I hope you enjoyed Aprils Festivities and managed to collect all the items, trade them in for one competition or hand in or the other. There are still a few players who have not claimed their winnings from both of the following competitions, check them out and if it's you - drop me a line in game or on discord.
Promenade Easter Egg Hunt
Easter Basket Collection
May has kept me really busy at the code face, and I thought I'd list a few of the updates and additions so far this month.
Sunflower Starways
We created a new Haulage Company in honour of the late Sunflowers. I think she would have got a kick out of this one. The new Haulage company can only be hosted on Player Starbases, so those with a SB or if you're in a Guild with one now's the time to investigate this one. The Sunflowers Offices offer Haulage contracts with no limit on distance, so a good earner for SB owners and players alike.
Check out the Full Post
Cyberdeck makes a Comeback!
I've been running anew 'Make a Suggestion Thread' over on the community forums. One such suggestion caught my eye and I had a thought to kill two birds with one electronic stone, so to speak. Back in July 22 we shuttered the old 'CyberDeck' system from CE. It used to allow filtering of missions, but as this was superseded, the Cyberdeck became somewhat mute. I promised to bring it back but waited for a good suggestion that fit the bill...
Well, such a suggestion created by Fitzbacon, and now we have an active new use for the Cyberdeck.
Check out the Full Post
Civilian Large Docking Bay
Another one for the Starbases, this one is a Civilian Large Docking Bay. Over time starbases will be able to add Six Docking bays to their Starbases and each one will open up a section of the base or inversely be a requirement for a service.
Check out the Full Post
Another Suggestion - Complete
As per the title, I decided to plunge ahead and turn another suggestion in to a reality today. This one relates to Settlements.
Should you own a Settlement you can now add a Bio for it, perhaps you want to welcome visitors to your settlement, inform them of your special offers or perhaps ask them to let you know what next great and wondrous Offices or Promenade store they would like. Either way, the Settlement Bio can now be created and edited from the Settlement Overview > Settlement Settings Page.
Check out the Full Post
Starbase Research Begins
Those of you with Starbases can now begin to accumulate the resources needed to craft them. All three current Starbase Research Buildings have been added as Schematics and also placed in the store for those wishing to support.
The buildings are as follows :
Starbase Research - Juno
Starbase Research - Ceres
Starbase Research - Minerva
For Schematics, you should find most of what you need at Wallexx Starbase Creations. Don't expect them to be cheap to build. But then again you own a starbase, nothing is cheap when it has the word 'StarBase' in front of it's name
Check out the Full Post
Suggest Something New...
Perhaps you have been harbouring a great idea you'd like to see added to the game, perhaps you want to rehash an old one or simply think something needs a change / overhaul. The current Suggestions thread is where to add it... what you got to lose. Whilst you're there, check out the others current suggestions. I'm keeping a close eye on the thread making notes and for those I think have merit moving them to my blackboard, or for the longer projects the whiteboard.
Check out the Full Post
Battleships / Exploration
I'm still on the case with the creation of battleships. We are down to the final building (for Starbases) for the 'final crafting' of Battleships, and I will get that out shortly. Meanwhile, I have been considering opening up the 'Exploration' element of Battleships before completing the 'Return To the Core'.
Creating a new Galaxy, new offices loots and processes is a VERY large task, so instead of making you wait for it, I figured we could allow you access to your battleships and release the Exploration element of their many uses.
A few of the suggestions in the thread mentioned above revolved around adding more content or new locations. Well, this is what Battleship Exploration is based on. These larger ships all have a standard Jump Drive (for use in the Jump Drive Networks) but are also fitted with a Hyperflight Drive. This enables them to choose a destination outside the network and jump to it. Of course, you're limited by the amount of Fuel you have for this Hyperflight Drive, but essentially you can then (if you choose) start to explore in any direction you choose.
You might simply find empty space, or a Pirate Base, or perhaps a research Station or a long-lost colony. Perhaps you JUST MIGHT locate a planet or Asteroid field. There have even been rumours of long-lost Jump Gates waiting to be reactivated.
This method will be used in the 'Return To the Core' to open up and discover the Core systems, but I figured why not let you use it early on here in the Sphere, and it's neighbouring Galaxies.
Hopefully Settlement owners to note of the Heavy Fuel Refinery post back in March and have been using the aforementioned building to begin making Quadrinium Heavy Fuel Pellets for the new Battleship Jump Drives.
OK, to wrap up...
You will have found it hard to fail to notice that some of the additions of late have been heavy on the CE Store Front. We have 812 items over there in store. I make no apologies for having the store, it's how we pay for the services, Servers and keep the lights on and me at my desk coding (when I'm not feeding or changing Harper)
I try to balance as best I can the game economy and players wants and needs, versus the requirement to financially keep CE a stable entity. So when players come to mew and say 'I can't find anything new to buy in the store' to support, I will rise to meet that challenge. I don't drive a flashy car or own a villa in Spain or even go on holidays any more - I work to keep CE afloat and alive, moving always forward. So YES you will see more store items, and for the most part I try to balance that with in game Schematics or VIP alternative methods to obtain them. The latest Research buildings for Starbases is an Example of that.
But the bottom line is CE needs support to keep me full time at the keyboard developing. When I'm here 6 days a week, things move much faster (as seen this last few weeks). So if you have funds to help Support us, please pop on over to the CE Store. Your support means so much these days, so thank you to those already supporting and those of you thinking about it.
Why not check out this month's Special Offers and Mays rewards on CE Official Sales - May Post.
Have a great May and hopefully i;ll get to chat with you in Discord at some stage!
Coops