Sol, below. If you have any questions then I'll try to answer them. I look forward to bringing you more updates on the progress of Merchants of Sol in the near future.

Jessica

There is much to be said on the topic of politics, especially on Mars. But perhaps it's most appropriate to begin with what it looks like.

The Martian Federal System
Mars is a federal state. It has a senate which presides over "reserved powers" such as taxation but it also provisions many powers to the regional authorities. Each region is defined by a "sector", of which there are a dozen sectors on Mars. The authority of each sector is provisioned to an elected governor, whom represents their people within the sector, but not the senate.

This is the design of the Martian federal system.

Elections
There are two types of election that occurs on Mars at different intervals. There are the regional elections (to select a new governor) and the senatorial (federal) elections. The regional elections occur every four years (2,748 days). Whereas federal elections occur every eight years (5,496 days).

Every citizen of Mars has the right to vote and to stand for election. As a citizen of Mars, you'll have the opportunity to do both.


The Law
As I said earlier, Martian law is divided into federal powers and regional powers. The law applies to matters such as criminal activity, taxation, war and conscription, drugs, weapons, employment, among other things. Citizens of Mars, including you, will be expected to understand and follow the law or face punishment if caught.

Political Figures
Governors and senators are considered "political figures". These people are elected based upon their qualities during a campaign. Their qualities are determined by their background. If their qualities align with those desired by a society then they are more likely to be elected. However, there are several other factors that can affect this outcome.

Policy Outcomes
Every politician (both federal and regional) has the opportunity to push for changes to the law. They're more likely to push for change if they feel strongly about the subject. This is determined by their qualities. The policy changes that they push for might be substantial or insubstantial, this is dependent on their desire for change.

Political Intrigue
If you have a strong desire to make political change then it is unnecessary to wait for an election. There are several actions that you can take in order to shift policy outcomes in your favour. One such action is bribery (or lobbying, if you want to make it sound less morally corrupt); another, more extreme, action is to assassinate your political opponents.

That's all for today
There's plenty more to talk about but that'll have to do for now. As always, if you have any questions then please post them here and if I have an answer then I will try to respond.

I'm also in the process of setting up a discord server for "Premonitions" and "The Merchants of Sol". The link will be made available with the next update so check that out if you feel inclined. It'll be a more convenient way to get consistent updates about The Merchants of Sol and a means to chat if you have any questions or want to talk about Premonitions.

Thanks for all the support,
Jessica

As you may, or may not, have noticed, today the name has been updated from Merchants of Sol to Premonitions: The Merchants of Sol. This is to indicate the first of a series of changes to the game and its development. In this announcement, I plan to update you all on several things, including: whats new, whats being worked on, what to expect in the coming months.

Its been a busy time for me, working on this project. Its seen a lot more popularity than I ever could have expected. First of all, Id like to thank everyone that has supported me so far on Steam and everywhere else. The growing number of wish lists and followers of The Merchants of Sol has been a huge inspiration for me and an incredible motivator that has kept me working hard. Its my only hope that the game will bring you all a lot of joy and entertainment. But, anyway, onto the announcement:

Why was the name changed?
Merchants of Sol was always planned to be the first of a series of games. The running title for this series is Premonitions, hence the change. The Premonitions series is the culmination of a decade of work and planning. Its an entire story of which The Merchants of Sol is only a small part. Youll hear more about that in the future.

I have a confession to make..
The store page is a little bit disingenuous. While the description is appropriate, the images do not reflect the work that has gone into the game. I will be updating these promptly and youll notice a particularly glaring change, the game is not in an 8-bit, 2D style. In fact, it is a 3D game. (Surprise!) Due to the amount of work that has been required of me in the development of this game, I have been using old images that referenced the original idea for Merchants of Sol. In fact, the screen shot from this announcement shows a (WIP) model of Mars that will feature in the game. A cool thing about Mars is that you can fly from space down onto the planet and land, seamlessly(!) On the surface is littered many interesting things from crashed ships to sectors (where people live).

Factories..!
A feature that I wasnt sure would make the final cut. However, recently Ive been quite passionate about the idea. Therefore, players will be able to create factories where they can hire workers and produce products to sell (or to use). These factories can be purchased on Mars and fitted with many different objects. This provides a lot of new mechanics to play with, including: power management, worker management, materials/recipes/products, logistics, and many more political and legal complications to navigate.

Lore
Perhaps you thought that the Merchants of Sol was a vanilla space trading sim. If you did, youd be wrong. Theres a lot of lore to unpack, both through play, and in the lore pages found by progressing through the game (No, you wont have to hunt for collectables). But, primarily, there is a story that will introduce you to the Premonitions time line and some important characters from the series.

Modding
This has been a particularly difficult part of designing The Merchants of Sol. Ive wanted every aspect of the game to be flexible for modding and I stand by what I stated in the store page. But Id like to provide more information on it, as much as that is possible right now. You will be able to mod almost every aspect of this game. Most of the games content (besides the core scripts) will be available to modify. Both through plain text files and through the games mod editor.

Achievements
Yes, they will be in the game. I wont say anything else about them now, but they are fully planned and implemented.

Press (review) copies
Available on request, one week before launch. Key requests will be vetted before being provisioned. You can reach out to me here on Steam or on twitter (@jessicawastaken) to express your interest.

That's all for today
If you have any questions, please post them here and if I have an answer then I will try to respond. For more casual (and frequent) news and updates on The Merchants of Sol follow me on Twitter (@jessicawastaken).

Ill also be trying to be more consistent with news in the near future. Especially because there will be lots to talk about.

Once again, thanks for all the support,
Jessica

Though the game is still in early development I feel it's important to keep you all up-to-date on progress as well as share any other news.

This one is going to be rather long winded as it's the first one and will set the ground-work for later updates. It'll also give insight into the development process and decisions regarding release.

Early Access
There will be no early access for this game. It will be released as a finished product and have gone through several testing/bug fixing phases before release. Currently the game is planned to release on the 1st of June 2023. Progress is going well and it looks like that target will be reached.

Beta Access
There will be a beta testing period during which a currently unspecified number of people from the community will be offered the opportunity to test the game and leave feedback. Those who are accepted to the beta testing program will be provided a beta production key during that period. Anyone who participates in the beta will be offered a full steam key upon release for free.

Press Keys
There will be an opportunity at a later date to apply for press keys. This will be announced in this forum along with the requirements to apply.

Platforms and Languages
The game is supported on Windows, Linux, and SteamOS. There are currently no plans to support MacOS.

As for languages, on release the game will only be available in English. However, on release, the plan is to support more languages.

Modding Support
Modding support is discussed lightly on the store page so I will elaborate further here. From the very beginning modding support has been a core value of this project. A modding tutorial will be posted and pinned to this forum upon the release of the game. It is my hope that modding will be as simple to access as possible. Across several files are stored ship, planet, event, quest, and dialogue data. These are stored in simple configuration (.ini) files which can be accessed from most text processing apps. Though the amount of data may seem intimidating at first every effort has been made to make this game as easy to modify as possible. As such, upon release, the game will include a modding tool to easily access and edit this data.

State of the Game
So far progress has been swift. Much of the modding support and essential components have been implemented. The game is currently in a state of early play. It will not be long until the game enters into early alpha testing.

What's being worked on

• Adding all of the events + modding support for events
  
• Finalising the story
  
• Implementing manual belt travel
  
• Achievements / Cards
  

• Ship data + modding support
  
• Planet data + modding support
  
• Dialogue and event system
  
• User interface and control
  
• Ship management system