Steam Update
Steamworks has approved Hazeron Starship for distribution on Steam. I can post the 'Coming Soon' notice whenever I feel ready. That starts a two week countdown for the actual release.

I will likely post the Coming Soon notice later today.

The following changes are in the update posted today. Many of these things came out of testing the solo play version.

Startup Crash
Client program was crashing at startup.

Fixed missing ifdef needed for solo play.

Story Spacecraft
Story was failing to create Dr. Karlov's space ship.

The script was referencing a non-existent blueprint id. It is fixed.

Travel Direct Order
Travel direct to system. Ship arrives in the oort cloud and does not advance closer in to the system like it used to. This also leaves that order active and does not automatically progress to the next queued order.

NPC AI was improved to fix this. It works much better now.

Crew Confused
Crew said, "We are in orbital proximity of WSY'AB'NF'e Alpha Va, the ring's parent planet." The world was a titan at a gas giant.

Fixed crew confusion resulting from some travel orders.

Remote Cameras Broken
Remote cameras do not work for my new avatar.

Fixed a bug when restoring last used camera from local settings and there wasn't one.

Ringworld Snafu
Story engine needs to find a sector containing a ringworld to proceed to the (currently) final chapter. This fails when no wormhole has ever been explored in the sector. This really breaks the story in solo play.

Fixed universe generation to identify ringworld systems sooner.

Star Map Select Option
The list of places in the star map includes an item for my avatar. It would be nice if the right click menu for my avatar had an option to select my current sector.

Added an option to star map right click menu to select current sector, when the right-clicked object is your avatar.

QPainter Bug
I started seeing this bug reported: "QPainter::begin: Cannot paint on an image with the QImage::Format_Indexed8 format"

Reformatted 8bit bitmaps that are used in paint operations to be RGB.

Pressure Tent
Pressure tent does not settle to the ground like its supposed to. Sits high. Looks funny.

Fixed item CG error.

Obnoxious Ship Movement
Crew ordered to be in orbit should not move when someone gets near their ship. When crew are following an orbit order, the pilot will move the ship if anything moves too close. This makes docking aboard a ship impossible in that situation.

Fixed pilot AI to stop avoiding obstacles when the ship's location satisfies the mission order.

The "leave arena" button in the arena is broken and appears to do nothing as when clicked.
In addition, the "Arena Status" and the "Arena Sideline" buttons appear to do nothing when clicked as well.

I believe i used the "Test Flight" (whatever the solo setting is) arena setting for my new ships testflight.

I have recently noticed that everything in hazeron has gotten extremely quite while im in the designer lately. After some investigation, i can see galactic chat being used via the hazeron discord, but recieve no entries in galactic chat from the designer.
I thought id try throwing out a test entry, and from my client the message did not send or even register, but it showed up in the discord. other people responded to the message.

Issue: Interacting with any chat WHILE in the online designer does not display in the channel, but will open any chat channels that would have opened due to that interaction. Chat channels do not get updated.

Most buildings now import whatever they need instantly from connected buildings. Warehouses and storage tanks, however, have a very slow fixed import rate that seems more proportioned to old cities than new ones. I wonder if this is an oversight.

I suggest that that, on the configuration screen, they should offer a target storage limit both in absolute terms and as a percentage slider. They would then fill themselves up to the smaller of these values, instantly if possible, by step if not. They would fetch from connected inventories, never importing so much of the commodity that their own storage would account for more than the set percentage. 

If there were 100 units of stone in all connected building inventories, a warehouse configured to fill to 200 units and 5% would fetch 5 units of stone, then do nothing until there were 120 units in connected inventories. At that point it would import an additional unit, for 6 units total. The warehouse would cease to import once there were 4000 units in all connected inventories, of which 200 units, 5%, would be in the warehouse itself. 

This opens up the possibility that a storage building might dedicate less than its total avaiable space to a single commodity. It follows that the rest of its volume could then be divided up among other commodities, making the building much more useful overall.

Story Character Bug
This update fixes a bug that caused some story characters to stop appearing. Lennerd was one of them. The bug failed to establish a species for the character and then created no character at all. Now it will fall back to your species if there is a failure.

This bug was bad enough that I decided it was worth updating for. It affects both the mmo and solo games.

Solo Universe Seed
Deantwo suggested the solo universe use the same seed for all players, so the solo universe is consistent between them. That is done.

Example problem: I am building particle collector bays, which use tesloid dissipators as an ingredient. I am also smelting adamantine, which uses tesloid dissipators as a tool. The collector bays are using so many dissipators that the smelting cannot run, even though the smelter would need only one dissipator in order to run the process many times.

Suggestion: when a process fails to run because a tool is missing, that building serves a docket to its connected buildings. That docket entitles it to first priority on any examples of the missing tool that, in the future, enter the city's inventory. In this way, the very small number of tool items, which have a proportionately large value, would receive appropriate treatment, privileged above the very large number of ingredient items that have a proportionately very small value.

Hello, I had recently done some thinking on the economy in Hazeron and had some thoughts and suggestions that could make it more compelling and interesting. I will freely admit I have not sat down and ran any numbers or done any balancing, these are just broad strokes ideas that would require some additional work and can't just be slapped in, but my hope is that from these broad ideas a discussion could be spawned that might inspire Haxus into making the economy more meaningful and generally just better. I'm an armchair game designer after all, so this is by no means the highest quality. It has two key components, making wealth actually used/important and some changes to how industry/cities function. They are interconnected so the I'll just start with the industry/cities changes.

• Salary - If the player holds a government position that has a salary, they get that salary if it is paid.
  
• Sales - When the player sells a commodity, they make money.
  
• Wealth transfers - A player can withdraw money from any bank account they have access to, be it a ship, city, or the empire account. Additionally any money sent from a player to a player is represented by this.
  
• Income from working a job - The player gets paid for any process they work, just like an NPC citizen. The player can only work at government owned buildings, not civilian. The money for this gets paid out of the empire bank account. If the empire bank account has a balance that is equal to or less than 0, the player gains personal government debt that can be redeemed at any bank for up to amount owed once the empire bank account balance has that amount of money. The debt does not need to be paid in full, partial payments from the empire bank account reduce the personal government debt. The player pays income tax on this amount.
  

• Taxes - Players must pay sales tax for all personal transactions. Players additionally pay income tax from a salary if they get one, and from any job income. Income tax from players is paid to the empire bank account, not a city.
  
• Wealth transfers - Any money transferred to another account, be it player, ship, city, or empire.
  
• Personal Loan payments - Until a personal loan is repaid, a portion of the remaining loan balance is paid out every cycle. If the player does not have any money, the cost of the payment is still subtracted from the player account and the player goes into debt. See the debt section below for more details.
  

• Sales - When a ship sells a commodity, the ship makes money.
  
• Wealth transfer - the owner, or a player with a government title of sufficient access, can transfer money to the ship account
  

• Salary - All crew, troops, and officers must be paid for their work. Failure to pay has consequences (slower performance, desertion, etc)
  
• Sales tax - When a ship sells a commodity, sales tax applies.
  
• Wealth transfer - The captain/owner of the ship can withdraw money from the ship.
  

• Sales tax - when a fleet ship sells a commodity, sales tax still applies.
  
• Fleet tax - An additional tax applied to fleet spacecraft when a commodity is sold. This tax goes into the empire bank account instead of the city.
  
• Wealth transfer - any title holder with sufficient permissions can withdraw money from the ship.
  

• Every house produces an amount of money that represents property tax. The amount is related to the quality of the home and the number of people living in that home. As I have not put any hard numbers on this, I will express it in a simple ratio to get the idea across. Small homes produce 0.5x the tax amount per citizen. Medium homes produce 1x the tax amount per citizen. Large homes produce 2x the tax amount per citizen. I.e. more "valuable" and "luxury" housing have higher property taxes.
  
• Business/corporation taxes - every civilian owned building produces money for the government to represent a taxation on private enterprises, this is more detailed above in the civilian building section.
  
• Sales taxes - Any time a player or ship sells a commodity, a sales tax is collected and retained in the city bank account where that sale occurred.
  
• Income taxes - A tax set by empire policy on all worker income. All NPC workers pay this tax.
  
• Tribute income - A tax paid to a capital city from all cities underneath it's control. This income occurs every cycle and the amount of a cities bank account that is transferred upstream is set by empire policy. This could be changed to every day as it is now for less fluidity of wealth.
  
• Subsidies - A revenue source from the empire. As cities are owned in a hierarchy of titles, wealth can flow backwards through this. Starting at the top, an emperor can provide subsidies to any city in the empire, where this wealth would come directly from the empire government bank account. Additionally, holders of government titles that have jurisdiction over cities below them can provide a subsidy that pays out of that holders top level city bank account. The holder of jurisdiction over the galaxy can pay a subsidy to any city in their galaxy, where the money comes from the galaxy capital city's bank account. A sector governor can pay a subsidy to any city in their sector, and that money is taken out of the sector capital city's bank account. A system owner can pay a subsidy to any city in their system, and that money is taken out of the system capital city's bank account. If the addition of a system capital is not desired, then the chain would just stop at the sector level.
  
• Wealth transfer - a title holder with jurisdiction can transfer wealth from their personal account into a city's bank account.
  

• City salary expenses - Every worker in a government owned building must be paid, or they do not work. A portion of this is repaid to the city in the form of income tax. Workers in Civilian owned industry are paid for by the civilian economy, not the government (I.E. there is no salary expense for these buildings).
  
• Civic upkeep - Infrastructure costs money to maintain! For roads, a flat cost is applied based on the length of the segment and the type of the road. Dirt roads are dirt cheap, while asphalt roads are more costly. This cost only needs to be calculated once, upon the completion of roads so there should be little computational overhead. Failure to pay road expenses will result in roads gradually getting damaged, which represents the neglected upkeep. Eventually the road will get destroyed and is no longer usable, meaning buildings are no longer connected. Buildings not connected could now take damage, which could represent a new form of decay based on economy instead of time or visitation. This could be an additional decay form instead of a replacement too, but it more accurately represents the extent an empire can occupy. More cities, more roads, more costs to maintain! Additionally, other forms of infrastructure such as bridges, tunnels (when implemented), and superstructures such as biodomes and platforms cost money to maintain, a flat fee per infrastructure object where the more advanced/complex ones cost more (biodomes cost more than aerial platforms, which cost more than ground platforms, etc). Failure to pay for these will reduce their health until they crumble from disrepair and are destroyed. This can result in the total loss of buildings for the crumbling of a platform, or result in mass citizen death if the biodome crumbles! It is important to maintain infrastructure!
  
• Trade connection fees / import fees - The use of a trade connection link costs money for a city, which is an abstraction of the cost of the mode of transportation. Goods delivered by road are cheap, goods delivered by sea are moderately expensive, goods delivered by air are expensive, and goods delivered by space are highly expensive. If the fee is not paid, goods are not moved and trade does not occur. I.e. the city does not import anything if I cannot afford it.
  
• Research/building process expenses - Money consumed by patent research or by government owned buildings purchasing goods from the civilian economy.
  
• Government tribute - A tax paid to a capital city if one is above this city. All cities but the empire capital would end up paying this. A city will send a portion of its bank account balance as tribute, where the portion is dictated by empire policy. The default is 50%.
  
• Empire Tax - This is a special tax that only applies to the empire capital city, replacing the government tribute that all other cities pay. This channels money from the empire capital city's bank account into the empire wide bank account. This is a separate value set by the emperor, enabling the differential transfer of wealth. For example, tribute tax may be 50% so all cities transfer 50% of their account balance to the next highest city. Empire tax might be 80%, meaning the empire capital city will pay 80% of it's account balance to the empire bank account. This is paid every cycle, but as with tribute income, it could be changed to once for less fluidity of wealth.
  
• Wealth transfer - a title holder with jurisdiction can transfer wealth from the city into their personal account.
  
• Subsidies - A galaxy, sector, or system capital can pay subsidies to cities or military bases under them. The empire-wide subsidies are paid out of the empire bank account, not the bank account of the empire capital city.
  

• Subsidies - The primary income source of a military base, this is money paid from some government in charge of the base. This could be the Empire Government, Galaxy Administration, Sector Administration, or star system owner. Or any combination of these!
  
• Wealth Transfers - as with city bank accounts, a title holder that has jurisdiction of the military base may deposit money from their personal account into the military base's account.
  

• Military Building upkeep - All military buildings require money to function, where the cost scales with the power and type of the military building. Failure to pay this upkeep would result in reduced effectiveness, eventually making them non-functional. Buildings that are non-functional will take damage and eventually be destroyed. Once a military base has no buildings other than the HQ, the HQ will take damage until it is destroyed and with it the military base is lost.
  
• Civic Upkeep - Any infrastructure that is not in the jurisdiction of a city is assumed to be owned by the military base. The military base must pay to upkeep this infrastructure, and failure to pay results in the consequences as described in the Civic Upkeep section for city expenses.
  
• Wealth transfers - as with city bank accounts, a title holder that has jurisdiction of the military base may withdraw money from the base bank account into their personal account.
  

• Empire Tax - A separate value from the existing tribute, this is the percent of money in the empire capital city's bank account that is transferred to the empire bank account.
  
• Income tax - Income tax is collected from all avatars in the empire and paid directly to the empire bank account when that income is earned.
  
• Wealth transfer - Any citizen of the empire can deposit money into the empire bank account.
  

• Government salaries - The crew, officers, and troops on government owned spacecraft/stations must be paid or they will stop working (or some other punishment). Additionally, all government positions have a salary as well that gets paid to office holders, with the default positions all having a default starting value that is "well balanced" but enabling the option of changing this amount so if a player wants their emperor to be paid a trillion credits a day they can, although that'd probably quickly bankrupt them. This is to provide an income source for players that might not necessarily have any physical holdings (cities etc) or simply an additional source of income in larger empires consisting of multiple players.
  
• Player job fees - A player that works a job in any city in the empire is paid. This is paid from the empire bank account, not the city. If the empire bank account is in debt, the player is instead issued personal government debt that they can redeem when the empire is no longer in debt.
  
• Subsidies - Money paid to any city in the empire. Empire wide subsidies can only be set up by those who have domain over the universe (or if empire roles become a thing, those with that specific role like empire treasury access).
  
• Government Loan payments - Until a Government loan is repaid, a portion of the remaining loan balance is paid out every cycle. This will continue even if the account balance is equal to or less than zero, bringing the empire further into debt.
  
• Wealth transfer - any citizen with domain over the universe (or empire treasury access if that system gets revamped) can withdraw money from the empire bank account into their personal bank account.
  

Steam Update
The solo playable Hazeron Starship is being tested now. All features are complete. There are some things that remain to be tested, to insure the story can be played through to the end.

The solo version uses a data file created by querying the Shores of Hazeron database. It stores some basic stuff that usually comes from the database, such as pirate empires. It also stores building and spacecraft blueprints published by me.

After the update today, I will post a new space station design, in G drive and rocket versions. It is a usable simple design that will be included in the solo play data file. It will appear in the exchange as Del Rey Station - GDrive and Del Rey Station - Rocket.

The release date on Steam is still somewhere around the first of December. I'm not quite ready to make the "coming soon" announcement. Time has been slipping away very quickly and it always feels like there are a million things to do, though my Silverwill list is pretty short.

Primeval Nerf
Primeval world is gone from Shores of Hazeron. It grew up and became Hazeron Starship.

Jurisdiction Indication
When placing buildings, the cursor now shows the name of the city jurisdiction, if any. This shows which city contains the building about to be placed.

Child Spotted
I spotted a child and their hit points were reported as 46/26. This bug was fixed.

Building Design Origin
Previously, the largest possible building site required that the origin be at the center. This was because design limits were defined as maximum absolute coordinate values, in each direction. This created an unfortunate constraint.

The origin of the design is the insertion point when it is placed on the terrain. It determines the altitude of placement. Because of that, it is often desirable to have the insertion point on the road edge of the site, so its altitude works when placed next to an existing road.

The designer was changed to allow the origin anywhere within the site's 3D extents. The maximum size of a site was not changed. This should not have a negative effect on any existing blueprints.

Building Patents
A bug was fixed that caused buildings to not post their patents to the empire under certain conditions. I noticed this when I built a second electronics factory and it had no patents to do anything, yet the first electronics factory had patents. It turned out those patents had not been recorded with the empire for everyone else to use.

Landing System Snafu
It is very frustrating to activate the landing system on your ship only to be told that there are no empty parking spaces.

Landing systems will now replace a parked vehicle with an incoming vehicle, when an empty parking spot cannot be found.

The parked vehicle is replaced at the moment the landing vehicle is recovered.

The replaced vehicle is lost.

A parked vehicle will not be replaced if there is anything or anyone in it.

Vehicle Transporter Snafu
Similar to the landing system snafu, vehicle transporters will sometimes be useless because all the vehicle parking spots are full.

The solution was not quite as straight forward as the landing system. In this case, the parked vehicle is removed at the moment the vehicle transporter is activated.

The replaced vehicle is lost, even if the caller does not enter the vehicle transporter portal.

Transport to Fence?
Fences are no longer listed on the list of transporter destinations. They were never supposed to be there. A bug allowed them to appear there.

Station Cargo
I am the emperor, aboard an empire space station. I am in its chain of command but I cannot see its cargo listed on the cargo manifest.

This was fixed.

Indigenous Species
The indigenous species of every unexplored planet is my own. That means that as long as I explore previously unexplored space, I will only encounter my own species. This has always been the rule in the multi player game. You knew when you crossed paths with another player.

Unfortunately, this does not work for the solo game. There are few other players to seed the galaxy with their species. A solo player can have up to six avatars, just like the multiplayer game. That is not enough.

There is a table of distribution for the pirate empires, used to determine where they live and in what proportion, throughout the game universe. Each pirate empire has a different sentient species.

From now on, when an indigenous encounter is triggered on a world with no established sentient species, there is a 20% chance the species will be that of a pirate empire, rather than your own. The pirate empire selected is based on that table of pirate empire distribution.

Atmodives are such a Hazeron institution, it seems almost blasphemous to make this proposal...Every so often they overwhelm the bug section of the forum and the grievance section of the Discord. Usually some tweaks to navigation and AI processing are made, they quiet down for a while, then we get another flare-up a few moths on.

After I personally atmodived from the helm like the true NPC that I am, I started thinking about a small change that could help fix them from the opposite direction: the direction of remedy, rather than prevention. I don't think we've ever tried that before.

Hull stress is the only instant kill for spaceships in Hazeron. Even black holes and the centres of suns inflict damage over time, which tough ships can tank long enough to try a few emergency saving throws. Why not change atmospheric stress damage in the following way:

Once a ship or vehicle exceeds its max rated atmospheric or underwater speed, a massive alarm goes off. Damage is now inflicted at a rate of 20% total hp per second over 5 seconds (or whatever). Once the alarm is active, that ship's AI helmsman receives maximum server processing priority for the duration of the emergency, and his sole job is to slam the breaks and put on maximum reverse thrust until the ship is back under safe speed. A human helmsman would, naturally, try to do the same.

Atmodives would still be dangerous and almost always costly, just as they're meant to be for careless pilots, but not instantly and universally fatal. A ship with a cyclic mission including repairs would be able to survive multiple atmodives, costing resources (it's not a get-out-of-jail-free), but sparing players the massive frustration of starting from scratch. Any good?

I build a biodome on a gas giant core, where the terrain is uneven and curvature high. Now, although the area inside the biodome is graded flat, I cannot build any roads on it, since, in many areas, the start and end points are too high or too low compared to the "virgin terrain".

In some cases, it then becomes impossible to connect buildings within or between biodomes without creating useless filler buildings just to get them in range of each other.

I submit that roads should consider compare their start and end heights to the existing height of the graded or site-graded terrain, not the virgin terrain. I realise that this will allow strange things to be done, but these strange things are less harmful to smooth and enjoyable gameplay than the frustration of not being able to place roads at all.