Hello everyone, After working on Gala Collider for 3 years since the alpha release, we have finally decided to shut down Gala Collider on Steam and pause the games development. The game has continued to show potential (no design dead ends / good feedback from "the community") but progress building a player base and vibrant community has never made any headway due to the perpetual unfinished state of the game. As weve gone through this year, weve realized that we still have a lot more we want to do to complete the game, and the pace of development is not high enough to feel like the project could reach completion in a realistic timeframe. We are also faced with the reality that the game is built on aging tech (older versions of Unity and plugins) that we would need a lot of time to refactor. As such, we would need to either be working on the game full time, or have substantially more funding available to achieve this. This has led us to, sadly, decide that we will be shutting down the servers for Gala Collider and stopping development. Weve spent a lot of time working on the game, and we still believe in the unique experience it brings, so we plan on taking this experience and utilizing it towards developing new games and platform solutions. Our initial idea is to develop a much simpler game, taking the core elements of Gala Collider and building it into something new that is less ambitious. But it is still too early to say for sure what will develop, when, and what exactly it will be. We will still keep our discord server active: https://discordapp.com/invite/0tM1uv8T7aWP9385 And you can still reach us by email at: outreach@galacollider.com The final day of our game running on steam will be November 25th. If you have games in progress, you can still finish them up by then but no new purchases, or account subscriptions will be allowed.

[ 2021-10-25 22:13:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

This months patch brings us two new major mechanics plus a slew of UI and bug fixes.

New mechanics

Uprising
Uprising occurs when a planet is invaded. Now for 3 consecutive turns your newly invaded planet will produce zero resources (instead you see a fist) and half its star value. On the 4th turn you've held it, it will fully become your planet. In addition, any developments that are on a planet you capture are no longer kept on the planet but instead stay with their original owner and are destroyed and discarded into the discard pile. The net effect of this change is to make losing a planet to invasion less game ending. You still suffer a significant loss of course by losing a planet, but the invading player does not get the full value of the planet right away. This change makes it easier to come back from an early loss where one of your planets was captured unexpectedly. Contest taxation
Before this patch, if an enemy ship was in orbit around your planet at the start of the next turn, you wouldn't be able to build anything anymore because the planet would be considered Contested. While we didn't want to entirely remove this mechanic, we also felt it could lead to some early losses based purely on a surprise move or choice you made and didn't reflect well on the game dynamics we wanted to encourage. As a result we ended up changing the way contesting works to instead make the cost of everything you build cost one extra Component. (which you can see with the new blinking cubes around and next to the sector) So it still sucks if you are Contested, and it is still a meaningful strategy to do so, but it isnt as back breaking when you suffer from it. The overall effect of this change is that it is no longer possible to guarantee taking over a section of the map based purely on having some surviving ships. As a player you feel also less locked-out and more readily able to pull out an effective mid-game reversal. As a secondary effect, players though should note that this 1-component penalty tax also applies to anything built on their commander! So having your commander contested is now more dangerous than it was before.

Improvements

• Spacebar in battle now toggles you through the sectors
• Random maps now always have at least 2 connections to your commander and 3 across the middle of the map

New 3D models

New 3D models for: [olist]

Echo

Chain Storm

Continuum Hollow

Tilithon Command

Great Tree

Ima Mir [/olist]

[previewyoutube=jBzsiEkji2E;leftthumb][/previewyoutube]

Bug fixes

• Fix for window screen sizes on monitor settings that were close to full screen and would result in the bottom of the game window not being visible
• Fix to prevent cards from the discard and deck starting off screen before you scroll
• Additional validation code added to ensure tech pool buys remain consistent between reloads and turns
• Fix for battle numbers being blue when they should not have been
• Fixed AI sometimes not attacking
• Ship model preview works again
• Reloading a game no longer affects invasion numbers
• Invasion replay from saved games no longer happens too late
• Fixed an issue related to the tech-advance button in reloaded games
• Fixed rare AI crash situations if sector was not loading correctly
• Removed option to colonize in battle phase (was never intended to be possible!)

Next plans

We are testing universal shipyard options this month, plus working on:

• Potential larger changes to the Invasion game mechanic
• Better opponent replay information in the form of enemy movement trails
• Further work on single player puzzles and tutorials

With of course bug fixes and many other features on our timeline! Thanks for following our patch news and we hope to see you on our Discord server where we have a stream every Wednesday. We are very quick to respond and always open to playing a game! Be well, Team Gala

[ 2021-08-03 01:58:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Slowly but surely, our game progresses and refines month after month. Pulling in new fresh elements while refining what was old. This month we did a lot of behind the scene testing and development of feature changes and we have a couple already ready for release and happy to share with you all.

Improved Explore Experience

Colony ships now have a new module called SCAN 1 which allows them to see what planets are one-jump away from their current sector. This means that you will no longer need to guess which planet is better to colonize and makes the early game a lot more meaningful by forcing players to review and select the best planets to colonize early. The game previously would require too much effort to scan a planet before sending a colony ship, the opportunity cost of playing a card or sending a ship was just not worth it. Scan changes all of that, in a good way.

Advance technology slot

For a while now we had planned on releasing a card that advanced the technology slots for you, but ultimately we decided to instead just add a button that does it for you.
The "Advance Tech" button starts at just 1 Research cost to use and advanced the technology pool by one "slot" by dropping all the cards down one step on the conveyor belt. (This is in addition to any at turn start movement of the conveyor) After the first buy though the cost will immediately go up to 2, then 3, then 4.... so if you want to get 3 new cards it would get costly at 6 Research (1+2+3). However even a single click each turn can really help you speed through the options to find what you are looking for before the next shuffle comes.

So many 3D models

Over the last few month's we've been getting a lot of 3D models added to the game, thanks to James Carol's great work. [previewyoutube=Yeg3xh7lCgc;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=WhW07pcJ1TI;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=clvk1DPArR8;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=1xCwPqRfFUw;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=phzFSJqAzwU;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=PKDaII864ew;full][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=OFPQrFNf6Fg;full][/previewyoutube]

Visual improvements

• Star symbol now flashes when a player is within 10 Stars of winning.
• Star gen icons now appear, animate and make a sound each turn to make it more obvious that they are important.
• Star's earned is back to being a bar for both you and the opponent.
• The toggle to show/hide your tech pool was removed and now your tech pool is just always displayed. This should make it less likely you forget you can buy technology.

Balance Changes

This month it looks like we lowered Sylith power level in testing, as a wind-fall the damage card mechanic and the need it created to re-balance things.

• Stinger lowered to 2 attack from 3 and bombard value increased to 2 from 1.
• Scythe attack lowered from 5 to 4, raid ability replaced by Torp 1.
• Brood Nest infantry value lowered to 2 from 3.
• Continuum Hollow cost increased to 4 from 3.

Bug fixes

• Fixed reload bug where tech pool would advance incorrectly sometimes.
• Fixed some specific reload issues in global effects modules from game replays.
• Fixed issue where Nebulae would apply modifier twice when reloading.
• Fixed issue where ships with zero attack could not attack when they had a boost from an attack module.
• Some tool tips got disabled when first loading to not overload a new player. (still more to do here, but it is a start)

Future

We are working still on brand new scenarios that will replace the current ones. They will be more like multi-turn puzzles that slowly teach you mid to advance game play strategies. In parallel we are testing two game play changes that should help soften early-game wins to make it easier for you to still come back from any early disadvantages in the early game. While they are still being finalized, the mechanics around this are centered around reducing the penalty for being contested and making newly invaded worlds less productive. Beyond this we are also exploring some mechanics around upgrading cards to higher tech (instead of buying new ones) which we have started internally testing with positive results. Eko Puteh just finished a half dozen new artworks for us, which will start appearing on cards too. And we are even looking at a shift in how invasion works to make it potentially more like regular combat too. Plus a lot lot more in store! Thanks for being with us as we continually refine and improve our game. We would love to see your voice on our Discord channel where we all hang out some time. Be well, Gala Collider team

[ 2021-06-09 22:41:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

With this patch we bring to you a brand new mechanic: Damage cards. Now whenever you damage an enemy commander, it generates a Burn Damage card into their discard pile. When those are then redrawn they either need to be paid to purge or their commander will take repeat damage by holding the card in their hand. But watch out, your commander can also get hit, so youll need to be careful to not let enemies get close to your commander and strike it.
Here is how the mechanic works: the larger the ship is, the more powerful the damage cards are that it creates. Damage cards always do two damage if you hold one in your hand at the end of the turn, but the cost to get rid of the card is proportional to the size of the ship attacking you. Frigates create damage cards that cost 1 to clear. Cruisers create damage cards that cost 2 to clear. And Dreadnaughts create damage cards that cost 3 to clear. In addition, larger ships also create more cards per attack. The amount of damage cards created per attack is also proportional to the ships size by the same amount as the cost. In other words: Frigates create a single damage card whose cost is 1 to clear. Cruisers create two damage cards whose costs are 2 to clear each. Dreadnaughts create three damage cards whose costs to clear are 3 each.
So getting hit by a Dreadnaught is a serious problem! To clear all damage cards from a dreadnaught attack would cost you 9 resources! The net effect of this new mechanic is to really encourage players to directly attack each others commanders. A single hit from any ship will result in the quality of the enemy deck being reduced and help offset the cost it took to build the ship, move it there and forgo firing at an enemy ship or development in exchange for chipping away at the other players life total. This means games now are really fought and won much more often on who can break through into the enemy rear territory and land ships on the enemy commander. We think this change makes the game even more enjoyable and doubles the level of tension. We hope you will too and look forward to your feedback!

BUG FIXES

[olist]

Reduced size and position of battle-edge to not cover your hand elements

Tech list fix that would sometimes have cards from the pool appear twice or blank them out

Fix for Z offset issue on some asteroid worlds that was hiding the graphics behind a gray disk

Tutorial text tweaks

Fixed issue related to single player mode where AI would ignore asteroid damage in its path finding

Refinements and fixes to first tutorial

Bombardment tutorial simplified and moved existing bombard tutorial over to scenarios

Battle circle rainbow blinks appear again over all areas in conflict [/olist]

NEW 3D MODELS

[olist]

Fabricator complex model added [/olist]

NEXT UP?

We focused this month a lot of our energy on the damage card mechanic and all the connected systems. We know our rule book is now getting out of sync! So we need to loop back and update this. The big thing for us next is the refactoring of the scenarios, and we are going to do some tests on some possible changes/improvements related to technology. This patch also took longer than the previous one to test since this new mechanic touched on all areas of the game, so we are still deciding if we are doing another patch in 4 weeks or 6? Either way though, the star ship keeps on flying.

[ 2021-04-21 16:10:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, this month we progress in our game with the following patch update:

GAME CHANGES

• It is now possible to click on your draw deck to see the contents of the deck.
• The same is also possible on your tech pool so you can see which cards are still coming up to draw.

Both of these views can be interacted with using the mouse wheel, dragging or the arrow keyboard keys.

• New tutorial on building and moving ships

This new tutorial covers the basics of building ships and moving them. To help new players learn the game.

3D MODELS ADDED

Weve got a new batch of 3D models in the game for a string of developments. More coming in each month now!

• Shipyard
• Frontier Base
• Continuum Hollow
• Continuum Enclave
• Goliaths cove
• Military barracks
• Tilithon command
• Ti Matrix
• Ti Chamber
• Mech core

UI IMPROVEMENTS

• Duplicated hull indicator near top left and right of the screen so you can glance at your hull in two places
• All cards now have roll over tool tips on all their numbers when selected in game, making it easier to understand what all the abilities and numbers mean and are for.
• Ship modules now display not only their icon and name, but also their ability text when you roll over them.

The above changes should make it less necessary to click INFO to read and learn what cards do and will allow a new player to stay more focused on the game situation at hand.

• Smart end of turn indicator, with space bar integration.

Now also in the explore [movement] phase of a turn you also get a smart end of turn indicator. We are tracking behind the scenes all possible moves a ship could take, cards you can or cant play from your hand, cards you can draw or buy and stacking limits to give you a smarter indicator when youve run out of all possible actions.

• Escape key now exits you out of every screen you are in and back to the ultimate quit option consistently and in all screens/areas.
• Resources spaced out a little more [temporary fix until we further improve them]
• Battle mode, red edge of the screen is thicker.
• 2D map mode is back
• 2D map mode no longer switches you back to 3D map mode in replay

We will continue to focus on the 2D map mode more, but we wanted to bring it back since we got feedback players were actively using it in its half state.

BUG FIXES

• OSX Macs no longer have double-drag issue which resulted from the retina fix in-game Note there is a still an issue with double-distance drag in the deck builder we didn't catch, will be in next patch!
• AI no longer attempts to invade a sector with troops unless it thinks it will win.
• Fix bug of a deck not saving if you try to change settings while editing a brand new deck.
• Fixed bug related to sometimes the card you clicking not giving you a correct red/blue glow.
• Fix next tutorial/scenario button position.

BALANCE CHANGES

• Support wing cost moving up from 3 to 4.

This card continued to be one of the most powerful cards in the Coalition arsenal. To make it harder to drop two of these in a single turn we are raising its play cost up from 3 to 4.

NEXT PATCH

This next month we are working hard still to get out the last planned tutorial and then begin the necessary work to start moving and rebuilding all the scenarios. In parallel to this we are working on an exciting new mechanic called Damage Cards. This is a whole new card type. Damage Cards are negative effects created whenever your commander takes damage and will create an additional incentive to hit the enemy commander and avoid yours taking damage. We are looking forward to finally releasing this feature soon! In March we will be testing all the new scenarios and damage cards heavily, so there is a chance one or both is not ready, but we certainly hope to be able to bring you both for the start of April! In parallel of course we will continue to release more and more UI improvements, fix bugs and other new features. Stay tuned and stay strong.

[ 2021-03-09 06:22:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings earthlings who still bask in the glow of their mother sun. This month we bring you an initial slew of healthy UI changes and bug fixes to the game.

Patch 0.7.4.0

This month's biggest highlight is probably the UI changes for your commander & map, and the fact that bombardment now does commander damage! This greatly increases the pressure Coalition can place on the enemy commander if they can push through and get one of their deadly bombers in position.

Game changes

• Bombardment now adds its value when attacking enemy Command Centers.
• 2D map mode button was removed in this build, we want to bring it back but there are just too many issues with it right now and we want to make sure the people playing the game have the best polished experience possible.

UI Improvements

• Your Commander on the left is now larger to make it easier to know who you are.
• Your Commander's hull value is now above your command center Sector making it easier to know which Sector is your home planet and who your enemy is [and where to hit them].
• Star values now shown on all Sectors on the right-side, even when not selected, making it easier to understand the relative values of all the Sectors while playing.
• Sectors you can invade or are at risk of being invaded now show a rainbow-glowing fist to indicate to you that an invasion can occur in that Sector.

Bug fixes

• Blockade [immobilization] effect now properly applied to enemy ships when they move through or into a newly built barracks.
• In battle replay the enemy ships now correctly show their raised attack values from various benefits and effects.
• In the card-view area Sylith no longer show that they have 2 colony ships and coalition had none. Now they both show one each.
• Fixed rare error where a card could be drawn that was already in play.
• Fix for retina displays on Macs where the game was displaying in half-size when we moved to pixel-perfect text last month.
• Text scroll lists no longer bounce and should now scroll better and respond now to arrow up/down directions.
• Deck builder area should scroll better left-right with the mouse and keys.
• Moving cards up/down in the deck builder should be easier and behave more as expected.
• Switching decks in the deck builder will no longer show the wrong Commander.
• Cards in the deck builder and view card area now correctly display the right faction icons.
• Fixed old resource icon still displaying in the Info area of cards.
• Cards in deck builder are now center aligned in their vertical spaces making room for more rows and easier to use.
• Invasion tutorial fix to help ensure you don't break off the script.

Balance changes

Because of the new game play rules around bombardment hitting Commanders, a few Coalition cards needed a tweak to lower their power levels:

• Coalition Syn-bet lowered to 3 bombard from 4.
• Coalition Terraformer lowered retaliation to 2, gained 1 attack to 2 and lowered its bombard value to 5 from 6.
• Coalition Vanguard lowered bombard to 4 from 5.

Next patch

We have a lot planned for this next patch including new features like being able to view your draw pile (deck) and your entire tech pool. But we will also be working heavily this month on streamlining and refactoring all the single player scenarios to be more like 1~2 turn puzzles. In the background this month we also have been developing all new cards and game mechanics. Our efforts behind the scenes right now are focused on developing new incentives for attacking the enemy Commander and buildup up enough new content and art for in-game rewards we have planned to launch this summer. We hope you will enjoy the direction we are going as we crunch through significant chunks of bugs, features and UI/UX improvements. As always please feel free to chat with us on Discord or to hit us up on Steam discussions.

[ 2021-02-02 05:42:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi everyone! We're excited to post our first of many expected patches of this year! Below we have a wide list of features, improvements, bug fixes and game tweaks to share with you. We are looking to keep a good pace going throughout this year with some major updates in store.

New features

• Released 1st draft of new scripted tutorial missions for new players

While the tutorials are certainly still not finalized and polished, this should be a good start towards getting these scripted and in a better place for new players. We plan on adding more help, changing some of the maps a little and adding a lot more feedback around the entire UI that will continue to help new players get into the game.

Game changes

• Renamed "Resources" to "Wild" and updated icon
• Operations may now use Research to be played
• Repair effect easier to use (no longer blocked if contested)

Since we added resource subtypes we needed to go back and revisit how these interact with the names and [purpose of the general resource type. The hexagon is no more, long live the purple bolt! By not using the Wild resource anymore on various UI elements and cards it should be more clear that the Wild resource is precious and the most versatile of all. We also decided to make Operations cost Research as a way of making it easier for players to afford operations. Before you could only pay for them with Wild, which made them sometimes very hard to play in various circumstances. The repair change will indirectly buff cards like Hen and just make the module a lot easier to use. Avoiding being contested can be hard when you are at the front line trying to repair some ships!

Game improvements

• Revised card art to show sub-type icon on them for their respective types
• Deck builder UI improvements [ongoing]
• Game-wide UI crispness improvements and font enhancements [pixel fit]

The deck builder gets some improvements but we still need to finish off some additional polish on it in the next month or so. We also want to start incorporating more graphical detail in the tech pool and more first-time player help when building a deck. So a good start here, but still more coming. For the font and site-wide crispness improvements we ended up removing the UI-zoom slider from the settings and instead forcing all screens to use pixel-match. This made an immediate improvement on all devices but it has made retina displays very small when playing the game. We will be looking into more options for retina display in the coming patch[es] to see how we can still offer retina and not have pixel match shrink the screens in the process. But for now, the game still feels good on our retina screens, so please let us know what you think?

Bug fixes

• Fix for discard-worlds in async games
• Fix for pin icon being places on ships it should not be on when just built
• Fir for coalition building that was working the opposite of intended
• Fix for obscure effects being revealed when not intended
• For for game drawing cards that should not be in your hand in async games

At this point we still have at least one more important bug to eliminate in async games, but this patch gets us that much closer again to a stable async build. Fixing this last bug is our top priority and what we will be focusing on intensely in January. After this we will turn to some AI bugs that are important to have smooth battles in asteroids and around barracks.

Balance changes

• Commander hull broadly lowered to 25 from 30
• Brood nest went from 5 hull to 4 and has Infantry lowered from 4 to 3
• Stormbringer lowered from 2 retaliation to 1
• Ursa lowering hull from 9 to 8
• Great tree raising attack to 5, invasion to 5 and hull to 16
• Dominion now costs 3 fuel to move and lowered attack to 4
• Scythe increased attack to 5 from 4

This patch sees quite a few of the strongest cards from both sides getting toned down a little, this will help all the other cards in the game see more play and make the factions less reliant on the above cards for their win. In parallel a couple cards got a boost that were heavily underplayed to help boost their viability. The commander lowering to 25 hull from 30 is part of a wider objective this year to really develop a strong win condition path around direct-commander attacks. We will be internally testing some ideas around various ways to facilitate this win-con in the coming months. More to be shared here when the time is right.

Sector updates

• Most worlds that generated 2 resources from special use have had their effect lowered to 1 instead.
• 5 new sectors added that are more Research and Wild based than the existing sectors, giving a tiny bit more chance that such sectors are present on maps.

The sector updates in this patch are mainly around normalization. We tweaked some sectors to be less game breaking if one players colonizes them early and added a touch more Research and Wild worlds to the pool to try and balance the resource distribution to be a little less heavy on the Fuel and Components. See you again soon! And don't forget you can find us on Discord anytime you want to chat, report a but or suggest a feature. ;-)

[ 2021-01-09 01:07:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, For all of you who have been patiently waiting for our game to get more complete, we have some very positive news to begin the year. Thomas, our lead programmer, has been able to organize his life in such a way that starting mid-January he will be able to put in a ton more hours into the game every week for the indefinite future. We also have a new injection of funds coming in with 2021 kicking off that will help to ensure we can get all of the core game finally completed and edge our way out of early access. As the year starts to pick up momentum we should start to see more regular patches along with periodic larger release bundles. We will be putting more focus on user and first-time player experience.
In the last month weve gone through our road-map to more properly prioritize what needs to be done and we have already the following features coming in early January in our next patch:

• Scripted tutorial missions
• Card resource clarity changes
• Various UI / UX improvements
• A half a dozen or so balance tweaks to cards and sectors
• A good number of bug fixes to single, multiplayer and save-load a-sync games

And then for this summer we are working on a very major release. This release will contain a rather large bundle of content which will consist of:

• Totally refactored single player missions (5 for each faction)
• Restructured single player challenges
• More than 30 cards to unlock via in-game rewards for completing the scenarios and the single player challenges
• Rewards area where you can view reward packs and what you need to do to unlock them
• Additional unlockable rewards for completing objectives in multiplayer games

So cozy up, get ready and settle in for a good year for Gala Collider as we kick off regular monthly blog posts, patch releases and features!

[ 2021-01-06 06:11:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Join us on September 12th and 13th as we stream and watch others stream all weekend long in a community-wide stream event.
During the weekend we will stream everything from tutorial walk throughs, competitive games, strategic insights and developer questions-answers. We are also encouraging a number of streamers world-wide to also pick up the game and stream it on Twitch and/or upload content on their YouTube channel for our game. We're hoping this event will help to kick-off the community of our game! Compared to earlier this year we are in a much better place. We've got tutorial puzzles, single player maps and a stable asynchronous / play-by-mail play mode to compliment our robust head-to-head realtime 1v1 battle mode. Come check us out! Subscribe to our Twitch for more specific time updates and reminders, or head over to our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Discord server to keep informed or stay up to date.

[ 2020-08-30 03:37:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are pleased to announce that patch 0.7.2.0 finally brings Gala Collider to the realm of STABLE. This means there shouldn't be anymore critical issues blocking games from completing, including both head-to-head and asynchronous games (where you take a turn, save and quit, and get notified later when your opponent finishes their turn).
In addition to major bug fixes, this release also brings:

• Many critical bug fixes
• XP3: Dark Omen expansion
• Introducing Missionssingle-player maps where you bring your own deck!
• Refactored rule book
• Sector changesNebulae and Asteroids yield more resources
• New and updated multiplayer maps
• Map effects
• Balance changes

Critical bug fixes

You can see the list of fixes applied in 0.7.1.9 and 0.7.2.0 on our public Trello board: https://trello.com/b/yRRW8g7n/gala-collider-bugs-and-release-radar While we are still in Alpha, weve come a long way since our initial release in early 2020! The remaining bugs are far less serious and shouldnt be showstoppers. Our focus now is on improving the UI/UX, the AI, and the first-time and single-player experience. Were also plugging away at all the known medium- to low-severity bugs, plus any that you may still find and report to us on the board. Here is a list of major issues corrected in this release: [olist]

Techpool slot position was not restored when reloading a game

Stars did not match after reloading the game

Reloading a game caused commander health to be incorrect

Extra resources sometimes occurred when reloading a game

Cards would load in the wrong places sometimes after reloading a game

Discard pile cards would overlay oddly at times

Sometimes you could not click on any ships until you clicked the techpool button

Attack buffs were lasting longer than they should have after reloading a game

Sometimes ships would stay alive after they were shot down [/olist] Plus a bunch of smaller fixes.

XP3 - Dark Omen

This expansion pack brings 10 new cards to the game, 5 Sylith and 5 Coalition. The 30-card pack contains 3 copies of each new card. As with previous content releases, a single purchase unlocks all 30 cards. Dark Omen signals the mounting war between the two factions. The Sylith Elders reluctantly emerge from their fortified sanctuaries to assert their presence on the front lines of battle, while the Coalition strengthens its ability to claim and hold territory. Both sides implement new advances in technology to counter the increasing prevalence of swarm tactics in both factional battles and internecine skirmishes. [previewyoutube=UpgSMsGXwIc;full][/previewyoutube] New abilities in this expansion include: SHIP MODULES

• Light Plating - Reduces damage taken from Frigate-sized ships
• Infiltration - Ship increases Hull value while in enemy contested space

Missions

This update also introduces Missions to the game. Missions are much more challenging than scenarios and require you to build your own deck. There are currently two Missions available, with more to come. Based on your feedback, we will add either easier or harder missions in future updates to ensure a good variety of challenge levels. We do not yet have rewards in place for completing missions, but we plan on adding them eventually. Especially for the really hard ones. ;-)
Meanwhile, tutorials have been renamed "Puzzles" and moved together with the old Scenarios into a single "Basics" area. Puzzles are sort of like chess puzzles, where you have one or two turns to solve the puzzle and win. If you fail, you can simply try again. Puzzles help you learn the game and master new mechanics without needing to wade through a lot of scripted steps.

Rulebook

The old rulebook was small and hard to read on larger screens, and it was also a bit complicated for us to maintain. So we rebuilt it! This new rulebook expands to fill your entire monitor and launches with an intro page when you first run the game.

Sectors

Before 0.7.1.9, Nebula and Asteroid sectors often yielded 1 or 2 total resources. We've augmented these sectors to produce between 1 and 3 resources now, and most often 2. They still tilt in favor of Fuel and Component resources but are overall much more valuable than before. Their number of development slots is still variable between 1 and 3, depending on the size of the (dwarf) planet hidden within.

Multiplayer maps

We have one new multiplayer map: Cosmic Trench, which includes a BRAND NEW dangerous sector located in the center of the map. Colonize at your own risk!
We also made some changes to existing maps: Gem Quadrant is 2 sectors smaller than before, making the map a bit less of a commitment to play. Chaotica has had its sector connections substantially reduced, since it was tilting too heavily in the Syliths favor. We also changed the center sector to be Poor/Dangerous instead of a Prize, making the map less focused on the central world.

Map effects

A few maps (so far, The Eye and Cosmic Trench) now include effects. We plan on adding effects and unique background coloring to more maps over time, so feel free to let us know how you like the direction we are taking here!

Balance changes

As always, we are committed to creating exceptional balance in this game. We will continue to tweak existing and expansion pack cards to maximize the balance of this game and maintain a diverse, exciting, and evolving meta. The only cards with balance changes in this patch are cards from XP3 that we tweaked between patch 0.7.1.9 and 0.7.1.2.0. Considering that very few players were aware of this new content, this change should not really impact anyone, LOL. But if youre curious, you can review the list here: https://trello.com/c/tAmDABIF/163-balance-changes We also tweaked the power of some sectors, like Dream Streams. This sector was too powerful and now produces 0 Resources. If its STILL too powerful, well lower its power again. Somehow.

Next steps?

Our focus now is on promoting the game as much as possible. Now that the game is stable, we want to attract new and old players back to the game to give it a spin. We think youll enjoy where its at now. We are aware the real depth of the game is still in the player-vs-player experience, so we hope youll use the in-game auto match and our Discord server to find and play against opponents. That said, well continue to focus on more single-player improvements for both new and more advanced players. This includes new scenario modes, more story scripting, and further AI enhancements and features.
On the visual side, we still have 3D models to complete and implement for existing cards and effects. Well also continually be improving the UI/UX based on your feedback. If you find a bug, please report it to our Discord channel (after checking that it isn't already logged on our Trello board). Code to let you peek into your deck and techpool is partially done, so this feature may also release in the not-too-distant future. We also want to code a game log you can review and a first-turn mulligan. But before we continue to add more features, we really need to focus first on building a healthy, happy and vibrant player community. To that end, if you are able to share the game with friends, post about it on social media, or leave a positive review, all those things really help us tremendously. We are a very small team running this game purely for the love and passion we have for this game. So any support you can offer us goes miles beyond the stars. We will be working to organize a play event in the not-too-distant-future. Thank you for playing!

[ 2020-08-10 16:23:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! 0.7.1.6 is out, here is a summary of everything that went into it:

Rising Stars

This mini-pack brings you two new commanders to play with Sokura and Kiroz. Sokura is a new Coalition Sapien Commander who specializes in warfare. Kiroz on the other hand generates critical resources by occupying enemy space. Combined with the original two Commanders players now have four Commanders to pick from when building their decks.
We hope you will enjoy them! Let us know what you think and as always, we will be monitoring their play stats and your feedback to ensure equal balance.

New sub-economy

This patch brings in another substantial change to the game: sub-type resources. These are resources that are not flexible and can only be spent on specific things. You must find a way to use them, or they are lost at the end of your turn, similar to your more general Resources you produce. They cannot be exchanged using pre-Alpha 7 exchange-interface (for those of you who know our game from back in Alpha 1 to 6). The new sub-resource types are:

• Components
• Fuel
• Research

Use Components to build Ships and Developments. Fuel to move Ships and Research to buy new tech cards or to buy cards from the top of your deck. If you roll your mouse over these sub types, it will tell you how many of each type you are generating.

Core set round-out

A number of cards in the core set were patiently waiting for this code to be refactored. We are happy to say that now all cards in the core set should finally be close to where they need to be and some of them got re-designed to use the new sub-type rules. The cards that got redesigned include: Ti Matrix and Ti Conduit: now produce Fuel. Fruit of the Void: now creates 2 Fuel. Mining Station: Produces Components. Eco Plaza: Produces Components and Fuel. Builders: now draws a Development and gives you 3 Components. War Engine: now draws a Dreadnaught and gives you 5 Components. Fabricator Complex: Consumes 4 Research to produce 10 Components.

Sectors adjusted

Inline with the above new economy, we went through all the sectors again, and amended some of them to produce specific resource sub-types. This helps to give each planet you discover more flavor.

All sectors contain a planet

This is a big change to the game, now all Sectors, including Asteroids and Nebula, contain a planet. This means that all Sectors generally produce more value and all have at least 1 Development slot. This will make building decks around Developments more consistent and it will mean you are less hurt by a map that spawned against you. It should also be an indirect buff to Coalition, since they rely more-so on developing position.

Commander hull increased

All Commanders raised to a 30 baseline hull value from 20. This will make it less easy for your opponent to one-shot kill your commander in a single turn. Gala Collider is a game of call-and-response, so we needed to raise your Commander hull to let players still have at least a one-turn opportunity to counter your move or punish the rush.

Deck size increased to 20 cards

Decks were 18 cards but we just raised those up to 20. This will make Tech2 a little slower and Tech1 cards a little more relevant before the first reshuffle. We might still tweak this value again but we also feel like we're very close to the final sweet spot.

Scenarios easier / shorter

We did another pass through the single player missions to make them all a bit easier and shorter. We still plan on adding more missions too.

Balance changes

In addition to the above refactoring of cards we also put into place a number of balance changes in this patch:
- Pellin Yurr changed to generate 4 Resources and 2 Fuel instead of 6 Resources. - Echo now pays 2 to move instead of 1. - Goliath's Cove changed to increase Attack instead of Bombard value, but can no longer buff Frigates. - Vanguard lowered to 5 hull. - Incision lowered to 2 Nukes. - Ursa lowered to 4 Torps. - Coalition Building can now only be played if none of your sectors are contested.

UI improvements

- Sectors now also have roll over information to help new players. - Draw-card button now shows a light to warn you when the cost is about to increase. - Sectors and Development cards now display the resources they generate on the card-art.

Bug Fixes

- Sectors that discard cards from your main deck now correctly move the card to your discard pile. - More fixes to the code to help prevent cards moving between decks incorrectly.

Save-load vs. real-time games

As with the last patch, the game is still quite stable when you play it in real-time, meaning in a single session, but there are still bugs blocking a smooth experience if you save a game and try to come back to it later. We're still hard at work on this and we will be thrilled when the game is finally stable when reloaded from a saved-state.

Next?

Coming up we will be working on: - More scenarios, puzzles, tutorials, maps - First time player features: more popups, improved rule book, etc. - XP3: another expansion pack, this time with 30 cards. - Save-load bugs and issues. On our Trello board you can also review other items we have planned for the future - if we can get more in the next patch, we will! https://trello.com/b/yRRW8g7n/gala-collider-bugs-and-release-radar And as always, if you want to jump in on a game, find us on our Discord.

[ 2020-02-29 19:07:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

TUTORIALS We added 6 tutorial puzzles to the game. These are relatively loose and build in complexity. They start by teaching one concept at a time and are completed in a single turn. This was the easiest and quickest way for us to teach core concepts in the game without spending the hundreds of hours otherwise needed for a more scripted experience. We have 6 right now but we plan on extending and refining these to be at least 12 in the future. If people like puzzles we can also further extend these with harder and more complex 2-turn puzzles. SCENARIOS We added one new Scenario: Deltoid Arm and we also improved the Androme Escalation mission with easier alternate wins and a tougher end-game from the AI (watch out!). Players will need to stabilize their home area before moving out aggressively now. MULTI-PLAYER We added 3 new multi-player maps to the game:

• Divided: Small two front aggressive map
• Gem Quad: Large map with "quick start", you start with two colonies.
• Chaotica: Highly connected map with non-reflected sectors. This is more for casual play.

PLUS - The following maps got changed:

• Nebula Hunt - Players start 1 further from each other nestled behind sectors that always have development slots. This should make the map more friendly to Coalition.
• Devil's Rock - We added a loop around the asteroids, this makes the map larger but also more friendly to players who do not wish to plow through the central asteroid clusters.

Random maps: We changed the frequency of asteroids/nebula to be a bit lower. SHIP-INFORMATION
Several players asked us to put more information on the cards, so we did. Ships now display on the artwork numbers that represent their size/command cost, the number of Jumps they can make and the cost to move them a Jump. CARD NAMES
Players also asked us to display card names over the art. We added an option in the settings to turn this off and all cards now show their names otherwise as a band over the artwork. We plan on adding code in the next patch or so that will HIDE this name band when you view a card (cause it is redundant) but for now it always displays it unless you turn it off. DISCARD PILE VIEWER You can now click on the discard pile to view the contents of the Discard pile. Use the WASD and Arrow keys to move left/right through the list of cards. CLICK-TO-DRAW COST RAMPS The cost to draw a card now slowly increases every-other click from 2 up. At the start of your next turn it goes back to 2. This basically just makes it cost-prohibitive to hit the "draw card" button multiple times in a single turn. We plan on adding a visual indicator when you are in the half-clicks between the cost going up, hopefully in the next patch or two. For those wanting to see the pattern written out, the cost to draw is now: 2,2,3,3,4,4,5... and so on. SECTOR REBALANCING In patch 0.7.1.4 we did a huge refactor on all the sectors. In doing so we made the resources per sector be a bit too low. In this patch we raised the average Resource value of a sector to be much closer to 2 when it is a planet and 1 when it is a nebula or asteroid field with no planet embedded within it. UNDO BUTTON (goes bye-bye) Undo button is gone, for now? Or maybe forever. We want to focus on fixing other bugs and getting other features in place before we deal with undo bugs and possible exploits. UI and 2D MAP We made some further tweaks to the UI and 2D map mode. The "max zoom" slider now impacts both 2D and 3D map modes. We also added another mouse mode called "Delta mode" which changes the mouse to respond to variations in the mouse wheel instead of just registering single clicks of the wheel. We are hoping this helps us solve some of the mice-wheel issues some players have been having. BUGS This build includes various bug fixes, including:

• Failed draws blocks up your hand.
• Multi shots at two retaliation ships would freeze the game
• Tech pool slots would get badly refilled if you bought the 2nd slot on a re-loaded game
• Hull values of your Commander are correctly stored and loaded now
• Obscure doesn't show "just built" effects anymore.
• Some or all issues around replay resources / stars not adding up has been addressed (but some issues here might still happen)

As of this post, the game is still more bug-free when played in a single session than when loading and playing a saved game. So if you want a relatively low-bug experience, please play the game head-to-head (you can use our Discord to find opponents) BALANCE CHANGES Craft Complex is going from cost 4 to 5 to play. Ti Chamber has its hull lowered to 2 and its infantry point swapped instead for a Star. Arion Dreadnaught has its attack raised from 4 to 5. WHAT IS NEXT?? Well we want feedback on the tutorials and new scenarios. Do they help you learn the game? Are the single player missions more fun? We will be making edits to them based on your input. We have more UI / UX improvements to make. We will be adding a lot more roll-overs in the game, especially to the Sectors themselves on the map to make it easier to understand what all the icons and numbers mean. Once you know it all well, you can then turn them off in the settings. In addition to adding more maps and missions, we will also be releasing a new pack in the store relatively soon. Could be as early as the next: 0.7.1.6 patch. This pack will be mini and just add two new commanders to the game - one for each side. The new commanders will have new abilities for you to build around. We also plan on still addressing more bugs that we know exist in the reloading system, and adding more information in-game like the ability to view which tech pool cards still exist to be drawn, or seeing (in random order) which cards are still in your deck. A little further out we will be adding in-game chat, profile information, finalizing the missing cards from the core set and then releasing a 3rd 30 card pack to round it all off. (exact order here TBD). On the single-player front we want to add missions where you can bring any deck you make, and we also want to make further improvements to the AI model used for your bot-ponent. We hope you will enjoy 0.7.1.5! Let us know all your thoughts, we're here and actively working on the game every day.

[ 2020-02-18 22:46:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hi, so for our next patch we have already a lot going into it. Tutorials is the big one, we are starting this with what we are calling a series of 1-turn puzzles. They will start easier and get harder and teach the nuances of the game and its depth while also spoon feeding the concepts. We have 5 of them ready for internal testing now and we are hoping for about 5 to 8 of them ready for next patch. We also have one more single player scenario coming, this one will feel more like playing against an opponent and you get to use barracks to try and hold back the swarm. Should be a moderate challenge and feel more dynamic than the existing scenarios. Discard pile view: alas still had a game-stopping bug in it before the patch came out, but it is super close to being ready! Just need to resolve the last bug or so and then it will be out in no time (we hope next patch!) Sectors: these were heavily re-factored in the last patch and we already have some rebalancing to do. We want to reduce the chance that asteroids/nebula appear further to make them a bit less common, and we also want to increase the resources sectors do to be much closer to 2 most of the time. The new resources curve for planets/nebula/asteroids will become: Resources generated -> Asteroids: 1 unless a planet, then usually 2 Nebula: 1 unless a planet, then usually 2 Planets (any size): usually 2, sometimes 1 or 3 This will make predicting how many resources a map generates also more predictable for deck building, but there will still be some variability within this. Balance changes: We may add more to this list, but so far we have two cards getting some power reduced: - Craft Complex is going up to cost 5 and - Ti Chamber is having its hull reduced and the infantry point swapped for a star. Draw cost changing: Right now it costs 2 to draw a card. It's been that way since time immortal. But now that the game has just a single resource type, it means you can dump silly amounts of resources to draw as much as you like in a single turn. This can lead to crazy top-decking situations where you roll the dice hard for a win and the cost of doing so isn't as severe as it used to be before when you would need to exchange to keep drawing. So what we are working on is getting an icon over the deck with the current draw cost. Every two times you hit the deck to draw a card, the cost will go up until the turn is over, then it resets to 2 again. So the cost will start at 2, then be 2 the second draw, then 3, then 3 on the fourth draw, then 5 etc. 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5 ... basically we are adding some friction to the built-in draw mechanic. Note that indirectly this makes cards that draw you card a little better because they bypass the draw-tax. (Star Map etc.) This code is ready for next patch, the only thing left to do is to add a UI element to display the costs to you very clearly. So if this is done in time, it will be in patch 0.7.1.5 UNDO button says "bye bye and thanks for all the clicks" We like our undo button, but it adds a lot of bugs to the game we need to fix. But we also keep adding situations where an UNDO can't be allowed because you reveal hidden info. Right now we want to focus our time on more important things like tutorials, more UI feedback, easier ways to learn the game and making sure it doesn't break/crash etc. So we will be turning the UNDO button entirely off for the forseeable future. If we get to a stable point, with good revenues and people want it back - we will look into it at that time. Bugs? And as always, we are fixing bugs and prioritizing the big ones as fast as possible. The game is still a lot more stable if you play in one sitting than if you save and load the game over multiple sessions. This is because loading a game and restoring the state involves a lot more code and that code is still being ironed out. That said each week we have less bugs than the week before, so things are getting close to stable. We will continue to release fixes for critical issues each week or two until we can see the game is finally free of any critical issues. (that will be a good time!) So if you want the least risk of bugs, hop over to our Discord channel, and find an opponent and play together in one sitting. A small map will take you about 20 to 40 minutes to play. (less with the timer). More multi-player maps? We plan on releasing at least one if not two more multiplayer maps in the near future, probably in two or three patches from now once the tutorials and single player missions feel better fleshed out. More content? We have a second 30 card pack planned (10 cards, 3 copies each) plus a special 2 card pack with two new commanders. the commanders will drop first, followed after by the 2nd card pack. We've just been focusing on the bugs and getting tutorials and some more single-player content first before we release them. Once we feel we have enough of the fundamentals addressed, you can expect to learn more about them and get a prediction on their drop release/date! Thanks everyone for playing!

[ 2020-02-11 17:17:36 CET ] [ Original post ]