Aven Colony Content drop 2: The Expedition Update is now live! |
| Content drop 2: The Expedition Update is now live! Posted: 05 Dec 2017 10:04 AM PST Content drop 2: The Expedition Update is a free content update for Aven Colony now available on Steam / PC and coming to console very soon.  We've made a new video available to explain the new features; please check it out here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMM_iOPJiho Here's a more detailed breakdown of all the new features. For those of you playing on console, rest assured that content drop 1 is coming to console this month followed by content drop 2 not long after that! See the video above for more information. The Overworld Map First, we've made huge changes to the expedition interface. The expedition UI is now a first-class game mode. And that means that you can now:
 We've also renamed this to "the overworld map" since it's now MUCH more tightly integrated into the game. Other major changes include:
Revised Camera System We also overhauled the camera system to allow you to smoothly zoom in or out. If you're in the normal game view, you can use the mouse wheel or a key shortcut to zoom out to a new top-down view we're calling "Satellite Camera Mode." And from there, you can zoom out again to go straight to the overworld map. You can also zoom right in to the surveillance camera. Just zoom in the mouse wheel and it will go right in to the nearest surveillance camera.  So there are 4 levels of the camera system, and you can switch smoothly back and forthn between all of them with the mouse wheel or key shortcuts. Remote Installations We're also now supporting a feature to let you actually extend your civilization out beyond the borders of your colony and build remote installations on the overworld map. There are 4 different kinds of installations:
 All of these installations work a little differently from buildings inside your colony. Not only do they cost nanites, but they take some food, water out of your inventory as well, and some of your colonists are also going to be removed from your colony to help provide staff for these remote installations. Each remote Settlement can support up to 2 other installations of any type nearby. Each Remote Settlement also requires 1 Colony Terminal in your colony to support it. You can build a maximum of 5 Settlements total. You can cancel construction of an installation before it's been built, but you cannot remove it once it has been constructed. By default, installations will be named automatically ("Remote Settlement Alpha"), but you can simply click on the name in the panel to change an installation's name. Ark Launcher In order to create these installations, you need to build the new Ark Launcher building. Just like a Trade Hub or an Immigration Center, you build an Ark Launcher and it comes with its own ship. Once you have an Ark, you can send it out onto the overworld map to build remote installations.  Note that Ark ships can explore the map (revealing the fog-of-war) and build installations, but they cannot visit POI locations. Only Expedition Vessels can visit POIs and earn commendations. Colony Terminal In order to support your remote installations, you'll need to build a new residential building called the Colony Terminal. The Colony Terminal is an animating structure inspired by the "Dynamic Tower" currently under construction in Dubai. It's divided into segments that can rotate individually to give the inhabitants a better view of the colony around them.  The Colony Terminal has several purposes. Not only is it a residential building, it also has a hovercar station built into the top of the tower. It can exchange hovercars with any other Hovercar Stations or Colony Terminals nearby. Each Remote Settlement you build outside your colony needs to be supported by one Colony Terminal inside your colony. Once this happens, you'll occasionally see hovercars arriving from outside the map or flying over the hills toward the remote settlements you've built as the colonists travel back and forth. Transceiver Next is the Transceiver. The Transceiver is a levitating mirror system that collects the solar energy from your remote solar arrays outside the colony. It provides a huge amount of power that can really help your colony keep going in the endgame.  Tier-2 Expedition Center We've also added a new tier 2 version of the Expedition Center. This upgrades your expedition ship to a much tougher vessel with a higher expedition rating. In order to build this expedition center, you first need to earn 10 commendations from doing expeditions. It can also act as a remote sentry on the overworld map, firing missiles at any approaching threats.  Custom Trade Contracts We also have added support for custom trade contracts with Remote Settlements. If you've built a settlement outside your colony, you can now trade with it and pick the specific resources you want to import or export.  Cultist Airships Aven Colony is also getting a new enemy type with this content drop. The Valley of Death mission in the campaign involves cultists following the Cult of the Seterdari, and we thought it was time to bring those out of the expedition system and have them attack your colony in person. Now, in the last 2 missions of the single-player campaign, you can be attacked by cultists in their airship.  Depending on your sandbox map settings, you can also experience cultist airship attacks in sandbox games. Revised Water We've also completely overhauled the water system in Aven Colony. All of the lakes and rivers and oceans in the game now use a brand new system that gives us much better-looking water.  Revised Building Shutdown The building shutdown mechanic has also been overhauled! Previously, buildings had to be in a power zone with a power shortage in order to be shut down. Now, we've changed building shutdown to be based on energy batteries. Most buildings can be shut down at any time, but while they're shut down, they'll drain 50% of their normal power consumption from Energy Batteries. This makes it possible to shut down buildings at any time, while also increasing the utility of Energy Batteries. Building Limit We've also added a new building limit to the game. Now, before you start worrying, I want to promise that you can override this in the game options, so you can still build a colony as big as you want. But we were finding that some players with low-end hardware were building colonies much bigger than they needed to and that their graphics hardware couldn't support at a decent frame rate. So, we're doing this to encourage players to build colonies that are a more reasonable size and make sure players with low-end hardware understand the trade-offs involved. The current limit is:
 Note that this will NOT affect console once this content drop reaches console, as it is already limited to 300 buildings. New Threat Markers All threats in the game now are highlighted by an animated red diamond. This makes them MUCH more visible when there's a lot going on, or when you're looking at the colony from above in the new Satellite Camera Mode.  Threat markers will be shown for the following threat types:
Additional Features and Tuning Changes
Features Removed
Bug Fixes
Performance Optimizations
Please note that if absolutely necessary, you can revert to the previous version of Aven Colony on Steam using the beta password contentDrop1 to revert to the content_drop_1 branch. However, do let us know if you run into any bugs or issues that make this necessary, and note that any saved games saved with the current version will not be available with this older branch. Thank you for your support and for being part of a terrific community. We hope you enjoy all the new content, and we are very excited for all that's yet to come. We hope you are too! http://store.steampowered.com/app/484900/Aven_Colony/ Paul Tozour and the Mothership Entertainment team  |
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