Galactic Ruler News

The colony system has gone through further significant changes. Testing from the last update quickly revealed that it was causing players to have too many different colonies, many of them very minor strategic positions for the player. The new rules attempt to keep clusters of colonies under a single owner if they have only system level assets. The clearest example is a player adding orbital stations to the moons of their homeworld now retains ownership of those stations and by extension any shipyards built there. If players later establish an outpost or colony on one of those moons, the orbital station ownership shifts to belong to the colony.

This update also unlocks 3 more races; the Breel, the Gulthian and the Dicapse. This brings the number of playable factions up to 13. We've also reduced the galaxy sizes. In testing we found it spread players too far across the galaxy. This will continue to be evaluated and additional advanced options for size are planned.

• Three new factions available
  
• Changes to colonization system
  
• --- Orbital stations on moons will stay owned by the same faction where possible
  
• --- Taking a planet will switch the Orbital Station ownership when relevant
  
• --- Fixes to taking territory on non-breathable worlds
  
• --- Colonies of colonies become colonies of the empire
  
• --- Colonies providing initial stock of goods and personnel
  
• Fixes and improvements to diplomatic trades
  
• Galaxy sizes reduced by half - may be increased again later in development
  
• Ballistic shot graphic colour at space level updated
  
• Improvements to Tutorial chapters 2 and 3
  
• Fixes to 3D model lighting system
  
• Improvements to galaxy generation - asteroid placement
  
• Fixes to resource trading with Merchant AI
  
• Fixes to crate management
  
• Fixes to beam weapon system
  
• Updates to game cursor system
  
• Various sound, UI and graphics updates
  
• Unit Orders list now has tooltips for order details (partially written, ongoing)
  
• Planet type names shown, might create some mismatch types (work ongoing)
  
• 4K scaling fixes to slider bar graphics
  
• Tech tree changes, FTL transport ship now available earlier
  
• Added self destruct order
  

We also recorded a livestream a few days ago that shows off a bunch of the updated features.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7SpqSBevSw

Our latest FastTrack update came up at the end of last week. We've made big improvement to how commodity trading is done, much easier to meet Energy demands. Maybe it's too easy now. We've also done a major rebalancing of early game space units. Also added a new facility to help defend your homeworld from pirates in the early game.

We've also done a developer live stream to talk about these recent changes.

https://youtu.be/Igg3Gc332Rw

Full change log for version 0.805;

• Combat stats of all early game units rebalanced. Battles should be much more interesting.
  
• Resource department, market trades, new controls to set "target supply" for each commodity
  
• --- Locking the commodity will reset the slider to neutral, but can be adjust to order more trades
  
• Resource department, market controls, Build Export now allows putting goods into "crates" in your space dock which can then move to your transport ships
  
• --- This system for setting crates size has some inherent flaws and is a temporary solution. How you set the quantity for the crate will be changed in a future update.
  
• Space Engineers are now capable of dropping on planets. Can be consumed to produce a spaceport on new worlds to exploit them.
  
• Pirate crews increased so they can capture and be more piratey
  
• New Defense Platform facility added for system level, early homeworld defense
  
• Terrain graphic optimizations
  
• Pirates will declare war if a faction incurs (crosses into their territory)
  
• Resolved conflict between mouse drag and mouse right click
  
• Internal DaysPerYear changed to 100 from 365 (should be fine…)
  
• Various minor UI fixes, engine fixes and optimizations
  
• Tutorial 2 much improved, nearly complete
  
• Tutorial 3 updates (still ends abruptly, but working)
  
• Tech tree balance of "leads to" technology links improved
  
• Localization and text fixes
  

In our latest video, we asked for community feedback on specific topics. We're looking to know what players think about the way they can now control the units from their colony. We also asked about what players would like to see on the topic of minor races. Any and all feedback is of course welcome. Check out the video here;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cacCszn1hiY

Just in time for your Christmas holidays, Galactic Ruler has been updated again on FastTrack. As well as 2 new races, the diplomacy has been updated with a number of new treaties.

We missed announcing version 0.788 so two changelog lists are included here. We also plan to some live streams in the new year, so keep an eye out for those if you'd like to see some of the gameplay.

FastTrack v.793:

Added Swarm and Rhydandite races (AI and Silica based)
Various new treaties added in Diplomacy with other regions.
Fixed colony flags
Multiplayer chat word wraps properly, whisper @ function cleaned up
Fixes to Steam username not displayed on older operating systems
Size of system maps adjusted for more zoom out
Max zoom in increased (reset options to apply)
Sound and music default values adjusted
Colony system fixes
Trade/Diplomacy system fixes
Flag updates
Fixes to multiplayer sync on reload
Fixed planet level direct combat attacks
Tightened up information bleeds in UI
Clean up of right click options at system and galaxy
Implemented faction edible resource (defines what they eat)
UI updates
Equipment stat fixes
Updated VFX for shots, hits
Updated tree models, work in progress
Added stability in unit order processing
Many minor fixes

FastTrack v.788:

Fixed crashes inspecting future facility designs
VFX Updates
--- space ballistic shot updated, style and speed refactored
--- Fixed FTL spin up effect. Adjusted growth model and maximum size
Colonize order builds spaceport
Merchant AI deliver to spaceport instead of spacedock as intermediary
Multiple diplomatic trade messages fixed
Declare War menumap item opens popup instead of department
Fixes for internal change of player counts related to updated colony model
Better support for long messages in MP chat
Multiplayer chat‘@’ to whisper in MP fixed
Steam player name cleanup now fixed for pre-Win10
Formation move ignored at galaxy level
Minor UI and graphic fixes

Our latest fasttrack is focused mostly on bug fixes, but we did sneak in a few goodies as well.

The notable new addition is that landing on other worlds will always create a colony immediately. This ensures that territory owned by your empire leading faction is only on the home world. This is important for enforcing that resources on a planet are planet-bound. The trade and transfer system continues to be made more robust and fits well with this system. More colony improvements will be included in future updates.

FastTrack v.786:

• Major update to colony system
  
• --- Each new world reached immediately starts a colony for the empire
  
• --- Empire planetary territory is now only on the homeworld
  
• --- Resource inventory properly planet-bound
  
• Fixes to trades/diplomacy
  
• Rules of Engagement for space level implemented
  
• Minor combat fixes
  
• Fixed crashes (Load into, music loop and UI flaw)
  
• Planet level procedural generation updated for better facility dispersion.
  
• Resolved MP Sync issue caused by use of tprand in AI map list scan
  
• MP UI fixes
  
• Steam Username better handling in MP lobby and for savegame naming
  
• Fixed next/previous space production location selector
  
• New building for Space Dock Launch Pad