SPM v. 0.7.17 is now available

[Nacho84]

Hello all,

The latest update for SPM is now available! Please download it directly from the Matrix FTP at ftp://beta.matrixgames.com . When prompted, please specify the following username and password: SPMBetaTester/SpmBeta1114. I strongly recommend you to download the file using filezilla.

Inside the FTP you will find an installer file named SPM-Windows-Slitherine-0-7-17.exe, just download it and run it. Notice that you need to have your installation updated to SPM v. 0.7.15.1 (or newer) first in order for it to work properly, so please make sure you update your installation to that version first.

This update features both new gameplay mechanics and content, such as the new NASA and Soviet space agency sandbox modes (each one with its own unique space complex!), lots of balancing and tweaking to the game scripts and database, new robotic soviet programs (Korabl-Sputnik 2, Mars M69 and Luna 3), support for any 16:9 resolution, new badges and much, much more! Make sure you check the full changelog here to get a complete overview of the new version.

Notice that the savefiles from 0.7.16 are no longer valid for 0.7.17 because of all the new information that is now required to run the game, so you will need to start a new game from scratch.

Looking forward to hear your feedback!

Cheers,

[Sabratha]

Great news! I'll download it as soon as I'm back home at my PC.
Great job guys, way to go. I always can count on you guys to make my day brighter. This is one of the few games that is not only enjoyable to play, but also enjoyable to just watch it grow and develop.

[Furrygopher]

So while the download is going (understandably) slowly I ought to ask confirmation, if you already had 0.7.16 do you need to downgrade to 0.7.15.1 then run the download on that one?

[Nacho84]

So while the download is going (understandably) slowly I ought to ask confirmation, if you already had 0.7.16 do you need to downgrade to 0.7.15.1 then run the download on that one?

No, no, if you have 0.7.16 you will be fine

Let me edit my original post to make that even clearer.

Cheers,

[Nacho84]

Great news! I'll download it as soon as I'm back home at my PC.
Great job guys, way to go. I always can count on you guys to make my day brighter. This is one of the few games that is not only enjoyable to play, but also enjoyable to just watch it grow and develop.

Thanks Sabratha, looking forward to your feedback!

Cheers,

[Sergeiev]

Great update. I haven't got much time to play but i have a few observations about the soviet side :

- It is kind of weird to see the "$" symbol. After all, wasn't it what the soviet were fighting against ? That dollar sign is the symbol of imperialism.
Maybe you should change that symbol.

- The overall blueish tint of the UI is great for the GSA or the NASA but not for the USSR. There should be a difference beween sides. Blue for the GSA/NASA and a more reddish (i suppose) tint for the other side. I think there should be a difference in the UI depending on the side you play. Also some images are very USA oriented and they don't look right when one plays the USSR.

- Last but not least : names ! The persons you hire should have slavic names.

What's your take on these observations ?

[Sabratha]

Ok, ftp worked, but it took many attempts. Probably the site is overloaded.

[Xiaomaoxin]

Well maybe not necessarily red for the soviets but maybe you can try to get close to the russian aircraft cockpit interior green and blue tones.

[Sergeiev]

Well maybe not necessarily red for the soviets but maybe you can try to get close to the russian aircraft cockpit interior green and blue tones.

Of course it does not have to be red. But IMHO there should be a different colour for each side.

[Sergeiev]

I played with sound on tonight... We need countdowns voices in russian too.

Other than that i had lots of fun. I launched Sputnik at Q3 1957 and at every steps there was a problem but it got solved everytime and the mission was a success ! Then i launched the PKA... Everything went fine... Until landing... The space plane crashed and my first cosmonaut died. Of course the Pravda will deny that.

[N_Molson]

- It is kind of weird to see the "$" symbol. After all, wasn't it what the soviet were fighting against ? That dollar sign is the symbol of imperialism.
Maybe you should change that symbol.

Well, I agree. Until recently, the Ruble symbol was "P" (cyrillic "R").

- The overall blueish tint of the UI is great for the GSA or the NASA but not for the USSR. There should be a difference beween sides. Blue for the GSA/NASA and a more reddish (i suppose) tint for the other side. I think there should be a difference in the UI depending on the side you play. Also some images are very USA oriented and they don't look right when one plays the USSR.

I also agree.

- Last but not least : names ! The persons you hire should have slavic names.

I agree again. However, the names used will be the ones of those who bought the Apollo tier.

[Sergeiev]

I agree again. However, the names used will be the ones of those who bought the Apollo tier.

Not just in the GSA ? That's a BIG issue then.
Couldn't their names be "slavified' (yes it's a new word) for the soviet campaign only ?
Come on, you can't seriously have John Doe as a cosmonaut during the cold war.

[Nacho84]

I agree again. However, the names used will be the ones of those who bought the Apollo tier.

Not just in the GSA ? That's a BIG issue then.
Couldn't their names be "slavified' (yes it's a new word) for the soviet campaign only ?
Come on, you can't seriously have John Doe as a cosmonaut during the cold war.

Yes, I see your point. Luckily I'm packing my bags for a wargaming event that will be held in Italy this week, so I'll have a chat with the Marketing Team and see what we can do about this.

Cheers,

[Sabratha]

I agree again. However, the names used will be the ones of those who bought the Apollo tier.

Not just in the GSA ? That's a BIG issue then.
Couldn't their names be "slavified' (yes it's a new word) for the soviet campaign only ?
Come on, you can't seriously have John Doe as a cosmonaut during the cold war.

Yes, I see your point. Luckily I'm packing my bags for a wargaming event that will be held in Italy this week, so I'll have a chat with the Marketing Team and see what we can do about this.

Cheers,

Yeah I understand the predicament. Still, I think as far as the US and Soviet campaigns are concerned, it would be nicer if these were random american and russian surnames. Seeing Chinese, Japanese or African surnames in a historical campaign in the 60s is just odd.

Also want to apologize for misreading - its KS2 not sputnik 2. You have stated it corrctly and it was me that did not read it properly.

[Sergeiev]

I agree again. However, the names used will be the ones of those who bought the Apollo tier.

Not just in the GSA ? That's a BIG issue then.
Couldn't their names be "slavified' (yes it's a new word) for the soviet campaign only ?
Come on, you can't seriously have John Doe as a cosmonaut during the cold war.

Yes, I see your point. Luckily I'm packing my bags for a wargaming event that will be held in Italy this week, so I'll have a chat with the Marketing Team and see what we can do about this.

Cheers,

Thank you Ignacio. Now let's just hope the marketing team will understand it as well. Fingers crossed.

You have nothing to say about my other observations ? Ruble symbol ? UI tints changes ? Countdown voices in russian for soviet missions ?

[Nacho84]

You have nothing to say about my other observations ? Ruble symbol ? UI tints changes ? Countdown voices in russian for soviet missions ?

Yes, sorry about that! I'm doing the final preparations for the Home of the Wargamers event, so things are a bit hectic here.

Fine about the ruble symbol, we'll change it.

Regarding the tint: the UI artist made a test with a red tint and it didn't look very good. The problem is that many UI elements (program categories thumbnails, technical diagrams, etc) have this blue tint associated to it, so making the rest red-ish doesn't look that good in practice. We'll see if we can find another solution.

A member of the community is helping us by clipping Soviet chatter, which will eventually be included in the animations. We'll probably release a patch of the animations without any sound and then add the sound at a later stage.

Cheers,

[Xiaomaoxin]

Like I said take a look at russian aircraft flight decks. the colour might go well ^^

[Sergeiev]

Thank you Ignacio.

Yes red might not be the right colour. It just would have been nice to differentiate both sides.

I noticed a picture where you see a pilot stepping off it's aircraft with a big UNITED STATES AIR FORCE on it. Might not be good on Yuri's side.
I'll try to find it again and i'll post a screenshot.

Edit : That one.

[Sabratha]

Thank you Ignacio.

Yes red might not be the right colour. It just would have been nice to differentiate both sides.

I noticed a picture where you see a pilot stepping off it's aircraft with a big UNITED STATES AIR FORCE on it. Might not be good on Yuri's side.
I'll try to find it again and i'll post a screenshot.

Edit : That one.

Yeah I seen that one too. I imagine there are few more such instances where flavor images or text will need to be slightly different for both sides, but I am pretty sure these can be polished up later once we have all the actual missions, events and programs operational and bug-free.

I remember for example a random event that makes one of your employees retire "to seek a lucrative contract in a private company". For the soviet campaign, I think the flavor text should be changed to something more plausible like: "Employee was transfered to work on a classified military ICBM project".

[Nacho84]

Hello guys,

I pointed this thread to Boris, the UI artist. He will do some UI tests in the next few days. He'll give it a go to the olive green idea as well.

Don't worry about the images in the news screen and the text messages, we're planning to use different versions depending on the space agency. We're focusing on gameplay now, all the little details will be taken care of once we have all the features in.

Cheers,