We’ve decided to push one more build out to you before we hit Early Access. It’s packed with bug fixes, updated art, refinements to numerous systems under the hood and other cool stuff. The tutorial, sounds and Combat effects are still lacking any updates, but we think you’ll find that the rest of the game plays a lot more smoothly now.
If you’re in the middle of a mission, so much has changed that we’re having the game knock you out of that mission. It won’t kill any progress you’ve made toward a particular cycle and you won’t lose your unlocks, but continuing a mission with so much newness wasn’t possible.
Here’s a list of all the particulars:
Major Features:
Revamped Starmap (so good…)
Cards as Unlocks
Persistent Event Traits
New Perk Art
Tyrant Titles
Rebellions on controlled planets
Additional Features:
Improved snapping in the Shipyard
Many more stats tracked
A new Main Menu
Senate & CnH AI more aggressive
Mission Detail tooltips
Planet Rings show ownership
Shipyard button is back (tho less enticing)
Wormholes frequency reduced and opt-outs added
"Mana" renamed to "Crystal"
Fixes:
Empty Fleet bug fixed
Many, many, hangs and locks fixed
Final Mission unlock bug fixed
Unsupported resolutions now default to 16:9
Planet UI no longer interferes with fleet clicks
Slug shield regen reduced
Many defensive commander powers fixed
Combat grid vs space weather layering issues resolved
Compound artifact effects on reload removed
Space slug regen nerfed
Player based combat-initiation bugs fixed
Commander energy shows correct at battle-start
Alrighty, unless some horrible crash bug somehow got past us in this build, we’re pretty sure this will be the last of our updates until we hit Early Access in about a month. We’ll still be checking in on the forums on a daily basis, but our heads are mostly buried in development land, so we probably won’t be as active as usual when a new build goes up. Cheers! Thanks again for playing!
~The Space Tyrant team.
Closed Beta, an end in sight.
I’m pleased to report we’re nearing the end of our closed beta status! Between the beta feedback and our internal discussions, we’ve finally reached a point where we can start to prepare for our Early Access release. As we commit ourselves to this ‘deathmarch’, we might still offer up a build to the beta crew to make sure nothing is exploding along the way. That could happen anytime in the next month, but probably not after that – I’ll post more info as we figure it out.
What we are sure of is our plan to release Space Tyrant into Early Access during the last half of May. We’ll continue to develop the game beyond that date, but we do feel like it’s ready for a wider audience. And while the game is still technically in closed beta, we’re leaning in on the ‘closed’ status and not letting anymore people in. You can all still play and hunt for bugs if you feel like it; we’ll also continue to respond as the weeks tick by, but these are indeed the final days of closed beta.
I’ll take this opportunity to say - thanks a million to everyone who has stuck with us through this process! As someone who spent some years in the QA trenches, I know how frustrating it can be working with buggy, broken games. So, we really do appreciate your efforts. I’ll start the process this week of sending out all remaining pins and stickers to those of you who’ve come on board in recent times. And when the game goes into an official Early Access state, I’ll send everyone on the list a key so it can be in your Steam library… until Tyrants take over the planet and disintegrate your computers.
Lastly, If you’ve written up bugs or have given us any feedback, keep an eye out for a friend request from “SpaceTyrantSwag”. Through that account I’ll ask for your physical address so I can send you stuffs. I’ll also message you a key for the game through that account when the time comes.
Cheers everyone and thanks again for the help! Many happy subjugations of celestial lifeforms to you and yours.
Love - The Space Tyrant team
An update to the Combat system!
Treacherous Tyrants!
We’ve had our heads down in all things Combat these past couple of weeks and we’re finally ready to release our first pass at it. The previous version was something thrown together early-on and we were never all that happy with it. There was a lot of ship power spamming, no real sense for strategy beyond ‘biggest fleet wins’ and it never really felt like a well thought out aspect to the game.
So – we’ve set about changing that. And I must repeat, what we’re putting up today is our first pass at it. There are bound to be aspects that aren’t working quite right or need ‘the knob’ turn a little to the left or right. It’s always that way. We’re also asking that people try to approach it objectively. That’s a difficult one and something we struggle with a lot while working on the game, but pretending you haven’t played any previous versions and just having a fair look at the new stuff is important in the process. I mean, all commentary is worthwhile to us, but we do love those FRESH EYEBALLS.
Here’s a list of the new additions to Combat:
One Special shot per ship: Ships now get one special shot per instance of Combat. Their energy won’t refill automatically, so you’ll need to be more careful and deliberate about where you focus the added firepower. They’ll still fire the usual volleys of shots, but for that extra kick, you get just one per ship.
Tactics: At the start of Combat, you get to choose from one of 3 random Tactics. The one you choose will sit to the upper left of your fleet and it’s a button you can hit at any time during gameplay. Sometimes you’ll want to hold out for just the right moment, sometimes you’ll want to hit that sucker right away. We’re still brainstorming different Tactics that could be fun, so please let us know if you’ve got any wild ideas.
Breaches and Crits: There is a chance in the heat of Combat that you or the enemy will get a Crit (Critical Hit) and it will cause a Breach. The Crit does a bit more damage than the average shot and the Breach it causes will do a small amount of damage over time. It will also disable the special shot on your ship unless you repair it. Repairing it costs one bolt of energy, so it’s not that hard to shut down a Breach – you just have to be on the lookout. There is also a Tactic you can use to seal all Breaches at once, if you decide to use it.
Weather: Oh man, space weather is now a thing. It’s an equal opportunity damage inflictor, but it’s one you can capitalize on as well as defend against. More often than not, we find it tipping the scales in your favor, but sometimes… well, you know… it will rain on your parade. But as with some of these other new and threatening aspects to Combat, you’ve got Tactics you can play to get the upper hand. And we know you like the upper hand, all Tyrants do…
Ship Balance Pass: Some of these new additions required us to do a slight balancing pass on all of the ships. They’ll fire a little faster than they used to, some of them have slightly different weapons – it’s all fairly subtle, but helped to balance out the changes.
So that’s where things are at with this first run at a new Combat system. After this, we’re going to take another pass at it to fix any bugs that come up and continue working on the balance. We also need to update the explosions, some of the new visual effects for Tactics and finally do an audio pass. We’re a small team and it’s a slow process, but we’re getting there – pixel by pixel.
Also – check it out. We fixed a bunch of bugs and added some little art polish here and there. We find it all to be very ‘happy-inducing’. That being said, we didn’t fix all the bugs (does anyone ever fix ALL OF THE BUGS?), but we did focus on and root out some of the more egregious ones. There are still bugs that I get every game that make my teeth vibrate and my eyeballs hemorrhage, but I have faith that we’ll fix them at some point. Share in that faith with me - we’ll polish this sucker up good in the months to come. My teeth and eyes depend on it, so you can rest assured we're committed.
Alrighty – that’s it for this update. We’ll now hover over the discussion forums, salivating and typing wildly. As bugs come up, we’ll weigh em against stuff we’re working on and probably push some hotfixes in the days to come. I’m sure it will all go smoothly – what could possibly go wrong…?
Cheers and thanks for playing!
The Space Tyrant Team (as channeled by Isaac)
A quick hotfix and and upcoming Combat improvements.
Hey everyone!
We just pushed a hotfix for some of the irritating little bugs that have been agitating Tyrants lately.
- You now have all Bzzerk Empire Unlocks available.
- Information about fleet effects being duplicated in the Shipyard, etc. will no longer happen. They'll persist in any games in-progress, but will be gone for subsequent games.
- Mana crystal display no longer runs off bottom of screen.
- Commander Level Up and Explore dialogs no longer overlap each other.
- Annoying dead spot in the middle of the Combat screen that kept you from "clicking to start" has been removed.
- Possible fix for any invisible fleet bugs still out there. Old code was being used, old code is bad. New code is good and is now in place.
- Card King win condition now holds its info when saving/reloading a game in progress.
- Number rounding error when selling ships back when you have a Forge planet has been fixed. It was rounding down and Tyrants were getting ripped off. Not cool!
- Fixed the Cloak of Wealth income modifier.
- XP related perks not being ordered correctly and giving you a lvl 3 commander at the start of a game has been fixed.
And what's this about an update to Combat?
Quinnbot mentioned it in a post last week and i thought i'd drop a little more info on ya.
For a long time... like, 140k years in game developer time, we've been dissatisfied with our Combat system. It doesn't allow for much tactical play and you can end up in some really ridiculous scenarios. Basically, it's been limping along, neglected and shameful for far too long and we're giving it a work-over.
It'll come in a couple stages and will probably be a target rich environment for bug hunters when we first push it out. First will come the functional changes so we can get to sorting that out, later we'll update the effects and audio.
This is one of the last systems that we feel like we really need to nail down before Early Access and we're finally getting close. Exciting times in Tyrantville!
And when do we plan to release this updated Combat system? Well, i'm guessing it will be another week, 2 at the most. More news will trickle out as we get it - stay tuned!
Space Tyrant Beta Test - ROUND 2
The new Space Tyrant is here!
First of all, thanks very much for all the incredibly helpful feedback over the past several months! We’ve taken it all to heart and have been making the effort to integrate it with our overall game design. The build we’re putting up in front of you today is the glorious tyrant-love-child of this process and we’re starting to feel pretty good about it! That being said – there’s still a lot of polish that needs to happen, new bugs to dig out, and design elements to second-guess ourselves on, but we believe you’ll find this new version to be a lot more of a game and a lot more fun. Here’s the run-down of all the tyranty newness:
A new way to play!: Our previous approach to selecting missions and playing through the game was mostly just a stand-in for something better. Now that we’ve had some time to think it through and actually do the work, the metagame is in and ready for testing.
Here’s how it works: You’ll start as the Hoplite Empire and take on missions in all regions to hold off the advance of the Senate. When the Senate moves into a region, a little red ship icon will appear there on the mission select map to alert you. If 3 Senate ships appear in any given region, you’ll have one last chance to win a mission there before the Senate overtakes you and you lose.
If you can manage to clear out all of the missions in all regions in a game, you’ll win that cycle of gameplay and unlock the next Empire. If you lose any missions along the way, you’ll lose the Commander you started that mission with. If that happens to be your last (or only) Commander, you’ll lose that cycle of gameplay and have to start over. So – beware, when you first play Space Tyrant, you start with just one Commander and will have to unlock other Commanders by beating difficult levels. One and two star missions are pretty easy and a good place to gain your footing, but you’ll have to hit those higher level missions if you want to get more Commanders and other tasty items that will enhance your gameplay.
Speaking of unlocks, here’s what you’ll find along the way:
Artifacts: There are mission specific Artifacts you will unlock in each region and strategizing to get the artifacts you want early on will be key to your success on more difficult missions. These artifacts are yours as long as you’re playing a particular cycle, but if you lose, the Artifacts are reset and thrown back into the mix for your next cycle of play.
Empire Rewards: In addition to Artifacts, when reviewing mission information for the more difficult missions, you’ll occasionally see that an Empire Reward is available. An Empire Reward is persistent and will stick with you whether you lose that cycle of play or not. They’ll come in the form of higher ship classes, Card Decks and Empire specific Commanders. You’ll want to go after these, but it won’t be easy and you might curse at the screen a few times… possibly more than a few times.
Perks: Every time you beat a mission, you’ll be given the choice between two Perks. They’re kind of like Artifacts, but you won’t know what you’ll get until you’ve beaten a mission. I think of them as the surprise sauce on your Tyrant burrito. Like Artifacts, any Perks you unlock will stick with you for that cycle of gameplay. If at any point you lose, Perks will be thrown back into the pool of randomness and you’ll have to reacquire them during your next cycle of play.
So what else is new?
CAPTURE AND HOLD: This is a new mode identifiable by a shield icon on the Mission select screen. Capture and Hold missions are available at the 3 and 4 star difficulty level and will be a true test of your tyranty skills. The goal is to capture 2 of the 3 control point planets before the Senate can. To capture one, you land on it, take down the garrison and then the capture process begins. Once you’re capturing it, your fleet can move on to do other things and the planet will be yours after 3 turns. During that time, it’s possible for the Senate to take it back from you, so keep an eye out for those pesky bastards. Also, remember to pay attention to the capture meters at the top of the screen. If you see one of those start to fill in, you’ll know that the Senate has found one of the planets and you’d better challenge them before they take it.
Secondary win conditions: You’ll see some new win conditions appearing at the top of your screen while playing now. If one approach isn’t working out, aim for a different one.
You can now Sacrifice Commanders who aren’t pulling their weight. If a Commander dies and you’re sick of their crap, you can mouse over their icon (this only works when they’re waiting to respawn) and choose to sacrifice them. This will earn you some Tyranny and an XP Card that you can play on one of your more beloved Commanders.
OPPRESSION!: This is one of my favorite new features. Several planet types will now allow you the option to Oppress them after being captured. Need more Gold? More Science or Tyranny? Hit that ever-lovin OPPRESS button and let the misery of the masses rocket you toward success. Just be sure to mouse over the button before you hit it to see what the chance of Rebellion is. The more you oppress a planet, the higher the chance of a Rebellion – which is a bummer you’ll want to avoid.
1X1 ships quick volley: We’ve tuned some behind-the-scenes aspects of Combat, but the biggest current change is that all ships are now clickable. If you need a quick volley of shots on a particular target, 1X1 ships are now armed and ready for action.
New Perks, Artifacts, Cards and Explores to be had. We’ll continue to add to the heap as the months go on, but you’ll be happy to find a whole new selection since the last build.
Difficulty tuning: We did a deep pass on difficulty tuning and we’re curious how it will work for everyone. 1 and 2 star missions shouldn’t be too tough, but should offer some amount of a challenge. 3 and 4 star missions should range from kinda tough to extremely difficult. Let us know how it goes after a few rounds.
There’s a new Space Slug in town, approach with caution.
Senate Color: If a neutral fleet has been taken over by the Senate, they’ll now be red and menacing. This should quell any confusion over who’s who.
Bug Fixins: We tried to fix as many bugs as possible without introducing new ones, but I’m certain some have slipped through. One bug in particular is the “invisible fleet bug”. Maybe it’s fixed? We’ve fooled ourselves in the past… please let us know if you run into that demon hell-spawn of a bug so we can weep bitterly and take another shot at fixing it.
What comes next? We’re going to start by responding to feedback on this current build and probably pushing some fixes in the days to come. In the background, we’re getting our thoughts together for a Combat update. Nothing is set in stone just yet and we’re still trying to figure out exactly what we want to do with it, but this is our rough plan. One thing that would help tremendously is feedback on the Combat experience and any ideas about what could make it more fun. If it’s not too crazy, we’ll add it to the list of changes we’ll be considering.
Thanks again for playing!
~The Space Tyrant team
Big update coming in early February
Villainous Tyrants!
We were hoping to get a content update out by the end of January, but then it grew in scope and we had EVEN BETTER IDEAS.
Our initial plan was to drop a new game mode on you and some bug fixes, but now we're stretching that into a whole new approach to playing the game. And i mean - it's going to be waaaaay different on the meta game level.
It's the sort of update that has us bouncing around and talking excitedly about it, but also stressing the f*** out on getting it all done in time. The path is clear, but so much typing... so much mouse clicking... i should probably quit with this update already and get back to it.
Oh wait - i also wanted to say - I just sent off the last of the beta invites for a couple weeks. If you're in now, cool - there are still some weird-ass bugs to track down (as Louis discovered yesterday). But if you sign up anywhere between now and early February, i won't be sending out keys until we've got the new version up. Trained eyes and fresh eyes will both be important on this one, so we're hoping to stage this in such a way that we can get some of both.
Alrighty, back to it! Thanks for tuning in, hanging out and typing stuff at us - you folks have been a tremendous help and we greatly enjoy all the conversation. Cheers!
~The Space Tyrant team
p.s. i usually try to add some kind of grand and over the top flavory picture to spice up my posts. This time i'm going to offer you the tiniest, cutest little twerp of a space ship that has ever been concepted up in Tyrantville. I mean, just look at this thing. So ridiculous...
The early January Hotfix has arrived!
version #: 0.5.6215.18617
Hey everyone! Thanks for cranking away so diligently on the holiday build and uncovering so many annoying-ass bugs! We haven’t fixed everything since we’ve been back (it’s only been a week!), but we have gone after the stuff with solid repro steps and anything obvious that was hurting gameplay. We’ve wrapped these fixes up into a patch that we just released so we can move on to a content update later in the month.
Our plan for January is - we want to start plugging in new game modes and some other crazy stuff before the end of the month, but it’s important that we have a solid foundation to build on so the game isn’t torturing you with buggy behavior when you should be enjoying all the newness. We wanted to put that out there so you know that we aren’t slacking. Tyrants don’t slack.
A couple items worth noting - we haven’t had a chance to flesh out the Techno Slug tech upgrades or other slug related stuff, so you’ll still see white squares and other weirdness when you get that far along. We’ll get to it soon. They’re slugs, so, you know, they move slower than your average empire.
Also, if you’re in the middle of a game, that’ll get wiped out when you start afresh. Sorry about that – space and video games are cruel in ways that other modes of existence are not… except for maybe knitting. That can be horribly unforgiving.
Come to think of it – If you’re brave and cool at the same time, wiping out your save file and starting right at the beginning would be a pretty helpful testing move. You can copy your current save files to somewhere else on your computer if you want to load em back up later, but here’s how you get to that folder and clean it out (this is for a PC - not sure about other platforms):
• Before you launch the game, navigate to this folder on your computer:
“C:\Users\\AppData\LocalLow\Blue Wizard\Space Tyrant”
• Delete all 5 files in that folder (3 .json files and 2 .old files) – or move them elsewhere if you want to load them up later.
• Now – if you launch the game, you’ll get the intro and start over on the Tutorial missions.
SO EASY!
And if you’re wondering what got fixed or added, here’s the change list:
NEW:
- Added resolution select when in fullscreen mode.
- More Exploration Event art and Exploration reward art.
FIXES:
- All sounds now play through the proper channels are respect the audio sliders.
- Empire/Leader mismatch on the Loadout screen.
- Empire basic deck able to be used with wrong Empire.
- When unlocking a new empire, proper deck selected with new commander.
- Could spend more perk points than you had in a rare circumstance.
- Thought Seize artifact works as intended, lowering enemy energy charge during combat.
- Planet income upgrades are properly serialized now.
- Node values are properly updated after loading now.
- Hoplite Empire perk board has correct art and paths now.
- Tech victory condition now saves its progress correctly.
- Derelict Forge worlds no longer give their ship discount.
- Derelict descriptor is no longer lost on Forge worlds when returning to a saved game.
- EzCargot's decoy frigates no longer fire their weapons.
Alright folks – thanks again for playing! We’ll be here in the discussion forums intermittently over the weekend; answering questions and crying about any miserable bugs you find. If for any reason we don’t respond right away, it’s because we got caught up in the glories of the weekend and forgot what a computer is. You can be certain that won’t last for long and we’ll be back in Tyrantsville in a few short hours.
Have a great weekend!
~The Space Tyrant team.
***Oh, and here's a ridiculous meme i made to celebrate this wonderful hotfix.
Our Holiday build has arrived!
Greetings, Tyrants! After combing through your many great suggestions and bugs, we've managed to cobble together a holiday build. We're still in beta, so there will still be a cornucopia of bugs, but I believe we've managed to squash the most egregious. We also managed to add a whole slew of new stuff - some subtle, some more obvious. The notes i post below will contain exact info on all of this.
Speaking of the coming holiday, we'll still be tuning into the discussion forums to read and respond to posts. There's a good chance it could take a day or more before you hear anything back, but we'll definitely be around. And despite our perceived laziness in the weeks to come, we'll still get some amount of work done toward an update for early January. We'll do our best to include as much of your feedback as possible in that build as well.
So then, we hope you all get some time off to do what you love! Friends, family, video games, eating yourself into a coma - whatever your happy is, we hope you get lots of it! And you can be sure we'll make every effort to do the same. Now then, without further ado, here are some build notes:
build version: v0.5.6198.18707 Features:
-Economic-only Missions
-Technoslug Party Artifacts added
-Commander Executions
-Bunch of new exploration art added
-Unity Launcher removed and graphics options integrated
-New starlane move & direction art
-New artifacts/decks are now highlighted on the equip screen
-Fleet pucks pop up in response to damage or effects
-Assorted UI polish (shipyard, explore, button icons)
-Some soundtrack updates
-A new Space Slug to tickle your fancy (still shows the old tiny version)
Balance Changes:
-Harder missions (3+) should spawn more often
-Reduced likelihood of duplicate card streaks
-Special planet generation doesn’t undermine base city/lab distribution
-AI players get diminishing returns from Fortifying
-City/Lab Upgrade power improved
Bug Fixes:
-Commander Powers cannot destroy ships after battle is complete (empty fleet bug)
-Artifacts correctly kill fleets if they destroy the last ship (empty fleet bug)
-"Hack Planet" event no longer occurs on planets that have no powers
-Deep Space Probe planet visibility fixed
-Doomed planets no longer explode offscreen
-Fixed several sounds which were disobeying volume settings
-No longer possible to use another empires unique deck
-Shipyard auto-closes if you enter combat
-Recall card no longer consumes a move
-Recall cannot be played on fleets already at your HW
-Upgraded Neutral ships now use the correct ship skin
-Skrunto's laser sweep power re-enabled
-Planet name plaque heights fixed
-Base planet defense always appears at the top of tooltip
-Many planet tooltips descriptions fixed
-Bunny militia power description fixed
-Clicking another friendly fleet no longer invokes a move
-Technoslug homeworld Hire button fixed
-Some siege cards mistakenly didn’t require a siegeing fleet
-Empire logo displays correctly when unlocking a new empire
-Invasion button flickering fixed
-Cannon planets do not lose Derelict on reload
-Artifacts cannot reduce planet defense lower than 1
-Prisons only contain unlocked commanders for the current empire
-Siege waits to consume fleet moves until you roll the dice
Cheers and happy holidays to you from the Space Tyrant team!
I’ll take this opportunity to say - thanks a million to everyone who has stuck with us through this process! As someone who spent some years in the QA trenches, I know how frustrating it can be working with buggy, broken games. So, we really do appreciate your efforts. I’ll start the process this week of sending out all remaining pins and stickers to those of you who’ve come on board in recent times. And when the game goes into an official Early Access state, I’ll send everyone on the list a key so it can be in your Steam library… until Tyrants take over the planet and disintegrate your computers.
