What's up this week?

It's awesome to see how smoothly and quickly things seem to be going along! Thanks for the update!

Neutrino, I'm very impressed how all of this going so fast. I know that all the team is made of veteran coders, but i can't imagine you've started everything from scratch when kickstarter completed successfully.

Even if with SMNC you allready have lots of stuff working, I guess you must have worked on POC before and starting studying in the different areas required for such a game, true ?

It's really amazing to see how you can smoothly and quickly switch between different areas.

Do you have specific methods to move forward when coding ? Scrum addict ?

In any case i want to thank you for sharing on a regular basis how the team is moving forward. It's basically something which i've never seen before and it's much appreciated.

Im assuming that they are keeping the planning to a minimum and that it saves aloot of time this early in the code (but it might cause delays and problems later unless they realy know what they are doing, but i think they do). Offcourse not having a developer breathing down their neck also helps.

The reason for the assumption is the fact that they dont have every feature planned out in advance (For example the moon carriers) but instead let's us the community play a active part in the development (For now mainly by input at the forums that they read).

(Btw, as i have said this is a assumption, i might be way off. But from my limited experience its normal to try to plan out every part of a program before making it, even if its unlikely that the finished product will be as planned at early stages.)

We actually are doing a lot of research and development which is form of planning. The features that we are developing now are more the framework around which the rest of the game is built so we don't have to figure out every detail of what each piece of code looks like. Also remember that we've built some of these games before so we can draw on that experience to know where the oddball nooks and crannies are in our problem space. Of course we are making the problem space bigger here as well

The actual formulation we are using the terrain, the replication and the sim are all different from previous games but based on our experience. We have plausible fallsbacks for anything that's too wacky.

is there any concept art being worked on at this stage?

I must admit it does appear from the outside to be going very smoothly. I'm sure your cumulative experience contributes to this a great deal, but I suspect that things are rarely as they appear. I am sure you guys are working really long hours and there is plenty of head scratching going on!

That said, I think because you guys are so excited about making this game - probably more so than the community is about playing it - we have a unique situation on our hands where the long hours and brain-melting problems are easily overcome by enthusiasm and coffee.

That's what really makes me excited about the game: We have a great community who have made a lot of input into the forums and have unwaveringly supported you guys from the very beginning. And of course, your team is made up of veteran game developers who made games that have occupied me and many others for over a decade. This game is going to be really special.

Very nice to hear. Can't wait for whats in store (Development process).

Something good just happened.

Aah, so Bill Gates is funding you now? Great to hear!

Who did you hire now?

Fulfillment site is now bug free, and Emails are going out in force?

I saw Neutrino's post and remained patient. Now that Sorian is excited as well I am itching to at least know when we are going to know what happened hahaha

They got the first commander walking around on a fully 3d planetary surface! Yeahhh!! Largest planet size confirmed to be hundreds of square kilometers in size! Wooo!!!
</wild guessing>

Do spoil us please!!! :shock:

Oh you tease

What is it? What is it?

Oh come on! hahaha when do we get in on the news : P

Accidentally spun off nuclear fusion, a cure for cancer, and the secret for eternal youth from an unusually good brainstorming session?

Actually you guys are on a roll I wouldn't be altogether surprised.