Coming Soon: The Last Federation: The Lost Technologies (Expansion 2)

[x4000]

Original: https://arcengames.com/coming-soon-the-last-federation-the-lost-technologies-expansion-2/



What's this now? A new expansion, you say?

Indeed! The Lost Technologies. We've been working with Draco18s, a long-time community member here, to bring this one to life. This is quite an exciting expansion for us, because we hadn't even thought we'd be able to do something like this this year (what with Stars Beyond Reach and now Starward Rogue and all that).

This expansion brings to life a number of things that are centered around technology in one way or another. The races all have their own unique racial techs now, for instance -- giving them more character than ever before. Techs now have cool new "side effects" that can benefit you or other races in regular combat.

There's even a new Tech Race game mode where it's a cutthroat race through the tech tree -- with the catch that you have to work with you enemies to win, because you're unlikely to win on your own. Make allies, ditch em, make new ones, and coast across the finish line (hopefully) on your own.



This also will coincide with the release of TLF 3.0, a free update to all the owners of the base game. This update includes several pieces of new content including 3 new alliance types, four new events, and a few other goodies. And naturally the expansion has more stuff, too -- a gorgeous but fragile new planet type, new turret types, a new type of mission for gathering your own unique Hydral techs, new ability types, and so on.

Oh -- and "champion" enemies, too. Can't believe I almost forgot that one! Champions add a new element to combat where you may need to avoid a specific enemy ship that is doing... something strange and unexpected. You can easily tell the champion ships by their purple glow, and they have a way of exerting a bit of gravity -- so to speak -- on their part of the battlefield.

Release Date!

We look to be on schedule for a November 11th release. All the features are complete and in testing with a small group of players who blindly volunteered without knowing what they were signing up for. That's faith! ;) The expansion itself has been in work since mid-September, so that's about average for an expansion from us. What's not average is us managing to keep it a secret for this long, heh.

Already An Advanced Player?

If you're already an advanced player of TLF, you might be interested in some of the notable things addressed by various additions:

* The Kessler Syndrome event (new free content in v3.0) makes space junk buildup around planets matter a lot more.

* The Deorbited Ship event (also free v3.0 content) fills a hole where the Skylaxians are too honorable to bomb anybody (although the event will happen to any race invading any other); essentially a large, hostile fleet in orbit that is otherwise doing little to invade can get "hit" by the event and cause... fun times.

* The Welding Drones tech side effect now repair Large (and larger) ship hulls by a small amount every combat turn, provided that it did not take any damage. Maintaining shield integrity and avoiding disruptor shots can slowly make up for a tactical mistake and keep the player alive for longer

* The new Beam Rifles tech has a side effect that increases the range of all laser-based weaponry by 10%.

* The Nuclear Fusion tech has a side effect that increases shield recharge rate by 5%

[chemical_art]

For once I was in the first wave of an alpha:

Let me attest it is a LOT of fun with some of the extra stuff in here and that's just with the tech changes and a few of the events. I'm excited to see the bigger changes.

Edit: I'm eargerly awaiting other's opinion of things and the first wave of balance changes so I can do another game. My first one through a suck punch of epic proportions.

[nas1m]

Cool stuff with regard to the new stuff and 3.0!
There seems to be something wrong with the game page of the expansion, though.
At least it does not come up on my phone but shows an empty white page with a single zero instead...

[Castruccio]

What a pleasant surprise!

[crazyroosterman]

id love to give my opinion of this but its not really working for me.(at least in till keys become a thing at least)

[Mick]

woot!

[Pumpkin]

Interesting. Blindly signing Arcen's "devil's pact" is always a !!fun!! thing. I can't wait to see the techs!!! And that new kind of planet and the champions, of course!

[Draco18s]

And I gotta say guys, its been a blast making this too.  A big thanks to Chris for offering me the opportunity.

[x4000]

And I gotta say guys, its been a blast making this too.  A big thanks to Chris for offering me the opportunity.

It is absolutely my pleasure -- you've done a smashing job with it.

[Captain Jack]

Had to clear the cache before I could see the announcement on the main page, which made for an entertaining minute or two.

Wow, had no idea this started just in September. Also had no idea that a two month turn around was average for you folks, talk about impressive.

Congrats Draco, the whole thing fits together so seamlessly I couldn't tell until the Niven Rings were new content until I checked the files. And I've got two of them in my current game, which is honestly pretty cool.

[Draco18s]

Wow, had no idea this started just in September. Also had no idea that a two month turn around was average for you folks, talk about impressive.

Yeah, like six weeks.  It was pretty much real easy content to code, as all of the main stuff was already set up and it was just "have an idea, code it."  I can work really damn fast that way.

Congrats Draco, the whole thing fits together so seamlessly I couldn't tell until the Niven Rings were new content until I checked the files. And I've got two of them in my current game, which is honestly pretty cool.

Hehe, awesome.  I haven't seen two in one game yet, but yeah, they're gorgeous.

[Misery]

Wow, had no idea this started just in September. Also had no idea that a two month turn around was average for you folks, talk about impressive.

Well, this is Arcen.  Making stuff quickly without sacrificing anything is the norm.

Even when they've got someone else doing a project or something for them, it STILL gets done at an absurd rate 

[Tolc]

Ah, the official announcement. I'm still blindly stumbling over new stuff so far

[Zebeast46]

Well I just started a game and it has been pretty interesting so far (LOVE the art on the new planet, it really is amazing) but one thing I am not a fan of is that currently it is a little too hard to see the in-battle effects of the new tech side effects. Just want to add that maybe showing your current bonuses while in battle could improve this.

[x4000]

Wow, had no idea this started just in September. Also had no idea that a two month turn around was average for you folks, talk about impressive.

We're either stupidly quick or stupidly slow, feels like.

In seriousness: when we're doing expansions to existing game spaces, there tends to be a LOT of room for developing new stuff in an existing framework.  So we tend to have our pick of the litter, so to speak.

But when we're doing a new game, the risk is extra high because even if something seems straightforwardly-thought-out (see: Stars Beyond Reach), there are so many gotchas and unexpected redesigns based on doing something novel.  So the initial buildout can be extraordinarily expensive and time consuming.  See also: TLF itself.

I think part of why expansions are quick is that once we've established a new design space with a game, there's enough distance between it and other games that we can add things that are quicker for us to design and code, but give a nonlinear boost to player enjoyment.

Sometimes our expansions take more like 3 months, but usually we're not focused completely on them during that period if they do.  There's always some form of testing period where we're just in reaction mode to balance or bugfix issues that people bring up, versus actually adding new things.