bastecklein's Recent Posts
My Colony developer Brandon Stecklein discusses My Colony 2 v0.16.0, the completion of the Death 3D campaign, My Tokens, and the upcoming Terra Nova 4X.
Play My Colony 2 on Ape Web Apps for any device: https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
And get your epic My Colony merch here: https://my-colony-store.creator-spring.com/
Contact Information:
Attn: Brandon Stecklein
Ape Apps
PO Box 30631
Columbia, MO 65205
United States of America
Play My Colony 2 on Ape Web Apps for any device: https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
And get your epic My Colony merch here: https://my-colony-store.creator-spring.com/
Contact Information:
Attn: Brandon Stecklein
Ape Apps
PO Box 30631
Columbia, MO 65205
United States of America
Today I am pushing My Colony 2 v0.16.0 which should be arriving to all platforms over the next couple of days. This release contains some important performance improvements, along with loading and saving time improvements, as well as some new content. So let's dive in!
For starters, two new tech upgrades have been added in this update, Human Cloning and Large Scale Construction, and with the addition of the latter comes the return of the Megabot!
The Megabot is required to build three of this updates new structures, the Large Living Quarters, the Uranium Enrichment Facility, and the Cloning Facility. In addition, this update also adds the Gold Synthesis Lab, the Canteen, and the Advanced Water Pump (the models of which were provided by @GeneralWadaling ).
I have added additional information to the Settlement statistics screen (and also the "s" hotkey for opening the stats window). Now when you click on a settlement, you can see some basic stats, including the current rate to which the colonists Education, Entertainment, Medical, and Security needs are being fulfilled.
More stats will be coming as time goes on, but at least now you can tell what you need to build in your settlement to attain optimal production levels. Although the above stats do currently impact production output, the game does not yet calculate colonist happiness and approval ratings. This will be coming soon, so be sure to use the new information on the Stats screen to get your settlements running properly before the next update.
The Encyclopedia now has a little bit more information when you click on a structure, but I realize that I still have a lot of work to do in that area. Be patient, all of the encyclopedia information found in MC1 will eventually be available in MC2 as well!
The MC2 update is live now on the Web and the Ape Apps Launcher, and will be hitting mobile devices over the coming days. So thanks for playing, and stay tuned for more My Colony 2 goodness in the weeks ahead!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
For starters, two new tech upgrades have been added in this update, Human Cloning and Large Scale Construction, and with the addition of the latter comes the return of the Megabot!
The Megabot is required to build three of this updates new structures, the Large Living Quarters, the Uranium Enrichment Facility, and the Cloning Facility. In addition, this update also adds the Gold Synthesis Lab, the Canteen, and the Advanced Water Pump (the models of which were provided by @GeneralWadaling ).
I have added additional information to the Settlement statistics screen (and also the "s" hotkey for opening the stats window). Now when you click on a settlement, you can see some basic stats, including the current rate to which the colonists Education, Entertainment, Medical, and Security needs are being fulfilled.
More stats will be coming as time goes on, but at least now you can tell what you need to build in your settlement to attain optimal production levels. Although the above stats do currently impact production output, the game does not yet calculate colonist happiness and approval ratings. This will be coming soon, so be sure to use the new information on the Stats screen to get your settlements running properly before the next update.
The Encyclopedia now has a little bit more information when you click on a structure, but I realize that I still have a lot of work to do in that area. Be patient, all of the encyclopedia information found in MC1 will eventually be available in MC2 as well!
The MC2 update is live now on the Web and the Ape Apps Launcher, and will be hitting mobile devices over the coming days. So thanks for playing, and stay tuned for more My Colony 2 goodness in the weeks ahead!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
This is added in the forthcoming v0.16.0, although I should note that the settlement color is largely irrelevant outside of the Stats window. Your buildings take on the color of your Player, which is also be changed in the stats window. The reason for this, is if more than one player is building in a settlement, to be able to differentiate between who owns which building.
Ok, so I know I just updated My Tokens a few days ago, but since I was already in "My Tokens Mode," I decided to keep at it and introduce an entire new class of Token character, the Minecraft-inspired Blockhead Token!
Available now in My Tokens v2.2.0 (which should be hitting all platforms soon), the new Blockhead Token is the second 3D modeled token class, and the first 3D modeled token to be textured. The texturing in the Blockhead Tokens is superior to that of the original two 2D token classes, as the textures are all stored as small .svg files that are downloaded from the server to the client's device and then compiled at runtime at any resolution, meaning the textures can be extremely sharp when compared to the existing My Token classes.
There are individual .svg files for each component, which the client device will layer on top of each other before creating the final scaled texture, when is then mapped onto the Token model. The token texture uses the following layout:
I am thinking of also making a way to export the final compiled layout of a Blockhead Token, or even letting people upload their own custom skins into My Tokens, although it wouldn't work with the existing Token classes. And since the Blockhead Tokens are ratio-equivalent to a Minecraft character, I was thinking I could even add an option to compile your created Token as a Minecraft skin that you could export and use in Minecraft. Of course, Minecraft skin textures are a lot lower resolution than a My Token character, so things might not look very good when scaled down like that, so we will see.
The two new 3D style of Tokens are significantly easier to maintain and create new parts for than the two original 2D versions. Of course, the Mini Voxel token is by far the easiest to create new content for, as it's just a few blocks in Voxel Paint at extremely low resolution, but the new Blockhead model is pretty easy as well. Just to show the complexity of the different types, let's look at the spacesuit overshirt model for the different Token types. Here it is for the mini-Voxel token:
Pretty basic. Here is the same Token part for the new Blockhead token:
A little more complicated, but still not bad. Now here is the sheet for the two original Token types (they are both combined into the same file):
You probably can't even see anything without downloading the file and zooming way in, but I have to draw different animation frames for each direction a Token can be facing. It takes forever.
Sadly when adding new Token parts, I still have to maintain the two original Token types. Going forward though, new games are going to be using the new 3D token models instead of the old 2D models. The first game to use a 3D token will be Token Kart, which I have been working on off-and-on over the months and will be using the Mini Voxel Tokens. I might also allow Voxel tokens to appear as colonists in some My Colony 2 maps, such as the Water World, which theoretically has an atmosphere they can breathe. As for the new Blockhead tokens, I want to create the next generation of the Death 3D engine with better performance and more capabilities, and the ability to use Blockhead tokens as characters. I am going to use the engine to create a 3D adaptation of the Deimos trilogy. I am also going to make a Gone Rogue 2, which will either use the Voxel or Blockhead tokens as characters, I haven't decided which yet.
Anyway, the new My Tokens update should be available soon on all platforms (available now on the Web or the Launcher), so check it out and let me know what you think!
#mytokens #mycolony2 #voxelpaint
Available now in My Tokens v2.2.0 (which should be hitting all platforms soon), the new Blockhead Token is the second 3D modeled token class, and the first 3D modeled token to be textured. The texturing in the Blockhead Tokens is superior to that of the original two 2D token classes, as the textures are all stored as small .svg files that are downloaded from the server to the client's device and then compiled at runtime at any resolution, meaning the textures can be extremely sharp when compared to the existing My Token classes.
There are individual .svg files for each component, which the client device will layer on top of each other before creating the final scaled texture, when is then mapped onto the Token model. The token texture uses the following layout:
I am thinking of also making a way to export the final compiled layout of a Blockhead Token, or even letting people upload their own custom skins into My Tokens, although it wouldn't work with the existing Token classes. And since the Blockhead Tokens are ratio-equivalent to a Minecraft character, I was thinking I could even add an option to compile your created Token as a Minecraft skin that you could export and use in Minecraft. Of course, Minecraft skin textures are a lot lower resolution than a My Token character, so things might not look very good when scaled down like that, so we will see.
The two new 3D style of Tokens are significantly easier to maintain and create new parts for than the two original 2D versions. Of course, the Mini Voxel token is by far the easiest to create new content for, as it's just a few blocks in Voxel Paint at extremely low resolution, but the new Blockhead model is pretty easy as well. Just to show the complexity of the different types, let's look at the spacesuit overshirt model for the different Token types. Here it is for the mini-Voxel token:
Pretty basic. Here is the same Token part for the new Blockhead token:
A little more complicated, but still not bad. Now here is the sheet for the two original Token types (they are both combined into the same file):
You probably can't even see anything without downloading the file and zooming way in, but I have to draw different animation frames for each direction a Token can be facing. It takes forever.
Sadly when adding new Token parts, I still have to maintain the two original Token types. Going forward though, new games are going to be using the new 3D token models instead of the old 2D models. The first game to use a 3D token will be Token Kart, which I have been working on off-and-on over the months and will be using the Mini Voxel Tokens. I might also allow Voxel tokens to appear as colonists in some My Colony 2 maps, such as the Water World, which theoretically has an atmosphere they can breathe. As for the new Blockhead tokens, I want to create the next generation of the Death 3D engine with better performance and more capabilities, and the ability to use Blockhead tokens as characters. I am going to use the engine to create a 3D adaptation of the Deimos trilogy. I am also going to make a Gone Rogue 2, which will either use the Voxel or Blockhead tokens as characters, I haven't decided which yet.
Anyway, the new My Tokens update should be available soon on all platforms (available now on the Web or the Launcher), so check it out and let me know what you think!
#mytokens #mycolony2 #voxelpaint
Idle Token Quest auto-saves, and to get your tokens in the game, you just need to be signed into both apps using the same Ape Apps account.
Here is a working demo of what's to come:
I think I am going to use this style of token for the 3D remake of the Deimos trilogy.
I think I am going to use this style of token for the 3D remake of the Deimos trilogy.
Just wait until the next update when the minecraft-like "blockman" token arrives.
and a lot easier to skin than the classic "big" and "mini" tokens (one graphics sheet vs a depressing 56)
and a lot easier to skin than the classic "big" and "mini" tokens (one graphics sheet vs a depressing 56)
I don't know what you mean. The app is for browsing a local Windows network, not the internet?
I did an update recently of the My Colony resource server, it may work now
Thanks for the details @aer71 , it might be that the app is not re-entering into immersive mode when resuming from suspension, I will look into it
Well thanks for the update, and please let me know if you find a phone setting that triggers the issue!
You can do "hide post" which will make it visible only to you, and after so many days it will auto delete. You can also leave it up if you want, in case others are having the same issue!
I wonder if it's showing up because you have a PiP video playing?
Hey @Spartan305 someone else had this same problem, it seems to be related to having gesture navigation disabled, although I also tried disabling gestures on mine, and it still works. What brand of device do you have? The navigation bar should automatically hide itself when the game starts.
No, I don't think disable/reenable will change anything. The app is supposed to show in immersive mode (no soft keys) when gestures are disabled, I will look into what is going wrong
Is this this the install from the App Store, or using the Website/PWA pinned to homescreen?
Interesting. @BigMoTheDragon can I assume that you have disabled gesture navigation?
Today I am publishing the v1.15.0 patch for the original My Colony, which should be hitting all platforms over the coming week (except the Windows Store, more on that in a second). This update addresses a few bugs which have cropped up over the prior months, as well as updates the Scroll2d engine and all native platform wrappers to their latest releases.
There was an issue where online regions were not saving correctly when first started. I think this was the issue that @colbya was reporting a couple of weeks ago, although I'm not 100% sure. Either way, several issues have been fixed in this department regardless.
The menu icons have been migrated over to a different icon font, since the other icons were not rendering properly on some Android and Windows devices. This hopefully fixes the issue.
I have made some UI changes to better support devices that have a camera notch or rounded corners. I don't know if I am completely satisfied with the result, so there may be more tweaking on this front over the coming updates.
I may (or may not) have pinpointed the NaN% issue in the statistics window. At least it was fixed on the colony I tested it on, we will see what happens.
Finally, some important information for users of the Windows Store edition of My Colony. The legacy Edge rendering engine that powers the current Windows Store app has been depreciated by Microsoft, and I need to move the app over to the new Chromium Edge rendering engine. Sadly, the two app containers are not completely compatable, and so the update will cause all users to lose all saved data. It is therefore important for all Windows Store users to backup their game files before updating.
To make this less painful, I have removed the current app from sale and will hold off on posting the update to Windows for several weeks, to minimize the amount of people who will be impacted by this. In the meantime, those who purchased My Colony through the Windows Store are encouraged to use the Progressive Web App instead (PWA) until the migration is complete (the new version will be based on the PWA anyway). If you signed into the Windows app with your Ape Apps Account, the purchase will be synced to your account anyway, so you will still have premium.
Players who use the Cloud Sync feature should be unaffected.
My Colony PWA: https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony/
#mycolony
There was an issue where online regions were not saving correctly when first started. I think this was the issue that @colbya was reporting a couple of weeks ago, although I'm not 100% sure. Either way, several issues have been fixed in this department regardless.
The menu icons have been migrated over to a different icon font, since the other icons were not rendering properly on some Android and Windows devices. This hopefully fixes the issue.
I have made some UI changes to better support devices that have a camera notch or rounded corners. I don't know if I am completely satisfied with the result, so there may be more tweaking on this front over the coming updates.
I may (or may not) have pinpointed the NaN% issue in the statistics window. At least it was fixed on the colony I tested it on, we will see what happens.
Finally, some important information for users of the Windows Store edition of My Colony. The legacy Edge rendering engine that powers the current Windows Store app has been depreciated by Microsoft, and I need to move the app over to the new Chromium Edge rendering engine. Sadly, the two app containers are not completely compatable, and so the update will cause all users to lose all saved data. It is therefore important for all Windows Store users to backup their game files before updating.
To make this less painful, I have removed the current app from sale and will hold off on posting the update to Windows for several weeks, to minimize the amount of people who will be impacted by this. In the meantime, those who purchased My Colony through the Windows Store are encouraged to use the Progressive Web App instead (PWA) until the migration is complete (the new version will be based on the PWA anyway). If you signed into the Windows app with your Ape Apps Account, the purchase will be synced to your account anyway, so you will still have premium.
Players who use the Cloud Sync feature should be unaffected.
My Colony PWA: https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony/
#mycolony
My Colony 2 v0.15.0 is available now, and should be hitting all platforms in the coming days. This release will also be pushed to iOS, so iPhone and iPad users can finally get their hands on MC2! So what's new? Well aside, from usual tweaks and fixes, v0.15.0 is the Water World Expansion update! What does that mean? Let's take a look!
The My Colony 2 engine now has support for water based structures and units, and with the aid of a couple of models from @spamdude , we now have our first two water units, the Sea Rover and the Expansion Barge!
The Sea Rover is a little utility bot for building water based structures, and the Expansion Barge is the water based version of the mobile outpost. Take it out to sea, and when you find a suitable island, you can deploy it near the shore into the Supply Transfer Station, which can connect to existing Supply Transfer Stations and Logistics Stations to form resource supply networks.
In addition, the Water World now has a more efficient method of producing drinking water outside of the basic wooden Water Well. The stack begins with the offshore Salt Water Pump, which (as in MC1) pumps the new Salt Water resource, which must be stored in the on-shore Salt Water Tank. From there, it is converted into large amounts of drinking Water utility using the Water Distiller (and thanks to @GeneralWadaling , as I used several of his models for this supply chain).
Anyway, these changes represent a much needed update to the Water World map, and it should now be possible to progress through the Water World as you can on other worlds.
Moving on, several changes have been made to existing mechanics. To start with, there was a core networking change made in this release, which means clients <= v0.14.0 will not be able to connect to clients >= v0.15.0.
Performance testing showed that the rendering of settlement border lines was having an unreasonably large impact on the game. I have changed the default behavior to no longer check the individual elevation of every border tile, which in some cases places the border lines on the wrong elevation, but renders a lot faster. You can also change it back to the way it was before, or for even more performance, disable settlement border rendering altogether. Find the new options in Engine Settings.
Some existing structures have been altered. The effective range of the Logistics Station has been greatly increased to 800 tiles, and the Raw Materials Depot now has Charcoal storage. I have also increased the number of Spare Parts that the Lander can hold to 4.
In the next update, I am going to be changing the way the game packages it's data files, because the My Colony 2 load times are starting to get a little long. This is because MC2 now has over 150 individual data files representing units/structures/etc that it has to load one by one on startup and upon returning to the title screen. Starting in v0.16.0, the game is no longer going to load individual data files, but instead load one single bundle file, which in my testing basically cuts the loading time by about 2/3.
So that's about all for today's update! I hope you guys enjoy the Water World changes, and stay tuned for more My Colony 2 goodness in the weeks to come!
#MyColony2
The My Colony 2 engine now has support for water based structures and units, and with the aid of a couple of models from @spamdude , we now have our first two water units, the Sea Rover and the Expansion Barge!
The Sea Rover is a little utility bot for building water based structures, and the Expansion Barge is the water based version of the mobile outpost. Take it out to sea, and when you find a suitable island, you can deploy it near the shore into the Supply Transfer Station, which can connect to existing Supply Transfer Stations and Logistics Stations to form resource supply networks.
In addition, the Water World now has a more efficient method of producing drinking water outside of the basic wooden Water Well. The stack begins with the offshore Salt Water Pump, which (as in MC1) pumps the new Salt Water resource, which must be stored in the on-shore Salt Water Tank. From there, it is converted into large amounts of drinking Water utility using the Water Distiller (and thanks to @GeneralWadaling , as I used several of his models for this supply chain).
Anyway, these changes represent a much needed update to the Water World map, and it should now be possible to progress through the Water World as you can on other worlds.
Moving on, several changes have been made to existing mechanics. To start with, there was a core networking change made in this release, which means clients <= v0.14.0 will not be able to connect to clients >= v0.15.0.
Performance testing showed that the rendering of settlement border lines was having an unreasonably large impact on the game. I have changed the default behavior to no longer check the individual elevation of every border tile, which in some cases places the border lines on the wrong elevation, but renders a lot faster. You can also change it back to the way it was before, or for even more performance, disable settlement border rendering altogether. Find the new options in Engine Settings.
Some existing structures have been altered. The effective range of the Logistics Station has been greatly increased to 800 tiles, and the Raw Materials Depot now has Charcoal storage. I have also increased the number of Spare Parts that the Lander can hold to 4.
In the next update, I am going to be changing the way the game packages it's data files, because the My Colony 2 load times are starting to get a little long. This is because MC2 now has over 150 individual data files representing units/structures/etc that it has to load one by one on startup and upon returning to the title screen. Starting in v0.16.0, the game is no longer going to load individual data files, but instead load one single bundle file, which in my testing basically cuts the loading time by about 2/3.
So that's about all for today's update! I hope you guys enjoy the Water World changes, and stay tuned for more My Colony 2 goodness in the weeks to come!
#MyColony2
bastecklein
Developer
Member Since
September 2nd, 2017