-------------IMPORTANT INFORMATION------------- Here's how to join the beta Expected time of official launch: in 2-4 weeks --------------------------------------------------------------- In the past week, we released multiple new builds with all kinds of small optimizations, fixes and improvements. At the start of 2019, in January, we started counting the amount of "builds", new versions of the beta branch. In 171 days, we've released exactly 100 builds. That's more than one update per two days! Here's an example, the changes in build #98:

• add ability to cancel started cycles based research
• send a "Science xyz is ready to complete" message when it's ready
• fix incoming trade deal text using the wrong colony
• remove "type" word from trade deal description
• add a header name to the trade deal creation popup
• reduce monster spawn distance a bit more aggressively when closer to sunrise
• add a server log message for when near-banner chunks are done loading post-startup
• fix siege mode being enabled upon loading a world for a moment (while near-banner chunks are still loading)
• fix uncompleted science dependencies being completed without being marked as such when loading an savegame with manually edited science

Many of these changes aren't very exciting, but very important for a polished end product. A change that I do believe is very exciting, is an improvement to the happiness interface! It was pretty confusing and unintuitive. We've reworked it, and one of the most important changes is the colors of the sliders. They now vary from red to green, based on the distribution. If there is enough of the item in the stockpile for all of the colonists, the slider will be green. But if there's a shortage, the slider will gradually turn red.
We feel like this is a huge improvement. Instead of requiring players to hover over individual sliders and wait for a detailed tooltip to appear, shortages are now clear at a glance. After adding this, we suddenly had an idea. [olist]

We know what the crafting limit of every recipe is

We know how many of that item are in the stockpile

We've got code that can change colors of sliders based on a ratio[/olist] Why not use the same system at every job block to make clear whether an item is produced enough or not? So we copied the system, adjusted it a bit and applied it to all crafting jobs. It looks like this:
We think this makes it a lot easier to sort out problems in your production chain! It's very satisfying to adjust things and see red sliders turn green. An other important change this week is new content in the tropics. You've got to bring items from the New World there to unlock crops like cacao and vanilla. You can use them to craft happiness items like chocolate and cookies! Banana farmers also use a proper mesh now.
In other news, the Yogscast has started a new YouTube series where they play Colony Survival! Last week, we wrote about their livestream, but now they've decided to also run a YT series. It has received a lot of attention. The first video has gained over 300,000 views in less than a week, and they've already released four videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKJBFPpGKF8&list=PL3XZNMGhpynPANjExSrWHmOVVSMg9WjPx We've immediately noticed results. One of the consequences is a large spike in beta testers. There are now 1419 of them! Their feedback is very important for the release of update 0.7.0. The Yogscast has also had an impact on the forester. They noticed he planted the same trees in all biomes. That has now been improved: he plants local trees now. For example, in the Far East he will grow cherry blossom trees!
Last but not least: we've decided not to participate in the Summer Sale. One of the reasons why is that we don't want to "push" people into 0.6.3, we'd rather wait until 0.7.0 is released. We're also thinking of adjusting the price. A rule that Zun, Vobbert and I often keep in mind when deciding to purchase a game is "One Dollar per Hour". A game is worth $60 when we expect to play it for 60 hours, or $10 when we're done with it after 10 hours. When we released Colony Survival two years ago, it was very barebones and only very creative people spent 20 hours in-game. Completing the "tech tree" happened a lot quicker. Nowadays, we're noticing lots and lots of players with 50+, 100+, 250+ and even 500+ hours in-game. We believe we're at a very reasonable price point at the moment, and are considering to raise the price after 0.7.0 has been released. Currently, buying the game gives access to all content. There is no DLC, there are no in-game microtransactions and we will not release Colony Survival II in 2020. Personally, we're in favor of that strategy and we know we appreciate other developers who take that approach. But we'd like to know how you think about this. Do you prefer a higher price but no DLC and other costs, or a lower price but content locked behind new purchases? Bedankt voor het lezen! Reddit // Twitter // YouTube // Website // Discord

[ 2019-06-28 20:30:46 CET ] [ Original post ]