[u][h2]Some thoughts...[/h2][/u] The more I read about UFO stuff, the more fascinating it becomes. I have had some exposure to it while working for the federal government, and quite frankly, having grown up on Carl Sagan, and space documentaries to the point that the Contact signal from the movie was my ringtone for a while, I find it highly fascinating. I didn't work for the Men in Black or Deep State, but I've met some. And they're mostly employees registered at OPM, to where I say to people who think that UFO disclosure is bogus or some sort of "Blue Beam" psyop... I probably met David Grusch at some point while living in DC, and all I have to say to that is well... if we "glowies" can go in front of congress and talk about real-reverse alien engineering programs and have to reveal some of this stuff in an Sensitive-Compartmentalized Information Chamber (or in video games), and if you're still denying disclosure and can't see that there's something actually going on the scenes and we can't outright officially disclose it outright for legal (and other) reasons, then you downright stupid and have the IQ of a chimpanzee. But on the bright side, I never had a TS-SCI and can speak legally about it, this is all stuff I was told by them. And it's just that simple. And if someone wants to come intimidate me about it, you can talk to my 12-gauge, and I'm going to start spouting "Ben Franklin" quotes because it's called the [b]"1st Amendment"[/b], and you'd be treading upon it... so kiss my ass. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44247064/3f62e377e812b080fd3a703c02a273db00287873.png[/img] [i]But really, I was a skeptic for a long time, and I'm kinda ticked that disclosure got buried as long as it did, probablly could have brought a number of people out of the despair of nihilism. [/i] For example, I learned fascinating things like... a Zetan (Grey Alien) computer system works by processing data loaded from a 3D-printed crystal as a SSD where every atom in the position of the crystal is used as code to generate an algorithm or record files, using a CPU which uses quantum effects of organic chemistry to create calculations. At one point I was told that their CPU's are so efficient that one of theirs (the size of a silver dollar) could easily have the entire computing power of an entire stadium of server racks. So, if Moore's law is really dead, then I'm clearly just an imaginative science-fiction writer, and this is all bullshit. So, I plead the 5th. I'm not sure if this game would run on that system, but I'd sure as hell like to see if it could someday. Hmm... perhaps I should be working at the Department of Energy where they work on this stuff. Speaking of which, the reason you're all not riding in UFOs or starships with Warp Drive is because if you crash one, it can detonate like an atomic bomb. Food for thought. Regarding the game and future updates, we do have a roadmap planned. A series of updates is written down, along with features. Now that the game is mostly stable with a series of updates, I do have here some of the listed roadmap planned for... eh the next 6 months. [u][h2]Roadmap[/h2][/u] [h3][*] 1.0.0 - Release[/h3] The initial, broken release patch. [h3][*] 1.0.1[/h3] - Small patch. [h3][*] 1.1.0[/h3] - The last patch where we fixed some issues. [u][h3][*] 1.1.1[/h3] - This patch that fixes everything.[/u] [h3][*] 1.1.2 - Later this week (ideally)[/h3] - A patch for fixing any issues with this one. [h3][*] 1.2.0 - Sometime in August[/h3] - A major patch where were going to add things like... [*] New Units (Shipyards, Motherships, Fabricators, etc.) [*] New Settlements (Hospitals, Universities, Highways, etc.) [*] Terraforming [*] Keybindings [*] Localization [*] More RTS options. [*] Stargates [h3][*] 1.2.1[/h3] - Fixes for that. [h3][*] 1.3.0 - September[/h3] - UI Overhaul and possibly more features and fixes. [h3][*] 1.4.0 - Communications Update[/h3] - A huge update which is going to redo diplomacy entirely. [h3][*] 1.5.0 - Stellar Features Update[/h3] - A huge update which is going to seriously amplify the nature of generation and graphics. [h3][*] 1.6.0 - Intellgence Update[/h3] - An update which is going to add features such as spys, probe teams, etc. [h3][*] 1.7.0 - Subterranian Update[/h3] - Dungeons, planets will have maps consisting of caverns to explore. [h3][*] 1.8.0 - Government Update[/h3] - An update which we're going to redo government systems (May come earlier.) [h3][*] 1.9.0 - Extradimensional Update[/h3] - An update where we add other dimensions and universes with different laws. [h3][*] 1.10.0 - Spirituality Update[/h3] - Adding things like superstitions, having temples cast buffs, demonic/alien possession. ...And more later. [u][h2]Regarding TTS and the Voice Actor Strike[/h2][/u] One of the things we're going to improve upon sooner rather than later is, well, we're getting rid of AI Text-To-Speech. We're not doing this because of the strike going on in the game industry, we had decided this prior to that. Mainly, performance of Neural Network TTS, or Neural Networks in general - is godawful. And even with Neural Networks it comes out... robotic. Most of the framerate issues people were having are due to the text-to-speech implementation we're doing slowing down the game... because quite frankly the way that we're generating it requires having it hit the hard disk and then be loaded in the game to do effects with it... of which we can't even do that much. So what we did do is hire some voice actors, and they're going to be redoing most of the AI lines in the game. The rest we're going to render with the TTS (the ones that actually sound OK) to files and then I'll modify it with audio-engineering software to be able to make them sound... well... alien. And better. This won't be ingame until the next update at least, but it's coming. It's nice to be able to judge distance based on the read aloud text-to-speech. It's not great if it renders extremely slow, sounds awful, and kills the framerate. So if Gamasutra is paying attention - AI for video games is somewhat of a bust as long as it takes 5 minutes to render a picture or 10 minutes to render a voiceover - and not everyone has a DARPA supercomputer. If you think this has anything to do with the strike, then all I have to say about that is Earth is not the only planet in the universe with capitalism - E=MC^2 is a fuel equation that involves how much fuel/capital/energy anything in the universe has, everyone's gotta have resources or capital or food to survive, and that's the reality we all live in. But really, good luck to the strikers, there aren't nearly enough labor rights in this country regardless. Anyway, enough spittin' facts as a ridah. Here's the changelist. [u] [h2]Patch Notes/Changelist:[/h2][/u] [*] Changed savefile loading and saving, so that now save files will be forward compataible with most updates. [*] Added a huge number of stability fixes for saving and loading so now savefiles won't explode. [*] Changed texture loading, now if we add new graphics, your savefiles will no longer screw up graphics on load. [*][b] Added a new hand drawn UI to the game[/b], that looks way way way better than the old, draub, grey, boring, unorganized UI that we had previously. This is NOT the "UI Overhaul" that we were referring to in previous patch notes, but quite franly we determined that something had to be done about it because the old UI was utterly hideous and almost unusuable. This changes color based on your empire color. [i]In yellow...[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44247064/d01f21ddc1cccef2581dcc7cd2c77980b9916a6c.png[/img] [i]...or blue... or any color, really.[/i] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44247064/108cc42e4a459af707738b80239921395738612f.jpg[/img] [*] Fixed a series of crashes, lockups, and errors that would do things like... accellerate a turn by 10 years instead of the one month that it should, cause blackscreens if a pandemic spawned, etc. [*] Fixed an issue where if you loaded a save file, it may generate a "ghost" gaia civilization hidden to users that isn't part of the regular updates. [*] Because of this, you will not get popups for declaring "War" on Gaia. [*] Because of this, anomalies/events that generate a trap will no longer just do "Nothing", they will spawn a hostile fleet right on top of the fleet that's encountering the anomaly/event that will try to attack you. [*] Fixed a huge number of issues with AI that was causing severe problems with hostile civilizations attempting to take planets. [*] Added the ability to save/load civilizations on generation, so if you like a civ you generated and don't want to have to do it again, you can load it... or alternatively, if you want to fight said civilization in your universe, you can mark it as being possible to generate, having it spawn in your galaxy as a potentially hostile NPC civilization. [*] Fixed some cursor display issues. [*] Fixed an issue where attacking a Gaia fleet and attempting to Autoresolve would always result in a draw. [*] Removed the ability to start with higher tech tiers - such as Superadvanced, Advanced, etc. I know this is going to cause some controversy, and we may restore it if asked, but the problem we found was for balance reasons that it didn't give proper progression into gameplay. [*] Fixed an issue where turn times weren't visible in Hot Swap Multiplayer, you should now be able to see (and choose) how long turns are allowed to take in Hot Swap Multiplayer. [*] Buttons in Combat Mode now work as intended. [*] Added two buttons to combat map - Focus - which will bring the camera to the location of the selected unit, and another button that allows you to swap betweeen selecting "Air", "Ground", and "All" units if you drag select. [*] Added hotkeys to the buttons in combat mode. [*] Added the ability to group units for easy selecting with Ctrl + 1-9 and you can select them later by pressing 1-9. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//44247064/68ff04a450838cbad13aad51717e58c4348b1abd.png[/img] [*] Added a volume control for voices, speech, and TTS, which if turned all the way down will not generate TTS, improving performance. [*] Probes, Missiles, Bomber Squadrons, etc. will no longer pick Blasphemous Glitches as leader, but generate with Guidance Computers or pilots as intended. [*] Controls are now more descriptive in tutorial view. [*] Way way better saving/loading algorithms that improve save/loading speed. [*] Fixed a really nasty crash to desktop involving the music player. [*] Options menu SHOULD now save setting properly to settings.cfg according to the other dev. [*] Storms/Cyclones will no longer prevent the creation of trade routes. [*] If your species is carnivores, "Farming Commmunities" will now be "Ranching Communities" [*] If you scroll all the way out of the planet view, it will take you to the solar view. [*] If you scroll all the way out of the solar view, it will take you to the galaxy view. [*] Autosave, hotkeys, and other settings now work as intended. [*] Fixed a huge series of other crashes, bugs, CTDs, and blackscreens. [*] Cannot throw the view way outside the bounds of the battle map, solar system, or galaxy any longer. [*] Unit cards in the battle map have been redone. [*] Fixed an issue where if you picked a Human portrait and the player changed the traits, it would cause missing textures, incompatable atmospheres, and so forth after generation. [*] Fixed autosave button not working in Options menu. [*] Autosave set to default "Off", you can reeenable in options menu. [*] Fixed an issue where some Energy Being units had missing textures. [*] Added scrolling to the message log. [*] Fixed display issues with the message log, changed appearance and behaviour. [*] The message log will now display a long, long list if you disable the Overview window. [*] Modified tooltips throughout the game to be more accurate. [*] Made it more obvious that autosave or a file has been saved, because people were thinking the game had crashed during an autosave... smh. [*] Fixed visible stats when selecting a single unit in the battle map. [*] Pathing on planets will now avoid other armies unless they're directly attacking. [*] If you click in the build/deploy menu it will add to a queue now. [*] The workshop tool for uploading mods now works, although it has display issues. [*] Other features. [*] Other bugfixes. [b]Known Issues: [/b] - Collectives sometimes have Abominations as leaders. - Bug report tool had to be cut temporally. - We were unable to reproduce some issues such as ground combat maps not loading for some people, but these may have been caused by other issues that are now fixed. - Trade route window still draws the same color as before. We're fixing this in the next patch. Cheers, The Team