Journals

Trade Up Your Desktop: Offworld Trading Co. Wallpapers Await

Posted on Thursday, December 19, 2024 By redskittlesonly

As you gear up for your next session in Offworld Trading Co., why not elevate your desktop with our collection of stunning wallpapers? These visuals capture the essence of interplanetary commerce and are perfect for keeping the Offworld spirit alive while you tackle your daily tasks.

From breathtaking alien landscapes to sleek designs featuring your favorite factions, there’s something for every trader. Each time you glance at your screen, you’ll be reminded of the strategic gameplay and resource battles that make our game so engaging.

Click each image to download/save!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Offworld Trading Company Journal: Privatization of Space

Posted on Thursday, March 15, 2018 By Zultar327

 

Greetings Offworld CEOs! Work continues on Offworld, but we don’t have anything to show off just yet. However, with the recent launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, this seemed a good time to touch on an idea that’s core to Offworld Trading Company: the privatization of space back here on Earth.

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It’d be pretty difficult to have an open, competitive market on Mars if we didn’t have companies there to do the competing. While we’re still a fair ways off from the Martian Markets we know and love, many steps have already been taken to get us closer to that goal.

The road to privatization began well before you may think, at least in the USA. It was back in 1962 that the first was step was taken, with the Communications Satellite Act (as you may expect, this essentially started setting the rules for commercial satellite use). Even so, it was still two more decades - in 1984 - before companies could consider launching these satellites themselves. Since that time, private companies have slowly but surely come to play a vital role in space operations, with the red tape of regulation gradually being peeled away. This eventually culminated in the passage of the SPACE Act. This update to US law allows US citizens to "engage in the commercial exploration and exploitation of 'space resources.'” This may sound familiar to some of our space capitalists.

Many companies are now looking to lead the charge in spaceflight. Some are seeking to establish tourism in space, allowing short trips to space if you have the cash to spare. Others want to begin mining the vast resources available elsewhere in the solar system. And perhaps the most ambitious groups are already looking to begin colonization of Mars, planning to permanently settle on the red planet within the next 20 years.

We’ll take a closer look at these companies and their goals in the coming weeks. To bring things back Offworld, we’re looking to get a small patch out in the next few weeks with some minor bug fixes. This will clear the way for us to focus on a more substantial patch later this spring, bringing some long-awaited changes to OTC.


Love the loading screens? Us too! Now you can have them as wallpapers for your desktop.

Posted on Monday, January 29, 2018 By Tatiora

A gift for our community:
Enjoy these Offworld Trading Company Desktop wallpapers 

Offworld Trading Company Keyart Jupiter's Forge Key Art
Diadem Trust Splash Screen Penrose Collective Splash Screen

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Click the thumbnails to view the full resolution images. Download these HD wallpapers to your PC and enjoy!

 

Seneca Development Splash Screen Yoshimi Robotics Splash Screen Mars Terrain Wallpaper
New Meridians Splash Screen Offworld Rocket Wallpaper Reclamation, Inc. Splash Screen

 

Which faction do you like to play?

www.offworldgame.com 


Limited Supply Dev Journal

Posted on Thursday, January 18, 2018 By Zultar327

Offworld Trading Company has gotten a major patch and a brand new DLC this week, so we’re going to take some time today to break down what we’ve been up to for the past couple of months.

Limited Supply

Limited Supply is our new DLC, and it breaks Offworld’s rules in a way we haven’t done before. Featuring 17 new singleplayer scenarios, LS will allow players to explore what Mars was like in the early days of colonization. Gone are the free markets that rule Mars now, strict contracts and sheer scarcity will determine what (if anything) the player is allowed to buy and sell. Also gone are the modern stock markets. Rather than competing for a monopoly of any given Martian Market, players will initially be simply fighting to survive. Once they’ve proven that they can handle a business on Mars local colonies will begin asking players for help and support as they also try to find their feet. Each location has a different market and unique requirements. Because of this, the 17 scenarios play out like puzzles, with players being asked to find a path to victory despite some difficult restrictions being placed on them.

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These puzzles aren’t too difficult at the beginning, but gradually as more and more is asked of the player they’ll begin to be truly challenging. The last few scenarios even take place on Ceres and Io, which everyone knows to be even less forgiving than Mars (these scenarios will be available without The Ceres Initiative and Jupiter’s Forge, though I would encourage you to look into those anyway). Thankfully if it all seems a bit too harsh three difficulty levels are available, so if you think you just need a little more time or maybe one extra MULE you’ll often be able to get just that. Alternatively if things are feeling too easy feel free to try Hard mode, and see if you can truly survive the challenge Mars has to offer.

If you want to find out more about the unique scenarios that Limited Supply offers, make sure to take a look at our news page.

1.18

This patch has quite a bit going on, but we'll focus on a couple key pieces (full notes available here).

Balance

First things first, let’s get right into the meat of what our competitors care about. Not much has changed since our next_version build in terms of balance (see explanations of these changes over at our previous dev journal). Optimizations were toned down a bit, and will take a little longer than seen on next, but overall are still much faster to perfect than they have been before. In addition, debt is now more punishing, with interest rates stacking even higher as corporations fall further into debt. Finally, founding has received a small adjustment in bonus cash awarded. The bonus will be cut in half each time a player founds. This is to encourage players to go ahead and land to start playing the game, rather than simply playing chicken to see how much cash they can squeeze out at the start.

QoL/UI

Lots of little changes have gone in to make competing on Mars just a bit easier. Caves are now protected on found and highlighted like ice, the Scavenger logo has been changed (maybe now they won’t be confused with Robots so much), and the Ranked Queue has seen a variety of improvements. And of course the Infinite Map Challenge is now available in queue, so anyone looking to rank up on the ladder and while playing solo can now do just that.

Finally, modders have been given some new tools to play with. Head on over to the full patch notes for more details.

What’s Next

We’re always looking to improve Offworld in any way we can, and to that end we’ll be looking to improve the new player experience in Offworld. We’re still exploring the options we have for accomplishing this, so we have nothing specific to announce just yet. That said, this is something we’re committed to as we believe we have a great game for people to come to play, but we need to get rid of some of the barriers preventing new competitors from joining our community.

What are you interested in seeing as we head into 2018? Let us know below, and be sure to join us over on Discord to be a part of the discussion.


November Balance Testing

Posted on Wednesday, November 15, 2017 By Zultar327

We’re always looking for ways for improve the competitive experience in Offworld Trading Company. Toward that end, today we’ll be making a new patch available on the next_version beta (located in your Steam beta properties). This patch is focused on adjusting game balance, to make it so that players can consider all available headquarters when beginning game.

 

Transparent Aluminum

 

Transparent Aluminum was a relatively innocuous patent when it was added to Ceres Patent Labs. Scientists in particular might take it as a bonus for building a Lab, allowing them easier upgrade, but it was rarely the point of building the Lab itself. All of that has changed on Io, where the 200 glass cost of Space Elevators made the Patent feel like a must have tool at times, allowing for extremely cheap, powerful buildings. As Transparent Aluminum’s problem stemmed from allowing for this Elevator rush, we’ve decided not to adjust the Patent, but to change the cost of the Elevators, which now require 600 aluminum, 100 glass, 100 electronics. This both reduces the amount of glass a player is able to replace and increases the demand for aluminum in situations where players are look to take their goods offworld.

 

Optimization Centers

 

Optimization Centers are already widely used, but typically used in just one way, spreading out very cheap optimizations across a number of decent resources, rather than being able to focus on a few very valuable resources. While this was sometimes due to the volatile market of the given match, at other times it was simply because high levels of optimization were not worth the investment. Optimization Centers have been rebalanced to make it easier for to reach Perfect optimization levels, which we hope to allow the player more options as to how they’d like to improve their production. We also expect this change to buff the Elite faction, which will retain its optimization bonuses.

 

Other Elite changes

 

Elite have been in an odd spot since launch, but we certainly aren’t going to give up on them. In addition to the optimization changes, Elites will be getting their second starting share back and will have the ongoing chemical cost of their Pleasure Dome halved. The goal of this is to make it slightly easier for Elites to push toward the late game where they truly shine, without making it impossible for other players to shut them down if they seem to be getting out of hand.’

 

Other factions

 

Nomads have been a dominant force on the ladder since they arrived, especially in shorter games. It’s to be expected that faction will always remain a threat in the early game, as having easier access to hard to reach resources will always be strong. That said, Nomads often could find an easy late game too as their large number of claim returns would allow them to take advantage of auctions and black market actions in a way that no other faction could. Nomads will receive fewer return a claim actions for leveling up, making it a true cost for them when they want to spend one.

 

Scientists have been undergoing more changes than most other factions lately, due to the addition of Io and the need to balance them on an entirely new location with very different rules from the previous two. This has left them underperforming a bit, and so they’ll be given a little of their old black market protection back, in the form of a free goon squad upon founding. This bonus will provide a boost, without making a scientist who is in the lead feel like an unstoppable force no matter what is thrown at them. In addition, the basalt construction penalty has been removed.

 

No other factions are receiving direct changes immediately. This doesn’t mean they’re being ignored, and we’ll be keeping an eye on overall balance.

 

Nuclear Plants

 

Nuclear Plants are receiving no changes. One of the reasons for this is the intent that Solar Panels are weaker the further we get from the sun. Nuclear Plants being strong helps reinforce this idea without the player having to keep in mind number differences between locations. As with all decisions, this is subject to change if it persists as a problem.

 

Truncated notes are available below

 

General

  • Cave terrain is now highlighted when holding down the “z” key

Balance

  • Optimization costs have been adjusted
  • Improved (25%) from 20 Chemicals, 40 seconds to 30 Chemicals, 30 seconds
  • Efficient (50%) from 40 Chemicals, 60 seconds to 40 Chemicals, 40 seconds
  • Advanced (75%) from 60 Chemicals, 80 seconds to 50 Chemicals, 50 seconds
  • Perfect (100%) from 80 Chemicals, 100 seconds to 60 Chemicals, 60 seconds
  • Elites now start with 2 extra shares owned (up from 1)
  • Space Elevators now cost 600 Aluminum, 100 Glass, 100 Electronics
  • Scientists now start with a Goon Squad
  • Basalt construction penalty removed
  • Nomads receive one claim per HQ level (including HQ1), changed from two claims per level after HQ1
  • Elite Pleasure Dome now consumes .25 Chemicals per second (down from .5)
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