Game Branches and You

[VectorStorm]

Hi, everybody!

I just wanted to explain how we handle branches for this game. If you have access to the Early Access build, you can right-click on the game in your library and choose 'Properties' from the context menu, and then switch to the 'Betas' tab.

In there, you'll see a couple of different game branches you can switch between.

* Default: This is the default branch. Stable, relatively well-tested builds will go into here.
* Test: This is where the latest new builds land. If you want to see all the latest new things the very moment they're added to the game (at the potential cost of a little stability), switch over to the Test branch!
* Past: Whenever I put a new build into the 'Default' branch, I update 'Past' to point at whatever 'Default' used to point at. So Past is like the "extreme stability" version to run. You'll be a little behind in terms of features, but you'll be less likely to see any weirdnesses popping up unexpectedly.

Right now, all three of these branches are pointing at the same build. But that's probably going to start changing really soon, as I resume new feature development on the game tomorrow!

There are two other branches, too:
* MS17: Today, this is actually also the same build. But unlike 'Default', 'Test', and 'Past', this one is going to stay the same forever. It's our Milestone 17 build, the one that went live on Early Access today, and it always will be exactly that build!
* MS16: Do you love history? Did you miss out on testing our "Milestone 16" build back then and wonder what it looked like? Well, it's over here! And it's *very* different from our current build!

There are a couple caveats about the MS16 build. First, it predates OS X Catalina, and so it isn't signed to run on modern Mac OS builds (thought it should run if you still have an earlier version of the operating system on your Mac!). And second, it won't be able to successfully open your saved games from later builds! So.. be careful if you do choose to run it, and only create new games; don't load ones from more recent builds! And if there are bugs in it, I can't really fix them any more! So.. this old build is for entertainment purposes only! :D

[VectorStorm]

And a quick extra note: For these first few days, as I'm doing hotfixes for bugs that folks are reporting (if you can, please report them over on our Discord or forum! There are links to both inside the game!), I'm going to be pushing all these fixes to MS17, Test, and Default, with Past staying a few builds back, just in case I do something catastrophic that accidentally prevents someone from playing.

I'm hoping that things will settle down a lot in the next day or two, so I can get back to implementing new game features!

[ulufarkas]

default version is 19 but beta branches are still 16 and 17