Hi everyone,
We’re working on a much faster game galaxy that’ll be launching soon. But how fast is it? Let’s take a look…
Colonies
The following table shows game actions related to colonies and how much faster they are in the upcoming new galaxy compared to current galaxies.
| Action | Skirmish 2 | New Galaxy | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mining: 60% density | 60/hr | 600/hr | 10x |
| Construction: Beron Mine | 12 mins | 1 min | 12x |
| Construction: Shipyard | 12 hours | 1 min | 720x |
| Ship Construction: Cruiser | 25 hours | 15 mins | 100x |
| Credit income*: | +450/hr | +5,200/hr | 12x |
| Growth rate*: | +950/hr | +9,500/hr | 10x |
| Troop training: | +252/hr | +2,520/hr | 10x |
* When starting a new game as Mankind
For most actions a 10-12x increase in speed has been applied. But for much lengthier actions e.g. constructing a shipyard, shipbuilding, research – the speed was increased even more significantly. This is to ensure that any construction action can be completed in the same play session – including shipbuilding.
To compensate for the increased speed the max rates at which happiness can change have been increased from +/- 1/hr to +/- 3/hr and unemployment won’t negatively affect happiness.
Research
The aim with research is that each play session you’ll have enough science points to research new technologies. This should still be possible as you progress deeper into the tech-tree as long as you continue to increase your science power.
For example: Corvette research takes 75 hours to research in Skirmish 2 with 1 lab. In the new galaxy it takes 4 hours with 1 lab (the research itself only takes 5 minutes but it takes 4 hours to first accumulate the 250 science points cost at the single lab rate of 60/hr (more details).
Fleets
Travel
In-system speeds haven’t been increased because they’re already at their technical limits.
But deep space travel has been massively sped up – a 10x speed increase!
The image below shows how quickly you can travel to your neighbouring star systems at that speed.
Fleet Actions
Invasion and bombing times haven’t changed. It’ll still take an invasion at least 9hr 30min to complete.
Minefield speeds have been increased:
- Minelaying: T1 10 mins, T2 20 mins, T3 30 mins
- Minesweeping: T1 62% /hr, T2 125% /hr
We’re still experimenting with them. But in this game mode the intention is that actions can be completed in the same play session as much as possible.
So minefields won’t be an effective long term defensive barrier, but more of a tactical weapon and a way to lay traps. And in this game mode fleets will be more responsible for defending territory (with the new player guard fleets and a similar guard automation order that you’ll be able to use for other fleets).
What These Speeds Mean
With these speeds you can keep playing as long as you like in a single play session and in a short space of time you can progress very deep into a game.
In just 15 minutes you can build a shipyard, design and build a new ship, and have it arrive at a neighbouring system!
Attacks by Other Players
During the start of a new game your vicinity is protected by the new player guard fleets. We’re also going to add a similar guard mode you can apply to your own fleets so they can automatically defend a large area continuously.
Long invasion times reduce the risk of losing colonies and the game speed enables you to respond quickly to situations as they develop or retaliate soon afterwards. Losing fleets has less of an impact on your game because fleets can be replaced quite quickly.
When this galaxy is ready it’ll be the format for all future Skirmish galaxies. Players will be able to choose between this faster game mode and the regular game mode (or play both at the same time).
There’s no specific launch date still but it will be mid-June. We’ve not pinned down a date yet because there’s one other feature not mentioned yet that we’re trying to finish and include…
– The Outscape dev team