Hello everyone! Welcome back to our Developer Diary!
Today we will talk about one of the most important parts in every game and the biggest headache of game developers – Game Balance.
[Read more…]Dev Diary #4 – Restoring The Balance
Dev Diary #3 – Denizens of the Galaxy
What do you think about this cute fellow ?
Greetings everyone,
Yesterday we released the 0.83 patch which should give you a pretty good idea of what we’ve been all over the last week. So we thought in this week’s dev diary we’ll take a closer look at Minor Factions.
[Read more…]Dev Diary #2 – Big Ships & Shiny Weapons
Hello friends and welcome back to our Developer Diary.
The team’s been hard at work on new features for the next update, and I thought you might like a couple of new screenshots and images 🙂
[Read more…]Dev Diary #1 – Wreckages & Asteroids
Hello everyone and welcome to the first installment in our new Developer Diary series (better late than never?).
These posts will be a bit of a mixed bag, maybe preview a new feature, go over something going on behind the scenes, let you know if any of our devs have thrown a laptop out the window in frustration, that sort of thing – something to keep you guys in the loop a bit more between patches.
Now let’s get down to business…
[Read more…]Roadmap to Beta
Hi everyone,
Finally – it’s time to show you what’s coming to the game over the next 3 months as we walk you through the roadmap!
We’ve already started work on it, but hadn’t been ready to present it until now while it remained a work in progress. There’s been a ton of feedback in the forums and player surveys which we’ve had to condense into pill form, chew up, and spit back out in the shape of a coherent plan… An old adage is likely to apply 😉
When does Beta start and what’s been going on?
If you haven’t seen our post from a couple of days ago, give it a quick once-over before reading on. It lays out key dates including when Beta starts and some of what’s been going on behind the scenes (and may shed some light on parts of this roadmap). That the game was developed by just two developers (until recently) seems to have shocked a lot of you – and we guess something we should be proud of 🙂
The Roadmap
If this post is ‘too long, not gonna read’, at the end you’ll be able to find details of the chart version of the roadmap.
Please keep in mind that this is our roadmap for the next 3 months to get us to Beta – there are a gazillion features we have planned and will start on right after these. Think of the features listed here as a slice of a much grander vision – rather than the whole pie 🙂 But without any further ado:
[Read more…]Screenshots of the latest UI improvements on the way
Hi everyone,
Our designers are working on some UI improvements and we wanted to give you a sneak peek. They should be in the game in one of the next few updates.
Star map and star system enhancements
A popular request from players has been to increase the quality of the strategic info at higher levels (the star map and star system views) to avoid having to go closer to look.
For example, the ability to see from the star map which systems have a shipyard, how populated a system is, and the same for each planet when within a system.
Click the below screenshots for a closer look:
- Numbers next to a star or planet name represent the size of the population
- The shape around the population number – circle or hexagon – indicates whether a shipyard is present or not (circle if no shipyard, hexagon if there is)
- The colours of the labels and objects indicate the presence of player, ally, or unknown/hostile units (in preparation for treaties which we’ll be working on soon)
- In a system view, additional icons are used above a planet to indicate things like a labour shortage, power outage, rioting etc.
- Hovering these new labels will also trigger popup panels with more details (not shown)
Screenshots
Star map view showing friendly/hostile units and population sizes of star systems
[Read more…]Wiki updated but The Community needs Your Help!
Hi everyone,
We’ve made a few improvements to the wiki over the last week:
- Changed the home page layout to make it easier to find things
- Added a page for each hull (an image and stat table only for now)
- Added pages for each of the main structures that can be built on a planet (in need of expanding)
One of the next things we’ll be doing is making sure that all of the ship parts are also listed. There’s a lot of other things that need doing: updating outdated pages; adding, expanding or improving other pages. Speaking of which…
Your help needed!
This community wiki is for Beyond Dark players and we need your help to improve it. Your contributions are not only valued, but enable us to focus more time on developing new features and making the best game possible!
[Read more…]Preview of next week’s patch (0.75)
Hi everyone,
A new Alpha patch (0.75) is coming next week and we wanted to give you a sneak peek! We’re pretty excited about this release, there are some awesome visual enhancements from our designers, as well as improvements to gameplay driven by player feedback in the BD forum.
New immersive graphics & visual effects
Our designers have been busy putting together new environmental effects for the galaxy. The lighting system has been enhanced to feel more realistic, we’ve also improved the way planets and ships respond to various types of lighting. A more immersive style of nebula system has also been brought in which you can catch a glimpse of in the screenshots below.
We’re looking forward to hearing what players think once they’ve had the chance to test out the new changes next week! Will the changes bring a more dramatic feel to the galaxy? How much better will ships and planets look?
Nebulas and environmental effects
Guide: Mining for natural resources
The foundations of a strong empire are its mining and freight network. Without a reliable supply of resources, growth will always be an uphill struggle.
Natural resources
There are five natural resources that can be mined: beron, farsu, limbalt, olzine and ziryl. Each of these resources is used for a different purpose, so strategic priorities will determine which should be mined for and how aggressively.
Beron
Farsu
Limbalt
Ziryl
Olzine
- Beron: required for the construction of buildings and structures e.g. mines, farms, power stations, laboratories, etc. No colony structures can be built without it. It’s a fairly common mineral found in large deposit sizes.
- Farsu: the base material used in the construction of ship hulls and parts. Without farsu, shipyards can’t produce any ships!
- Limbalt: used to produce ordnance for ordnance-based weapons (energy weapons do not need limbalt as they are powered entirely by a ship’s internal power supply).
- Ziryl: required for the production of energy-based ship parts e.g. plasma cannons, shields, and beam turrets. Some structures also require ziryl for their construction (only laboratories at the moment). Ziryl is a rare resource and deposit sizes are small.
- Olzine: is used as ship fuel. All ship engines can travel at at least warp one without needing fuel (free warp), however, much faster travel is possible when olzine is available.
Guide: Ship Weapons
Weapon selection for ships and fleets will make the difference between victory and defeat. As an empire grows, so will its access to increasingly more powerful weapons. However, strength shouldn’t be the only consideration when designing your ships…
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at some of the ship weapons currently being used in the Alpha galaxy. You can find more details on ship weapons on our recently updated wiki page.
Weapon types
The most important point to consider when choosing a weapon is whether to go for energy or ordnance based – each option has its pros and cons.
[Read more…]