The first early-alpha round closes on 28 June at 18:00 CEST. Thank you to everyone who is stress-testing the foundation, filing Command relay reports, and sharing honest debrief answers. When the next cohort opens - planned for roughly mid-July, about two weeks after this round ends - I will reset the universe: commanders, colonies, and world achievements from this galaxy will be wiped. User-scoped account achievements - medals tied to your login, not a single commander - will carry over, including Early Alpha Tester if you join this round.
Blueprint mission execution is live
The automation pass I previewed on 25 June is no longer on a feature branch. It is deployed in production and wired through background workers:
- Colony blueprint missions - pick a ship schematic on the command board; the planner sequences factory builds, launchpad batches, and optional orbital assembly instead of clicking every hop by hand.
- Parallel steps where dependencies allow - multiple component builds or launch queues can run when slots and stock keep up.
- Mission overview with step status, wait hints when materials are short, and recovery when the sim catches up after a race.
- Auto-assemble when components reach orbit and a ship factory slot is ready - the pipeline can finish the hull without you babysitting every transfer.
What I am targeting next
Iteration two is about making the foundation fairer and wider - not stripping depth. Early signals from round one and the debrief survey point here:
- Refinement balancing review - likely slowing refinement pacing in the next round so compound ladders feel less like a sprint.
- Headquarter pricing aligned to slot unlocks - HQ upgrades should match the value of each new surface ring, not feel detached from grid expansion.
- Power and energy pass - nuclear power Frurozin consumption and stronger fusion benefits are on the review list; colonies should feel the trade-off between fuel and output.
- Introduction of actual planet limitations - not every world can host every building class forever; expect real constraints on what you can stack on a given body.
- Better low/high variety and more planet-class diversity - barren versus rich should read differently in deposits, caps, and first-hour decisions.
- First elements of system occupation and planet colonisation in the next alpha - scouts and fleets stop being tourists. This will be a lot of fun.
UI, flows, and honest pacing
I will tackle a few UI and UX pain points before the next alpha - mobile passes, clearer colony ops, the themes you raised in debrief - but polish is still not the main priority. Expect iteration two to feel micromanaging at first. Blueprint missions help; they do not remove the rabbit hole.
The order of battle is deliberate: stand up the full feature set first, then optimise flows and interaction once the loops are real. I fix the biggest pain points as I go, but I will not pretend early alpha is the final UX pass.
Debrief and the next cohort
If you have not finished the in-game debrief on the select-player screen, your signal still helps before I lock the summary for iteration two. Invitations for the next alpha will go out when the universe reset is ready and these systems are worth breaking again.
Thank you for breaking things loudly in round one. The resurrection is farther along because you did.
Sebastian "Degola" Lagemann