Hello everyone!
We here at Alien Intelligence are happy to announce that the game Post Scriptum CTG has entered early access on Steam! Yay!

It is now available for purchase.

We have added a video tutorial on YouTube for everyone, so that you could get into action faster. Enjoy!

We will also be happy to see you on our discord server

Last week, we had screenshots of the work-in-progress Statistics Menu in the blog. It was a messy combination of many thin, pixelated lines. It required a lot of technical work behind the scenes to make it work, but it wasn’t very clear or beautiful.

Well, that’s obviously a problem so we’ve tried to improve that. It’s going in the right direction! Here’s a screenshot of the current menu (only available in an internal testbuild):



You’re now able to select and deselect individual items. That makes it a lot easier to discover the specific trends you’re looking for. Using this system for a moment does instantly lead to the desire for a decent amount of improvements:

• A search bar to find specific items
  
• A button to toggle between a linear and a logarithmic scale
  
• More info on the axes, changing the color of the background to indicate whether it’s day or night
  
• Displaying information that’s not ”# in stockpile”, data like “total amount of calories”
  
• Making it clear which items you’ve selected even if they aren’t visible in the window on the left: perhaps something like the mock-up below

So there’s still plenty of work to do, but that should result in a very useful Statistics Menu!


Mock-up, not functional yet

[Colony Survival news ends here]

The fundamentals of hardware for gaming haven’t changed in at least twenty years. You’re going to need a keyboard & mouse or a controller and a stationary rectangular screen, and that’s it. There have been all kinds of attempts to innovate like Wii-style motion controllers, Kinect and 3D screens, but these trends have stayed small or even died down again.

There have been attempts to introduce VR headsets for a long time now, but they never seemed to gain a lot of traction. They had all kinds of problems: they were expensive, the resolution was low, in-game movement was difficult and resulted in motion sickness, there was too much lag. And there was a problematic vicious cycle: because barely anybody owned VR headsets, there was a shortage of decent VR games, and because of that shortage of games, nobody bought VR headsets.

But we might be reaching the knee of the curve, and VR might become a lot more popular in the coming years. 2019 saw the release of popular VR-only games like Boneworks and Beat Saber, and in ten days Half-Life: Alyx will release. Last Monday, the Valve Index, Valve’s new VR headset, became available for purchase in Europe [again, apparently, after earlier stock was depleted a couple of months ago]. I instantly tried to order one, but the product is so popular that I was put on a waiting list. The shipping time seems to regularly change between 2-4 weeks and 8-10 weeks, so there’s no telling when I will finally be able to use it, but I’m really looking forward to it.

The implications of VR are more than just ”strapping a screen to your face”. Nearly all (‘traditional’, non-VR) first person games work by letting you rotate the camera with your mouse, and allowing you to interact with the thing in the center of your screen. And that interaction is nearly always constrained to pressing a handful of mouse buttons and keys like LMB and F.



Now, don’t read this as criticism of Arma - I love it tremendously and will purchase the $100 Deluxe Edition of Arma IV as soon as it’s available for pre-order. But Arma is a great example of what happens when you want a complex world with many options with traditional hardware. When you want to open a door, you’ve got to look at it, press a button, and select the right option from a list. It’s not very natural, intuitive or smooth. (Hardcore Arma fans will correct me that there are shortcuts, and that’s probably true, but the core of the problem remains)

The Valve Index comes with two motion controllers that track their locations in 3D space, and they know with which fingers you’re touching them. This means that you gain a lot of the freedom of motion you’ve got in real life. You don’t have to look at the thing you want to interact with: you can look to the left while firing at a zombie to the right. And instead of reducing interactions to mere button presses, you can do things like a physical grabbing motion in real life which will be correctly repeated in-game. This opens up a lot of new gaming possibilities.

Don’t expect instant VR-support for Colony Survival. This is a long-term thing. We started working on this current project in 2013 - so our first VR-product might be a 2027 thing.

Two weeks ago, we wrote quite extensively about the new Coronavirus. We worried about it a lot that week, and we felt like we were an outlier in a world that wasn’t really concerned. Well, today everyone seems to be very worried, so writing about our own worries here doesn’t really add much. Some statistics for posterity’s sake:

• 15,113 confirmed infections in Italy, 1016 deaths - nationwide lockdown, enforced isolation
  
• 804 confirmed infections in the Netherlands (+31% since yesterday), 10 deaths (+50% since yesterday)- smoothly following a curve that results in Italian situations in ~2 weeks
  
• And new since last week, 6 infections in the province where we live, 3 in the city where I live

The amount of infections and the consequences for events, the economy and daily life are rapidly growing. Luckily, governments and other organizations are taking measures, and countries like South Korea show that these can be highly effective. We wish all of you good luck and good health.

Bedankt voor het lezen!

Reddit // Twitter // YouTube // Website // Discord

You've made it! Another tier on our Wishlist Challenge has been unlocked!

After achieving 19k on our wishlist, as we promised, we give you the very first chapter of Gamedec: The Edge of Reality in English. As a bonus, we've added a glossary at the end of the file to help you dive deep into the 22nd-century Warsaw City and its sensory worlds. Let us know what you think!

Click here to download

As a next step, we promise to give a -10% discount on Gamedec's launch for a limited time. We have one more tier to unlock afterward, but first, let's hit the 30k mark on the wishlist!



If you need additional info, simply ask on our Discord channel:

Hello
we have updated
- some bugs (in battle) fixed
- character sprites fixed
- shopping UI changed
- battle camera work fixed (more speedy)

have fun!

Commanders!

Today, we’d like to tell you a bit more about an upcoming change to the Global Operations mode – the re-introduction of the Self-Propelled Gun class (also known as artillery) and the reasoning behind it.



As we announced during the Spirithaven season launch, artillery would be making a comeback to Global Operations along with the re-implementation of its special shells (smoke and illumination rounds). This is a significant change to this mode’s gameplay, so, as you can imagine, the decision wasn’t taken lightly or out of the blue.

Over the last couple of months, we’ve carefully analyzed both your feedback and our data regarding the balance of the Global Operations mode. It’s no secret that with the introduction of several vehicles and features (such as the LOSAT kinetic ATGMs), the gameplay balance of – especially high-Tier – Global Operations was somewhat disrupted, leading to teams full of one type of vehicles (such as the Wilk XC-8 situation before American Dream season).

This was, of course, not the intended state of things. The thing about Global Operations is, not only does this mode sort-of magnify specific vehicle traits and, subsequently, the impact of said vehicles on gameplay; it also favors long-range encounters to close combat in an effort to emulate the feeling of a real, open battlefield. This is, on the other hand, is intended, but one has to find the right counter to the vehicles that tend to outperform the most (and are therefore the most popular) such as various long-range Tank Destroyers that have:

• A lot of firepower
• Good camouflage (very useful at long distances)

Very simply put, the best counter to such vehicles is artillery. But not the way it is right now, since just dumping a PvE class in a PvP mode wouldn’t be very useful or fun for either side. That is why we will be making the following changes to the Self-Propelled Guns as a whole:

• Accuracy changes – we’ll be taking a look at the entire class to make sure it’s not overpowered but, generally speaking, we’ll be increasing the accuracy to make the class useful in Global Operations
• Aim changes – SPGs will take aim somewhat faster than the way it is now
• Special shells – smoke shells are making a comeback
• New shell type – white phosphorus shells (overhauled illumination shells)
• Switching between ammo types will be practically instant

Special shells existed in the game in the past, before they were removed during the overhaul of the entire class. Simply put, the smoke shells allow the artillery to deploy smoke to a certain position, blocking enemy lines of sight or covering your friendlies when they get exposed too much. It’s worth noting that artillery shell smoke will stay around for far longer than standard tank smoke and also fly a lot faster than before, so the deployment is nearly instant.

The white phosphorus shells, on the other hand, are new and represent a significant change to the previous illumination mechanics. Before, the artillery would just fire a flare over a certain area and would spot everything there instantly. This wasn’t really all that great for gameplay because there was no defense available against this kind of mechanic and even if you did everything “right”, you could still get spotted this way, often resulting in your vehicle’s destruction (in PvP, at least).

The way the WP shells will work instead is they will deploy white phosphorus to a certain (rather wide) area. This area will, of course, be visible to everyone (burning ground is hard to miss). Anything in that area will get covered in burning phosphorus, suffering from the following effects:

• Camouflage factor reduced to zero for the duration of the burn
• The vehicle will start taking damage for as long as it is in the affected area
• Engine starts overheating and will start to burn if you in the area for too long

Additionally, any infantry caught in the zone is not going to have a good day, to put it mildly. However, the phosphorus disappears as soon as you leave the affected area.

They will also have reload times independent on the standard ammunition (will therefore act more as an ability than an actual shell).

Basic shells will also be available, but these will not do a whole lot of damage and will serve either to suppress the enemy or to finish off almost destroyed vehicles.

In other words, the artillery in Global Operations will serve mostly as a support class that will aid your team in victory by providing cover and additional spotting abilities. With that being said, we do not want the class to have too big of an impact, which is why we will be introducing the following restrictions:

• No more than four artillery vehicles per match (two per team at most)
• No artillery platoons

Last but not least, given the special nature and abilities of this class that would become too overpowered in regular PvP without respawns, we do not intend to return this class to Random Battles.

Currently, the plan is as follows – much like the Mechanized Infantry feature, we will release this feature for one week in the near future to gather your feedback. If the feedback turns out to be positive, the feature will be launched permanently or, possibly, removed for further work.

We hope that you will enjoy the new balance of power in Global Operations and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/645270/30_days_to_survive/

• Requested Feature: More Detailed Map Loading
  
  
  
• Controller Navigation Bugfixes
  You will now have to set up navigation manually:
  
  You can now set up multiple controllers and control schemes:
  
  
  
• Room List Improvements
  1. Join/Host button now reacts to user input immediately
     
  2. Join Random will now be greyed out if there are no open rooms or if you're in offline mode
     
  3. UI alignment fixes
     
  4. Full rooms are now at the bottom
  
  
  
• Other Bugfixes
  More info in the patch notes below

• map loading progress is now displayed in more detail
  
• fixed map loading issues if you leave before map download was finished
  
• fixed vsync setting getting reset every time you launch the game
  
• you will no longer get flooded with error messages if you don't have internet connection
  
• you will now have to manually set up controller navigation settings
  
• fixed controls rebinding errors
  
• fixed not being able to click certain ui elements with controller
  
• fixed avatar image for bot and player 2
  
• fixed errors reported by the community

• fixed crashes if you skipped the previous update
  
• fixed chat reconnection logic DDoSing the servers

• added support for multiple controllers
  
• added an option to add and remove control schemes
  
• added an option to reset controls
  
• controls settings bugfixes

• fixed KeyBindings.UpdateBindings() error
  
• fixed KeyBindings.get_ActiveLayout() error
  
• full rooms in room list are now at the bottom
  
• room list UI bugfixes

• ...The list will be updated as time goes on.

UPD (4:00 PM UTC): Due to unforeseen technical issues, this update has been rolled back until I fix them. You can still access it in the beta branch. Join the Discord server and use !beta command.

UPD (8:00 PM UTC) "technical issues" which are now fixed:

• non-existent backwards compatibility for controls between this update and 2 updates prior (was causing crashes if you skipped the previous update)
  
• broken chat reconnection logic which resulted in a DDoS attack on my own servers

Join the Discord server: http://discord.gg/dw2
- Oleg

Read this post on our website.

It was 11 months ago when we first mentioned the new Character GUI, in FFF-289. After all that time, it's finally getting ready. Since you can expect to see it released sometime in the next 1 or 2 weeks, we would like to present a quick recap of the features and changes, and some real in-game screenshots.
​
The Character window is now split into 3 tabs. Logisitcs and auto-trash were moved from the central frame into a tab and a new tab called Character was added. Using inventory/stack transfers in the player inventory will transfer the items either to weapons and armor slots or to trash slots depending on the selected tab, regardless of item type.

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-338-tabs.mp4

Logistics and auto trash are now merged into 1 panel. Using a double slider you can set an interval. If you have less than the first value, robots will bring more, if you have more than the second value, extra items will be auto-trashed and taken away by the robots. The double pop-up and extra confirm might seem strange, but it's made this way to solve the problem of robots bringing you items before you finished setting up your request.

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-338-setting-filters.mp4

With the merging of requests and auto-trash, we also made it so you can now set an unlimited number of requests, regardless of research. Furthermore, everything is unlocked in one research: unlimited logistic requests, auto trash, and 30 trash slots are all unlocked by the "Logistic robotics" research that is at blue science.

Searching now not only searches the recipe GUI, but also the inventory and logistic requests.

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-338-search.mp4

By popular demand, we also added a switch to quickly turn personal logics on or off. Turning off personal logistics will stop logistic robots from bringing requested items. It will also stop items from automatically being moved to the trash slots. Logistic robots will continue to empty the trash slots.

https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-338-toggle.mp4

Since the recipe GUI has a new style, we also updated the look of the filter, item, circuit signal, and upgrade selection GUI styles. Some of the other GUIs in the game will have some visual issues due to the mix of old and new styles. My next step will be to fix these issues as soon as the Character GUI is released.

Looking back, this GUI took 13 months and 3 programmers (working alternatively) to implement. This is excluding mockups and UX design. It's a long story, but one thing that's obvious is that the GUI scope has grown far beyond what our codebase is capable of. For this reason, we won't be <s>focusing</s> obsessing that much on the GUI in the future. We will finalize the transition of styles, fix obvious issues and low hanging fruits, and try to get everything at a consistent level of quality for 1.0.

This new Character GUI and changes will likely affect some mods, especially those relying on logistic technologies, logistic slot related APIs, old style definitions, etc. Thankfully a lot of mods will be unaffected, so we hope it won't be too much disruption. Still, we wanted to give some forewarning.

Over the past two weeks, an overhaul mod called Krastorio 2 has been going through closed alpha and beta testing. Krastorio 2 is an overhaul mod that aims to provide a vanilla-style experience with an expanded post-rocket game and updated recipes. The mod will be released later today, so I wanted to take the opportunity to spotlight it.


My factory, grown over the two weeks of testing, showing off the custom mod graphics.
Click to view full resolution

The mod changes almost all recipes without introducing many intermediates, making it close to vanilla while still being a new experience. One of the bigger changes is that late-game technologies do not require the starting tech cards (science packs). Combined with the tech cards mostly needing intermediate products, you can reroute the ingredients of the tech cards into other production as the tech cards become obsolete.


Post-rocket tech cards are consumed in the lab area on the left in the image, the pre-rocket tech labs stand disused in the bottom right.

The biggest feature of Krastorio 2 is that it adds a significant amount of content beyond the rocket launch, including a new win condition. After automating rocket launches there are three more tech cards waiting to be researched, two new resources waiting to be harvested, and many more useful items to be crafted. All that production and the win condition take a significant amount of power but thankfully the mod adds an effective power generation option to fulfill the factory's needs.


Fusion power

All in all, the mod can be described as a great mix of updated recipes and fresh mechanics that are kept in line with vanilla. This means that the mod is not as overwhelming as overhauls that really focus on certain mechanics such as many additional resources, fluids or intermediates. Instead Krastorio 2 strikes a great balance between old and new. The mod has many more features that I did not mention here; so if I made you curious, check out the mod for yourself and have fun playing!

Hej hej everyone - We’re halfway through March and it’s time for another update!

As you may have noticed a few days ago, we missed our typical Wednesday streaming session. Unfortunately we ran into some sound issues that are proving challenging to overcome at the moment. This may end up impacting upcoming streams as well, but we’ll keep you updated as to what’s happening - hopefully we’ll be back on our feet and running soon!

With that out of the way, let’s get to teasing our upcoming new content! Coming the tail end of this month, Generation Zero will hit it’s first anniversary and we’ve taken the opportunity to improve the game in a few meaningful ways that we expect both current and new players will surely appreciate. In the coming weeks you’ll start seeing more and more information from us on these newly crafted features. So stay tuned to our normal channels!

And of course no anniversary would be complete without a bit of a celebration! During our anniversary timeframe you can expect some in-game activities from us with some new limited rewards that we hope you’ll get a bang out of.

We’re currently nearing the end of wrapping all this work up so we can get it out to you, so as usual we’ll let you know when we’re closer to the exact date. But as you can guess based on the above, we’re aiming to have something in time for our anniversary later this month. Until then, keep on fighting off those Machines and we’ll speak again soon!

The Generation Zero Team

Within the woods that bears its namesake, the Wilker stands silently as the Guardian of the Forest Island. Known throughout history as a mild mannered and passive entity, many travel far to offer reverence towards the majestic Wilker. In recent years, the Wilker roams the woods less and less, and prefers the seclusion of the heart of the forest rather than the boisterous outer woods. Lucky adventurers will still bump into the Wilker and may receive its powerful blessing.

According to local legend, the Wilker is the Mother of all Trees, which birthed every variety of plant on Ethia. We know that the Forest is undoubtedly connected to the WIlker, but even until now we are unable to determine where the Wilker ends and the forest begins. Some believe that the entire forest is actually the Wilker and the entity we see is simply a manifestation of the Wilker’s will or power. I highly doubt this, as it is not consistent with the other Guardians of Ethia.

While certainly known to be mild and passive, there are stories that depict a fighting Wilker crushing those that intend to harm the Wilkwoods or its inhabitants. Personally I was able to catch a silhouette of what seemed to be a walking tree, though it vanished before I could get a good look. The infestation of thorns could not have come at a worst time, I would have to return to the Wilkwoods one day and speak to the Wilker myself.

Head Librarian,
Figaro