Cosmic Forge
v0.50 is up!
- patched an issue causing new techs implemented last time for constructing star ships not being available despite having the pre requisites.
New Features: - Following on from last time, where I added functionality to travel to new stars, there are now a lot of new features to announce:
Fleets:
- You can build 4 types of offensive units in your Fleet Hangar, each of which has a strength value, speed and other stats, and are stronger or weaker depending which unit they fight against. When your star ship is in close range of its destination, or orbiting it, you can perform a System Scan (if you have invested the resources in the Stellar Scanner on your Star Ship during its construction). This scan gives information about the new System, including if there is any life on it. This opens up the next feature:
Diplomacy:
- The new System may be barren of life, or more likely will have life, and this life can be open to diplomacy, can be completely shut off and aggressive, or can be coerced into surrendering. All the options are shown, but only some buttons will be active depending on the life you found if any. Your actions here, if not causing a complete surrender, will either weaken or strengthen the enemy and when your diplomacy points have run out, which you can think of as enemy patience (you don't know how many you have so be careful!) you will be thrust in to a war stance. This is where you can review the actual strength of the enemy after all modifiers are applied, and can still retreat to strengthen your attack force, for the upcoming...
Battle:
- When you have exhausted all other options or just choose war, the battle can be started and will play out automatically based on your fleets. If you lose, you will have unlimited opportunities to rebuild and try again, and the enemy strength will not replenish so eventually you will conquer the system, but sometimes it will be very hard and other times a breeze. If you win you will be awarded the AP for that system and on the first run, you will unlock the Galactic Tab, which will contain a market in the future for permanent buffs when you spend awarded AP. It also contains the option to...
REBIRTH!
- Ok I have implemented a rebirth mechanic, you can reset your progress on the new system. The old system will be permanently gone but the Star Map will reflect that it is your system and you wont be able to travel to it again, so more runs you will conquer more of the Star Map. When you start on the new system at the moment it will basically be a new game, except the weather tendencies will be different, possibly including a different compound to collect as precipitation than Water.
Future Release: You can spend AP on permanent buffs to speed up future runs (the buffs are not implemented yet)! As always please continue sending feedback if you have difficulties migrating your saves, give feedback on economy, prices, anything really and most importantly, enjoy my latest increment to this growing incremental game! (See what I did there.. lol)
Welcome to my new project! It is an incremental game. You start with Hydrogen and you have to learn technologies, fuse atoms to new elements, eventually gaining compounds, building science buildings, exploring the universe!
Ongoing project, early version to be expanded. Has cloud saving for continuity (optional autosave) or export text file saving. Enjoy and as always please leave feedback and improvements ideas! Balancing a game like this is hard and is ongoing.
****Bear in mind that saves can be lost whenever a new version is uploaded to the cloud and this can happen without warning, but efforts are now made from 0.20 to migrate them to a new version when the game is loaded.****
Known Issues: Tech Tree can be slow and non responsive at times, this is due to the D3 / Graphviz library I am using. I am listening out for any feedback about improving this or using web workers or other libraries altogether, interested to hear any tips!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- v0.50 Released - InterStellar Part 2 -> Rebirth!4 days ago
- v 0.40 - Interstellar Part 123 days ago
- 0.29 - Bug Fixes, Cosmicopedia and introduction of future late game mechanics32 days ago
- Space Mining feature v.026 Released!47 days ago
- v0.20 released60 days ago
- Tech Tree Added70 days ago
- Added a Power Graph71 days ago
Comments
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Hey there,
I've come across an issue:
It seems I can't create rocket fuel. I have every upgrade available, got one rocket completed and built the launch pad. But when trying to fuel a rocket it says "Lacks fuel research".
So far the game is not optimal when it comes to user friendliness, requiring too many clicks and energy consumption can become quite high without the option to turn off certain generators.
On a more positive note, I like the ideas you've implemented, even going as far as creating the Cosmicopedia.
The option to fuse certain elements is also a nice touch.
I really hope I can start mining soon.
Looking forward for new content, especially the Rebirth feature.
Thanks for reading :)
Hey great feedback, please could you send me your pioneer name to cosmicforge999@gmail.com and Ill take a look to make sure all the techs are available to you. I have been having some issues with save migrations to new versions. The tech required for that is Advanced Fuels, and if you have it you can fuel rockets, no materials required just power and time. Thanks for playing, there is some cool stuff in the works at the moment, based around interstellar travel, and adding statistics, but thanks for bringing issues to me because i cant test everything alone, so it is invaluable :) I will take a look at your save if you provide it to me.
By the way i am toying with the idea of an auto sell checkbox for each resource and compound, but i havent got that off the drawing board yet, although it could help with the clicks. What do you think?
Thanks for the answer, I just sent you my pioneer name :)
Auto selling sounds like a great feature, especially when you can set it to sell whenever you passed a certain threshold. Same goes for "Auto Fuse" and "Auto upgrade Storage". Any further automations make sense once the player has prestiged I think, like unlocking the option to buy generators automatically for example.
Looking forward to more content :)
Yes for sure, these will be galactic market purchases when implemented. I think you are right about the too many clicks but i like the player to work in the first run, just enough to stay interested but wanting QoL. Thats the benefit of rebirthing i guess. Some good ideas there, thank you, and thanks for the save ill get back to you when i can take a look. Working on a stats page at the moment but before i push anything new to itch i always have a bug session. I am pretty close to getting to the end of the first run now in terms of content, so then i will have to build the reset logic and all the galactic market add ons to spend AP and the auto features you mentioned will for sure be part of those.
I am very open to hearing about ideas to balance the economy in terms of costs of materials and cash generated and any other observations because it is very roughly done at the moment. Thanks.
Yeah, I totally get that, the player first needs to get familiar with the game, meaning they will have to check out everything first hand and understand, what there is to do.
I have a few more suggestions:
A stats page would definitely help getting a better overview, glad you're already working on it :)
And btw, I like the messages at the top of the screen, they're a nice addition
If you don't mind me asking, what language and IDE do you use?
The latest update is very good, especially the news is very entertaining. I'm not sure how this happens, but I think the batteries store more energy than their full capacity when you let them charge before leaving the game. And the resource gain/loss display takes a long time to update when you lose resources.
Hi, I have fixed the battery issue just now (not pushed yet will be waiting for some other work I am doing) but could you please give me a scenario to reproduce the issue with resource gain/loss display, not sure I quie understand. Do you mean if it is losing resources like if you are fuelling a power plant without enough autobuyers so it is reducing, or do you mean buying something which reduces resources like this? Thanks.
Fueling the basic power plant without enough carbon autobuyers. When I saw that I was losing carbon I bought quantum carbon autobuyer and it took a long time to show the gain but the carbon started go up.
I have added version 0.20 - It is most definitely an improvement, and takes into account a lot of the feedback given especially around power management. Unfortunately new saves are required, but There is quite a lot of new content to explore, including a new Space Mining tab, which although not complete, is a stepping stone to implementing stellar exploration and rebirthing on more rewarding and harder stars.
Give it a go, and keep the feedback and suggestions coming! Leigh.
I am going to take it down and work on it some more. I wanted some initial feedback and it was useful. It is not meant to be ready to play yet, and my new changes will break saves, so I am going to take it down, and keep working, with the feedback I wanted in my mind, watch out for good things soon!
It's very frustrating, I don't know I can't build(and other similar situations) it yet, or it's hidden somehwere else.
Even more, I already built power generator in prev save, and now can't find way to build more...
Please dont play this game if you want progression and a full game, it is not nearly in that state yet. It is just as you see it, I suggest you wait a month or two until it is more stable and less save breaking changes. Thanks.
Hi Xtraluis its nice to speak with you again, I remember you from the Chips shop project. Hope you are well! I am enjying creating this project, I have just released this sample to check that my cloud saving is working ok. The game can evolve a lot from this point, I want to add a prestige layer in the form of the star map, like resetting on different stars with different weather and to actually have a goal not just unlocking resources.
i am open to ideas on which direction to take it, as I kind of just opened the IDE and started coding randomly without much design. Hopefully I can get you to playtest any new versions.
I havent played it as fully as you say, how did you find the balance, would you be able to give me any feedback related to the pricing and how it increases, does it seem to be ok or too slow? I have some empty tabs where I am planning to add upgrades to supercharge production, i am working on the energy tab to show consumption a bit better, to help to avoid the power tripping out, when you buy too many autobuyers.
would you say overall it could be a fun game when it is fleshed out a bit more? Thanks and have a great day!
Hello. I'm glad you remember me, I hope you're doing well too. I can see how challenging it can be to pass through many stars and deal with different climates, plus the fact that you have to actively manage your resources. Going this route will lead to an overall change in how the game progresses, but if it's just a challenge mode or something related, that's fine.
It took me about 3 hours to get to the point I mentioned, it's not that difficult to get there faster. The problem is understanding which auto generator you prioritize. The strategy I used is to buy everything from basic resources to final products until it got a little expensive depending on what I unlock in tech tree, for example: I bought 10 hydrogen compressors (20/s), then I started selling until I got enough money to buy the science kit. When I got some science kits, I started buying more compressors or any other equivalent upgrade of other elements;
Carbon and water are the best resources to sell. Managing energy is a difficult task for the greedy :p, if your consumption exceeds the production of one of the generators, congratulations, you're screwed. It would be nice if you reduced the price of the first sodium ion battery, the rest are fine. As it is the first version you will only have to accelerate the progression as you add content.
It will definitely be a fun game.
I just wanted to express some of the frustration I went through. I had a little trouble getting to the end of the game (compound and all tech tree upgrades unlocked) due to my poor energy management. I could invest in the battery, but it's very expensive.
Everything in the game looks good to me, you'll probably add some quality of life and improve the interface, so there's not much to say.
Okay, some feedback i got(i played until i got carbon)
Too many submenus unless you are planning to add the entire periodic table, also there is no mechanical difference between 'gases' and 'solids' so i dont see the point of separating them
You are able to click on the whole resource text but you need to click on the name to actually move to their menu
every single technology is just 'unlock something'. Improving collectors or something could be good maybe? Also, having the first two unlocks just be 'unlock the ability to do more research' isnt really fun. Research is too expensive.
Maybe hide energy until you actually get it? Like you did with the starmap?
Whats the point of fusion when you can just manually gather the result after fusing for the first time?
Helium sells for less than hydrogen, dunno if that is intentional
Actually having a tech tree so you can see future technologies could be cool. Also, knowing what the technologies i buy actually do/what they unlock before i purchase them could be helpful in knowing what technology i should buy
In conclusion, not really a fun game right now, but there is potential here
sorry if i was too harsh or didnt play enough
Excellent feedback. Its very early, in fact only published so i can make sure the cloud feature is working properly. i am thinking i will take it down to carry on the development. But then, getting this sort of feedback will help me no end. the game still lacks a goal and prestige, so i am open to absolutely any ideas. Definitely going to take a lot of your points.
The point of fusion is that you cant gather everything yourself (or wont be able to) but actually there is a whole new section called compounds that has things like water, diesel, concrete, glass and they are the hard to get resources - because you cant auto buy them, and need to create them from resources, ie 26hydrogen and 12 carbon makes 1 diesel and that is fuel for the basic power plant. etc
The balancing is going to be the hardest part, but i am glad you see the potential. I will give some thought to making space in the screen for showing a tech tree. I already have a graphviz one i use for dev purposes which i have shown here but as yet it is not in the game but could be if it would help. The tech tree shows where the game is generally headed, and the prestige will come in when you can reset on other stars. The other tabs will have the upgrades to give multiply boosts etc, but still on the drawing board.
Thanks again and please follow so we can talk more, i liked your effort to feed back! Leigh.
Maybe you could try the new tech tree feature i implemented based on your comments, and also check out the energy screen with the graph, and let me know if it useful!
The power graph is useful, but I can't see the requirements to add more energy. The tree looks good but the display is a bit delayed.
is it? It isnt for me, I will try a game on itch and see if i can see what you mean.