Releasing 0.5.3.1 without binding agents

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#1

So I / we previously said that we’d release 0.5.3.1 basically as soon as possible once binding agents are done. However, the current situation is that the binding agents progress is stuck:

It was last worked on in December, nearly two months ago. So there’s a real risk that even the three months that was planned between 0.5.3 and 0.5.4 release, might not be enough for the binding agents to be finished. And a lot of good stuff (and important fixes) has been done since 0.5.3 release.

So I’m now thinking that maybe we should release 0.5.3.1 as a patch with what we have currently in a week or two. As well as publicly communicate that we are still committed to binding agents and they will still get their own special release ASAP once they are done, even though it will not end up being 0.5.3.1.

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#2

That sounds great to me! we have lots of nice improvements in the devbuilds so far, enough to make for a decently sized update even without the binding agents. More importantly is the recently fixed AI which the game desperately needs for more compelling gameplay.
I’ll see about playtesting Thrive to make sure balance is still fine, It’s been a long while since our AI responded appropriately so it’s possible some things may not be effective due to being tested without competitive AI.

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#3

Seems like everyone is positive about this change. I’ll mark the github milestone to be due by next Saturday. I’ll probably aim to have a test build for public testing by Wednesday / Thursday (when the organelle move is finished) to see if we got some serious bugs in, and then make the release next Saturday.