Interstellar Transport Company

[Asid]

Reworked UI visuals! 0.3.5 patch available now!
Interstellar Transport Company - mt_worlds



It's been a long time coming, but we finally reworked the UI visuals and boy does it look better!!! Not only has everything been reskinned we completely redid the window sizes, got rid of the borders around windows, fixed transparency issues, created new icons, made a new main toolbar etc... It really helps to be able to enjoy the game when you're not fighting against the user interface so much! I hope everyone enjoys and I would love to hear what you think. Plenty of other changes in this patch as well including a bug we missed for the AI from last week's patch.

0.3.5 PATCH NOTES:

-Completely reskinned the User Interface.
-New windows with less transparency, no borders.
-New fogged transparency on windows.
-New more modern menu bar and menu buttons
-Less words, more icons throughout interface.
-Started adding research elements, not functional yet.
-New spaceport menu, still a work in progress. This allows you to compare spaceports, buy gates and setup two stop routes from one location. Will expand on it's functionlity over coming months.
-Optimization of RAM usage. The game now uses ~25% the RAM as it did previously.
-Fixed the AI "loop" bug which stopped AI from functioning.
-Unity upgrade to 2018.2.4f1 to fix some Unity bugs.
-Fixed a couple NAN situations.
-Profit line graph loan issues corrected.
-Surface building buttons always appear so you can see requirements for building them now.
-Fixed cargo not loading correct amount with "next hop demand" pickup rule selected.
-Dilithium crystal price corrected in planet view.
-Machinery prices lowered.
-Food, water, Raw Materials, Rare Resources prices all raised slightly.

[Asid]

1yr, 10k sales! A look at how far we've come and updated roadmap.
Interstellar Transport Company - mt_worlds

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a year since we first released Interstellar Transport Company to early access! It honestly seems like just a few months ago. We're also extremely happy to say we've made over 10,000 sales of our game with a very good 85% review rating on Steam. All of this is a magical feeling for us! Thank you so much to everyone for your support, encouragement, and appreciation of our game.

While it wasn't enough for us to quit our day jobs and focus all of our time on the game, we have been able to get a ton of content and systems added to ITC since launch. I just wanted to take a moment and go through some of what we added since August 16th, 2017.
•   We've fixed the major balance and performance issues found at launch.
•   Multiplayer is no longer a "stutterfest", it feels just like playing singleplayer but 10x better with human opponents. Give it a try if you haven't already!
•   You can lose the game in predefined games (BIG changes to this again coming in the next content patch, maybe a month away)
•   Added Mac & Linux support and some basic localization for ~15 different languages. It's not perfect by any means, mostly using Google translate, but it should allow people in those nations to play.
•   New Ships and routes screens with much more functionality and information.
•   3 new ships since launch, many more to come soon!
•   Hotkeys for game speed, pausing etc... many other quality of life changes like this.
•   Ship refitting & ship replacement with newer models.
•   List of current buildings on a planet and redesigned interface for constructing buildings.
•   Tons of interstellar re-balances and fixes to make this more playable.
•   Entire UI and individual windows are now scalable
•   Market prices now visible at each planet (even more easily accessible info coming soon with the new spaceports screen which is a WIP)
•   7 new cargoes and complete re-balance of existing cargoes. New cargo bays, buildings etc... to support these new cargoes.
•   New more fair reputation system with more visibility of information.
•   And most recently completely new UI graphics!


This isn't the end though, we still have quite a bit to complete from our roadmap! Here is what we plan on completing over the coming months before full launch which is very tentatively scheduled for February 2019:
•   We will be putting in a tech tree system along with adding many new ships to the game. This is already in production and we hope to have this patch out to you all in about a month's time.
•   Next we will be implementing some autonomous transportation using transport hubs. You'll see a lot of information about this after the tech tree system is in place!
•   We will possibly be adding more incentive for players to subsidize industries (maybe giving them some percentage of goods directly to company storage)
•   Interstellar obstacles
•   Contracts from local governments
•   Buildable jump gates
•   Additional starting scenarios for predefined games
•   Ranked multiplayer game mode


These next two items may possibly be pushed out until after full launch:
- We will be implementing our politics and factions system. This will introduce interstellar wars, nations and nation-wide reputations, embargoes etc.. We are considering pushing this out to gather even more information about how it will impact gameplay. During design brainstorming sessions it seems like a lot of work for very little impact on acutal gameplay. We are very open to feedback however!!
- Stock market system

[Asid]

Updates on next patch
Interstellar Transport Company - mt_worlds

Hi all, wanted to give a quick update with the status of our next patch. We are already more than a month behind schedule and honestly it will probably be another month before the patch is ready. It will include the following things:

-New tech tree system, ships, tech upgrades, industries, buildings etc... will now unlock via a research system.
-Research stations which generate research points. These will be orbital facilities that will only generate 100% of their potential output when placed around a planet class that doesn't already have a station. These are also upgradeable.
-New tutorial system based on "hints" during real gameplay instead of separate tutorials.
-Bankruptcy will now work differently.

We've actually finished most of this, however AI needs to know how to use the techtree system which is quite a big undertaking and we haven't yet started on the new tutorial system which we want to get right before releasing more complexity to the game.

We apologize for the slow patch time, full time work and full time school have been getting in the way for us big time recently.

[Asid]

Merry Christmas! Research / Tech Tree patch 0.4.0 now live!
Interstellar Transport Company - mt_worlds


We hope everyone is having a great time with family and friends for the holidays! We would like to add to the cheer with a Christmas gift of our own. Patch 0.4.0 is now live!

This patch has a lot of great additions and changes. Including our research and tech tree systems which changes fundamentally how the game progresses and gives players another fun way to manage the development path of their companies. You must now construct research centers, which are orbiting facilities, and spend research points to gain access to new ships, efficiency upgrades to your ships, different buildings, and even a way for you to gain goods from newly subsidized industries.



We've added three new ships from a new manufacturer "Cochin". All three of these ships are late-game heavy haulers. Two being intrasystem and one being a giant 160 slot interstellar ship.



Bankruptcy now functions quite differently and is more forgiving and easy to tell when it will hit you. We have made a new in-game popup tutorial system to help new players. There are also a TON of optimizations this patch! Should make things quite a bit smoother graphically. We didn't stop there however, there's a bunch of other small fixes and additions.

I hope everyone enjoys, and we look forward to hearing any feedback you have! We'll be working on a patch to fix some of the smaller issues with this release over the coming week or two, then we will be moving on to another big system which will add to the play-ability of the late game experience a ton!

-New Research system. You must now construct a research station to build up reseach points which can be spent on various technologies to advance your company.
-3 new large ships available from new manufacturer (Cochin)
-Bankruptcy now works differently. It now takes 3 straight months with negative cash to go bankrupt. Getting positive money at any point resets the timer. On easy and normal difficulty players will now get a one time grant from the government when cash goes negative.
-New in-game popup based tutorial system to help guide new players.
-Auto save game improvements. No more giant list of save games
-Big performance optimizations!
-New trail render based orbit lines (experimental)
-In game bug report system
-Government colonizing toggle in custom games
-More work on new spaceports menu to make it more functional (still a work in progress)
-Once editing a ship name, icon changes from "edit" to "save" symbol
-Leasing a gate now prompts for "Yes" or "No"
-Various new tooltips to assist players in game setup and play.
-Button in the routes screen to bring up ships screen with route filter applied.
-Limited system, galaxy scroll boundaries.
-New notification when a planet reaches it's max machinery level
-Fixed dilithium crystal price readout
-Some AI improvements to route expansion.
-Fixed spaceport passenger list width and scroll speed.
-Ship type drop down fixed in ledger
-Upgrading a ship no longer reset's it's name and group
-Tooltip on the ships screen to view exactly what a ship is carrying.
-AI will take a small loan to buy a gate if it has too many ships orbiting.
-Ability to rename and nickname planets.
-Last company name and color saved from previous games.
-Added button to reorder rockets on route in routes screen.
-Stopped some more hotkey inputs from triggering while typing in an input box.

[Asid]

December 27, 2018 v0.4.1 PATCH NOTES:


-Medicine will now be given priority over other cargoes of same slot when its price is higher.
-New Cochin ships now have exhaust trails.
-Passenger icons are now white and much more visible in planet window.
-Added a few new tutorial popups
-Lowered brightness of class M4 planets
-Fixed problems with Cert research for B3, C4, WC2
-Pressing esc now properly unpauses the game when exiting the menu.
-research station text and tooltips corrected.
-Fixed a game crash having to do with Robotics production on Mars.
-Fixed a bug causing subsidizing industries to not always take your money.
-Fixed bug causing AI to not go bankrupt sometimes.
-Pickup next demand for machinery and robotics will now always work correctly.
-Increased max system scroll radius.
-Fixed machinery prices on Mars.
-Ship hover details no longer will stay visible when a ship has warped out of the system.


Known Issues
- New cargo Balance is still a work in progress
- AI is not competitive in interstellar play.