Dev Diary #32: What's going on with the new release?

When will the Galactic Overhaul (v1.34) come out? What does it include? What's still to be done? And some personal news...

This has been the most complicated and lengthy development cycle in the history of Age of Legends. Why has it been such a big deal? What does it include?

• Every single faction has been affected.

• Every faction has new units.

• Every single space station in the game has been replaced, with each faction getting about a dozen new ortbital structures instead.

• A filter system has been added increasing the number of potential space units per faction to a whopping 120.

• The two largest major factions - the Galactic Empire and the New Republic - have been rebuilt entirely from the ground-up to take advantage of these new technical possibilities.

• The underlying mechanics for the very exciting new Imperial leadership system have been put in place, opening up a huge range of exciting possibilities for the future.

• And a whole new playable faction has been added in the Ylesian Republic, a kind of warlord state formed from treacherous New Republic forces and collaborators who fought for the Vong.

• The AI has been rebuilt to provide a deadly and dynamic opponent for players.

• Every single space unit has had its tooltip rewritten to provide quickly scannable information about its stats and functionality.

• That is to say nothing of the new Galactic Conquests, the audio overhaul, the customisable Star Destroyer loadouts, naval infantry built from space, nomadic factions, or the myriad other changes.

Ironically, none of this was originally slated for v1.34, which was due to focus on the Hutts and the new Kajidic system. (You can find out more about ALL of the Crime Lord factions here.) That will now be coming in v1.35, and I can’t wait to resume work on the Hutt Kajidics, Black Sun, and the other criminal underworld factions that will be coming to the mod.

But all of this has turned v1.34 into a seemingly ever-expanding project, as interlocking systems each had to be overhauled in turn. I wanted to implement the new space stations, but that meant adding new tooltips, and if I was doing that I needed to do them for space units too. And if I was overhauling things like the Vong’s Peace Brigade and Ylesian Republic space stations for this, why not also get the Ylesian Republic faction set-up in the way I actually want them to function? But to make that worthwhile, I should get the AI improved… and so on.

It grew. And grew. And grew.

I have been unpicking a vast tapestry: virtually every single XML document in the mod has been edited or entirely rewritten. Nothing has been left untouched in this development cycle: it’s not called the Galactic Overhaul for nothing.

Playing Age of Legends will be so much more fun when the new release comes out. I’m getting closer and closer to my vision for what the mod can be at its full potential: the complete Star Wars Expanded Universe simulator for the post-Endor period. That’s my mission statement.

But I also have a life, a family, and a job. And my family is about to get bigger, with a baby arriving next month. So I’ve had to go through the remaining items and start cutting off some of the non-essential remaining tasks in order to finally bring this development cycle to a close, get the Beta out, and then get the release finalised. I don’t want this dev cycle to go on forever; I’m only a one man team, and I don’t want players to be kept waiting unnecessarily.

So, what’s left to do?

I am currently converting the Galactic Conquests that currently use the Dark Empire and Imperial Remnant faction slots to use the new, unified, all-in-one Galactic Empire slot. This will mean Imperial play is integrated across all eras, with a vast array of units, leadership options, and continuity across the period. It will also make possible the kind of era-spanning 4-25 ABY type Galactic Conquests that I know you, the players, really want to see. (Don’t worry; the flavour of each of these distinctive eras will be preserved through the new regime/leadership system.)

After that’s done, I need to convert the Rise of Caedus-era Galactic Empire faction to the new v1.34 Galactic Overhaul standard, and add a new Galactic Alliance faction slot in Age of Legends; so that the GA don’t have to piggyback off the New Republic slot any longer.

Those are the last major items outstanding. Then there are about 25 miscellaneous bug fixes and optimisations to make.

I don’t want to give a date for when the beta will come out. As I said, family life is about to become more demanding, and my time will be much more in demand.

But this substack and the phenomenal support of our community has become part of my income, dramatically increasing the amount of time I can spend developing Age of Legends. I work on the mod literally every day. And I have so many plans both for Age of Legends and Rise of Caedus, but also for several other mods in the series. So if you would like to support me, please know how much it is appreciated, and that you are quite literally keeping the mod going.

Want to find out more?

Take a look back at some of my most popular articles about the v1.34 development cycle.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support. And please remember, all of this is made possible thanks to the support of my paid subscribers, who get access to all of this content and loads more, with regular posts and exclusives on Age of Legends and future plans for the mod!