Ape Apps

My Colony v0.92.0 is now heading out to all app stores and should be hitting your devices within the next few days. This is a very minor update, including a handful of bug fixes reported in the forums, as well as some fixes for Coloniae stat reporting.

I didn't have enough time this week to put out a more substantial update, as I have family coming into town later today and they will be staying with us until next Wednesday. I knew that there were some bug fixes that needed to go out for My Colony, and if I waited to put together a bigger content release, I wouldn't be able to get the bug fixes published until late next week.

Second half of next week I will begin work on v0.93.0. Current plan is to continue with the I.T. infrastructure updates. I will also be adding a new in-game "Flag" creation tool, allowing you to create flags/logos for your Commonwealth or Federation. In addition, I will be adding an in-game way to view a profile of other players, allowing you to see all of a person's colonies by their username.

So anyway, I hope everyone has a good weekend! I will be "off" for the next few days, but will be back at it again mid next week, so stay tuned for more!

MP is multiplayer spawn point. C is campaign spawn point, but it is not yet supported.

Thanks for the debugging. You are right that there is no authentication on API function 32. I can probably change that now, as it was required to be that way before because registering a colony online originally did not require an Ape Apps Account at all, and so the functions of adding a new colony to the database and registering a colony to an account were implemented separately, to accommodate all of the colonies that existed before Ape Apps Accounts were implemented. I will need to replace this with a new authenticated function for the next update.

When you browse to a folder on your network, if you open up the "three dots" menu there should be an option that says something like "upload files here"

JanetandTim said:Can two users work with one ledger? Basically a joint account.

Yes. On EZ Register, both devices would need to be signed in using the same Ape Apps Account. Then you would need to open the Ledger Settings menu and enable Cloud Sync.

Are you thinking like an in-game logo maker, or a deal that just lets you upload your own image file?

Thanks for the tutorial @GeneralWadaling , I have just submitted an update to My Tokens for Windows, Android, and iPhone which should fix the issues people are experiencing.

Ape Chat now supports private, invite-only invite channels. To create a new private channel, you open the Ape Chat desktop interface ( chat.ape-apps.com ), and on the "add channel" input box, you type in your new channel name with a % sign in front of it, like so:


Note that the % sign is only used to tell the server that you are creating a private channel. Afterwards, the sign is not used in the channel name.

If the channel does not already exist, it will be created in private invite-only mode, with you as the channel moderator. Note that other than myself and @cry8wolf9 who are global chat moderators, only private channels can have an individual moderator.

Once you have created a channel, you can invite users with the command:

/invite [username] to [channelname]

In addition, if the user you want to invite is in the username listing in another channel, you can right-click on their name and select "Invite to Channel' to invite them they easy way.


Once somebody is added to your private channel, they will gain the ability to invite other users as well.

The moderator of the private channel will soon (but not quite yet) be able to add additional moderators, set the display name and description for the channel, add an icon to the channel, set channel member ranks, kick/ban people from their channel, etc. Keep in mind that the global moderators can access any private channel without invitation.

This is one of the new features I am getting ready for the upcoming Ape Chat stand alone mobile app, which I plan to release to at least Android, and hopefully iOS, within the week here.

Enjoy, and let me know what other chat suggestions you have!

I have created a new forum section dedicated to Ape Chat ( chat.ape-apps.com ), which is the chat server that is embedded into this forum and several Ape Apps games, such as My Colony. The reason is that I plan on expanding the capabilities of the service, and I want a place where I can post an easy reference to all of the chat command line arguments and options that are available.

So if you have any problems, suggestions, or anything else related to the chat server, use this forum section!

I am in the process of adding a Friends List system to Ape Apps accounts that will allow you to easily see when your friends are online playing games like My Colony, or to invite them to a match in games like Death 3d. You can start testing the ability to add friends right now by using the Ape Chat desktop interface from your web browser (go to chat.ape-apps.com ) and right clicking on somebody's name in the user listing and selecting Add to Friends.


The only way they can accept right now is if they also right click on your name and select Add to Friends, but within the next couple of days this website will also have a list of your pending requests on your profile page and will allow you to accept or decline.

Friend management will soon be embedded into online games like My Colony also. For example, when you start a new colony, you will be able to pull up a list of your friends' charter codes. Or you can get notified when a friend is starting a new Colony Wars game lobby.

So anyway, it should be a cool new feature, and I will keep looking for neat ways to incorporate it into my various games!

do you know the charter code

So I am just now putting the finishing touches on My Colony v0.91.0, and the update should be going out to all platforms throughout the weekend. I had originally planned on a bit larger of an update, but since it's already Friday evening and I don't want to spend the weekend working on My Colony, I decided to just go ahead and release what I have now and save the rest for next time! Hope you can forgive me 🤔!!

So this update adds a handful of new features and some more IT related content, mostly for Zolarg and Alpha Draconians, but there is some new human stuff too. There is also a "balancing" change that will probably get me a few "you broke the game" 1 star reviews in the app store, but It will be ok in the long run. I'll explain later, until then let's see what's new!

The first new engine change I made is something that has been requested for quite some time now - a variable volume slider for the in-game sound effects, which you can find in the Engine Settings menu:


So now instead of just on or off, you can set the in-game volume to whatever you want. People have been asking for this since I first added sound effects, so I hope you guys get some use out of it!

Next up, if you look at the statistics window for a specific resource, you will see a new "Trade" icon in the top-right corner, if you are playing an online game and you have the GBT.


This is just a simple shortcut that goes straight to the GBT trading screen for the particular resource you are looking at. I will probably be assigning a keyboard shortcut to this soon also, like press T to open the trading window.

Next, as requested in this thread, the global My Colony chat room is now accessible from within the game. This is the chat channel that is embedded on the my-colony.com website, and can also be accessed by clicking on the below button.


The chat channel is available whether you are playing an online or offline game, as long as you are signed into the game using an Ape Apps Account. And speaking of chat, as requested in this thread, I will probably take a couple of days off early next week to create a dedicated Ape Chat app for Android and iPhone. It's probably not necessary on Windows since the detached chat window is pretty easy to use on Desktop, and the Ape Apps Launcher also has chat built in now.

Moving on, the first time you open your colony in v0.91.0, if you had a bunch of embassies from colonies that are no longer active on the server, you will notice a few moments of explosions, as those embassies are all leveled to the ground. Moving forward, the game now verifies all of your embassies to see if they are attached to working colonies. This change is necessary because I plan on adding a couple of embassy interactions to the game over the next few updates, and they need to be attached to real colonies on the server.

Next up, as of this version, the game now keeps track of a couple of extra stats, including the total amount of hours you have played a specific colony. This stat will appear on your stats screen in the next couple of updates, but for existing colonies, the time is relative to the release of v0.91.0, since this data was not tracked beforehand.

Moving right along, you will now notice that Software is available in the GBT now for trading, so have at it!

Ok, now for the change that some people may get upset about. In the last release notes, I said that I would be going back and adding Software requirements to several existing buildings. Well, I decided to start with the biggest one first. The Robotics Factory and the Advanced Robotics Inc. now require Software to build, but more importantly, Robots now require Software as a building material. For a colony with a lot of Advanced Robotics Inc., this can be a major development, since that particular building pumps out Robots so fast, it will really suck up the Software in order to stay running. There is a new building available to help mitigate this change, but I know a lot of people are going to log in to their colony on v0.91.0 and wonder why all of their Robot production has suddenly ground to a halt. I am prepared for the hate though!

So those are the major changes in v0.91.0, let's move on to what is new. This update mainly brought a bit more Information Technology content to the Zolarg and Alpha Draconian races, but there is one new Human structure and even a brand new Premium bot, since it's been a few months since I've added anything new for the loyal paying customers.

As last time, here is a color coded list of the new structures added with this release, with Black representing Human content, Orange for Zolarg content, and Purple for Alpha Draconian content.

• Center for Automation Coding
  
• Tower of Thoughts
  
• Hall of Elders
  
• Mound of Online Business
  
• Automated Art Display
  
• Integrated Antanium Impactor
  
• Coders Den
  
• I.T. Studio Complex
  

In addition, Humans have a new technology, Advanced Networking Infrastructure, which is required for the new I.T. Studio Complex, and humans also have a new Premium-Only bot, the Megabot Deluxe, which is a snazzy gold-plated Megabot with 30x the build speed of the normal Megabot.


So the new I.T. Studio Complex pretty much makes the existing Small Software Studio look like a dumpster fire, as it really spits out the Software like nobody's business. Which is good, because you're going to need it to keep those Advanced Robotics, Inc. up and running. I did a rough(ish) calculation, and it takes about 0.75 I.T. Studio Complex structures to supply 1 Advanced Robotics, Inc., which is a pretty intense ratio. I'm sure at some point there will be an even bigger Software studio, but this is what is available at the moment. If you are not building a ton of Robots though, you will be able to keep the GBT well stocked using this new Software studio.

With the rest of the new structures, all races should now be able to produce at least a modest amount of Software. For the Reptilians, I added an earlier game Automated Art Display for producing a few paintings, as it was otherwise difficult early on to build structures like the Potter's Den and the Galactic Fine Arts Exposition.

All of that said, I still have quite a bit to do in terms of adding Information Technology content, but it is coming along somewhat. It's probably going to take at least a couple of more updates, and then moving forward, Software and Bandwidth will probably be important inputs for new content. I am thinking of adding Ether requirements to some of the later-game I.T. stuff too, but not too much since on most games Ether is only going to be available for online players.

So that is all for today's update. As I mentioned at the beginning, I plan on taking the weekend off here (although I might do a new My Colony Podcast episode if I get bored) and then spending the early part of next week on a new chat client for mobile, then I will be back to work, so keep those helpful bug reports and suggestions coming! And as always, thanks for playing My Colony, and stay tuned for more!

Thanks for catching that!

bazookarama said:I am currently sitting with about $1 trillion and building around $55 billion /day. Is there anything coming after you have bought all businesses inc terraforming etc. Some extra element after your empire is huge would be good. Or a way to "complete" the game would be good.

Barry

Well I am open to suggestions! Really the hardest part for me in making that game is deciding what to add next 😕

@Invincible are you thinking like a My Colony specific chat, or one app that has all of the Ape Chat stuff in it, like when you click on the "Detach" chat button on the website on desktop?

Coming to v0.91.0

Should be fixed for v0.91.0

Will be fixed for v0.91.0

MucKlaus said:Hi, is there a way to support duplex scanning?

Good question. The app utilizes Windows' built-in scanning API's, so if other programs like the build-in Windows scanner app can do duplex with your hardware, then it should technically be possible to add the feature. I will look through the documentation and see what I can find.

Today I am releasing an update to My Land that is minor from the users' standpoint, but a fairly exciting one from a coding standpoint. My Land v1.29.0 is now finished and will be hitting all platforms just as soon as it gets approval from the various app stores. Here is what's new.

Firstly, something that has long been requested by users, you can now manually pick what season the game uses for the ground and graphics!


Found in the regular Settings menu, the new Season picker is pretty self explanatory. The game has different graphics for each season, and if you set it to Automatic, the graphics will change based on the time of year (according to northern hemisphere time). If you do not like the look of the season, you can now manually choose whichever one you want. This will come in handy soon for all of the people who complain about the Winter graphics, which I get more than a few e-mails about every year.

Next up, the side-bar build menu now has a text-input filter dialog, similar to the one found in My Colony.


Simply type the name of the tool you are looking for in the list, and it will automatically filter itself based on your input. This will become more and more helpful as I add content in the coming updates. To go along with this new filter bar, I added a new keyboard shortcut to the game, for users who are playing with a keyboard and mouse. Pressing [Tab] will now bring up the build menu and auto-focus your cursor on the filter box, so you can just start typing right away. I have updated the online Keyboard Controls Reference to reflect this new addition.

The rest of the changes are internal to the engine, but were required to make in order to move the game forward. Firstly, I have finally completed a major change to the engine that I started working on in My Land v1.3 way back in December 2015 - the removal of hard coded content from the game engine! This probably does not seem like a big deal to the users and you shouldn't notice any change to the game, but it was a huge deal for me.

When I first released My Land all the way back in the summer of 2014, I did not separate out the game data code from the engine at all, and so special logic was coded in the engine for every single type of crop/animal/object in the game. This was a stupid design decision and has made updating the game and adding new content a huge pain. As of this update, I believe (99.99% sure) I finally have all of this hard coding removed from the engine, and all game content data is now completely separated from the core game engine, putting the core design of the game more on par with My Colony. This was a long/slow/boring/annoying process, and I am extremely glad to finally be done with it. It will also make it a lot easier to add new content to the game in the future!

Finally, your game save now internally records a whole bunch of stats and trends related to your game while you are playing. It may not seem very cool now, but it is going to allow me to add fancy graphs and charts and a detailed Statistics window to the game, similar to what currently exists in My Colony!

So that is all for today's update. I am sorry that I didn't add any new content this time, but once I started diving in on the hard coding removal and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, I decided to just work on that instead and get it over with. Since I did not add anything new this time, the plan for the next update is what I said I would be putting in this update in the last post, so I will just re-copy/paste it here for your convenience:

Coming up next, the rest of the current animals will need slaughter options, and new shops will have to be added to cater to all of the new animal resources. I also still plan to add an option to expand the size of your property, and to add a way to increase your Visitor cap. And once I feel like the in-game content has been sufficiently expanded, I also plan on porting the game over to Steam, although once it hits steam, the price for Premium will also be going up a bit, so just be aware of that.

With that, enjoy the update and stay tuned for more!

Today the 3rd beta, v0.3.0, of Colony Wars is available on Web, the Ape Apps Launcher, and on Android! This update adds a few new engine features and a bit of new content.

Firstly, on Android devices, the back button is now handled properly, which was badly needed.

Next, there is a new structure, the Research Lab. The Research Lab unlocks two new units, the Medium Tank and the Engineer. The Medium Tank is simply a larger and more powerful (and more expensive) version of the current Light Tank, so I don't need to explain much on that. The unit with the associated engine changes is the new Engineer.

The Engineer is a slow, weak, and defenseless unit, but if you let one sneak into your base, you could be in a bit of trouble. If the Engineer enters an enemy building, the building will be captured for the Engineer owner's team. This can be devastating if the unit enters an expensive building or even the Lander.

There is still a ton that needs to be added to the game, and I have gotten a lot of good suggestions and feedback through the forum, the Play store, and the in-game 'Submit Feedback' button, so please keep the ideas coming. Things that are currently on the list include Navy and naval units, air units, more techs, more types of infantry and tanks, etc. Once the United Earth faction is built out, I will start on the LIS. I plan on each faction having at least one unique super weapon, such as a nuke or giant laser cannon or something similar. Basically something with a countdown timer that lets you deal massive damage to an enemy base. I also plan on adding the Ore Fraking Operation soon, not as a structure that you can build, but one that starts out on the map and you have to capture it with an Engineer for an endless stream of income. I also want there to be abandoned buildings on the maps that you can garrison with infantry and use as a fort out in the battlefield. Finally, once the two main factions are done, I will start working on the single player campaign mode.

So that is it for today's update. Stay tuned for more, keep the suggestions coming, and if you haven't played Colony Wars yet, find download links at the following website:

apps.ape-apps.com/colony-wars/

fredaidan said:Is it possible to get granular volume control in game? For those of us who listen to music or podcasts while playing. The beep of selecting a something in game is painful while using headphones.

It is possible, I will try to remember to add it for v0.91.0 (assuming you are talking about My Colony)

After taking a month off for summer travels (and sickness 🤢), I am pleased to announce that the finishing touches are being put on My Colony v0.90.0, which should be hitting all platforms within the coming days! This is a larger update in terms of scale and scope, and contains content, bug fixes, and features. So, what's new? Let's find out!

First, as always, all of the bugs that had been reported through the various app store reporting consoles have been addressed. This mainly encompass hard crashes or syntax errors, which are the types of bugs that get reported to the app stores. So if you were experiencing force close issues, they might be better with this update (although, force closures have been a bit more rare lately).

Next up, I hadn't realized that the Texture Mod feature has been broken for a few updates, since I don't use texture mods myself. Even though there was a thread in the forum prominently saying that the feature was broken 😳. Regardless, texture mods are now working again!


While fixing the texture mod code, I realized that the in-game texture mod browser is in dire need of a UI upgrade, so this has been added to the to-do list. Ideally, I want the in-game texture mod browser to have screenshots, a better description of the mod, and probably ratings and comments.

The next feature I added is available only to Desktop (Win/Mac/Linux) and Windows 10 (store) users, and allows you to change the location that My Colony uses to save data. This new setting is found at the bottom of the Game Data menu.


As the screenshot indicates, this does not move your current saved games, it only changes the game data folder. If you are on the desktop client (or the Ape Apps Launcher), you can move your old saves manually (they are found in your user Documents folder), but on Windows 10 Store installs, this is not possible due to the sandboxed nature of Windows Store apps. If you have cloud sync turned on, you shouldn't have to move anything manually. Unless you know what you are doing, then I do not suggest using this feature, but it is there for those who want it.

For this release, the sort order of the build categories in the sidebar has been changed. They now appear in alphabetical order.


It was always sort of annoying trying to find a specific category, so now that they are sorted properly, it should be easier to find what you are looking for.

I have also added two new keyboard shortcuts to the game with this update, Show Resources Screen (r) and Search Resources (ctrl+r), both of which can be customized in the Engine Settings menu. The Show Resources shortcut brings up the standard Resources statistics screen., whereas the Search Resources shortcut brings up a new popup search bar that lets you type in the name of a resource in an auto-completing form and load the stats window for that resource directly.


The Search Resource function is only moderately helpful at the moment, but to go along with it, I plan a revamp of the resource stat window in the not-too-distant future, where you will be able to launch functions right from the resource stat window, such as trading and gifting.

I made some minor balance adjustments with this update for existing structures. The Zolarg Unholy Core Mine no longer requires the Mysticism tech to build, since Mysticism requires independence, and the Unholy Core Mine is the only way Zolarg can currently get several resources. The Ancient Alien Microchip Factory now requires Gold as an input (a previous oversight). The two tall Residential Towers can now be flipped.

And now for the new content, this update adds 1 new Utility, 1 new Tech, 1 new Resource, and 17 new structures! The majority of the content additions come from the IT Industries Suggestion by @Wadaling , and represent Part 1 of the IT Content Updates.

When I first started coding My Colony in 2016, I actually built it with the ability to have multiple utilities, but I had never tested the functionality out, so I had no idea if it actually worked. When I saw the IT Industries suggestion in the forum, I figured it would be a good time to just see how much work would be required to add a second utility to the game, so I went ahead and added Bandwidth as a new utility alongside Power. Turns out that the old utility code from several years ago handled the new utility flawlessly (so far as I can tell), and virtually no coding changes were required in order to add Bandwidth to the game. Success!

The Bandwidth utility refers to data/network bandwidth, and is generated by the Small Server Building for Humans, the Slab of Processing for Zolarg, and the High Frequency Node for Alpha Draconians.

To go along with the new utility, there are new IT related structures (and a new Information Technology build category) for each race, although most are early/mid-game Human structures at the moment. The next updates will build out the tree for the other races and add later game content as well. All told, here is a color coded list of the new structures, with Black representing Human content, Red for LIS only content, Orange for Zolarg content, and Purple for Alpha Draconian content.

• Small Server Building
  
• Cybercoin Mine
  
• Small Server Farm Operation
  
• Galactic Stock Exchange
  
• Data Interceptor
  
• Small Software Studio
  
• NetSchool
  
• Advanced Small Research Lab
  
• Tech Office Building
  
• Arcade Center
  
• Colonimulation Hub
  
• Integrated Civic Center
  
• High Frequency Node
  
• Deep Space Interceptor
  
• Slab of Processing
  
• Circuit Foundry
  
• Interstellar Pad of Thought
  

I am not going to go over what everything does since that will take forever and you can just try the content out for yourself, but I do want to highlight a few things here.

Obviously, the new Small Software Studio is used for generating the new Software resource, which will be hitting the GBT in the next update to the game (v0.91.0). Most of the new structures require Software in one way or another as well.

One of the more important structures for the Zolarg is the Interstellar Pad of Thought, which now allows the Zolarg to generate a bit of Antaura without having independence. There were previously a ton of structures for Zolarg that were only available for independent colonies, and I want to start allowing subcolonies to have these structures too, to encourage being a part of a commonwealth. And with the new Circuit Foundry, Zolarg can now build Microchips also.

The Advanced Small Research Lab and the Integrated Civic Center offer modest upgrades to the existing Small Research Lab and Civic Center, two structures which have long had requests for upgrades. Most of the other new buildings generate large amounts of cash in exchange for Software and Bandwidth.

I think there is a lot of opportunity here to go back and add Bandwidth and Software requirements to existing buildings, ones that are clearly tech related. Over the next few updates, I plan on making these changes, but it will have to be done slowly, with a few buildings at a time. I don't want somebody to log in and have their entire colony go down because they are out of Bandwidth! So be sure to start building up your networking infrastructure!

There is probably more I can say about v0.90.0, but I grow tired of typing, lol. The v0.9x series of My Colony updates is going to feature heavy on new content, and most if it is going to be coming from the Game Ideas, Suggestions, and Feedback forum, since there is currently a lot of good stuff in there. The next update will be Part 2 of the IT update, and will probably be mostly Zolarg and Alpha Draconian. Then there will probably be a Part 3 to top it off. I will also make engine improvements and feature additions with each release, but I am not going to do any major rewrite of a core game component as I was frequently doing with the v0.8x series. I am in a content adding mood.

After v0.99.0 is done, I am going to increment the game to v1.0.0 instead of to v0.100.0. This doesn't really change anything in the way I will work on the game, it just seems stupid to have so many releases of the game without actually calling it v1.0.

So that's all for this update! It should be live on the Web and on the Ape Apps Launcher right now, and will be hitting the other platforms as soon as it is approved by the various app stores. So thanks for playing, thanks for the feedback and support, and stay tuned for more!

sorry for the issues, will be corrected for v0.90.0

DKMK100 said:Can I request improvements to creative mode?

I want setting for the following things, changeable in-game on creative games:
Resource requirements(building)
Power requirements
Bandwidth requirements
Storage requirements
Cheats menu(give items)

Oh man, that is no small task. I will look into it.

@Invincible I will add something similar. It will not be exactly as requested in the post, due to the amount of coding I want to do...

@Wadaling

NdhrRoew said:Hi!
I apologise if this is too incredibly silly of a question, but is there a more efficient navigation screen than the default, which doesn't seem to allow for customary navigation. I feel kinda silly asking, but is there an easy way to rapidly move between folders? For instance, I cannot locate simple tools like a Back button, or Parent Folder selection. If this information is locatable within a user manual of some sort, please point me to it and accept my apologies.

Thanks!

Well to go back (or up) you just use the normal back button on your device. I am not sure I understand the question, but if there is a specific navigation pattern you would like to see, I will certainly entertain a suggestion!

Ok everyone, I know it has been awhile. In July I had to spend a week in western Kansas and then another week up in Nebraska, and once I got back home I came down with the worst cold ever, so I've basically been out of commission for a while. But I am back now, and preparing to start work on My Colony v0.90.0, which will be taking place on the live Web version throughout the rest of this week. There are a lot of suggestions pending and fixes to be implemented, so stay tuned! And if you play exclusively on the Web, consider backing up your game now before the changes start coming in!

Also, I think after v0.99.0, I am finally just going to bump My Colony up to v1.0.0, since having v0.100.0 just seems ridiculous, and I don't really think the game is much of a beta anymore.

fixed