With Ashes of the Singularity now officially released, it’s time to think about where to take the game next.

This is going to be long and rambling so please bear with me.

Topic #1: The Reviews

The game seems to have been reviewed by 3 types of reviewers so far with their scores reflecting opposing views on what a PC game in 2016 should deliver.

The Story Reviewer

The most common reviewer has been the ones who consider the campaign as the primary single player experience.  These are the reviewers who give say Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak a 9/10 because of its engaging story while giving Ashes a lower score (sometimes much lower) because its campaign is relatively bare bones.

While I personally object to that criteria in a strategy game. Who am I to argue with their opinion?  Plenty of people feel this way now. 

The RTS Reviewer

The second most common reviewer is the one who actually plays RTS games on a regular basis.  They’re the ones who usually like Ashes of the Singularity and give us a 9/10.   What matters to them is that the game, on day 1, has a smart AI, lots of skirmish maps, a built-in ability to easily add more scenarios, strong modding support, a future proof engine for expansion and a good set of initial units (16 right off the bat). 

The Nostalgia Reviewer

These are the reviewers that I have relatively little use for.   They’re the guy who played strategy games way back when but nowadays is mostly messing with Dota 2 or Overwatch and thus really has no business reviewing the game in the first place but got assigned to do it because no staff writers had the minimum GPU to run the game.  They’re the ones who don’t actually play Supreme Commander: FA or Total Annihilation anymore but remember thinking how cool they were back in the day and how weak Ashes seems, to them.

My problem with this reviewer boils down to this: As good as SupCom is, it’s never going to be updated again. Ever.  So unless you are personally playing one of these games, and they’re not, it’s a disservice to compare to a 1.0 game to an older game that has had years of updates but isn’t, as a practical matter, something someone is going to go and play.  Now, if that person is actually playing SupCom: FA (and they’re not, they should be playing FAF and FAF players are not in this category) that would be one thing. But they’re not and we know because they would be instead talking about FAF.

All in all, I’m annoyed with the relatively low quality in game reviews these days.  Getting a review from a metacritic site where they played .4 hours (yes, we know who you are) is exactly why people have trust issues.

Topic #2: What makes games last?

Well, as I write this, Sins of a Solar Empire has climbed over the years to having typically around 800 to 1000 people playing.   But it didn’t happen over night. And don’t even get me started on GalCiv I for Windows.  I still wonder what would have happened if Master of Orion 3 hadn’t crashed and burned.  GalCiv I was not..shall we say, initially great (no campaign). So what matters?

1. Replayability
2. New Content
3. Modding

Those are the 3 pillars.  Miss any one of them and your strategy game better be super strong in one of the other categories to survive long-term.

• Replayability can be achieved in many ways, none of them easy.  Good AI, a good multiplayer community, Every game feeling new and different. These are crucial.
• New Content has to keep coming in.  When Sins of a Solar Empire shipped, it had a total of 11 units per faction.  Today is has 21. Almost twice as many.  Sins had no diplomacy, starbases or Titans originally. That all came later.  People also forget (or don’t realize) how rough Supreme Commander 1.0 was.  When People talk about SupCom they really mean Supreme Commander: FA not Supreme Commander 1 or even Supreme Commander 2.
• Modding no developer can keep extending a game forever.  The best games foster a strong modding community over time.  Modding doesn’t come initially. You have to have a good, strong player base first.

Topic #3: What makes a “good” RTS?

Click to enlarge

My chart here is, by no means, objective.  It’s my personal opinion on the matter. It doesn’t represent Stardock or some consortium. It’s just my 2 cents.  I have highlighted the areas in which I think a particular game is the best.  So for instance, even though SupCom has 4 factions now, I feel StarCraft’s faction diversity is superior even though it only has 3 factions. Similarly, I personally prefer the balanced resource design in Company of Heroes to anything currently released.

Ashes of the Singularity (Arumba playing)

But you look at the above chart and even by my own standards, my other favorite RTS’s are “better”. 

But better doesn’t equate to me wanting to necessarily play them anymore. Let me walk you through my rationale and please comment below with your own thoughts:

As much as I like StarCraft, it’s gameplay has moved away from the style I enjoy. It is far too twitchy for me.  I have an 88 apm and that used to be enough to put me into Diamond.  But Legacy of the Void put the game out of anything I would enjoy.  It’s an action game now for me.

StarCraft: LOV

As much as I like Supreme Commander (more specifically, FAF) I have played it out.  I am not as big of a fan as some of its die-hards that insist on review bombing Ashes (which hasn’t improved my opinion of some elements of that community, come on guys, Ashes’ success will eventually let you bring your entire game to it).  For me, Supreme Commander is hopelessly over-engineered for a new player and as anyone who watches Gyle’s streams (which I do) knows that nearly every game ends in Nuke duels or Experimentals.  That’s only fun (for me) so many times.  Ashes, btw, would have the exact same problems if development for it stopped. 

SupCom: FAF

However, it wasn’t Ashes that killed SupCom for me.  It was Company of Heroes.  After seeing the elegant hard counters in CoH, it’s really hard to go back to a game in which people tend to build masses of the same unit.  I never enjoyed on a map like Open Palms building up a dozen plus tech-1 land factories.  And ironically, Ashes has some of the same problems which I’ll talk about in a minute.

Sins of a Solar Empire on the other hand is just a game I’ve played so much over the years. There’s nothing wrong with it per se. But I’ve just played it too much.  It also is single threaded which keeps its future expandability tough.  I look forward to a Nitrous Sins game.

Sins of a Solar Empire (prophets mod)

I still play Company of Heroes 2. But it is a fundamentally different game for me than Ashes.

But as my chart above makes clear, Ashes still has a ways to go.  And yet, I also think it is the definite RTS game people should be buying today.  Why?

Ashes next steps

When I look at the things that I think Ashes needs work on, they are all doable things that simply need time (and money).  People will ultimately vote with their wallets on what they want so consider this: If not Ashes, then what? 

There are 3 things I think Ashes needs:

1. More Content
2. More Community Features (modding, sharing, etc.)
3. Time

Content isn’t just in the form of “more stuff”.  It means things like upping the little details that are expensive but necessary.  In no particular order:

• A Third race that is fundamentally different (i.e. different technology base, so no anti-gravity based units like PHC/Substrate)
• More Units
• 1 more T1
• 3 more T2s
• 2 more T3s
• 1 T4
• 3 more Air
• Naval
• More defense structures
• More economic structures
• More story-driven scenarios and missions to flesh out the world and make sure single player remains a growing and interesting experience

PHC Instigator, War Hog, Marauder and Havok

One trend we want to continue is that these units aren’t simply “Better versions” of the previous tier. You can always tell someone who doesn’t know the game very well when they say it’s about building the biggest swarm.  A single Zeus or Avenger will make short work of swaths of Brutes for instance.  Each of these units will be very strong at certain things but also be very vulnerable.

In Ashes, units are intended to be tools. They’re not different sized hammers.

Community features comes in the form of modding.  You have to make it so that people can create and share scenarios and map that work both in single player and multiplayer with friends.  The ability to add new units and expand the game from the community (you want your FAF total conversion, then go ahead).  Similarly, replays, observer modes, 64 player mega maps, etc. These are all things that will need to get into the game.

Time is just something we can’t do anything about.  Half the market can’t play the game because of the 4-CPU core, 2GB of video memory requirement.  This was a decision we made and we debated on whether we’d be better off sitting on the game for another year and polishing it or releasing it so that the early adopters could get a start on growing things.  As is, we had to limit things to 6 players to get the performance fidelity we wanted on our minimum spec (and even then, minimum spec players make 6 player MP games very unreliable imo).  As we develop better ways to test performance we will eventually be able to open up much bigger maps with specific hardware requirements.

Obviously, how fast we can go down the path depends really on player demand which is measured in sales.  It’ll be a long time before Ashes is a top-seller for no other reason that you can’t chop off half the market with hardware and get there.  But hopefully, those with the hardware to play the game will give it a shot and get their friends to.

STATUS: RELEASED ON 4.26.16

HIGHLIGHTS

• New PHC Unit: Sentry
• New PHC Orbital Ability: Probing Force
• New Map: Fast & Furious
• New Map: Slow & Steady
• New Map: Dread Valley
• Difficulty Levels for Ascendancy Wars!
• Two new difficulty levels: Novice and Intermediate
• Existing Campaign updates to support new difficulty levels

If you're new here, you may have noticed how awesome our community is. We have gathered here some of the most experienced RTS players around and together, we are making sure Ashes of the Singularity evolves into the go-to strategy game.

## POSTMORTEM ##

We just sent in our Gamasutra postmortem with all the good/bad/ugly details of a project like this. We'll post a link when it shows up. We think you'll like it.

## MORE CONTENT ##

We're starting to ramp up on the content creation side of things. People want more units. More maps. More scenarios. More missions. Most of this we can give away for free. Speaking of free.

## Version 1.1 ##

The first big update is scheduled to show up within the next week or so. We just released v1.02 (http://steamcommunity.com/app/228880/discussions/1/368542585863350912/)which mixed up the strategy mix some.

== The New Unit ==
But version 1.1 is the first update that adds a new unit - the Sentry. If you played the campaign, you saw it. It comes via a new global ability called a Probe which is much like a very small incursion. Similarly, it is very inexpensive as well. 

Sentries are pretty good against buildings, not so great against units. But if you want to mess with your opponent's rapid expansion or find ways to tactically insert a flank, the Sentry is the one to do the job. A single Sentry squad can take out most early creeps.

The Substrate Avatar already got its balance update in 1.02 in preparation for this. So for now, the Avatar had an advantage the PHC doesn't have but 1.1 will catch the PHC up.

== New Difficulty Levels ==
Version 1.1 also will add two new difficulty levels: Novice and Intermediate.

Most of our readers here won't use this that much but slightly more than 60% of players are losing against EASY (as in, they start the game, play more than 5 minutes, and leave). Only 10% of players lose against BEGINNER and we suspect most of this are people who just run out of time and have to go do something else.

We are also very close to having difficulty levels for the Campaign and scenarios done but I can't promise it for 1.1. It might have to wait until 1.11. 

## The Reviews ##

We've had a lot of good reviews in the media and some lousy ones. I won't comment on my opinions of the reviews other than to say: People, especially reviewers, really value a story-driven campaign. 

While we can argue whether we should have had a campaign at all, what is done is done. 

Right now, we are implementing a way to stream audio from the missions so that we can record voice overs and such as well as make the character box be modeless (meaning it won't interfere with game play). 

Since we're doing VO, there will be a lot more dialog in than there was initially. Our original campaign script was much longer but we realized that reading text was not super fun so we kept cutting and cutting.

## Review bombing ## 

Speaking of reviews, I can tell you that user reviews matter. A lot. They are a primary mechanism for Steam to determine what gets featured where. Hence, if a game becomes "mixed" it's basically dead from a discoverability and if a game becomes overwhelmingly positive (80%) it becomes much easier for people to find it.

We've had some reports (unconfirmed) that Ashes has been user review bombed atMetacritic.com and here (via purchasing, reviewing the game, returning the game). 

To those communities that might be doing this, please don't. We are not trying to "steal" your players. Our goal is to introduce a new generation of gamers to real-time strategy. Getting more people to play RTS games means that all RTS's will benefit.

I won't claim that Ashes is perfect. Far from it. We need to add more content and, simply put, it will take time to give the game the various niceties based on player feedback. As much as you may love Supreme Commander, remember, SupCom 1.0 didn't have a lot of units or maps. FA added 32 (thirty-two) new units/buildings. 

Also, as a reminder: Ashes is not setting out to be a successor to Supreme Commander. It is a different game within the same genre with its own gameplay philosophies (global abilities, territorial control). 

## Game Design thoughts ##

One of the areas of the game that we are trying to flesh out this Spring is the balance between rush-boom-turtle.

If you're not familiar with the term, rush-boom-turtle are the 3 pillars of RTS thinking. Rush = Get out there fast and kill the enemy. Boom is where you build up your economy and win through overwhelming force. Turtle is where you take a small area, hold and fortify. Take a little more. Hold and fortify. Etc.

In Ashes 1.0, Rushing was definitely over powered. With 1.02, we've given players more tools to counter rushers as well as made booming a bit better with the way economies are built up.

In v1.11, we expect to release two changes to make turtling and booming a bit stronger. For the PHC, this will come in the form of the Refinery, a building that magnifies your economy and stacks if you keep building it. Thus, someone with less territory could, in time, out produce someone with more. The Substrate Boost ability will also get..well, boosted so that players can keep improving their generators.

Several new buildings are in production but they won't be ready before the end of Spring. We don't intend to have any long-range (map crossing) artillery. That isn't the type of game we want to make. But we do intend to create more siege/counter siege artillery (defined as ballistic weapons).

Beyond that gets speculative on scheduling.

That's all for now! 

Cheers!

PHC Frigates

To enforce the PHC charter, several prominent Post-Humans formed the “PHC Weapons consortium” in which they pooled their collective ideas into producing weaponized constructs.

The first results from this cooperative effort came in the form of what the PHC now classifies as “frigates”.

These early militarized constructs lack both the lethality and refinement of their more advanced cousins now classified as “Cruisers”.

For the first two years of PHC versus the assorted claim jumpers saw purely Frigate on frigate action where each side’s crude weaponry was hamstrung by a variety of issues ranging from cost of remote production to reliability in the field.

The first generation frigates were mostly tracked vehicles.  The problem with tracked vehicles came down to the number of moving parts.  Fortunately, the Haalee AI led the way in gravity channeling gave the PHC a substantial technological advantage by allowing the production of frigates that hovered.

Below is a list of the current Frigates of the line as of 2178.  Even at the time of this writing, the PHC Weapons Consortium is working on a series of more sophisticated frigates due out by 2180.

Construct	Description	Mission
	The Hermes class Frigate integrates the PHC 1st generation sensor technology and is armed with the -rotating Melera light rail gun.  It is an effective scouting construct with limited combat engagement ability.	Scout
	The BR-T3 construct, affectionately called “The Brute” was rushed into production as a replacement to the N-1 Sentry platform proved too cumbersome to command. The Brute’s primary strength is that it can be produced in squads of 6 as cheaply as its more sophisticated cohorts. Their primary purpose is to keep an enemy engaged in battle while more lethal constructs move in for the kill.	Good for creating pickets, denying enemy progress to areas.  Weak weapons but hard to kill.
	The AR-105 “Archer” was the first generation of PHC constructs to feature chemically propelled rockets that can be constructed without the use of radioactives. This technology was later used to create the SM-AR-105 Smarty defense platform.  It is very effective at damaging enemy units but is relatively fragile. Moreover,  the Toxotes rocket platform it uses has limited range in exchange for not relying on radioactivies.	Anti-Cruiser, fragile but inexpensive way to deal with massed cruisers.
	KV-1 nano-reconstitutor, referred to as “the medic” by its users shoots a beam of programmable matter into damaged constructs that re-activates that construct’s original blue printing system to do self-repair.  Due to the on-going patent dispute between its designer “Mozart” and the PHC military consortium, the KV-1 technology has not been widely disseminated into the PHC.	Heals friendly units.

PHC Cruisers

The “Olympus” project was a direct result of the Typhon incident.  The PHC renegade, Typhon had claim jumped two worlds and had managed to devastate PHC frigate forces by fielding substantially more sophisticated constructs.

Most of the PHC cruisers are modeled after the constructs that Typhon originated after he was ultimately defeated due to the development of the Hyperion class Dreadnought.

Below is a list of the current state-of-the-art PHC cruisers that first debuted in 2177.

Construct	Description	Mission
	The Apollo is the most recent of the “Olympus” project.  Designed to counter the proliferation of the Hades bomber into the hands of the Renegades, the Apollo is absolutely devastating against both aircraft as well as drones thanks to its high precision targeting system and the NT-301 flak cannon.	Eliminates enemy air and drones.
	The Artemis has become a favorite of the PHC due to its unique long-range artillery capabilities.  Because of its ability to self-produce the long-range Avalon missile, no other force has yet to match it in the field.	Slow fragile mobile rocket grenade launcher. Very effective against massed frigates.
	The Zeus is directly inspired by the Typhon Rage Warrior cruiser.  First encountered on CT-941 when the claim jumper, Typhon used several of them to annihilate the entire PHC Brute force sent to the system, the “Zeus” was the first of the Greek God cruisers to be produced.  Its primary weapon, the “God of Thunder” is devastating to any units within its short-range thus making it particularly effective against massed frigates.  It also has dual laser cannons that provide additional, though limited, defense against longer ranged units such as the Archer.	Heavy anti-frigate unit capable of destroying large swaths of frigates at close range.
	The Nemesis was the PHC’s answer to Typhon’s “Assassin” cruiser. Like the Assassin, the Nemesis fires a single high energy slug that pierces all armor and does massive kinetic damage to its target.  Because of the thermal energy produced with each shot, its rate of fire is severely restricted.   The Nemesis remains the ultimate “sniper” construct on the field.	Fragile but deadly anti-cruiser unit. When massed, can also destroy Dreadnoughts.

PHC Dreadnoughs

The Olympus Titan project immediately followed the Olympus project.  Considered unnecessary by most members of the PHC, the seriousness of the Typhon war and the increasing cooperation of other PHC renegades spurred the PHC weapons consortium into action.

Prominent PHC leader, William “Mac” MacBride led the effort to create the first Greek Titan known as the Hyperion.  Designed as an area superiority weapons platform, the Hyperion, like all Dreadnoughts, is a marvel of PHC technology.  It utilizes the most obvious advantage the PHC has over any Post-Human renegades – superior quantum access to a given world.   The more sophisticated the construct, the higher the connection requirements to a given world are. 

Because virtually all Post-Humans are still substantially located on Earth, very few are capable of the quality of connection needed to field a Dreadnought on the frontier.  However, of those that can, all of them are part of the PHC.

Construct	Description	Mission
	The Hyperion was the first, and for awhile, the only, Dreadnought.  It is an area superiority platform.  Its array of weaponry will destroy virtually any army of any size on a given world largely without backup. When first launched it was simply referred to as “The Titan”. A doomsday weapon designed to make clear to any PHC renegades that their defiance and law breaking was futile. The Hyperion remains the master of the battlefield but is now vulnerable to the new PHC Prometheus which has been designed specifically to kill a Hyperion.	General assault Dreadnought. Very good against massed frigates. Relatively weak against other Dreadnoughts or massed cruisers.
	The Prometheus remains highly controversal within the PHC since its entire existence is justified on its ability to kill the Hyperion.  The Promethesus is very vulnerable to both frigates and cruisers thus making it largely unsuited on the battlefield unless the opponent is fielding Hyperions.  Since only the PHC is capable of fielding Dreadnoughts, the obvious question is, why would someone design a Dreadnought for the PHC whose mission is to destroy the PHC’s primary weapon’s Herplatform? The controversy continues.	Destroys other Dreadnoughts. Can also be used to quickly destroy a relatively undefended base.
	The PHC Cronus Dreadnought is brand new as of March 31, 2178. Designed to address a recent setback in CL-17548 in which a Hyperion was severely damaged due to a renegade having “dug in” around a Turinium generator, the Cronus is the ultimate siege platform. With multiple missile arrays, the Cronus can absolutely devastate the fixed defenses of any known foe without having to move within range of any known weapons system.	Siege Dreadnought. Designed to stand off and destroy enemy buildings and forces from afar.

PHC Combat Aircraft

The PHC have fielded aircraft on new worlds since the beginning.  The “Pan” remains the primary PHC air platform both for its onboard sensor array as well as the vision it gives other PHC constructs.

More recently, however, the PHC has had to deploy militarized aircraft to supplement its ground forces.  Because the PHC has only recently begun weaponizing its aircraft, it has routinely found holes for its air missions that it hopes to fill in the future with new aircraft such as the upcoming “Ares” project.

Construct	Description
	The Fury air superiority fighter is the latest “shiny toy” of the PHC.  While equipped with modest surface to ground weaponry, the Fury is absolutely devastating to aircraft looking to invade its space.
	The Hades bomber is a design that has, unfortunately, proliferated well beyond the PHC military arsenal and is now commonly utilized by renegades engaging in claim jumping.  Armed with the Nova bomb, its violet disassembling nanites make its presence on the battlefield readily apparent.  Used to destroy enemy formations or enemy structures, the Hades is one of the most lethal (and expensive) constructs one is likely to see.

By 2178, The Post-Human Coalition has assembled what it considered a reasonably full-fledged combat mix to deal with the rising threat of renegade Post-Humans.

Unfortunately, in March of 2178, the PHC encountered a completely new threat which will be the topic of our next analysis.

Greetings!

In a few moments I"ll be previewing v1.01 http://www.twitch.tv/stardock

Our new real-time strategy game, Ashes of the Singularity is out.  Stardock hasn’t released an RTS since 2008 Sins of a Solar Empire.  Like Sins, Ashes is a massive scale RTS.  It’s not about actions per minute, it’s about your global strategy as you battle for a planet (heh, except on the tiny maps of course).

The good news: Ashes is a hit. Sales are excellent and the reviews are, so far, universally positive from reviewers.

The bad news: Since the release of Sins of a Solar Empire, the market has changed dramatically.

When you buy a game brand-new nowadays, you know, at some level, that it’s going to go on sale for a steep discount.  To give you some understanding: While Ashes quickly passed the 50,000 unit sales within the first week, the WISH LIST mark on Steam crossed 200,000 units.  What does that tell you?

How do we reward early adopters

We have some ideas on how to address this.  The first, and I hope, the easiest to do (depending on the Steam rules) is to make certain DLC free to everyone who currently has the game.  So people who bought your game at release for $50 or $30 or whatever your price point is will start getting DLC that is simply added to their account but made say $4.99 after to those who come later (who got the game on sale).  These wouldn’t be anything critical to the game.  More maps. More scenarios. More skins. That sort of thing.  The kinds of things people usually expect in DLC.

What say you?

Post in the comments what you think of such a system.  How do you feel about the evolution of the PC gaming market place?

How to get Ashes: [Get it via Steam/GOG/Direct/GMG]

More screenshots:

Just a head's up:

+ Your Nexus now provides 2 metal per turn (instead of 0)

+ Controlled metal deposits provides 0.5 metal per tic instead of 1

+ Meta extractors add +1.5 metal per tic instead of 1

+ PHC Brute max velocity increased from 118 to 120

+ Engineer max velocity reduced from 200 to 180

+ Artemis max velocity reduced from 84 to 80

+ Zeus max velocity increased from 95 to 96

+ Reaper max velocity increased from 97 to 110

+ Constructor max velocity reduced from 202 to 190

+ Avenger max velocity reduced from 98 to 80

+ Mauler max velocity increased from 120 to 125

+ Drone Bay construction time reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds

+ Orbital Nullifer metal cost reduced from 750 to 600

+Armory radioactive cost reduced from 100 to 90

+ Armory build time increased from 30 seconds to 45 seconds

+ Capital ship factory cost per second for construction reduced

+ Capital ship factory time to build increased from 120 to 180

+ PHC Power Regulator time to build reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds

+ Orbital Command resources per second cost increased

+ Orbital Command build time reduced from 180 to 120 seconds

+ Weapons Lab radioactive cost increased from 240 to 360 total

+ Weaspons lab time to build reduced from 180 seconds to 120 seconds

+ Quantum Relay cost reduced slightly, build time reduced from 90 seconds to 70 seconds

+ Substrate Annihilator fixed gun shield regen increased from .5 to 1

+ Substrate Drone MRV (whose splash damage was recently reduced) radioactive cost r educed from 240 to 180

+ Advanced Assembly construction per second cost reduced while time to build incresed from 120 to 180

+ Quantum Archive cost reduced

+ Substrate Drone Orbital cost per second incresed but time to build reduced

+ Substrate Power Regulator cost per second increased bu time to build reduced

+ Gateway cost per second cost increased but time to build reduced

Units:

+ Artemis HP decreased from 500 to 400

+ Apollo HP increased from 500 to 600

+ Archer HP reduced from 90 to 75

+ Brute HP reduced from 100 to 90

+ Medic HP reduced from 500 to 400

+ Engineer HP increased from 90 to 120

+ Engineer Buid time decreased from 30 to 25 seconds

+ Engineer cost per second to build increased

+ Substrate Overmind "brain whale" HP increased from 2000 to 3000

+ Substrate Retributor max shields increased from 4000 to 5000

+ Substrate Retributor shield regen rate increased from 5 to 8 per second

+ Substrate Avenger HP reduced from 350 to 300

+ Substrate Avenger max shields increased from 250 to 300

+ Substrate AVenger shield regen increased from 8 to 10

+ Substrate Mauler HP increased from 100 to 200

+ Substrate Mauler Max shields increasd from 900 to 1000

+ Substrate Destructor max shields reduced from 600 to 500

+ Constructor shields increasd from 50 ro 80

+ Martyr max shields reduced from 80 to 60

+ Reaper max shields reduced from 100 to 90

+ Sky Cleaner build time reduced from 28 to 24 seconds

+ Dominator build time reduced

+ Punisher build time reduced (120 to 100)

+ Substrate air scout vsision increased from 900 to 1000

Weapons:

+ Mauler's Hyena Cutting Array cool down reduced from 4.9 to 2.4, duration of beam increased from 1.6 to 1.8, damaged reduced from 120 to 101

+Avenger's Mayhem Cannon cool down reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds

+ Archer's rocket damage decreased from 80 to 75

+ Brute's volley decreased from 5 shots to 4 shots

+ Zeus's laser cannon damage increased from 50 to 75

+ Zeus's Chain Lightning cool down reduced from 8 to 7

+ Mauler's backup cannons cool down reduced from 3.5 to 2.8 but number of shots reduced from 4 to 2

+ Avenger's plasma hose cool down reduced from shots reduced from 8 to 6, accuracy increased to 75% (from 60) and damage increased

+ Avatar's plasma stream cool down reduced from 12 to 8 seconds

Orbital Abilities:

+ Plasma storm cool down increased from 10 to 30 seconds

+ Orbital strike cool down increased from 30 to 60 seconds

+ PHC Amplify abilty cool down reduced from 5 seconds to 1 second

+ Call Avatar cool down reduced from 20 seconds to 10 seconds

+ Kill orbital cool down increased from 5 to 30 seconds

+ Destonate orbital cool down increased from 30 to 60 seconds

+ Overcharge orbital cool down decreased from 30 to 12 seconds

+ Boost orbital cool down reduced from 30 seconds to 1 second

+ Creeps no longer regen their shields

Feel free to discuss.

Hi guys,

Whether it be a positive or a negative review, we'd love to get some reviews of the game from people who have spent time with the game.

We'd really really appreciate it.

Post-release reviews count more towards the review score than early access reviews so if you've got an early access review you may want to update it.

To review go here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/228880

You may have to scroll down slightly to see the review field.

Thanks!

The Ashes official Wiki is up:

http://wiki.ashesofthesingularity.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

I'll be doing more with this but please feel free to contribute.

How many times have you written something amazing in a forum editor only to have the page crash/disappear/self refresh?

Just happened to me. I must have had a 3 page article I was writing regarding debugging technology just go poof as the forum page refreshed.

GRRR.