After a great holiday season we are back with a bunch of enhancements and a lot of fine-tuning:

• victory points panel for competition mode
• special offer: ideon scanner
• new item: super fertiliser
• population statistics panel
• Rounos & Magni missions improved
• optimized storage system
• “Sell all” trading feature
• New graphic models – especially for rocks and mountains
• ….

Let’s get into the details.

Victory Points Panel

From now on you’ll find all factions in a competition game in the victory points panel to the lower right. Ranked and easily comparable! Click on any player to jump to it’s next city.

Special Offer: Ideon Scanner

We are starting to equip the space traders store with more interesting tactical items. After being bought they go into your inventory and can be used any time you need.

The Ideon scanner for example reveals the size of an Ideon deposit far away from your base. This is interesting as well in the context that rare resources will now be visible from the distance but it remains unclear how much of a special substance or mineral is actually in the pile of rocks and it will only be revealed by the scanner or by getting that deposit in your building range.

Special Item: Super Fertiliser

Fertilizer can be bought in the shop for 2.500 and raise the fertility by 25% on all fields but deserts. This of course is beneficial for farms and forests.

Population Statistic Panel

It took a long time but now they are ready: Statistics about the life quality of your colony’s inhabitants and the overall housing space.

Rounos & Magni Improved

Both missions are now much better balanced in terms of money available, global climate and difficulty level of the goals. In addition we have replaced some lame goals with more interesting ones and we have done a ton of fine-tuning!

Optimized Storage System

The storing of resources needed a make up. The system is now automatically configured to complete packages of certain resources and specially the ones which where prioritized by you.  It even pauses the mining of rare resources to ensure there is enough place for prioritized ones. This way you will very likely end up with ready-to-sell resource packages when the traders is passing by.

Trade Faster: Sell All

Pretty clear what this function does, isn’t it? If you’re tired of selling your stuff one by one, you can stuff the trader with all you get by the click of one button or ring key shortcut.

New Graphics Models

…and so we added some big mountain models that meet the theme of planet Joma. The big deal about this is that we now got some sets of dependencies like woods fitting to rocks fitting to mountains fitting to big mountains. Themes that would work to create unique styled islands on greater generated planets an the type of rocks or mountains might even indicate which one of the fossils resources you find under them as we develop this further.

• You might as well enjoy the redesigned theme of Magni
• And the new cursor graphics for tools and items

Other stuff

• Sandbox: Terrain tools show values of each field (e.g. temperature, height, etc.)
• Sandbox: Temperature tool modifies whole region instead of single fields
• Balancing of emission values for goods producing buildings
• Free play Rules : Receive city centers for growing population
• Planet rotation in main menu
• Animation for quest icons
• Speaker icons over other player’s cities
• Loads of UI fixes
• Loose game when all cities are taken or destroyed
• Firework goes on during end of mission slides

After the last release focused on the trading system, this one brings:

• Terrain tools –  temperature, fertility and height
• Cragginess of terrain
• Research budget for expansions
• New UI for technology licenses
• New rare resource: Corals
• AI improvements
• Colony value
• High score revolution
• More (see end of post)

The one big thing of this release is the new stats and highscore system that calculates the colony value based on your population, city area, buildings and more.

Terrain tools –  temperature, fertility and height

With the tools shown in the image above you can apply regional modifications to the height, temperature, fertility and pollution of every field.

Cragginess of terrain

High terrain and areas around mountains are more craggy and less fertile. In addition we changed terrain texturing. Areas around fertile fields and desserts become more green or brown due to their actual fertility level.

Research budget for expansions

We tried a messed up science point system and now replaced it with a simple district expansion logic that offers fresh research budgets in an easier way than ever before. You can still get these budgets  from the space trader and it feels good to have these function sorted out of the mission goal system on the lower right of the UI.

New UI for technology licenses

Constantly repeating reward mechanisms, like those for technology licenses, have a new place in the upper left corner of the screen. The company is supporting the growth your colony if you manage to push up your colony value.

New rare resource: Corals

Another precious resource that you can harvest from the depth of the sea. Corals can be harvested for medical substances. This brings us closer to having a great variety of individual resources that are specially made for trade. Corals are the first rare resource that regrows.

AI improvements

• AI now puts more effort into building the cities in a way that allows to expand them as much as possible.
• AI is building a warehouse and harvests rare resources.
• AI opponents are building spaceports and sell resources to the space merchants.

Colony value

Here’s the inconspicuous big move of release 25 because the colony value is an all over indicator for the wealth of your colony.

This colony value now defines how much money you get if sell shares of your colony and how their price is going through the roof in further development. That’s possible because every factor is directly converted into capital ( the official currency in all known space so far. )

It has integrate all mayor factors beginning with the population and the worth of your constructions and their productivity. It also includes the size of occupied land, the quality of life and the count of installed upgrades. And at least it substracts emissions and pollution.

High score revolution

The high score ( now colony score ) is also depending on your reached colony value. But you will only get as much score as you have kept your shares own colony shares. If you sold 50% of them for cheap credit you halved your final score as well…

Still worth noticing that reachable scores skyrocketed with this upgrade and your chance to reach one of the first places is better than ever.

Other stuff

• Meteorites take longer to drop (50 seconds). In addition lasers are now built 50% faster. Thisway, it should be much easier to deal with the meteorite shower on Lorian.
• It’s possible to start building directly from the technology menu
• New Upgrade graphics for park district and financial district
• Planet generator makes sure there is enough space between volcanoes, huge mountains, temples and natives
• Fixed screenshot light problems
• Streets fade in and out while building or destructing

This release comes with the following new content, gameplay features and UI improvements:

• Rare resources: Gold, Ideon & Meteorite Metal
• Changed Warehouse storage system
• Merchant lands on Spaceports
• New user interface for trade
• Natives sell ideon treasure maps
• Reworked Joma and Tuto missions
• More (see end of post)

We are very happy with the feeling of the new trading system. Making additional money to allow for a fast expansion is a real gameplay changer.

In addition to this early access release we will also updated the demo version. The old one still has the state of Alpha 18, so it is about time to update it with the changes of the last half year.

Rare Resources: Gold, Ideon & Meteorite Metal

We have added a new category of resources to the game. Rare resources are not consumed by your people. Instead they can be used for trading and since they are precious you can make a lot of money by selling them.

Important: Ideon is now revealed whenever it’s rock field becomes part of your territory. You no longer need to mine rocks to find out if there is some Ideon hidden within.

When your warehouse storage is full, the mining process will be paused which is visualized by a fading icon.

Warehouse

Mining gold or other rare resources requires a warehouse. By default a single warehouse can store up to 2,000 resource units (used to be 1,000) which equals 2 trade packages.

You can also upgrade the warehouse with a storage for goods and other resources. Please note that the these upgrades now have to be researched first.

Merchant on Spaceport

Instead of landing somewhere on the planet (forcing you to search him) the merchant now lands on the spaceport. As soon as you have built one, you can open it to see when the next merchant will arrive. In addition you can also pay a bonus to the merchant to make sure he doesn’t stop at other planets and comes directly to you.

You can still send up resources on your own by building a spaceship. If you spaceport is blocked by a merchant you can send him away anytime.

Trade User Interface

We have created a new user interface for the trade system. So you no longer need to click through multiple layers in the ring menu to find a resource to buy or sell. The interface gives a complete overview of things you can buy and sell and everything is reachable with a single click.

The same interface is also used when sacrificing at temples or “negotiating” with natives and Xrathul.

Trading with Natives

As soon as you have negotiated a partnership with a native tribe they start to sell native food to you. With the new release the natives now also sell treasure maps that reveal locations of Ideon. This is useful for the Rounos mission, but also important whenever you need to decide on a good spot for the next city landing capsule.

Tuto & Joma Reworked

All the changes describe above need a proper integration and explanation in the game. To assure you understand how to use everything we have modified the Tuto and Joma missions. Especially the latter one is worth playing it again, because there are new goals and things to do.

Miscellaneous

• Credits now properly show the list of our crowdfunding supporters again
• Increased city tax revenue a bit
• Competition AI is now capable to make more than 7 victory points
• New graphics for city protection shield
• Free play and competition: Other companies land with 15 seconds delay
• New laser cool-down animation
• Xrathul harvester ships can now be focused by multiple lasers at the same time
• New icon for negative growth influence on forest
• Fixed message panel layout

Important: With this release we switch our underlying technology from XNA (DirectX 9) to MonoGame (DirectX 11). We have tested this a lot, but it’s still possible that some of you are having problems. Please send an email to support@imagineearth.info.

This release comes with the following new content, gameplay features and UI improvements:

• Snow graphics
• Laser and pulse cannon for frontier tower and buoy station
• New building: Logistics center
• Colony shares section in resources user interface
• Changed research system
• New bottom (messages) and time UI
• List of cities and bookmarks
• MonoGame technology
• More (see end of post)

Although watching Game of Thrones took some of our precious time we are still very satisfied with the results ;-). The next things on our list are: Improve the trading system and UI, add new resources to the game that are not part of your population’s needs, add more visual life to the planet and more.

Laser, Pulse Cannon and Shield for Frontier Tower

There are three things we have done here. First, we have made the laser upgrades available for frontier buildings (tower and buoy). That allows you to defend against meteorites and Xrathul without having to build a research district somewhere outside your cities.

Second, the frontier buildings now also have the shield generator upgrade. It allows you to protect the surrounding fields from tornadoes and volcanic eruptions.

Third, the “Anti-Xrathul Laser” is now called “Pulse Cannon” and received some new visuals as you can see in the following screenshot.

Logistics Center

The logistics center is a complete new building. It optimizes the production and transport of goods and food. The performance of every neighboring construct producing these resource types is increased.

The center can be equipped with auto repair and remediation upgrades (at the same time). Both upgrades are no longer available for frontier tower and buoy station.

There is a new “Infrastructure” category in the build ring which is also visible in the technology menu.

Snow

The last releases have added things like ground fertility and temperature to the game. A local temperature of under -5°C is now visualized by a decent snow cover on the planet, trees and buildings. This is especially important for farms, because their productivity is much lower in cold regions.

Colony Shares

Selling colony shares allows you to increase your capital. In addition you are able to take over cities of other players, by owning 50% of their shares (free play and competition).

This is obviously a very important feature that was not well represented in the user interface. We have added a new slot to the resource bar that gives you quick access to the shares options and shows how much shares you currently own.

PS: Note that you have to pay a dividend to the owners of sold shares. If you buy shares from other companies, you get paid a dividend.

Research

We have decided to increase the total number of research points you can earn in the missions. This means tools and upgrades are no longer unlocked in groups of two. This change also gives us more freedom in terms of adding new stuff to the research.

The migration logic should automatically make sure you keep the things you have researched.

Bottom UI

The user interface at the middle bottom of the screen has received some polishing. All options (previous messages, navigation mode, victory points, statistics and menu) are visible at any time.

Time UI

Time is now visualized in a way that makes it easier to recognize the numbers. For example “34:06” is 34 space minutes and 06 seconds which is comparable to 5 and a half years on earth (one space second is round about a day).

The speed of time is still controllable in 5 steps ranging from one-quarter speed to four times the speed.

List of Cities and Bookmarks

Last but not least a new “power feature”. You can use the numbers keys to bookmark specific fields and jump to them by clicking the number or the new user interface elements at the top right of the screen.

To create a bookmark simply hover a field with the cursor and press the number key for a few seconds. New built cities are automatically added to your list of bookmarks, but you can also use this feature for quick jumps to an enemy colony, a temple or another interesting region on the planet.

MonoGame

With this release we switch our underlying technology from XNA (DirectX 9) to MonoGame (DirectX 11). This makes it a lot easier for us to find bugs and enhance the performance of Imagine Earth. We have tested the MonoGame version a lot, but it’s still possible that some of you are having problems. Please send an email to support@imagineearth.info.

Miscellaneous

• reduced start money for most missions
• camera can zoom closer to the terrain
• price for harvesting forest and rocks is no longer payed upfront, but during the process
• smaller world icons with less object overlap
• tree are slowly moving in the win
• Xrathul ships no longer intersect with the terrain
• player’s laser cannons no longer attack meteorite that targets electronic employee
• AI saves money and buys meteorite to attack electronic employee
• climate levy balancing
• fixed vanishing oil pests on Lorian
• optimized visuals in tool ring
• global warming replaced with player’s emission balance in the stats
• loads of detail improvements