Greetings all,
Apologies for the length between posts - as you can imagine we've been rather busy, and not just with the mod. I'm sure you've noticed that the world is a little bit chaotic at the moment as we all truggle, despite global events, to get back to normal, so needless to say there's a lot going on for everyone. Hopefully you've been engaging with us and been kept up to date on our Discord. Nevertheless, work on the mod continues and we'd like to update you on our current progress and our plans moving forward.
To that end, the immortal Hobbs has done us all the favour of putting together a development roadmap outlining what has already been achieved, where we're at and our goals.
So let's get right down to it, shall we?
I think you'll be pleased to find that we are, in fact, very far along in the development cycle for the re-release of Ages of the Federation.
The Coalition, Klingon and (to the honest surprise of everyone) the Xindi factions are all in the final stages of development and are in a playable state. The Sins: Remastered PBR shading system has been fully implemented and the mod is looking spectacular as a result.
The current focus is on getting the TOS Federation faction up to snuff, followed by a rebuild of the Romulan faction. Also, those of you who've been following our Discord will know that we're also implementing a faction specialisation system, opening up unique research trees, technologies and abilities and offering you a range of unique advantages depending on the choice you make.
In other words, wanna embrace the Sphere Builders as the Xindi and continue on their mission of genocide? Go for it! Wanna join the House of Kor as the Klingons and summon Kang, Koloth and the man himself as hero units? Qapla!
I'm not willing to say that we're in the final stretch yet, but as you can see we've actually achieved a lot. It's nice to see that the road behind us is, in fact, far longer than the road ahead.
Which begs the question - when will the re-release of Ages of the Federation be...err...released? Probably sooner than you think. In typical Stellar Parallax fashion we're not quite willing to give a date yet, but we're willing to say that we're aiming for a holiday release, as is tradition.
Which brings us, finally, to another little announcement.
It has been on our minds lately that we haven't actually released anything in a while, at least not since the final version of Armada 3. Historically we've taken the approach of only releasing projects when we consider them done. A drawback of this is that months and even years can pass between releases, and that can make it difficult to maintain engagement with our audience - namely, you guys.
AOTF v1.0 was released way back in 2020, with v1.01 being released only a few days later. Since then, with the exception of the development of the re-release there has been precious little reason for players to be excited about Ages of the Federation in its current form.
Until now.
The very near future is going to see the release of AOTF v1.02, a version of the previous release of AOTF with substantial improvements fixing some of the more glaring issues.
Hopefully this makes the current version of AOTF more fun and gives you something fresh to play as you wait for the full re-release.
Just for the sake of managing expectations, I'd like to stress that v1.02 will not be representative of the re-release. You won't be seeing any of the new content we've been developing for the new version of Ages of the Federation. You'll have to wait to play as the Xindi, I'm afraid.
But you won't have to wait long for v1.02. We're aiming to have it ready for download on or around September 1, or at least in the first few days of September, so that will be with you very, very soon. We hope you enjoy it and that it helps pass the time until the big day.
These are challenging and confusing times, but there's still plenty to look forward to.
We'll be back again soon with more news, and with 1.02!
Till then, be good. But not too good.
- Orion
* Kang, Kor & Koloth art by Chaim Garcia. Check him out.
Sounds good)
Woot!
Awesome guys!
While I'm completely psyched to play the update, I totally understand and agree with your usual "wait until it's DONE" philosophy, as your finished products have routinely been on the quality of AAA studios, with easter eggs and canon fully realized and respected. (I still think actually seeing the builder-bees inside the Constellation class of Armada 3 was a stroke of genius.)
Keep up the great work!
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Not much is changed. The only thing I find curious is to see how the the AI reacts now since they modded some AI code. I always wondered how on the default skill setting the AI always managed to build WAAAAAAAAAAY more ships than me much faster than they should have been able to, but the lowest skill setting was also far too easy and I'd steamroll the AI.
Everything else appears non consequential since I don't play multiplayer and I never build siege cruisers since they only attack buildings (too limited a role).
Well, at least the mod isn't dead so that's good!
Armada 3 was a masterpiece, so I know this will be good when more is released.