It's exciting to see it's in the works.

I love the roadmap, but updates seem to be coming in slower than the previous pace. Is that a result of sales?

We've released a patch every two weeks since release. The tech tree should be in the next patch, which will probably be ready at the end of this month.

Sales are quite good, but the money goes to pay for the original development, including the advance we received from the publisher; until we reach the break-even point, we don't see any of it. There's no budget currently allocated for post-release development, so Sven and I are currently working part time on them without pay.

Arioch wrote:We've released a patch every two weeks since release. The tech tree should be in the next patch, which will probably be ready at the end of this month.

Sales are quite good, but the money goes to pay for the original development, including the advance we received from the publisher; until we reach the break-even point, we don't see any of it. There's no budget currently allocated for post-release development, so Sven and I are currently working part time on them without pay.

This makes me sad to here this. You both deserve better sales.

The game isn't perfect, but it's better than say, Stardrive 2, and sales for it were better.

Any ideas on how to get the word out?

This is just my opinion, but if the game would be multiplayer it will bring much more income and become a lot more popular than it is now.
Until then I personally can't recommend this game to anyone due to the fact that it gets very boring after a couple days of play.
In fact it has the potential to become not less popular than MOOII.
Singleplayer is great and interesting, but it's a very limited niche and is clearly not enough to become truly popular.

Sorry for bothering you with that "multiplayer" but it really hurts me that i can't play such a great game with my friends.

newanilamo wrote:This is just my opinion, but if the game would be multiplayer it will bring much more income and become a lot more popular than it is now.
Until then I personally can't recommend this game to anyone due to the fact that it gets very boring after a couple days of play.
In fact it has the potential to become not less popular than MOOII.
Singleplayer is great and interesting, but it's a very limited niche and is clearly not enough to become truly popular.

Sorry for bothering you with that "multiplayer" but it really hurts me that i can't play such a great game with my friends.

You clearly don't know how much time and how many resources are required for MP. Plus, not to mention the very small subset of players who actually play MP.

This suggestion was not very helpful.

Indeed I have no idea how to program and how difficult it is.
But i'm sure that making multiplayer for turn-based game is much easier then for realtime game.
And I can not agree with the assessment of the number of people actually playing multiplayer games!

But of course, developers decide for themselves which path will bring them more popularity and money.

As for the current situation, it seems that horizontal connections between players might increase the popularity of the game.
I mean you recommend the game to your friends, them for their friends and so on.
But for that the game should be really interesting and cool! But now it is not and the main reason for this, as I see this is a very weak algorithms for computer players.
They play illogical and not use the features available to the player. It is very frustrating.

So, what's next on the agenda now that the research tree is implemented? It's nice to see continuing work; I'm just looking forward to more improvements and being able to catch problems if they turn up. Speaking of catching problems if they turn up, I submitted a proof that Tendao is inferior under every condition to a Coral world, and only superior to a standard Island with access to Orthin, but it's still ineligible for Coral terraforming due to being 'superior'. It just seems odd to have Tendao get denied this, when Coral terraforming is Phidi unique and, if anything, they'd likely want to fix their homeworld first.

To repeat the proof:

'Island planets have 2 units of reef biome, 3 of ocean, and 1 of vents, multiplied by size, by default. Tendao has 3 units of reef, 1.5 of ocean, and 1.6 of vents. Coral planets get 4 units of reef, 1.2 of ocean, and 1 of vents. Phidi have a habitability of of 4 for reef biomes, 3 for ocean, and 0.8 for vents. Orthin have a habitability of 4 for vents, but are inferior for ocean and reefs.

As such- an Island world with only Phidi has a maximum population of (2*4)+(3*3)+(1*0.8)=17.8. Adding Orthin increases that to 21 (increasing vents population from 0.8 to 4). Tendao with only Phidi has a maximum population of (3*4)+(1.5*3)+(1.6*0.8)=12+4.5+0.8+0.48=17.78, or actually very slightly lower than a default Island world. If it has Orthin available, this increases to 16.5+(1.6*4)=22.9, or a notable improvement over default Island worlds. A Coral world with only Phidi has a maximum population of (4*4)+(1.2*3)+(1*0.8)=20.4, significantly better than either an Island or Tendao. With Orthin, this increases to 23.6, still better than Tendao.'

We're discussing plans for our first DLC with the publisher. We'll let you know details when they are available.

Arioch wrote:We're discussing plans for our first DLC with the publisher. We'll let you know details when they are available.

Yaaay, go for it!

Iceberg actually seems to have published Endless Space and Legend... Seeing that the DEV company has switched publisher for ES2, maybe they have a beef to settle, and willing to push resources into the competition...

Arioch wrote:We're discussing plans for our first DLC with the publisher. We'll let you know details when they are available.

Looking forward to hearing what's coming, then! Hopefully we can get a proper 'ending' splash screen soon as well; something just a little more 'rewarding' than the current victory message. That said, focus development effort as you will.

zolobolo wrote:

Arioch wrote:We're discussing plans for our first DLC with the publisher. We'll let you know details when they are available.

Yaaay, go for it!

Iceberg actually seems to have published Endless Space and Legend... Seeing that the DEV company has switched publisher for ES2, maybe they have a beef to settle, and willing to push resources into the competition...

I think it's more about Iceberg not being the greatest publisher ever for monetary support and advertising.

I still think they should be doing better at getting the word out for SiS.

DDPD wrote:I still think they should be doing better at getting the word out for SiS.

True that! Only heard about EL thanks to Angry Joe.

Maybe we should try to pitch this game to him for a lets play video - is anyone a member of the Angry Army?

Any news on how the discussions with the publisher have been going? Understandable if that make take a while, but there's still plenty to go on the development roadmap, so I'm looking forward to a better and better Stars in Shadow experience in the future. Thank you both for all your work and the excellent game!

nweismuller wrote:Any news on how the discussions with the publisher have been going? Understandable if that make take a while, but there's still plenty to go on the development roadmap, so I'm looking forward to a better and better Stars in Shadow experience in the future. Thank you both for all your work and the excellent game!

Iceberg is on board for a DLC; I'm working design specs for what we're going to include. Both Sven and I have other outside work that we each have to get through in addition to this, so it will take a little while, but hopefully we'll have something to announce before long.

Arioch wrote:

nweismuller wrote:Any news on how the discussions with the publisher have been going? Understandable if that make take a while, but there's still plenty to go on the development roadmap, so I'm looking forward to a better and better Stars in Shadow experience in the future. Thank you both for all your work and the excellent game!

Iceberg is on board for a DLC; I'm working design specs for what we're going to include. Both Sven and I have other outside work that we each have to get through in addition to this, so it will take a little while, but hopefully we'll have something to announce before long.

Great to hear. Don't rush yourselves on my account, I just wanted to check in and hear how things are going. I've been happy to see updates on Outsider again, so it's hard for me to complain- and, once again, thank you both for a game that, although still a little rough in places, has quickly found its way into my heart.