EmptyEpsilon news & patch notes

After quite a lot of time, it has finally been done. The launch button has been pressed, and anyone on steam can download and play EmptyEpsilon for free. With this launch comes the latest set of changes:

• The French and German localizations have gotten quite an update.
• The server browser menu has some changes where it no longer makes a difference between LAN and Internet games, it always shows both now.
• A few scenarios got fixes and updates.
• Surf's Up! scenario has been added, which is a more complex wave defense scenario.
• Early Evaluation Exercise scenario has been added, which is an practice scenario for the basic tasks.
• Liberation Day scenario has been added, which is an advanced multi-player ship scenario that changes every time you play it.

Now, there have been a few questions that are repeatedly asked, so let me answer them here: Will there be steam workshop support? While modding and custom scenarios are an important feature for EmptyEpsilon, there is currently no plan to add steam workshop support. The reason for this is that while Steam is great for a lot of things, there are also many occasions that steam is not the proper solution for running EmptyEpsilon. And for those cases, it shouldn't be impossible to get those scenarios and mods. How can I play online with friends? It was mentioned it before, but it is good to repeat it. EmptyEpsilon can be played online, however, it currently requires a public IP address/port forwarding. This is not the best situation, and Steam has a feature called the "relay network" to make this unnecessary. However, attempts to use this have not been successful so far. I want realistic physics! No. Is this the ECS version? No. The ECS update is not ready yet. A lot of hard work has been put into this. But as it is all free-time development, there is no timeline on when this will be available.

Well people, there we have it. A brand new trailer thanks to Terandir, this marks an important milestone for the steam release. The actual release will be a few days from now, as we are still wrapping up some translations. What to expect in this release? The full game as we already have on github, with version compatibility between the releases there and on steam. Currently non of the matchmaking features of steam have been implemented. There is some groundwork done to allow easier joining games on the internet with friends, but this code is not working yet. As this is all done in our own personal time, things go as fast/slow as they go. The next major thing happening is the ECS update, and you can read all about that on the github wiki: https://github.com/daid/EmptyEpsilon/wiki/ECS

It has been very silent on the EmptyEpsilon Steam front. Life has caused me to focus on other things, but it is not all bad.

Steam release

While the previous steam release that was reported did not happen yet. The reason for this was that steam requires you to publish a trailer with the game, and that has been a bit of a drag. Where perfection gets the better of me. And then other things in life happened causing me to lose track of this plan for a while. So the plan now is, instead of trying to make a really good trailer, I will just make a short 20-30 second trailer and release on steam with that.

Update: ECS

During the past year and a half, I've slowly been engineering at the major engine update. And I am finally at the point where I can happily say that most things are working again. This is a major overhaul of the engine. While the core gameplay is the same, it allows for untold customisation. As someone recently mentioned on discord: A steerable black hole might be really awesome And, with the ECS version of the engine, this is actually possible. Now, this version of the engine is not done yet. As mentioned, most main gameplay works, but the following bits are still broken or unfinished: * GameMaster screen tweaking * DMX512 Hardware control * Remote HTTP server API * Not all script bindings are implemented yet Also, a lot of code is not properly tested yet. So the plan is to get this out to people in the next few months to actually start testing and fixing all the bugs that arise.

SOLDate: 20230101: Deepspace broadcast

Captains, recruits, trainees, main-screen-operators and officers. I welcome you to a new SOL cycle. As you all know, we still measure the passing of time in rotations of our home planet Earth around its star. I guess this makes us all feel more connected. Or just nostalgic. Looking back on our last SOL, we have had a few good updates:

• The transition from the old SFML based engine to SDL2 engine went smoothly without many engine hickups.
• Our French and German speaking officers finally no longer need to depend on sticky notes on their screens but can configure their screen in their native language.
• Many of our training scenarios have seen some update, and we have a brand new scenario The Omicron Plague, which reminds us that plagues should be taken seriously.
• Many small repairs to various systems.
• We've started to connect to a new source of recruits. While integration is still happening, hope to expect new recruits from the Steam side of the universe.

Steam

On that last point. I would like to welcome any new recruits from Steam. We are gearing up to give you access to your stations soon. Until that is done, you can always go to a non-steam station to connect with your fellow officers. All preliminary checks for steam access have been done. But there is still one final checklist to process before high command gives the all-clear for steam access.

Looking forward

Looking forwards, our engineers have some exciting new things planned. To start off, officers from Steam should be able to join us somewhere in the first few months. Next, some engineers are working on retrofitting a lot of parts to allow for a higher degree of customization. This work is many months from finished, but once done, it will allow a lot of things that were previously impossible. Like fitting stations with weapon systems, giving asteroids shields or removing the self-destruct button (but not sure why anyone would take that risk) More details will follow once this work starts to crystalize into a working state.

Connecting with your fellow officer

This is a reminder, if you are looking for fellow officers to fly with in an online session. The USN discord is where weekly games are organized, open for anyone. https://discord.gg/xs4V9wCj