Annihilate the Spance
Vast Progress, Deep Storm
Luke here.
It's 8 Months post demo release. The team and I have not made any official announcements about ATS's development for a long time - and that's plainly because we're three developers who are more focused on making the game than talking about it!
You can always check our live dev updates for ATS on our Discord server:
Skyglow Softworks Discord Server
Also don't forget to try out the free demo if you haven't already.
Also also I want to mention that we are hoping to go into Early Access by around December with the Kontaalen and Vaalkorei campaigns as well as whatever side content we manage to get done. But that's a hope for then, this is progress now!
So let's get things straight. We've entered Version Beta 0.8, which marks the point I believe us to be over the greatest humps in the game's development. To have hiked the second tallest mountains, and now to descend into the valley of 0.9, to reach the summit of 1.0
A ton of work has naturally come along the ways to get us here. So much infact that it's an unreasonable task to attempt to accurately summaries it ( Also I want to get back to work ). So we can focus on a little "executive overview" that leaves out a ridiculous amount of detail and even whole events, but provides the jist of what's been happening.
Over the past 8 or so months since the demo was released, we've added units, reworked PD, reworked Drones, improved models, worked on performance, fixed errors, added features, cleaned up HUD information, added in Alerts ( like buildings blowing up ), added in new dev tools, worked on the Kontaalen Campaign and overhauled parts of the Shallows to improve learning and reduce somewhat the rather strong difficulty curve it had for new players.
To be clear, a huge amount of work.
In the end, the point of 0.8 is that the game works. Not just works, works well. It's fun. It's behaving, it's got maturing promise, and charm, looks good, feels good, sounds good, and runs fast.
So what have us three been doing? Well all the stuff above plus our more individual specialisations.
Aleks has been doing a large amount of modeling and visual work for his Tychon Division. Followed by overhauling our build-grid systems in preparation for a number of feature improvements and systems necessary for the Tychon to operate as envisioned. As well as continued to work on improving the intelligence and functionality of our AI Commanders. And a bunch of other stuff.
Though sadly he's not had the time to work much, due to the demands of life.
Owl has as ever been working on proof reading, adjusting and otherwise cleaning up the text mess I leave behind throughout the game's writing. Cooperating in narrative and story design, as well as working tirelessly to improve the Shallows maps both visually, experientially, and in terms of difficulty. ( He's the one that does all the Trauma mission version )
And of course the ongoing duties of adding in new Vaalkorei Coalition units, improving weapon/unit/effect visuals across the board and for all the factions, and fighting with individual ship AIs and weapon behaviors on all of the factions' units to get them to perform their best.
Finally I've ( Luke ) been working on the Kontaalen Campaign, rewriting parts of the Shallows narrative and redesigning our in-mission-coms-chatter. As well as my usual techie work of overhauling parts of our ship movement systems to make them fly better, replacing large segments of our weapon firing code to fix a large number of issues and limitations, fixing yard ( spawner ) behaviours and doing code nonsense for a whole bunch of things, improving and adding in a number of features for the HUD, Level Editor, and Commander AI Editor. As well as new Kontaalen Armada units. And just generally working on just about everything else because this is my day job.
And... well that's it. Left out a lot of stuff we've all been doing just for the sake of brevity ( and the fact I really can't remember in fine enough detail what the other guys have done, let alone what I've done over the months )
That's that!
Look forwards to continued updates and come hang out on the Discord server.
Luke AP
Skyglow Softworks
Annihilate The Spance v0.77
Huge improvement, huge feature implementations, a massive amount of unit/structure model and visual enhancements. The implementation of Rogue Dive in it's most basic form. Huge amounts of AI improvements and build order overhauls, mixed with new tools and UI to manipulate them.
There's so much that's been done it's near impossible to try to list out...
But ATS grows and grows.
Join our Discord server for news, and if you wish to volunteer yourself to join Beta Testing
Skyglow Softworks Official Discord Server
DIVE THE STORM.
ATS v0.75
There are very many things that have been added, fixed, updated, and improved since 0.71
Namely:
- The Shallows Campaign ( which has been overhauled as the game has grown and improved hugely over the year ) is effectively at the brink of completion. Needing only polish, and balance. The story is finalised, the level drafts have been brought in to solidity, and the gameplay is fluid. Lessons have been learnt.
- The new Mk2 Base AI overhaul has finally been merged in from it's experimental branch that has taken over 9 months of development and improvement. It's working far more reliably.
- The Kontaalen, Vaalkorei, and Tychon continue to have their ships balanced, their models enhanced and reworked, and their weaponry given new functionality.
- Large improvements to certain aspects of game performance, such as target finding, processing, spawning, etc.
- Major update to the Map Editor for a better, easier, more "Age Of Empires" editor experience.
Demo Release is looking all the more promising each day.
ATS Beta Version 0.71
To anyone interested in the progress of ATS, let me bring you up to speed.
Work:
We're only 3 months off the 2nd anniversary of ATS's development beginning. There's been a lot of work, and a huge number of drastic improvements to the game's quality standard and style have been made since just January. We've gone from a 2D battlescape to a (though still 2D in gameplay) visually 3D battlescape with starships able to fly high into the sky and drones to swoop low below cruisers.
Due Date:
It's very hard to estimate when our game will be done, due to the unstable nature of our indie-dev lives. But, we're always pushing for a Demo. It's the main thing we want, and need. Feedback from a lot of people.
More Info:
Join our Discord server, to receive updates on ATS's continued development and the milestones we hit.
V0.5 Major Update
Major Changes
+ Version >>> 0.5
+ Databank added
The Databank provides a detailed central repository of information on all Units ( Ships and Structures ) in the game. It can be accessed at any time by either pressing O, pressing i on a Unit's build-image, clicking "Info" on a selected unit. Or opening it via the Unit Databank on the Main Menu.
+ Campaign Maps and Progress Tracking
A campaign map now exists for the Demo campaign "The Shallows"!!!!!!!
It contains Map Nodes ( click to launch mission ) for each of the planned missions in the Shallows campaign. Once a mission is completed, the next node will unlock. ( Only two actual missions present, and intended in-mission communications don't exist yet... sadly. Also there are no Staging-Posts yet so Mission 2 doesn't work the way it should... you can still Tolly Spam them to destruction. )
+ Other stuff???
There was a lot of things that changed under-the-hood. A lot of work was done both to improve the game's performance and to make the game's code more maintainable and easier to build off of. ( Something we're always doing, obviously. But should be pointed out. )
+ Resource Capacity
Resources are now capped at 3000 Matter, 1500 Energy. This is just until we get Storage structures working.
+ Ah... other stuff?
Listen, I did so much work over the last while that I've lost track. There's probably a few more Quality Of Life changes that... oh yeah.
+ Quality of Life
Click and Drag to place multiple structures!!!
Fullscreen switching F11
Stuff?
+ Faction Tweaks
Plenty of faction unit tweaks in this one. Always messing around with the units. ( At least Kontaalen units )
+ Vaalkorei
Heron Battlecruiser added!
+ Tychon
Ballist Missile Box added! ( kinda OP, we know )
Enjoy.
- Luke