---
title: "The Universe Expands - Development Log #269"
date: 2021-01-25 11:46
categories: devlog
absolute_image: https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/website/og_image/asteroid-day-2020.jpg
author: "Nick"
---

The expansion of the universe is almost upon us: the formation of the fourth faction, the emergence trace resource deposits, the migration of commodity exchanges, and more ...

### Michi (molp)

![Avatar Michi](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_michi_small.png)

[Two weeks ago](/blog/2021/01/11/did-someone-say-reset-267/), I talked about how we will move the commodity exchanges off-planet when the coming reset hits. This has several implications, for example it will nerf the existing CX planets that are currently the easiest option when starting the game. In fact, they have been so popular that we had to double their available plots last year during a major player influx event. Removing the CX from these planets will make the other starting planets more attractive. Another issue is that we need some kind of storage at the CX stations. If there are none, it will be hard to manage orders, and cancelling orders would require a ship to be present. Therefore, I looked into planetary warehouses and found that we can reuse most of their implementation. I am still working on it, but right now it looks like now every CX station will have a level 20 equivalent of a planetary warehouse. That means players can rent up to 10 storage units. For now there will be an unlimited amount of available units, and the warehouse will not be extendable. Utilizing a warehouse allows the use of CX stations as origins / destinations for local market shipping ads.

Besides the warehouses, I also worked on our world editor. With the new universe, we will change how resources are distributed. Right now a resource is either available on a given planet or unavailable. The concentration of the resource is a random value between a resource specific minimum and maximum level. In the future we will also implement trace element resource deposits. If a resource doesn't occur on a given planet there will be a small chance that it will be added as a trace element. The resource concentrations for trace elements are obviously very low, but we think it will create more varied, interesting planets eventually.

![Avatar Fabian](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_fabian_small.png)

### Fabian (Counterpoint)

As you might have guessed from Michi's entry, last week was primarily about the new universe map. We agreed upon a rough new sector layout that I put into the world editor for further refinement. We can already reveal that the new map will be quite a bit bigger than the current one and feature a fourth faction. Next up are stars, planets, starting infrastructure, and all that good stuff.

Another thing I looked at was the distribution of resource densities throughout the universe. Some of the higher-tier resources needed a little bit of a buff to the concentrations they usually appear in, so it's actually worth establishing colonies to extract them and move them around. Speaking of which, there'll also be a new general map generation rule: resource densities of further-out systems will tend to be higher than of those close to the hub worlds, so expanding your reach should be more attractive generally.

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

Everything is coming together pretty smoothly on the marketing end for Early Access. I was a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to have everything come out together, but after this week, I'm pretty confident in saying that everything will be ready. Our Early Access trailer came together much faster than I anticipated, so all that is left is music from Julian. The website is also going along well and looking better and better after each addition. I know you guys are curious about the roll-out, but only a few more weeks to go!

I also was able to secure another batch of YouTubers to promote our game, and some of you will be a happy to know that [Spacedock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EernNDDUqwU) will be working with us again. We had such a great response from his subscribers, so I'm equally thrilled to have him on board for another video. Again, let me know if you have any YouTubers/Twitch streamers that you think would work well with our core audience, and let me know on Discord.

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

After months of refactoring and rewriting existing systems, I was finally able to actually implement one of the core features for which I started the whole backend rework in the first place: support for subscriptions! Once Early Access starts, most PRO perks (more info on the "most" part in the future) will be tied to an active PRO license. This is already the case today, but during First Access, any supporter pack granted you full PRO privileges for the duration of First Access. This will change in Early Access, and you will have to buy game time to keep your license from expiring. Our backend systems now support this new model, so if you don't want to support us by buying a supporter pack (but why wouldn't you?!), you will be able to just buy game time in 1, 3, 6 or 12 month packages. Next up will be integrating all this into the frontend as well as the game itself.

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!



The expansion of the universe is almost upon us: the formation of the fourth faction, the emergence trace resource deposits, the migration of commodity exchanges, and more ...

### Michi (molp)

![Avatar Michi](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_michi_small.png)

[Two weeks ago](/blog/2021/01/11/did-someone-say-reset-267/), I talked about how we will move the commodity exchanges off-planet when the coming reset hits. This has several implications, for example it will nerf the existing CX planets that are currently the easiest option when starting the game. In fact, they have been so popular that we had to double their available plots last year during a major player influx event. Removing the CX from these planets will make the other starting planets more attractive. Another issue is that we need some kind of storage at the CX stations. If there are none, it will be hard to manage orders, and cancelling orders would require a ship to be present. Therefore, I looked into planetary warehouses and found that we can reuse most of their implementation. I am still working on it, but right now it looks like now every CX station will have a level 20 equivalent of a planetary warehouse. That means players can rent up to 10 storage units. For now there will be an unlimited amount of available units, and the warehouse will not be extendable. Utilizing a warehouse allows the use of CX stations as origins / destinations for local market shipping ads.

Besides the warehouses, I also worked on our world editor. With the new universe, we will change how resources are distributed. Right now a resource is either available on a given planet or unavailable. The concentration of the resource is a random value between a resource specific minimum and maximum level. In the future we will also implement trace element resource deposits. If a resource doesn't occur on a given planet there will be a small chance that it will be added as a trace element. The resource concentrations for trace elements are obviously very low, but we think it will create more varied, interesting planets eventually.

![Avatar Fabian](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_fabian_small.png)

### Fabian (Counterpoint)

As you might have guessed from Michi's entry, last week was primarily about the new universe map. We agreed upon a rough new sector layout that I put into the world editor for further refinement. We can already reveal that the new map will be quite a bit bigger than the current one and feature a fourth faction. Next up are stars, planets, starting infrastructure, and all that good stuff.

Another thing I looked at was the distribution of resource densities throughout the universe. Some of the higher-tier resources needed a little bit of a buff to the concentrations they usually appear in, so it's actually worth establishing colonies to extract them and move them around. Speaking of which, there'll also be a new general map generation rule: resource densities of further-out systems will tend to be higher than of those close to the hub worlds, so expanding your reach should be more attractive generally.

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

Everything is coming together pretty smoothly on the marketing end for Early Access. I was a little nervous that we wouldn't be able to have everything come out together, but after this week, I'm pretty confident in saying that everything will be ready. Our Early Access trailer came together much faster than I anticipated, so all that is left is music from Julian. The website is also going along well and looking better and better after each addition. I know you guys are curious about the roll-out, but only a few more weeks to go!

I also was able to secure another batch of YouTubers to promote our game, and some of you will be a happy to know that [Spacedock](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EernNDDUqwU) will be working with us again. We had such a great response from his subscribers, so I'm equally thrilled to have him on board for another video. Again, let me know if you have any YouTubers/Twitch streamers that you think would work well with our core audience, and let me know on Discord.

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

After months of refactoring and rewriting existing systems, I was finally able to actually implement one of the core features for which I started the whole backend rework in the first place: support for subscriptions! Once Early Access starts, most PRO perks (more info on the "most" part in the future) will be tied to an active PRO license. This is already the case today, but during First Access, any supporter pack granted you full PRO privileges for the duration of First Access. This will change in Early Access, and you will have to buy game time to keep your license from expiring. Our backend systems now support this new model, so if you don't want to support us by buying a supporter pack (but why wouldn't you?!), you will be able to just buy game time in 1, 3, 6 or 12 month packages. Next up will be integrating all this into the frontend as well as the game itself.

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!


The Universe Expands - Development Log #269

---
title: "Winning Back Workers - Development Log #268"
date: 2021-01-18 11:46
categories: devlog
absolute_image: https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/website/og_image/release_ignition.png
author: "Nick"
---

Tired of seeing your workforce disappear once new players arrive? Never fear! Molp to the rescue!

### Michi (molp)

![Avatar Michi](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_michi_small.png)

This week I spent quite some time on implementing changes and adjustments to the population / workforce model. The most biggest and most important change addresses "workforce stealing." In case you haven't heard that term yet, I need to go deeper to explain how the population and workforce models interact:

Every base needs a certain amount and type of workforce to staff their production buildings. Once a new production building is built or demolished or there is a change in habitation buildings, the base determines what the workforce requirements are and sends a workforce request to the planet's population. Every week (when the population report is created) all the requests are taken into account and the whole planetary population is assigned to the requesters in round robin fashion. If the total population exceeds the sum of the requests, every player will receive enough workers to fully staff their buildings. If not, the workers are shared between all players on that planet and thus the production buildings will be understaffed and less efficient.

While this algorithm is relatively fair for existing bases, it has a major downside: Building up one of the higher population tiers can be very costly considering the population infrastructure costs. If a new player arrives on a planet and builds a production line requiring a higher tier workforce, they are treated just like the older inhabitants by the algorithm and get their share. That results in very unhappy long-time players since every new player effectively "steals" a large part of the workforce that long-time players built over weeks and months without ever needing to contribute towards the growth of that workforce. This is called _workforce stealing_ and the smaller the number of bases using a certain workforce type, the worse it is.

To mitigate this I implemented a suggestion made in the forums by one of the players. Instead of re-distributing the whole population each week, every base keeps up to 75% of their workforce and only the 25% returning into the population are then re-distributed. This will give existing players on a planet plenty of time to react to the new arrivals.

Other noteworthy changes are:

* The amount of necessary building materials for infrastructure projects was reduced
* I increased the upkeep intervals to 3 and 10 days (was 1 and 7 days)
* Each base now generates more safety and health than before
* The `POP` command is renamed to `WF` to discern it more clearly from planetary population commands

![Avatar Fabian](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_fabian_small.png)

### Fabian (Counterpoint)

Since Michi went into detail on the population-related changes, I'll spill the beans on some of the general material tree adjustments coming post-reset:

* You'll be able to make `MAI` in Hydroponics Farms now, meaning you can actually make all the required inputs for `RAT` right there.
* `S` and `MG` are rightfully moving to the "Elements" category. This also means they'll get their own new minerals.
* Electronics MMs will be reduced significantly. This includes `NV1` and `NV2` which will make ships less expensive.
* Weight and volume of `H2O` will be reduced significantly.
* Habitations will have a smoother cost curve (e.g. `HB3` now uses lightweight prefabs, `HB4` now uses reinforced prefabs).

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

Last week, I spent the majority of my time on Early Access preparation since we are getting closer and closer. I hope to have the new website redesign ready in time, so I've been working with Manoj and our freelancer Melanie in coordinating different content items that could really enhance the site. I rewrote a lot of the old content to reflect changes that have been/will be made when we finally roll everything out. Really excited to share it with everyone, just wait a little longer :)

Just a reminder that we are still running the First Access key giveaway on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/prosp_universe/status/1346135954600456193) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/ProsperousUniverse/photos/a.340262019453684/2381930645286801/), now is the perfect time to get your friends into the game! Send me a message if you don't have any social media accounts. Also keep sending me YouTuber/Twitch streamers that you like so I can contact them about doing a video for us. Appreciate all the help so far on this!

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!



Tired of seeing your workforce disappear once new players arrive? Never fear! Molp to the rescue!

### Michi (molp)

![Avatar Michi](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_michi_small.png)

This week I spent quite some time on implementing changes and adjustments to the population / workforce model. The most biggest and most important change addresses "workforce stealing." In case you haven't heard that term yet, I need to go deeper to explain how the population and workforce models interact:

Every base needs a certain amount and type of workforce to staff their production buildings. Once a new production building is built or demolished or there is a change in habitation buildings, the base determines what the workforce requirements are and sends a workforce request to the planet's population. Every week (when the population report is created) all the requests are taken into account and the whole planetary population is assigned to the requesters in round robin fashion. If the total population exceeds the sum of the requests, every player will receive enough workers to fully staff their buildings. If not, the workers are shared between all players on that planet and thus the production buildings will be understaffed and less efficient.

While this algorithm is relatively fair for existing bases, it has a major downside: Building up one of the higher population tiers can be very costly considering the population infrastructure costs. If a new player arrives on a planet and builds a production line requiring a higher tier workforce, they are treated just like the older inhabitants by the algorithm and get their share. That results in very unhappy long-time players since every new player effectively "steals" a large part of the workforce that long-time players built over weeks and months without ever needing to contribute towards the growth of that workforce. This is called _workforce stealing_ and the smaller the number of bases using a certain workforce type, the worse it is.

To mitigate this I implemented a suggestion made in the forums by one of the players. Instead of re-distributing the whole population each week, every base keeps up to 75% of their workforce and only the 25% returning into the population are then re-distributed. This will give existing players on a planet plenty of time to react to the new arrivals.

Other noteworthy changes are:

* The amount of necessary building materials for infrastructure projects was reduced
* I increased the upkeep intervals to 3 and 10 days (was 1 and 7 days)
* Each base now generates more safety and health than before
* The `POP` command is renamed to `WF` to discern it more clearly from planetary population commands

![Avatar Fabian](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_fabian_small.png)

### Fabian (Counterpoint)

Since Michi went into detail on the population-related changes, I'll spill the beans on some of the general material tree adjustments coming post-reset:

* You'll be able to make `MAI` in Hydroponics Farms now, meaning you can actually make all the required inputs for `RAT` right there.
* `S` and `MG` are rightfully moving to the "Elements" category. This also means they'll get their own new minerals.
* Electronics MMs will be reduced significantly. This includes `NV1` and `NV2` which will make ships less expensive.
* Weight and volume of `H2O` will be reduced significantly.
* Habitations will have a smoother cost curve (e.g. `HB3` now uses lightweight prefabs, `HB4` now uses reinforced prefabs).

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

Last week, I spent the majority of my time on Early Access preparation since we are getting closer and closer. I hope to have the new website redesign ready in time, so I've been working with Manoj and our freelancer Melanie in coordinating different content items that could really enhance the site. I rewrote a lot of the old content to reflect changes that have been/will be made when we finally roll everything out. Really excited to share it with everyone, just wait a little longer :)

Just a reminder that we are still running the First Access key giveaway on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/prosp_universe/status/1346135954600456193) and [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/ProsperousUniverse/photos/a.340262019453684/2381930645286801/), now is the perfect time to get your friends into the game! Send me a message if you don't have any social media accounts. Also keep sending me YouTuber/Twitch streamers that you like so I can contact them about doing a video for us. Appreciate all the help so far on this!

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!


Winning Back Workers - Development Log #268

---
title: "Did Someone Say 'Reset'? - Development Log #267"
date: 2021-01-11 11:46
categories: devlog
absolute_image: https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/website/og_image/release_populous.jpg
author: "Nick"
---

Attention Licensees: Early Access will also come packaged with a reset to the current game universe. A brand new world is on the horizon!

### Michi (molp)

![Avatar Michi](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_michi_small.png)

Being back from vacation I immediately started to work on tasks and issues for the upcoming Early Access / reset release. Besides the usual work that goes into a release there are many other issues to fix since the release will also include a reset. What do I mean by that? Take ships for example: The starting ships are hard-coded into the game. Before the *Ignition* release, there have not been any modular ship designs, and as a result, hard-coding the ships (and their flight performance) made sense. Now that we have blueprints and ship components we want to get rid of the hard-coded ships as they are adding additional complexity to the code, and we have to keep in mind that these legacy ships exist in the database and in the code! The upcoming reset is the perfect opportunity to clean up after ourselves. Of course there are many other such examples.

A new universe opens up the possibility to try out new things as well. This week I modified our world builder to be able to place commodity exchanges off-planet. We have discussed this in the past: placing exchanges on a starting planet is an immense advantage for players with a base on that planet. Starting on other planets is often actively discouraged by other players. We even had to double the amount of available plots on the three commodity exchange planets when we saw a large player influx from a press article over the Holiday Season 2019. Players often suggest to make commodity exchanges buildable by players, and while we agree that we want to have player-built CX at some point, we think that is not the best option right now. Given out current player base, it would simply lead to many, very small commodity exchanges with low volume brokers. Instead, we would like to continue to see (for now!) major hubs with a sprawling net of local markets stretching into the reaches of space.

Here is a screenshot how an off-planet commodity exchange could look like:

![ship damage](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2021-01-11/20210106.png)


![Avatar Fabian](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_fabian_small.png)

### Fabian (Counterpoint)

After the usual post-vacation catchup day on forum discussions, hot topics and stuff from the last few weeks, I dove right back into the list of material tree adjustments we've been collecting for the early-access reset. It includes all kinds of balancing tweaks and also consistency improvements when it comes to cost curves, material weights, product categorization etc. There probably won't be any big re-structuring endeavors this time (as with the electronics category in the *Ignition* release), but lots of smaller changes all around, some of which have been "on the list" for quite a while.

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

The most exciting thing I did last week was working on the trailer for Early Access. I believe it will be ready in time for the launch even though we are under a bit of time pressure. I was busy contacting the video editor, Julian (who you may remember!) for the music, and also the voice actor. The video will be a bit of a blend of our Free-to-Play trailer and our most recent ad trailer. We had to come up with something that wouldn't take forever to develop, and I am pretty happy so far with the concept at least.

Thanks to those that reached out to me about new YouTube/Twitch influencers; that really helps me out a lot since getting influencers that our audience already likes makes it much easier for both parties. If you have any more suggestions, don't hesitate to contact me on Discord. Also a big thanks for the people that participated in the FA Key Giveaway, which is still going on. If you don't have any social media channels but still would like to have a key, please send me a message!

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

Last week wasn't only my first week after my Christmas vacation but it was also the first week of the year 2021. Which means I spent a lot of time doing admin...replying to emails, accounting, project management, that sort of thing. I did find a bit of time to continue working on my seemingly never-ending backend project, though. So at least a few lines of code were written!

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!



Attention Licensees: Early Access will also come packaged with a reset to the current game universe. A brand new world is on the horizon!

### Michi (molp)

![Avatar Michi](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_michi_small.png)

Being back from vacation I immediately started to work on tasks and issues for the upcoming Early Access / reset release. Besides the usual work that goes into a release there are many other issues to fix since the release will also include a reset. What do I mean by that? Take ships for example: The starting ships are hard-coded into the game. Before the *Ignition* release, there have not been any modular ship designs, and as a result, hard-coding the ships (and their flight performance) made sense. Now that we have blueprints and ship components we want to get rid of the hard-coded ships as they are adding additional complexity to the code, and we have to keep in mind that these legacy ships exist in the database and in the code! The upcoming reset is the perfect opportunity to clean up after ourselves. Of course there are many other such examples.

A new universe opens up the possibility to try out new things as well. This week I modified our world builder to be able to place commodity exchanges off-planet. We have discussed this in the past: placing exchanges on a starting planet is an immense advantage for players with a base on that planet. Starting on other planets is often actively discouraged by other players. We even had to double the amount of available plots on the three commodity exchange planets when we saw a large player influx from a press article over the Holiday Season 2019. Players often suggest to make commodity exchanges buildable by players, and while we agree that we want to have player-built CX at some point, we think that is not the best option right now. Given out current player base, it would simply lead to many, very small commodity exchanges with low volume brokers. Instead, we would like to continue to see (for now!) major hubs with a sprawling net of local markets stretching into the reaches of space.

Here is a screenshot how an off-planet commodity exchange could look like:

![ship damage](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2021-01-11/20210106.png)


![Avatar Fabian](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_fabian_small.png)

### Fabian (Counterpoint)

After the usual post-vacation catchup day on forum discussions, hot topics and stuff from the last few weeks, I dove right back into the list of material tree adjustments we've been collecting for the early-access reset. It includes all kinds of balancing tweaks and also consistency improvements when it comes to cost curves, material weights, product categorization etc. There probably won't be any big re-structuring endeavors this time (as with the electronics category in the *Ignition* release), but lots of smaller changes all around, some of which have been "on the list" for quite a while.

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

The most exciting thing I did last week was working on the trailer for Early Access. I believe it will be ready in time for the launch even though we are under a bit of time pressure. I was busy contacting the video editor, Julian (who you may remember!) for the music, and also the voice actor. The video will be a bit of a blend of our Free-to-Play trailer and our most recent ad trailer. We had to come up with something that wouldn't take forever to develop, and I am pretty happy so far with the concept at least.

Thanks to those that reached out to me about new YouTube/Twitch influencers; that really helps me out a lot since getting influencers that our audience already likes makes it much easier for both parties. If you have any more suggestions, don't hesitate to contact me on Discord. Also a big thanks for the people that participated in the FA Key Giveaway, which is still going on. If you don't have any social media channels but still would like to have a key, please send me a message!

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

Last week wasn't only my first week after my Christmas vacation but it was also the first week of the year 2021. Which means I spent a lot of time doing admin...replying to emails, accounting, project management, that sort of thing. I did find a bit of time to continue working on my seemingly never-ending backend project, though. So at least a few lines of code were written!

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!


Did Someone Say 'Reset'? - Development Log #267

---
title: "2021 Has Begun - Development Log #266"
date: 2021-01-04 11:46
categories: devlog
absolute_image: https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/website/og_image/release_locality.jpg
author: "Nick"
---

Happy New Year from the PrUn team! 2021 is shaping up to be a very exciting year for Prosperous Universe and we can't wait to share it with all of you.

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

For the past two weeks, I was on vacation. I was unsure about whether this bit of info would be newsworthy enough for a paragraph on the devlog. But I decided it was. Here's why:

Initially, I didn't even plan to take that much time off. We already postponed the EA release twice because my backend work was behind schedule so much, even though I spent every fee minute on it towards the end of 2020. So I really didn't feel like I could afford the luxury. But my better half essentially forced me to take some rest between the holidays and the new year...and I am very glad she did. Frankly, I was quite exhausted and there were a lot of things on my mind that required some quiet time to think them through. A lot of those revolved around Prosperous Universe...how and when EA will launch, how we are going to get the Mobile UI project across the finish line and where the project as a whole should be headed in 2021 and beyond. None of these decisions is finalized yet, but at least I have a vague idea of what I am going for. So yay for a few days of doing nothing (and playing a few video games)!

So with that, a Happy New Year to everyone! Expect a lot of news over the coming weeks!

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

I hope everyone had a great holiday season despite the current events going on. I was not able to return to the US this year for Christmas, so I stayed in Germany and celebrated with friends. During the days between celebrations, I continued to email press and check developing news stories on games that were similar to our own. I hope we can at least get an article or two written about us while the news is a bit slow in the gaming world.

I don't know if you guys have seen Spacedock's [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EernNDDUqwU) that we sponsored, but it brought in a ton of new players! I think this has been our most successful paid campaign yet. I am hoping to work with more influencers now that we know what an impact it can have on bringing in new players. If you have a favorite YouTube or Twitch channel, please let me know in Discord!

![Avatar Manoj](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_manoj_small.png)

### Manoj

Happy New Year folks! I was working on the new design for our website blog pages over the holidays. I hope this teaser for the upcoming website reveal will get you excited!

![new design](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2021-01-04/blog_design.png)

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!



Happy New Year from the PrUn team! 2021 is shaping up to be a very exciting year for Prosperous Universe and we can't wait to share it with all of you.

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

For the past two weeks, I was on vacation. I was unsure about whether this bit of info would be newsworthy enough for a paragraph on the devlog. But I decided it was. Here's why:

Initially, I didn't even plan to take that much time off. We already postponed the EA release twice because my backend work was behind schedule so much, even though I spent every fee minute on it towards the end of 2020. So I really didn't feel like I could afford the luxury. But my better half essentially forced me to take some rest between the holidays and the new year...and I am very glad she did. Frankly, I was quite exhausted and there were a lot of things on my mind that required some quiet time to think them through. A lot of those revolved around Prosperous Universe...how and when EA will launch, how we are going to get the Mobile UI project across the finish line and where the project as a whole should be headed in 2021 and beyond. None of these decisions is finalized yet, but at least I have a vague idea of what I am going for. So yay for a few days of doing nothing (and playing a few video games)!

So with that, a Happy New Year to everyone! Expect a lot of news over the coming weeks!

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

I hope everyone had a great holiday season despite the current events going on. I was not able to return to the US this year for Christmas, so I stayed in Germany and celebrated with friends. During the days between celebrations, I continued to email press and check developing news stories on games that were similar to our own. I hope we can at least get an article or two written about us while the news is a bit slow in the gaming world.

I don't know if you guys have seen Spacedock's [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EernNDDUqwU) that we sponsored, but it brought in a ton of new players! I think this has been our most successful paid campaign yet. I am hoping to work with more influencers now that we know what an impact it can have on bringing in new players. If you have a favorite YouTube or Twitch channel, please let me know in Discord!

![Avatar Manoj](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_manoj_small.png)

### Manoj

Happy New Year folks! I was working on the new design for our website blog pages over the holidays. I hope this teaser for the upcoming website reveal will get you excited!

![new design](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/2021-01-04/blog_design.png)

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!


2021 Has Begun - Development Log #266

---
title: "YouTubing & Coding Duties - Development Log #265"
date: 2020-12-14 11:46
categories: devlog
absolute_image: https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/website/og_image/release_populous.jpg
author: "Nick"
---
With half the team on vacation, Nick and Martin share new YouTube content and design news for the game!

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

Last week we finally saw our first scripted influencer video from [Orbital Potato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrpBnSuEq-M&t=2s)! Check out the video if you haven't already, I think he did a great job of going over what the beginning of the game is like and highlighting what features make it special. We have already seen some great results from his audience with many registrations and some even converting to a PRO license very quickly. Surprisingly enough, we have a couple more YouTubers that are planned for this week! These videos will be a little more "traditional" in the sense that it will be a plug for our game at the beginning/end of the video and not a dedicated "all-about-PrUn" type of video. I'm eager to see how all of these pan out and to also grow our community with more dedicated players that really resonate with the game.

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

My focus last week essentially was on two aspects of the backend redesign: The first one was getting the basic code structure of the hub ready for the freelancer who'll be helping us with translating Manoj's designs into usable HTML and CSS code. She has already prepared most of that code and the next step will be integrating it into the actual system. Really can't wait to finally see the designs "alive"!

The second aspect literally couldn't be further from the first: I worked on the data structures and processes required to merge the databases of the three systems that will be combined when the new backend goes live. When the Prosperous Universe project started, we went a bit overboard with micro-services and split the PrUn account management and the key management (as in: First Access keys) systems into two new separate apps alongside the existing account management backend. This seemed like a good idea at the time because the old account management system had seen better days and was very much focused on AirlineSim. But in hindsight, it didn't turn out to be a good solution for our use-case, albeit it saved us some time back then that we could spend on the game itself. So it's not all bad. You live and learn.

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!


With half the team on vacation, Nick and Martin share new YouTube content and design news for the game!

![Avatar Nick](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_nick_small.png)

### Nick

Last week we finally saw our first scripted influencer video from [Orbital Potato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrpBnSuEq-M&t=2s)! Check out the video if you haven't already, I think he did a great job of going over what the beginning of the game is like and highlighting what features make it special. We have already seen some great results from his audience with many registrations and some even converting to a PRO license very quickly. Surprisingly enough, we have a couple more YouTubers that are planned for this week! These videos will be a little more "traditional" in the sense that it will be a plug for our game at the beginning/end of the video and not a dedicated "all-about-PrUn" type of video. I'm eager to see how all of these pan out and to also grow our community with more dedicated players that really resonate with the game.

![Avatar Martin](https://cdn.prosperousuniverse.com/blog/busts/bust_martin_small.png)

### Martin

My focus last week essentially was on two aspects of the backend redesign: The first one was getting the basic code structure of the hub ready for the freelancer who'll be helping us with translating Manoj's designs into usable HTML and CSS code. She has already prepared most of that code and the next step will be integrating it into the actual system. Really can't wait to finally see the designs "alive"!

The second aspect literally couldn't be further from the first: I worked on the data structures and processes required to merge the databases of the three systems that will be combined when the new backend goes live. When the Prosperous Universe project started, we went a bit overboard with micro-services and split the PrUn account management and the key management (as in: First Access keys) systems into two new separate apps alongside the existing account management backend. This seemed like a good idea at the time because the old account management system had seen better days and was very much focused on AirlineSim. But in hindsight, it didn't turn out to be a good solution for our use-case, albeit it saved us some time back then that we could spend on the game itself. So it's not all bad. You live and learn.

As always: We'd love to hear what you think. Join us on [Discord](https://discord.gg/rRbqqRz) or the [forums](https://com.prosperousuniverse.com/)!

Happy trading!


Blog

The Universe Expands - Development Log #269

Winning Back Workers - Development Log #268

Did Someone Say 'Reset'? - Development Log #267

2021 Has Begun - Development Log #266

YouTubing & Coding Duties - Development Log #265