DEV Update 2021

Hi there fellow Exiles,

Coops here with an update on our / my progress. As many of you will know last year with the loss of my wife the wind was taken from my sails. I carried on keeping up on CE updates, security patches and some edits and even a few releases, but for the most part I was trying to put my life back in a working fashion.

I’ve been working on CE now for 14+ years and don’t worry I have no intentions of stopping. I just needed to rebalance a few things and find some personal equilibrium before getting back in to life as a whole.

For the ‘most’ part CE has been self funding and keeps itself above the waterline with its costs of which there are many. I stepped in a few times last year to pump up the funding when it was needed and we have made it through another year. But as we move deeper in to 2021 I’ve had to take a full time job. The bills are the same, just one less beside you to help pay them lol.

ATM my hours and days are a little fluid and it won’t be decided for a while. It will mean very early mornings and long days to start with and this in itself is not conducive with my coding large chunks of CE. But….

Most of you by now will be sick of me talking about starbases and wonder which century they will appear in game lol. Which is fair as Ive been at these now for a few years. The issue is the scale of game integration they require. Not to mention large chunks of new and rewritten code. Each checked and double checked.

So I have decided to start on a plan to Release starbases in series of Update / deployments.

Deployment 1 – TBA
Starbases have a set of requirements from YOU the intended owner. The last of these is to obtain an actual deployment license. This is a bit like bidding for something on Ebay (closest well known analogy I can think of). The locations for deployment will be set as a published list and you will be able to bid on these in game via a new process. We have tested an early prototype on Dev and I will be tightening the bolts, checking the screws and pondering over the minimum starting bid levels.

Once this system is ready for deployment (read a few weeks) I will post a through guide on ‘how to use’ and leave it to you to all start the bidding process. I’m not going to say much more than the process wont be instant and depending on how many players / guilds get involved some of the more contested spots may take a while to ‘complete.

All funds for the bidding will come from the Escrow Funding. Be that personal or Guild. Those funds WILL be taken and held in escrow for the top bidder. Should they be outbid their funds will be returned and the new bidders funds held.

Stage 2 for Release
This will be retested on Dev whilst your all bidding on licence deployments. This from a owner perspective is where you’ll be able to begin the deployment process. It wont be instant like with Settlements but take a ‘period’ of time. More on that when we reach it.

Deployment once complete will give you a MINIMAL control and display interface for the Starbase. You will be able to deploy some basic buildings, organise staffing, research, power and begins to PLAN for the systems required to make the starbase fullly operational. It will NOT at that time include any major sub buildings, systems or need for defence.

Stage 3 Onwards
From this point on it will be the same way Settlements were created. You will already have a basic (albeit pretty and different) control system for your Starbase, and I will begin to code up in small stages new buildings, more activities, income streams and specific Starbase operations and activities to aid in the creation and utilisation of ships to enter the Nebula network and return to the Core.

Overview…
As I stated at the beginning life for me has changed somewhat dramatically and having to now ‘work’ for a living besides creating / nurturing CE is something new lol. My time is not going to be my own and yes you may have seen me in discord at some really unearthly hours and also later in the day at the other end.

I will continue to show CE the same level of dedication and support I have always done. It’s my full intention to continue with the coding and development, regardless of where or what I’m doing.

Coops