It would be nice if when you're in a menu with a "Cancel" button that esc would back out of that menu instead of closing (or just pausing) the game.  This is an intuitive thing that has resulted in me actually only keeping the game running for about 5 minutes at a time tops.  (Restarting it plenty, for sure, but yeah...)

The cancel and pause should work together now, when you press escape it should take you back a menu or close the menu down.

I am hoping to get the next version out soon, the last month has been mixed with a lot of things going on - meaning this release is coming a bit later than I would've liked.

Again, if there is anything people would like adding to the next version now is the chance to raise the suggestion.

I wanted proper risk management and planning as part of the game, as up to now if there isn't enough resources to support the colony the only thing that is affected is the population count (goes down if you can't support them) and science income. all buildings still stay active even if you don't have enough resources defeating half the risk that would be apparent on the moon.

This should help a little with your issue of having the construction buildings shut down, in theory if this is the case other buildings will shut down until your building count is equaled out - it still means you should/need to keep your base in tip top condition as if more important buildings shut down because of that you could have a snowball effect where everything starts shutting down.

An idea I just had though to avoid this, is to have a automatic decrease system to prolong the critical systems, set at when a resource gets to a user defined % of storage it will automatically start closing down non-critical systems - this should help a fair amount towards avoiding catastrophic shutdown when you have 0 resources.

Yes I concur having an indicator that a sub system / structure is being shutdown to prevent critical system failure is a nice idea.

Although it's been fun working out which building's to close down when things get hairy so don't take the manual element out too much.  

Automation is great but no-one wants a moonbase run by robots ! :p

Moved this over from another topic as it was more suited to this thread;

After another fresh session this evening; I have a few more suggestions for the next alpha release;

* Typo on building condition - should be 'Excellent' (see screenshot moonbase_a9.jpg)

* When selecting the status of a building to review the In/Out resources (see screenshot moonbase_a9.jpg);

               a. blank out 000000, should make it clearer to see the entries with a value

               b. show the number of colonists required to run the building (currently blank)

* Include the 'Water Mining Platform' construction - I'm having a hard time keeping up with my thirsty colony now 🙂

As for the -1 bug I've been watching it with a keen eye and it always happens with the Water or Food reserves fall beyond a level able to support the colonists, they start to decrease and eventually hit the -1 mark.

Good Job on the 'Garden of Eden' and 'HQ' buildings - they look awesome! (see screenshot moonbase_a10.jpg)

like it how you got to the HQ buildings 😀 think that's the furthest I have seen anyone other than myself get.

Here is a sneak preview of the new power distribution node.

The next build is still a littles away, I am in the process of adding a log-in system to the colonisation games website that will allow you to easily access all versions of the game and will be the new distribution route for the game instead of emails.

Looks good, what is the function of the power distribution node in relation to other power sources ?

No rush on the next version of alpha - the number of changes will really make a difference.  Can't wait !

the other power sources are just that, they generate the power, this will function as a distribution node, everything within its area will be powered, if a building falls outside of a nodes area it will shut down - similarly if the node shuts down due to damage if there is no backup node nearby those buildings will also shut down.

something i consider highly important with bug testing is a CHEAT MENU, something that can accelerate the gameplay and allow testing of specific features faster.

like:

adding 20,000 credits so we can buy all structures, giving research points, damage building, start meteor shower and such, it's a good way to help debug the game because it allows us to speed up processes and find more bugs in simple events.

like making a building failed, the repair ship can be sent to it immediately to test every type of building and how it repairs it, if there's bugs

its a good point, something I have thought about as well but it may impact the balancing calculations which are just as important as the bugs I expect

This is the main reason I hadnt done it, however wolvern brought up a good idea that is in for the next version is game speed, it was going to be implemented, even for android, but its currently assigned to keys instead of a full UI, I may have a full UI by the next release too for this, depends on how things go.

speeding up time doesn't affect balancing because the income and outcome are the same, other stuff like adding resources wont make any difference as each of the systems are separate, so the health system is its own individual system as well as the repair ships being their own, only referencing the save data.

It means that if there is an issue with one particular area it will affect all buildings/processes for that area.

the upside to this is that the game can still run if something goes wrong in a different area, like the repair ships, while they don't work too well the rest of the game is un-effected (apart from disabling due to not enough health) it has helped create a playable game while adding and improving features with little fear that it would break other areas of the game.

One major thing i could ask for is clearer buttons for scrolling, when first playing through i didn't know about the extra buildings, it took a while to figure out there was more.... being an alpha build i wasn't expecting more tbh due to how planetary annihilation was during first days of alpha... they had 12 units and no textures...

Possibly better with a C&C style menu of smaller buttons with scroll over text so everything you can use it there in 1 hit. The scrolling also wastes time when working to fix the colony from losing resources.

the building UI will be changed when I get chance, similar to the suggestion provided by thewebpro half way down this post, the current UI had to be large as it was intended for android devices with small screens - this is not the case any more but as a sole developer I have been working on the bugs and features, this maybe something I change during the beta stage of the game development

simple way to do the UI will be left click to buy / right click for info on smaller buttons :3

also add shift click to place multiple buildings of that type