Hello Executives, Today I am releasing a patch to the beta branch, the reason for this is because I have made a minor adjustment to the economy to make things more fun and easier to understand however despite plenty of testing I am quite sure that some things still need some balancing. As of of this patch all asteroids are infinite to mine and you only get half the yield from smaller asteroids, it should help with the Industrial faction as they had to research infinite mining first which was strange as mining ships would fly off and then fly back again, also it helps with the Spy faction as they were unable to mine an asteroid once it had ran out which didnt help late game at all, the Science faction generally didnt need any tweaking as their economy was pretty infinite already. The main aim is that the new infinite system should allow for a more stable economy meaning you concentrate on it less especially towards the end of a match, as there's nothing more frustrating than 55 minutes in and your having lots of fun but wondering why you have no Tritanium and realise the asteroid ran out and I am quite certain you would be rather spending your time blowing up the computer than twiddling your economy. The other important thing to note is that with all this you shouldn't be able to just live off the home system mid/late game if you want a decent sized high tech fleet, if you play a game against someone who does expand into other systems then you should be at a disadvantage for not doing so, thats the theory anyway, let me know if its working or everyone is now going to turn into Turtles. I also want to clamp down on run away economies which having a system like this will make it easier for me to work out whats happening. While doing all this I am pleased to say I have also been on a good dig through the code and game and managed to get the frame rate up quite a bit especially late game with 4 CEO's so you should now see things run smoother, as ever this will continue to improve as the game is optimised. Here are the following tweaks to the economy to help keep things balanced: [list] [*] Only one ship can mine an asteroid at a time. [*] The Tritanium refinery now needs 200 raw metal instead of 100 to work. [*] The mining rate on large asteroid miners have been moved from 4 seconds to 8 seconds. [*] All tier 2 units and weapons now require Tritanium to build and all tier 3 units and weapons require Xeo gas and Tritanium. [*] Outpost cores have been relabelled and are their own separate thing unrelated to Science tech now. [*] New advanced outpost core added which can only be found inside Colony command outposts or searched for. [/list] Along with the new economy changes the following has been added: [list] [*] You can now choose start positions on maps. [*] You can now choose teams before a game starts including teaming up the AI. [*] Added categories to the trade screen. [*] Choosing a new ship hull will assign it the latest researched tech. [*] Added new economy information to the overview screen. [*] Added more graphs to post game screen. [/list] Also the following has been fixed: [list] [*] Hit box on lines in the map editor are now a bit wider [*] Stop button has been added back again when mass electing units. [*] Fixed a bug which would cause a match not to start due to not being able to put enough colonies down [*] Fixed a docking issue on outposts and derelict ships [*] Fixed an issue wit the Executron being killed in a personal drop pod [*] Added a moment pause before the tool tip appears [*] Fixed an issue flying fighters in a system with no QT points other than a wormhole [*] Fixed bug with having more than 1 outpost command producing too many ships [*] Fixed an issue setting units to patrol stations where they would run into the corner [*] Fixed space walking being super sensitive. [*] Transport info is now more useful [*] Fixed issue with matter beams and deflectors where the ship would be damaged anyway. [*] Raised the health on Bane and Mechanoid to 1000 [*] Being killed while in the outfit machine will no longer break the game [*] Being killed while operating a turret will no longer break the game. [*] Fixed issue with goods fabricator being used to cheat [*] Infesters will now wonder a bit from the trading ship. [*] Raised dropped cargo limit to 2000 [*] Can now spawn up to 3 colonies again. [*] Can now fire nukes over multiplayer again from the target panel. [*] Monolith turning is now smoother over multiplayer [*] Executron on the monolith can now see the countdown [*] CEO can no longer direct control a ship which already has an Executron on board [*] AI no longer queues up loads of ships. [/list] Let me know what you think in the Forums/Discord or through the games feedback system. Please note that previous saves aren't compatible with this version of the game and also this beta test is currently not available for the mac, although I dont intent to keep this branch active for long. After this patch it out I intend to work on an overhaul of the Spy faction as they aren't very spy like and their super weapon sux so I will be giving them a large injection of alternative tech focusing on stealing, espionage, sabotage and mis-direction and be less like the other 2 factions. Also based on some fantastic feedback I intend to give the first-person aspect of the game a bit more love an attention, its actually load of fun right now to play as an Executron but the quality of the experience can certainly be improved. To access this branch please use the code [b]balancetestingfun[/b] Cheers, Rob