New Layout, UI and Features

Quite a lot of things got implemented:

User interface and layout got an overhaul. 

On the right is the old layout, the left side is the suggestion I got from Thomas Dittrich. 

 

I transferred this layout to most panels in the game. Eventually all buttons will get a blue background, a white text-shadow on hover and a red background when clicked.

There is another new thing on the image showing the colonies list - the space nebula.

This image shows the old nebula:

And now the same part of the map with the new one:

It wasn't even much work to implement the new one. 

The old nebula consisted of a 180x180 px image, which was put in an overlapping way on the html canvas. A single field has a size of 60x60 px and the nebula was painted with its upper left corner one field to the left and one field up, so that its center was right where the nebula is according to the database, while the border of the nebula overlapped just a bit.

For the new nebula, Thomas did provide an image with a bit less transparency. I used it as 240x240 px size, and increased the overlapping area. The upper left corner of the image is put one and a half field to the left and up.

And additionally, the nebula is rotated in steps of 45 degrees. I used the unique nebula id and the mod operator ( % 8 ) to determine how far the nebula is rotated.

Aside form this eye candy, all changes to the game are in the changelog on the homepage.

The most important ones since the combat overhaul are:

• Colonies can be invaded
• Pirate ships spawn and can be raided (poor Pirates)
• Colonies can be abandoned
• New diplomatic mode "Hostile" which is between War and Neutral and which allows combat, but does not allow occupation of colonies
• Conversations instead of single messages

At the moment, the "create first contact" requirement is being removed. Until now, one has to meet another player before that player gets visible in the contacts list. Alternatively, one has to visit a communication star base, then one gets all contact data of players that have previously visited this star base.

In the new version, one will have all contact data right from the beginning, and one will also have access to the one communication star base in the center of the galaxy right from the beginning.