Posted by 
Find User
here you can look for a user
Updates and Announcements
My Colony 2 v0.46.0 Released
Today the v0.46.0 update to My Colony 2 has gone live, and it adds some exciting new content, featuring the first new playable civilization in the game (thanks to the world of @therealchromedino ), the Alpha Draconians! Let's take a look.
To begin, the bug where none of the drop down menus were working has been corrected. This issue was introduced in-between updates, due to a change in the ADL UI Library used on most Ape Apps. It's fixed now though, so all is good!
@therealchromedino submitted a massive data file with the Alpha Draconian civilization from MC1 ported to and improved for MC2, including over 70 new data objects and accompanying changes to over 30 existing data objects. This is an amazing undertaking on behalf of the community, so please show your appreciation for what @therealchromedino has given to all of us!
Along with the Alpha Draconians, two new resources are introduced in this update, which are Ant Paste and Antanium. These should now be available to trade on the GBT, although to store them as the United Earth civilization, you will need to have the Quantum Warehouse, which has been updated with storage for the new resources.
Moving along, I often times have gotten the request to re-introduce the drop-down sidebar filter that was present in My Colony 1, so in this update, I have brought it back to My Colony 2. It only appears in the larger sized expanded sidebar, and is hidden when the sidebar is in "compact" mode.
The Investment Bank has gotten an updated model thanks to @spamdude and the Lander and Outpost structures have been updated with slightly increased Spare Parts storage. The speed rating on the Dark Solar Road has also been increased.
Both sized blood bank structures received premium "gold" editions provided by @therealchromedino and there is a new expanded Water Extraction Plant, also from @therealchromedino. @spamdude provides a new super-fast road, the Alien Hexpath and @RekEm1999 provides a Quantum Ether Tank upgrade.
There were a lot more structures available that I could have added, but the feature I am about to mention next took up so much time to get working that I just didn't get to anything else.
There is now engine support in My Colony 2 for Player Mode Public Transit, but it was super hard to get working and it is still a bit glitchy. I don't need to get too much into the technical details, but the way the engine itself and the player mode stuff in particular were designed did not lend themselves very well to this, but a ton of changes were made in this update, after much trial and error, to get it to the "working" state that it's in now.
The system works with the new Regional Bus Station structure (from @spamdude ) which is unlocked by the new Public Transportation tech and requires a Megabot to build. Once you build a Regional Bus Station, you can give it a name (like you can do for a sign) and a custom color. Then in Player Mode, a character can walk up to the Bus Station and press the "E" key (or A on a gamepad) to bring up a list of all other Bus Stations on the planet. He will then be picked up by the new SkyBus unit (from @spamdude ) and flown to the other bus station.
This is where there are some visual glitches, I don't know why the SkyBus is so jumpy while it's flying. Also, your character is supposed to go invisible at that point but instead is shown hanging (for dear life) to the bottom of the SkyBus. I will fix those things eventually, but it got to the point where I was sinking so many hours into getting this stupid SkyBus working that I started falling behind on everything else, so for now it is what it is.
Anyway, for future player mode stuff, I think the Sky Bus system is going to be essential, since it would otherwise take a character forever to walk between maps. That said, I have also laid the groundwork in this update for units (such as the player character, but other units too) to be able to go inside other units, which can lead to things like APC units for example, or player controlled units, such as a personal car.
Eventually I will have the star gates working for travel between different servers. I think for settlement design then, it would make sense for people with a Star Gate in their settlement to also have a Bus Station near by.
Anyway, that is all for today. Thanks for playing the game, thank you so much to all of the contributors, and stay tuned for more!
#mycolony2
To begin, the bug where none of the drop down menus were working has been corrected. This issue was introduced in-between updates, due to a change in the ADL UI Library used on most Ape Apps. It's fixed now though, so all is good!
@therealchromedino submitted a massive data file with the Alpha Draconian civilization from MC1 ported to and improved for MC2, including over 70 new data objects and accompanying changes to over 30 existing data objects. This is an amazing undertaking on behalf of the community, so please show your appreciation for what @therealchromedino has given to all of us!
Along with the Alpha Draconians, two new resources are introduced in this update, which are Ant Paste and Antanium. These should now be available to trade on the GBT, although to store them as the United Earth civilization, you will need to have the Quantum Warehouse, which has been updated with storage for the new resources.
Moving along, I often times have gotten the request to re-introduce the drop-down sidebar filter that was present in My Colony 1, so in this update, I have brought it back to My Colony 2. It only appears in the larger sized expanded sidebar, and is hidden when the sidebar is in "compact" mode.
The Investment Bank has gotten an updated model thanks to @spamdude and the Lander and Outpost structures have been updated with slightly increased Spare Parts storage. The speed rating on the Dark Solar Road has also been increased.
Both sized blood bank structures received premium "gold" editions provided by @therealchromedino and there is a new expanded Water Extraction Plant, also from @therealchromedino. @spamdude provides a new super-fast road, the Alien Hexpath and @RekEm1999 provides a Quantum Ether Tank upgrade.
There were a lot more structures available that I could have added, but the feature I am about to mention next took up so much time to get working that I just didn't get to anything else.
There is now engine support in My Colony 2 for Player Mode Public Transit, but it was super hard to get working and it is still a bit glitchy. I don't need to get too much into the technical details, but the way the engine itself and the player mode stuff in particular were designed did not lend themselves very well to this, but a ton of changes were made in this update, after much trial and error, to get it to the "working" state that it's in now.
The system works with the new Regional Bus Station structure (from @spamdude ) which is unlocked by the new Public Transportation tech and requires a Megabot to build. Once you build a Regional Bus Station, you can give it a name (like you can do for a sign) and a custom color. Then in Player Mode, a character can walk up to the Bus Station and press the "E" key (or A on a gamepad) to bring up a list of all other Bus Stations on the planet. He will then be picked up by the new SkyBus unit (from @spamdude ) and flown to the other bus station.
This is where there are some visual glitches, I don't know why the SkyBus is so jumpy while it's flying. Also, your character is supposed to go invisible at that point but instead is shown hanging (for dear life) to the bottom of the SkyBus. I will fix those things eventually, but it got to the point where I was sinking so many hours into getting this stupid SkyBus working that I started falling behind on everything else, so for now it is what it is.
Anyway, for future player mode stuff, I think the Sky Bus system is going to be essential, since it would otherwise take a character forever to walk between maps. That said, I have also laid the groundwork in this update for units (such as the player character, but other units too) to be able to go inside other units, which can lead to things like APC units for example, or player controlled units, such as a personal car.
Eventually I will have the star gates working for travel between different servers. I think for settlement design then, it would make sense for people with a Star Gate in their settlement to also have a Bus Station near by.
Anyway, that is all for today. Thanks for playing the game, thank you so much to all of the contributors, and stay tuned for more!
#mycolony2
My Colony Desktop Client Updated
Today I have posted a small update to the Windows and Linux desktop clients for the original My Colony, on both the Ape Market and on Steam.
After the prior update, some users were still reporting issues with the game not launching right on the Steam Deck. As you can see above, I have made double sure that this is working properly this time, but if you are still having an issue with your Steam Deck and My Colony, please let me know ASAP!
#mycolony
After the prior update, some users were still reporting issues with the game not launching right on the Steam Deck. As you can see above, I have made double sure that this is working properly this time, but if you are still having an issue with your Steam Deck and My Colony, please let me know ASAP!
#mycolony
Posted by
My Colony 2 v0.45.0 Released
Today I am happy to announce the release of My Colony 2 v0.45.0! This update continues to clean up some of the fallout related to the conversion to a statistics based simulation model, and adds a couple of new things along the way. Let's take a look!
Let's discuss fixes first. I think that I have finally isolated and corrected the issue where settlement utilities would be completely messed up when loading up a game save, but it may require one load/save/quit/load cycle to fix. Please let me know if you are still having this issue though.
Moving on, buildings now require workers again in order to operate. For the last few updates, worker shortages were no problem at all, but now you will actually have enough people to man your factories and shops.
Also, settlement approval rating was not being properly calculated before this update. It should now be working again like it used to.
Moving right along, there was a bug where disabling player building colors was not having any impact on the game. This should be working again.
Now on to game changes. If you are playing in a larger sized viewport (bigger than 1280x720), the overall game UI has been changed slightly.
Game UI elements have been "detached" from the sides of the viewport and are now floating a bit, with a new black border around everything. I think it looks a bit nicer, but you can let me know if you disagree. I have also increased the padding around all popup windows, which I also think looks a bit nicer than before.
In addition, I have changed most of the icons in the popup windows from ionic icon set based .svg icons to the icon font used by most Ape Apps applications, which should load a bit faster than the old icons did. I am probably going to change all the icons on the title screen soon too.
In the encyclopedia, the Units section has been expanded a bit, and I have also started adding the Research section. Still a lot of work to do on the encyclopedia, but we are making some progress!
The video section in Engine Settings now has a new slider to adjust the game rendering video resolution.
I am hoping this can help performance a bit, especially on the mobile side of things. There are lower end smart phones and laptops out there that barely have a GPU, but include super high resolution displays. With this new slider, you should be able to scale the output resolution down considerably. If it ends up making a big impact, I might have the resolution lowered by default on some mobile devices.
Next up, Ape Chat comes to My Colony 2! The in-game chat in the original My Colony has long been powered by the Ape Chat system, and now My Colony 2 has been migrated over as well. If you are using the stand alone Ape Chat client, you can join the in-game My Colony 2 channel #mc2.
The channel does not have its own custom icon yet, but that will be coming soon (I actually need to do an Ape Chat client update first). One of the benefits of running the in-game chat off of the Ape Chat service, is that you can subscribe to the channel and get notifications when people are talking and playing in the game, allowing you to jump into the game when activity is going on. You can also help people with their questions without even having the game open.
I will be watching the #mc2 channel to make sure things don't get out of hand. There may come a point where moderators are needed for the chat room (I might also need some new mods for mc1 chat), so keep that in mind if you are interested in helping in that regard, and if/when the time comes for moderators, I will reach out to people who have expressed an interest in the position.
Continuing on. If you look in the settlement stats window, you will notice a couple of new things. First, unemployment rate now shows up, so you can keep track of how many of your people do not have work. Unemployment can be caused by not enough jobs, but is also impacted by health, education and other ratings, and will weigh down on your overall approval rating.
Next, there is a new placeholder status bar for Faith. In the building editor, there is also a stat for structure faith rating. This is a new mechanic that will be coming soon, but at the core of it, there will be an opportunity to add faith related structures to the game, statues, temples, shrines, churches, etc. This will be sort of another stat like entertainment, but I also want a mechanic to where players can create a religion. They can then send missionaries to other settlements, or even to other worlds via the star gate system. There will then be global stats on which religions are spreading and to which planets/settlements. I think it can be a cool mechanic, so if you are interested in helping design this new feature, post some ideas!
Let's turn to some new content next. There is a new planet type (pictured in the first screenshot to this post) called Dusk World provided by @therealchromedino and it's awesome! This world provides a new resource called Duskshrooms, as well as a new rover and the Small Thermal Plant and Duskshroom Market structures. If you were looking into starting a new world, now might be a great time!
For Lunar maps, @RekEm1999 has provided a new upgraded Diamond Drilling Operation for advanced diamond extraction.
For expanding out the Alien Tech line a bit, I have added the Alien Power Tower, the Quantum Warehouse, and the new Quantum Housing Pod, a (very) high density housing upgrade to the base Bunkbed Shelter.
There are a few other new structures curtesy of @therealchromedino in this release. The Small and Advanced Blood Banks are new medical structures, the Cartel Prison is a new security structure, and the Transcendent Solar Tower is an epic new solar tower for those with Transcendent tech that can best the output of the Small Nuclear Reactor.
So that is about it for this update. There are still a lot of things that need fixing, and a big one is the combat system, which may be the focus of next update. Until then though, thanks to all contributors, thank you all for playing the game, and stay tuned for more!
https://mycolony2.com
#mycolony2
Let's discuss fixes first. I think that I have finally isolated and corrected the issue where settlement utilities would be completely messed up when loading up a game save, but it may require one load/save/quit/load cycle to fix. Please let me know if you are still having this issue though.
Moving on, buildings now require workers again in order to operate. For the last few updates, worker shortages were no problem at all, but now you will actually have enough people to man your factories and shops.
Also, settlement approval rating was not being properly calculated before this update. It should now be working again like it used to.
Moving right along, there was a bug where disabling player building colors was not having any impact on the game. This should be working again.
Now on to game changes. If you are playing in a larger sized viewport (bigger than 1280x720), the overall game UI has been changed slightly.
Game UI elements have been "detached" from the sides of the viewport and are now floating a bit, with a new black border around everything. I think it looks a bit nicer, but you can let me know if you disagree. I have also increased the padding around all popup windows, which I also think looks a bit nicer than before.
In addition, I have changed most of the icons in the popup windows from ionic icon set based .svg icons to the icon font used by most Ape Apps applications, which should load a bit faster than the old icons did. I am probably going to change all the icons on the title screen soon too.
In the encyclopedia, the Units section has been expanded a bit, and I have also started adding the Research section. Still a lot of work to do on the encyclopedia, but we are making some progress!
The video section in Engine Settings now has a new slider to adjust the game rendering video resolution.
I am hoping this can help performance a bit, especially on the mobile side of things. There are lower end smart phones and laptops out there that barely have a GPU, but include super high resolution displays. With this new slider, you should be able to scale the output resolution down considerably. If it ends up making a big impact, I might have the resolution lowered by default on some mobile devices.
The channel does not have its own custom icon yet, but that will be coming soon (I actually need to do an Ape Chat client update first). One of the benefits of running the in-game chat off of the Ape Chat service, is that you can subscribe to the channel and get notifications when people are talking and playing in the game, allowing you to jump into the game when activity is going on. You can also help people with their questions without even having the game open.
I will be watching the #mc2 channel to make sure things don't get out of hand. There may come a point where moderators are needed for the chat room (I might also need some new mods for mc1 chat), so keep that in mind if you are interested in helping in that regard, and if/when the time comes for moderators, I will reach out to people who have expressed an interest in the position.
Continuing on. If you look in the settlement stats window, you will notice a couple of new things. First, unemployment rate now shows up, so you can keep track of how many of your people do not have work. Unemployment can be caused by not enough jobs, but is also impacted by health, education and other ratings, and will weigh down on your overall approval rating.
Next, there is a new placeholder status bar for Faith. In the building editor, there is also a stat for structure faith rating. This is a new mechanic that will be coming soon, but at the core of it, there will be an opportunity to add faith related structures to the game, statues, temples, shrines, churches, etc. This will be sort of another stat like entertainment, but I also want a mechanic to where players can create a religion. They can then send missionaries to other settlements, or even to other worlds via the star gate system. There will then be global stats on which religions are spreading and to which planets/settlements. I think it can be a cool mechanic, so if you are interested in helping design this new feature, post some ideas!
Let's turn to some new content next. There is a new planet type (pictured in the first screenshot to this post) called Dusk World provided by @therealchromedino and it's awesome! This world provides a new resource called Duskshrooms, as well as a new rover and the Small Thermal Plant and Duskshroom Market structures. If you were looking into starting a new world, now might be a great time!
For Lunar maps, @RekEm1999 has provided a new upgraded Diamond Drilling Operation for advanced diamond extraction.
For expanding out the Alien Tech line a bit, I have added the Alien Power Tower, the Quantum Warehouse, and the new Quantum Housing Pod, a (very) high density housing upgrade to the base Bunkbed Shelter.
There are a few other new structures curtesy of @therealchromedino in this release. The Small and Advanced Blood Banks are new medical structures, the Cartel Prison is a new security structure, and the Transcendent Solar Tower is an epic new solar tower for those with Transcendent tech that can best the output of the Small Nuclear Reactor.
So that is about it for this update. There are still a lot of things that need fixing, and a big one is the combat system, which may be the focus of next update. Until then though, thanks to all contributors, thank you all for playing the game, and stay tuned for more!
https://mycolony2.com
#mycolony2
Posted by
My Colony v1.32.0 Released
The 1.32.0 patch for the original My Colony is now available and should be hitting all platforms in the coming days. This is a minor update containing bug fixes and updates to the latest libraries and whatnot. I have also updated the desktop packages for both Windows and Linux (x64 and ARM) on both the Ape Market and Steam, since some users were reporting issues launching the desktop clients before.
Note that there are no new macOS builds in this update. I do not plan to support macOS any longer as it's usage on my desktop apps has fallen below even Linux, and the latest releases of macOS make it nearly impossible to install third party software that has not been notarized by Apple (a service that Apple charges an annual fee for). Mac users are encouraged to just install the PWA version of the game using a chromium based web browser. The PWA can be found at the following URL:
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
Note that there are no new macOS builds in this update. I do not plan to support macOS any longer as it's usage on my desktop apps has fallen below even Linux, and the latest releases of macOS make it nearly impossible to install third party software that has not been notarized by Apple (a service that Apple charges an annual fee for). Mac users are encouraged to just install the PWA version of the game using a chromium based web browser. The PWA can be found at the following URL:
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
Posted by
Colony Wars v0.14.0 Released
Today Colony Wars has been updated to v0.14.0 and should be available soon on all supported platforms! This update fixes some existing bugs and adds a little new flair, so let's take a look!
The first thing you will notice in this release is that the title screen has been revamped! Now instead of a static still image, the game will load up a random map from all maps that you have installed, fill it with AI players, and set them at war with each other. If you are bored and want to watch the AI's fight, then you can pop some popcorn and sit there watching the title screen.
On larger screen devices, I have also revamped the game sidebar, undocking it from the left side and giving it a semi-transparent effect.
I am considering adding a radar to the top of the sidebar, but I am not sure if it is needed since you can also zoom the game in and out, but you can let me know what you think.
In addition, I fixed an issue where bombers would actually end up bombing themselves, and now when you are playing a quick match, all enemy units will actually be destroyed when the player loses.
Next I want to change the controls a bit for keyboard/mouse play. I want automatic map scrolling when you mouse to the edge of the map when playing in fullscreen, and also on mouse i want you to be able to drag/select units without clicking and holding first.
Anyway, that is it for this release. Once I think the engine is good and healthy again, I will finish adding the United Earth faction units and move on to implementing LIS.
https://wars.my-colony.com/
#colonywars
The first thing you will notice in this release is that the title screen has been revamped! Now instead of a static still image, the game will load up a random map from all maps that you have installed, fill it with AI players, and set them at war with each other. If you are bored and want to watch the AI's fight, then you can pop some popcorn and sit there watching the title screen.
On larger screen devices, I have also revamped the game sidebar, undocking it from the left side and giving it a semi-transparent effect.
I am considering adding a radar to the top of the sidebar, but I am not sure if it is needed since you can also zoom the game in and out, but you can let me know what you think.
In addition, I fixed an issue where bombers would actually end up bombing themselves, and now when you are playing a quick match, all enemy units will actually be destroyed when the player loses.
Next I want to change the controls a bit for keyboard/mouse play. I want automatic map scrolling when you mouse to the edge of the map when playing in fullscreen, and also on mouse i want you to be able to drag/select units without clicking and holding first.
Anyway, that is it for this release. Once I think the engine is good and healthy again, I will finish adding the United Earth faction units and move on to implementing LIS.
https://wars.my-colony.com/
#colonywars
Posted by
