Continuing polishing the game (which is not the most exciting thing to talk about)... But this is still an occasion to write about what has been developed for the political system, which has greatly improved from the initial system.

Characters have a major role in the living universe in Antimatter and they even play the ever-changing political game.

The post-Antimatter crisis is bringing the intellectuals and/or the idealists to the first scene, much has to be done in a world where political tradition is banished to the domination of the Urghoghs (giant worms).

In this uncharted political land, intellectuals unburied (sometimes literally) the old ideologies from the XXI, XX, and XIXth centuries as the period of Urghigh obscurantism met a convenient analogy to the European's Enlightenment era.

The political scene is therefore dominated by diverse ideologies, in the most naive way. The old world's political legacy is religiously followed to the letter, even the neo-classic estheticism and symbolism mimicked with nostalgia in the haste to bring humanity to a new order.

The Assembly



The assembly represents all the voting members of an organization, separated into chambers that determine the voting power of the member.



A parliament can be extended or reduced with policies.



Each seat in the assembly is occupied by an actual character.

Ranks & Chambers



A member may be promoted or kicked out of a chamber depending on his influence and the influence of his peers.

A rank can have requirements such as the necessity to be landed, be a captain, have a certain education, etc... These requirements are to be voted as a new policy.

Political Parties



Political parties gather like-minded persons, who share common ethics.



While similar in name to the modern era's political parties, these parties have strong differences. they are an attempt to parrot the old world's political system but are still an emanation of their time. The Urghost party is the exception, they will oppose almost everything.



A political party has its own agenda of policies to enact (or to oppose). The resulting ethic of the party is determined by its set of desired and opposed policies.


Votes and Elections



A vote is taken with all members, many factors play a role in the acceptance of a policy, but generally, a member will vote for his political party.

A debate can extend for weeks or even months.



The player himself can be involved in politics just like any other character, he can propose the enactment or revocation of a policy by spending political power or debate against or in favor of a vote.

Despite the relative calm, things have been productive for the past months. My initial plan to make a video devlog was aborted at Christmas due to real-life issues. As always, I (for now) prioritize productive development over communication when available time tightens.

I will instead post some devlogs spread for the coming weeks of all the recent progress because a lot has been done.

Antimatter is now being polished as I have ceased creating additional major core features for the past 3 weeks. This is excellent news.

An outpost can be created anywhere on a planet or asteroid's surface. Employees and slaves can be housed here, and the local population can also be employed. It functions as a production complex where a range of buildings, including mines, factories, and farms, can be built. An outpost also has a trade node module, which means that commercial exchanges can be made here. Finally, terraforming can be performed from here.


The first thing to do is to reach a viable planet.



Preparation is important; a spacecraft should be loaded with construction materials as its buildings require a lot of resources. Food is also important to support a land expedition.



Surveying the planet from its orbit for a few days can help in localizing a landing area.



The tile where the spacecraft will land is revealed, but it is worth exploring the vicinity to find the best region to settle.



There is at least one gold deposit in this region (Vafir). An outpost's range of activity extends to the entire region of multiple tiles.



Founding an outpost requires a minimum of 10 settlers; it can have multiple statuses that will determine the diplomatic relation to its founding organization.



The outpost is physically present on the planet. Outposts from other organizations can be found too.



Outposts, just like colonies, can be visited with a party or a spacecraft. This is also an entry point to the native population market. If a local uncivilized population is present in the region, they will make part of their subsistence production (which depends on local factors) available to the market where the owner of the outpost gets a cut on each transaction.



Managing an outpost is much less complex than a colony.



The region of Isflen has good mining potential.



Trading can be automated to keep stock high on certain products or to resell production. Price, stock, and trade actions can all be automated.



Buildings/Upgrades are the main components of an outpost. Naturally, the available mines and crops are dependent on the natural resources and the climate of the region. Alternatively, hydroponic farms can be built.



The first initial building to be constructed is a habitat, which requires resources, creating a demand at the local trade node.





An outpost doesn't require food, and its population never starves (no need to micro-manage this), as I assume that any built outpost is self-sufficient in food and water. The whole life support challenge is also abstracted away. Of course, all of this comes at a cost; a proportion of workers will always be allocated to sustain the outpost. The habitability of the planet will reduce maintenance for life support; available water and lush wilderness will help for self-sufficient food production. It is therefore key to establish an outpost in a viable location as it ultimately affects the efficiency of the entire complex.

A new foe

A sort of autonomous spacecrafts with limited ability to self-replicate was used during a past invasion and repurposed by the Urghoghs (the worms) to nest into any world outside the core and ward off any local civilization from spacefaring. These swarms of spacecraft are now dormant, nestled into their host planet's crust.

To provide some context, here is a generated universe:


The core worlds consist of a few star systems inside a nebula, this is also where the only source of Antimatter is found


The "Rim" consists of all worlds cut out for hundreds of years from the Antimatter supply.

Most inhabited worlds of the rim are infested with replicants (and the giant worms (the Urghoghs)).

While the core is also occupied by the worms, replicants are machina non-grata in this space, as the worms exert a much more direct form of control there (especially on the Antimatter source which proved itself to be a historical can of worms (uhuhuh (got it ?))).

Finding nests

While kicking on the nest by flashing sensors toward the planet's surface is a viable way to purge the planet from the infestation, this is also a good approach to get swiftly destroyed and form another planetary ring consisting of little matter and much vanity.


Found the buggers...

Another way to get rid of the nest, or even plunder it is to find them on the planet's surface and perform some fireworks directly at the source, with good old explosives and heroically timed detonators.


The combined skill and special traits of the crew would help for successful rolls.

Nests are created during the universe generation, these are simulation-persistent features and populated during the historical generation, they are scattered on the planet and come in 7 different sizes, from the single replicant fighter to a giant fleet with its mothership.

A nest allows some interaction, such as destroying it, deactivating it, or reprogramming it in order to add it to your fleet.

Replicants are only a problem for those in space


Oops ?

Waking a nest while are the surface won't create a problem for anything at the planet's surface, the replicants will launch from the planet after some time and angrily patrol the vicinity and shoot on sight.


Let's leave this planet, it can't be this bad...

Keep in mind that at this point their AI is as advanced as a pissed wasp's brain.

This is potentially a good way to have a free and zealous force protecting your planet, or a deterrence to follow you.

Replicant also has a chance to wake when landing or launching from a planet, making viable planets for mining operations or colonisation scarcer.

A global threat

Until they were reprogrammed, replicants used to be an existential threat to humanity, as such in their "vanilla" form they regroup around a mothership purposed to create more spacecrafts from raw materials.


The mothership's fleet. Just unbeatable in a single strike...

In the game such motherships can be found in deep space until more events are introduced into the game, this fleet is active and replicating right from the beginning of the game.


The mothership's fleet is dispatching 3 harvester fleets

Replicants have a special faction AI, they will send a fleet of harvester for very long mining expeditions and then come back with raw material to the main fleet.

They don't have faster-than-light drive and, thus are very slow for interstellar trips. This is a slow, predictable foe, but potentially with overwhelming power.

Is that... gameplay ?!

It must come to you as a piece of shocking news, finally some glimpse of this so-called "gameplay loop" with progression, shooty stuff, and bad guys to waste without moral overthinking.

Indeed since spacecrafts are a big deal in Antimatter, killing people is yet another big deal, it is nice to have a foe finally pressuring the player.

This major addition expands the exploration system even further. (see planet exploration I and planet exploration II to know more)
I have completed the (massive...) framework and scripting system for encounter and tile features and content-wise, I have decided to complete the first content "arcs" to stress-test it.
Regional features



Regional features


Regional features are persistent points of interest on the planet's surface, they can be visited and have effects on a city, an outpost a region, or an organization. They can also trigger special events, some can be easily discovered (even from orbit)while others need to be found with a land expedition.


Built early in reaction to the Urghoghs, these rare and often disabled devices create pocket of developed civilisation.

These are important discoveries as the bonus/malus can be very significant and cumulate across the entire region.


A list of regional features present on this planet




Encounters
Additionally, there are non-persistent "encounters" which are contextual events occurring during travels but also as time passes. They can lead to more areas/events and sometimes contain rewards in the form of goods, codex entries, and people to hire.


This unassuming rock shelter leads to an underground ruined city, this is quite a rare occurrence.

Some action can also be performed, there is a system for crew skill and traits roll and a full range of effects. But for now, there isn't enough content to make very long and engaging adventures.



Some valuable industrial machinery and tools were found here.

Currently, there are :

• Rock shelter (and all variants for all climates)
  
• Stash
  
• Abandoned Mineshaft
  
• Worm tunnel
  
• Aquifer cave
  
• Fungal cavern
  
• Magmatic cave
  

• Civilisations remants (Tile feature)
  
• Crashed spaceships (Dynamic)
  
• Unique lifeforms and biomes (Tile feature)
  
• Geological features (Tile feature, partially done)
  
• Crew and Expedition routine (but I won't include party member buggering you with their life problems)
  
• Encounters & Combats (using the abstract ground combat system)
  
• Accidents (chain of decision and skill/trait tests with very limited initiative reserve)
  
• Planetary and celestial events (Will occur regardless of player's presence)
  
• Urghogh (dynamic, related to migration/ presence of giant worms)
  
• 
  

• Atmosphere density: during atmospheric entry, the ship's hull is heating and can take damage, this risk is dependent on the ship's hull condition, aerodynamic profile, and the ship's size.
  
• Relief: chaotic relief and ship size influence the risk.
  
• Flora density: which also depends on the ship's size.
  
• Surface gravity: which is influenced by the thrust-to-weight ratio of the ship.
  

Player's faction & background

There are now 6 playable factions:



These are the base organizations that drive the universe dynamic, but of course, there are many others (sovereign organizations, corporations, and pirates) that are procedurally generated to complement the universe.


Muga, Uhmrane and the Eridani Pact share the core worlds.

The chosen faction will then determine the possible backgrounds. A background is the starting conditions (and difficulty) when starting a game, some are particularly rough, such as starting with a large debt.



Some factions don't have all backgrounds available, for example, Umhrane is too weak to offer the player to start with a large ship or a fleet, and some factions don't have any territories for the player to become a governor.

The Rim, is a particular choice as it puts the player as ruler of its own under-developed colony, outside the core world and under the influence of an Urghogh (a giant worm).

Polished universe generation

Besides the UI rework, the generation was greatly improved. Now history is separated into 5 eras, each having its own dynamic during the generation.

• Age of Exploration (The antimatter is exploited for uncontrolled exploration and colonisation)
  
• Replicant's Invasion (an unknown invader, using self-replicating spacecrafts, tried to seize the Antimatter and exterminate the Urghogh)
  
• The Reconstruction (A short period of time when humanity tries to rebuild while facing ideological turmoil)
  
• Urghogh Age (Antimatter Crisis, in reaction to the Replicant's invasion, the worms decide to put the human race under harsh tutelage )
  
• Eridani's Rise (The institution guarding the Antimatter rebels against the Urghoghs, thanks to the help of Uhmrane, the outcast worm. This is when the player starts)
  

This is a much smaller and light-hearted devlog about nuclear apocalypse :) .



Some context if you've just left your fallout shelter or failed school (or both)

As you may know, humanity recently mastered the atom and weaponized it. Two small, yet conclusive tests were performed on Japanese cities, and despite the military enthusiasm to then use it in bulk, the war ended soon.



The arms race continued, and the accumulated yield of all nuclear weapons reached stunning values that a human mind could barely fathom.

Recent studies estimated that a full-scale nuclear war between Russia (no longer the USSR) and the USA would kill 360 million directly and 5 billion (humans) as a consequence of starvation. A small regional exchange between India and Pakistan would kill about 2 billion. My conclusion is that both scenarios would provoke a significant dent in Antimatter's future player base, which is indeed unfortunate.

So, who is responsible for this astonishing good result in such a macabre endeavor?

Soot

Over decades of studies concluded that accumulation of black carbon soot in the high atmosphere would create a significant obstruction of solar radiation over several years. The consequence would be a sudden drop in surface temperature leading to periods of no-food production and mass extinctions of other species as the dire consequence of a completely fuck-up natural food chain.



Soot is not only produced by nuclear strikes. Large fires and volcanoes produce soot as well, the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 for example contributed to creating a global cooling.

The condition is to produces a lot in a small area to lift it in the upper atmosphere, so you can already put away this BBQ, it won't solve global warming.

In the game

As you know Antimatter is a 4X, and I guess that you'd never expect soot to join the arsenal of eXtermination (Actually you probably expected it by now due the the title and previous paragraph...)


We take as subject this nice little planet, teeming with life and love.

I model a complex planet simulation with a great deal of detail, and this, of course, includes the atmosphere. The latest small addition to this equation is soot particles in the high atmosphere.


As you can see this planet had a bumpy road before, the Creator misclicked some buttons, oops. (there was a civilisation here), but now it's all fine.

In Antimatter, soot is particularly effective in reducing the temperature, because it comes first in reflecting the star radiation. Contrary to the effect of albedo that still lets the radiation heat the atmosphere, creating the greenhouse effect and partially bouncing back again, soot blocks radiation right in the upper atmosphere.


This is the effect of 25% of soot just over a few months.

Soot is not something you can't control, (well you can at least add it, obviously), it is produced by volcanic activity and strategic strikes (not yet fully implemented) and it slowly fades after several years.


The effect isn't linear, as secondary effects are also simulated, such as the change in albedo.

The effect of soot is fast, global cooling will occur after the first months.

Since I simulate flora, any change to the climate is likely to create a huge drop in agricultural production, and subsistence production soot also affects solar energy yield. A subsistence economy could theoretically lose the entirety of its food production.


Grass survived, your lawn is safe, what a relief !

Currently "sun" exposure value for flora is not fully implemented, at this point, the effect of soot will be even more drastic to the biodiversity.

-----

Some stories to tell in order to make your children sleep tight:

https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0

-----

Disclaimer :

Antimatter is a video game with a relatively complex yet inaccurate, empirical, and unrealistic simulation of telluric planets (in this case). It probably doesn't come close to actual simulations and should not be taken as a serious source for scientific modeling or educational material.

It has been a while since the mid-July devlog, but this was certainly not idle time.

Fleets



The fleets have improved in all aspects, the archetypes are better, the AI expanded, parasites (ships hosted in carriers) are automatically managed, and fleet movement has been overhauled for better performance and stability.

This fleet is currently performing a new type of mission which consists in largescale mining operations

The most visible aspect is the UI, it used to be very complicated since managing ownership across intertwined alliances was complex and assigning the fleet formation quite cumbersome.

Point Defense turrets against inbound missiles

I have tried to hide this complexity as much as I could and here is the final result.

Most informations are accessible though tooltips and interactions through context menus.

Assigning a ship is also possible directly when selecting a ship or any UI representation of the ship through a context menu. There are many reasons that can prevent recruiting a ship, it is often a lack of influence toward a faction or an alliance issue with another ship in the fleet.

This ship won't join our fleet because it is not allied with all other ship's factions.

Another important aspect is the formation, the fleet AI manages 4 possible formations.


A ship's formation will determine it's behaviour

This determines how individual spaceships behave when breaking formation.

Core formation


Escort


Interception


Strike



Spaceships and modules

This is quite huge, I have decided to bite the bullet and completed a ship and module editor (not yet in-game), with automatic balancing of power across modules, cost, semi-automated placement of modules collision geometry, etc...

I have then redone every single ships, space stations and modules with support of the editor.

This is not an easy task, especially given the number of modules for each ship and the manual placement.

Here is a list of 100% completed ships (this is a catalog in a text editor)


Automatic loadout
Ships now dynamically create loadouts of compatible modules for each slot, for example, ships designated as an escort will automatically choose point defense turrets. There are many roles and possible combinations.

Spaceship AI & Strategic AI

The threat analysis and faction decision-making has been developed further, and there is now "conquest" and "fleet mining" missions. (lot of work)

Uh, that's it... AI has nothing that can be shown :/

Crew Transfer

"Crew" which also designates landed parties can be transferred between each other.


Ammo & Magazines

While it is a good opportunity to show the new overhauled ship UI, the major addition I'll show is ammo and magazines.


"Ammo magazine" is a new type of module for cargo slot that increases the amount of combat-ready storage. You can store ammo in cargo but it is not as secured (secondary explosions) and can't be used by weapons. You can only do a transfer while docked.



Regions

Regions aren't just a cosmetic addition but were added to overhaul how city/nation manage planet tiles (previously designated as "regions" themselves).

The problem is that managing dozens of regions was cluttering the player with information and micro-management. The simulation itself is still accurate to the tile level but now management and AI decisions are mostly taken at a region's scope.





This UI is going to change to show a single aggregated region ("Flaness"), instead of these cluttered informations

Primitive population

The problem with past simulation was that every human population was simulated as a nation which is very complex and also requires the entire planet to be generated.

Uncivilised populations, those under the influence of the giant worms, or those who never recovered from the Antimatter crisis, are now simulated in a more abstract way and they only retain the characteristics from the historical simulation. This allowed me to populate much more planets with almost the same level of detail.

After a certain threshold of development, such population will evolve into an in-game nation.

Trade venture

Trading with locals is possible from any region, even outside a nation's border, it takes 2 days to spread the word and gather merchants. If within the border of a nation, you access its market. Trading with primitives is possible as well, and the market will be the equivalent of the subsistence production of the region (subsistence production is highly dependent on local resources )



Editor Mode



Adding a fleet to one of the existing faction with the editor
Added dozens of editor mode interactions, this is the premise of an in-game editor.

Saving/Loading
This is completed (what a pain!) this is quite a milestone, but doing this late clearly saved me months of maintenance overhead.

I also confirm some wishes I had for Antimatter, that are now reality :

• No loss of data and bare-minimum procedural regeneration: This means any world you create will stay as detailed in the simulation as well, not just visually and not just when revisiting them.
  
• Possibility to play a new character in the same universe or carry on by playing an existing AI character. (currently only doable by manually changing the save file, but the simulation supports it)
  
• A lot of freedom in scenario building.
  

Most "pirate" organizations will have legal activities alongside less legal ones. One of them is extortion, a form of proto-taxation system.

Control
I am tracking the control level of each organization in a stellar system's sphere of influence, it is determined by the presence of powerful spaceships or space stations and their visibility (sensor profile).

A faction ostensibly patrolling a system will therefore create more control over this system. An organization uses this control to police the area or counter the policing effort of another faction. An organization will usually police a system if it has established space stations or colonies in it. Multiple organizations can share this role at the same time.


Temple and Eridani are the main factions here.

Control is also used for strategic decision-making alongside a threat "heatmap" but that's another subject.

Extortion
On the other side, some organizations will prey on undefended systems and demand protection money to established stations or ambush other spacecraft for a toll. The offended party can call the local police for help and will usually do so if the latter has a strong presence in the system. However, the captain's traits have a great influence on his decisions.


This spacecraft is trying to ambush us, or any other viable target. Its active sensors and engines are off, with no transponder, it would be almost undetectable without the cheat code I have just used..
This active extortion system isn't abstracted and the player can be confronted with such extortion attempts or witness one in action.

After the extortion, the mission isn't over and the pirate will go back to his home base to do the necessary "paint job" and turn clean in the eyes of the police. This option is also available to the player, for a price.

Turmoil
War and piracy are usually not a great signal for prosperous trade, now each system tracks the current turmoil which is increased by ship destruction and pirate's interaction.

A high level of turmoil will discourage any trade run to this system's trade nodes and the construction of new private space stations. It is therefore important to invest in maintaining order in the administered part of the galaxy.

Perceived turmoil will diminish over time.

To conclude...
That's another heavy work on the AI which adds even more life in the galaxy, and another stone until the private alpha.

To support the piracy and police addition a lot of fundamental AI behaviors were added which further expands the number of building blocks of the AI.

The next devlog will probably talk more about cities, territories, and planet's surface, but also the improved (historical) generation of native civilisations.

A nation will eventually expand to more regions. The first one holds its capital city, while other regions can provide a variety of natural resources and different biomes. Spreading out development also helps improve infrastructure efficiency, and subsistence is usually more efficient in unexploited lands.


Here we have 2 cities on 2 separated landmasses

The city has claimed the entire island but has also extended its influence off the coast to the northeast, reaching another island. Water tiles are much cheaper to claim and maintain, but they require sea-projection points. We can see how the relief hinders the administration's reach. The red areas have the lowest administration efficiency.



But this city has a strong naval tradition. Infrastructure on the coast and a special building in the capital (seaport) generate enough sea-projection points to claim the entire coastline of the continent.


This city has 3 sea-projection points and can control 3 sea tiles without penalty

Administration spread is much more efficient at sea than on undeveloped land (without infrastructure development), meaning that even the remote coastlines to the west are now properly administered.

Administration efficiency is very important as it represents the control a nation has over a region and its population. It affects corruption, taxes, and the Political Point (PP) balance. Usually, low administration is also a sign of poor supply routes, which affects industry efficiency and hinders internal migration.



Osley has claimed a large territory. Each territory costs a lump sum of PP (Political Points) and also requires administration maintenance. This tiny nation would never be able to administer such a large territory without having crippling corruption. Administration is produced from buildings in the capital city, and maintenance is reduced through infrastructure and policies.

The administration cost of a tile is mainly determined by the population and the administration "pathfinding" cost to the capital (where infrastructure, relief, and flora play a major role).



The migration attractiveness overlay tells us a lot. Osley relies mostly on subsistence, and its capital's region offers many more opportunities than these untamed territories. Bear in mind that a single tile is quite a large area by itself.

However, the uranium to the northwest, petrol to the north, iron to the west, and coal to the southwest offer good opportunities to establish robust industry.


Migration attractivness overlay

----This is the first part of a series of Devlogs on cities, regions, and industries. There is too much to write about, hence the division. ---

Here is an overview of the planet. We start at a date just after the universe's generation.



The entire planet surface of the planet (pre-explored for your convenience)



The northern region where the city of Drumin stands, with its claimed territory.



The city of Drumin has no industry to speak of, probably a city of despisable tree-hugging beatniks living in self-sufficiency.

Can we bring them to the heavenly light of heavy industry and consumerism? Let's see...



Its capital region, Savas has 12 000 inhabitants, and the entirety of its economy relies on subsistance.

Savas in the game represents an entire region, or hexagonal tile, on the planisphere.



Here we have all our existing industries and developments. Some are created naturally like "Wilderness" and others are human-built or indirectly created (ruins).

The subsistence "industry" is simulated like any other "industry" present on the tile. For example "Wilderness industry" is a simple one that evolves according to climates, biodiversity dynamics (flora), and the influence of other "industries".



The subsistence "industry" is created by default on a pre-industrialized generated city. If a population remains unemployed, it will slowly build subsistence slots for free, and draft jobs to the "industry".

It aims to provide a minimal standard of living, with vital and basic needs such as housing, food, water, furniture, clothing, but also building materials. The profit is distributed entirely to the workers, and often the worker will buy back the entire production. The subsistence profit per worker also serves as an implicit minimum wage, no one will work for an employer if living on subsistence brings more revenue (ahem...).

While subsistence is created naturally, the "industry" relies on a lot of factors, not all subsistence slots are equal across the different regions. Subsistence in a lush forest, with a coastline and natural resources, will fare much better than in a heavily urbanized/barren region where the only game to hunt is sewer rats. A subsistence economy can even create excedent production for export or domestic uses.

As such, fishing, hunting, gathering, farming, water extraction (from aquifer or coastline), production of furniture and even scavenging from ruins are simulated.



Even though subsistence is capable of operation without any input, this "industry" has some optional inputs that will increase productivity, if available in good supply.

Therefore, the best approach to careful and self-sufficient industrialization is to first expand the tool industry and supply energy.



About a quarter of the population is capable of working, this value can change according to policies.


The working population is generating a taxable :'-( income. It serves to pay for vital needs (in priority), basic needs, and luxury needs.

We see that no saving is being made across the population, but they sustain themselves pretty well.



A good chunk of the income (16$/year) is spent on food. Nothing on luxury goods.



The value of money : note that money doesn't have a fixed value in terms of actual wealth, the simulation drives the inflation/deflation accordingly and most products don't even have any base value.

Path to industrialization ?
Drumin has a healthy subsistence economy, and 2 rich coal deposits to the northeast and east, but no significant iron deposits. Coal can be used to fuel a power plant, and to produce iron bars (with iron ore).

The best way to produce tools is with wood and iron bars, but they can also be produced from wood and stones, so even if the importation of iron ore is impossible, industrialization is still viable.

--- The next devlog of the series will follow shortly ---

Work continued on organisations, the first part of this devlog can be found here : Organisation (part I) .

This one focuses on the AI.

Managing assets & automation
This windows filters all spaceships and space stations, and give a quick overview of there autonomous mission. A ship tasked to trade will perform a wide range of actions behind the hood.

The goal is to abstract as much as possible the orders to subordinates outside your own fleet.


A ship set to trade will do as instructed while keeping a high level of initiative when deciding how to perform this task. This serves 2 purposes: allowing the AI to "debug" itself and to always thrive to perform "sane" actions according to an intention, rather than obeying a set of player-determined settings that never create any clear sense in terms of purpose.

The additional customizations I intend to add to the AI will follow this principle. Effectively abstracting any settings into a sort of recommendation to the AI, rather than a rigid all/nothing at all procedure.

Since the AI is always tied to generated characters with traits, recommendations may or may not be followed by the letter.


Situation awareness
Sovereign organisations have now an awareness of the strategic situation, both for military and civilian expansion. This is very much a "behind the hood" addition and will be hard to describe without diving into technicals stuff.

To summarize, organisations now patrol systems and protect what's relevant, they react to enemy's strikes, reorganise theirs forces, and planify new defenses in a smarter way.

Threats and "presences" are now tracked over time, any captain will evaluate the dangerosity of a situation by analyzing the environment as a whole, not just the immediate foes. Civilian ships, in particular, will therefore avoid dangerous areas, but will also be wary of systems with historical enemy presences. This fear factor is essential for the AI to have a form of common sense and prevent infinite back and forth when performing an action. Any destroyed allied ship also creates an enemy "presence" which contributes to this fear.

Planification
Organisations plan the construction of spaceships, space stations and colony ships, such projects have a separate budget.



The UI has been polished, with a focus on tooltips, and filters. This help to unclutter the interface while providing more information.

Building space stations
Organizations, including the one controlled by the player, can build space stations anywhere in the galaxy.

The most valued locations to build a production space station are the one in close orbit to the star, as the latter provides essential solar energy. Another significant factor is the relative security of a stellar system, which comes from the police patrols of the controlling organization. Proximity to a large trade hub is often a good condition too.

One must first survey a location and deploy a beacon, the latter will be used for various interactions. In this case, I use it to create a building site.


Deploying a beacon

The builder then must pay upfront a sum to the controlling organization and a monthly fee. Not doing so is considered to be hostile toward the faction. The price is essentially dependant on the proximity to the star.




No fee, but the controlling faction will turn hostile

It might be more profitable to build on the outskirt of a stellar system or in an unclaimed system, however, a feature under development will expand pirate's behaviors, and specifically extorsion, making security a significant factor.

Building a space station is a significant endeavor, and requires a large supply of building materials. A construction site work as a temporary trade node, and traders will supply the station with the necessary goods over time.






An overview of the system

Colonisation
Colonisation was already introduced before as it was already implemented in the "abstract" galactic history generator. Until now, organizations were not expanding after this generation.


A colony ship traveling to a barren planet

If the budget allows it, and if the organisation has the "new worlds" policy enabled, new colonisation projects will emerge. It essentially works like building space station , since colony ships are huge "XXL" sized ships. Therefore a construction site is created around the capital and the ship is slowly built but also supplied with food, water and building materials.


The player gets a mail about any colonisation project, as it represents a profitable opportunity.

Once finished, the ship will pick up settlers at a chosen city and travel to the designated planet to establish a new city.


A new colony on a martian planet



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This isn't yet the big devlog about cities, but it is coming along. A lot of work is also done on polishing the UI, imroving the AI and patching bugs

Passenger transport
Trade nodes represent a commodity market, these are present in cities and space stations. They work with a fully simulated supply/demand system with stocks and trade orders.

I have extended the behavior to passengers, meaning that tourists, migrants, and soldiers are now part of the trade node simulation. Of course, it works very differently to the commodity market, and instead of "orders", transporting passengers behave as transportation contracts, each of these contracts being created when taking a group of passengers with a common source, destination, and timeframe.



Passengers are not generated randomly, they appear to fulfill actual migrations (tourism and ground combat is implemented yet, but will rely on this system).

A ship needs to use its cargo space to fit passenger modules, and due to how contracts work it is best to have a fast ship for passenger transport.

For this occasion, I have added a new ship.


This ship hasn't found any transportation contract and is returning to her anchorage.

Scavenging, looting, and "rescuing"
It is now possible to dock to a wreck and begin scavenging operations. Scavenging used to be limited to looting the intact components and inventory of a wreck, but now wrecks can be entirely dismantled. These heavy dismantling operations need adequate modules and crew and take time. It is similar to mining, but more lucrative, and with potentially more risks.

Escape pod rescuing is a bit more polished now, with proper distress calls and more interactions and consequences when selling/ransoming/liberating someone.

Last but not least, a lot of work was done on the AI which now is able to perform these actions proactively. Any captain will consider the opportunity to scavenge a wreck, recover cargo, or rescue someone, depending on his ship, his traits, and his current mission (a very large and expensive cargo will avoid doing small and risky scavenging...).

The AI behind the recovery (and delivery) of escape pods is also part of the "police" system being developed.

Happiness and migrations
Cities, regions, and industries are being overhauled since a few weeks, this is a huge work in progress, but I can already give you details on the related migration system :

Happiness relies mainly on the population's capacity to fulfill its needs, especially the vital and basic ones.


All vital goods are available and the population has enough income to buy them from the local market.

The political "friction", resulting from the difference in ethics between the population and the current regimes also plays a major role.

Happiness, distance and faction's relationships then determine the attractiveness of each city (and its regions), creating migration demand in the trade nodes.


Of course, for interplanetary migrations, this demand needs to be fulfilled by passenger transports.

Migrations also happen internally, between regions of the same city, and work similarly to intercity migrations, but the population is virtually transported instead.

Cultural clash
Immigration can be a quick way of increasing a colony's population, but all migrants will arrive in the capital's region, which can be a burden beyond this region's capacity. The city's attractivity is indeed determined by the mean happiness of all its territory, not the capital. An out-of-control immigration will probably turn the capital and its surrounding regions into a turmoiled giant slum.

This immigration can also have a negative impact on stability. Migrants bring their ethical views and customs with them, which can be incompatible with the ideology of the natives, this creates temporary cultural friction, lowering happiness, especially with a highly xenophobic ethic. Additionally, this can be a terrible thing if their ideology contradicts with the one promoted by the local regime. Any regime tries to educate a population to its ideology, a significant flow of radical immigrants can suppress this effort, by shifting the population's ethics to the opposite spectrum.





Each ethic difference creates friction (here an example of a perfectly balanced regime with no policy)

Better ore generation
I have overhauled how ore deposits are generated on planets, ore availability is less spread out. Some "ore" follow specific rules, such as coal or petrol that only appear with a historical biosphere, chondrite on asteroids and water which can be generated despite a dry climate, to simulate aquifers and oasis.

"Codex" here is a very broad term to designate collective or individual knowledge. It can be either owned by a character, an organization, or a culture.

It can be a map revealing astral objects, a story with useful information for yourself or another character in the game (it unlocks dialogue paths or missions), it can be secrets that can alter the reputation of a character or an organization, and last but not least it can be theoretical sciences, technologies, and designs.



While all the backend programming is done, I'll only talk here about the first batch of codex entries, for sciences and technologies.

About 70 technologies and theoretical knowledge were added, constituting a full basic tech tree from a primitive era to the spacefaring one.



Codex entries have bonuses and modifiers, which can increase the max possible dev on a tile :



They can allow the construction of buildings, spaceship designs, spaceship modules design, affect the population growth rate, and the administrative capacity.

Some entries also can affect an entire culture or organization, by providing bonus/malus on cohesion or reputation, and can even alter the ethics.



This is the total bonus of an advanced civilisation :



Codex entries can be found when exploring the galaxy, and it is planned to make it a tradable commodity.

I have focused lately on the surface part of the game, the so-called side view of a planet's region, mostly working on the "engine" of this game module rather than the visual stuff, but here are some screenshots, nonetheless.

A region is a single hexagonal tile on the planisphere.

When zooming even more to this tile you will end up in the side view, the flora, fauna, geology, atmospheric conditions and the local civilisations are represented in details. This whole view represents a small significant area of the region.



There are over 100 different species of flora, I simulate a suitability score for each of them to determine which species will win the competition become the dominant ones.





There are subterranean species as well, in underground biomes, they can be found in seemingly lifeless planets.



Another type of dominant lifeform are the giant worms, I have expanded theirs AI, and the way they grow.



And here is another thriving lifeform, constituting above's luxury desert:





There are hundreds of different buildings, each one has its equivalent in the 5 technological eras :

• Primitive, comparable to our "stone age".
  
• "Medieval", encompassing a equivalently broad period of our history.
  
• Industrial, specifically with the technological advances of the past 2-3 centuries.
  
• Modern (our own era)
  
• Spacefaring.
  

Antimatter has finally a steam page. But the story of its development started the 10th of april 2020 when the first line of code was written.

A kickstarter campaign was launched the 15th of september 2020 and was a success.

This is a one-man, part-time project, to wich I invest continuous and dedicated work. over 40 devlogs was published covering some of the work in progress, if you want to learn how things are designed,

• Characters (part II)
  
• Lot of things.
  
• Organisations
  
• Missions
  
• Fleets & Carriers
  
• Planet exploration
  
• Cities, industries and colonisation
  
• Universe & history generation
  
• Terraformation & atmospheric modeling
  
• A glimpse of the terraformation simulation
  
• Video devlog with gameplay !
  
• Space stations, production chains, trading, mining.
  
• Modular spaceships
  
• Bridge and crew
  
• Characters
  
• Missions and storylines
  
• AI, fleets & convoys
  
• Space battles
  
• Comets, nebulae and asteroid belts
  
• Planet exploration
  
• Corporations
  
• May (2021) update
  
• Space exploration
  
• More ships
  
• Combat, Navigation and Spaceships.
  
• Planets
  
• Flora
  
• Trading
  
• A spaceshipload of news.