4/19/2021 - devlog
This week Fabian details how parliaments will function in a future update and how players can bring different changes into motion within their governing bodies.
Fabian (Counterpoint)
I'm currently in the midst of working out the details of our new approach to politics and infrastructure. One of the things we're going to move towards is parliaments. On planets with lots of players, there won't just be one single governor in the future, but a group of 3 or 5 or even more members of parliament. Every one of these players will have access to the new "government entity", which will persist even when the parliament changes, so that we can have proper government accounting and governing a planet will be less tied to a corporation that is temporarily acting as the tax collection bucket.
Now, this of course has some implications for how governments are going to be making decisions in the future. Instead of changes just taking immediate actions, they'll now be part of a "motion". A motion might just be a single change to the local rules or to the planetary infrastructure, or it might bundle all kinds of different changes. In any case, the parliament will have to vote on the motion to decide whether it will pass or be rejected. Of course parliaments will come with their own in-game chat in case there are topics that need to be heatedly debated. Those who voted for a certain motion will usually be visible to players on the planet, but even that might be an option the government could vote on in the future. More possibilities for scheming and secrecy!
Michi (molp)
This week I finished the hint system I mentioned in the last devlog. Now that this system and the UI tutorial is implemented and only lacking a final testing run on our test server, we think it is time for another maintenance release. The next big feature on my list will take a bit longer anyways, so it makes sense to release the tutorials sooner rather than later, so we can see how they perform and make adjustments if necessary. There are still a few minor issues and bugfixes on the list that should also go into the next maintenance release, but I feel confident that we can release it sometime next week.
Nick
It's good to be back! I had a great vacation in the US visiting my family and friends, but I'm glad to be back home and working towards getting our game in front of more new players. I hope you guys were able to see some of the new YouTube videos that came out while I was away like ASpec and TotalXclipse. Really happy to hear that we got another great influx of players into the game because of these influencers. I'm going to be concentrated on getting more influencers as well as starting up a new YouTube Ads campaign now that everything is ready with the new website.
As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!