Release notes:
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.809Restart steam to force a quicker update, if you wish.
Things in this one:- Bunches of bugfixes.
- Several substantial balance changes.
- A huge performance improvement relating to crime deaths and woundings in large and woebegotten cities. Doesn't affect any other scenario really.
- The Zenith are a lot more functional as a race, and I'm pretty pleased with them.
- In general I've been monitoring the AI races today and seeing what I can do to make them behave more properly. In a number of cases, this has been improved.
Things NOT in this release, to my frustration:- At least in some savegames, the Boarines just refuse to build any more surface buildings past a certain point, which I find unfathomable. I'm looking into it, and I fixed one performance bug while on the hunt for that, so that's something. But this one is just going to take more legwork is all. It's not terribly hard to find, per se, just painstaking and complicated. There's no doubt I'll find it, it's just a matter of how efficiently I can do so, heh.
- Again for unfathomable reasons, some of the AIs are making super strange choices to defy their programming and build things like, say, tons of freaking housing and no food. Hooray, we have housing for 5000 people but food for 300! Welcome to our Skylaxian home! Most of the races don't do this, but three or four do and I'm not sure why. Anyway, hopefully I can get this worked out quickly tomorrow along with the Boarine thing.
In General News- Keith has really been ripping it up with the code, which is awesome, so there's been tons of bugfixes and other things, and that's been such a load off for me. I'm really only poking around in the AI because it's kind of a game design issue and I want to understand what's going on there.
- Blue has been hard at work on GUI stuff, and you may notice that some new half-finished things are in the latest builds. Sorry about that! We're working on it, but some of it is simply iterative between the two of us, and then some of it requires programming from either Keith or I to finish tying together the art that she did. Anyway, there's a lot of great work being done there.
- Cath has been working on some various terrain and building work to help support some upcoming mechanics improvements for the AIs, and just for the feeling of gameplay in general. It's really great that we have this extra time with both the artists and the programming/design side, because it's able to be well spent.
- On the design front, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about combat primarily. GarathJJ has brought up an excellent point about
ICS in the game, and I think that will turn into a very fruitful focus coming up before long, too. There are a few simple things I hope to get in place on that front tomorrow, but it will just be a small chip at that problem. The military work is my first concern, then this aspect of citybuilding, then into diplomacy. I feel like there's a solid logic in that progression, though of course I'm mulling all three constantly and willing to read thoughts on them and (to a limited extent) discuss them as well.
- I did spend like 3 hours today on the forums catching up with two weeks' worth of posts that I had unfortunately ignored until now. Thanks for your patience on that front, everyone! We've now got I believe 105 people signed up for various waves of the beta, which is great.
- I will probably send out invites to the orangeshirts tomorrow, so that you guys have the weekend to look at it. If you're not already and you want to be, go ahead and comment on this thread or the beta signup thread. I'll be sure to do a full thread pass tomorrow before sending out invites. Since it's not a two-week backlog this time, it won't take me nearly 3 hours to do.
- In general this weekend I am not sure how much I will pay attention to whatever the testers are saying, though. There are a few things that I may try to get done on Sunday afternoon in terms of just some engine stuff that needs to happen at some point and may as well happen sooner than later to potentially help out with RAM usage, etc. crazyroosterman in particular might benefit from that, we'll see. Anyway, then hopefully I'll be able to get fresh eyes on the actual player feedback on Monday and we'll be off to the races for our next week of work.
- Big picture I'm really pleased with how things are shifting and changing. There are a couple of major things that still need to be figured out, but to me they feel like the sort of challenges we had when moving from AI War 1.0 to 2.0. AI War 1.x wasn't a bad game by any stretch, but 2.0 was the definitive version where it really came to life. On the "major things" front, that's how I feel here. That's just me, but anyway, I'm feeling positive about being able to solve those particular issues.
All right, enough rambling from me. Goodnight all!
UPDATE: So, yeah, I didn't go to sleep. NOW I'm going to, but this was a very useful thing:
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.810Huge thanks in particular to crazyroosterman, who has been on this issue very persistently in the best way.
Goodnight for real this time!
