The latest version of Sol Trader is released! As well as many crash fixes, we have some significant new features to show...


The Puma is a sleek, fast ship which you can fit with up to three separate guns. What it lacks in cargo space it makes up for with an impressive internal capacity for ship components, meaning it’s a great ship to use to scavenge for the parts of destroyed ships. No wonder so many seem to find their way into the hands of pirates...


We’ve said goodbye to popups interrupting you when you’ve achieved a mission, or when someone is ready to meet you. The list of pinned characters at the top of the status bar now doubles as a notification list, so when characters have messages for you can easily access them.

The tutorial now appears as notifications too, making it more unobtrusive, and events that you learn about individual characters are sent to you via notifications as well.

This UI change gives us a more streamlined game with fewer interruptions and a better way to manage information.


History in-game: Your father Tyler just got a new job...

A critical under-the-hood change means that rather than pausing history on game start, the history generation now _keeps running_ as the game progresses.

This change has had considerable implications to how the game plays: non-player characters are now able to go through marriage, divorce, make and lose friends, change jobs, and more, all while you are playing the game. When life changes happen to your closest friends and family, they’ll tell you about what’s going on, allowing you to react and change your plans to suit.

One large ramification is that in-game years now only have four months, which represent the four seasons. In-game time now passes much faster, and people will more visibly move through the stages of life: the world will feel more dynamic within one play through.

I hope you enjoy 1.4! If you have any issues, please do let me know. This version will invalidate your saves (due to the history changes).

Until next time,

Chris

Sol Trader celebrates its second birthday today! To mark the two year anniversary of being released, I've spent some time chasing out old crash bugs and adding a few new gameplay features. I've added UI improvements, including better notification support and integrated history events happening in the main game.

Best of all, we have a new ship, the Puma...

These changes are currently in final testing and should be released as 1.4 in the next week.


To celebrate our two year anniversary, Sol Trader is now 75% off - it's never been a better time to strap yourself in and network your way to success...

I'll be in touch when 1.4 lands very soon!

Until next time,
Chris

Hi all,

The builds are coming thick and fast! As more people have been playing the game recently due to the new builds, more bugs are being reported and fixed.

Your saved games from the previous version should work fine with this release. Here's a list of changes:

• Unblock AI when 2 agents get stuck. This was a nasty bug and should cause characters to behave normally in longer running games - they should now be more reactive in general (follow you onto your ship, turn up for meetings, or run the transit mission you paid them for, etc).
  
• Fixed academic manuscript mission to be completable[forums.revelationgames.co]
  
• Proper version number on main menu now
  
• Fixed missing string on certain locations[forums.revelationgames.co]

Enjoy! Any problems post on the forums either here or at http://forums.revelationgames.co. Please do post screenshots of any error messages, and attach zip files of a save games if relevant.

Thanks!
Chris

Hi all,

A quick point release for you all, to fix a couple of crashes discovered in the 1.3.1 release.

NOTE: This build will reset your game options - you'll need to set resolution and sound levels etc again. Sorry about that.

• Fix crash when filtering conversations by planet or ship
  
• Added enable VSync option to help faster computers manage frame rate better.
  
• Fix bug on windows with conversation icons going super large when vanishing!
  
• Stop game attempting to autopilot to own ship
  
• Changed keyboard input for flight slightly in an attempt to fix a weird stuck keyboard bug that happens only on a very few computers.

Enjoy! Any problems post on the forums either here or at http://forums.revelationgames.co.

Thanks!
Chris

Dear all,

I've just released version 1.3.1 of Sol Trader, which fixes a number of niggling issues in 1.3 and improves gameplay balance.

NOTE: this version will invalidate save games. If you want to continue with an older save, then do the following to stay on an older version of the game:

• Right click on the game in your Steam Library and choose 'Properties'. Click the 'Betas' tab.
  
• Enter the beta access code ’soltraderversion13’ and click 'Check code'
  
• Choose the ‘version1.3’ option from the drop-down list
  
• Wait for your game to update and play!

Here's a list of changes:

• New feature: Organisation charts are now available on a tooltip over the organisation name, and also by clicking on the small organisation button in the middle panel heading.
  
• New feature: Communes are now Parks: hippies still hang out there, but so can everyone else. It's another place you can find people socialising during the day, who perhaps don't like visiting bars.
  
• New feature: History generation now prioritises jobs in low-population cities. This has the effect of rebalancing things so that Frontier Space and the Outer Alliance have more people than before, so it's easier to progress.
  
• Made the AI more likely to choose to go to work, even for non-essential jobs.
  
• Increased speed of history generation by 5% and dropped save file footprint by 40%.
  
• Stopped traders getting stuck when selling goods.
  
• Stop the player from asking for an introduction to someone who is dead.
  
• Fix crash when landing in a place with a destroyed ship.
  
• Fixed Missing Strings in profession choices.
  
• Fixed bug where having map open whilst landing would cause weird effects.
  
• Characters now tell you the missions they have available on the tooltip before you start speaking to them.
  
• Triple-click on a navigation label or arrow will now start autopilot.
  
• Made Tiger I slightly lighter and therefore faster.
  
• Sleep/work/launch are now icons at the top of the screen, so that they don't conflict which each other.

Enjoy! Let me know if you have any issues.

Chris

Dear all,

I've deliberately avoided going on about this on here, but I thought you'd like to know that my next game is going live on Kickstarter at 4pm UK time today!

Visit Ealdorlight’s Kickstarter Campaign

(This post is deliberately a little earlier than 4pm to give you a sneak preview and so you can watch the campaign go live if you want. Earlier backers get lower edition numberings on some of the rewards, so you might want to be there from the start!)

The sixth of June is a significant day for me personally. In 2004, I spent the entire of the day in hospital. I remember the 60th anniversary commemorations of D-day on the TV in the background, as I sat beside my wife, in labour with our first child. I became a father an hour after midnight on the 7th June; my son becomes a teenager tomorrow.

Twelve years later, in 2016, I spent the entire of 6th June glued to Steam watching and waiting whilst Sol Trader was released to the world. This was a career dream come true: since I started programming at six years old I’d always wanted to create and ship my own games. Sol Trader’s release was ultimately a painfully formative experience for me, which I wrote about at the time and was interviewed about recently in this article for GamesIndustry biz[www.gamesindustry.biz].

Over the last year, I’ve been keeping busy doing two things. One is to support Sol Trader as much as I can with countless updates and patches. I’ve also been working on a new game, Ealdorlight, a medieval RPG-style take on Sol Trader’s mechanics, with turn-based combat, realistic damage and great graphics. I announced Ealdorlight in March and demonstrated it at Rezzed, strengthening my hope that the idea was a good one.

I decided fairly early on that I wanted to take Ealdorlight to Kickstarter. Sol Trader’s successful Kickstarter was a brilliant experience. The Kickstarter community is one of the kindest, most positive on the Internet. I also needed funding for this game: Sol Trader was self-funded through many long evenings and contracting work, and for Ealdorlight I need a bigger team to realise the vision. It’s built in Unreal Engine 4, which simultaneously saves me loads of development time and means I need a bigger team to pull off the realistic art style I’ve gone for.

As time came near to launch, the first anniversary of Sol Trader’s released seemed an appropriate day to launch the campaign. So today, 6th June 2017, I will spend the entire day glued to Kickstarter as my campaign goes live at 4pm today.

Visit Ealdorlight’s Kickstarter Campaign

There’s plenty more about Ealdorlight on the campaign - head over there and read all about it! A huge amount of work has gone into it, and I’m very grateful for all the support and help I’ve received from the team I’ve put together, and for friends and family who have given me endless encouragements and feedback.

One immediate question you might have is "What about Sol Trader?" Whilst the bulk of my time and attention needs to be spent on Ealdorlight to make the awesome game it could be, I'm still committed to fixing bugs and issues in Sol Trader as they arise.

Thanks for being part of my video game creation adventure so far, and I hope you'll stick with me for the next game!

Until next time,
Chris

Now that I’m back after some time away with family and training away from home, I’m able to support a new release of Sol Trader: 1.3 is now finally released after a length beta period.

Here are the highlights:

• You can now chat to characters directly on the right if they’re in the same location as you
  
• Pirate Chief and criminals are now more likely to try to destroy you
  
• Fix a bug where you’re not paid enough for a mission
  
• Dignitaries now fly around a little less than before to make it easier to pin them down
  
• Inter-faction missions now pay slightly less
  
• Business trips now pay slightly less
  
• Taxi missions now pay slightly more
  
• Talking to your criminal parents will no longer cause them to forget who you are
  
• Fix crash where a character develops an opinion of the player mid-conversation
  
• Fix crash when showing GUI for a ship the AI is driving
  
• Fix crash where a character would attempt to sell a good on a ship they’ve lent to the player
  
• Can now initiate conversations when paused - will restart the game but at realtime speed
  
• Fixed the Tiger II achievement

Thanks - let me know what you think!
Chris

Hi all,

Sol Trader has update 1.3 on the way! Get an early look at the latest UI and gameplay improvements by helping to beta test it!

There are a wealth of things for you to try out:

• You can now chat to characters directly on the right if they’re in the same location as you
  
• Pirate Chief and criminals are now more likely to try to destroy you
  
• Fix a bug where you’re not paid enough for a mission
  
• Dignitaries now fly around a little less than before to make it easier to pin them down
  
• Inter-faction missions now pay slightly less
  
• Business trips now pay slightly less
  
• Taxi missions now pay slightly more
  
• Talking to your criminal parents will no longer cause them to forget who you are
  
• Fix crash where a character develops an opinion of the player mid-conversation
  
• Fix crash when showing GUI for a ship the AI is driving
  
• Fix crash where a character would attempt to sell a good on a ship they’ve lent to the player
  
• Can now initiate conversations when paused - will restart the game but at realtime speed
  
• Fixed the Tiger II achievement

Here’s how you test:

1. Right click on the game in your Steam Library and choose 'Properties'
   
2. Click the 'Betas' tab
   
3. Enter the beta access code ’soltraderbeta’ and click 'Check code'
   
4. Choose the ‘beta13’ option from the drop-down list
   
5. Wait for your game to update and play!

If you hit any bugs, please do report them on the Technical Support forum here on Steam so that I can fix them before releasing 1.3 at the end of the month.

Until next time,
Chris

Hi all,

Another new point release of Sol Trader for you to enjoy! Here's the list of fixes:

• Show the working hours on the GUI so you can see when you are supposed to work.
  
• Made ship components the same cost across all ships
  
• Closed exploit: Can only now eject people from your own ship
  
• Can no longer eject whilst paused
  
• Fixed smuggling GUI crashes
  
• Disallow introductions to existing family members
  
• Luring people for an eject is now only possible if you are a at the 'blue' level or higher with them
  
• Prevent repeatable delivery of special gifts from powerful people
  
• Fix crash where ship blows up whilst in mid-jump transition
  
• Fix typo in missions file
  
• Fix crash where ship blows up the same frame it overlaps a jump gate
  
• Fix incorrect relationship labels on GUI

Until next time,
Chris