Hi all,
First of all thanks for your commitment to the game and the forums. Endless Space 2 was an enormous undertaking for Amplitude, and we are glad you could finally play with our baby. Yes, there is room for improvement and we are on it ! Here is how and when.
This is not our first Early Access (actually the fourth one) and we are facing the same issue: fans want new content as soon as possible and at the same time we need to develop the missing content of the game, which takes time. Specifically, every time we add a new feature to the game, we add bugs (not willingly obviously). So for every build we deliver to you, we have to halt all development for a week to stabilize everything. We want you to give us gameplay feedback, not sweep a minefield :)
So if we give you frequent updates, we will only spend time stabilizing the build, and release the final game in 3 years from now. I guess no one wants that! The compromise we find acceptable is to go through 2 two-weeks sprints of feature/improvements development, stabilize for a week, and deliver the build (with a few patches for issues we missed). This way, you can try a new build with a sizeable amount of new content, and optimal stability.
Following this method, we have paved the way to release with 3 updates (+ the final release) of 5 weeks (make it a big month) duration. The list below will let you know what is planned and when. Some features become available in Update2, but because their complexity requires more than 4 weeks to develop them. So even if they appear only in Update2, the development duration of this feature spans over Update1 and Update2. Also this list does not include requests for improvement that may appear, or secret weapons we will reveal only at the end (yes we love to tease you!). Also the last features have not been as thoroughly estimated as the ones currently in development, so there may be slight changes as we progress through the Early Access.
For each update, new features will come with their AI counterpart, and the general quality of the AI will improve towards the release. However, thanks to the new architecture and tools we developed for the AI, we feel in a better place than we were with EL at the start of the Early Access. But it is still too soon to be cocky :)
Update 1
- New Major Faction content and gameplay
- Minor faction quest: the ability to interact with minor factions with quests. Not sure all the content will be there for Update 1 though
- Marketplace system & screen
- Manpower and ground units management : allows you to customize your ground troops and their breakdown between soldiers / tanks / strike crafts
- Advanced star system list : population management, colonization shortcuts, etc
- New Major Faction content and gameplay. I know speculations are high but I cannot disclose yet what Faction 5 will be!
- System razing
- Improved Forced Truce system
- Improved System ownership (as in ES1)
- Pacific System Conquest
- Population collection bonus (empire wide bonus when you reach a certain amount of population of a type)
- Mercenaries (privateer units)
- Population migration visuals (ships actually appear on the map), and manual migration system
- Deeds: competitive objectives unlocked by era. Not sure the whole content will be ready for Update 1
- Cooperative / competitive quests : update on the UI to handle this type of quests
- Technology Era 4 (some visual content may be missing in Update 1)
Update 2
- New Major Faction content and gameplay
- Space Battle improvements (complex, could not fit into Update 1)
- Battle scan view improvements
- Advanced fleet management (automerge, reinforcements)
- Senate / population improvements
- System orbital scan view (display numeric value and ranking)
- Remaining victory conditions
- Star system rebellion
- Advanced gameplay options
Update 3
- New Major Faction content and gameplay
- Technology Era 5
- Multiplayer
- Constellation control
- Star system governor AI
- Shortcuts and exotic controls (zoom slider etc)
- Scan views polish / improvements
- Reserve time for G2G requests
Release
- Fighters / bombers (maybe available earlier, but this is a long feature to develop)
- Final Major Faction content and gameplay (probably the Unfallen)
- Advanced Diplomatic options
- Planet scan view
- Custom factions
- Battle advanced report (could be earlier)
- Modding (will try Steam Workshop for release)
- Advanced planets and suns interactions
- Global storyline
- Achievements
- More secret stuff that we are not sure to do (or are really interesting).
Again, this may be subject to change, but that is what we are aiming for. If we miss a feature in Update N, the goal is to have it in update N + 1.
As to when this starts, we hope to release the first update in about 3 weeks.
Thanks for your attention!
