So the AI is getting a massive overhaul for v1.4.  And I have to say, it's making a much bigger difference than we had originally expected.  

To be honest, I was pretty skeptical that it was worthwhile to have engineering time spent on improving the way the AI manages its planets. Not to be a a lazy bum too much but I figured it a lot smarter to just let expert players play against the AI with bonuses.  But as others have pointed out, the compounding nature of planetary improvements makes the bonuses we give too trivial.

Now, the AI is really quite good (better than most humans) at placing improvements in 1.4.  It will never be as good as the best humans (traveling salesman AI problem) but it's close to an order of magnitutde better.

They're also working on improving the way the AI designs ships.  Now this matters in a lot more ways than simply warfare.  In GalCiv II, the AI took into account the ranges of various things to decide how much range techs it needed and how much life support it should have on ships.  This is a non-trivial coding effort but needs to be done in order for the game to more challenging on larger map sizes.

Combined with the 1.31 AI update (the AI should be very noticeably better in 1.31 versus 1.3) I think that by the end of 1.4 the complains about GalCiv III's AI should be largely put to rest for most people.  We shall see. The opt-in for it should be available in a few weeks.

I love my Surface Pro 3.  Windows 10 has transformed it from something I occasionally fiddled with to my primary mobile device (replacing my iPad and MacBook Pro combo for trips).

But it is, by no means, perfect.

The weaknesses of the Surface Pro 3 include:

1. It is almost 1.8 pounds.  That's really too heavy to use as a tablet for an extended period of time.
2. While Windows 10 has greatly improved the issue of it getting hot and the fan blariung, the fact it has a fan means extra weight and noise.
3. No LTE.  I always found that astounding.  I keep my iPhone with me at all times anyway but it's kludgy to have to connect to it from my Surface while traveling.
4. The power connector is obnoxious and expensive. 

So what would my dream Surface 4 be like?

1. Less than 1.4 pounds
2. 13 inch screen
3. No fan
4. LTE integration
5. USB-C based power.

Note I made no mention of the CPU speed.  That's because the Surface Pro 3, with its 3 year old Core I5 in it, is fast enough for all my computing needs.

Does your laptop or tablet run out of battery while it’s supposed to be asleep?

You can find out why thanks to a fairly obscure but relatively new feature in Windows.

Step 1: Open a command prompt in adminstrative mode

Step 2: Go to a temp directory (like cd\temp)

Step 3: Type powercfig /SleepStudy

This will create a file in the current directory.  Open that file in your web browser and you will find out why.

Common causes:

1. Notifications. Even while sleeping, the Windows notification system (WNS) does stuff.  Turn off as many unnecessary notifications as possible.
2. Your type cover can wake the machine inadvertently.
3. Your network card. Make sure you have the latest firmware and network drivers.

Good luck!

Ever wondered what Sins of the Solar Empire might be like on the surface of a planet?

Would you be interested in help shape the world's first 64-bit, DirectX 12 RTS?

Head over to https://www.ashesgame.com and check out what we're doing in Ashes of the Singularity.

Greetings!

Here are some questions on game modes for ya:

1. Do you prefer to play 1 on 1 vs computer?
2. 1 on 1 vs a human
3. 2 humans vs. 2 computer
4. 2 humans vs. 2 humans?
5. Free for all (3 players or more)
6. 3 humans vs. 3 computers
7. 3 humans vs. 3 humans?

Thanks!

A few questions on maps:

1. Would you prefer randomly generated maps or a handful of well known maps?
2. Would you prefer the default to be unexplored maps or pre-explored?
3. How would you feel about an option where the map is unexplored but any region you are in and all adjacent regions automatically become explored?
4. Do you prefer smaller maps (30 minute games) or huge maps (multi-hour games)?

Greetings!

The Founder's program will be coming to a close in the coming weeks so this seemed like a good time to get the gang here together for introductions.

Please tell us a bit about yourself, what you want Ashes to be like and some other games you enjoy playing.

Thanks!

As for me:

I'm Brad Wardell. I'm the lead designer of Ashes of the Singularity.  I am looking for an RTS that has massive scale (so that I feel like I'm fighting a world war) that isn't about actions per minute.  My favorite games of all time include Total Annihilation, Sins of a Solar Empire, Civilization series, Starcraft and Star Control.

looking for feedback on the AI. Should be substantially better compared to 1.2 or 1.3 opt in 1.

While 1.4 is going to mostly be about AI, we found a lot of low hanging fruit largely thanks to the saved games you guys have sent in and your posts. Thank you!

 Preface

Ashes of the Singularity is an up-coming real-time strategy game that takes place in the year 2178 when humans have evolved to the point in which we interact with the physical world through constructs (think of a modern day Drone as a very primitive construct). A single human (or “Post-Human”) is handling millions of these constructs across many light years simultaneously just as we are “handling” 100,000 billion cells in our physical bodies right now.

The object of the game is to take control of Turinium generators that have been placed on suitable worlds in order to convert the entire planet into Turinium (or at least as much of it as we can.

Computronium

Turinium is our take on Computronium.  It’s actually not as new a concept as you might think.  Douglas Adams in the Hitchhiker’s Guide of the Galaxy series revealed that the entire Earth is a giant computer. In essence, the Earth was actually Computronium. 

Computronium is programmable matter. The ultimate programmable matter. While theorized, it is inevitable.

Intel Sky Lake and the road to Turinium

This week Intel announced SkyLake. It’s a new CPU based on a 14nm fabrication technique.  Each year or two, the fabrication size gets smaller and smaller.  In 2005, it was 65nm. The 8088 was 3 microns (3,000 nm).

At some point we will reach the smallest possible size that processing can occur at.  It will almost certainly be at the sub-atomic level but you will reach that point. That ultimate smallness is called Turinium. 

Moore is More or 42

Once you reach that ultimate smallness, the only way to get more processing power is to have more of it. Mass starts to matter. 

It would be incorrect to assume that Turinium has to look like some sort of gray goo type material.  Since it’s at the sub-atomic level, it could look like anything you want depending on the level of efficiency you want out of the mass.  A tree could be made of Turinium for instance.  To reference Douglas Adams again, the Earth and even Arthur Dent were all made of what was effectively Turinium (trying to find out the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything).

Why would we care?

As the name of the game implies, Ashes of the Singularity is about what happens after the technological singularity. It’s just too good of a subject matter not to use as the basis for a Sci-Fi game.

In this future, humans have, for over a century, been augmenting their capability through computing power that we can’t even really imagine today.  The best analogy we have is that we’re already doing this: How much of your knowledge do you keep in your brain versus via your mobile device? Compare that to 10 years ago.  Now imagine where things will be in 50 years. 100 years.

Once you have Turinium , the “faster” computing paradigm is over. It’s how much Turinium you have. And feats that we mere humans can’t even imagine start to become grasped by these Post-Humans who have access to so much more capability. 

Thus, Turinium becomes the ultimate resource. More valuable than anything.  Unlike the Space of the Dune series, Turinium can be created on most other planets, it’s just a matter of reaching out and taking them.

Greetings!

The team is now fully staffed with the exception of bringing on one additional animator.  It is now, the largest game project currently underway at Stardock across all studios in terms of monthly budget.

For those of you who remember the development of the original Star Control series, you may recall that Paul and Fred worked very closely with fan (SC2 mainly).  In fact, thanks to Paul and Fred we've been able to team up Riku who did most of the best known tracks for Star Control 2 back in 1992 and he's in charge of the new sound track.

Now, that said, we have a number of challenges that we need help with.  I'll list them below.

Challenge #1: IS Star Control Star Control without the Spathi?

The new Star Control is a prequel. It takes place before the events of the original series.

And for those who are deeply into the Star Control lore, our long-term plan is to make the Star Control universe a multiverse.  The Famous battles of the Ur-Quan conflict (part of which is told in Star Control 1 and Star Control 2) take place in one universe.  By contrast, Star Control 3 takes place in a separate universe.

As mentioned, Paul and Fred are the ones who wrote the Ur-Quan conflict lore that manifests partly in the first two Star Control games.  Today, Paul and Fred, the founders of Toys for Bob, work at Activision which precludes them from being able to work on the new Star Control. However, since Star Control is a multiverse, we can, with patience, hopefully wait for the day for a continuation of the Ur-Quan story.

That said, regardless the new Star Control won't deal with the aliens from the Ur-Quan stories for multiple reasons.  First, in the Ur-Quan lore, the humans join the Alliance of Free Stars in 2116, 4 years after the humans are contacted by the Chenjesu and our story takes place in 2086.   Second, because we don't want to interfere with Paul and Fred's story, we want to wait until they're free to work on their story again to continue it.  

From Stardock's point of view, Paul and Fred own the Ur-Quan lore and in fact, this lore goes well beyond what was seen in Star Control 1 and 2.  So while Stardock owns the Star Control universe, we don't make any claim on their lore.  Similarly, post-release if others create their own lore for their own universes, Stardock won't be making any claims on that lore either (i.e. no sneaky EULA that tries to lay claim to any lore/assets made that uses the new Star Control engine).

When you visit www.starcontrol.com later this Fall, you will absolutely see both classic and new aliens together since we support both the new Star Control and the original trilogy. We plan to provide a fairly elaborate series of pages to support Paul and Fred's backstory so that it's kept alive for the day when they can return to the Ur-Quan story.

Challenge #2: What IS Star Control?

While game designs are always unique, I'd like to propose that we look at what we are working on together collective as a specific genre (like 4X strategy).

In Star Control's case: It's an action adventure game. Specifically, an action adventure game in which you play as the Earthlings, go out into the galaxy and meet aliens, go on quests, explore planets, and have space battles.

That is what we're in the process of creating.

Challenge #3: Defining some core values

Each person will have their own vision of what they think a new Star Control must contain.  Like I said above, SOME people will absolutely say that Star Control is about the Ur-Quan and the Spathi and so forth. 

For me, it's a bit more general.  I want to interact with really interesting aliens that are well written, funny, charming and try out lots of cool ships, design my own custom ship, etc.  That's why we brought on comedy writers early on and have put a lot of budget behind making sure that we're prepared to record 11 hours of voice acting that will be handle through our engine's lips syncing tech (our engine is made by the some guys who led Civilization V's engineering PLUS additional veterans from around the industry).

Challenge #4: Satisfying the super fans

So how are we going to make the hard core fans happy?

Broadly speaking (without giving too much away) we plan to provide fairly extravagant mod tools. Tools well beyond what has ever been made outside of say Spore.

If you've read "Ready Player One" then you have a pretty good idea of the authoring level we are going for.  We'll be talking a lot more about this as we progress.

The main point is that our goal is to make the Star Control universe all-encompassing. Infinite continuities with OUR included initial campaign just one of an endless number that the community can provide.  If you've seen what the Ur-Quan masters team have done, imagine if they had millions of dollars in engineering hours designated to providing tools and support to ensure that there's a never ending stream of Star Control content.

Anyway, that's where we are now. 

Cheers!

-brad