Launching the Ultra War Devblog

Welcome, Star Captain. This is the Ultra War Devblog: the place where we tell you what changed, why, and what we are working on next. Ultra War moves fast (some days bring a dozen releases), so we wanted somewhere calmer than a patch list to talk about it.

What Ultra War is

Ultra War is a science-fiction strategy game you play in your browser. Eight factions fight for the stars: the radiant Solari, the iron Hegemony, the Nereid of the deep, the ever-growing Fungus, the Synthari and their reactors, the Spacers, the Veilborn who open the Rift, and the loud, cheerful Gobbos. You play it in several layers that feed one another:

• Skirmish card battles. The heart of the game: build a deck from your faction's cards and fight the computer, with a Campaign that teaches you the ropes.
• Dominion. Found a colony on a world of your own, build it up, research, claim its moons and hold it against raids. Colony battles are real card battles with your deck.
• Flagship. Fly your own Flagship in full 3D: mine asteroid belts, trade at stations, hail traffic on the lanes, take contracts and fight pirates.
• The Galactic Map. A persistent war for the Galactic Core across hundreds of systems. Commission Commanders, your officers, and send them on sorties for your faction while you are away.
• Your Star Captain. That is you: one level earned in every layer, gear you wear, a service record and your standing with every faction, all on the Star Captain screen.

Early access, alpha playtesting

Ultra War is in early access, alpha playtesting. That means the game is playable and growing every day, and also that things change: numbers get tuned, screens get rebuilt and now and then something breaks. Your progress is saved in your browser for now. When something important changes, What's new on the Command Deck says so, and from today the Devblog will too.

What you will read here

• Daily digests. "The last 24 hours": every release of the day, grouped by layer and written for players rather than as a changelog.
• Features. Longer looks at new systems when they land, such as traffic encounters or the Star Captain screen.
• Behind the scenes. How we design, test and paint the game, and why we made a call.
• Launches and plans. What is coming next, told as plans rather than promises.

The scrolling What's new panel on the front page is the same feed you see on the Command Deck, with every dispatch dated and linked to the part of the Field Manual that explains it. There is an RSS feed too, if you like to follow along that way.

Found a bug? Tell us

Report a bug is in the top bar on every page of the game. You do not need to sign in. Say what happened and what you expected, and the report carries the page, the build and any recent errors for us automatically.

A report can now carry up to three screenshots. One click captures the game (with chat left out by default), or you can paste or add an image. Blur and crop anything you would rather we did not see before you send. Screenshots are seen only by the team and deleted after 90 days.

Player reports already shape the game: the Dominion chat fix in v0.10.147 came from a report by Caleb Jingleberry. Reports we fix earn the Bug Hunter title.

Thank you for playing, and for helping us build Ultra War. See you on the front.