Empires of Creation

Captain! We have received a new transmission from the capital about new updates for Empires of Creation!

We have had a number of updates, from outlining fleets to show relation status.

To giving pirates unique names!

We have also updated the game with a new background shader!

In this update, we feature a number balances, fixes, and other changes to make the game more fun! So without further ado, let’s get into the list! Changes:

Added autosave when colonizing.

Colonizers price reduced to 3600 base, and increases by 25% per colony owned.

Arena now spawns fleets further apart, from 500 to 600.

Decreased length of days by 25%

Increased delay between strafing.

Player’s credits decrease on respawn by 25% but will not deduct credits below 100.

Social icon now glows when there is an available quest.

Changed alert icon to a speech icon.

Improved Save Game panel and added a delete all button.

Improved Empire AI.

Improved message log system.

Missiles no longer blow up on allies.

Loading screen game tips.

Arena loading screen game tips.

Empires now start with more credits.

Now all ships join a siege when it starts.

Additions:

Added grid effect behind stars.

Arena has new background music!

Added outline to fleet icons to signify relationship state.

Added new background effect when zoomed into fleets.

Pirates now have unique fleet names!

Fixes:

Fixed issue where quit prompt wouldn’t disappear when selecting another option.

FIxed issue where selected colony info does not display on target panel.

Fixed Siege time issue.

Fixed issue where ship numbers would not reflect the viewable ship number set in settings.

Fixed issue with colonies spawning with max population.

Fixed issue where saves didn’t show the day.

Fixed issue with selling ships.

Fixed issue where thumbnails didn’t show on load screen.

Suicidal tendencies of AI reduced (the AI just needed some therapy).

Fixed issue where colonies building haulers claim they’re building scouts.

Fixed issue of fleet speed issue when traveling fast.

All UI elements now re-scale properly!

Improved AI targeting.

Fixed issue where quests would disappear.

Significantly reduced jittering with player ships.

Fixed issue where warping would do damage to the ships.

Fixed issue where retreating would initiate when a battle would start.

Fixed issue with buying multiple ships from colonies.

Fixed issue with ships not returning to colonies after a siege.

Tons of ship balancing!

Beta Patch #2 Progress Update!

The team has been hard at work to improve Empire of Creation, and here is the report of the latest updates from B.O.S.S.!

Space can be barren, but the Arena is not!

The arena now has a wraparound so you will never be presented with the darkness of the void! You will now be able to constantly see the beautiful artwork by our talented artist~

More noticeable mission icons

Sometimes a static image will blend in with the screen and go unnoticed, now with our addition of the flashing mission icon above colonies, your attention will always be caught so you never miss a mission again!

New arena background!

We introduce another spectacular piece of art to populate the arena with! Who knows what happened on these space stations, the universe is full of mysteries~

The official release out of Early Access is on the horizon and the team is working full throttle! We look forward to giving you the best experience we can offer!

Until next time,

Signing out.

Twitter: https://goo.gl/H8OqMu

Facebook: https://goo.gl/pcC6v6

Instagram: https://goo.gl/u28xcN

Greetings Commander,

We have received word from our Allies that the engineers at B.O.S.S. have made new advancements to their systems!

Objective alert visual~

Your sensors will show when a colony has missions for you! Never miss out on another mission again~

YouTube and Twitch channels~

B.O.S.S. has added new methods of communication! They are now utilizing the functions of Twitch and YouTube, where they will have several series to showcase Empires of Creation.

Monthly Update Video - Along with the development report for the monthly updates we will now also be releasing a video talking about the changes and additions to the game. These videos will be released a few hours before the actual update. We hope everyone can find them informative and entertaining!

System Showcase - Every week on Wednesday there will be a video showcasing a system of the game, from ship control to missions to diplomacy, all will be explained in depth in this weekly guide.

New Youtube Series - ‘Objective: Debug’ Will be released every monday on the Bundle Of Sticks Studios Youtube, In this series we are task primarily to find and resolve bugs. Series hosted by Jamie (the lead dev) and Ian “Shikibara” (PR)

Weekly Stream - Every Saturday Ian “Shikibara” and “Waffles From Nowhere” will stream Indie Sci-Fi games on B.O.S.S.’s Twitch, and highlights of the stream will be uploaded to the EOC YouTube Channel!

You can find their channels here -

YouTube: https://goo.gl/65SZfo

Twitch: https://goo.gl/vmlz3z

Mission Improvements~

We hear rumors that the missions system will be receiving an overhaul to reflect the actual objective! Colonies will now actually have you defend specific systems from invasion and attack specific pirate bases!

This concludes our report for this week, be sure to follow our socials down below to stay up to date on the latest news for Empires Of Creation!

Signing out.

Twitter: https://goo.gl/H8OqMu

Facebook: https://goo.gl/pcC6v6

Instagram: https://goo.gl/u28xcN

Trello: https://goo.gl/XRSnPC

YouTube: https://goo.gl/65SZfo

Greetings commander,

Our spies have recently received intel on the information regarding B.O.S.S.’s most recent meeting!

New Arena Background~

Our sources tell us that a new background for the arena is in the works, and we even have images of it!

Debris~

Ship hauls are getting ever stronger! No longer do they disintegrate into nothingness, but now some debris will remain on the battlefield to mark the destruction wrought upon the galaxy.

Asteroid Belts~

We have recently discovered solar systems with asteroid belts, certainly it is a sight to behold!

That concludes this week’s report, be sure to follow the project to stay up to date on any new information our spies may yet discover~

https://twitter.com/eoc_game

https://www.facebook.com/empiresofcreation

https://www.instagram.com/empiresofcreation/

https://trello.com/b/nbX8MOzu/empires-of-creation

Greetings commander,

I’m transmitting to you the minutes of our latest meeting here at B.O.S.S We have made a great deal of progress with balancing and fixes!

Arena Speed~

We have added a new Arena speed prompt. This will let you see just how much you have slowed down or sped up the arena battles.

New Starting Credits~

A major change has to be the balancing of how many credits you start off with. Originally being 5,000 credits, you now start off with 2,000. Gone are the days of buying out all the ships in your first colony and tormenting the galaxy with your brute force, welcome the life of choosing your battles and knowing when to retreat!

Extended view~

Your sensors have had a 30% increase to sensor range, this should will let you see more of the galaxy at once, commander. Plot your course with greater knowledge of where you are going, and easily see what is happening around you.

That is all we have for you this week, but remember, you can always keep an eye on what B.O.S.S. is working on via Trello!

https://trello.com/b/nbX8MOzu/empires-of-creation

And don’t forget to follow us on the Social Medias, it’s where you can get all latest news!

https://twitter.com/eoc_game

https://www.facebook.com/empiresofcreation

https://www.instagram.com/empiresofcreation/

Hey again guys!

Another week, another meeting. Lots of new features from the development side of things we’re excited to show you guys!

Fleet Arena Battles-

Multiple fleets will now be able to join in arena battles at once. The AI will determine it’s relationship with each party currently in conflict in order to better decide which side to join. We think the results are really cool, chaotic, and fun. (See above.)

Scaling UI-

More UI elements have been made to scale. Now every UI element in the game with the exception of planet icons will scale according to the player’s selected scaling option.

Additionally, scaling has been set to dynamically change depending on the resolution. While the player can still manually set their UI scaling, the auto option allows for simpler and more dynamic resizing. (Pictured below.)

Hidden Locations-

Pirate encampments will be hidden from sight until the player travels close enough to discover them.

Additionally, it used difficult to distinguish habitable planets from inhabitable ones. It would require the player taking the time to manually check a planet to see it’s type. Now whenever a player discovers a habitable planet, it will display it’s name in green and stay discovered on the map.

These discovery features will allow players to feel as if there’s more to explore in the galaxy as well as to leave their mark.

New AI Action Prioritization-

Due to how the AI used to be structured, fleets sometimes had a difficult time deciding whether or not to continue exploring or to engage in a fight. This occasionally ended with them becoming “confused” and bouncing between objectives without actually committing to one. The system which the AI uses to prioritize their actions has been remade and now makes more intelligent decisions.

That’s it for this week! If you want to continue to keep an eye on our work and see how far we’ve come, feel free to check out our public Trello board!

https://trello.com/b/nbX8MOzu/empires-of-creation

Additionally, we’re currently running a Twitter contest to give away a free copy of Empires of Creation!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the first in what we hope is a long line of weekly updates! You see, every Thursday the team gathers together and has a meeting in which we end up discussing what we’ve been able to accomplish and where we’re going next. From the player side of things though, it probably doesn’t seem like much as happening. As such, we decided to compile the results of the meeting and share them with you guys!

ART:

  -We’ve created a proper backdrop for Arena mode! Check it out above.

  -We’ve created some more UI elements to make certain things easier to understand.

PROGRAMMING:

  -The default limit for ships is now 10. Players are able to expand their fleet size by an additional 10 for every colony they own. This gives the player reason to actually create and expand an empire rather than to play as a mercenary and just dogfight enemies all day.

  -There is now a consequence for running out of money. Once the player has a negative balance, ships in their fleet will eventually become destroyed. Since every ship has a monthly upkeep fee, this is representing ships breaking down without proper maintenance.

WRITING:

  -More work has been done on the Wonder system to make sure each one has a thoroughly engaging quest. The Wonder system will help the players explore the lore associated with each Empires of Creation race in more detail.

  -Descriptions for each ship have been drafted up.

That’s it for now! If you want to check out what we’ve gotten done throughout development as well as what more we have left to do, feel free to check out our public facing Trello board! 

https://trello.com/b/nbX8MOzu/empires-of-creation

GAME UPDATE! Alpha 3

We’ve recently had to push the timeline of the game’s official release back by two months. Work has not been progressing as fast as we would like, and for that we apologize. However, on the bright side this means that you all have a couple more months of steady updates and content still to come out!

Building off of the many graphical improvements from last month, we’ve listened to feedback and are continuing to work on the UI elements of the game. This month one of the new biggest features has been a couple of updates to ship UI. We wanted to make it easier to sort through and manager the various units the player employs.

We’ve also completely overhauled the camera system for stability and performance. This might sound a bit boring, however this has allowed us to do a couple of cool new things. For instance, the angle on the camera is no longer fixed. Since the game is built within Unity and exists in a fully three-dimensional environment, this allows the game environment to feel more dynamic.

The effect is subtle, but we feel it added a much needed “depth” to the presentation of Empires of Creation we felt was lacking. This new system should allow us to add in further refinements and improvements when it comes to the visual presentation of the game. Additionally, it should reduce the amount of bugs related to the camera in the future.

The next biggest addition isn’t one that has necessarily been added to the game. Our artist has been hard at work creating new assets in order to bring Steam trading cards to Empires of Creation. In addition to a set of five wonderful cards, players will be able to collect a set of backgrounds, badges, and even steam emoticons.

These new art assets will add even more flavour and detail to the world of Empires of Creation. We hope to launch the new cards soon, so keep an eye out!

For everything new or changed with this update, see the full changelog below.

Added:

Steam trading cards are implemented.

Players can now better see the ships they currently possess

Descriptions have been added to in-game ships

Improvements:

Further UI changes for increased player readability

All enemy fleets have been scaled in range of the player’s fleet

Controls can now be rebound and customized

The camera system has been revamped and now supports tilting

Input system is now capable of handling double pressing

The numbers involving player ship speed have been adjusted and rebalanced

Dialogue has been overhauled behind the scenes.

Stay up to date:

Website: http://empiresofcreation.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/eoc_game

Facebook: http://facebook.com/empiresofcreation

We want to start posting more content to our website so that you guys can keep up to date with our additions and planned updates to the game.

If you pay attention to our Twitter, then you’ve likely seen that we’ve been posting a lot of content which features our “wonder” system. Since this has been one of our key focusing points for a while, we figured it would be a good first post to get back into the swing of things.

What is the wonder system?

Look to real life- nations past and present have multiple historically significant natural or man made “wonders.” These are structures such as the Eiffel tower, or geographical features such as Old Faithful. Cultures will shape around these types of wonders, and often times culture will influence the wonder in the first place. These types of landmarks are part of what make nations and people unique and interesting. 

Since we’re a sci-fi game, we want to make sure that each of our alien races are as diverse and developed as real world countries and ethnic groups. Our inclusion of wonders are what we feel will allow us to do this. Wonders will be unique landmarks present within the game world which are highly prized and heavily guarded by their respective races. They are the keystones to the variety of alien cultures in Empires of Creation and affect the game world in meaningful ways.

How Does The Wonder System Work?

As players continue to explore the galaxy, they will come across unique story based quests. These quests will eventually tie into the wonder for each civilization. Some of these quests might be started by stumbling across the wonder, while others through a long term alliance with a race.

We’re still figuring out the full implementation, but we can at least give an example of one of the planned concepts. One of the wonders is intended to be a sort of teleporter which connects an alien race back to their home galaxy. Another alien race wants to destroy the teleporter and salvage it for resources. The player will have the choice between protecting the teleporter in exchange to possibly use it to fast travel, or destroying it for better weapons and ships. Additionally, the race which the player helps will receive added logistical advantages which will affect the galactic economy as a whole.

we can provide direct assistance on steam, skype or google hangouts, feel free to contact me directly on any of the socials mentioned:

More Missiles and Mines

Missiles and Mines are secondary weapons for high tier ships! To expand upon these weapon types we are working on implementing more into the game.

New Guy, Just Saying Hello!

After roughly a year of development, Empires Of Creation is now officially available in early access on steam! If you go and buy a copy right now, you will have the opportunity to not only get it for a cheap price of $4.99 (25% off until Nov. 27th, 2015!) but also watch as the game grows and develops into it’s full form. Pick up your copy today and conquer the galaxy!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/412250