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

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

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

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.

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

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

Quick Designer

Hotseat Multiplayer

New Heroes

Larger Maps

New Galaxy Content

Live Stream

Discount

Version 1.01.04 Changes

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

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?

Globals.lua

/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

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/

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

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

Updates so far

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

Future Plans

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

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

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

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.

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?

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/

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/

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?

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?

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/

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/

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

Traits

Lore

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/

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

Relations, Trust and Threat

Relationship Modifiers

Gifts and Trading

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/

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

Exploration Events

Random Events

Narrative Events

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

Base Concepts

Battle Management

Starship Abilities

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

Weapon, Core and Support Modules

Battle Tactics

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

Skills

Espionage

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/

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

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

Specializations

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

Special Techs

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

Colonies

Construction

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

Menaces

Anomalies

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!

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!

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.

Version Beta 0.04.09 Changes

Version Beta 0.04.08 Changes

Version Beta 0.04.07 Changes

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/

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Features:

• Epic Story Campaign
  Lead the Earth Legacy Task Force through 9 arduous missions, in their Campaign for discovering the lost heritage of Earth, and make decisions that alter the story and gameplay in significant ways; for which you can be rewarded with exclusive and diverse abilities only found in this mode.
  
  
  
• Dynamic Sandbox Mode
  Take charge of one out of 8 different main factions, or create your own in the Sandbox Mode, as you thrive to enslave, exterminate, seduce or right out beat all and any competition. Survive a host of events and menaces, that will surely challenge your empire and all others.
  
  
  
• Battle in Space and on the Ground
  Fight in space and in the ground, with real time tactical space battles, where positioning and heading matters as much as weaponry. And initiative based top down ground battles, with hosts of infantry, armour, strike craft and even mechs. Or just nuke them from orbit, that works just as well.
  
  
  
• Explore captivating Galaxies
  Colonize or conquer a vibrantly diverse galaxy of your choosing, full of wonderful stars, planets, asteroid belts, etc, all inspired by true astronomical phenomena. Maneuver your ships around black holes and supernovas, to either use or avoid their effects, in your conquests.
  
  
  
• Semi-random Research Grid
  Research over 300 technologies, in an exclusive and randomized tech grid, which forces you to choose wisely what you research and guarantees that no two games will be the same. React to events in the galaxy by researching about them and obtaining unique advantages over your enemies.
  
  
  
• Lead through amazing Heroes
  Encounter and recruit amazing galactic heroes, to lead your fleets, govern your colonies or even spy on your enemies! Make havok without firing a single blast, by conducting Sabotage and Revolt, among other operations; deep behind enemy lines.
  
  
  
• Design your own Starships
  Design you own starships, by deciding not only what weapons they carry and in which configuration, but also their Core and Support systems. Overwhelm your opponent with hosts of agile Frigates, swarms of Strike Craft or just with the immense firepower of a single huge Titan.
  
  
  
• Open files for modding
  Tinker, change and customize the game to your heart's content. Adding new or modifying existing starships, factions, troops, technologies, etc to the game. Maybe reenacting then, some of your favourite scifi tv shows and movies moments, right in the game.
  

• OS: Ubuntu 12.04 (64-bit)
• Processor: 2.5 Ghz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 or equivalent
• Graphics: 1 GB nVidia Geforce GT460 or equivalent. 500 MB ATI HD4850 or equivalent
• Storage: 4 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: Minimum Resolution: 1366 x 768

• OS: Ubuntu 14.04 (64-bit)
• Processor: 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i5 or equivalentMemory: 8 GB RAM
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: 1 GB nVidia Geforce GTX660 or equivalent. 1 GB ATI HD7850 or equivalent
• Storage: 4 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: Minimum Resolution: 1366 x 768