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

The Merchants of Sol

The Story

Your actions matter.

• War - For as long as the resources flow across the system, to the colonies, then peace is maintained. Colonies will fight planetary and interplanetary wars over resources and territories. These wars can be lucrative but can also be disastrous for the movement of goods.
  
• Death - For many colonies, their basic needs are met by the merchants. Food, water, oxygen, medical supplies, among other things cannot be produced on fledgling colonies without the resources or equipment to do it. Sure, death can be bad for business but necessity drives profits.
  
• Prosperity - Of course, you could also provide everything that a colony needs and see them prosper. After all, a prosperous colony is a rich one. And a rich colony is ripe for abuse.

Tools to success

• OSINT such as procedurally generated news for regional and system wide information.
  
• Market charts for stock exchange and market manipulation.
  
• Insider trading can be effective. Getting friendly with the owners and operators of regional businesses can give you valuable information into the market.
  
• Signing contracts to fulfil tasks for government or private businesses can give a steady flow of income. But be sure to complete these assignments or you might face a breach of contract.
  
• Use criminal, or morally objectionable, activities to make more money! Bribe government officials to favour a certain course of action, plot to murder those that get in your way, fund propaganda campaigns to further your aims, smuggle illegal products through planetary blockades, forge visa papers or government documents to access restricted areas, there's many ways in which you can go about making money.

A living, breathing universe.

• OS: Ubuntu
• Processor: AMD Athlon 1000Memory: 500 MB RAMStorage: 100 MB available spaceSound Card: N/AAdditional Notes: Tested on Ubuntu 20.04.4 64-bit
• Memory: 500 MB RAMStorage: 100 MB available spaceSound Card: N/AAdditional Notes: Tested on Ubuntu 20.04.4 64-bit
• Storage: 100 MB available space