0.5 release
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:17 am
At the last online voice chat meeting plans on how to get 0.5 ready for release has been one of the topics. 0.4.10 had been released in July 2020, with a maintenance release following up in September 2020. Which means that the last major release happened already 10 months ago, and we've still a long way to go to get 0.5 ready. Which also means that we need to start to think about how to get 0.5 ready for release at some point in the not too far future.
Therefore I propose to start focusing on getting the features/thing we currently work on into a (at least somewhat) release-ready state, and put a hold on adding/introducing new features/mechanics. Especially considering that we've introduced major new features and mechanics this release cycle which will take a lot of time and effort to sufficiently balance and polish.
So, the first step will be to get an overall view on what we need to work on to get 0.5 ready for release. The major things/items we talked about at our last online voice chat meeting are the new Influence and Government/Polices mechanics and everything connected/related to these.
Judging by the ongoing discussions on the relevant forums and threads, things there are still in a very unfinished/unbalanced state. Content is lacking, the numbers are wrong, the dynamics don't really work, etc. More policies are needed, the existing ones need a lot of tweaking, more ways to manipulate/influence stability are needed, and so on.
Another big issue is the AI. In the past few years, development on the AI already couldn't keep up with the addition of new features and mechanics, and the changes to existing ones. The addition of major new mechanics like Influence and Government/Policies finally broke it. If I understand correctly, currently the AI isn't really able to play anymore. So, the concern here is to get the AI to be able to run their empires well enough as not to completely break down. At least as much as that's possible within a reasonable time frame.
Getting all that ready for release is going to be a quite massive task, which is why it's all the more important to really focus on that and not introduce new stuff. Unless of course that new stuff is necessary to achieve release-readiness... We will have to do a LOT of the playtesting - balancing/polishing cycle for that. As the regular multiplayer games can provide a lot of invaluable feedback here, it would be much appreciated if you multiplayer guys would continue to play multiplayer games with current master instead of 0.4.10.
Another work in progress (as far as I'm aware) are the changes/additions to the combat system (combat targetting, fighters, etc.) and the changes to to UI to reflect all these changes (e.g. in the tooltip window detailing fleet/ship combat values).
I'm probably missing a lot of other minor projects/side projects currently going on which also should be included into 0.5 and need to get ready for release, so please post anything I forgot or overlooked here. This will help to get a at least somewhat complete overview of all the things we need to get ready for 0.5.
Another important thing is to assign all issues and PRs on Github which need to be finished/merged/resolved to the 0.5 milestone. Please, everyone, all of you know what things you're working on, which bugs etc. you've reported - go to Github and set the 0.5 milestone for everything that needs to get addressed for 0.5. If you don't have the access rights to set milestones, post respective requests in the comment sections of the issues/PRs in question.
List of open issues and PRs for the 0.5 release: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/milestones/v0.5
2022-07-03 Edit by Vezzra: made topic sticky
2022-07-03 Edit by Vezzra: added link to list of open issues and PRs for 0.5
Therefore I propose to start focusing on getting the features/thing we currently work on into a (at least somewhat) release-ready state, and put a hold on adding/introducing new features/mechanics. Especially considering that we've introduced major new features and mechanics this release cycle which will take a lot of time and effort to sufficiently balance and polish.
So, the first step will be to get an overall view on what we need to work on to get 0.5 ready for release. The major things/items we talked about at our last online voice chat meeting are the new Influence and Government/Polices mechanics and everything connected/related to these.
Judging by the ongoing discussions on the relevant forums and threads, things there are still in a very unfinished/unbalanced state. Content is lacking, the numbers are wrong, the dynamics don't really work, etc. More policies are needed, the existing ones need a lot of tweaking, more ways to manipulate/influence stability are needed, and so on.
Another big issue is the AI. In the past few years, development on the AI already couldn't keep up with the addition of new features and mechanics, and the changes to existing ones. The addition of major new mechanics like Influence and Government/Policies finally broke it. If I understand correctly, currently the AI isn't really able to play anymore. So, the concern here is to get the AI to be able to run their empires well enough as not to completely break down. At least as much as that's possible within a reasonable time frame.
Getting all that ready for release is going to be a quite massive task, which is why it's all the more important to really focus on that and not introduce new stuff. Unless of course that new stuff is necessary to achieve release-readiness... We will have to do a LOT of the playtesting - balancing/polishing cycle for that. As the regular multiplayer games can provide a lot of invaluable feedback here, it would be much appreciated if you multiplayer guys would continue to play multiplayer games with current master instead of 0.4.10.
Another work in progress (as far as I'm aware) are the changes/additions to the combat system (combat targetting, fighters, etc.) and the changes to to UI to reflect all these changes (e.g. in the tooltip window detailing fleet/ship combat values).
I'm probably missing a lot of other minor projects/side projects currently going on which also should be included into 0.5 and need to get ready for release, so please post anything I forgot or overlooked here. This will help to get a at least somewhat complete overview of all the things we need to get ready for 0.5.
Another important thing is to assign all issues and PRs on Github which need to be finished/merged/resolved to the 0.5 milestone. Please, everyone, all of you know what things you're working on, which bugs etc. you've reported - go to Github and set the 0.5 milestone for everything that needs to get addressed for 0.5. If you don't have the access rights to set milestones, post respective requests in the comment sections of the issues/PRs in question.
List of open issues and PRs for the 0.5 release: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/milestones/v0.5
2022-07-03 Edit by Vezzra: made topic sticky
2022-07-03 Edit by Vezzra: added link to list of open issues and PRs for 0.5