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Ashes of the Singularity: August update

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Ashes of the Singularity: August update

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

The goal: Create the biggest scale real-time strategy game ever

imageAshes of the Singularity is a real-time strategy game set in the not-so-distant future where a single person can control thousands of constructs (the distant descendants of today’s drones) in order to conquer an entire world. 

The world is broken up into regions with each region containing various resources that players capture and can then build up defenses, exploit the resources within and use as a staging area to conquer more of the world.

Little tiny ants

On the one hand, we want players to get a sense of the epic scale of these maps and see vast armies battling it out without turning them all into icons.  On the other hand, we want players to be engaged with the world so we’ve resisted getting too abstract with how we display everything.  Every unit in Ashes is unique with a specific role whose differences can be subtle. Hence, if we got too abstract, it becomes impossible to recognize the interplay between different unit mixes. One of the strengths of using Oxide’s Nitrous engine is that we can zoom way way out without hiding or abstracting units.  The downside is, of course, you zoom out enough and everything looks like “little tiny ants”

 

 

Hardware requirements

PHC_Indirect_LayerssThe other big challenge has been hardware requirements: Ashes of the Singularity v1.0 requires a video card with 2GB of video memory and a 4-core CPU with a display of 1920x1080 and 4GB of video memory.

According to the Steam hardware survey these requirements have consequences for us.

  1. The 4-core CPU requirement costs us 51% of the Steam user base right off the bat.
  2. The 2GB video memory eliminates 59% of the user base
  3. And the display resolution cuts out 53% of the user base.

It is safe to say that at least 70% of the Steam user base cannot currently run Ashes of the Singularity due to low hardware requirements.    Despite that, during the month of July Ashes of the Singularity past the 100,000 units sold mark.

We knew, long ago, that our hardware requirements would ensure that Ashes was a niche title on release.  It’s done substantially better than projected (in fact, it has done far better than it has any business doing given the hardware requirements and the genre). 

To put it in perspective, Ashes sales are at the top of the RTS charts for new 2016 releases despite not having a well known IP and costing $39.99.

Still, a goal of ours is to reduce the hardware requirements. That’s where version 1.3 comes in.

Version 1.3

image

On August 4 Ashes 1.3 was released and we are on the edge of being able to reduce the hardware requirements to  1GB of memory and a 2-core CPU.  We’re not there yet but we’re getting pretty close.  The one area we really need to work on is the minimum display resolution which is tricky given how generous we were in our UI design (generous to ourselves that is).

Some highlights of 1.3 include:

  • New unit physics system so that units can now turn on a dime and are exceptionally responsive.
  • New army organization system that breaks armies into companies if they are split up so that they don’t always have to be together in a single giant group
  • Updated pathfinding so that units don’t glomb up on each other
  • Updated UI across the board
  • 5 new (free) maps
  • Map ping for multiplayer
  • Various bug fixes and balance updates

It’s a pretty meaty update, particularly under the hood.  Someone who bought Ashes of the Singularity in May who hasn’t played it since and downloaded version 1.3 would discover that Ashes is a lot faster, a lot smarter, a lot prettier and has a much better campaign.  Too late for reviews but important for rewarding early adopters and fans.

 

Multiplayer: Season 2 begins

Season 1 is over and the winners are:

image

 

The ranked multiplayer in Ashes is similar to that of Hearthstone which probably isn’t surprising since it was designed by Adrian Luff who joined us after having been an architect of Battle.net for twenty years. Of the top 10 players, 6 players were Substrate and 4 were PHC. 

You can explore the Metaverse by going here: https://www.ashesofthesingularity.com/metaverse. This site also includes the DirectX 11/12 hardware performance results.

 

 

Single Player: What’s coming

Engineer_Web_LayersDespite Ashes having a pretty lively multiplayer community, over 95% of the player base only plays single player.  As in, they have never attempted to play multiplayer.  This is important for fans to understand because we often see people wanting us to spend more time on multiplayer features (something we tend to want to do because we play multiplayer). 

So often we have to make tough decisions on whether to put engineering time into features to help multiplayer or engineering time to support modding (we think a lot of people would love to make their own units or just share scenarios and maps with one another via Steamworks). 

For that reason, modding and sharing mods will make up a lot of our upcoming engineering time.  We want people to be able to make maps, units, scenarios, UI changes, buildings, terrain, etc. and share it easily withy one another.

 

 

Expansion News

PHC_Battery_Web_LayersThe first expansion for Ashes of the Singularity will be coming out this Fall.  It will be a stand-alone expansion (i.e. you won’t need to buy the base game).  This is the same thing we did with Sins of a Solar Empire and Fallen Enchantress and it worked well.  A new player would just buy the expandalone and get the base game and the expansion integrated.  DLC from the base game will migrate to the expansion (i.e. players won’t have to buy it again).

We also plan to allow people with the base game and the expansion (despite being different products) to be able to play together in multiplayer.  We don’t want to split the community and it gives us an opportunity, over time, to make the base game of Ashes of the Singularity a good introduction.

We’ll be announcing the expansion soon but in the meantime, here are some general details:

  • Will have three episodes (one of which is Imminent Crisis from the base game)
  • Lots of new defense buildings
  • New global abilities
  • Bigger map size
  • More players per map
  • Roughly a dozen new units
  • Game setup options
  • New types of worlds
  • Global view (similar to Strategic Zoom in GalCiv, SupCom, Sins)

There are a ton of other features as well but those features will be added to the base game as well for free.

The base price for the expandalone will be $39.99.  For a limited time, the upgrade price for existing players will be $14.99.

 

More soon!

200,816 views 49 replies
Reply #26 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Thank you Frogboy for the update. really nice stuff

love the dedication that you are giving to the modding community, i do love making maps for AOTS, it will be nice to have a place where we can put them in.

I wanted to see a more alive world maps in AOTS, (buildings, rivers, biggers trees, bigger mountains, water! better animation when you move through water, building destruction, better unit explosions, T3 leaving a big hole on the map, etc...)

Will that be because of Engine problem, hardware problem, or you just don't have the Manpower to get engineering time into features like that.

I guess we will not see that coming in the first expansion..:(

I long time ago i said my reasons why i don't play MP games, because 1v1 games are not my thing, and custom games are very hard to get in

but i will love to be able to get in a big MP game 3v3 or more players, FFA? anyone? that will be fun.

Have you guys tried in-house to do Coop Scenario maps? that will be another really fun way to play the game.

So i will try to play a few MP 1v1 ranked games just for a small change, but i will wait for the big 4X MP map games and the Coop scenario games.

Hope to see them coming soon into AOTS.

you guys have done Great Job so far with the game, cheers to that.

 

1 last question: how can you play MP games with players who don't have the first expansion? I mean first expansion is getting dozens of new units right?

will players be able to use those new units in MP if the did not buy the game? or it will be locked to both players 1 with expansion and 1 without.

 

Thanks in Advance.

 

Reply #27 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

2. I don't think any or at least many of us are that miffed about replays not being in on release....the fact that their inclusion keeps getting pushed back on the other hand is borderline egregious. I mean come on, just say it. I almost admire how willing you are to tell your community they are wrong, but on this matter, I think it'should clear you guys dropped the ball. Wouldn't be so bad if you just kinda said it....

Dropped the ball in what way?  Seeing that multiplayer is not a major driver of our sales and thus focusing engineering hours on the areas of the game that people are using that also benefits MP first is not dropping the ball.

Replays are still coming.  But we had to make the engineering choice between supporting more players on a given map or replays.

This Spring, we were pretty clear that we thought 6 players was more than enough.  The community, by contrast, strongly disagreed.  We then looked at how people were playing the game and sure enough, most people play the game with the max number of players on a given map (single player).


4. Making this games into Sins on land is a terrible idea that drains all the enthusiasm I ever had for this game. After all the angry comments that you guys weren't making Forged Alliance 2, you appear to be making a backdoor, copy and pasted sequel to a game that is, in my subjective experience, way more lame and way less deserving of a sequel. Diplomacy options in a game like this will relegate it to sperglords who want to play a 20 hr hyper bland logistics game. No thanks.

Whether the game will get diplomacy options or not will depend on what the community, as a whole, wants.  

We aren't making a Forged Alliance 2.  Ashes of the Singularity has been routinely described as "Sins on land". And Sins has a lot more people playing it than SupCom does. 

To ask the question again, more directly: why are the blatant problems with the game being put on hold to address a non-problem/something that on the face of, really doesn't sound that great?

What "blatant problems"?  If you think not having a replay feature is some major issue then you should probably find some other game to play. Replays are certainly nice to have. I want them.  But it's not remotely a close call to choose between letting more people / AI play on a given map and being able to watch replays.


Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #28 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I wanted to see a more alive world maps in AOTS, (buildings, rivers, biggers trees, bigger mountains, water! better animation when you move through water, building destruction, better unit explosions, T3 leaving a big hole on the map, etc...)

This is all coming.  You've already started to see us being able to do some under-the cover things with the terrain system in these updates (perf based).  The terrain is deformable and that's the key feature that just needs art and engineering time to take it to the next level.

The expansion will add two new world types (base game has Desert, Terran, and Ice). 

Part of the switch-over you see is Stardock taking over the development of Ashes (Escalation) whereas Oxide made the base game (Oxide is working on something new and exciting).  Hence, Escalation will tend to have a bigger focus on the art side of things than the base game did along with more UI and playability features.  Oxide built an engine with tremendous power. Now Stardock will begin to exploit it.

1 last question: how can you play MP games with players who don't have the first expansion? I mean first expansion is getting dozens of new units right?

will players be able to use those new units in MP if the did not buy the game? or it will be locked to both players 1 with expansion and 1 without.

The plan had been that if you play with someone who doesn't have those units that the units just aren't in that game (it would play like base Ashes).  But the community consensus seems to be moving towards just splitting it with most active MP players moving to the expansion.

We're still deciding on that.

 

 

So for example, (this is just a very rough dev screenshot), the global zoom will work similar to what we did with Sins and GalCiv where you zoom out and the map becomes a strategic abstraction where you can see units and such clearly and interact with it.  Obviously, in multiplayer, this would be a huge advantage which is another factor we have to take into account.

Reply #29 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 24

Throw in a future diplomacy feature or two and you could get some really interesting stuff going.

 

Wait.. this is RTS right?

Strategy. Tactics. Armies go boom.

I don't want to make peace, and don't want to trade.

When did this become Galciv?!

 

Quoting Frogboy, reply 24

anyone suggesting that we should have diverted resources away from a higher player count to replays is not going to gain credibility here.

 

Is not about providing sound/credible business advice in this case. Purely selfish motivation. Sorry. :) 

Replay is key to MP.

 

 (Nothing personal to the single player folks. I actually spent a good deal of time in single player the other night).

 

But MP is just so good. 

Reply #30 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Ticktoc, reply 18


Quoting RomeoReject,
reply 17

I'll have to ask what is is he's got for settings then. As it is, I have absolutely no MSAA/FXAA, and most settings between medium and high. I might see 40FPS at the start of a match, or zoomed very far in, but once I've got a decent size going it'll slow to under 30FPS. Only other thing I could think of would be if he's running DX12 (I'm not).



Last week he upgraded to 4k and a Fury and his wife got the 7970'OC so I can't tell you that easily now. His framerate highs didn't go up with dx12 but his lows did improve. What do you get on High pre-set benchmark? You can compare yours to those others with the same card through the metaverse tab above.



Quoting RomeoReject,
reply 17
Right, but like the fellow said, the optimization has a trickle-up effect. Sure, 2GB cards are quite weak by today's standards, and I expect the game won't exactly look or perform amazing for those individuals. However, is also means the previous bare-minimum is no longer bare minimum. It means the guy who had mid-range hardware now has fairly good cards, and the guys who had top-end cards might be able to squeeze some more frames, or better effects out of them. It is universally a positive, bottom to top.



The dev either wrote his reply while I was writing mine, or I hadn't refreshed recently enough so I didn't see it until I'd posted mine (making mine largely irrelevant I admit). After reading the devs response I actually feel my speculation about it having a knock on effect up the chain was about right, so I certainly don't disagree with you, though its nice to see the angle the devs tackled the issue from and that, as you say, everyone benefits.

 

(generally speaking the bigger the MP community the more...toxic types you get. Currently Ashes is pretty small, which certainly has its cons, but it does seem to fit the pattern and the community is in some ways better off for it)

Lucky guy! I'll have to check when I get home, but I believe Shadows and Units are the two set to high, with everything else set to medium.

Yep, I'm hoping that'll help the RX480 down the line, as I'm hoping to nab one of those when the custom coolers come out, and when I can afford to.

That's true, smaller communities do tend to be more cooperative than larger ones. I remember Endless Space was mostly nice people, but Civilization is full of demanding fools. =P

Quoting Ticktoc, reply 20


Quoting RomeoReject,
reply 17
 I have a pair of massively overclocked R9 280Xs (1300core/1850mem) yet the game rarely hits 30FPS with any kind of settings at 1080p......I might see 40FPS at the start of a match, or zoomed very far in, but once I've got a decent size going it'll slow to under 30FPS. Only other thing I could think of would be if he's running DX12 (I'm not).



Btw, as a heads up, the game doesn't support dx11 CF. It only officially supports 2 GPUs under DX12 mGPU support. It is quite possible that if you are trying to run the game using both cards under DX11 you are in fact hurting performance. If you aren't already it might be worth disabling one card and see how performance fairs when using just a single card.


Yes, I know it doesn't (Which is weird, because you think AMD would be all over it, showing off how well their cards do for it). I have noticed if I manually force to use one of the crossfire options (I believe its name is Optimize 1X1) it increases performance quite appreciably, but causes graphically oddities now and then (Flickering buildings, excessive light generation, etc). Single card will often start at 30FPS or so and fall from there. Dual cards usually gets me up higher to start, before eventually falling to 30FPS or so.

Definitely hoping for a Vulkan release at some point in the future though, as I've been reading some people have been getting serious boosts from the mGPU option.

Quoting Frogboy, reply 24

Lots of people like to play single player games with lots of opponents.  I myself have really enjoyed 12+ single player games.   Throw in a future diplomacy feature or two and you could get some really interesting stuff going.

One of my favourite ways to play! Stack the computers against you and see if you can survive.

Reply #31 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 28

The plan had been that if you play with someone who doesn't have those units that the units just aren't in that game (it would play like base Ashes). But the community consensus seems to be moving towards just splitting it with most active MP players moving to the expansion.

We're still deciding on that.

 

keep your plan :)

Splitting the MP community won't be a good idea.

Reply #32 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting ASADDF, reply 31


keep your plan :)

Splitting the MP community won't be a good idea.

I'm not sure how base Ashes players will feel playign expansion players who have what amounts to strategic zoom.

Reply #33 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 32


Quoting ASADDF,
reply 31




keep your plan :)

Splitting the MP community won't be a good idea.



I'm not sure how base Ashes players will feel playign expansion players who have what amounts to strategic zoom.

They don't like it, they can buy the damn expansion. lol

Reply #34 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

dev screenshot of the day:

 

Reply #35 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Frogboy can you tell me what are plans for the for the multiplayer in the future? In german magazines they all called the game a multiplayer game and I see this in other magazines as well and this is in fact the case why I bought the game. I played the campaign but I can not really call buying the game for a single player game experience a reason (my experience was even more disturbed through the bad german translation). Yesterday I tried to play multiplayer games but I get I think 3/4 AI and 1/4 human players. This was really disappointing and I stoped playing.

Do you have plans for changing this? I am concerned about the last posts I read that you will focus more singleplayer? In my opinion you cannot have a success like blizzard with their sc2 if you do not push multiplayer. I would never buy the game now if you would manly focus singleplayer. Hopefully you understand my limited English and you can give me a feedback.

 

Reply #36 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting DasUnding, reply 35

I am concerned about the last posts I read that you will focus more singleplayer? ... I would never buy the game now if I would only focus singleplayer.

I've been very worried about same, and I have a suggestion.

Check out my posts (original and a couple of followups) at this thread:

https://forums.ashesofthesingularity.com/479045/page/1/#3646230

Reply #38 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting fantstc1, reply 36


Quoting DasUnding,
reply 35

I am concerned about the last posts I read that you will focus more singleplayer? ... I would never buy the game now if I would only focus singleplayer.



I've been very worried about same, and I have a suggestion.

Check out my posts (original and a couple of followups) at this thread:

https://forums.ashesofthesingularity.com/479045/page/1/#3646230

 

I think charging for MP would greatly reduce the MP count.  We're actually more inclined to create a MP-only free build to populate the multiplayer servers than go the other way around.

Reply #39 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting DasUnding, reply 35

Frogboy can you tell me what are plans for the for the multiplayer in the future? In german magazines they all called the game a multiplayer game and I see this in other magazines as well and this is in fact the case why I bought the game. I played the campaign but I can not really call this a reason for buying the game for a single player game experience (my experience was even more disturbed through the bad german translation). Yesterday I tried to play multiplayer games but I get I think 3/4 AI and 1/4 human players. This was really disappointing and I stoped playing.

Do you have plans for changing this? I am concerned about the last posts I read that you will focus more singleplayer? In my opinion you cannot have a success like blizzard with their sc2 if you do not push multiplayer. I would never buy the game now if I would only focus singleplayer. Hopefully you understand my limited English and you can give me a feedback.

 

More features are constantly being added that help multiplayer.  Support for more players for instance.  Replays are coming.  And we are considering making a version of the expansion that is multi-player only that costs less to encourage more players.

Reply #40 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Another question for the devs, are we getting another update this month that adds the New Defense building: PHC Long-range Artillery?

Reply #41 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Hello Frogboy,

please fix the bug of the game.... dont work on new things!!! just fix the  bugs its like a early access and your are working on a expansion... i cant understand this...

 

-fix the punisher and dominator its crazy with klicking on stop you can easy kill a nexus with 2-3 punisher 

-fix all ait units movement.....

-fix the map which are in the map pool... it cant be that you have a ladder with imbalanced maps.... that is bad!!!!

-fix the balance how it is possible that you nerf the mauler but with 3 athena you can easy kill make a nexus rush... i wrote it be consequent on both sites!!!

- fix the shield upgrade bug... that like an beta bug... 

 

i have about 5 additional open tickets....

i like the game... but y should anybody buy a expansion, when the game is full of bugs over month as i said the game is like it is still in early access

Reply #42 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Th

Quoting Frogboy, reply 32

I'm not sure how base Ashes players will feel playign expansion players who have what amounts to strategic zoom.

This is getting complicated lol.

Seriously please think about using the Strategic zoom that you showed us in the Founders Forum and not this one.

thx.

Reply #43 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting bernhardvd22, reply 40

Another question for the devs, are we getting another update this month that adds the New Defense building: PHC Long-range Artillery?

I am not sure.  I don't think so though. We're all working on the big v1.5 update.

Reply #44 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting ASADDF, reply 42

Th

Quoting Frogboy,
reply 32

I'm not sure how base Ashes players will feel playign expansion players who have what amounts to strategic zoom.



This is getting complicated lol.

Seriously please think about using the Strategic zoom that you showed us in the Founders Forum and not this one.

thx.

What looks pretty in a screenshot isn't so great when playing.  Color is not always your friend. :)

Reply #45 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

No new race in expansion? 

That info on expansion looks promising i might go back to play ashes after it hits.

Soooo.... i know i will get kicked by every single person in this forum for this idea, but how about adding some sort of "pre game customisation". Like in sc2 in allied commander mode, you could choose a commander with various strategies and perks that impact the game. Can we get something like that for a purpose of strategical diversity? For example some minor "buffs" for our armies/economy/expand/defences etc depending on the "commander" or role picks. 

Reply #46 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Orachin, reply 45

No new race in expansion? 

That info on expansion looks promising i might go back to play ashes after it hits.

Soooo.... i know i will get kicked by every single person in this forum for this idea, but how about adding some sort of "pre game customisation". Like in sc2 in allied commander mode, you could choose a commander with various strategies and perks that impact the game. Can we get something like that for a purpose of strategical diversity? For example some minor "buffs" for our armies/economy/expand/defences etc depending on the "commander" or role picks. 

As much as I would love to see that, I'm not sure I'd love to see it in Ashes. The good news is Nordic has ten games they picked up from the THQ license coming, one of which seems very probable to be Supreme Commander. The bad news is Chris Taylor is currently with Wargaming.

Reply #47 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Hi

 

I have an issue when trying to run DX12.

I'm running the latest version on an MSI GS43VR 6RE (I7-6700HQ, GTX 1060). Windows 10 64-bit, Nvidia 372.70 drivers and the issue is that it gets stuck after I start it - just getting a blank screen with the AoS pointer

 

It runs well in DX11 mode

Reply #48 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Junky77, reply 47

Hi

 

I have an issue when trying to run DX12.

I'm running the latest version on an MSI GS43VR 6RE (I7-6700HQ, GTX 1060). Windows 10 64-bit, Nvidia 372.70 drivers and the issue is that it gets stuck after I start it - just getting a blank screen with the AoS pointer

 

It runs well in DX11 mode

Please contact support: https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit

 

Reply #49 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Island, reply 48

Please contact support: https://esupport.stardock.com/index.php?/Tickets/Submit

 

Epic. +1

 

Standing behind the product. :)

 

This is why I like SD.