Last Roadmap (03.12.2025)

Welcome back everyone, today as some people asked, I ll be going in-depth about roadmap I have released few weeks ago. But with small twist, as some of parts are De-classified by the order of the Orion Council. Also fair warning, this dev diary is one big wall of texts.

Roadmap 2.0

Orion Sector?

Yup, we are going back in circles, as this thing was topic of very first dev diary. To be fair there were multiple times, where I wanted to fully abandon Orion idea. Here main issue are not technical ones, I already made new sector and all stuff, true issue is lore. I know for fact, that unlike rest of modules, this one writing must be at the best quality, as well as lore itself. Not to mention, I myself dont like modding combat layer. I feel like I belong doing stuff related to colonies. I could not let go of this module, purely of what it can offer, if done correctly.

This is why I feel, that this will be best left as last project done. Given scope and what will offer.

Seats of Power 4.0

First milestone to achieve in development is Seats of Power 4.0 : With 3 big updates together. Income Overhaul, Crisis Overhaul and Admin Rework

Admin Rework - Council Members, Star System Administrators and more.

This is going to be first sub-milestone to achieve for Seats of Power. I always felt, when playing colonies, that it is weird everything runs through you alone. No nation is ran only by one man. It is vast network of people put in correct places. So this is what I wanna offer in Admin Overhaul.

With this overhaul there is going to bew new mechanic called : Cohesion. More colonies you have as well as holdings (We will go back to it later) more cohesion you generate. Going over limit will result in HEAVY penalties. Fleet size reduction, reduction of income, as well as stability reduction.

How to increase cohesion limit? Appoint administrators , star system admins and council members. Colony Admins will be the same as they are now. Governing your colony. Star System Administrators on the other hand will govern entire star systems. Appointing one not only will raise cohesion limit, but also unlock some of new abilities. Like Ordering remotely to build specific stable point structures.

Third highest tier will be council members, with you being head of council. There will be 5 positions opened, where you can appoint people. Members of your council will increase cohesion limit significantly, offer very powerful bonuses, and also have unique ... needs. They are going to request from you fulfilling goals like appointing new fleets, earning certain amount of credits monthly etc.

Unlike other admins, you wont be able to fire those so easily. By giving them position you give them influence, so be really careful, as if most of council will be against you, this might end in Civil War! So either you don't appoint them, or you play careful game of power balance. Keep their loyalty high, and you will be rewarded.

As bonus, for admin rework I ll also add development plans, so basically you can tell admin how colony should develop, what industries to build in what order, what to prioritize etc etc. So basically automatic colony development.

Admin Rework - Holdings

I plan to completely overhaul UI tab of colonies and instead introduce holdings. Where it will display your colonies as well as star systems, and other stuff you own (Including Megastructures). This is also where you will be able to give orders to Star System Administrators. Council Members will be displayed in faction tab where you can directly talk with them.

Crisis Overhaul - Sector Awareness and Situations

So... you got all toys now , megastructures, black site research, politics, a lot of buffs, and mechanics to tackle with. Now its time to introduce challenges, so you can use your toys.

Unlike in vanilla I wanna tackle crisis in very very different way. First things first will be so called : grace period. As you start your faction, a lot of other entities in the Persean Sector will first need to took notice of you. I mean what is reason to bother with size 3 colony in bum fuck of nowhere.

Instead starting colony will introduce first new event : Sector Awareness - So how much factions do realize there is indeed new player in the game. Less awareness generated, more peace time you have to prepare.

This will also mean a lot of debuffs: No growth, no trade with other factions (This is why income overhaul will also need to be done, as I ll be adding internal trade income), and you will be able to colonize only ONE colony in that stage. Unless... unless you discovered cryosleeper, and have Dreams of Past enabled. Then you will be able to colonize more worlds, as you have sufficient population on your own, and dont need migration. With Cryosleeper it will be up to 5 new colonies, Ark will be 10

Grace Period will also give you enough time to prepare for other factions. You will need to establish yourself in powerful position, to avoid one of first situations, where closest faction sees you as easy snack.

After that a bunch of situations can occur, depending on your actions. One of such will be Tri Tachyon Market Export Situation. Which will have multiple ways to resolve. I wanna here put heavy emphasis on two things. Relations with other factions, and consequences of each situation resolution. Unlike in vanilla, situation can start very differently depending on your previous situations, as well as reputation with faction. High rep will mean, that they wanna solve issue without war, and low rep well... we all know where this goes.

You can either become cooperative faction, where others are opened to work with, isolationist, that dont wanna be bothered at all with anything else. Or become threat to entire sector.

With this system in mind, I plan factions to be much MORE responsive to your actions. Claiming megastructures, researching way beyond sector tech. Sudden monopoly? AI core usage? Legalization of AI cores? This all will have their own unique situations. As well as more challenging in terms of military (Reason why Patrol Fleet Overhaul must happened in first place before Crisis Overhaul)

Income Overhaul - Taxes, Faction Treasury, Personal Income, Internal Trade.

Given I had created Building Menu Overhaul. A lot of new possibles have opened. Including Income Overhaul. Income will be split in two: Personal Income and Faction Treasury. First stays the same as vanilla, second though, will be income you get from your colonies, as well as trade deals with other factions, taxes and internal trade.

Faction Treasury will be used for every cost tied to faction : Industries, Admins upkeep, megastructures, research, as well as your own personal salary. Numbers will get significantly bigger, but you will only got handsome salary based on monthly treasure income. So for you income wont be like 10 or 20 M. Instead it will all go to faction treasury. You can donate your money to faction treasury but you can't take from it directly!

Income overhaul I plan is to introduce also new upkeep's as well, like military fleets your faction wields , officers etc etc. Aim of this update is to heavily nerf personal income from colonies, but also keep big numbers. I am well aware some of you might not like it, given that most of you do colonies to supply your fleets. Ashes of the Domain is mod about colony overhaul, for those who want to tackle colonies not to cover fleet upkeep, but to build and establish new faction.

Vaults of Knowledge - Project Solarite

During our expedition into Nidavelir’s restricted internal sectors, the discovery of the Gungnir Railgun prototype led us to a sealed testing facility buried deep within the station’s shipyard complex.

Inside the same chamber, we accessed a long-dormant data core As we extracted the recovered logs, one entry in particular stood out. Nidavelir was never meant to be merely a megastructure shipyard; it served as a covert development and proving ground for one of the Domain of Man’s most secret military initiatives. Although nearly all names and identifiers are redacted beyond recovery, two terms are repeated throughout the surviving files: “Hammer of the Domain” and “Project Solarite.” The presence of the Gungnir within this testing site suggests that these programs were directly connected — and that Nidavelir holds far more secrets than previously believed.

Unfortunately that is all I can say. This update will be unique as I don't plan any showcase, nor dev logs about it. It will hit you like a truck. When? I dunno.

Vaults of Knowledge - Integration Update

This update, now that I think of it, should be not exclusive for Vaults of Knowledge. Idea behind this update will be to tie all mechanics across modules together. Making new synergies, policies, etc etc. Treat it as , we made new mechanics, not it's time to bring them together. So with this one expect new timeline events, policies, synergies black site projects etc etc.

Redacted?

Don't worry will be revealed in time, I wanna see some stuff first, before announcing it.

This is last roadmap as I said it. With Orion Sector release, There won't be any new major patch. As like new mechanics, etc etc. Maybe fleshing some things out and all. Truth be told, you can't create new content forever. Mod will still be maintained either by me personally or by Purple Nebula. The only potential major patches I can see working on are Ground Combat Update, but that one, requires Patreon income to rise significantly. Reason why, is because ground combat , in my image would be like in Heroes of Might And Magic. Basically creating game inside a game.

We all know art is expensive not to mention in that regard other costs, like sounds, as well as time necessary to pull it off. In any case, this is roadmap for next 2-4 years, so you dont need to worry about end being soon. I can say, next year will be even crazier with updates, then current one. We are in end-game now.