Tag Archives: may

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Dev Update: Galactic Council, Revenant Homeworld, Victory Conditions, Optimisations, and more

  May 30, 2016 , , , ,

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In the previous dev update, we delved into the details of a massive technology tree revamp that was in the works for Predestination, including dozens of new ship modules and weapons and the Improvements/Synergies tech tree. We fully tested and deployed the tech tree update last month, and we released five follow-up patches thoughout the month of May to correct new bugs and crashes caused by the update. I’d like to give a huge thanks to everyone sending in bug reports on the Steam Early Access forum and those of you submitting crash reports, it really helped us get on top of this.

This month we’ve been working hard on some really exciting features! We’ve developed the key storyline event that causes the Revenant Homeworld to decloak at a certain point during the game, tempting players to plunder it for technology at the risk of waking up the Revenants. If the Revenants awake, they periodically launch fleets out to annihilate populated worlds. We’ve completed the Galactic Domination, Scientific Victory and Destroy Revenants victory conditions, and have made several big improvements to be released in V0.9.3.0.

Those who like to play a diplomatic game will be excited to hear that we’re going to add a UN-style Galactic Council that meets to vote on important issues and that this will tie into a deep Diplomatic victory condition. And everyone will be happy to know that V0.9.3.0 will add some major optimisations on the game. We’ve managed to reduce RAM usage by over 35%, cut map generation and planet generation times by up to 50%, eliminate over 60% of the startup initialisation time, and reduced End Turn delays by up to 90%!

Read on for a full detailed breakdown of everything that we’re currently working on and everything that’s coming in V0.9.3.0 (estimated release in about 1 week).

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Development Update: May 2014 – Augmented planet gameplay, Beta feedback, and Diplomacy

  June 11, 2014 , , ,

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The first iteration of the Galaxy beta has now been in backers’ hands for just over a month, and we’ve been working hard on fixing bugs and addressing the gameplay issues it raised. Your bug reports have helped us track down and fix several major crashes and game-breaking bugs, and your feedback is helping to direct Predestination’s development. Feedback from the Galaxy beta indicates that the planetary gameplay needs more work, performance needs to be improved on low-end systems, and areas like the research system could use a little more work, so that’s exactly what we’re doing.

As we’re now well into June, there have been a few requests for an updated release schedule. We’re quickly learning that game development isn’t an exact science, that not everything goes to plan and that most games go through delays and feature cutbacks as they approach completion. Our number one commitment has always been to make Predestination the best 4X game we possibly can with the limited resources available to us, and to iterate on the core gameplay until it feels right. That means we’re never able to fully guarantee a release date or a schedule for future stages of testing, but the tradeoff is that we definitely won’t push the game out the door in an unfinished or unplayable state.

What we can promise is that we’ll continue releasing our monthly development updates to keep you up to date on how the game is progressing, and that we’ll listen to your feedback and ideas at every step of the way. In this month’s development update, I’ll run down all of the major changes being made in response to your feedback on the Galaxy Beta. These changes will be released later this month as part of Galaxy Beta V2.0, and we’re keen to hear your thoughts on the changes now. We’ve started a poll and discussion thread over on the Predestination forums and would love to hear your thoughts on the information below: Read More

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May Dev Update: User Interface design & Galaxy Map features

  June 4, 2013 , ,

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Over the past few months, we’ve been designing Predestination’s main races and working on core gameplay mechanics like ship design, tactical combat, galaxy generation, and planetary colonisation. A lot of really cool features are now in the game, but it’s difficult to show how they work without a user interface, so this month we’ve been working on building a solid UI framework into the game engine and rolling it out on the galaxy map screen.

Our goal for the Galaxy Map is to make it look and feel like an advanced astrometrics lab, with all of  the information your race has about the galaxy at your fingertips. We want you to be able to do most of your turn-to-turn empire management without leaving this screen, and to be able to immediately tell what’s going on in the galaxy by keeping an eye on the map. When designing the Galaxy Map interface, we had a few rules in mind:

  • Every window or information pane should have a specific place in the UI, so that your screen doesn’t become a mess of open windows.
  • The player shouldn’t be overwhelmed with information. Information should only appear when necessary and text should be kept to a minimum.
  • The UI must be scaleable and easy for players to mod.
  • Every UI element has to have a smooth animation or transition and a corresponding audio cue. The audio is not currently in the game, but placeholder cues have been inserted into the code for every action.

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