Greetings and another welcome to the sausage factory of game development!

In no particular order here is this month's topic news dump:

Random-ish maps

We plan to open up the Ashes map editor to Founders. We don't plan to make it available for regular Ashes players (Except maybe as DLC).  You guys will get it though starting next month.

We are going to be looking for founders to create and share maps so that we can try out endless types of maps with each other to see which ones are fun and which ones aren't.  As we've done with some of our other games, some of the more prolific content creators may be offered contracts to create premium content later (little known fact but I contracted out to the GalCiv community to make the GalCiv II campaigns as well as implementing the Sorcerer King quests).  

We hope to have so many possible maps in the library that people will be able to select a "random" map and essentially get one they've never seen.  Check out how tiny Ashes maps are on disk.

Faction names and marketing

So marketing doesn't like the name "The Substrate" for the factions. They're not in love with "Post-Humans" either.  In Sins of a Solar Empire and Starcraft people get very attached to their particular faction so we want to make sure they have names that players like (Terran, Protoss, Zerg, Advent, TEC, Vasari, etc.).  Feel free to make suggestions in this thread. If we use your idea, we'll credit you in the credits.

Also, we do want the Substrate's full formalized name to have Substrate in it.  

Basic Lore talk

Ashes takes place in the year 2178.  The beginning of the game has various Post-Humans and Substrate AIs seeking uninhabitable planets to convert into Computronium.

Computronium

We hate the word.  We need a different name.  We'll give credit to whoever comes up with a name we like better. 

Mouse Controls

So we do want to make the middle mouse button be able to move the map around (instead of the right button) but we also do want people to be able to manipulate the camera angle with it as well which can be a bit awkward.

Update Schedule

We have an update ready to go with some balance improvements and perf improvements. Just waiting to get it up on Steam. No ETA yet. It may also have some changes to the unit sizes to deal with unit speed on the map.

We will have a major July update (think of the build you have as a Pre-Alpha with the July build being actual Alpha 1).  It will have  a much better UI and full blown AI in it.

Campaign talk

So right now the campaign intent is to have a 10 part series of missions that walks the player through the concept of the Singularity and the overall background.

Book

We are planning to release a prequel book this Fall called "Dawn of the Singularity" that takes place in the near future.  If it is well received, we have 2 more in the series we want to make.  It's been written by David Simpson (author of the Post-Human series).

Battle Group behavior changes

Battle groups will be getting a change in the near future where you will no longer have to have T1s hooked to T2s.  They will beocme, from a user perspective, non-hierachal (you can still make them so by selecting units and right-clicking on a unit to become children of that unit).  But you will be able to have a bunch of T1s and turn them into a single combat unit that will work as a single unit ala Kohan.

Zoom out debate

We constantly debate what level of zoom out to support.  As you know, we don't intend to replace units on screen with spams of icons.  This will continue to be a contentious issue and we have drawn no line in the sand beyond "no screen full of little icons".

Empire Tree

The empire tree will be getting a major overhaul between now and Alpha 1. It will play a lot closer to Sins of a Solar Empire.  We also have a lot of work for the mini map in mind but it remains to be seen if that will make Alpha 1 or not.

The leagues

The current *plan* is that once we have Alpha 1 we will probably issue 3 keys to each founder to give to friends.  Those keys won't entitle them to a "final" version of the game but will let them play the game multiplayer and participate here as your guest. Who you give them to will be at your discretion.  

The roadmap (CONFIDENTIAL)

This is NOT to be repeated anywhere.

2016: Ashes of the Singularity

2017: Ashes of the Singularity: Tides of War (adds naval combat)

2018: Ashes of the Singularity: Xenocide (you'll be fighting over inhabited planets too)

2019: Ashes of the Singularity: Nemesis (introduces the third faction)

In addition, we expect to release DLC every 60 days.  So those of you who bought the lifetime edition will be in for a real treat.  Each DLC will be around $4.99 to $9.99 each and the expansions will be between $30 to $40.  They come with your lifetime edition automatically.

Anyway, as you can imagine, we have a long-term plan for this game.  While the requirements for Ashes in 2015 are high, by next year or the year after, mainstream PC players should be able to participate easily. 

 Open Floor

Any other thoughts or opinions you want to share with the community please do so.