Ape Apps

I have made some changes to the Bug Reporting sections for both My Colony and My Colony 2 to hopefully make it a bit easier to track bugs and their progress. This was done by making a new "Bug Tracker" page type, which looks like this:


New bugs can be created by any user, and the author of the bug (or a page moderator) has the ability to mark issues as closed or to re open them. Anyway, it's fairly simplistic at the moment, but it might be expanded later on, so if you have suggestions on things I should add to the new bug tracker sections, feel free to reply to this post and let me know!

The My Colony Universe website uses the same base code as the main Ape Apps site (the site you are on right now), but has been lingering for months on an older build of the code. As a result, a lot of things on the site were just broken, one of which being the entire Comics section of the site.

As of now, both this site and the My Colony Universe have been migrated to the latest code, and this brings improvements all around, but particularly to the aforementioned Comics functionality.

https://www.my-colony.com/viewpage.php?p=comics

The Comics section will now display each available comic book in "book cover" format. In addition though, there have been major upgrades to the Print layout for a comic book. I had originally envisioned that a reader, if he or she wanted, would be able to print a comic book out using their own printer. Now when you are inside a comic book (see the Deimos Comic for example) and choose to Print from your browser, all extraneous site information is hidden and you are given a clean comic header including title and page number (for best effect, you should turn off the browser provided headers and footers). The pages are formatted to come out right on either US Letter or A4 paper sizes in portrait mode.


Anyway, the Comics section is currently not very utilized, but I do plan to eventually have the entire Deimos trilogy story on there, as well as the Death 3D story, and probably some other My Colony related stores as well. The comics are built using characters from My Tokens, but can also be made using any custom artwork, as seen from @GeneralWadaling 's comic The Ancient Archives. In addition, anybody with an Ape Apps Account should be able to create their own My Colony Universe fan comic in the Comics section at My Colony Universe.

And coming to the My Colony website next week, something awesome for all My Colony 2 modders, but stay tuned for that.....

#deimos #mycolony #mycolonyuniverse #mytokens

I am now putting the finishing touches on My Colony 2 v0.18.0 which should be hitting all platforms over the next couple of days. This update contains changes for modders, some new content, and a couple of QoL improvements that you might find helpful, so let's take a look at what's new!


To get started, let's first take a look at the new content in this release. The My Colony 2 engine now has support for fixed-size, non-infinite maps, which you can see demonstrated with the new My Colony Classic map. With My Colony Classic, you will start out on a flat 160x160 Red Planet map which contains resource levels similar to the Red Planet map in My Colony 1. This map probably is not suitable for multiplayer, but it is suitable for those who want to switch gameplay up a bit and try something a bit closer in style to the original My Colony.

Moving along, two new research techs have been added in this update, Galactic Commerce and Multimedia Infrastructure. In addition to the new techs, there are four new structures available, the Ore Synthesis Lab, the Galactic Stock Exchange, the Multimedia Studio, and the Security Wall.


Next up, a handful of interface updates have been introduced in this release. Returning from My Colony 1, you can now do a click/hold gesture to bring up the box select feature, allowing you select multiple units at once. New in MC2, you can also just ctrl+click using a keyboard do use the box select feature.

Before this update, giving a group of units a move order at the same time would place all of them on the exact same location. They will now be slightly spread out if you are moving multiple units at once.

The Park Unit feature is now available for all units. You can now assign a unit a parking space that they will return to whenever they are done working. This is a great feature given the infinite map sizes, as you can now keep builder units in specific areas, and you can also have dedicated bot areas spread throughout your map so that you always have a builder nearby.


The Encyclopedia and Settlement Stats have been expanded slightly, although there is still a ton of work to be done. Settlements in particular will now show GDP statistics, but keep in mind that the GDP data will be a bit inaccurate for the first hour or so of play time, until the engine has enough data collected to put together a more accurate assessment of your settlement's economy.

If you use the Ape Apps Launcher and you have joined a multiplayer MC2 server, you will now receive a desktop notification when a server you have joined comes online, even if you do not have My Colony 2 open. This is handy for players who join a non-dedicated server and want to be alerted as soon as their server comes online.


Several bugs have been fixed in this release. Some of the more important involve an issue where playing a modded game would not load properly after the first play. Also, the structure placement "chain mode" toggle button has been fixed now.

I have made changes to the data structure for Units and Structures that any user creating game mods should be aware of going forward. Previously, Unit and Structure data objects had to specify what units/structures they were able to build, respectively. This has now been reversed, and Units must now specify where they are built, and Structures must specify which units build them. You can read more about the reasoning for this change in this thread, but this should make modded content better overall in the long run. Right now, both the old data structure and new data structure will be recognized by the engine, but do use the new way on all modded content going forward, as the old way is now considered to be depreciated and will no longer be maintained going forward.

It is now much easier for modders to export content bundles containing several new objects. Now when you are in the game editor and choose Export Bundle -> Object Bundle, you will be presented with a new export window that lets you select which data objects you want to add to the bundle. Prior to this, if you wanted a bundle with only certain objects in it, you would have to manually remove all unwanted objects from the game before export, which was very tedious.


The game editor menu now also includes a Blank Slate option, which will remove all content from the editor and let you create a brand new game from scratch. Again, this is an extremely handy new feature, as you would previously have to manually remove all existing content if you were wanting to create a Total Conversion mod.

There are a handful of other little changes and updates you will find in this release, which I cannot remember off of the top of my head, but you can try them out right now on the Launcher or on Ape Web Apps, and they should be hitting the app stores over the coming days.

Looking ahead, over the next few weeks I am going to be putting together a Mod Shop website, where mod creators can upload their modded content, and in MC2 v0.19.0, the new Mod Shop will be browsable from within the game. Users will still be able to distribute their mods manually like they could before, but the benefits of the new Mod Shop will be:

1. Easy mod discoverability/install
2. Automatic updating of mod content
3. User feedback and reviews of mods

A mod author will be able to publish updates to their mod on the website, which will be automatically distributed to the users who have the mod installed. Authors can also include screenshots, a description, a website link, and a button that will let users donate to them to thank the author for their time and effort. They will also be able to check usage statistics for their mod, and read user reviews and feedback.

Speaking of mods as well, right now mods can only be installed on new game creation. I will soon be adding a Mod section to the Statistics screen which will allow you to install/remove/update mods for a game after it's been created. Obviously you can bork your game by doing this, so make sure to save a backup of your game before changing it's content. There will be in-game warnings posted to that effect as well.

So anyway, that is what's new with My Colony 2! I hope you enjoy the update, and stay tuned for a whole lot more in the future!

https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/

#mycolony2

The original My Colony has just been updated to v1.16.0 and should be hitting all platforms shortly! This is a minor bug fix and stability release, rolling up fixes for all bugs reported through the Ape Market Console since September.

Enjoy the update, and when you are ready to take a break from My Colony, check out the sequel My Colony 2, now available on most platforms as well!

https://apps.ape-apps.com/my-colony-2/

#mycolony

Today I am putting the finishing touches on My Colony 2 v0.17.0, which should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. In some ways, v0.17.0 on the outside is a minor update, but in other ways it begins to completely change everything for the My Colony series, as several new concepts are coming online. So let's take a look at what has changed and what is new with My Colony 2 v0.17.0 - The Phara Update!


The My Colony 2 engine is starting to gain support for AI controlled civilizations, and the first work has been started in this regard with the introduction of the Phara, a new Desert World native species conceptualized by @GeneralWadaling nearly a year ago. Desert World players will start to notice the new faction and their settlements crop up around their maps.

There is still a ton of work to be done with the AI, and some bugs to work out. At present, the AI doesn't do much except for generate new settlements, so don't expect any interactions or diplomacy quite yet. The AI routines are going to be fleshed out over the next several updates, and the initial AI processing is going to be largely based on the AI code from Colony Wars, but more on that later.

I have wanted AI controlled civilizations in My Colony since the first release of MC1, but have never gotten around to it. You may or may not know that My Colony 1 was initially envisioned as a futuristic version of Sid Meiers's Colonization, and was to have native species to deal with and you would also have to fight against the "king" for independence (in My Colony's case, United Earth). The game never turned out like that, and My Colony 2 will not have fighting for independence either, although the engine might in fact support that scenario soon, but we will get to that later too.

I next want to move on to a new concept I have added to the game, which is progression through both Player and Settlement leveling up.


Settlements now have a Level, which you can increase by using Civics. Behind the scenes, Players also have a level which can be increased using Money, but that part is not yet implemented.

Right now there isn't a huge point in leveling up, although eventually some government type structures and policy options will require either a specific player or settlement level to unlock. This adds extra goals and an additional player progression aspect to the game. Various forms of this have been suggested throughout the years for My Colony 1, so keep an eye on these features as they are fleshed out over the coming updates.

Next, I want to touch on what has been by far the #1 requested My Colony feature since the game first came out - Military and Combat, both of which are now making their way into My Colony 2!


This is another concept in it's initial phases and some of it still doesn't work right, but let's go through it. There is a new early-game tech called Colonial Security which is now needed for the Security Station and also unlocks the new Barracks. From the Barracks, you can now construct the first military unit, which is the Infantry unit. The Infantry is able to either attack or defend. It will automatically attack enemy units if in range, and will attack an enemy structure on command. A lot of the initial combat code has been taken from Colony Wars.

So what constitutes an enemy? The engine now accounts for diplomatic relations between each player behind the scenes. Players can either be Neutral (the default status), Enemies, or Allies. To become an enemy, you open the Players tab in the Statistics window, click on a player, and choose to declare war on them. They will instantly be notified of your treachery.


Now, here are the limitations. The 'Propose Alliance' and 'Sue for Peace' options currently are not functional, so if you do decide to declare war, there is no getting out of it. So keep that in mind.

There is a lot more to say on AI's and the new Combat features, but there have also been some other tweaks to the game that I wanted to touch on before getting too deep into the woods.

Firstly, when you go to build a new unit, it will now appear at the Construction Yard that is the closest to where your current camera position is location. In other words, if you are actively looking at a construction yard and you build a new unit, it will pop out of the construction yard you are looking at. This comes in handy as settlements begin to spread out and grow.

Another big change is that new players who join your public game will no longer start out at chunk 0:0. I know that it could be annoying to have all Landers start the game at the exact same spot, so the new Landers will now be randomly placed, somewhat in the area of the currently settled world, but away from all other players.

Now some kind of bad news. You may know that I recently updated Voxel Paint with some cool new features, such as metallic voxels, transparent voxels, etc. Well, I went to implement those features into the My Colony 2 engine, and it completely kills performance. I don't know why yet, but just having one structure with a metallic texture destroys the game, and that is on a high end PC with a good video card. So until I can get the performance situation worked out, the cool new features from Voxel Paint will have to wait. 🙁

Now I want to dive a bit deeper into some of the new features, and how they tie to what I have planned for My Colony 2 going forward.

Some of you may have heard during some of my Podcast episodes or from various release notes here on the forum that I had long wanted to make a game called 'New World' that involved showing up on a new continent in ships like the Spanish did, and trying to get rich on a land inhabited by natives. Well, Amazon recently beat me to the New World game, but the idea still remains in my mind. A lot of this updates recent changes, including AI civs and combat, go directly towards making that game concept a reality.

Additionally, there has recently been discussion with GeneralWadaling about migrating Colony Wars to the Scroll3D engine. I think that my new strategy instead is going to be to have the My Colony 2 engine be sophisticated and customizable enough to be able to be morphed into a Colony Wars type Real Time Strategy game. This would be great for multiple reasons. Firstly, less game engines to maintain is always a good thing for me. Secondly, it will greatly increase the capabilities that modders have to make different types of games for the My Colony 2 engine. A win for everybody!

So with the above two points in mind, here are some things I need to work out before I can make everything a reality, which should give you an idea of some of the features that will be coming soon to My Colony 2.

Firstly, there needs to be more World options then the current infinite maps. You need to be able to create maps of a specific size, and also maps that have a predefined layout, which means some type of map editor. To get started on this work, the next World type I am adding to the game is going to be the My Colony Classic world, which will be roughly equivalent to an MC1 large sized Red Planet map (probably not suitable for multiplayer). It should be a fun challenge for some players, but will also bring important new features to the engine.

Next of course, the AI needs to be expanded and improved. The first order of business is to get the AI's capabilities to be roughly in line with those in Colony Wars, which will allow basic war and RTS support. In addition though, the AI needs to be able to conduct peaceful diplomacy and trades. And for that matter, players need to be able to trade with each other as well.

Modders need to be able to customize various UI aspects. The game UI needs to be able to basically look like the Colony Wars UI, which means options need to be added to show/hide elements and to more the position of different elements. The new/join game screen also needs to be customizable.

And of course, the game content needs to be expanded as well, and that will happen over time for sure.

So there is a ton of work to do, and absolutely all feedback is appreciated. In the meantime though, check out the v0.17.0 update to My Colony 2, and stay tuned for a whole lot more to come!

#mycolony2 #colonywars #voxelpaint