The Last Federation: Betrayed Hope (Expansion 1) Beta Begins Now!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.com/the-last-federation-betrayed-hope-expansion-1-beta-begins-now/



Betrayal Mode lets you completely reverse the usual game flow, working as a full planetary power trying to destroy your foes, not unite them. Invasion Mode sees you working with the other races to survive slaughter by a grave new threat. Plus new ships, abilities, music, and more!

Beta Launching Today On Steam And Our Site

The beta is now released on our site and on Steam, and in celebration of that there is a brief one-day-only 50%-off discount promotion being run on the base game.  There's never been a better time to get into the game!  The expansion will remain in beta until mid-November, when the game will hit version 2.0 and the expansion will be considered fully released.

What Is The State Of The Beta?

The expansion is pretty much feature complete, although we are still working on 3 of the new ships.  Everything else is fully in place, although bear in mind that the tutorials for the new game modes will leave a lot to be desired on day 1.  We’ll use the early feedback on that to quickly get them up to snuff.

The other big thing is balance: the new game modes and new ships have been tested, but only internally, and this game is huge.  So you’re going to find stuff that we missed, particularly at first, and that’s why we’re doing a beta.

Beyond that, we’ll just be going through a nice relaxed balance and bugfixing period until the full launch of the expansion in mid-November.  Thank you for your support!

Features Added In The Expansion

• Betrayal Mode: Ignore your ideals and conquer the solar system with armadas of your own!


• Invasion Mode: Obscura invaders have already wiped out one race, and now threaten all the others. Can you rally a counterattack?


• 8 Boss-like Obscura ships with crazy SHMUP-style bullet patterns.


• 9 new fleet ships used by the AI with yet more interesting bullet patterns.


• 2 new solar system backgrounds to choose from.


• 12 new Offensive abilities, 12 new Specialty abilities, and 8 new Operational abilities.


• New Quests for boosting RCI values or temporarily staving off diseases without a vaccine.


• 19 new achievements.


• 13 new music tracks!

About The Expansion

Betrayal Mode: “I am not the Hydral you thought you knew.  You thought I was content to stay on the sidelines as a minor mercenary?  You thought I would work for unification from the shadows?  The other races killed my people, and I will have vengeance, not unification.  I will drive every last one of them out of the system, and replace them with billions of mindless servitor robots to work at my command.  One day, perhaps, my servitors and I will discover a way to raise the dead.”

Invasion Mode: “Nothing unites enemies like an even stronger common foe.  The Obscura come from outside the solar system, and have already wiped out one of the 8 races.  The remainder are scrambling to protect themselves from this grave new threat, and I myself am incredibly outclassed when I try full frontal assaults.  I must rally the other races into unified action while striking from the shadows in my own ship.  If we can drive the Obscura menace from the solar system, a Federation will be easily established… with whoever survives.”

[Mick]

Are betrayal and invasion mode (and let's call the original mode federation mode) mutually exclusive game creation options, or are they alternate victory conditions you can toggle on/off at game creation?

[x4000]

Are betrayal and invasion mode (and let's call the original mode federation mode) mutually exclusive game creation options, or are they alternate victory conditions you can toggle on/off at game creation?

They're mutually-exclusive options when you are starting up the game -- they have entirely different premises, and the game works differently. 

The starting race is dead and replaced by the Obscura in the Invasion mode, and the Obscura and the other races work really differently in terms of how you interact with the various ones.

In Betrayal Mode, a lot of the options are gone from you diplomatically (all the federation stuff), and the starting race is again dead, this time replaced by you.  You capture planets for yourself, direct armadas, and generally do some other things that you can't do in the federation creation mode.  Instead of a federation progress window, there's an armada management window.

I'm generally a big fan of alternate victory conditions as well, but these were just too through-and-through different from one another to let them work that way.

[x4000]

1.501 now out: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Post-1.0_Release_Notes#Version_1.501

[FortunaDraken]

Aaaaaa~

Now to see who doesn't rip me off for living in Australia, you guys or Stream XD

[Misery]

Ahh, finally it is here!  I had been eagerly waiting for this.  Time now, to start a new game, as clearly, I'm not already playing your games to death over here (argh AI War, that's getting alot of time from me lately).  Well, in a few hours here, anyway.  Trying all the new stuff should be interesting.  I had seen some of the new combat abilities, but I hadnt messed with other stuff up to this point yet.

Hopefully THIS one will get some real notice to it, unlike when Skyward's expansion happened.   One thing that didn't help today was that I go online to check and see if this had fully started yet, aaaaand..... Steam had altered their store layout all over the place.  It.... what.  Lost and confused!  I did see the sale for the main game, but nothing of a real notice that the expansion had happened....

Hopefully there'll be a good amount of people available to do testing and such at least.

Also hopefully, I havent screwed anything up.  Ugh.

As always I shall post some feedback after I've had a good couple of hours trying out the new stuff!  Fun shall be had, and probably also !!Fun!! as well, since I'm typically not exactly the best at the strategy side of this game...  at some point here I really should do a full AAR of this.

[x4000]

Cheers guys!

It's Valve's and our decision to not market the expansion on Steam yet, just to have it there but kind of silently.  The main marketing push for the expansion will be in November when it hits full release.  We only get one main marketing push, and we wanted it to be at full release, not at the launch of the beta.  So all is well.

As to my feelings on the new storefront: http://arcengames.com/review-games-on-steam-that-you-love-or-hate-results-are-determined-by-those-who-show-up/

[Nephila]

Any information as to if GoG users will be able to buy in to the beta? Or are we stuck waiting for the official release a few months off?

[TheVampire100]

How much I hate to be short on money lately. The new game modes sound so much appealing, I crave to play the game.
Now I have to wait a month or two to buy it :-/

Anyways, the expansion features a mode that really appeals me: Betrayer mode. It sounds to me like a more "active strategic" mode where you do not interact in an indirect way with the game but decide to put the future of the solar system in your own, uh, whatever Hydrals have as limbs.
This was the part that left me a little upset in TLF: You had no strategic meaning in yourself. While you could gathered all the tech and were the strongest ship in the system you have no army on your own to give you some power. You were FORCED to rely on the other races. Also Betrayer mode sounds more "traditional" (you represent a faction on your own instead creating a faction from other races) strategy.

Cannot wait to get my hands finally on it.

[MaskityMask]

Noticed that all new achievements are only for betrayal and invasion mode, is there still option of obscure making appearance in normal game?

[doctorfrog]

Any information as to if GoG users will be able to buy in to the beta? Or are we stuck waiting for the official release a few months off?

My guess is that it's best to give the GOG store a finished product. A vocal contingent of folks there get real testy about things that show any nuance. But I think also it's much, much, much, much easier for Arcen to push updates through Steam.

My idle speculation aside, this is exciting news, and an enticing couple of ideas for an expansion! Looking forward to this, Arcen.

On the plus side, GOG Galaxy might make it easier for developers like Arcen to sell Early Access/Beta Access titles. If I were developing GOG galaxy and wanted to woo the indie set a bit more, I might consider that.

[MaskityMask]

Hmm, pity if Obscure isn't toggleable foe in normal game...

Anyway, I see that beta lacks story intros huh

[FortunaDraken]

Betrayed has a story intro, the Invasion doesn't though, which I will be looking forward to later.

[Misery]

Hmm, pity if Obscure isn't toggleable foe in normal game...

Anyway, I see that beta lacks story intros huh

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing with those guys, that having the option for them to appear in the normal game, as opposed to JUST a seperate mode, might be neat.  Though, probably with a very reduced presence.  Like, one or two occaisionally found zooming around the galaxy, possibly jumping into certain situations to make your day that much more miserable. Or maybe messing with the other races in subtle ways. It'd make sense as well; the Obscura essentially sending scouts into the solar system, in preparation for their horrible assault.  If that makes sense within the context of the story, I'm not sure, I havent seen exactly what that is for these guys yet (just about to start messing with the new modes here though). 


Also, relating to the Obscura themselves:  If there appears to be any specific problems with a given Obscura ship (or the new basic ships), for the love of kittens and hilarious cats in general, please do mention it somewhere.  I've calibrated the blasted things as best I can up to this point and tested them to death to make sure that they are in fact technically dodgeable, as their bullet patterns go, but I've a very hard time getting a real idea of how hard or not most players will find these guys to be, on average. 


Anyway though, it is now time for me to start messing with all of the new stuff that the devs have stuck in here. Betrayal mode sounds like a recipe for alot of maniacal giggling. 


EDIT:  Invasion mode, hoboy, I'm gonna need to use some very different tactics here, strategically, arent I?  Well.  This WILL be interesting.

[x4000]

Any information as to if GoG users will be able to buy in to the beta? Or are we stuck waiting for the official release a few months off?

I will speak to them this week and find out -- I honestly haven't had a chance to discuss it with them yet, but I think that they prefer to do official launches rather than betas.

Anyways, the expansion features a mode that really appeals me: Betrayer mode. It sounds to me like a more "active strategic" mode where you do not interact in an indirect way with the game but decide to put the future of the solar system in your own, uh, whatever Hydrals have as limbs.
This was the part that left me a little upset in TLF: You had no strategic meaning in yourself. While you could gathered all the tech and were the strongest ship in the system you have no army on your own to give you some power. You were FORCED to rely on the other races. Also Betrayer mode sounds more "traditional" (you represent a faction on your own instead creating a faction from other races) strategy.

Yep, exactly.  I knew that was something that a lot of people really wanted, and it sounded like fun as well.  I really like the single-agent indirection of the main mode of TLF just because it's such a different way to play a strategy game.  But I also really love traditional strategy games, of course, so this new mode lets you have it either way.

Noticed that all new achievements are only for betrayal and invasion mode, is there still option of obscure making appearance in normal game?

The Obscura can show up in any game mode through the new quests -- you can raid their hideouts for certain big bonuses.  But they aren't a faction in any mode other than Invasion, as they are just completely designed around Invasion mode as a concept.

Any information as to if GoG users will be able to buy in to the beta? Or are we stuck waiting for the official release a few months off?

My guess is that it's best to give the GOG store a finished product. A vocal contingent of folks there get real testy about things that show any nuance. But I think also it's much, much, much, much easier for Arcen to push updates through Steam.

That's a good point on the GOG users, and another reason that I hadn't jumped at that immediately.  In terms of pushing updates, it is far easier for us to push new full updates through Steam, but because of our in-game updater we can actually update the games equally on all platforms (and do).  But for Steam it's a bit more automatic, versus player-initiated.

Anyway, I see that beta lacks story intros huh

Yeah, I ran out of time for Invasion mode.  Betrayal mode does have an intro story, though, and I aim to get the Invasion mode one in today.  The story bits and tutorial bits and (now down to 2) last Obscura ships are the only things actively missing.

EDIT:  Invasion mode, hoboy, I'm gonna need to use some very different tactics here, strategically, arent I?  Well.  This WILL be interesting.