When our CEO Brad created Galactic Civilizations from his dorm room at Western Michigan State University, he had no idea that it would lay the groundwork for Stardock growing into what it is today. Celebrate 24 years of the series with us and save 66% on Galactic Civilizations III! Learn more.

Star Control: Origins continues to head towards its September 2018 release date!

Here's the week in screenshots!

The galaxy is a busy place

We will be keeping these journals spoiler free.  With that in mind, the year is 2088.  Earth exists in a part of the galaxy called Orion's Spur ("The Spur").  It has recently become a much busier part of the galaxy and you will be uncovering why that is.

Star Control is a single player RPG where you command a single ship but the galaxy is filled with characters with their own agendas.

Players travel from star system to star system via Hyperspace.  Hyperspace is a hyper dimension that forms an alternative space-time adjacent to what we call "true space".  It can be a bit..trippy to travel through it but it allows for travel between stars in a faction of the time it would take to go via true space.

This week we updated the visuals in hyperspace to give a better sense of movement when no stars are around.

There are a lot of different alien species in the Scryve sector alone (let alone the outer spur).  Humanoids are quite exotic due to their rarity.  Beings are fascinated in seeing a hairless bipedal ape.

The Phamyst are the classiest aliens in the known galaxy. 

Much of our focus right now is in polishing and iterating on the story and the AI.   There are thousands of planets but also thousands of other ships running around doing their thing as well. 

On a personal note, this week my design work has been spent on helping with story and pacing which meant I have to...gasp, travel the worlds without any cheat keys.  This was particularly enjoyable but also embarassing because the AI controlled aliens really want nothing to do with us because...well, we're newbies on the galactic scene.  This means that they tend to avoid us and our early game ship just can't intercept them because..well, we're newbies.  But it's highly enjoyable to see the subtle but definite effort the aliens put in to avoid me.  It's so effortless and insulting simultaneously.

Play through the single-player campaign or join us online
all weekend long for exciting multiplayer games
The free weekend runs from 1pm ET on 5/3 through 1pm ET on 5/6.
Load up Steam and check it out for yourself!
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You can also snag Offworld Trading Co. for 50% off or
Complete your collection with the Gold Edition for up to 65% off
Live streams will be running all weekend on the Offworld Trading Co. Steam page, too.

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Take on the role of entrepreneur and travel to Mars for an economic showdown against
other companies in Offworld Trading Company! Buy out your competition and take control
of the Martian market in a strategy game where money, not military force, is your greatest
weapon. The real-time, player-driven market is the foundation of the game, allowing you to buy
and sell resources and materials - even the food and water that the colonists need to
survive. Build up enough capital and gain access to the lucrative offworld markets so that
you can buy out your rivals and claim the Martian economy for yourself.

Claim victory against other corporations  Leave Earth behind and start up a major corporation on Mars to claim your fortune! Establish yourself as the dominant offworld company in a game that's unique every time you play.

Use the Black Market to trip up your enemies Battle isn’t limited to the board room; you can employ some more... underhanded methods for victory. You - and your opponents - should prepare to deal with pirate raiders, or hackers trying to disrupt production, or a covert electromagnetic pulse to your base, and much more.

Play solo or connect online with friends Play online in games for up to 8 players, or try one of the single player campaigns, skirmishes, or daily challenges.

Check out some of the special livestreams Soren, other members of the dev team, fans, and staff will be streaming live on the Offworld Steam page all weekend to showcase the game throughout the weekend. Stop in, say hello, and play a game or two, then share your thoughts with us!

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You can also snag Offworld Trading Co. for 50% off or
Complete your collection with the Gold Edition for up to 65% off
Live streams will be running all weekend on the Offworld Trading Co. Steam page, too.

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Balancing an RTS is difficult. It’s a long, iterative process and, inevitably, there will be mistakes along the way.

Today, I'll be exploring what makes balancing an RTS such a challenge, and explain my intentions for some of the changes I've made throughout my time with Ashes. In a previous Dev Journal, I discussed why balance matters, so read that first for additional context.

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Hello Ashes fans!

**2.75 Update**

I've been very active with play testing on the upcoming 2.75 update and it's gone through a few iterations. Thanks to all the community members who have been testing it with me and offering me great feedback, Chronopolize in particular. Most of our updates don't have the opportunity for this much play testing, so I'm really excited about these changes and how the community will receive them. There's some other cool things happening in 2.75 that I haven't yet mentioned in the March Dev Journal.

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April 2086

Good afternoon.  Thank you for attending this meeting.  We have been taking your questions via the Google document.  If you will enable your FaceGoog implants to turn to the topic of Precursors from the 2085 lecture we can begin.

We will assume you have gone over the classified materials from the recent Emdrive test.

As a reminder, the general public has not been brought up to speed on everything that was found on Ceres.  The rumors of the so-called "Arilou" consultant working with Darius Robotic on the emDrive remain just that -- rumors.  Today will focus only on the facts and not rumors. Suffice to say, we do not have little green men running around Darius Robotics.

Prototype EmDrive powered ship "Discovery"

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To this day, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is still receiving balance updates. You may be wondering - since Ashes is not a competitive game like StarCraft - why there is all of this effort being put into balance. There can be a misconception that balance is esoteric and only matters to high level players, but I don't think that's accurate. Today I'll be exploring why balance matters for all players and how it's crucial in making an RTS fun.

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You know the phrase, “Space is big”.  Today, let’s walk through just how big space really is, and how its scale fits into the Star Control multiverse.

Star Control: Origins takes place in a sector that is 120 by 120 light years.  This is a staggeringly big area, but it is nothing compared to even our local super-cluster.

Let’s zoom out. Way…way out, and we get to Lanikea:

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Galactic Civilizations III is one of the largest strategy sandboxes ever made. It's newest expansion, Intrigue, released today. In Intrigue, you'll choose your government, lead your civilization through terrible crises, and earn the trust and faith of your people. The free v3.0 update brings support for Intrigue’s new features while providing a richer experience with the same unrivaled scale. View details here.

Remember when you bought a game at the store, took it home, devoured the user manual the first evening, and then played a game that you would slowly master?  Those were the days.

Today, games are much more sophisticated and today's gamers want to see their games evolve and improve based on their feedback.  That brings us to this walk-through of Galactic Civilizations III v3.

For the purposes of this walk-through, I will be using v3.0 with all expansions installed.  Your experience will differ some depending on what you have installed, but assuming you have the Gold Edition, you should be set.

Chapter 1: Setting up your game

1. Galactic Civilizations is a sandbox game.  That means each game is different.  We include a series of campaigns, but other than the tutorial, we recommend choosing "new game" first.
2. For your first game, choose the Terran Alliance.  Each alien civilization plays somewhat differently, but presuming you're human, the Terrans are probably the most relatable.
3. For galaxy size, stay with MEDIUM or less for your first few games. Medium requires a system with 4GB of memory.  Memory is the price we pay to avoid having "space lanes".
4. For everything else, keep to the default, and into the game you go.

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