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My Colony 2 v0.39.0 Released
Huge changes are coming to My Colony 2 and this update lays the groundwork for a bunch of them. So let's just dive right in and see what is new with My Colony 2 v0.39.0, available now!
Right off the bat, there is a glitch where if you have sky textures enabled, it's always "night time." So no need to report that one, lol.
Moving on, the first thing you are certain to notice is that the games title screen has been completely revamped.
So first off, thank you to @GeneralWadaling for all of the game world models. This change to the title screen goes pretty far beyond a mere fresh coat of paint though, and actually required pretty far reaching changes under the hood. In fact, I had to end up completely rewriting most of the games' networking/multiplayer code from scratch, which ended up consuming a majority of the time I had planned to spend working on this release. Let's get into why.
I mentioned at the beginning that big changes are coming soon to My Colony 2, and these changes center around a far tighter integration to the My Colony 2 online server. Starting with v0.39.0, players are now immediately signed into and communicating with the MC2 online servers as soon as the initial loading screen clears, and in effect you are actually behind-the-scenes in-game even when you are only on the title screen.
Why is this necessary? You have maybe seen the Player Mode icon in My Colony 2 in the past, but this feature is about to be expanded in a huge way. I have mentioned before adding the ability for Player Mode characters to travel between worlds via Star Gates, but I have decided to "dream bigger" and instead go all out on this feature.
Traveling between worlds I quickly realized was going to require a tighter integration with the MC2 servers. The way MC2 worked before was that your game reconnected to the global lobby every time you loaded or joined a server. Unfortunately, this model does not work too well if you need to instantly jump from one world to another. So, I started trying to tweak the current code in order to permit the things I wanted to do, and eventually one thing led to another, and I basically ended up rewriting most of the games networking code from scratch.
Moving back into the cloud and onto the MC2 server, we are now going to be assigning global coordinates to every world, sort of how is done in the original My Colony, and soon instead of building individual My Colony 2 worlds, we are going to be building out the entire My Colony Universe! Virtually, of course.
For anyone who has played My Starship, this is where things will soon be getting interesting. The title screen is going to be morphing basically into sort of a mix between the game My Starship, and the old Galaxy Map from MC1. Since the title screen is now rendered using another Scroll3d engine instance, you will eventually be seeing all of the MC2 online worlds in their actual global coordinates, right from the title screen. When you click on the next/previous buttons, it is going to "fly" the camera between your different worlds. Note that this does not happen right now, because nothing has coordinates yet. But it is coming soon.
How is that like My Starship? Well, when you click on the (+) button on the title screen, you will see an option to create a new Player Mode Character (not yet functional).
Unlike creating a local/offline character, this is going to let you choose one of your skins from My Tokens, and then choose your initial star ship! Luckily General Wadaling had previously provided a ton of star ship models so there should be several to choose from. You will then be able to fly your star ship around the online galaxy map, right from the title screen, and choose which world you want your player to land at.
There are a lot of possibilities here, and I will leave that open for another discussion. But who knows what kinds of things you can discover out in space, beyond just other players' planets.
This new online galactic map + player mode + star ships is the primary focus of the next update, so that is the next thing I am working on. Suggestions for that implementation are very welcome. Some plans off the top of my head involve allowing players to eventually build star ships that can be controlled on the global map and used to run trade routes, or even blockades of other planets. I think the space realm will need to be more a turn based nature VS realtime (for performance reasons) but we will see. I think of it as a giant global chess board.
Next let's take a look in-game. In the Statistics window, the Nations tab that has been sitting there doing nothing from the beginning of time has been renamed to just Nation, and now it does something.
Here you will see an overview of all of your colonies and settlements in the entire MC2 universe. The title of the page will read The Colonies of your username however there is also logic in the game to make it read The Nation of your username, however that is a discussion for another day. For now I will simply say that on the MC2 server, all colonies are now labeled as being sub-colonies of United Earth.
For MC2 online, I am considering all of a players' settlements to be "united" under a single governing structure, owned by you, the player. Eventually, diplomacy (alliances, trade agreements, and even war) is going to be handled on a global basis. So for example, if a user, we will use Poumm as an example, decides to declare war on you, they are then automatically declaring war on all of your settlements as well as any other players you have formed an alliance with. And this situation will carry over into the global "space" realm as well.
Let's talk a bit about Player Mode next, because it has had a total physics rewrite, in preparation for next update's online player mode overhaul. You can now walk across bridges and onto tiles occupied by structures, and even onto structures themselves if the change in elevation is not too high. In theory a structure could be designed with a stairway all the way to the top to allow players to climb up onto roofs. I plan to add jumping and mounting vehicles in the next update as well.
Next, if you look in the Game Editor, the discerning eye may notice four new properties for Structures related to Goods:
Goods are another new feature coming soon that will have a huge impact on gameplay. There is a new item on the title screen called the Goods Editor (which does not function yet). Basically, the concept here is that players will be able to build generic factories and stores to produce and sell goods of their choosing. Factories will have production "slots" determining how many different goods they can produce, and a rate, determining how fast they make said goods. Likewise, stores will be able to sell X number of different goods at a rate of X.
So what are these Goods and where do they come from? Well that is the cool part, that Goods editor will allow players to design the Goods themselves. Basically, players can provide a model (a 3d one using Voxel Paint, or a 2d one using Pixel Paint which will be auto-converted into 3d). You can choose what materials are needed to build the Good, and you will be able to assign different properties to the good (based on the input materials). These goods will be auto-sold in stores for profit, and player mode characters will also be able to visit stores on different planets and purchase these goods directly, equipping them and using them in-game.
If the whole thing sounds complicated, that's because it is, and that is why it doesn't work yet. But it is the next thing I am implementing after the Player Mode revamp.
Moving on to some minor changes, the Wooden Bridge has had the texture update to fill in the gaps in the wooden slats, because the new Player Mode physics were allowing the player to fall to his death otherwise. Also, @GeneralWadaling has provided updated models for the Outpost and Mobile Outpost.
The general theme for all of these changes is to make the entire universe around MC2 feel more connected and alive. The goal is to transform the game into something of a city building MMO with strategy, business management, and RPG elements all baked in. Seems pretty ambitious, but it's actually not very far off from being available. Small pieces of groundwork have been laid down for months now, and we are getting close to the point where it's going to happen. Once it's all done, then I think the game will be ready for the big Steam release.
So how can you help? One thing that will be need soon are generic shops and generic factories for the new Goods system. I know there are already a couple out there, but it would be nice to have different "tiers," small cheap ones that have limited production, and mass factories for later in the game. Mom and pop shops and mega marts. We will need it all.
Ideas on how to implement the player mode stuff would be good too. I am thinking maybe having a base no-frills shuttle craft that everyone starts with and gets for free, and then if players want better ships, they will have to be constructed by Ship Yards built in the colonies. Which means we will need a ship yard. I think in MC2, Star Ships should be vastly more expensive VS MC1, and instead of being a resource that you stockpile, it should be an actual unit that can be piloted, sold to players, and positioned on the galactic map in strategic formations.
So there is a lot to be excited about, and this fall is definitely going to the season of MC2 glory. So thanks to everyone who played, keep the suggestions coming, and stay tuned for more!
And yeah, I seriously changed a ton of code in this update, so please let me know everything I borked.
#mycolony2
Right off the bat, there is a glitch where if you have sky textures enabled, it's always "night time." So no need to report that one, lol.
Moving on, the first thing you are certain to notice is that the games title screen has been completely revamped.
So first off, thank you to @GeneralWadaling for all of the game world models. This change to the title screen goes pretty far beyond a mere fresh coat of paint though, and actually required pretty far reaching changes under the hood. In fact, I had to end up completely rewriting most of the games' networking/multiplayer code from scratch, which ended up consuming a majority of the time I had planned to spend working on this release. Let's get into why.
I mentioned at the beginning that big changes are coming soon to My Colony 2, and these changes center around a far tighter integration to the My Colony 2 online server. Starting with v0.39.0, players are now immediately signed into and communicating with the MC2 online servers as soon as the initial loading screen clears, and in effect you are actually behind-the-scenes in-game even when you are only on the title screen.
Why is this necessary? You have maybe seen the Player Mode icon in My Colony 2 in the past, but this feature is about to be expanded in a huge way. I have mentioned before adding the ability for Player Mode characters to travel between worlds via Star Gates, but I have decided to "dream bigger" and instead go all out on this feature.
Traveling between worlds I quickly realized was going to require a tighter integration with the MC2 servers. The way MC2 worked before was that your game reconnected to the global lobby every time you loaded or joined a server. Unfortunately, this model does not work too well if you need to instantly jump from one world to another. So, I started trying to tweak the current code in order to permit the things I wanted to do, and eventually one thing led to another, and I basically ended up rewriting most of the games networking code from scratch.
Moving back into the cloud and onto the MC2 server, we are now going to be assigning global coordinates to every world, sort of how is done in the original My Colony, and soon instead of building individual My Colony 2 worlds, we are going to be building out the entire My Colony Universe! Virtually, of course.
For anyone who has played My Starship, this is where things will soon be getting interesting. The title screen is going to be morphing basically into sort of a mix between the game My Starship, and the old Galaxy Map from MC1. Since the title screen is now rendered using another Scroll3d engine instance, you will eventually be seeing all of the MC2 online worlds in their actual global coordinates, right from the title screen. When you click on the next/previous buttons, it is going to "fly" the camera between your different worlds. Note that this does not happen right now, because nothing has coordinates yet. But it is coming soon.
How is that like My Starship? Well, when you click on the (+) button on the title screen, you will see an option to create a new Player Mode Character (not yet functional).
Unlike creating a local/offline character, this is going to let you choose one of your skins from My Tokens, and then choose your initial star ship! Luckily General Wadaling had previously provided a ton of star ship models so there should be several to choose from. You will then be able to fly your star ship around the online galaxy map, right from the title screen, and choose which world you want your player to land at.
There are a lot of possibilities here, and I will leave that open for another discussion. But who knows what kinds of things you can discover out in space, beyond just other players' planets.
This new online galactic map + player mode + star ships is the primary focus of the next update, so that is the next thing I am working on. Suggestions for that implementation are very welcome. Some plans off the top of my head involve allowing players to eventually build star ships that can be controlled on the global map and used to run trade routes, or even blockades of other planets. I think the space realm will need to be more a turn based nature VS realtime (for performance reasons) but we will see. I think of it as a giant global chess board.
Next let's take a look in-game. In the Statistics window, the Nations tab that has been sitting there doing nothing from the beginning of time has been renamed to just Nation, and now it does something.
Here you will see an overview of all of your colonies and settlements in the entire MC2 universe. The title of the page will read The Colonies of your username however there is also logic in the game to make it read The Nation of your username, however that is a discussion for another day. For now I will simply say that on the MC2 server, all colonies are now labeled as being sub-colonies of United Earth.
For MC2 online, I am considering all of a players' settlements to be "united" under a single governing structure, owned by you, the player. Eventually, diplomacy (alliances, trade agreements, and even war) is going to be handled on a global basis. So for example, if a user, we will use Poumm as an example, decides to declare war on you, they are then automatically declaring war on all of your settlements as well as any other players you have formed an alliance with. And this situation will carry over into the global "space" realm as well.
Let's talk a bit about Player Mode next, because it has had a total physics rewrite, in preparation for next update's online player mode overhaul. You can now walk across bridges and onto tiles occupied by structures, and even onto structures themselves if the change in elevation is not too high. In theory a structure could be designed with a stairway all the way to the top to allow players to climb up onto roofs. I plan to add jumping and mounting vehicles in the next update as well.
Next, if you look in the Game Editor, the discerning eye may notice four new properties for Structures related to Goods:
Goods are another new feature coming soon that will have a huge impact on gameplay. There is a new item on the title screen called the Goods Editor (which does not function yet). Basically, the concept here is that players will be able to build generic factories and stores to produce and sell goods of their choosing. Factories will have production "slots" determining how many different goods they can produce, and a rate, determining how fast they make said goods. Likewise, stores will be able to sell X number of different goods at a rate of X.
So what are these Goods and where do they come from? Well that is the cool part, that Goods editor will allow players to design the Goods themselves. Basically, players can provide a model (a 3d one using Voxel Paint, or a 2d one using Pixel Paint which will be auto-converted into 3d). You can choose what materials are needed to build the Good, and you will be able to assign different properties to the good (based on the input materials). These goods will be auto-sold in stores for profit, and player mode characters will also be able to visit stores on different planets and purchase these goods directly, equipping them and using them in-game.
If the whole thing sounds complicated, that's because it is, and that is why it doesn't work yet. But it is the next thing I am implementing after the Player Mode revamp.
Moving on to some minor changes, the Wooden Bridge has had the texture update to fill in the gaps in the wooden slats, because the new Player Mode physics were allowing the player to fall to his death otherwise. Also, @GeneralWadaling has provided updated models for the Outpost and Mobile Outpost.
The general theme for all of these changes is to make the entire universe around MC2 feel more connected and alive. The goal is to transform the game into something of a city building MMO with strategy, business management, and RPG elements all baked in. Seems pretty ambitious, but it's actually not very far off from being available. Small pieces of groundwork have been laid down for months now, and we are getting close to the point where it's going to happen. Once it's all done, then I think the game will be ready for the big Steam release.
So how can you help? One thing that will be need soon are generic shops and generic factories for the new Goods system. I know there are already a couple out there, but it would be nice to have different "tiers," small cheap ones that have limited production, and mass factories for later in the game. Mom and pop shops and mega marts. We will need it all.
Ideas on how to implement the player mode stuff would be good too. I am thinking maybe having a base no-frills shuttle craft that everyone starts with and gets for free, and then if players want better ships, they will have to be constructed by Ship Yards built in the colonies. Which means we will need a ship yard. I think in MC2, Star Ships should be vastly more expensive VS MC1, and instead of being a resource that you stockpile, it should be an actual unit that can be piloted, sold to players, and positioned on the galactic map in strategic formations.
So there is a lot to be excited about, and this fall is definitely going to the season of MC2 glory. So thanks to everyone who played, keep the suggestions coming, and stay tuned for more!
And yeah, I seriously changed a ton of code in this update, so please let me know everything I borked.
#mycolony2
My Colony v1.28.0 Released
Today I am releasing the v1.28.0 patch for the original My Colony, and it represents a significant under-the-hood transition of the game, moving away from the Web App Core framework and on to it's own server and domain.
So a few weeks ago, My Colony 2 was transitioned over to it's own domain, and today the original My Colony gets the same treatment. Players of the Web App version of My Colony 1 will need to update their bookmarks or uninstall/reinstall their PWA's to point to the new home of MC1 online:
https://mycolony.online/
On top of the URL change, the actual backend game server was also migrated over to new hardware. This change actually took place about a week ago, and since I have not seen any complaints or issues in relation to it yet, I assume that it has gone smoothly.
The original My Colony had a ton of hooks and references in the code to the old Web App Core library, and so there may be some bugs in there that I have not yet found or things I missed in making the migration. Please use this thread to post about any issues you find. If all goes well, I will use the code base of this release to migrate Antiquitas over to it's own server next.
Beyond the migration, the only major change in this release is that players on the Steam version of MC1 are now able to make Ape Coin purchases through their Steam account. Prior to this release, Ape Coin IAP's were disabled on Steam, but it should now be working without issue.
The Future of My Colony 1
I want to take a moment just to dispel any notions that people may have about new future techs or structures coming to the original My Colony. Simply put, there is no new content planned for My Colony 1, and no new game features are planned either. The only things that will be added to the game going forward are limited run premium structures. All future content development for My Colony is focused on My Colony 2.
This does not mean that the game has reached "end of life." It will stay live and available to play indefinitely, and the servers will remain online, operational and updated until I get hit by a bus and die. However, all of the cool new content and features are coming to My Colony 2, as I simply do not have time to focus on both games, and the MC2 engine allows for far greater gameplay and development potential anyway.
I will probably do a new episode of the My Colony Podcast later this week to discuss some of the cool new features coming to My Colony 2 over the coming months, so stay tuned for that.
Anyway, that is today's update in a nutshell. Try it out and let me know what issues you find. The update is live right now on the Web and the Ape Apps Launcher, and should be hitting all other platforms over the coming days.
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
So a few weeks ago, My Colony 2 was transitioned over to it's own domain, and today the original My Colony gets the same treatment. Players of the Web App version of My Colony 1 will need to update their bookmarks or uninstall/reinstall their PWA's to point to the new home of MC1 online:
https://mycolony.online/
On top of the URL change, the actual backend game server was also migrated over to new hardware. This change actually took place about a week ago, and since I have not seen any complaints or issues in relation to it yet, I assume that it has gone smoothly.
The original My Colony had a ton of hooks and references in the code to the old Web App Core library, and so there may be some bugs in there that I have not yet found or things I missed in making the migration. Please use this thread to post about any issues you find. If all goes well, I will use the code base of this release to migrate Antiquitas over to it's own server next.
Beyond the migration, the only major change in this release is that players on the Steam version of MC1 are now able to make Ape Coin purchases through their Steam account. Prior to this release, Ape Coin IAP's were disabled on Steam, but it should now be working without issue.
The Future of My Colony 1
I want to take a moment just to dispel any notions that people may have about new future techs or structures coming to the original My Colony. Simply put, there is no new content planned for My Colony 1, and no new game features are planned either. The only things that will be added to the game going forward are limited run premium structures. All future content development for My Colony is focused on My Colony 2.
This does not mean that the game has reached "end of life." It will stay live and available to play indefinitely, and the servers will remain online, operational and updated until I get hit by a bus and die. However, all of the cool new content and features are coming to My Colony 2, as I simply do not have time to focus on both games, and the MC2 engine allows for far greater gameplay and development potential anyway.
I will probably do a new episode of the My Colony Podcast later this week to discuss some of the cool new features coming to My Colony 2 over the coming months, so stay tuned for that.
Anyway, that is today's update in a nutshell. Try it out and let me know what issues you find. The update is live right now on the Web and the Ape Apps Launcher, and should be hitting all other platforms over the coming days.
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
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My Colony 2 v0.38.0 Released
I have another quick update to My Colony 2 now available in time for the weekend. Nothing fancy here today, just a maintenance release that adds an important feature for dedicated server operators: the ability to reset the public/private key pair for registered users.
If a user has an issue with their local client library file, they may no longer be able to access servers they were previously connected to. This is caused by the loss of their private access key, which each player has so that nobody else can access their worlds. If this has happened to you, you will get some sort of error talking about your login credentials when you try to sign in to a server. In this event, let the dedicated server operator know, and he can now reset your access credentials.
If anyone is having this issue on any of the official servers, let me know which server in this thread, and I will reset your access keys for you.
#mycolony2
If a user has an issue with their local client library file, they may no longer be able to access servers they were previously connected to. This is caused by the loss of their private access key, which each player has so that nobody else can access their worlds. If this has happened to you, you will get some sort of error talking about your login credentials when you try to sign in to a server. In this event, let the dedicated server operator know, and he can now reset your access credentials.
If anyone is having this issue on any of the official servers, let me know which server in this thread, and I will reset your access keys for you.
#mycolony2
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My Colony 2 v0.37.0 Released
Today I am releasing v0.37.0 of My Colony 2, and from a technical perspective, this is the largest release since the game first came out in late 2020. My Colony 2 has now been moved off of the antiquated Web App Core framework that I first developed back in 2012, and is now being hosted at it's own domain at https://mycolony2.com/. There are some important implications associated with this change, so let's get into it!
The most obvious change is that the game is now hosted at a new URL. Since the majority of My Colony 2 players access the game through the web client, everyone is going to need to update their bookmarks to the new location. If you have the game installed to your device as a Progressive Web App, you need to know that the PWA will not automatically change to the new URL, so you need to first uninstall the old PWA and then install the new one. I realize that it is a bit of a pain, but the change will be worth it in the long run.
The biggest impact this will have is related to save data. Users who sync their save file to the Cloud or who have exported their save data to the filesystem (which I highly recommend) will not be impacted at all, but if your save game is stored in the internal app cache (the riskiest solution with a browser-based game), data will not carry over to the new domain. I hope that most players took heed of this change when I announced it about a month ago! If it ends up being an issue, I might be able to cook up some sort of migration solution, but I think most players will be fine. I think (hope) that the mobile versions of the game are not impacted by this.
Beyond what was stated above, the migration off of the Web App Core framework resulted in considerable changes to the game engine "under the hood." The Web App Core functions touched almost everything, so in many ways this update constitutes a serious rewrite of major portions of the game. Because of this, I would sort of expect there to be some issues here and there. Surprisingly, I have not run into many of them during testing, so maybe things went more smoothly then I had planned, but please be on the lookout for things I may have missed, and please post about what issues you find here in the forums.
Since so much of the code was being changed in this release, I did take the time to work on a few issues that had been plaguing the engine for a while now. First of all, the issue with faded/muted colors I think is pretty well fixed. There may be a few models left that still have color balancing issues, and if you notice any of them please post a list in the forum here so I can get them re-color balanced for the next update.
There had been an issue where Spice deposits were not spreading properly on the Spice World, and this has now been corrected.
Additionally, there was an issue where players who were connected to a remote dedicated server were unable to access the Galactic Board of Trade or other MC2 Online features. This should now be fixed as well.
Game loading and startup should be a lot faster now than it used to be, especially after the first load. I decided to stop compressing the main game data bundle, and even though this added 4mb to the initial game data download, I figured it was not a big deal, since after the first load, the browser stores the bundle data anyway. This means that the data no longer needs to be decompressed when the game is starting up, which on some devices (especially mobile) this could take quite a long time. The start up time improvement can actually be pretty significant, especially if the app is installed to the system as a PWA. I have noticed start up times on the new release of just a few seconds.
Big improvements have been made to flying units. They were sort of borked before - drones randomly disappearing or flying up into the stratosphere, landers not moving, etc. They should just work now.
Don't you hate it when you join a world, then you scroll around the map trying to find a good landing spot, only to never be able to find your lander again? Fear not, if you have not yet deployed your lander, it will not be automatically placed in the Bookmarks tab, so you can always go and find where your lander is sitting.
A major rebalancing has been done in this release, thanks in large part to a document put together by @SPARKY0303 (which you can find here). There were a ton of changes implemented from this, so here is just a rough readout of everything I did:
Some other things have been changed as well. The Blue Dorms have been renamed to the Painted Dorms, which you can now specify your own color for. The Ancient Alien Ore Refinery has been re-skinned with a new model provided by @SPARKY0303 .
Also fulfilling a big request from MC1 players, there are now Building Counts available on the construction sidebar.
I have also added a new option to the Performance Tweaks section of the Engine Settings menu, allowing users to customize the number of chunks that the game renders around the camera.
We also have two new models in this update from @spamdude , including the new Fish Bin Complex (for storing lots of fish), and the giant new Large Brickworks, for bumping out lots of bricks!
Next up, as hinted to in the previous update's release notes, Diamonds have been added to this update, along with the Diamond Miner and the Diamond Solar Tower.
Diamonds are a Lunar World exclusive, and can only be discovered through digging. Once you uncover a diamond deposit, the Diamond Mining tech is automatically unlocked, allowing you to construct the Diamond Miner. Diamond utility will be expanded in the coming updates. At some point once every world has it's own unique resource, there will be some late game super structure that requires a ton of the unique resources from all of the different worlds.
Ok so last but not least, probably the biggest and most common request I get for the game via the in-game feedback is to bring back the Ore Mine from MC1. I never considered the Ore Mine to be necessary, since the world sizes are infinite and you can always just go and find more Ore, and later on you can just generate Ore on all worlds. That said, people have always wanted it, so today I am introducing MC2's version of the Ore Mine, which is the new Ore Drill.
The Ore Drill works sort of like the Spice Vane that occurs naturally on the Spice World. You build it, and then every once and a while it will plop out a small Ore Deposit. Once you build your settlement up to the point where you can make your own ore, you can simply bulldoze the drill. I think this is a reasonable solution for early game Ore, and I might make a Gold version of it in the next update as well. The Ore Drill is only available on maps that have surface ore.
So that is v0.37.0 in a nutshell. The update is available right now on the Web at it's new location (https://mycolony2.com/) and will probably hit the various mobile platforms throughout the weekend or early next week. Please let me know your thoughts on the changes (good or bad), spread the word that the URL for MC2 has changed, and stay tuned for more MC2 goodness to come in the months ahead!
#mycolony2
The most obvious change is that the game is now hosted at a new URL. Since the majority of My Colony 2 players access the game through the web client, everyone is going to need to update their bookmarks to the new location. If you have the game installed to your device as a Progressive Web App, you need to know that the PWA will not automatically change to the new URL, so you need to first uninstall the old PWA and then install the new one. I realize that it is a bit of a pain, but the change will be worth it in the long run.
The biggest impact this will have is related to save data. Users who sync their save file to the Cloud or who have exported their save data to the filesystem (which I highly recommend) will not be impacted at all, but if your save game is stored in the internal app cache (the riskiest solution with a browser-based game), data will not carry over to the new domain. I hope that most players took heed of this change when I announced it about a month ago! If it ends up being an issue, I might be able to cook up some sort of migration solution, but I think most players will be fine. I think (hope) that the mobile versions of the game are not impacted by this.
Beyond what was stated above, the migration off of the Web App Core framework resulted in considerable changes to the game engine "under the hood." The Web App Core functions touched almost everything, so in many ways this update constitutes a serious rewrite of major portions of the game. Because of this, I would sort of expect there to be some issues here and there. Surprisingly, I have not run into many of them during testing, so maybe things went more smoothly then I had planned, but please be on the lookout for things I may have missed, and please post about what issues you find here in the forums.
Since so much of the code was being changed in this release, I did take the time to work on a few issues that had been plaguing the engine for a while now. First of all, the issue with faded/muted colors I think is pretty well fixed. There may be a few models left that still have color balancing issues, and if you notice any of them please post a list in the forum here so I can get them re-color balanced for the next update.
There had been an issue where Spice deposits were not spreading properly on the Spice World, and this has now been corrected.
Additionally, there was an issue where players who were connected to a remote dedicated server were unable to access the Galactic Board of Trade or other MC2 Online features. This should now be fixed as well.
Game loading and startup should be a lot faster now than it used to be, especially after the first load. I decided to stop compressing the main game data bundle, and even though this added 4mb to the initial game data download, I figured it was not a big deal, since after the first load, the browser stores the bundle data anyway. This means that the data no longer needs to be decompressed when the game is starting up, which on some devices (especially mobile) this could take quite a long time. The start up time improvement can actually be pretty significant, especially if the app is installed to the system as a PWA. I have noticed start up times on the new release of just a few seconds.
Big improvements have been made to flying units. They were sort of borked before - drones randomly disappearing or flying up into the stratosphere, landers not moving, etc. They should just work now.
Don't you hate it when you join a world, then you scroll around the map trying to find a good landing spot, only to never be able to find your lander again? Fear not, if you have not yet deployed your lander, it will not be automatically placed in the Bookmarks tab, so you can always go and find where your lander is sitting.
A major rebalancing has been done in this release, thanks in large part to a document put together by @SPARKY0303 (which you can find here). There were a ton of changes implemented from this, so here is just a rough readout of everything I did:
- Increased firing range and reduced money cost of the Brick Wall Turret
- Increased the gift capacity of the Galactic Board of Trade to 25k
- Fixed the borked stats on the Museum
- Increased the ore cost and output of the Medium Software Studio
- Increased the uranium cost and the artifact storage of the Giorgio Institute
- Increase the build cost and money/civics output of the Investment Bank
- Increased the output and worker requirement of the Bank
- Increased the cost and research output for the Center for Artificial Learning
- Increased the build and input cost of the Robotics Factory while also increasing the robot output
- Increased the cost and doubled the production rate of the Plastic Factory
- Increased the cost and production output of the Advanced Microchip Factory
- Increased the cost and production rate of the Advanced Plastic Factory
- Increased the build cost and production output of the Synthetic Wood Lab
- Increased the worker requirement of the Synthetic Oil Lab while doubling production input and tripling output
- Increased the rum cost and consumption for the Galactic Stock Exchange while also increasing the money output
- Increased the food cost and money output of the Canteen
- Increased the cost and attack power of the Pillbox while decreasing the attack range
- Added worker requirement and increased salt water consumption for Fish R Us
- Increased the worker requirement and food output of the Hydroponic Farm
- Increased cost and production output of the Vertical Warehouse Farm
- Increased cost and software cosumption of the Research Facility while increasing research output
- Decreased Rum consumption and increased Money output for The Rum
- Increased money output for the Trading Depot
- Decreased build cost and aluminum output of the Advanced Drilling Platform
- Increased the cost and artifact output of the Ultra Deep Drilling Facility while decreasing the aluminum production
- Increased the cost, money output and rum consumption of the Galactic Trade Authority Office while decreasing the worker requirement
- The Spice Den can no longer be built on Spice Worlds
- Increased the worker requirement and production rates of the Aluminum Generator
Some other things have been changed as well. The Blue Dorms have been renamed to the Painted Dorms, which you can now specify your own color for. The Ancient Alien Ore Refinery has been re-skinned with a new model provided by @SPARKY0303 .
Also fulfilling a big request from MC1 players, there are now Building Counts available on the construction sidebar.
I have also added a new option to the Performance Tweaks section of the Engine Settings menu, allowing users to customize the number of chunks that the game renders around the camera.
We also have two new models in this update from @spamdude , including the new Fish Bin Complex (for storing lots of fish), and the giant new Large Brickworks, for bumping out lots of bricks!
Next up, as hinted to in the previous update's release notes, Diamonds have been added to this update, along with the Diamond Miner and the Diamond Solar Tower.
Diamonds are a Lunar World exclusive, and can only be discovered through digging. Once you uncover a diamond deposit, the Diamond Mining tech is automatically unlocked, allowing you to construct the Diamond Miner. Diamond utility will be expanded in the coming updates. At some point once every world has it's own unique resource, there will be some late game super structure that requires a ton of the unique resources from all of the different worlds.
Ok so last but not least, probably the biggest and most common request I get for the game via the in-game feedback is to bring back the Ore Mine from MC1. I never considered the Ore Mine to be necessary, since the world sizes are infinite and you can always just go and find more Ore, and later on you can just generate Ore on all worlds. That said, people have always wanted it, so today I am introducing MC2's version of the Ore Mine, which is the new Ore Drill.
The Ore Drill works sort of like the Spice Vane that occurs naturally on the Spice World. You build it, and then every once and a while it will plop out a small Ore Deposit. Once you build your settlement up to the point where you can make your own ore, you can simply bulldoze the drill. I think this is a reasonable solution for early game Ore, and I might make a Gold version of it in the next update as well. The Ore Drill is only available on maps that have surface ore.
So that is v0.37.0 in a nutshell. The update is available right now on the Web at it's new location (https://mycolony2.com/) and will probably hit the various mobile platforms throughout the weekend or early next week. Please let me know your thoughts on the changes (good or bad), spread the word that the URL for MC2 has changed, and stay tuned for more MC2 goodness to come in the months ahead!
#mycolony2
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My Colony 2 v0.36.0 Released
I hope everyone is having a good week! Today I am releasing My Colony 2 v0.36.0 and the update should be hitting all platforms within the coming days. This update cleans up a couple of things, adds a couple of things, and fixed some things. So let's take a look at all of the things...
The My Colony 2 engine now supports a second level of user color customization on buildings, besides the random splashes of settlement color found in some places. Voxel models can now specify a second replace color, allowing the user to fully customize the color of their structures. This is currently enabled on the Bunkbed Shelter, Large Living Quarters and Extra Large Living Quarters, and also the brand new Decorative Tile. The "paint job" can be done by clicking on a structure, and you will see a new color wheel option if the structure supports user defined coloring.
Custom colored structures could be a great way to give your settlement character, define districts, or just liven things up a bit. This release is sort of a test of the feature, and it will be certainly expanded to more buildings in the future. If you are a voxel model creator, you can specify areas of a building that can be custom-colored by using the cyan hex code #00ffff.
More statistics have been added to the building mini-stats popup window, which now shows capacity and utilization graphs for medical, education, entertainment and security, similar to what was available in MC1.
Moving along, the My Colony 2 Online stats window has been updated with a new listing for Settlement rankings, now showing the top 30 online settlements listed by population. I plan on adding more to this soon. You will also (at some point) be able to click on both worlds and settlements to get a detailed breakdown screen of each, and I may end up using this screen for future diplomacy related options.
Ok, now for the potentially controversial update, I have added the ability to instant-purchase any structure using Ape Coins instead of paying with resources. I realize that this is somewhat of a pay-to-win, but the truth is that since MC2 lacks the advertising found in most games, I need a way to generate more revenue for the game, that is just the sad truth of it. Let me explain more about it though.
I think I have set the Ape Coin prices high enough that it should deter just rushing through the game, unless someone really wants to pay a lot. I suspect it only to be used in one-off scenarios when someone really does not want to wait to build something, or at the very beginning of the game when prices are low anyway.
The way it works is that the Ape Coin price is calculated at run time based on the GBT value of all of the resources needed to construct the building, with a minimum price of 10 Ape Coins. Since resource prices scale up a lot on the higher end, a player would have to pay serious money in order to build the later game structures, which is why I do not think this system will be abused much later game, which I believe cuts down on the "pay-to-win" aspect of it.
The reality is that nobody is going to pay $15 to purchase an investment bank, or if they do, they sure aren't going to be using this function to spam a bunch of investment banks. So this price calculation being what it is, I think it will safely protect online stats from pay to win abuse. It also cannot be used to purchase buildings that are above your settlement level.
To build a structure using Ape Coins, you just click on the Ape Coin button instead of the green checkmark button on the new construction bottom bar. There is a confirmation dialog, so you are not going to accidentally spend coins.
One more thing to note, if you purchase a building with Ape Coins and then accidentally place it somewhere where it cannot built, like a blocked space, the building goes into a queue on the server, and you can then build it again without clicking on the Ape Coins option. There is no UI to tell you this yet, but the game will actually let you place the building, even though it says you do not have enough resources.
Finally before moving on to new content, I added structure defensive stats to the Encyclopedia window, which now shows Attack Power, Range and Rate of Fire.
I have not forgotten about the poor encyclopedia, it just has not been on the top of the priorities list.
Ok, let's go to new content now. There are three new techs added this time, Mass Data Management, Colonial Bureaucracy and Extremely Deep Excavation!
Mass Data Management is used for the new Alien Uplink Station upgrade (model by @SPARKY0303 ), while Colonial Bureaucracy gives us the new Department of Advanced Fish Mating Studies (model by @spamdude ), which is basically just a big worthless (but pretty) government jobs farm. The new Museum ( @spamdude ) is a nice entertainment/education combo structure, and the new Decorative Tile is basically a blank slate that you can choose your own color for. Could be used to do pixel art on the grounds of your settlement.
Next up, @therealchromedino provides us with the new Bunker of Last Resort. This is a good structure to place somewhere in the center of your settlement, as it can be used to rebuild in the event that you are on a sever and your settlement gets raided by an enemy army.
The Bunker provides storage for basic building materials, minor housing, utility generation, can construct Builder Bots, has an attack rating slightly better than a pillbox, and an extreme amount of hit points. It is not indestructible, and a tank army would still be able to take it down, but it is a good insurance policy, and every major settlement should have at least one or two of these in the event of an emergency.
The big new structure in this update is the Ultra Deep Drilling Facility by @spamdude and to be honest, I could not afford to build it on the colony I was doing my game testing with, so it is possible that it will need to be tweaked a bit in the next update, just let me know in the comments what you all thing. It is an across the board stat improvement over the current Advanced Drilling Platform, and also provides Crystalline which the original one did not.
Ok so I think that is all of the major stuff in this update. For the next update (v0.37.0) I plan on adding Diamonds as a Lunar World exclusive resource, that will be obtained by excavating. There will also be new units/structures associated with the diamond trade. I think I am also going to have the "Online" version of the Player Mode at least somewhat functional for next update, possibly including the star gate travel between worlds (right now there are only 9 active Star Gates in the MC2 universe). So let me know what issues you find or suggestions you have, thank you to all who contributed artwork for this update, and stay tuned for more to come!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
The My Colony 2 engine now supports a second level of user color customization on buildings, besides the random splashes of settlement color found in some places. Voxel models can now specify a second replace color, allowing the user to fully customize the color of their structures. This is currently enabled on the Bunkbed Shelter, Large Living Quarters and Extra Large Living Quarters, and also the brand new Decorative Tile. The "paint job" can be done by clicking on a structure, and you will see a new color wheel option if the structure supports user defined coloring.
Custom colored structures could be a great way to give your settlement character, define districts, or just liven things up a bit. This release is sort of a test of the feature, and it will be certainly expanded to more buildings in the future. If you are a voxel model creator, you can specify areas of a building that can be custom-colored by using the cyan hex code #00ffff.
More statistics have been added to the building mini-stats popup window, which now shows capacity and utilization graphs for medical, education, entertainment and security, similar to what was available in MC1.
Moving along, the My Colony 2 Online stats window has been updated with a new listing for Settlement rankings, now showing the top 30 online settlements listed by population. I plan on adding more to this soon. You will also (at some point) be able to click on both worlds and settlements to get a detailed breakdown screen of each, and I may end up using this screen for future diplomacy related options.
Ok, now for the potentially controversial update, I have added the ability to instant-purchase any structure using Ape Coins instead of paying with resources. I realize that this is somewhat of a pay-to-win, but the truth is that since MC2 lacks the advertising found in most games, I need a way to generate more revenue for the game, that is just the sad truth of it. Let me explain more about it though.
I think I have set the Ape Coin prices high enough that it should deter just rushing through the game, unless someone really wants to pay a lot. I suspect it only to be used in one-off scenarios when someone really does not want to wait to build something, or at the very beginning of the game when prices are low anyway.
The way it works is that the Ape Coin price is calculated at run time based on the GBT value of all of the resources needed to construct the building, with a minimum price of 10 Ape Coins. Since resource prices scale up a lot on the higher end, a player would have to pay serious money in order to build the later game structures, which is why I do not think this system will be abused much later game, which I believe cuts down on the "pay-to-win" aspect of it.
The reality is that nobody is going to pay $15 to purchase an investment bank, or if they do, they sure aren't going to be using this function to spam a bunch of investment banks. So this price calculation being what it is, I think it will safely protect online stats from pay to win abuse. It also cannot be used to purchase buildings that are above your settlement level.
To build a structure using Ape Coins, you just click on the Ape Coin button instead of the green checkmark button on the new construction bottom bar. There is a confirmation dialog, so you are not going to accidentally spend coins.
One more thing to note, if you purchase a building with Ape Coins and then accidentally place it somewhere where it cannot built, like a blocked space, the building goes into a queue on the server, and you can then build it again without clicking on the Ape Coins option. There is no UI to tell you this yet, but the game will actually let you place the building, even though it says you do not have enough resources.
Finally before moving on to new content, I added structure defensive stats to the Encyclopedia window, which now shows Attack Power, Range and Rate of Fire.
I have not forgotten about the poor encyclopedia, it just has not been on the top of the priorities list.
Ok, let's go to new content now. There are three new techs added this time, Mass Data Management, Colonial Bureaucracy and Extremely Deep Excavation!
Mass Data Management is used for the new Alien Uplink Station upgrade (model by @SPARKY0303 ), while Colonial Bureaucracy gives us the new Department of Advanced Fish Mating Studies (model by @spamdude ), which is basically just a big worthless (but pretty) government jobs farm. The new Museum ( @spamdude ) is a nice entertainment/education combo structure, and the new Decorative Tile is basically a blank slate that you can choose your own color for. Could be used to do pixel art on the grounds of your settlement.
Next up, @therealchromedino provides us with the new Bunker of Last Resort. This is a good structure to place somewhere in the center of your settlement, as it can be used to rebuild in the event that you are on a sever and your settlement gets raided by an enemy army.
The Bunker provides storage for basic building materials, minor housing, utility generation, can construct Builder Bots, has an attack rating slightly better than a pillbox, and an extreme amount of hit points. It is not indestructible, and a tank army would still be able to take it down, but it is a good insurance policy, and every major settlement should have at least one or two of these in the event of an emergency.
The big new structure in this update is the Ultra Deep Drilling Facility by @spamdude and to be honest, I could not afford to build it on the colony I was doing my game testing with, so it is possible that it will need to be tweaked a bit in the next update, just let me know in the comments what you all thing. It is an across the board stat improvement over the current Advanced Drilling Platform, and also provides Crystalline which the original one did not.
Ok so I think that is all of the major stuff in this update. For the next update (v0.37.0) I plan on adding Diamonds as a Lunar World exclusive resource, that will be obtained by excavating. There will also be new units/structures associated with the diamond trade. I think I am also going to have the "Online" version of the Player Mode at least somewhat functional for next update, possibly including the star gate travel between worlds (right now there are only 9 active Star Gates in the MC2 universe). So let me know what issues you find or suggestions you have, thank you to all who contributed artwork for this update, and stay tuned for more to come!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
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