Alliance of the Sacred Suns News

[p]Hey everyone! Steve here. First of all, I know it's been quite a while since I last posted. As I alluded to in my last post, I've been working through a lot this year after being dropped by HH, and while I've made a lot of positive progress, it's still hard sometimes to reach out, but I think I'm finally in a place where I can go back to regular updates and interacting with the community. I actually love this part of game dev - old-timers to Alliance/Imperia will remember that I used to be super-responsive and chatty, probably to a fault, but obviously the penduluum has swung way too far the other way, and I'm sorry about that.[/p][p]So first thing first - I've been busy the last several months working on a smaller passion project called Boss Slayer: Zero. Game description below:[/p][p]It's a tactical strategy/RPG game set in the near future where you are an inmate with a life sentence, but you are given a chance to be pardoned if you participate in an experimental VR construct called JANUS. You signed up, but 92 years later, you realize you're much worse off then before.... can you escape JANUS, outwit a malevolent Warden AI known as simply The Judge, and possibly even save humanity from extermination?[/p][p]And the big news - As of today, I've released the initial public build for BS:0! [/p][p]Currently, BS:0 is in a late-stage prototype. Most of the core game loop is in, and the UI has been upgraded significantly from the early prototype stage, but a lot of 'gamey' elements are not yet present, like animated fighters, upgraded graphics, full SFX, and full UI motion. I wanted to add enough of the UI/camera work to show what I'm aiming for with the design and the 'feel' of the game.[/p][p]Anyway, I know many of you are 4x fans, and I know this is not a 4x game. It is a strategy game however, and it combines several genres of strategy (tactical, RPG, asset management, roguelike) into what I believe is a neat recipe.[/p][p]If you're interested in checking BS:0 out, you can always get the latest version on itch.io here: https://texashawk76.itch.io/boss-slayer-zero It's free for now (you can donate if you're so inclined, and that would certainly help with Alliance, but not necessary!) Once BS:0 gets to a sufficient development stage, I'll create a Steam page for it and make that the focus.[/p][p]Also, here is a gameplay video that showcases the combat side of the game: [dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]There's also an overworld/development aspect that I will also create a video for later today and update this post with, but this will at least give people an idea of what gameplay is like, even in this prototype version![/p][p]UPDATE: Here is the second video - it's the first video in a series that shows the career mode:[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p][/p][p]"Great, Steve. That's just great. What the hell is going on with the game I signed up for, though?"[/p][p]Valid question. So here's the deal. Right now, I am doing some limited work on Alliance, mainly optimizing and organization stuff like culling old assets, scripts, prefabs, art, etc. I'm also working on inline documenting many of the functions so when I go back to working on it full-time I won't have to relearn my code structure.[/p][p]Without going too much into psychoanalysis, I needed to release BS:0. I needed to prove to myself that I could code and bring to a reasonably solid state a game, even a much smaller game, into the public eye. And I needed most of all to prove that I could handle all aspects of game development myself, including coding, writing, UI, and debugging. I'm happy with where I'm at with these skills, so that bodes well for restarting active work on Alliance.[/p][p]So what that means from a practical perspective is that while my focus right now is on Boss Slayer: Zero, I am about to restart development - at least on a *very* part-time basis - on Alliance. [/p][p]My first overriding goal is to hammer the current dev build into a state as stable and documented as I can make it - tooltipping everything, cleaning up some interim UI elements, documenting internally and creating good comments, updating some LUA scripts, etc. Basically, I want to take what we have so far and make that as solid and stable as possible, and then go from there. [/p][p]At that point, I will more than likely start reaching out again to publishers. I have been in contact with several over the last 9 months, and there is still significant interest in the game and concept, but I wasn't yet ready to come back to New Terra. As of today, I haven't landed planetside yet, but I'm at least in orbit of the planet. :-)[/p][p]Finally, a word about timelines/release dates/promises in general: I've come to learn, especially for a small/solo studio, to be very careful about committing to things that I can't for certain complete/do. I'm well aware that I've burned a lot of trust in this community with that behavior, and all I can do going forward is to be here. Be consistent, be responsive, and be realistic. That much, I can promise this community. I don't take you for granted, and I'll be answering a lot of the tougher comments/posts today, and going forward I'm devoting an hour a day or so solely for social media/marketing/community interaction - I've neglected this part of the job, and I'm sorry.[/p][p]I will be posting a development diary shortly on BS:0 if you're interested in that project, along with an actual roadmap, albeit one without firm dates ;-)[/p][p]And as always, you can follow both projects on our Discord: https://discord.gg/fqHr82WeHY That's generally the best place to get the latest on both games.[/p][p]Long live the Celestial Empire,[/p][p]Steve Hawkins[/p][p]Owner, KatHawk Studios[/p]

Hey everyone! Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve had an update, so this will be a pretty
comprehensive one. This was a very tough document to write, and has gone through many
revisions and pauses, but what you’re reading now is the end result. Be warned this will be a very
long blog.

First of all, I’m truly sorry I haven’t been more communicative across our various channels.
Frankly, I’m quite glad to finally be writing this, as it will explain a lot of questions I’m sure many
of you have had - I can finally answer most of them!

I’ll start with the lead: Although we have been in negotiations with several major publishers - you
would instantly recognize any of them - and in one case for over four months(!) we have not
been able to find a publisher that will commit to the resources needed to properly complete
Alliance. There is a lot of interest in the game itself - the game, per se, has never been the issue;
the issue is the ability of a first-time team to complete such a large project. That not only
includes the coding of the actual game, but everything that goes with it on the periphery:
play-testing, balancing, in-game documentation, optimization, bug-fixing, etc.

As a result, I have allowed our team to pursue other projects for now. I don’t know how long it
will take to find a publisher, and it’s not fair to them to keep them ‘on the hook’ with such
uncertainty. They understand the situation and we will remain in touch.

So how did we get here, and what’s the plan going forward? I’ll address how we got here shortly,
but I want to get to the plan for those who don’t want to wade through an extended in-progress
mortem.

Over the last 8 months or so, I have been working a lot on my professional programming and
engine skills (Alliance uses Unity) and have been working on certifications both with Unity and
Microsoft to become truly proficient on a professional level - I’m essentially self-taught and this
approach has left me with a lot of gaps in my knowledge, gaps that I haven’t really needed to fill
until this year. So I’ve plunged into it, and I can say that my knowledge and abilities have grown
to the point where I can essentially continue to work on Alliance myself - most of the key
systems/UI/art/program structure is complete, so it’s really a matter of continuing to extend,
polish, and test what’s there.

But my focus right now is on a project that I’ve had on the backburner for a while, called Boss
Slayer: Zero. It’s a game that I designed originally as a board game, then extended the system
and story to fit a world I had in my mind around this game. It’s currently in advanced prototype
status, programmed using Unity 2023 LTS, and most crucially, is a project that was organized
and developed from the ground up the ‘proper’ way - with a paper prototype, a small testbed for
the main concepts, a full (and living) game design document, and a planned, incremental
approach to building and expanding the game.

What is Boss Slayer: Zero? It’s basically a tactical combat game where you fight in virtual arenas
against… a boss. Yes, like in RPGs. Think XCOM mechanics, but with one ‘soldier’ with many
more options and actions available, against individual aliens in a confined space. There is a
strategic layer that allows you to develop and improve your Fighter (what you are called in the
game) by cashing in Data (basically experience) and Prestige (what you gain from defeating
Bosses).

The idea behind the career mode is that in the future, you have been uploaded into a VR system
called JANUS that is run by an entity called The Judge. You participate in battles against bosses
that are viewed by millions of people in VR systems that they have/can access, and as you win
battles, you gain Followers that allow you to rank up, gain Prestige that leads to higher-level
Boss battles, and gain access to improved weapons, equipment, and combat programs(!) If you
lose too many battles, you lose Followers, and if you have too few Followers, you’re… deleted
forever, as you’re basically ‘cold Prada’ at that point in the show. There’s also a story mode that I
don’t want to spoil but I’m really proud of it and can’t wait to show it off!

So I’m currently soliciting feedback on the prototype build, and depending on that feedback, I
will start to prepare BS:0 for a very early access release. It’s a risk, especially considering the
development history of Alliance, but one huge difference is that I’ve focused on the game loop,
stability, and basic functionality from the very start - it already has a save/load system, a full
tutorial (using tools I developed for Unity!) that I’m really proud of - it’s funny, it tells the story of
your situation, and it slowly walks you through the basics of the combat system in BS:0. As a
result, anyone who plays the prototype will be up to speed without a cumbersome amount of
external documentation, and will be able to play quick battles after doing the story tutorial.
(there are currently 2 modes; story/tutorial and quick battle; there will also be a career mode as
described above and a battle setup mode where you can explicitly select a pre-made boss (or
have one procedurally generated), your setup, and the arena, as well as any special systems. I
have considered adding multiplayer, but that’s a new frontier for me so it’s currently not an
option; nevertheless, I have organized the game structure to (hopefully) more easily incorporate
such a mode if it gets added.

I hope to use the revenue from BS:0 to continue to develop it - I also have a second job
and it brings in enough income for me to essentially ‘work for free’ on BS:0, so any revenues will
be allocated to improving the content (UI, models, art, etc). As a result, the EA pricing for BS:0
will be very low to start - haven’t finalized it yet but it will be no more than $10 USD to start.

So that’s the present, and the immediate future. What about Alliance? Well, I do plan to continue
working on it slowly in my spare time - I estimate it will take about 100 man-hours of
programming and bug-fixing to bring it to a state where I can upload it to the mainline for those
who bought the original version, Imperia, all those years ago. It’s important to me that you see
the progress we’ve made- we’ve made tremendous strides in the UI, the tooltip system, and the
performance over the last several years. We were headed in the right direction, and the design is
one that I'm very excited about; once we can bring the game into a proper EA state I hope those
who have stuck with us will see what we’ve been working on. I’ve also decided to use that build
to create a new demo once it’s ready; I don’t want to get into the habit of creating ETAs that I
can’t make, so I’ll just say that I hope to release it fairly close to the BS:0 demo/public prototype.

I will say this: Alliance will be released at some point. There has been too much time, too many
resources, and a lot of blood, sweat, money, and tears invested for it not to. What I don’t want is
to do a ‘EA dump’ and compromise the project I and many others have worked so hard on. I will
admit I considered it. Strongly, for a time. But ultimately, I decided to try to keep the vision I’ve
had for many years. If/when we are picked up by another publisher, this will give them the
freedom to market and pivot the game as they wish.

As for me? I won’t beat around the bush: Last year was brutal. Personally, professionally, and
mentally. It was easily the toughest year of my life. That’s a big reason you didn’t hear much
from me - I just wasn’t up to it mentally. For those who remember the Imperia days, you
remember (hopefully) how responsive I was to the community, and I look forward to getting
back to that level of activity. The reasons why Alliance hasn’t yet made it over the finish line start
and end with me, and my inability to lead and manage a project of this size while also fighting
severe ADHD and its side effects (depression, procrastination, low self-confidence, etc).

Put simply, we didn’t finish the game on time because I didn’t stick to a vision for the game, I
didn’t treat it like a business, and I allowed feature creep to set in before we had to make tough
decisions last year about what we could truly deliver for an EA vs. a full release. It eventually
became overwhelming, and things sort of moved from there.

So, in June of last year, I finally made the decision to get my ADHD treated. It’s something I’ve
had all my life, and looking back on my life, it has set me back in so many areas. I won’t turn this
into a ADHD support/pity post, but I will just say two things: a) I will regret for the rest of my life
that I wasn’t treated much, much earlier and b) now that I am, I am so excited for the future of
what I can do - BS:0 is the first ‘fruit’ of that new focus and a ‘properly wired brain’, but obviously
the benefits will eventually trickle down into Alliance as well.

At any rate, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for your support. I do truly believe Alliance will be
released - it’s too far along not to, and I’m not a huge publisher who has to make the decision to
kill a project. I know immeasurably more about the game industry and the game development
cycle than I did when I started this journey years ago, and though it’s hard-won knowledge, it will
stay with me forever.

One final note: to publicly thank and acknowledge Hooded Horse. Alliance was their first signing
beyond Terra Invicta, and it’s been quite a ride. Tim, Snow, and the rest of HH has been nothing
but supportive and frankly gave us much more runway than we perhaps deserved, and I strongly
encourage any smaller developer who has a dream and a truly original idea to reach out to them.
You never know, and I firmly believe the industry is stronger as a whole when there are
publishers willing to take a risk on a smaller/unknown idea or game. Not all of them pan out, but
when they do, they can change genres, and HH is an example of a publisher who follows that
ethos.

Stay tuned for more information on BS:0 and Alliance - now that I’m freelance again, so to
speak, I’ll be much more active on these forums/Discord, and when the BS:0 Steam page is
launched (soon, no ETA) I’ll be active there as well. I will be renaming the Alliance Discord to
KatHawk Studios, and adding some channels for BS:0 if you’re interested in that project. The link to join is here: https://discord.gg/R4fCFZWGgG


Also, If you're interested in the current progress/state of Alliance, you can watch our in-house tutorial video here: https://youtu.be/reikU8axzSU

For the Celestial Empire, forever,
Steve

Hello everyone! Hope everyone had a good holiday and are ready for the new year! We’re so excited for what the new year will bring Alliance, and we wanted to focus on the revised and updated military system - this will describe the updated system that we will be testing in preparation for our next public beta!

Please note: All development blogs that discuss systems in progress are snapshots of the game at a moment in its development process. Depending on feedback, those systems, including the military, may change further before release. These blogs are a nice way for you to get ‘under the hood’ with us to understand why systems are designed a certain way, and why certain changes were/are being made! TLDR: This system as described may or may not represent the final 1.0 release system!

ALL IMAGES in this blog are APPROVED DESIGN MOCKUPS that represent the look of the final UI. They are NOT screenshots.

[h3]THE BASICS[/h3]

First of all, and most important, we have removed the concept of having to create operations to do things in Alliance. We decided that this was way too complex for what players wanted to do, which was basically take some ships and attack a target. So we’ve streamlined the process by removing operations and Operation Points entirely.

In the new concept we’re testing, instead of icons, ships are now actually represented as 3D objects in space, and can be selected either marquee-box style or through the Imperial Organizer. Once ships are selected, you can select a target - a ship/fleet, orbital, system, or planet; or you can select a target first and then add ships to target it, and the selected ships will act appropriately based on what type of ships they are without any further management from you!

For example, if you select a scout ship, and then select a system, it will explore the system. If you select several missile ships and group them with some combat ships, and then select an orbital in a system or planet, the missile ships will attack the orbitals while the combat ships will intercept any ships that attempt to attack the missile ships. If you select several transport ships, and then select a planet, they will attempt to attack the planet with troops, and so on. The fleet will act dynamically depending on what type of ship it is and the target assigned, so as the player, you just select the ships, the target, and go!

Command ships are still in the game, but are now optional to use. You can only deploy a command ship if it has an admiral. Admirals have up to 2 military traits, such as ‘Ground Specialist’ or ‘Bombardier’ that improve the relevant ship's capabilities as long as they are in the same system as the command ship. If the command ship is destroyed, the admiral is killed, so that’s a risk the player needs to consider!

[h3]SPACE COMBAT[/h3]

Combat and ship damage have been simplified as well, yet still require strategic consideration and should be easier for players to understand. Now, ships have 2 types of damage they can inflict - explosive and direct. Explosive damage tends to be more damaging, but less accurate and will inflict devastation and pop deaths on a planet, while direct damage is less damaging but is usually more accurate and does not kill pops or inflict much devastation damage. Combat now takes place in 60-second battles, and each ship has a rate of fire for explosive and/or direct fire. Each shot is now tracked and shown in 3D space in the system that it is occurring in! Accuracy is modified by the maneuverability of the target, so basically the faster the target, the lower the accuracy of a given shot. Admirals can also modify accuracy of certain ship types or damage types.

[h3]GROUND POUNDING[/h3]

Ground combat has been greatly simplified as well. There are no longer ‘troop units’ that must be created and tracked - now each region has a conquest value (basically hit points) and a defensive modifier, determined by the type of region and planet, and modified by the viceroy’s military value. Any ship can attack a planet, but troop transports are most effective - they have high direct damage that doesn’t kill pops or destroy nearly as much infrastructure, and a high rate of fire, but are otherwise defenseless so should not be sent into a planet that still has a functional planetary defense network!

Regions are attacked one at a time, and once a region’s conquest value reaches 0, that region is considered conquered. The viceroy also checks for planetary surrender after each attack.
If a battle stretches past one cycle, you have the option to retreat the ships or leave them there, but you must pay the energy costs (explained later) for them to remain on station. This means you are not locked into an order past the current cycle.

Movement between systems has changed slightly as well. Now, all ships (except for exploration ships) must use the logistical network between star systems. All ships move the same speed, and cannot ‘offroad’. So the network has greater strategic importance, and offensive and defensive fronts are now a possibility.

[h3]BUILDING WEAPONS OF WAR[/h3]

Ship building has also been streamlined. Now, there are 3 types of shipyards - minor, major, and capital - that correspond to all other orbital and building levels (I, II, III) and they can each build a specific type of ship once that ship design has been researched.

You still need ship components to build ships, but heavy materials have been removed from the game and ship components now use rare materials, making them more difficult to manufacture and making rare materials more important for exploration and warfare.

[h3]ENERGY/LOGISTICS[/h3]

Finally, let’s talk about energy. Ships now only use energy; no other resources are tracked when a ship is online. Ships have 2 energy use values: each cycle that a ship is idle or moving, and when a ship is performing its mission. Ships use a great deal more energy during mission cycles than during idle cycles.

All resources, but especially energy, has been scaled down considerably in new builds so large military offensives can quickly run a House or your Empire dry of energy, causing blackouts on your planets, orbitals and planetary buildings to go offline, and eventually riots and people leaving the dark planets!

Those are the major changes to the military system; we think these hands-on changes will make it more tactile, and we hope y’all will really enjoy diving into it!

Until next month!

Hello all! As we get into a cold December (here in the US, anyway) we wanted to share some of the exciting things we’re working on!

First of all, we’ve made tremendous progress in updating the UI. Last month, I talked about the UX at length, so I won’t rehash the general concept, but let’s take a look at how the experience is being refined!

Previously, you had to explicitly click on a planet to be ‘sent’ there, and then you’d have a bit of an overflow of information – it could be a bit intimidating, especially for new players, with a lot of windows and tabs that weren’t always easy to understand at a glance.





We have decided to go with a more independent navigation flow within the stellar view, with basic information about a planet ‘fading in’ as you approach it with zoom. You can still click on it, but you can also zoom in on it and the selected information panel in the bottom-center of the screen will change to show that info, without having to ‘commit’ to the choice. In this way, you can zoom in to look at things like orbitals, orbiting fleets/ships, and trade without having to zoom all the way in.



We’re also planning to update the hover functionality and information for world-space objects, like planets, orbitals, etc. to allow for more intuitive interactions.



As for the planet view itself, it has been completely reworked. We’ve replaced our planets with much higher LOD models, which allows us more detailed views at close distances and offers an improved light/shadow scenario for all the different planet types

The new curved wing panels allow quick access to stationary buildings and your planet regions. It condenses the critical information about regions and buildings into a readable format, and we think it looks very elegant. We’ve also added a planet action window so that, like systems, you can click on it and see everything you can theoretically do with a planet (even things that aren’t available yet).





You will also be able to expand the lower center panel to show more information about the planet (or any object that’s selected, really), and select a specific info category (economic, military, demographic, or overview). This will open up a configurable window that will show information that you can hide,show, and customize as required. You can even have multiple windows open at once! For example, you can now see a planet’s economic info, demographic info, and the viceroy character screen all at once, closing and minimizing as required!





Minimize, you say? Sure! On the lower-left, you now have a window management center that allows you to minimize character windows, planet windows, and other object windows by category, and then hover over the category to see a list and preview of that window, in the same state it was in when you minimized it! So in the above example, you could minimize the viceroy window, the planet economic window, go to another planet, open its economic window, and open the previous planet’s window to directly compare planet performance. You could even add a third planet! The possibilities are endless!! You can store custom organizers in this way as well. You can now create and store organizers for Houses, planets, characters, systems, projects, and much more!

What this system does is essentially give you near-total access to nearly all information in the game, relative to what you need it for. This makes ‘pinning’ objects unnecessary since you can store them minimized as required, as many as you need, for as long as you need. We’re very excited to see what our beta testers think!

Regions and other changes

We’ve made several improvements to Regions and related features, which we hope will make this portion of the game more streamlined and easier to interact with. For example, we’ve cut the number of pops down to six (RIP, Engineers and Merchants), and our pops now all produce a specific good within their chosen region. Regions can have designations such as mining, farming, science, etc. that only produce that one good/resource. Instead of build points, pops themselves build new sectors in regions using their labor, a one-time resource cost from the planet stockpiles, influenced by the viceroy’s engineering skills! Planets will now have a set number of regions regardless of size, with planet size instead influencing the max number of sectors per region. There will also be region types that will impose further modifiers on this base planet > region > sector structure.

You can change region designations on any planet that you own, or for any House that is a vassal or subjugated. Regions have also changed so that all planets have 6 regions, regardless of planet size; size now just determines the number of potential maximum sectors in a region. The type of region also matters; a volcanic region will be able to support far fewer sectors than a plains or forest region, and the time to build a new sector will also be affected by the region type! These changes should make sector and region output more transparent, and easier for the player to manage and influence!

That’s all for now - have a great holiday season and we’ll see you next month!

Hello everyone! It’s time for our quarterly update, but before I dive into what’s new (and there’s a lot), I wanted to do a bit of housekeeping:

• These blogs going forward will be increased to every 4 weeks since we now have a lot more cool stuff to share!
  
• We will be updating our demo soon, be on the lookout for details!
  

First, we have expanded our team! We have added Josh Atkinson as a UX/UI designer full-time. Josh hails from down under and has been invaluable in updating our ‘look and feel’ of the game. You will see his influence in the accompanying screenshots. Welcome Josh!

ICYMI: Because of the new hires and all of the improvements we’ve made this year, we also just want to reiterate that our release window is now 2024.

User Experience improvements

Next, I wanted to talk about our User Experience (UX). As most of you know who have been following the game for a while, the Discoverability and UX has by far been our largest challenge. Alliance has a lot of options available to the player, as well as a lot of data. Our challenge is finding a way to make these options easy to understand and access, as well as present data in a way that makes it easy for the player to find what they need without overwhelming them with a wall of numbers and/or text.

Finally, after years of iteration, we feel that we have found the solution. The solution is actually in 5 parts:

• Right-clickable objects in the game that bring up a context menu to act upon
  
• A comprehensive, sortable, expandable outliner similar to other Grand Strategy Games that replaces a lot of our static data
  
• A unified popup window design that works like Windows: they are draggable, resizable, closeable and there can be multiple ones on screen at the same time
  
• An Action panel native to the main screen that works on System and Planet view that shows every action you can take with a system or planet, and if it’s not available, shows why not
  
• ‘Sticky’ tooltips that can be expanded with more information and data, to reduce the overall size of tooltips, as well as provide ‘tooltip within tooltip’ functionality
  

Let’s break these down in more detail. First, the right-clickable objects. Previously, when you wanted to do a Character Action, you had to open the Character Screen, go to the Actions Tab, and then select the Action category before you selected the Action that you wanted. While you can still do this, we have added the ability to right-click on a portrait anywhere in the game and a ‘quick action’ box will come up that allows you to immediately do certain things with that character, including firing them and performing an Action. You can also do this with Planets, Systems, Houses, Fleets, and your portrait.


Next: the Outliner. Currently, we have data spread out across the game in numerous screens, and it’s not a very unified setup - it’s shown more by mode (e.g. war, economy, domestic, etc) as opposed to holistically. So we wanted to find a way to present most of the info in the game, sortable, clickable, customizable, and by whatever value the player wants to use to compare objects. Enter the Outliner. The Outliner will be a powerful tool to access essentially anything that is actionable - essentially, anything that you can call up currently in the game to act upon will be available through the Outliner. This includes alerts, Court Requests, Comms, and turn blockers (e.g. setting the budget, etc). This means that we can remove several existing elements of the UI as well as remove several Nexii and streamline the amount of screens in the game.

As part of this design, we have moved to a singular modular window design that will carry across almost all of our UI windows. It’s designed to be movable, scalable, resizable, and closable, and multiple windows can be open at once without any performance loss. This has multiple benefits to the player - tons more flexibility for how they want to use the UI, the ability to compare objects (you can have multiple character screens/planet screens/system screens open at once) and the ability to carry data to other views (before, you could only see planet panels on the planet view, now you can see them anywhere).


Now, let’s talk about the Action Panel. This is the centerpiece of our focus on accessibility and player understanding. Imagine a panel that shows you EVERY SINGLE THING you can do with an object (system, planet, character, etc) that has headers that you can open and close, sort, and hide, and that gives you feedback why a specific thing isn’t available. This is the aim of the Action Panel. Now, finally, all actions that you can take with an object in Alliance will be shown in one place - not only the things you can do right now, but what you can potentially do in the future and what you need to do to make that available. In our testing, it has been a game-changer for access and understanding, and we’re excited to add it to the game!




Finally, tooltips have gotten an overhaul with functionality - they will now have the ability to be ‘sticky’ by pressing F once a tooltip is open, at which point you will be able to interact with it, either hovering over a keyword in the tooltip or opening up a info box that expands upon the info in a ‘quick text’ label. This should make tooltips both smaller (since they need to contain less info initially) and more functional.


This in addition to a revamped top Main UI that will be persistent across all screens except for End Turn - this way, you will have critical info available when an Event happens or you’re trying to decide to accept a Demand. To accommodate this, it has been made much slimmer and now stretches across the top of the screen.

System View

So that’s the UI. Now let’s talk about the System View! We have significantly revamped it and made it to where you can pan and zoom (similar to Stellaris). You can now zoom into a planet and as LOD increases see orbitals there, as well as 3D fleets stationed there(to be added very soon). You will also notice arrows pointing out towards LGN connections to other systems, as well as LGN nexus nodes, You will now be able to click on these arrows and move between systems (and nodes). We have also added zoom to cursor functionality, and we will be adding a zoom bar to show where you are in the zoom hierarchy.


We’ve done much more including an all-new Science Nexus design, adding more Actions and Epiphanies, balancing numerous facets of the game, adding the remainder of the Military System, and much more! We can’t wait to release the new demo that will showcase much of this new content, so you can judge for yourself!

Finally, our Discord has been quite quiet over the last several months, but it’s about to get a lot busier. If you’re already part of it, prepare for a significant uptick of activity very shortly, and if you’re not, what are you waiting for? Join the fun here: https://discord.gg/3hcGa4hcmE

See you soon!

Steve Hawkins
Project Lead, Alliance of the Sacred Suns