We're releasing a new update for Astra Exodus. It includes a number of fixes and balance changes that were decided thanks to the feedback we receive from the playerbase. Keep it coming, it helps with refining the game and improving it. Thank you. We hope you enjoy it. Version 1.01.09 Changes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Improved the habitability icons and added more info, so it's not only indicated with an icon + Improved the planet classification section overlay of the info screen + Fixed a bug in which the base ship range was not updating in the UI, after a range increase research is done, even if the actual range was in fact increased + Fixed a problem with the right arrow button, to switch between planets, in which it's center was not registering correctly the click. + Fixed a typo with the colonization shortcut button in the planet view + Improved map performance a bit by optimizing scene complexity + Improved game initial load performance through texture optimizations + Improved edge panning, reducing the pixels where this is triggered in the galactic map

[ 2021-02-01 17:01:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're releasing a new update for Astra Exodus. It includes a number of fixes and balance changes that were decided thanks to the feedback we receive from the playerbase. Keep it coming, it helps with refining the game and improving it. Thank you. We hope you enjoy it. Changelog: + Made sure that the player can delete default designs as well, if he so desires + Made sure the text fits on the mission setup scene mission/sandbox description always + Fixed an issue in which the Vandaal Fighter bay was causing a NAN value for ordnance required + Fixed an issue on mission 3, in which the game didn't quite keep track of the fleets destroyed, for achieving the optional objective + Made sure you don't start at war with the Okli in mission 05B, also increased the imperium starting colonies to compensate + Fixed a bug in which industry conversion into population growth was not working correctly on planets with a peculiarity + Reduced the Researcher hero skill bonus to 4 research per level + Fixed a bug in which the specialization picks were incorrectly calculated on load game, which allowed the player to research more of techs than he should have + Fixed a bug with the Researcher skill, in which when loading a save just after a level upgrade, it increased the research generated exponentially instead of linearly + Fixed an error which happened when a fleet from Z is stationed in system where a colony from Y which X tries to invade + Fixed a bug when taking over the last planet of a faction, where you couldn't close the battle screen. It was due to an alliance not being able to be broken. + Made sure the fleet popup doesn't get in the way when attacking another fleet in the system + Made sure the value for resources and planet population on the system view are correctly show when involving huge values + Optimized the handling of the planet list, reducing the time it takes for it to be updated + Optimized the handling of the colony list, reducing the time it takes for it to be updated + Optimized the update of the build queue items for each colony, reducing the delay between view switching + Made sure the Installations in the colony screen are shown by order of construction + Optimized turn process time for late game saves + Corrected a travel time mismatch between ETA and actual turns required for a troop/population composite fleet + Increased the size of systems click boundaries, to avoid problems selecting them for fleet movement or to enter them + Fixed a bug that happened with weapon specializations applied to a non selected design

[ 2020-10-27 16:48:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 1.01.07 releases today, and with it five new playable factions have been added to Skirmish mode. This latest update is the culmination of Atomic Kaiser's relentless work on expanding and improving Astra Exodus. You can find the full changelog below. As usual, let us know what you think, your feedback is always welcome. If you are on the fence, we are running a weeklong deal on Astra Exodus. Starting later today, the game will be 50% off for 7 days.

Version 1.01.07 Changes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Fixed an issue in which the starsystem owner would not change, after a colony was conquered through a ground invasion + Made sure the AI is always at least a bit aggresive, even in the case of a pacifist AI + Made sure that the AI changes victory condition if picked one that was disabled + Added an aggresiveness bonus/malus according to difficulty. It is neutral at the default Captain difficulty. + Made sure leftover research is taken into account when you trade for a tech you were researching, in order to calculated teh ETC for the next one + Fixed a bug related to reserching the last tech in field in a campaign mission, which was disabling the endturn button + Increased the max name length of designs to 20 characters + Improved the loading speed of the battle simulator + Improved the loading speed of the quick designer and in game designer, specially with tons of designs available + Fixed an issue with updating the colony list after a project is completed in the campaign, it was simply not happening + Fixed a bug when dealing with special techs after loading a save, in which they were being researched but were showing up as unresearched, even when their effects were active + Added a description for the ELTF, Vandal Freehold, NeoHuman Imperium, Star Serpents and Pirate Clans factions + Added the pirate clans as a playable faction, rebalance its traits and improve it's character graphics + Fixed an issue with inverted subject in the Cordial response with the Followers of Kala. It would use the wrong leader name. + Fixed some types in advices, crisis and counter tech descriptions + Rebalanced campaign faction skills (Expanded Freehold, diferentiated ELTF from Republic and completed Imperium skill poiints) + Added the 5 main campaign factions to the sandbox game mode + Clicking on a DataNet Notification that a system has been explored now centers the camera/view over that system. + Fixed a bug in which when trading techs, the delta left research was added to whatever was left in the queue, enough to sometimes even complete another tech + Made sure to remove destroyed players from the factions list, even if you couldn't contact them before + Increased the size of the bonus indicators for the profiles list item UI object, so what you get in each difficulty level is more clear + Fixed an issue in which finishing the campaign would prompt you to start the mission again after + Fixed a bug that was preventing the final capmapign mission from firing steam achievements + Fixed an issue with the wormhole gate not registered as constructed in mission 8A, after a file load in the middle + Added the min/max opponent setting for huge/gigantic size galaxies is adjustable in the globals.lua file + Made sure unarmed ships are not added to any fleet in the battle simulator + Fixed several typos in techs and some installations + Improved the Camera edges panning offset, since it was getting in the way of the selectiong buttons on the left bottom corner

[ 2020-09-14 13:40:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are working on a new free update for Astra Exodus, which we aim to release sometimes next week. Among the usual number of fixes and improvements, there is one new addition that we think will really please you: we are adding 5 new playable factions to the game. Those are 5 factions which appear in the single player story campaign, and now you will be able to play as them in sandbox mode. We're looking forward to releasing it and hearing what you think.

[ 2020-09-09 10:11:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are releasing a new update for Astra Exodus, bringing the game to version 1.01.05. This update consists in a number of fixes and additional polish. You can find the full changelog down below. Let us know what you think of it, and if you have further feedback for us don't hesitate to tell us please. Changelog: + Added an option to restrict the maximum number of autosaves per game session. The default number is 20, but it can go up to 100. + Got around a problem when loading saves that contain references to designs which are no longer valid, by loading them anyways (they might have been valid in a previous version) + Fixed a problem which resulted in an incorrect colony hunger calculation, based on the rouding of float numbers(extremely rare!), even when they had freighters bringing enough food. + Fixed a bug with the Researcher hero skill, which was not adding the correct number of research bonus, after game load + Fixed stat/description problems for Neutron Lance and Advanced Capacitor modules + Now most heroes notifications are auto removed, after the player has taken a look at them, without clicking on the notification itself + Now most starsystem notifications are auto removed, after the player has taken a look at it, without clicking on the notification itself + Now most colony notifications are auto removed, after the player has taken a look at it, without clicking on the notification itself + Added a way to move a group of colonists, instead of only one, when managing a colony's laborer. Basically all to the right of the one selected, are also moved in the operation. + The game now hides non valid designs, even if they somehow exist + Fixed a problem when a design is modified outside the game and is no longer valid, when an older file save is loaded + Fixed a problem in which power consumption bonuses for some specializations was not being correctly applied + Fixed a bug in which the prevoiusly selected starship design, was overwriting the new one specializations in some cases + Fixed a problem in which the ETA of population only fleets, was not being reflected in the true number of turns + Fixed a bug in which the incorrect total materials consumed would be shown at the start of the turn, until some laborer was moved or some other action was performed, which updated the colonies resource consumption + Added an Astraportal indicator to the starsystem info ui object + Fixed a bug in which the player couldn't remove a core module from a design in the quick designer + Added edge screen camera panning down and up experimentally. I added this by having the zone start slightly below the bottom buttons text. + Made sure late game campaign eleksun weapons, do not show in the quick designer + Fixed text misspellings with the starship tactics and the campaign briefing + Made sure bigger ships start in the center of formations in space battles + Added a notification for when a colony is idle, which was never shown due to the automatic industry conversion + Suggested techs to research now include their field so they are easier to find + Added a tooltip explaining gravity effects on a planet/colony + Added a datanet notification when a colony reaches max population + Made sure that when a new pop is born, it doesn't go to research if you are not researching anything + Reduced industry output to 2, to make the game a bit slower, specially in the early game + Fixed the Improved Shields tech stats that was showing 1500% instead of 150% + Show the research field the tech belongs to, when offering for trade, in the audience screen + Made sure that the autosave fires at end turn, if it didn't at the beggining of the turn, due to pending battles/proposals + Added a control to be able to focus a colony's labor directly from the colonies panel + Fixed an issue that happened when editing a colony name and switching the view to an outpost, the outpost would change name to that said colony + Expanded habitability tooltips to mention how it affects morale and how it can be improved through terraforming + Fixed a campaign bug, related to special techs received as reward for earlier mission objectives, which was preventing file load in the later missions of the campaign + Added the might to stationed menace fleet tooltips + Improved the wording of the specialization tech picks, as it is not clear that they increase once you research at least one tech per level, out of all the 9 research fields. + Auto retreat now skips systems with an enemy fleet if possible + Fixed an issue with wormhole connection lines not showing up when they should in multiplayer games + Fixed a bug that was allowing the player to somehow go over the specialization pick limit + Added the ability to load filesaves from older versions, which are compatible with the current one + Fixed a bug in which a governor could not be assigned to some starsystems, which had all or pretty much all planets colonized

[ 2020-07-21 14:11:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are releasing the biggest update ever for Astra Exodus. It is truly a massive one, and we call it the Talos Arena Update.

Talos Arena Update Highlights

Battle Simulator

Play battles right from the main menu. Select the your ships, the ones for your enemy and just start a battle. You can also adjust how large the battle is and even randomize it. Plus you can change the color of your ships.

Quick Designer

In order to make it practical, you can access a full featured ship editor right from the main menu, with all the modules in the game enabled. So you can quickly create any ship design you want. These designs will show up later in the game, as well as those in the game show up in the battle simulator.

Hotseat Multiplayer

Basically the ability of several people to play in the same computer, as different factions. You pick the ones that are human controlled and then manually switch players each turn.

New Heroes

8 new heroes were added to the game, to add more variety in large games specially.

Larger Maps

Two new galaxy size settings were added, which increase the max map size significantly, with over 200 starsystems.

New Galaxy Content

Two new peculiarities, one new menace, one new exploration event. The Astra Exodus universe has never been more rich. All this new content and the new features are absolutely free and it was made possible thanks to Atomic Kaiser's dedication to improving Astra Exodus. We're looking forward to hearing what you think, so don't refrain from giving us your feedback in the comments section or on the forum.

Live Stream

If you'd like to see the new features in action, we are going to stream the game tomorrow July 1st at 6 pm BST on our Twitch channel. It'll be a special stream completely focused on the new features - don't miss it.

Discount

Last but not least: Astra Exodus is currently on sale, at 30% off. If you'd like to give it a try this is the perfect change to acquire it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

Version 1.01.04 Changes

+ Increased level 2 and upwards installations costs, as they were way too cheap + Made sure to clear selected profile when opening the profiles panel, so no ghost selection happens + Added alphabetical sorting to planets + Added the homeworld of allies/enemies to the known starsystems at mission start in the campaign + Rebalance planet fraquency so more inorganic planets are generated instead of organic across all settings + Redesigned options panel so it doesn't look so tall, now that we have tons of options + Tweaked the IluminaStarnation and VeloranHorde colors so they are more distinguishable + Made sure autosaves with the same settings don't overwrite each other + Fixed a bug in which autosaves wouldn't be deleted because they were being searched in the wrong folder + Made sure to clear factions after loading a game with a custom faction and going back to the main menu + Improved speed at which save files are generated + Increase Ancient trait cost by one and remove xenophiliac trait from Freudalim Hold + Parametrized and Increase/Decrease the values for max heroes traits individualists/collectivists + Increase/Decrease values for colony assimilation in xenophiliac/xenophobic traits + Added preventive measures for memory leaks in the late game, after hours of play. This should not happen anymore. + Added a way to dismiss for heroes available for hire(dismiss button next to hire) + Added an option to show the game's grid visually + Made sure that when moving pop from planet to planet within the same system, the lossing planet immediately shows one less. + Made sure rankings and score reflect the true state of the galaxy, instead the one corresponding to the past turn. + Added alphabetical sorting to colonies + Made sure that factions with the ancient trait do not agree to or try to share starcharts + Made sure the tool tip for possible planet/colony sort options lists the final option to the right (Corruption). + Made sure the resources/materials are shown correctly when they have extremely big numbers and format them in ks + Increased the number of possible labor icons on the colony screen to make sure each labourer has an icon, even if the colony has a ton of them in a categoy + Added the corrected datavid for ColonyManagement, with the clarification of non persistant resources + Made sure that when creating new designs, the new one shows up immediately for retrofits in colonies, without having to wait a turn + Fixed fleet eta times, which were not reflecting correctly the true hyperspace rating of the fleet, even if the actual speed was correct + Fixed a bug that happened when a new fleet was created, after the construction of a ship in a system without a stationed fleet, as the fleet list was not updated automatically + Changed the color of the sliders to make them pop up more, specially on the Fleets and Colonies panel + Made sure that Probability Engine event that generates a peculiarity skips Jovian/Asteroid planets + Fixed a bug related to the foreign diplomatic relations of eliminated players when loading a file save + Improved the battle/objective map indicator, so it is more correctly shown when zooming in and out + Improved fleet detection code and incoming enemy fleets datanet notifications + Increased battle time to 1000 seconds + Make sure to show population and troop transports in fleet battles if present + Increased base detection range and bonus detection range from techs, while reducing a bit the ones that give range + Improved fleet/colony detection code for the AI, since AI players were not correctly detecting each other fleets + Fixed a bug in which campaign missions, failed to check faction elimination VCs correctly + Improved text readability on filesaves UI, specially on autosaves + Made sure autosaves in a session, end up on top on the list, while on the same game session + Fixed a bug in the second campaign mission, which was screwing up the end condition + Made sure the AI can declare war, even when colonizable planets are known to it + Clicks on a planet within the planets screen, now keeps the screen location over the starsystem + Made sure that when 2 fleets are merged, both with admirals assigned, the higher skill one ends up in command of the resulting fleet + Fixed a bung in which fleets were moving in one turn from colonies with astra portal to systems without one + Fixed a bug in which the Astraportal was not working for more than one turn in some instances + Fixed a bug in which victory conditions were not being correctly visually updated + Increased planetary shipyard bonus to 25% + Fixed a bug in which the Evolutionary Ascenscion VC progress was not being saved + Fixed a bug in which rebelled colonies were not being saved + Now colony lost messages are correctly set when dealing with rebels + Fixed a bug in which if a colony got a rebellion, via a succesful operative mission, while constructing a starship; this would generate a problem that disabled the end turn button + Boost dockyards and shipyards bonus to make them more attractive + Reduced tax income a bit + Decreased base pop growth for a bit and parametrize it through the globals.lua file + Made sure new savefiles are ordered by time, when in the same game session + Massively increased the ability for the AI to expand in the early game + Improved AI capability to compare itself in terms of research, credits and construction + Now AI properly retreats when facing each other in battle if it thinks it can't win. Specially against the environment. + Made the AI more likely to construct ships it can't afford to upkeep but needs, now it will just try to balance the budget later + Now the AI does not move population to new colonies as much, specially in the early game + Now the AI evaluates only known players when making choices in the early game + Now the AI is more daring when facing a battle and evaluate planets better + The AI will now prioritize expansion over extermination for as long as it can + Improved timer control and move order lines visuals in space battles + Added time management controls like in space battles + Made the save file list faster, specially useful when you have tons of them, and be better presented to the player + Made sure the space battle and mission objetive indicators do not look bad when zooming out + Fixed a bug in which admirals ETA when assigned or dismissed to fleets, was not being updated in the hero list each turn + For the human player, now when splitting a fleet, the hero stays in the same fleet by default + Added a mechanism to disable a tech for the grid, if a required tech is not already available. Used it for Shielded/Armoured Fighter/Bombers and troop techs. + Fixed a bug in which the battle simulator didn't respect the might limit set, after the player manually added ships to the battle + Increase fixed ammount resources installations generate, to balance them with the increased per pop base resource generation in planets + Music now changes to the appropriate mood when loading a file save + Made sure that datanet notififcations for battles are marked as important + Parametrize in the globals.lua file and increased the maximum tactical space battle duration to 600 seconds + Fixed a bug that happened when a fleet was deployed whe you were zoomed out, the icon became smaller than it should + Improved AI to focus more in colonizationin the early game, even if it found targets and it is aggresive + Improved AI use of constructors, outposts and its valoration of planets + Made sure the AI uses the new industrial conversion projects correctly + Fixed a bug that happened when an invading army lost a tactical ground battle, in which after in the result panel it showed the invading troops as being in the defending fleet + Fixed a bug in which troops sounds were disabled after file load in ground invasions, which causes tactical battles to be bugged + Fixed a bug in which some sutoresolved battles, generated a retreat and the assasination of an admiral(as in a defeat), when they should be a victory; since the enemy fleet was totally destroyed + Improved the datanet notifications list, to make sure they are more easily seen and managged by the player + Fixed a bug that was causign the homeworld or other colony to change name, after the player conquered an enemy colony + Changed industry conversion projects so they convert industry each turn, instead of every X turns + Improved the AI so is able to better move population around, specially in the early game + Added info to the tooltip for all non persistant resources, on their nature versus others like the credits in the treasury + Added to the ColonyManagemet DataVid script info about the resources not being persistent + Fixed a rare bug on file save load, in which the first tech on the queue received extra research somehow + Fixed a bug in which the research queue order was changed, when the game was loaded after an inmediate order change + Fixed a bug for the natural aphrodisiacs peculiarity, which was giving one pop per turn as growth rate + Improved the AI in all difficulties to expand faster and better take into accounts rivals score + Fixed a bug in which population installations were indicating they increase pop growth when they don't + Now when a planet is terraformed, the planet list will be updated immediately + Adjusted victory conditions required turns to make them fire earlier if possible + Fixed a bug in filesaves after you meet other races and load, their small portraits did not show in the diplomacy screen + Modified score calculation to take colonists more into account and better reflect materials extraction + Added a highlighted warning that an asset will be scrapped next turn and added a visual warning in the government screen about the credits imbalance, within the upkeep section + Added the ancient cruiser menace to the game + Added a new event that grants a pecualiarity to a world + Fixed a bug related to optional fleet objectives in the campaign mode and autosaves. Basically once they were destroyed, the game still atempted to save them. + Increased the max zoom out value for huge and gigantic galaxies + Increased the total number of wormholes in huge and gigantic galaxies + Fixed a bug with campaign missions that started the player at war, which caused the whole mission to be bugged + Fixed a bug in which loading an auto save file from the caused a crash, due to the highlighting of the text incredibly + Made sure the player can only load valid file saves, meaning from the installed version, by disabling the load button on older file saves + Fixed a bug in which autosaves were not being loaded into the filesave list, from the auto subfolder + Parametriziced in the globals lua file and increased duration + frequency of galactic crises + Parametriziced in the globals lua file and increased base system event chance + Parametriziced in the globals.lua file and increased peculiarities base chance + Added the Extreme Bacteria (pollution reduction) peculiarity + Added the Natural Aphrodisiac (pop growth) peculiarity + Add the ability to replay an engagement from the after action report panel + Revised the update info on the lower left side of the screen + Added random tip to the loading screen, after a simulated battle is executed from the main menu + Added a basic after action report panel for the simulated space battles + Fixed a bug in which the player couldn't fight tactical battles against galactic menaces + Fixed first time game start problem with strange resolutions and aspect ratios, which defaulted the resolution to the minimum available resolution + Improved support for rare resolutions and aspect rations + Gravity generator now can not be constructed on normal gravity planets + Fixed a bug that made imposible to remove the same module installed on an existing design from the quick designer + Fixed a bug in which optimized shields specialization was not lowering power consumption value + Enable specializations in the quick designer, which were disabled somehow + Modified the trading holds special support module so it has half the space, power and costs, while giving double the credits + Changed the Might function to make sure the value is more relfective of the effectiveness use of the ship and is balanced between roles/cost + Disable tactical battles in ground and space when fighting other human forces, as it was unfair to fight them under the AI control + Fixeda a bug when doing 1v1 hotseat games with the audience screen at the first meeting + Significantly increased max pop and materials production in all planet types except terran. Increased trade a bit in terran and taxes for all planets. + Made sure the AI is more strict when giving into player demands like techs, tribute and starsystems + Increased and extended diplomatic penalty for bombing enemy colonies + Fixed a problem in which bombard a planet to extinction might sometimes rename the player's homeworld + Fixed an issue with the homeworld icon, after one is destroyed via bombing, since it remained over the planet + Improved the datanet area, by increasing it's size and making it not overlap with the VC box + Fixed a bug in which conquering an enemy colony would sometimes change the player's homeworld name + Fixed a bug in which the AI would not retreat fleet correctly from a tactical space battle + Added a visual indicator of the Battle Simulator update in game + Made sure the right click to close asks for confirmation when loosing changes to an existin design + Made sure research tab buttons remaing highlighted when selecting a tech, removing it from queue and changing the queue's order + Made sure the galaxy tooltips do not display over the file system name modal panel + Made sure not to open or close a main panel, when the corresponding button is highlighted and the player presses the space bar + Fixed a bug in which, when scuttling a fleet with only one ship, the fleet list was not immediately updated + Added 8 entirely new heroes to the game + Made sure that autosaves go in a different folder and made sure to highlight them in magenta + Fixed a bug in which file saves were not being removed from the list when deleted + Improved AI picking of build projects, specially combat starships. Now it weights more heavily performance vs default preference, which is better in easier difficulty levels specialy. + Madesure the designs advisor suggests the most efficient design might/cost instead of the most powerful + Enabled custom factions for the hotseat game mode + Madesure save files loaded from hotseat games work alright + Added a new full featured system to the game called Hotseat Multiplayer, where the player can set the human players in the sandbox settings, to play against + Added bigger galaxy sizes, like Huge and Gigantic to the game, with up to 200 starsystems + Improved zoom, fleet starting positions and allowed for more ships to participate in battle + Fixed battle zoom bugs, when you zoom out to the max, while hovering or after pressing one of the side buttons + Improved battle simulator fleet UI panels and added environment to the randomization + Improved initial load performance of the Battle Simulator and Quick Designer + Added a new full featured system to the game called Battle Simulator, which allows the player to setup battles, selecting ships and the setting; right from the main menu + Added a new full featured system to the game called Quick Designer, which allows the player to design ships from the main menu

[ 2020-06-30 12:26:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello Everyone, Atomic Kaiser has been working hard to improve and expand the game. We are currently working on a huge new update, bringing new game modes, tools heroes and much more! The full changelog can be found below.
Some of the main changes are: - Arena Mode - Configure armies and fight battles, testing your own designs and tactics!
- Ship Designer - Now you can design ships for all factions right from the comfort of your main menu! Experiment at will, and test your designs in the arena
- HOTSEAT - Play local multiplayer games. IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to the massive nature of this update, it is NOT savegame compatible with previous versions. We are at the stage where we are asking for your help to test this massive update, before we roll it out as an official patch. You can access the beta version of this update by activating the beta branch. Instructions can be found below. We would greatly appreciate all the feedback we can get! Spotting bugs or glitches? Let us know! Having questions or ides? Drop us a line on these forums! Please give the new build a try and drop me a line if you have any questions about how to access the build. How to sign up to the beta: - Open your Steam library - Right click Astra Exodus - Select Properties - Open the BETAS tab - Select Open Beta from the drop down menu - Wait for your download - Enjoy! Version 1.00.08 Changes ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Fixed first time game start problem with strange resolutions and aspect ratios, which defaulted the resolution to the minimum available resolution + Improved support for rare resolutions and aspect rations + Gravity generator now can not be constructed on normal gravity planets + Fixed a bug that made imposible to remove the same module installed on an existing design from the quick designer + Fixed a bug in which optimized shields specialization was not lowering power consumption value + Enable specializations in the quick designer, which were disabled somehow + Modified the trading holds special support module so it has half the space, power and costs, while giving double the credits + Changed the Might function to make sure the value is more relfective of the effectiveness use of the ship and is balanced between roles/cost + Disable tactical battles in ground and space when fighting other human forces, as it was unfair to fight them under the AI control + Fixeda a bug when doing 1v1 hotseat games with the audience screen at the first meeting + Significantly increased max pop and materials production in all planet types except terran. Increased trade a bit in terran and taxes for all planets. + Made sure the AI is more strict when giving into player demands like techs, tribute and starsystems + Increased and extended diplomatic penalty for bombing enemy colonies + Fixed a problem in which bombard a planet to extinction might sometimes rename the player's homeworld + Fixed an issue with the homeworld icon, after one is destroyed via bombing, since it remained over the planet + Improved the datanet area, by increasing it's size and making it not overlap with the VC box + Fixed a bug in which conquering an enemy colony would sometimes change the player's homeworld name + Fixed a bug in which the AI would not retreat fleet correctly from a tactical space battle + Added a visual indicator of the Battle Simulator update in game + Made sure the right click to close asks for confirmation when loosing changes to an existin design + Made sure research tab buttons remaing highlighted when selecting a tech, removing it from queue and changing the queue's order + Made sure the galaxy tooltips do not display over the file system name modal panel + Made sure not to open or close a main panel, when the corresponding button is highlighted and the player presses the space bar + Fixed a bug in which, when scuttling a fleet with only one ship, the fleet list was not immediately updated + Added 8 entirely new heroes to the game + Made sure that autosaves go in a different folder and made sure to highlight them in magenta + Fixed a bug in which file saves were not being removed from the list when deleted + Improved AI picking of build projects, specially combat starships. Now it weights more heavily performance vs default preference, which is better in easier difficulty levels specialy. + Madesure the designs advisor suggests the most efficient design might/cost instead of the most powerful + Enabled custom factions for the hotseat game mode + Madesure save files loaded from hotseat games work alright + Added a new full featured system to the game called Hotseat Multiplayer, where the player can set the human players in the sandbox settings, to play against + Added bigger galaxy sizes, like Huge and Gigantic to the game, with up to 200 starsystems + Improved zoom, fleet starting positions and allowed for more ships to participate in battle + Fixed battle zoom bugs, when you zoom out to the max, while hovering or after pressing one of the side buttons + Improved battle simulator fleet UI panels and added environment to the randomization + Improved initial load performance of the Battle Simulator and Quick Designer + Added a new full featured system to the game called Battle Simulator, which allows the player to setup battles, selecting ships and the setting; right from the main menu + Added a new full featured system to the game called Quick Designer, which allows the player to design ships from the main menu

[ 2020-05-11 13:11:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone. Fernando here again guys, first of all I hope you are all doing ok, with all that is going on. Stay safe! In any case, here I come with another entry of the Astra Exodus dev diaries. I thought since Ive received lots of requests for a more in depth modding guide and pretty much many of us are staying indoors, it was a good time to actually do it. Why not before? Because Ive been busy working on the next major update to the game, which we hope to reveal in a couple of weeks ;) you can expect news about it to come your way very very soon, so stay tuned! Anyway, onto modding now!

Where to start?

Well in the basic modding guide, which you can find here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/880750/announcements/detail/3452506664386446815 This guide will assume you have at least read through that one first, before proceeding with this one. You can also check out the manual, where you have more material on the subject. Finally it is always recommended to pick an already working mod to start from and use as a reference. For this you can use the Star Wars and/or Translation mods, which were created by me, but any will do of course.

Globals.lua

This file under the /Data/ directory contains all the games most important variables. Beyond the objects in the game, like factions, techs, etc, this file defines the overall rules; with which it must be governed. We will go over each section, which is denoted by a comment starting with --, to see what kind of variables each one has.
Debugging: Here you can toggle on/off logging and also the cheats. The log will be outputted to C:/Users//AppData/LocalLow/Atomic Kaiser/Astra Exodus. Localization: In this section you can add more languages to the game by providing a localization RESX file. You can use one of the two provided under /Data/Localization as examples. Here all you have to is enter the two letter country code with which the localization file ends with. It must be a proper ISO3166 country code. Each coded string here will be referenced from the other data files of the game, such as techs, modules, etc to find the localized text to display. These are usually shown as ID, Name, Description and Stats. However stats is, in most cases, autogenerated by the game(special abilities are the only exception). AI: For the AI you have two main parameters so far, one that adjusts how social it is, meaning how often it will seek others to trade, threaten, etc. And finally an aggressiveness setting that will regulate how often it is willing to pick up a fight. Economy: There are many variables herer that affect the economy in the game. Probably the most importants are the required foo per population, the minimum materials efficiency factor(determines how fast you can construct stuff if you are out of minerals) and tax income per population. You also have the rate at which construction/industry is converted into Credits, Research and Population; as well as how much these projects cost. Pollution, Corruption and Morale: This section is clearly named after the mechanics it rules over. Here the most important are the maximum pollution percentage, the minimum morale percentage and the maximum corruption percentage. Remember that morale affects minerals extraction, pollution affects construction/pop growth and corruption affects credits/research. Start: Here you can adjust the base start date and the initial starting conditions for each era start. It is important to remember to not reference here any installation or troop, which wont be in the mod. Galaxy: Here you can adjust the size factor to generate bigger galaxies, as well as the min and max distance between starts, to make them sparser. You can also adjust the min/max players per galaxy size allowed. Victory Conditions: Most people here will want to adjust the number of turns required for enabling each victory condition. One thing to keep in mind though, are the extra values used in the calculation, one as a base starting value and the other as a multiplier per galaxy size (Tiny = 1, Huge = 5). Planets: Planet specific values go here, including the max population modifier per size and how the Construction is impacted due to abnormal gravity in them. Also more importantly, here you define the base per labourer resource generation, for each planet type. Starsystems: Just as you did with planets before, here you can adjust stuff for starsystems, such as the planets and peculiarity chance. You can also change here the label colour for unowned and custom factions. Fleets: Here you change how fleets work, more precisely their detection and movement range. Plus of course their base speed. Diplomacy: In the Diplomacy section you can change how much tribute is paid, the base credits exchange and the factor result for some treaties. Heroes: There are tons of variables here to modify how heroes work, from how many as a base you can have, up to their starting salary(hiring cost). However the most important are probably how much experience they gain pero class and how many turns it takes them to to wait for you, be out of action and go from one place to another. Battles: The main value you will probably want to adjust here is the maximum starships per battle. Not that this affects only capital ships, it doesnt affect strike craft. Other important values are related to the autoresolve randomization, the difference between the min and max damage here will determine how random they feel. Starships: Within this section you will first have to set the ID for some of the base modules in the game, meaning the default Constructor, Colonizer and Engine modules. Then you can adjust the upkeep and core module cost modifier for all ship sizes. Espionage: In this section you can adjust the base chance in percentage and duration turns of each of the espionaje missions in the game. Remember that these values will be added to the corresponding hero, when determining the success chance of a mission. Ground Battles: Here you can adjust mainly the initiative delta time(how many seconds each initiative unit value take), the max troops per planet and the bonuses some installations provide in battles. Menaces: Here you can provide a list of starship designs to be used as galactic menaces, when the game starts. Remember to make sure any specified designs here actually exist within the mods structure! Ability/Trait IDs: Within this section you can specify the IDs you will use to represent specific abilities and traits which affect the game in a particular and significant way, which is not otherwise adjustable. An example is the Ancient trait, which fires an ability, showing the whole map at start; without giving away the other players start systems. Starsystem names: Finally in this last part of the text file, you can specify the starsystem name which you want used in order to create the galaxy at game start. Make sure to have enough for whatever galaxy sizes you are going to allow. Using 250 should be enough, but it is not as varied as the default number of close to 500 names.

Factions and Traits

Besides the usual ID, Name and Description used for all other objects in the game, you will have to specify some other values for any custom made factions in your mod. The values in the lore section are pretty self explanatory, just remember that these will be used in the games text when generating messages to the player, so make sure they make sense. In the graphics section you can adjust the map color, which you can set from any online editor with RGBA values, and several relative graphic files. In this case an icon(flag or emblem), small portrait(faction pick), character graphics(500x680) and leader background(1024x768 for audiences). Related to graphics but separated, since its worth its own section, you can find the starship set and visual keys. These are used to look up the ship graphics for this faction. Well talk more about these when we go over starship designs and classes. You also need to specify a list of trait ids that belong to this faction. Traits are Abilities or Modifiers which affect how the game plays for the faction.
As you can see, traits are really simple, besides the obvious localization and icon, all you have to provide is its pick points worth, whether if it is positive, any trait id which it excludes(if this one is added to the faction, then this one cant be added as well, when customizing a faction) and finally the modifier or ability id. Finally you need to define how the faction will behave when the AI is using it, this is done through the setting of an Agenda, Focus and Rival; plus its Preferences for Starships, Troops and Tactics. You can find a more in depth explanation of each of the possible values here within the AI Dev Diary, which you can find here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/880750/announcements/detail/1692724456740783658

Techs

Techs are filed under the /Data/Techs folder, each one of them can reference a Troop, Installation, Ability, Modifier and/or Module. This is done by an ID, which each tech must set, in order for the game to find what it unlocks. To recap, you build installations and troops in your colonies. Modifiers are added to your empire, affecting everything you own. Abilities let you do things you couldnt to before. And finally modules are used to design starships, so you can then build them. Besides that all you need to establish is to what category it belongs to, what level and its research cost.

Installations

Installations are relatively simple, besides the obvious localization and icon stuff, all you need is to set a classification, a generated or added modifier, a cost and finally how much upkeep it will cost. An installations classification can be: Defense, Construction, Credits, Food, Metals, Research, Industry, Morale, Organics, Rares, Corruption, Population and Special. The effects of an installation can either be to increase the per colonist (GeneratesModifier) output of a resource or to simply add a fixed amount (GeneratesAdditionally) of said resource automatically to the colonys totals. For a value of GeneratesModifier, you will usually have Percentage added to the resource name, as it is the case for the example given. In the case of a GeneratesAdditionally value, you only need to put the resource name and the given amount. You can check all the examples on this, under the /Data/Installations game folder.

Starship Designs and Classes

A starship design file is the representation of a design, which you can actually make in game. However some designs are needed before the player starts, these are the ones used as default and those used as menaces. A design then consists of a Class reference, a combat tactic, the core/support module ids it has installed and finally a list of weapon mounts (with grade). Each weapon mount can then have a weapon installed or not, like in the screenshot above. Additionally an IsDefault flag is set, for those designs reserved for the start of the game. For more information on the designs themselves, weapon mounts, grade etc you can refer to this dev diary: Z. The most important part of a design however is a concept that is barely seend within the game, which is the configuration of the class it represents. For that we have another file, referenced by the StarshipClassID value, where that is setup.
A starship class, like the one shown in the previous image, will most importantly have besides a unique ID; a StarshipSetKey which is used in the Graphics section to find the corresponding graphics for the class in the following form: /Graphics/Starships//Icon___VisualVariationKey.png The VisualVariationKey helps the player customize the ships to his or her liking, by changing their color scheme in the appropriate screen. Regarding the sprite sizes, you can follow the table below, to make sure any custom starship graphics are correctly set up for the game. Just in case all sprites are YxY, meaning they are squared.
The physics section is to help with hit detection when the sprites has issues that prevent the automatic collider generation from generating a closed optimized 2D shape. They only to be changed in this case, otherwise they can be left out. After that you have the Thrusters and Weapons sections, the most important part here is the position they are going to take, from within the center of the sprite. In order to find the exact position you can open the Unity3D game engine, create a sprite renderer object and assign the image of your ships. The create an empty gameobject as the child of the ship, moving that object across the sprite will net you the coordinates you need, to fill out the position for the class engines and weapon ports. Finally on weapon ports, you need to specify an ID, which I encourage to be as follows: Turret/Fixed + Micro/Light/Main/Heavy/Massive + a number. The decals used are the same across ship roles, so just copy the decals info for your ship, according to the role/size it has. Finally the same position logic as with thrusters/weapons, must be done with the Faction Logo, however here one must also specify the scale it is going to take. You also need to specify whether it will be copied in symmetry or not, along the Y axis of the ship(to the sides).

Starship Modules

As we saw in the Starship Designs dev diary here Z, there are three base categories of starship modules: Core (defenses and engines), Support (power, ordnance, etc) and Weapons. In turn, each category has many types, however since these have already been covered in said dev diary and the manual; we are not going to go in depth in each one of them. To create a new or modify an existing module, you need to specify, besides the basic localization and icon stuff, the classification info. This includes the category, type and PrefabID (only for shields and engines). For a prefab id, you can use the ones already in the game, to represent your module for now. In the case of Weapons, you will also have to specify what mount grades it can be equipped into and what type of weapon it is (Mass, Particle, Beam or Missile).
After the classification section, you will have to set the proper stats of the module, which will vary greatly with the type of module you want to create. I again recommend that you pick one from another mod or from the game itself as an example to follow. Most modules however will consume power, so the PowerRequired stats will be there. For weapons of course, you will have the Damage, Range, RateOfFire, etc as usual. In the case of support modules, you will also have to specify the amount of space it will take in the spaceship and whether more than once can be equipped(by default this is true).
Finally all that is left to set is the production and upkeep cost for the module, this will of course reflect on the ship that uses these modules, as in turn said ship Production/Upkeep cost will be an aggregate of the modules it carries. In the case of core modules, since they are different according to role/size, that cost will be modified accordingly. The same thing happens with weapons and the mount grade where they are equipped, meaning a Micro weapon will cost less than a Heavy one.

Troops

Troops are simple enough to modify, besides the base localization and icon, you need to start first by assigning a Classification (Infantry, Armor, Mech or Airborne) and Domain (Ground or Amphibious). Then you need to specify a sound group ID, you can reuse one of the ones created for the game, assign the stats for the troop. Including finally its production and upkeep cost.

Peculiarities

Peculiarities are easy enough to set up, all you need to do, besides the basic localization and icon stuff; is specify what they generate (just like with installations), to what planet classes/sizes they are restricted to and whether if they can only appear on alive (Food > 0) planets.

Heroes and Skills

Heroes are perhaps the easiest entity to set up in the game, all you need besides the localization and icon (portrait in this case), is the list of skill ids which the Hero is going to have access to. The added upkeep cost of these traits will then become both the upkeep and hiring cost you will have to pay to enjoy his or her services in game.
In turns skills are a little bit harder, you need to set up the increment per level, meaning how much the modifier goes up when levelling the skill. Whether or not the increment is Additive (for example the Navigator traits gets an Additive +1 to range) or a Percentage (for example the General traits gets an additional 10% experience bonus). Then finally the ID of the modifier to be applied and of course the upkeep cost of the trait.

[ 2020-04-21 14:51:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! We are releasing a new patch for Astra Exodus, updating the game to version 1.00.06. Update 1.00.06 mostly focuses on fixes and both performance and quality-of-life improvements. Once again, thanks to everyone who provided their feedback to us, so that we could keep improving the game. Atomic Kaiser in the meantime will continue to work on their plans to further improve the game... stay tuned!

Version 1.00.06 Changes

+ Reduced the default difficulty to Captain and the difficulty to get bonus plaques to General + Fixed a significant bug in which the AI retrofiting starships disabled the end turn button + Made sure the AI gets a bit angry with constant demands, even if it accepts them due to high relations or threat. There are new modifiers for this. + Added the current selected Operative mission description to the corresponding panel + Now the file saves are ordered by date and time in the load game main panel + Added your/theirs to the tech being requested/granted in the audience screen to highlight who gets what + Improve the description/stats of the specialization picks so it's clear what you get + Improved english localization campaign messages and heroes + Removed the file extension in the name of a file save within the load game panel + Improved the visibility of of the board button in the colonists + Increased the upkeep/fee of the Ancient hero skill + Made sure to update heroes stats and skills as soon as they gain a level + Added the timestamp to the load screen of file saves + Improved performance by delaying loading audio files until they are absolutely necessary and added audio cue to the selected fleet panel + Improved load performance of graphic files from the hard drive + Added missing sound effects for troops in battle + Improved overall space battles performance, thanks to audio improvements + Strike craft now spawn further away from the carrier starship + Made sure assault starships(specially strikecraft) get the correct heading when you speed up the battle. + Improve significantly the initial game's startup time + Parametrize the Creative trait to set the number of techs available per level + Reduced minimum material efficiency to 20% to make mining more important + Pollution installations/techs affect morale instead for factions with the plantoids trait + Lowered the megafauna and native population peculiarity bonus to 6 food + Improved DataNet UI feedback on failed operative missions + Fixed a rare hero bug in which an operative is able to sabotage fleets of ships + Added an option to flip the mouse zoom scrollwheel direction + Fixed a bug in which support module space specialization picks were not working correctly

[ 2020-03-24 10:02:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Two days ago we released the latest patch, 1.00.05, another rather big update containing a mix of fixes and new content (among which, the rather important new Retrofit feature, as well as improvements to Population management and the option to transport population from one colony to another). We really hope you are liking the updates we keep rolling out! We recently discussed our future plans for Astra Exodus, and recapped what updates we had released until then. We are still not ready to divulge our plans for the future, but we are working on improvement and new content which will make players very happy! So stay tuned, and we will let you know soon. Until then, in case you haven't done it yet, why not leave a review on the Steam page? Having your feedback helps us immensely, so that we can get a better direction on where to go in order to keep making the game better. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2020-03-13 14:07:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all. Today is another important day for Astra Exodus! We are releasing the biggest Astra Exodus update so far. The changelog is quite massive, and you can find the full changelog below. Unfortunately, some of the changes were structural, and as such this new update doesn't have savegame compatibility. Let us know what you think of the update: as usual your feedback is essential to us, so that we can keep improving Astra Exodus and making it better and better. And yes, we have some ambitious plans for the game, but we're not quite ready to reveal them...

Version 1.00.05 Changes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Improved datanet UI items so they are highlighted when they have art to show when activated + Improved item selection graphics, specially in the fleet composition panel, but also in other areas + Made sure that you can set normal speed with space, when the start battles paused option is active, plus make it possible to toggle extreme speed that way also + Fixed a bug in which backing out from a tactical battle end panel, with right click or back button, messed up the camera zoom + Fixed a bug that fired when loading a file save from the game itself, in which the scale of the fleet icons was messed up, if you are zoomed out when it happens + Fixed a bug in which a save file couldn't be load due to a null starsystem owner player + Fixed a visual bug in which core modules were not showing production costs or upkeep + Exposed base upkeep and core cost modifiers for starship roles in the Globals.lua file, plus rebalanced them to make ships cost less + Exposed the minimum materials efficiency value to the Globals.lua file + Added the ability to the AI to use the new retrofit feature and improve its ships + Made sure to disable starmap scouting via population only fleets + Added a way for renaming individual starshipsfrom the fleets screen + Added a retrofit button to the Fleets main menu, which takes you to the corresponding colony screen + Applied the starship build item colony filter for retrofit projects as well + Incorporated the feature of starship retrofits, via projects which show up on colonies that can retrofit ships. + The AI now moves fleets to closer owner Starsystems, before going into enemy starsystems + Added a way for the AI to insta move population on higher difficulty levels + Added the ability for the AI to move population around + Made sure the planet visual indicators show up immediately on the starsystem view, when stuff is built and sold on colonies + Added the ability for the renaming of outposts + Added the ability of renaming an owned starsystem(this is done in the starsystem view) and also the homeworld. + Allow for sandbox games without victory conditions + Increased weapon fire evasion of smaller ships to encourage their use + Increased upkeep of large starships to encourage the use of smaller ships + Fixed the default designs, taking into account power/ordnance/capacitor requirements, which some had wrong + Now advises are immediately updated whenever a diplomatic exchange is successful or war is desclared + Fixed a bug that skipped the turn, whenever a space was introduced when renaming fleets/colonies + Made sure modded designs don't mess up the new design persistence file system + Added a datanet notification for when a colony is destroyed va bombardment + Moved custom starship designs to MyGames folder and enable Steam cloud for the files so they are synchronized between machines + Added the feature of colonist transport into the game. You can now launch any colonist(5 freighters required), move them as any fleet and land them on one of your colonies + Fixed a bug with redirecting a fleet in hyperspace, in which the movement line remained

[ 2020-03-09 14:04:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone. I am Fernando from Atomic Kaiser. Its been a couple of weeks since the release of Astra Exodus now and we felt it was a good time to go over the launch, what went wrong and what went right, and talk about the future of the game, the updates we have released so far and a small hindsight over what we have in mind for the the future of the game, based on the feedback we have got since then.

Launch Summary

Sadly we didnt have the best of launches for the game, as not only a couple of nasty bugs slipped by us, but on top of it all many people at launch were expecting something quite different to what Astra Exodus actually is. All of this showed on the reviews we got to the game and of course it was a major concern for us. As I mentioned then in our first status post in the Steam forums, bugs can and were squashed. We did the same with improvements and features added / implemented as they were reported / suggested by the community. But please bear in mind that fundamental parts of the game like the art, graphics and aesthetics of the game are something we are not changing even if we could. This would go against the 90's theme we are going for with the game, something we have shown with pride in all marketing material. On the expectations front, which were as per the reviews totally different in some cases to what the game actually is, we frankly dont know what we could have done differently as pretty much all marketing material was quite upfront with how the game looked, felt and played as.

Updates so far

Ever since release we have been updating the game with bug fixes, improvements and even new features, responding to the concerns to the community as fast as possible. At the time of writing this post, with version 04 out to everyone now, we have no known bugs left and the following improvements and features added to the game since release:

Improvements

• Enable colonization of planets which were previously used for one of the player outposts
• The game now remembers the position and zoom level the camera was, when going from and to the galactic view
• Added info on starship's health (hull / armour) on it's tooltip and improved the related UI object
• Reduced the RNG factor in auto-combat battles to make them more predictable
• Reduced the frequency of AI offers through diplomacy to make it less annoying
• Changed auto-retreat of fleets to not have any punishment at all
• Added an additional speed setting to space battles in order to speed them up
• Now space battles start out paused instead of in a slow time setting
• Decreased the base turns required to achieve victory conditions to speed up games
• Removed advice to lower/increase taxes when you cant do so
• Enabled faction customization in modded games

Features

• Added a Visual Styles setting to the game, which adjust the color / contrast / brightness and several effects options for the starmap and battles
• Added an autosaves option to the game with several settings
• Added an option to disable edge panning of the camera
• Added a new ship attack stance for long range attack called Siege
• Added an option to use hardware cursor instead of software

You can compare the looks of the old Colourful visual style with the new Darkened visual style

Future Plans

We dont have like a year long road map with specific dates or anything like that, as not only longer we dont think its necessary, but also we find that in many cases its impossible to live by it. What we do have is some big features on the horizon that we will be working towards, in parallel to smaller patches and updates. We dont want to reveal anything at this stage as we are defining how to implement certain major features and new content that we have in mind, but be assured: Astra Exodus will expand, and will keep improving. As mentioned, we have plans for the game, and we are sure that many of you will find what is coming rather intriguing. In the meantime, if you are enjoying the game (or not!), why not leave a review telling us what you like and dont like about the game? We certainly would appreciate it, as would the rest of the community. Until next time! https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2020-02-19 20:26:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all. We are releasing a new update, bringing the game to 1.00.04. We are going to release a new Dev diary later today, so be on the lookout for it. Our main point is that Astra Exodus' path continues, and we have future plans for it. In the meantime, you can download the new update, and find the full changelog below. As usual, many thanks to all those who gave us feedback and suggestions! It is very much appreciated.

Version 1.00.04 Changes

Fixed a bug in which opening the load game panel, loaded automatically a mod, when a save from said mod is present Made sure that custom starting population values in the Globals.lua file are correctly taken into account for the homeworld Made sure fleets can attack and invade in the same turn, but not move after to avoid one turn defenses problem Improved the camera smoothness when zooming and panning at practically the same time Made sure an outpost planet can be colonized from the planet buttons interface Changed test battles shortcuts so they don't impact faction customization in the main menu Updated the SW mod to work with the latest version of the game Made sure the customize faction option is enabled when using mods and fixed any problems it caused Added a toggle option for the game to use a hardware mouse cursor where available Added an option to disable camera edge panning in the game Added an additional stance for long range combat called Siege Fixed a bug which was corrupting the game, every time a fleet was splited in mid hyperspace jump Fixed a bug that was preventing end turn, after loading a campaign game, related to corrupted victory conditions

[ 2020-02-19 16:50:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all. We are releasing a new update for Astra Exodus, bringing the game to version v1.00.03. We'd like to thank everyone who provided us with feedback, as this really helps us with improving the game. This update in particular consists of a number of fixes and quality-of-life improvements. It also introduces experimental support for more types of resolution, like 3:2 and ultrawide.

Version 1.00.03 Changes

+ Fixed a bug that was removing heroes in the campaign, like they do in the sandbox + Added experimental support and improved UI for 3:2 factor resolutions + Added experimental support and improved UI for ultrawide resolution + Fixed a bug in which autosaves were firing once without being turned on + Increased pollution construction destroying effects + Parametrize pollution, morale and corruption effects in the Globals.lua file + Fixed a bug in which governor heroes were not applying correctly modifiers based around pollution, morale and corruption to colonies + Fixed a bug that was preventing end game repeatable techs from accumulating their effects + Now changing the tax rate affects immediately the selected colony if in that view + Fixed a bug when offered to trade specialization techs from the AI and you had no specialization points available + Randomized a bit the list of techs asked by the AI, so it doesn't always asks for the same + Fixed a small graphical glitch with opened tooltips on the audience screen, while hovering the techs for trade + Fixed a bug that happened when going to the next/previous colony from the colony screen, in which the starsystem info of the original system disappeared + Removed the advise to lower taxes when its already at minimum, same for the other extreme + Now space battles start Paused instead of at a Slow pace + Reduced the amount of turns required for the ascension victory condition + Added the ability to specify victory conditions required turns in the Globals.lua file + Fixed a bug that was preventing terraformed planets from having the correct maximum population + Fixed a bug that was preventing the Steam achievement for freighters from firing + Fixed a bug that was affecting campaign saves, regarding empty or invalid items on the build queue + Fixed a bug that was preventing the immediate update of the available special techs, after one was available due to a crisis + Now the game notifies the player when others declare war against each other + Fixed a bug that was preventing the achievements for galactic crisis to fire

[ 2020-02-13 12:47:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi all, we are releasing a new update for Astra Exodus, containing some of the fixes that were highly requested by the community. Admittedly, Astra Exodus needs some extra work, but this is what we are for. We won't stop working until Astra Exodus keeps improving and getting better and better, so stay tuned to check what's next for the game. You can find the full changelog down below. Please let us know what you think, as usual your feedback is extremely important to us, and it'll be very helpful as we start working on the next update. Thank you!

Version 1.00.02 Changes

+ Fixed a bug in which the weapon mount was not being selected correctly when editing a starship design + Fixed a bug in which enhanced core modules, were not being loaded correctly on the starship design screen + Forced 1080p at game start to try to avoid strange UI deformations on non standard resolutions. + Set a target framerate and forced VSYNC method on all quality settings, to try to avoid any high CPU/GPU cases + Fixed a bug in which some graphs values were not being correctly shown on game load + Change credits for treasury in the government graphs and adjust values according + Fixed a bug in which some modifier based custom faction traits, were not being applied correctly on game start + Now when a colony can no longer grow, it shows a message indicating so. Plus there will not be a 0 turns instead of 1 for growth/shrinking + Added the AI the ability not to loose pop on colonizer construction on higher difficulty levels + Decreased AI ability maluses in easier difficulty levels + Added a super fast time control setting called Extreme for space battles + Added the Autosaves feature settings to the game, with several turn intervals + Added the Visual Styles feature, which is a settings option that changes how the starmap and battles look, making it be more dimmed or darker; vs the default colorful way of the game + Now the game remembers the position and zoom level the camera was, when going from and to the galactic view + Added the percentage damage to hull and shields received, to a starship's info panel or tooltip + Imprved the visualization of a starships health, including mostly hull and armour. + Reduced the RNG factor in autobattles for both land and space. Plus parametrize the values in the Globals.lua file. + Added the ability to autoretreating fleets for avoiding all damage + Improved the readability of several UI objects in different languages + Reduced the frequency at which the AI asks for an audience by a third + Parametrized default AI aggresiveness and socialness in the Globals.lua file + Added the ability to save automatically, when exiting a starmarine mode game + Fixed a bug in which the Starmarine mode file saves, were not being saved with the correct file extension + Added the ability to be able to colonize planets that have an outpost from the same player, granting back credits as the outpost is scuttled + Fixed a bug in which the Heroes missing notification, when clicked on, failed to load the available for hire heroes + Fixed a bug in which the Colonies list was not updating build project ETC and materials build efficiency + Fixed a bug in which the player couldn't grow back population, when a full colony launches a colony ship + Fixed a bug in which when loading a save game, the stats, upkeep and treaties info in the government panel was not loaded correctly until ending the turn + Fixed a bug in which Heroes were not being removed after 20 turns from the list, plus the selection on click was failing sometimes + Improved AI ability in regards to starship range and overall upkeep, according to Dificulty level + Improved AI ability in regards to starship might, damage and defense, according to Dificulty level + Added Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Russian support into the game + Optimized active starsystem info UI objects to reduce significantly the delay between camera view changes

[ 2020-02-04 14:02:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Astra Exodus is the new 4x sci-fi strategy game from Slitherine: a compelling mission-driven campaign where you will need to manage all aspects of your star empire: economy, war, diplomacy, espionage, technological research, exploration Theres no place like home. Humanity has reached the stars and explored the galaxy, but all memory of its home planet has been lost. Now its time to head back home and find the lost Earth, exploring all corners of unknown space. But be prepared: this search will be dangerous. Merciless Alien factions and Space Pirates lurk in the shadows, waiting to annihilate Human colonies and wreck their homeward-bound fleets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3YQO3zo0yc&feature=youtu.be Astra Exodus is the new 4x sci-fi strategy game from Slitherine: a compelling mission-driven campaign where you will need to manage all aspects of your star empire: economy, war, diplomacy, espionage, technological research, exploration... Play either the single player story campaign, where you will lead mankind in its search for their lost homeworld, or play in the sandbox mode, where you will be able to pick your faction (or customize it) and decide on the type of galaxy, opponents, and type of victory conditions. Explore the galaxy, colonize hospitable planets, build cities and factories, and prepare to defend them: first design your own ships by choosing which modules you want to install, then wage war by fighting real-time pauseable battles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-G0KwuJxhM Astra Exodus is out now at a 10% discount for one week. Take advantage of this offer while you still can. It will be live-streamed on our Twitch channel later today at 6 pm GMT. Don't miss Admiral Richard Yorke wage a full-scale interstellar war.

[ 2020-01-30 14:09:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Astra Exodus will release tomorrow and we know many of you are excited. We've received a lot of enthusiastic feedback and many questions on our socials. One of the most common question is about achievements. Will Astra Exodus have achievements? Well, the answer is YES! Astra Exodus will have 55 Steam achievements. Let's have a look at a few of them. The Market's Whim
Suffer a Economic Crisis event and nullify its effects, by researching Galactic Trade Commission. Exterminate with prejudice
Defeat a menace, in the Sandbox game mode. Terra invictus
Achieve any victory condition in the game, as the Terran Republic faction. Evolutionary Ascension
Achieve an Evolutionary Ascension victory in the Sandbox game mode. There's a lot more of course, but we'll let you discover them on your own. Astra Exodus will release tomorrow in the European afternoon. Are you ready?

[ 2020-01-29 15:50:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Astra Exodus will be released in two days, so we thought it'd be a good idea to prepare some video tutorials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdiRfh9LtgY&list=PLQrYLOdjwRhRqoHdCnY8iPkkvirUZ41gE Each video focuses on a different aspect of the game and they are a great way to get acquainted with the basics of gameplay. There are 20 in total, and there's quite a lot there. Let us know what you think and if you need clarification on anything. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2020-01-28 14:49:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

We just published a new trailer for Astra Exodus. It showcases tactical battles,which you fight in pauseable real time. They are fast paced and immediate, and incredibly fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-G0KwuJxhM&feature=emb_title Astra Exodus is due out on January 30. Are you ready? https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2020-01-27 16:20:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back to our last dev diary before release on January 30. Today we are going to take a look into modding: how players can change the base game to their liking, create entire mods from zero and upload them easily on the Steam Workshop, for those who play on Steam. Mod Structure Astra Exodus was designed from the ground-up to be moddable, as pretty much everything in the game is loaded from files editable by users, organized in a certain structure. This very same structure, found on the base game directory, must be reproduced by any mod, adding a main data file as well which defines the mod. In the /MyGames/Astra Exodus/Mods path, youll find a data file named after the mod, plus a main folder that contains the mod files, with the same Data and Graphics folder structure as the main game. Data Files The data files into the game allow you to define pretty much everything on Astra Exodus, from technologies to factions and starships, everything can be changed or expanded. They are in LUA format, which can be easily opened with any text editor. We recommend using Notepad++ though. Here you have a base file called Globals.lua, where you can change the main values of the game, such as how much food a colonist consumes for example. Then you have a folder structure, grouping factions, techs, troops, and everything else together. Opening any of the contained files will give you an example of how to change or add one of these yourself. The most complex values you can find on these files, to configure whatever concept each represent, are the references to localized text and the path to the corresponding graphic files. The localized text tag is searched in the files under the Localization folder, where one must exist for each language the game supports. Finally a graphics file reference is basically the path, from the base folder, to the corresponding image (PNG) file.
Graphics The games graphics come from PNG image files, which as we just saw, are referenced via a relative file path by the data files. So for every Installation an image must be referenced in order to be used in game, just like with everything else in the game. The game requires PNG files in order to have an Alpha channel available, as it is used in almost all possible scenarios, when using graphics in game, from starship classes to techs. There are some extra graphic files that need to be supplied for every mod, regardless of any reference from the data files. These are the mod icon, main menu and data net background images. The first ones can be placed anywhere inside the mod folder, as long as they are referenced on the main mod LUA file, however the DataNet images must be placed in a folder with that name, inside the mods Graphics folder.
Steamworks Once you have set up a mod, you might want to share it with the community. To do this, you can always just zip the files and share it on the Internet, however Steam has a system that makes it much easier: the Steam Workshop, which Astra Exodus fully implements. With the mod working properly and after defining everything on its main LUA file, all you need to do is click on the Up Arrow on top of the mod UI object, in order to upload it to Steam with your current logged in user. Then youll be able to change the name, description, add screenshots and a lot more through the mod page; automatically created when you upload it. We hope this was clear enough. If you have any question on Modding, please let us know either on Discord or the forum, and well do our best to get back to you with further explanations.
Next week well be launching the game, on January 30. Are you ready?

[ 2020-01-21 13:22:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back for another Astra Exodus dev diary. Today we are going to talk about artificial intelligence in the game, but more specifically on the mechanisms the different factions play differently as well as the many effects difficulty settings have. Focuses One of the core features of the AI system is the Focus for each faction, which determines to a rather large degree what the AI will build and when. This is done internally by affecting its desires accordingly and thus greatly affecting its decisions each turn. For each Faction, the game has 3 different focuses, with a 60/20/20% chance of them being chosen each game. In total there are seven focuses in the game: Militarists, Technologists, Ecologists, Industrialists, Expansionists, Economists and Balanced. The Militarists focus will obviously center colony production on combat starships and ground troops in order to maintain military supremacy over its rivals. Technologists will target research, maximizing its output through building installations and increasing the number of scientists. Ecologists will aim at having large populations by terraforming worlds into Terran planets and also maintaining a low pollution level. They compensate any production lost by generating more income through taxes and commerce. Industrialists are the total opposite, they will focus on industrial production regardless of any pollution and colonize planets with a high mineral output; regardless of their habitability. Expansionists are not picky at all in contrast, they will focus on colonizers and constructors as long as possible with the goal of settling all planets in range. Economists concern themselves more on commerce, taxes and trading. They usually generate a high income quickly, purchasing instead of building most colony projects. Finally, a Balanced focus will make the AI not center on anything in particular. Instead itll be more reactive, responding mainly to other player actions.
Agendas In contrast to Focuses, Agendas mainly affect how factions conduct diplomacy and what victory conditions they go for in a skirmish mode game. Just like with Focuses though, there are 3 possible different agendas per faction, with a 60/20/20% chance each of being chosen. There are 7 possible Agendas in total: Ruthless, Aggressive, Pacifist, Honorable, Xenophobic, Manipulative and Erratic. An AI with a Ruthless Agenda will be quite dangerous, it will attack without provocation and be willing to sacrifice both its own troops and alien populations in war. In contrast, an Aggressive Agenda is more measured, as it will attack only when in favorable position and with at least some provocation. As radically different to the previous two, a Pacifist AI will try to maintain peace, by proactively managing Relations, Trust and Threat it has with others. It will also of course sue for peace more eagerly if at war. A more sensible Honorable AI will almost never break a treaty and will not attack faction with which it has good relations. However it will react twice as much when it is the victim of espionage. Xenophobic AIs go against diplomacy in general and they rarely interact with others without being prompted first. They do not always wage war, but when they do, they stop nothing short of genocide. In contrast a Manipulative AI will often interact often others, preferring to use trading and espionage to achieve its ends. Finally an Erratic AI Agenda, as the name implies, will make the faction rather unpredictable; as it will switch between all other agendas randomly throughout the game. Preferences The final core AI system is the one that sets the preference for starship roles, troop types and battle tactics for the faction to use. In this case there are two choices, with a 50/50 chance of any of them being picked at game start. For ships roles we have 4 different preferences: Light, Balanced, Average and Heavy. Light will focus on Frigates/Destroyers, Average on Cruisers and Heavy on Battleship/Titans. A balanced approach will make the AI ignore this as a factor when deciding what to build. With troops we have again 4 preferences: Soft, Hard, Mobile and Balanced. Soft will make it focus on Infantry/Airborne, Hard on Armor/Mechs and Mobile on Mechs/Airborne. Finally, as well as with ships, Balanced will make the AI ignore this when deciding what to build. Regardless of what starship focus the AI picks, starships need to be fitted with modules and be built as proper ship designs. This starship design is made by the AI thanks to the battle tactic it has chosen to follow in space. These can be: Long Range, Close Support, Fast Assault, Missile Swarm, Balanced, Engagement and Harassment. Depending on which battle tactic a faction chooses then a faction will focus its research on specific types of weapons, defenses, etc to arm its starships with. Difficulty There are seven possible difficulties for the game, and can be picked for both the story campaign or a single skirmish game. These are: Colonist, Marine, Captain, Commander, General, Admiral and Elgathi. Without going too much into detail, Commander is the standard difficulty, where the AI has no penalty or bonus to speak of. Thus, the closer you go back to Colonist, the easier the game is and the same in reverse, Elgathi being the hardest difficulty level. Difficulty levels not only affect bonuses/penalties, but more importantly they affect how the AI plays the game. For example, on General and upwards, the AI will target the weakest enemy first in ground battles. In Commander and upwards the AI will maintain formation in space battles, right up until the main line faces the enemy. In contrast however, a game with a difficulty of Marine or less will have the AI ignore starship abilities and not use them.
Thats it for today! We will be back next Tuesday with our last dev diary before release. Astra Exodus is releasing on January 30. Are you ready?

[ 2020-01-14 12:49:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have a new release date for Astra Exodus: it will be released on January 30. Contrary to what was announced shortly before the holidays, we have decided to move the release date of Astra Exodus by one week. It is a decision which was taken by the publisher, simply based on reasons of internal organization and scheduling. The game's development is complete, and we are very happy about how it has progressed and shaped up. You can take a look at our recent Let's Plays, where Richard Yorke plays the single player campaign. You can follow him every Tuesday at 6 pm GMT on our Twitch channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTP2O9dr-38&feature=emb_title If you are German or French speaking, though, don't miss Writing Bull's (German) and Koinsky's (French) great videos. Last but not least, next week we are resuming our series of Dev Diaries. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2020-01-09 16:08:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Astra Exodus gets a release date, and it is January 23. Thanks to its months of beta and a lot of feedback from its beta testers, we're now close. The anticipated 4X by Atomic Kaiser will be released in a month. We will be showing a lot more about the game across all of January, but in the meantime you can take a look at the dev diaries, which explain several of the game mechanics in detail. Furthermore, earlier this week we have done the first full fledged stream of Astra Exodus on Twitch. We uploaded the video to YouTube and you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0QB8JLJeFE Let us know what you think or if you have any question, either on the forum or on the Astra Exodus discord channel. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-12-20 20:09:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back for another Astra Exodus dev diary. My name is Atomic Kaiser and today Ill be talking about the games factions, the systems behind them and some examples from the game. Ill be careful not to give any spoilers out though! Before we get to the dev diary itself, dont forget to check on todays preview stream on Twitch. Join us at 6 pm GMT on our Twitch channel for a first look at Astra Exodus!

Factions

The universe depicted in Astra Exodus is inhabited by several factions, some of which do not have what you would call a government or structure in the classic sense of the word. In fact thats why they are called factions rather than nations or civilizations. One such case is the Followers of Kala, which function more like a religious cult than a classic empire for example. All factions have a leader, a central figure that directs its will and whom you will interact with - or take command of! This leader will also be served by several advisors, and they will offer their counsel on the central topics regarding the management of your faction. Regardless of the fact that all of them are humanoid shaped, these factions are highly diverse, both in form, function and thought. They vary a lot on how they look, why the look that way, what they are trying to achieve in the galaxy and how they want to do it. This is reflected in the games lore as well as in their abilities or characteristics (called traits in game), both of which well talk more about a bit later on. From an AI perspective, each faction will then have a preference on how to win through what the game calls an Agenda and who they essentially are through a Focus. AI also has a preference regarding what classes of ships to build and troop types to train. This helps with differentiating factions especially when played by the AI.

Traits

Traits are what make a faction different from others, gameplay wise. Each faction has a unique set of these traits which define its capabilities, by either improving or diminishing a gameplay aspect that affects the player. They can be very basic, such as the Miner trait, which increase materials production per miner in each colony, or quite complex, such as the Ancient trait, which reveals the whole galaxy at the start of the game. The game uses a trait Pick Points systems, in which each Trait gets a positive or negative value accordingly and the sum of them is the same for all factions.

Lore

The history or lore of the known galaxy in Astra Exodus long predates the arrival of humans to the sector and the events that will unfold in the games campaign. However, much of the history known at the games start is more myth than anything else. From the role of the Precursors in the shaping of the galaxy, in their terrifying ancient wars and alleged surveillance of all major species, to the so called old gods with truly infinite power, they are all treated like myth and legend rather than history. However we do have some actual bits of history to share, without going into any campaign spoilers, on each of the major factions of the Skirmish Mode. The Potermi Dominion is a major power in the galaxy, which has been in constant fighting to keep its borders against many enemies, ever since the factions peak, some 2500 cycles ago. Sadly the Ulari have not found much success with their current regent and seem to be ever shrinking in the extent of their power.
The Veloran Horde is a chaotic collection of warring tribes, banded together under the current Grand Boss Jarak, who achieved her title by betraying the previous grand boss. The Velor are known to be raiders, slavers and pirates; however never had they posed such as threat to the galaxy as they do under the Horde.
The Guardians of the Seed represents a peaceful yet powerful group of vegetal based sentient beings, which some believe to have been created artificially. Like humans, they are newcomers to the sector. They had a first contact war with the Freudalim Hold, that quickly stripped them of any naivete about interstellar affairs.
The Terran Republic represents the last known group of humans who survived the Exodus from Earth, thousands of cycles ago, by coming through the Great Eye (a colossal wormhole that collapsed behind them). They have focused on rebuilding until now, as they set out to find their lost brothers and the history behind their ancient exodus.
The Followers of Kala are a secretive and highly advanced, yet deeply spiritual organization, and they are almost as ancient as the Freudalim Hold. Not much is known about them, as any probe into their territory is hardly ever heard from again. What little is inferred however from contacting them, is that somehow the Kalin are all females, or so it seems at least.
The Okli-To Consortium is a corporate based government of winged beings, who suffered a massive accelerated technological advancement in a very short period of time thanks to the interference of minor smuggler factions in their homeworld. This quickly changed their ethics: they got rid of old idols and replaced them with worship of wealth. This reflects on the freighter-like look of their starships.
The Ilumina Starnation is a utilitarian, authoritarian and collective government of aquatic sentient beings who used to be ruled by the Potermi Dominion until they rebelled in a series of conflicts now known as the Great Patriotic Revolution. They are renowned for their industrial and physical might, having been used by the Dominion for centuries as their elite shock troops.
The Freudalim Hold represents an ancient and honorable (or so they claim to be, at least) race of sentient marble-skinned mammals. Ages ago, they used to rule much of the galaxy, with the permission of the Precursors. Once they left however, the Hold faded into inner turmoil, thanks to its self absorbed senate and lost power on the galactic stage rather quickly, becoming a mere shadow of what they used to be.
There is a lot more to be found out about the lore of Astra Exodus and its factions, but that itll be up to you to learn by playing. This will be our last dev diary in 2019, but we will be back in January to resume our series of dev diaries. As mentioned, dont forget to follow us later today on Twitch for the first Astra Exodus preview stream. Furthermore, on Friday we are going to announce something which Im sure will excite all those who are waiting for Astra Exodus! https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-12-17 15:22:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Astra Exodus is an upcoming sci-fi 4X strategy game. Developed by Atomic Kaiser, we have been featuring it weekly on the site with our series of developer diaries. We had promised you we would show you the full game before the holidays, and we'll keep our word! Richard Yorke will be live streaming Astra Exodus on our Twitch channel on Tuesday 17 at 6 pm GMT! It will be the perfect chance to have a first look at the game and see its features and gameplay mechanics in action. For all those who cannot make it, don't worry. We will upload the video afterwards on our YouTube channel. Astra Exodus is still in beta but its development is progressing well. It is currently fully playable, and we are not far away from release. Stay tuned for the announcement of the release date, which will come very soon. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-12-13 15:15:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Were back with a new entry of the Astra Exodus dev diaries. This time well be going over Diplomacy and Trade. Most of what we are talking about happens on the audience screen, which can be summoned for any of the factions met at that point in the game.

Diplomatic Actions

Once an audience has been setup you will face the leader of the corresponding faction and you will then have the chance to interact with them through diplomatic actions. This can include trading, issuing demands, giving gifts, proposing treaties and of course declaring war. All of these will affect your relations with the faction and trigger a modifier in turn. Well talk more about these later. One of the actions possible here is to propose or break a treaty. There are several treaties available in Astra Exodus. These include: Trade Commission, Research Collaboration, Open Borders, Military Alliance, Peace Agreement and Non-Aggression Pact. The Trade Commission has both factions increase the total commerce they generate by a percentage of what each other generates. Similarly speaking, the Research Collaboration does the same but for research. Open Borders grants rights of passage and refuel for each others ships. A Military Alliance is a defensive pact, in which if attacked by a third party, both factions swear to help each other by declaring war against the aggressor. As the name implies, a Peace Agreement marks the end of hostilities between two factions, effectively ending a war. Finally a Non-Aggression Pact is a basic treaty, required for higher tier ones, promising peace between two factions. Breaking it carries a galactic wide diplomatic penalty. Depending on your military strength, you might be in the position to either issue or receive demands to/from other factions. The terms these demands can include: technologies, systems, credits, tribute, breaking all treaties with a third party, declaration of war against another factions or even agreeing to a truce in a war. If the target faction does not accept the demand then relations will be negatively impacted, with a corresponding modifier.

Relations, Trust and Threat

For each faction, the game keeps track of three essential values, relative to all others, to impact the diplomatic relations and interactions between them. They are also directly taken into consideration by the AI in order to make its choices. These values are called Relations, Trust and Threat. Relations represents the overall sentiment of the faction towards another. It fluctuates mainly with the corresponding factions actions. For example, if X allies with Z, which is a sworn enemy of Y, then Y will not have favorable relations with X. In contrast Trust increases slowly with time and can only decrease when a treaty is broken or a promise is not kept. Trust is essential for higher tier treaties and trades (an alliance treaty for example) as the AI not only needs to have high relations with a faction but also needs to trust it. Finally, Threat measures how dangerous a faction is perceived to be by another faction. This is measured in both the relative military might as well as the industrial capacity involved and the perceived willingness to go to war. Depending on the Relations value is the Attitude the corresponding leader will have with you and your people. They are clearly distinguished from each other, through the leader character visuals and also on how he or she communicates with you during the audience. There are 5 different possible leader attitudes in the game, which from best to worst, are: Friendly, Cordial, Neutral, Hostile, Warring. You can check how they came to be thanks to the relationship modifiers involved with the faction.

Relationship Modifiers

Each diplomatic action a player takes (as well as many non diplomatic actions, like for instance the bombardment of an enemy colony) generate a positive or negative Relationship Modifier. These are triggers that either increase or decrease the Relations, Trust and Threat between factions. They also serve as a summary for the human player to understand why an AI feels like it does with him or her. There are many possible relationship modifiers within the game, from a positive one like having the same enemy in a war, to a common negative one like having close borders. Regardless of the source of the modifier and whether if it is positive or negative, they will all expire at some point (all but a few exceptions), either once enough time has passed or because the galactic context has changed.

Gifts and Trading

There are several assets which can be gifted in game to other factions in order to increase the relations with them. This can be very important to avoid war, especially if you seek to ally with a powerful faction. These assets include: technologies, credits, tribute (credits per turn) and entire star systems (with any colonies or outposts they include). They obviously affect relations in different amounts, depending on the case. In contrast trading implies an exchange: giving something but getting something else in return. Most important here is the exchange of technologies, since otherwise a faction can not complete a level of a Research Field, as we have already pointed out in a previous dev diary. However you can also trade star charts with other factions, which helps you to map the galaxy out very quickly. We will be back next Tuesday with a new Dev diary, this time on the Factions we will encounter in Astra Exodus! https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-12-09 16:36:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back for the eleventh Astra Exodus dev diary! I am Atomic Kaiser, the designer behind the game. Today I am going to talk about troops, ground battles and planet bombardment. Troops There are several Troops types in Astra Exodus, each of them with specific characteristics that might make them more desirable in a specific location or situation. Some are better suited at defense, others excel in certain terrain types and/or to flank the enemy. There are 4 main types: Infantry, Armour, Mechs and Airborne.



Infantry and Armour are pretty self explanatory: the first category consists of armed humanoid beings and the second of heavy combat land vehicles, typically tracked but sometimes with hover capabilities. Mechs in turn are relatively large, bipedal combat crewed robots with great mobility on the battlefield. Last but not least, Airborne troops consist of atmospheric strike-craft capable of striking quick and hard anywhere on a planet. Even if each troop in the game has a set type, each is different from all others, both visually and mechanically. Speaking of stats, besides the obvious Hit Points, there are Soft, Hard and Air attacks, plus Defense and Initiative. Each troop type is more vulnerable against at least one type of attack: the most obvious example of this are Airborne units, which are most vulnerable to Air Attacks. Defense works as a chance to prevent damage and can be improved through different techs for each troop type. Ground battles are fought with an active time system which works like a fractioned RTS. The Initiative of a troop indicates how often it can move or attack, so the higher the Initiative; the more mobile and deadly the troop can be. Finally, troops of course need to move across the galaxy, and you will need Transports / Freighters for this (the same which are used for moving resources, as covered in a previous dev diary). Thus logistically it is very important to manage their availability, to ensure both the resource pooling and the unimpeded movement of your armies. Invasions Once all orbital defenses of a Colony are destroyed, if the fleet carries troops for the task, a planetary invasion can commence. Invasions are the main part of ground battles, as you will always be either attacking or defending a colony. The maximum number of attacking troops allowed per invasion depends on the garrison size, which in turn depends on the size of the planet involved. First a Set Up Phase starts, which can last up to 30 seconds (this depends on difficulty), where you need to place your troops across the surface of the planet, which is divided in hexes. This hexagonal territory might be composed of land or some liquid like lava or water. Only Airborne troops can be placed on non land based hexagonal territories. The player can also use an Autodeploy function, that will automatically deploy the available troops. Once both the player and AI deploy their troops, the proper Battle Phase will commence. On this phase, you order the troops to either move or assault any hexagonal territory. You can only do this once the troops Initiative bar has filled up and this, as explained in an earlier section depends on the troops stats. The side that is able to eliminate the opposing forces will win the battle.
Bombardment A Fleet might choose to bomb the planet first or even after an invasion. In order to do this, it must have starships equipped with bombs and have enough ordnance stored to use them. It is important to point out though, that a fleet can only move, attack, bombard, invade, settle or build (depending on its abilities) once per turn. There are many different bomb modules in the game, however they differ from each other not only in their strength and cost, but also in their efficiency versus troops, installations and populations. Some like the Xenophage Bomb, are ideal to destroy the population of a Colony, while a relatively more primitive Fusion Bomb is in contrast more useful against Installations and Troops. It all depends if you want to take the Colony with at least some infrastructure intact, or if you just want to remove the enemy from the planet. Regardless of the case, the player must take into account the diplomatic ramifications of any planetary bombardment, as this will generate negative modifiers for all other factions in the galaxy. Only a historic rival of the victim faction will ignore such a clear case of attempted genocide in the galaxy.
We will be back next week on Monday 9th with a new dev diary on Diplomacy & Trade! https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-12-03 16:53:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Once again it is time for another Astra Exodus dev diary! This time we will focus on the many types of events you can encounter while playing as well as the DataNet, which serves as the games notification system. All of this is designed to breathe life into the galaxy, the lore behind it and increase replayability.

The DataNet

Practically speaking, the DataNet holds the notifications the player receives about the issues, aspects and decisions that require his or her attention. These can be as mundane as a colonys empty build queue or a warning that youre not researching any technology. They can also be quite complex and engaging, like an incoming diplomatic message from another faction, which requires a response in order to progress with the game. More importantly, its mainly through the DataNet that you will find out about the many galactic events that can be triggered while playing the game.

Exploration Events

While exploring the galaxy, your scouts will encounter all manner of strange phenomena. We already talked about things like Supernovas and Wormholes in the void, but Exploration Events represent the discovery of even stranger things on the surface of alien planets or orbiting strange stars. For example, any of your wandering fleets might encounter a band of friendly smugglers who will decide to join your faction, adding their freighters to your cause. Or possibly they could run into an incredible substance called Xenobiomass, which can greatly increase the materials production in one of your planets. Other more mundane exploration events can also be found, such as Hibernations Pods, that provide extra population to one of your colonies, or the discovery of a Splinter Outpost that will immediately rejoin your empire. There are many of these events available for you to find, however the AI can also scout these out and if you fall behind in the exploration game you might miss out on many of them.

Random Events

With an even greater impact than Exploration Events, galactic-wide Random Events (also called Galactic Crises), can also happen occasionally. These are so massive that affect all the factions in the galaxy, regardless of where they start. These often offer some insight on the work of the enigmatic progenitors and include some truly gameplay altering effects, such as the Progenitor Mindprobe. A psychic pulse from an unknown source that sweeps the galaxy, putting all heroes out of commission for a while, regardless if they are active or not. Another dangerous example is the Subspace Anomaly. This event effectually reduces the Hyperspace range of all starships by half, thus possibly cutting off entire regions from the rest of the galaxy. Regardless of the random event however, the player always has the option to research a corresponding special tech. Once researched, it serves to nullify the events effects to the players faction, effectively granting an advantage over all others. Finally, it is worth it to mention that you can adjust the frequency of these events on the game rules panel when starting a Skirmish game.

Narrative Events

Narrative Events are only available in Skirmish Mode, since the Campaign already has its own narrative systems. They serve to highlight the many milestones the player goes through in any regular game. From colonizing the first world to a first contact (and interstellar war maybe), to discovering the whole galaxy. Each one of these events has a plaque (pretty image), with a text incorporating the details of the current context of the faction.
We will be back next Tuesday with a new Dev Diary, this time on Ground combat! Dont miss it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-11-26 16:47:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back to another Astra Exodus dev diary! Today we are going to go over the pausable real-time space battles.

Base Concepts

Whenever two hostile fleets engage each other a real-time space battle will take place. It is marked on the star map with a red target over a star system. This can happen while exploring, when you encounter galactic menaces, and more generally when a colony, outpost or fleet is attacked. Then the player can either retreat, auto-resolve or fight it out as a tactical battle. When a Colony is under attack, depending on whether or not it has orbital defense installations, the defensive force will be bolstered by a static weapons platform. There are several types of these platforms available, from small Orbital forts to gigantic Stellar bastions and supporting Spacedromes with their strike-craft squadrons. One of the most important factors to consider is that Armour and Shield damage is directional. This means that there is one section per facing (bow, starboard, etc.) for these defenses which you then have to wear down before actually damaging a starship. This obviously means that maneuvering, fire arcs and facing become quite important. Fleets can have up to 49 ships each, meaning that a single battle can have close to 100 starships in total, not to mention any strike-craft squadrons that might have launched. Each of these fleets can be under the command of an Admiral, who, thanks to his or her skills, will surely impact the outcome of the fight.

Battle Management

The selection and command of units in Astra Exodus follow standard RTS practices. You click and drag to select a group of ships, generate control groups with control plus a number and right click to execute a context command, like move or attack. Time Dilation controls are an important tool to manage the battle flow and allow tactics to be properly executed. This allows you to slow down the action to a total stop, or speed it up to accelerate time. In practice this means that if the player is overwhelmed at any point, he or she can simply press the Space Bar to totally stop the action and give any orders in the meantime. This system allows for the tactical depth required by the starship design system, without forgoing the spectacularity of real time battles that can hopefully be a blast (no pun intended!) to watch as they are to play.
There are some basic orders available to all starships. These are Halt, Retreat and Hunt Strike-craft. The first two are quite self explanatory, however it is worthy of mention how the Retreat order functions. Your ship will break away from battle, head towards the closest edge of the battlefield and open a Hyperspace jump point. It will be vulnerable in the meantime. The Hunt Strike-craft order will command the ship to target the closest enemy strike-craft squadron target and engage it as soon as possible.

Starship Abilities

Starships can also have special abilities available according to the modules they have installed. These can have a Passive or Active effect on the battle, meaning that in some cases they apply their effects at all times to the ship, while in other cases the player might trigger them, they will work for a given time window and then reset again with time. Passive abilities include things like preventing enemy starships from retreating or reducing the penalty that armour adds to a starships tactical speed. These effects are constant and do not need to be activated. In contrast, Active abilities can be things like engaging a Spatial Compresor to teleport the starship across the battlefield or a Nanite Cloud to repair the ship mid-battle. All passive and most of the active abilities require the presence of a special support module in the starship design.
Among all Active abilities there are those which we can call basic, which only depend on the presence of core systems. These are: Boost Engines, Weapon Overload and Recharge Shields. Boost Engines allows for a starship to increase its speed momentarily at the expense of collapsing any shields available and reducing its weapons damage output. The Weapon Overload ability in contrast drastically reduces speed and shielding while increasing damage output. Finally, the Recharge Shields ability immediately resets a collapsed shield at the expense of speed and damage output. Basically, you are sacrificing all other aspects in order to benefit one, temporarily.
Let us know what you think of these mechanics on either our Facebook or Discord group! We will be back next Tuesday with a new Dev diary of Astra Exodus, this time titled DataNet and Events. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-11-19 16:31:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are back for another dev diary, this time regarding Starship Design. Before we get to the subject at hand, dont forget to join the Discord channel and follow our official Astra Exodus Facebook page, so you can be notified of all the latest news as well as talk with other fellow fans.

Classes, Roles and Sizes

In Astra Exodus all factions have their own classes of Starships. A Class is merely the name for a role and the specific graphics a faction has for it. More specifically, there are 5 military starships, 2 civilian starships and 2 strike-craft roles in Astra Exodus. The military starship roles are: Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship and Titan. Each of these is 1.5 times bigger in relation to the previous one. Each role has different characteristics that allow it to excel above others. Frigates are cheap, fast and hard to hit giving their size. Destroyers have additional anti strike-craft weapon mount points, so they excel at escorting bigger ships. Cruisers are jack-of-all-trades yet masters of none, being able to tackle many jobs if designed correctly. Battleships have tons of heavy weapon mount points and armour; however, they lack defenses against smaller ships. Finally, Titans have tremendous firepower and armour, yet they are severely lacking in maneuvering and speed. They are also the only ones who can mount Massive grade weapons, which are devastating against orbital defense installations. Then we have 2 civilian roles, Constructor and Colonizer, which are approximately as big as a Destroyer and Cruiser approximately. Obviously, as their names indicate, Constructors can build outposts on alien planets and Colonizers can settle them and found new colonies. Finally, strike-craft are a small portion of the size of a Frigate, come in squadrons of 5, and can either be Fighters or Bombers. Bombers are fitted to engage capital ships, while Fighters are mainly best employed to counter enemy bombers, although they can also pose a threat to bigger ships in large enough numbers.

Weapon, Core and Support Modules

After picking a Class, in order to create a Starship Design you need to fill it with modules (like weapons, armours, engines, generators, and much more). In Astra Exodus you have 3 types of modules: Weapons, Core and Support. Weapons are quite self-explanatory: they serve to pummel the enemy, but they can also be further categorized in Beam, Particle, Missile and Mass weapons. Each Weapon has its own characteristics, but certain types tend to excel in certain areas. For example, Beam weapons tend to do extra damage against armour and have average range, while Mass weapons have a high rate of fire but poor accuracy. All the weapons are always placed on a mount point within a starship. This is a logical and visual representation of where the weapon is located on the ships structure or hull.
Mount points have 5 grades: Micro, Light, Main, Heavy and Massive. The larger the mount point, the more powerful the weapon mounted in that spot will be. However, it will also be less accurate and have a smaller field of fire. Also, Micro mounted weapons are the only ones that can target strike-craft. Not all weapons can fit all mounts, so youll have to pick wisely if you want to fit all the mount points on an optimal design.
Core Modules or Systems are essential to any starship. They can be categorized in: Engines, Hull, Armour and Shields. The most critical are the Engines, without one of these modules a Starship Design will never be valid. Hull modules serve to reinforce the structure, adding additional hit points to the ship. Armour instead provide directional defense, meaning it defends the starship from a certain facing (port, starboard, etc), at the expense of additional weight and thus a slower tactical speed. Shields also provide directional defense, but in this case at the expense of power consumption. They also collapse with each section (one per facing) destroyed, requiring a small time window to reset, during which the ship is vulnerable.
Finally we have many types of support modules. Things like Generators, Capacitors, ECM Suites and Bombs fall into this category. Generators are used to power the ship, while Capacitors are required for Beam and Particle weapons to function. This is in contrast with Missile and Mass weapons, which require ordnance storage holds to be installed. ECM Suites enable the starship to avoid enemy fire by reducing the accuracy of their weapons. Bombs serve to bomb planets, although one must be careful with their use, as that can carry a significant diplomatic cost. There are many other Support module types, but the most important are the ones classified as Special. These alter the game rules in some way, not necessarily combat related. For example, the Trading Holds special module allows your ships to generate income while being idle. Then there is the Subspace Web, which grants the ship the ability to temporarily immobilize a target. All the Support Modules have a value indicating how much space they occupy aboard a ship: the bigger this ship is the more space it will have and thus the more modules it will be able to fit. This is balanced by the fact that the more weapons/shields/engines/etc a ship has, the more support modules will require, so bigger ships will not always benefit the most out of this.

Battle Tactics

Once you have selected a Class and installed all the required modules you will still need to select a name and most importantly a battle tactic. This setting defines the behaviour a ship will have when given an attack order against any target. There are 4 different battle tactics in the game: Engage, Assault, Harass and Disengage. The default tactic is Engage, in which the starship will automatically maintain optimum firing distance, with a frontal facing to the enemy. This is better served for slow-moving Battleships and Titans. In contrast, with the Assault tactic a starship will maintain movement at all times, going towards and past the target; in strike-craft like runs. This tactic works best for small starships, like Frigates and Destroyers. The Harass tactic has the ship orbiting the target at maximum range, trying to maintain the most distance with it, while nibbling at it with long range weaponry. This long-range tactic is better suited for carriers or missile cruisers. Finally there is the Disengage tactic, which is used mainly for civilian ships. This will trigger an automatic hyperspace retreat, the moment the ship comes into sensor range with the enemy.
Let us know what you think of this dev diary and on Astra Exodus starship design system! We will be back next week with a new dev diary. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-11-12 16:54:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back to yet another rambling Astra Exodus dev diary! Today we will be talking about Heroes and Espionage. If youd like to discuss this dev diary with other fellow fans, please join the new Discord channel by clicking here.

Heroes

Heroes are very important characters in the galactic community, whose experience and capabilities make them incredibly powerful allies to have (in return of a hefty contract fee and salary of course). It is also through Heroes that we can have a look at the larger galaxy. From the Academy of Talos to the Wunet Confederacy and the Quantum Nebula, the backstory of each hero helps shape this narrative. In Campaign mode Heroes are unlocked by completing missions, while on Skirmish mode Heroes will randomly offer their services to you, either spontaneously or once you find them while exploring the galaxy, stranded on forgotten planets. Regardless of how they become available to you, you will have to pay a hiring fee plus their monthly salary. Heroes in the Campaign will wait for you as long as it takes to be hired, however in Skirmish mode many will get tired of waiting and might withdraw their offer. In a regular game you can have up to 4 Heroes at your service at one time. However, there are factions traits that both increase and decrease this number. Each hero has three possible roles to play: they can be either an Admiral, Governor or an Operative. Admirals, as the name indicates, are experienced starship leaders. Admirals will grant advantages (for instance, bonus damage against menaces) to any ships in their fleet. Governors on the other hand focus their efforts on more earthly pursuits, providing aid to your star systems (for example, by increasing the systems morale). Finally, Operatives provide you with a way to wage war through more subtle ways (by sabotaging the enemy colonies for example, deep behind the main battle lines).

Skills

Heroes can achieve results thanks to their Skills. Each hero can have up to 4 Skills and usually most if not all are heavily related to his or her role in the game. The more skills a hero has, the more expensive his or her services will be. While in service, a Hero will gain experience and eventually levels. With each level gained, out of which there are 10 to gain per hero, you get two Skill Points to spend. These can be used to level up specific skills (up to level ten), significantly improving their effect on the game. This means you will have to decide which skills to level up and which to neglect according to your needs.

Espionage

The Espionage system lets the player fight and protect from damage without using his or her military units. As previously mentioned, Operatives are the only heroes who have the skills required to conduct espionage missions. There are seven types of espionage missions available in the game:, Sabotage, Counterespionage, Hacking, Stealing, Assassination, Rebellion and Demolition. A Sabotage mission has a chance of destroying an enemy starship at random. Counterespionage in turn is used to defend, as it decreases the chance of enemy operatives being successful in their missions. Through Hacking you can extract a technology from a foreign power, while Stealing is the same concept but it applies to treasure instead. Assassination, as the name implies, revolves around killing an enemy hero. However, thanks to cloning technology, their death does not have to be permanent. Then there is Rebellion, which can turn a Colony against its own government. Last but not least the Demolition mission involves the destruction of an enemy installation at random.
We will be back next week for another dev diary of Astra Exodus! https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-11-05 16:47:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are opening a Discord channel for Astra Exodus. It will be the place to talk with the devs. Atomic Kaiser, and the publisher about the game and its development, and ask us all the questions youd like. You can join here. Well see you there! https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-10-30 13:58:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back to another dev diary of the retro-inspired galactic conquest strategy game, Astra Exodus. This time we'll analyze the research system, including its semi randomization and technology classification. Also, dont forget: you can currently sign-up for the Beta. If youd like to help us with giving your honest feedback on the current version of the game, you can apply here.

Research Grid

The Research Grid can seem quite complex when first encountered, but it is simpler than it looks. You have 9 Research Fields, which are large classifications of technologies with several levels of depth, plus two other categories called Specializations and Special techs. The 9 basic Research Fields on the game are called:

• Construction
• Defenses
• Engineering
• Government
• Power
• Production
• Resources
• Troops
• Weapons

Without going into specifics: the Construction, Production and Resources fields focus on improving Colonies, while Defenses, Weapons, Engineering and Power allow for the research of new corresponding modules for your starships. Finally, the Troops field, as the name indicates, serves to unlock new troop types and improve the existing ones. In turn, each Research Field has 7 different progressive levels in which you must research at least one tech from each level before progressing to the next one. Through traditional research, you will only be able to discover one tech per level. However, you can trade for other techs of the same level if the AI is willing and actually researched a different one from that level. All the levels are randomized, with the exception of the first and last levels,meaning that in a regular game, out of a possible set of five different techs, you will only get three at random to pick only one from. There are faction traits, however, that either increase or decrease this number of available techs. This system is designed to make player choices more meaningful, while also enhancing the games replayability. Finally, almost all of the late-game techs, which belong to level seven of each Research Field, are repeatable, giving an increased, cumulative effect each time they are researched. This guarantees that you will never run out of techs to research.

Specializations

As previously mentioned, one category of techs is called Specializations. This one is focused on improving starship modules by enabling Modifiers for them. These modifiers can greatly enhance the effects of a module, while also increasing its cost and power requirements. For example, in a weapon module, a modifier might increase its fire rate or in the case of an armor core system, another can even reduce its tactical speed penalty. Specialization techs are not distributed in levels but in groups, these groups correspond to the major module types. They are then:

• Armour
• Beam Weapons
• Engines
• Hull
• Mass Weapons
• Missile Weapons
• Particle Weapons
• Shields
• Support Modules

Each of these groups has 4 techs available to research in a specific progressive order. The number of specialization techs that can be researched at any time is determined by the Specialization Picks value, which increases by 2 each time you complete a level in the 9 research fields by researching at least one tech of said level. As the name indicates, this system is designed for the specialization of starships and thus completing a group to enable all modifiers of a said module category, is generally the best strategy.

Special Techs

Last but not least, the game has a category called Special Techs. This system works differently depending on whether or not you are playing the Campaign or in Skirmish mode. In the Campaign, it is here where you will find the techs unlocked as rewards for completing Optional and Secondary mission objectives at certain difficulties.
In Skirmish mode,you will find the techs that serve to negate the adverse effects of Galactic Eventsin the Special Techscategory. These events are in general pretty bad for all players, for example, Lithovore Microbes can attack the galaxy and greatly reduce the materials production galaxy-wide. Thus by researching the counter technology available in the Special Techs category you can avoid the effects of this galactic event whenever it happens. Special Techs are enabled only when you first encounter the event they are designed to prevent. Well talk more about Events in general, including Galactic level ones, in a future dev diary. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-10-29 14:48:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone. I am Fernando, aka Atomic Kaiser, here again to ramble about Astra Exodus. Before we move on to the subject of the dev diary, let me remind you that we are currently looking for Beta testers, so if youd like to have early access to the game and help us with providing feedback, youre more than welcome! You can join here. And now, on to the dev diary! This time well look into the resources and construction system, and have a passing look at how colonies work.

Resources

The game has 4 main resources related to construction. These are Food, Metals, Organics and Rares. Food is obviously required to feed your colonists, without it there wont be any growth and given enough turns it could even lead you losing laborers, severely affecting the Colony and potentially its ability to construct projects. Metals, Organics and Rares are classified as Materials in the game. They are used in the construction of starships, installations and troops. They can also be employed in terraforming or even converted into credits or research, thanks to special projects available from the start. The availability of each resource depends on the planet the Colony was settled on and any Peculiarities it might have. The main factor here is the class of the Planet, as well as things like size and gravity rating which might greatly affect its potential for construction. For example, Swamp planets are rich in Organics but lack Rares and Metals, however one with a large enough size and normal gravity can still be used to construct efficiently if materials are mined from other planets. Mining is the process from which you extract the Materials for construction. For this you need to assign laborers as Miners, which use any installations on the Colony and tech/trait effects you might have to multiply the amount extracted. However, any resources extracted from outside of your home star system has to be freighted across your civilization, so youre going to need Freighters for this.

Colonies

Through the use of Colonizer class starships you can create Colonies on different worlds. They host your people and thus expand your reach across the galaxy. The population of a Colony is classified in 5 different professions. These are: Farmer, Miner, Worker, Trader and Scientist. As their name suggests, Farmers produce Food and Miners materials. Workers are used to generate Construction and thus build colony projects. Traders can increase the colonys credit income by generating commerce on top of the existing tax revenue. Finally Scientists produce Research which is used to discover technologies. As explained previously, all these base values depend on the planet and can be increased by constructing installations on the Colony and researching new technologies. Finally, Food and Materials are shared between all colonies and they required for their growth and construction of projects; a priority must then be set to decide which of them fulfils its needs. The player must do this through the Colonies screen, where he or she can set the order in which they receive resources from the pool.

Construction

Construction is generated by your Workers and used to advance and complete any current project being built in the colony. As all other resources, it can be improved through colony installations and technologies researched. Any project being built requires materials, which depending on the availability of them on the Colony will determine the Materials Efficiency the project has. This percentage effectively affects the number of turns a project will take to complete. For instance, if you generate 5 Construction per turn in the Colony and you have a colony project with an industrial cost of 20 and 50% materials efficiency, the project will take 6 turns to be completed. If you had more resources and/or prioritized that Colony, with a 100% materials efficiency that very same project would take instead 4 turns. Finally there is Pollution to take into consideration. The higher your Construction output is, the more of it you will lose thanks to pollution. You can however build installations and research technologies to mitigate this effect. Materials efficiency is not affected by it, so it can often be a better alternative to get more resources for a project than adding more workers to the project.
We will be back next week for new dev diary with a thorough look at the research system. Stay tuned! https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-10-22 15:12:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back to another Astra Exodus dev diary! My name is Fernando and today we are going to talk about a little about the galactic map and everything on it: from anomalies to menaces and fleets. But first I wanted to mention that we are now running the Beta for Astra Exodus, so if you're willing to lend a hand and give your honest feedback, please feel free to apply! We'd love to have you on board. You can apply here.

Star Systems

The main feature of the map are the star systems, which host the planets youll want to expand to. There are multiple types of stars, depending on which they can host different types of planets. This of course can be tweaked to your liking in the galaxy settings in Skirmish mode. When a Star system is scouted, an Exploration Event might fire, with different effects for the first player that does so. For example you can come across an orbital terraformer, which when fired will terraform a nearby planet for you. However, well talk more and in depth about these on a following dev diary.
Star systems can have up to 5 colonizable planets, out of which there are many types, each with different characteristics, like how much food or metals they produce. They also have a size and gravity rating, which will affect the Habitability of the Planet and thus the base Morale of any future colonists. Well cover planet types in more detail in a future entry. Last but not least, planets can have a Peculiarity, something that differentiates it from all others of its class. One example would be the presence of Ancient Robots which automatically work for any colony settled there, giving it extra production. Another example is a Natural Wonder, which increases the default morale of any colonists on the planet.

Menaces

As you explore the galaxy you will eventually run into other non player factions in the form of hostile fleets that have taken over entire star systems. These are usually the most attractive systems for the player, as they might be mineral-rich and be abundant in resources, possibly even having a Peculiarity on a planet. This serves as a way to engage the player in space combat without entering a large-scale war against a major faction. The threat these menaces represent and the form they take varies: it might be pirates, which focus on small strike-craft to harass your capital starships, or maybe highly shielded ancient probes, with powerful beam weaponry. Its worth mentioning that the AI will face the same menaces as you do, so in that sense all players face the same challenge, when exploring and expanding across the galaxy.

Anomalies

We know that space is a vast and strange place in general, but sometimes it is even worse than we thought. In Astra Exodus you can find Anomalies, which show up on the map and alter the game rules in some way. There are several types of Anomalies you can find. One of these types of anomalies are Wormholes, which connect distant star systems, allowing fleets to travel between them almost instantaneously (in only one turn). Other more complex types of anomaly are Black Holes and Supernovas. Black Holes greatly reduce the Hyperspace Rating, meaning the rate at which starships travel between star systems, of your fleets; when they come within a 10 sector range of them. This represents the immense gravity pull of these anomalies, which in the game extends beyond regular space into hyperspace. Supernovas in turn hide all moving fleets from enemy sensors, making them both an asset and a liability when waging war. All of these adverse effects can be negated by researching the corresponding technology, if available on the Research Grid. Well talk more about researching and the grid on a future entry.
We will be back next week with a new Dev Diary on Construction and Resources! Let us know what you think, or if you have any questions, by posting on the forum. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-10-15 15:33:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey guys, Fernando aka Atomic Kaiser here again to ramble about this little crazy thing called Astra Exodus. This time we are going to talk about the two gameplay modes: Campaign and Skirmish. Before we start, I just wanted to say that we are looking for Beta testers. Your feedback is important to us, so if youd like to have early access to the game, which is already fully playable, and offer your honest opinion about it, wed be very thankful! You can apply here. CAMPAIGN It is not that often that you find a full fledged campaign in a 4X game, even less so one that is dynamic, which means that it reacts to player choices. You will affect the story in significant ways, depending on how you play each of the campaign missions. In the story you are a Commander tasked with finding out what happened during the Exodus and youll need to discover the location of Earth. That goal will be always present during the whole story arc, but how you get there and why will change depending on your decisions. Each mission in the game has a set of objectives and some will be exclusive with each other, in the sense that you can only complete one of them. This presents you with choices you need to take and will inevitably impact which mission you get next on the campaign. In other words, you can never play all the missions of the campaign in one playthrough, since many missions can be accessed only by making certain choices.
Additionally, there are secondary and optional objectives to complete which grant rewards to those willing to tackle them. These can include special technologies and even additional debriefings with exclusive art, which expand the story behind the campaign and the game. The availability of these though depends on difficulty, meaning you will only get rewards from the Captain difficulty onwards. There might be an additional surprise as well, to those willing to beat the game on its highest difficulty...
SKIRMISH So. You have reunited humanity in the campaign (or not) and you are ready for a different challenge? Then why not try playing as the Guardians of the Seed, expanding your roots across the galaxy, until you can achieve an Ascension Victory; evolving your population from vegetable bags to pure energy beings. This is just one of many possibilities in Skirmish. Skirmish mode in Astra Exodus is all about giving the player options, from the galaxy map, to the game rules (including victory conditions) and factions involved; everything can be tweaked to your liking. You can set the galaxy size, shape, planets and their richness. There are also options to speed up or slow down research, adjust events frequency and even to start with a more primitive/advanced situation. You can also tweak the difficulty, frequency of galactic menaces and enable the Starmarine Mode - which is our name for the infamous Iron Man mode, in which youre not allowed to save.
You can also set the Victory Conditions, which are probably the most important setting you can pick here. Astra Exodus has four: Galactic Conquest, Diplomatic Alliance, Evolutionary Ascension and Score Supremacy. Beyond the obvious conquest and score based conditions, an alliance victory requires you to ally with most (all but one) of the factions in the galaxy at the same time. Finally the Ascension victory condition in turn requires you to research and build Ascension Chambers in your colonies, a very costly late game colony installation, which serves to transition your colonists to their next stage of evolution as energy beings. Besides picking the faction you want to play as as well as those of your opponents, you can also customize whichever you choose; to be exactly to your liking. This includes changing the graphics, lore and traits that embody the faction. This can be done from within the game interface, without any external modding (which the game also supports). In any case you will get to pick how your ships look, the emblem / logo of your faction, name, etc. The most important system to mention here probably are the traits, which can greatly affect how the game is played. They vary from modifying how many resources per labourer you get, to the ability to start the game with the whole map explored or even for your colonists to be immune to pollution.
What do you think about this weeks dev diary? Let us know how you feel, and if you have any questions please feel free to shoot them. We will be back next week on Tuesday with a new dev diary. This time we will talk about the Galactic map!

[ 2019-10-08 12:18:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Atomic Kaiser is here again for another dev diary, this time speaking of the games visual direction. THE AESTHETICS Following that sense of 90s reverence behind the gameplay, the game goes for a visual aesthetic inspired by the 90s, with a heavy emphasis on bright colouring, from how characters look to the universe itself. We feel this not only captures the decade well, but also makes the game stand out against other titles. All of this of course reflects heavily on the user interface, which is designed to have large immersive panels and controls, which hopefully keep selling the theme we are aiming for. We also feel that the presence of advisors on all main panels, which are characters that give you tips on how to manage the many aspects of the game, will help players immersing themselves in a 4X playing style typical of the 90s.
THE CHARACTERS Regarding characters themselves, the game adheres to a more Star Trek-like paradigm, where the humanoid type is the most common in the universe. So this is the case for most of the species represented in the main factions of the game. This helps one to imagine all these different species interacting with each other in believable ways, like hanging out in a bar for example, instead of avoiding contact or outright exterminating each other. This is also based on some actual scientific theories.
THE STARSHIPS There are multiple classes of starships in the game and each faction gets their own unique design style. In general my intention was for all ships to show at a first look (both in terms of shape and colouring) what faction they belong to. From the bulky irregular asymmetrical designs of the Veloran Horde, to the utilitarian almost freighter-like look of the Okli-to Consortium vessels, all designs aim to be iconic.
THE MUSIC From a personal taste point of view (very partial towards classic science-fiction shows like Star Trek) I always prefer classical music with my space adventures. Thus in Astra Exodus, instead of going with the obvious space techno / electronic feel often offered by other sci-.fi games, you will find orchestral music more often than anything else. The music always tries to convey a sense of epicness and scale, even if only of the emptiness of space. It varies with how the game is proceeding, depending on whether or not you are peacefully exploring, youre at war or even mid-battle. Join us next week to find out more about the Skirmish and Campaign modes on the game. If you're interested, were looking for Beta testers to help us refine the game and get feedback on it. If you feel like giving a hand, why not apply here. Thank you!

[ 2019-10-01 15:27:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everybody, I am Fernando, from Atomic Kaiser studio, the Game Designer behind Astra Exodus. This entry will serve as the first of a series of dev diaries. Our goal is to show & tell you about some of the qualities of the game, design decisions taken for it and many more (hopefully) interesting tidbits of information regarding its development. In the first dev diary we are going to talk about the main design philosophy behind the game and a bit about its story or lore, highlighted on the games campaign. THE DESIGN The game was first designed as a sort of love letter to the classics of the 4X genre, such as Pax Imperia and Masters of Orion, by trying to take the best elements out of those games and extrapolating them in the same direction a game designed in the 90s maybe would have. That means that if you played any of the classics from the 90s you will find many of the systems of Astra Exodus familiar. But of course Astra Exodus introduces many new features, like a large dynamic campaign, semi-randomized research grids, tactical ground battles, and much more! A feature Id like to highlight here, before moving on to the story, is real-time tactical space battles. Astra Exodus is not the first game to have them, but normally in other games they either devolve into intense high APM RTS systems or they sacrifice the tactical part. Astra Exodus aims to avoid these pitfalls, mainly thanks to two systems: A) a highly usable time dilation system and B) directional damage to defenses. All battles start in slow mode, which is almost like a pause, here you can give your orders and speed up the battle only when ready. You can of course do this to your liking, speeding up or slowing down the game as you wish. With directional damage to defenses, position and angle of attack are paramount, as only by hitting unarmoured and unshielded ship sections can you damage the targets hull and eventually destroy the enemy ship. In combination, these systems guarantee that youll have the time to make tactically important choices while in battle.
THE STORY The story behind the game starts with a mysterious catastrophe on Earth, which forces humanity to embark on a massive exodus to survive. This is of course the reason behind the games title. Millenia after this event, the player takes the role of Commander in the Terran Republic, which is a government formed by the descendants of humanity, with the aim of rediscovering their history and most of all, their original home. You will be under the command of Marissa Garibaldi, a tough by-the-book High Admiral on the TRN, who is also an awakened: an Earth-born who was cryogenically preserved until awakened on Terra, millenia later.
I could write for hours on the story and the campaign, but in order not to spoil anything and since there will be another dev diary focused on the story, I will just close this first entry with the introduction to the games main campaign: "They came out of the darkness, to the light of our progress, unstoppable and relentless; they crashed against our bravery. Then only thanks to the Keepers, the Exodus began and through the Great Eye, we found salvation from the Dark Ones. However the curse followed us, as strife, conflict and fratricide plagued our ancestors, among the cold void. Then in a blink of an eye, lost to the stars, somewhere between the Great Eye and final salvation; our brothers were. In the end, as our hope was almost extinguished, final salvation was found; when we set foot in what we know call Terra. Such is the tale of the Exodus, of the burning of our home, the tragedy of our brothers and rebirth of our people." - Leopold Garibaldi, First President of the Terran Republic Extract from Terra's Exodus Legacy Archives Come back next week, when well be talking about the games Artistic Vision.

[ 2019-09-24 10:36:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.04.09 Changes

+ Increased all Special, event related techs, research costs to 200 + Disable adding multiple industry conversion projects to a build queue + Made sure the Housing Construction build project is disabled on colonies that are almost full + Fixed a bug in which finishing a Housing Construction project didn't adjust colony values + Fixed a bug in which blackholes were not being taken into account when calculating ETA + The Colony shrinking notification now takes the player directly to the colony panel + Made sure production efficiency is clearly seen current build sub panel, plus improved the button sprites there + Added base growth and hunger rates to globals.lua file, plus industrial projects cost. + Fixed a bug in which the custom stardate was not being loaded correctly from the globals file + Added to the colony UI the amount of food imported and added/updated tooltips accordingly + Fixed a bug in which changing the labour food distribution, was not being updated between colonies, when one of them was hungry + Fixed a bug in which the Farmers trait caused some food values to show up incorrectly on the colony screen + Added a shrink in tag to the colony screen, when the colony is actually shrinking + Fixed a bug in which the estimated turns for the colony growing/shrinking were incorrectly calculated + Now it is shown how much food/materials are lacking for growing/production, when they are negative due to consumption

[ 2019-07-28 21:13:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.04.08 Changes

+ Added the game version id to saves + Fixed a bug in which the AI was getting non valid updated designs for free + Fixed a bug related to AI only ship designs, which were not valid, when loading a game save + Improved game load performance + Fixed a bug related to the loading of game saves, from the new persistence path, on non windows builds + Adjusted the logo and related animations, on the main menu screen + Fixed the order of the colony build projects list, according to its new filter control

[ 2019-07-28 21:11:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.04.07 Changes

+ Improved the Starmarine mode save file and made sure to save at turn 1 just in case as well + Fixed the tooltip for the Supernova and Blackhole fleet indicators, which were not showing up + Fixed a bug in which the selected fleet panel was not showing the affected by blackhole/supernova indicators + Fixed a bug in which ships sometimes shooted off when retreating from battle + The Main menu base overlay was redone to include new branding images + Fixed a bug related to AI custom starship designs, which were being kept after restarting a game + Added a Helptip for the new colony build projects panel filter control + Added a control for filtering out construction projects on the colony build projects panel + Fixed a bug on firing Alien Device exploration event for a modded game + Adjusted game persistence path to follow publisher guidelines + Adjusted game versioning to follow publisher guidelines + Modified the Load Game panel in game, to have a back button like all others + Changed old branding images for new ones, on the the main game screen and panels + Improved space battle scene loading by removing unnecessary objects + Fixed a bug that was preventing player placement on Large Barrel Spiral galaxies + Fixed a bug that was preventing the effect of installations/traits in the removal of pollution + Decreased the per worker pollution in a colony + Increased the minimum possible Morale level of a colony + Increased the resulting value of the corruption formula, as to reduce the research rate of colonies + Rebalanced tech costs, so research is slower by default and the player has more time to use new modules

[ 2019-07-07 21:07:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Slitherine and Atomic Kaiser are partnering in the development of a new 4X strategy game, Astra Exodus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2dNNr6K_n4 Astra Exodus is a single player turn-based Sci-fi 4X strategy game inspired by classics such as Star Control. It features a multiple-choice narrative driven epic campaign, top down real time tactical battles and an extensive semi-randomized research grid. Take the chance to lead humanity back home, while uncovering the mysteries behind the Exodus, across a choice driven narrative campaign. Or otherwise, challenge yourself in the Sandbox mode, by leading any of the various alien factions to several possible victory conditions.
Throughout the strategic campaign you will find yourself fighting for supremacy against other alien empires. Experience intense deep tactical battles where you will need to outsmart and outmaneuver your opponents!
Starships in Astra Exodus can be completely customized at will. You can create your own ship designs by choosing from over 100 modules.
Moreover, Astra Exodus is built with modding in mind. Tinker, change and customize the game to your heart's content. Adding new or modifying existing starships, factions, troops, technologies, and virtually everything to the game. Astra Exodus is due to release on PC and Steam later this year! For more information please refer to the product page. Last but not least, we are looking for Beta Testers willing to give a feedback and help us hunting for bugs. You can join the Beta by applying here. https://store.steampowered.com/app/880750/Astra_Exodus/

[ 2019-07-01 14:40:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.4.6 Changes

+ Decreased the in battle fleet formation offset, so ships start formed up closer together + Increased the base evasion for smaller ships, so they survive better against larger ships + Doubled the structure, armour and shields hit points for all starship classes + Changed the Might format text to use K convention for Starships, Designs and Fleets + Fixed a bug on the ship design screen, in which Modules failed to be selected, when you removed one from multiples + Fixed the Subspace Web effect, so it looks better on bigger ships + Optimized starship battles performance by avoiding the creation of unneeded gameobjects + Fixed a bug on big ships, in which a damaged section's shader, showed an all black sprite. + Added fighters/bombers to a starships Might calculation, to better reflect it's capabilities + Fixed a bug in which the player could land more troops in a Colony than what it supports + Added a sound effect when a troop lands on a colony + Added a button to launch garrisoned troops, that shows up once the player hovers the mouse over them

[ 2019-06-22 19:17:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.4.5 Changes

+ Made the research summary text on the upper main UI bar clickable, so it brings forth the Research screen + Adjusted starship starting positioning offset and improved test battles + Fixed a bug that was returning empty defense fleets, on random test space battles + Fixed a bug which generated unneded scene check on space battles + Added a setting for disabling/enabling the start of a battle on the lowest speed + Fixed the boost engines effect alignment, with the movement vector heading, for defending ships on a battle + Make sure to start all space battles on the slowest speed setting by default + Added a globals.lua file parameter to enable debuging on a build + Fixed a Rare bug related to the galaxy size, stars count and player starting positions which would make galaxy generation fail + Fixed a graphical bug with the Followers of Kala leader for the Hostile stance + Implemented a right click auto diplomacy request deny, from the corresponding DataNet notification + Decreased overall AI sociability, so it doesn't message the player that much (only 12% in the worst case)

[ 2019-06-06 22:16:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.4.4 Changes

+ Adjusted the Freighter and Industrial conversion desire for the AI, as they had too high of a priority + Added collapse system for installed support modules, with a number indicating how many there are of each kind + Fixed a bug that had the AI incorrectly value the desires for a Colony + Adjusted player start distance, so factions start further apart. + Added sound effects, localization and tooltips to the new new focus labor buttons on the colony screen + Included a proper UI for the new focus labor function on the colony screen + Added a focus labor function to the Colony panel, so it optimizes the laborers accordingly + Now colonies automatically start producing a conversion project when idle at turn end

[ 2019-05-19 20:44:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.4.3 Changes

+ Fixed a bug with AI only ground battles autoresolve, which involved somehow invincible troops + Fixed a bug regarding empty AI fleets engaging somehow in battle + Fixed a bug with heroes, when they surpass the experience for their last level and the AI wanted to upgrade them + Added internal AI testing functionalities from the main menu, including randomization of variables + Fixed the colors and order of the factions in the graphs, plus improved the overall screen look + Fixed the Materials/Credits graphs in the Government panel, which were showing incorrect values + Updated the SW mod to be compatible with the latest version + Implemented automatic version description for mods once uploaded to steamworks + Added the mods version to the main menu screen UI + Improved the overall look of the profiles screen + Added tooltips to the previous/next buttons on the mission briefing screen + Added a way to skip the campaign mission briefing on the corresponding panel

[ 2019-05-11 21:39:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.4.2 Changes

+ Adjusted the amount of starsystems, distance between them and presence of planets to improve gameplay + Now the AI should prioritize conversion projects better, focusing for example Housing for new colonies + Added an UI indicator, with a helptip included, to notify the player how many specialization techs can be researched + Now whenever a Hero on assignment is selected, the proper Fleet/Governor will be shown first, on the Heroes main panel + Fixed a bug that happened when calling an Ally to join a war, who didn't already met the target of the war declaration + Improved AI desire for Freighters, so it doesn't build too many of them + Fixed a bug that happened when the AI tried to attack an undefended enemy Outpost + Troops should are now less preferable for the AI, as well as industry conversion projects + The AI now prioritize more expensive projects on the most industrious planetsand viceversa + Fixed bug in which sometimes the player's resources, were being shown as negative + Now on the diplomacy panel, if any faction is selected when opened, it'll be properly highlighted + Fixed wrong morale numbers and colorized them, in the Colonies panel + Now the module panels close, when changing sorting by role or selecting a design, within the Designs panel + Now you can click through the DataNet notification area, to select starsystems to view or when assigning move orders + Fixed a bug that was causing music to be played over the DataVids on the in game videos + Now when DataVids end, the last frame and description are left on screen, for the player to read/view + Fixed a bug that was preventing DataVids from finishing correctly + Improved the description of area of each DataVid, both in the main menu as well as in game

[ 2019-04-28 23:04:52 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.4.1 Changes

+ Made sure to deselect all designs when opening the designs panel + Cleared all non default/standard Starship Design files, plus improved the organization of files + Fixed a Bug related to fleet names and the assignment of admirals, when loading a save game + Blockated colonies now can't rush build projects when blockated by the enemy + Now wormholes are not shown in a starsystem, when going to the planet view + Fixed the Oklito Acahuna Constructor and Nolomin Defender Cruiser Classes, which were missing some sprites + Made sure to shown Infinite or Inf., when the ordnance carried is infinite. The same for heroes on missions. + Improved the graphics and overlay progress bar in the space battle screen + Improved the colony build queue panel UI objects + Adjusted credits and freighters available to the player in the different Era Starts + Fixed a bug that was preventing the lower bar from being hidden, after a space battle, on the starsystem view + Now when first meeting a player, his or her home starsystem will be shown on the map, regardless of range + Fixed bug which was preventing the Fleet or Colony detected from showing up, when first meeting a player + Fixed bug which was making tips less random on start

[ 2019-04-14 19:16:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.4.0 Changes

+ Depurated the Starsystems name list, to remove duplicates and flesh out the more personal ones + Added the occupied freighter space to the Troop tooltip to compare between them + Freighters used for troops, now correctly show up on the the breakdown of available(in use) freighters + When assigning an Admiral or Governor from the corresponding panels, now the Hero screen will select automatically a candidate, if available from those hired + Now the Housing Construction project does not automatically repeat, if the maximum population for the Colony has been reached + Fixed a bug in which ground stats of troops were not set correctly on game setup, when belonging to factions that have relevant traits + Fixed a bug in which faction modifier traits, regarding ground combat, were not being applied correctly after loading a game + Fixed a bug in which troops for certain factions, were set to default color, after loading a game + The Planets panel, in the Starsystem view, now is not hidden if a fleet is selected outside said system + Added an Info button, to read the background lore or file on any hired hero + Fixed the effects of several installations on Pollution/Corruption. For example: Governing Center + Localized and improved the generation/management of fleet names + Improved the overlay in general of the Fleets screen + Added a button to center the galactic view on any selected Fleet to the corresponding panel

[ 2019-04-07 21:46:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.3.9 Changes

+ Disabled hotkeys, for camera and panel manipulation, while typing a save file name + Ground battles now start 5 seconds after all troops have been deployed, either automatically or manually + Adjusted starship/troop UI element values, plus some datanet icons and element selection issues + Fixed a bug that was preventing the player from splitting ships from troops, when the fleet had only one starship + Fixed a bug that was preventing saving, when starting over from a starmarine mode game + Fixed bug with elite starships hull strength, after a game load + Added Starsystem and Date to the space battle screen(battle name) + Added new art in the form of plaques and a new application logo to the game + Fixed a bug with the hero Ancient ability, which was preventing the player from getting the effect + Non upgradeable skills(like ancient) are no longer upgradeable as they should + Now you can use the Esc or middle mouse button to close the selected fleet panel + Corrected spelling and grammar errors on Gametips + Added background variation to the loading panels from the game and battle scenes + Added a system to vary the background screens used when the game starts and a game is starting

[ 2019-03-31 20:35:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.3.8 Changes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ Added a visual notification when the game is automatically saved on the starmarine mode + Improved the troop UI elements used in ground battle panels + Improved the starship UI element used in fleet selection and starsystem battle panels + Expanded and improved the starship tooltip, so it shows big values (in Ks) nicely + Improved the readability of tooltips in general + Adjusted spawn points, so fleets face each other at the start, diagonally across the battlefield + Fixed a bug on the campaign panel, when no profile is selected and the player wants to go back + Improved the Ilumina Starnation logo, which was pixelated at full screen + Fixed a bug in which starship abilities description were not being shown correctly + Changed resources tooltips, so they highlight the value form, with different colours; in all localizations + Added alternating gametips on game start, to improve first time experience with the game + Added a corresponding icon to each possible setting in the BattleSpeed control, within tactical space battles + Added a fade out to the loading screen, used when switching to and from a battle, and a fade in to the main menu + Improved Advice and Gametip texts so they are more readable, specially on smaller screens + Updated the planet indicator UI control icons with new art! + Fixed a graphical artifact with some art assets of the Freudalim Hold + Further reduced the required time for the game to start by improving internal asset loading + Added multiple thread support to loading of graphics and data on startup

[ 2019-03-24 21:16:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version Beta 0.3.7 Changes

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- + Fixed a bug when changing language with a selected profile, it showed the current mission briefing when doing so + Fixed some localizations and adjusted sizes to fit the game nicely + Updated the tutorial with the planet icon click navigation + Improved the shader configuration on many planets so they look better + Improved navigation by making planet icons on the galaxy view clickable + Added several new songs to the different playlists, including a new better one for the briefing + Made sure the correct playlist plays, when going back to the briefing screen, after completing a mission + Fixed a bug in which starship weapons were not prioritizing player given targets + Fixed a bug in which starship weapons were not firing some times, because they think the target is not in the firing arc, when in fact it is + Modified production conversion projects to be repetitive and thus potentially infinite + Reduced the pirate fleet strength on the first mission, which serves as an extended tutorial + Made sure the helptips close when clicking on the colonize/outpost/attack planet buttons + Fixed a bug in which some faction traits, such as Aquatic, were not being applied correctly on game load + Fixed a bug in which a player's resource production, was not correctly being updated after a colony's creation + Improved starsystem view, making sure planets and asteroid fields are always visible, including their correct tooltips + Fixed missing strings issue, on the Research Station, Xeno Bacteria and Tech Rate areas. Also added a Loading game message. + Now if Steam is not available, the Upload button for the mods will not be enabled, even if it is correctly defined + Updated the SW mod to take into account changes to the datanet and localization files + Add a default "No treaties made yet" message to the Government screen when that is the case + Updated Steam API in game UI objects, to use the AE's UI + Now mods update correctly, instead of creating a new Steam item on each upload

[ 2019-03-17 20:59:13 CET ] [ Original post ]