Release Status: *** Available ***

For April we’re making some requested quality-of-life adjustments and some other minor updates to the game. Highlights for this update include:

• Research is now back to two separate queues - civilian and military.

• Many AI improvements.

• Improved early game economy and trade.

• Increased unit survivability.

• Many UI improvements.

• More audio balancing.

NOTE:  This update is not save game compatible with prior versions.

Change Log

AI Improvements:

• Improved player AI attacking.

• Improved player AI planet guarding.

• Improved player AI unit building.

• Improved player AI colonization.

• Improved player AI researching.

• Improved player AI planet development.

• Improved player AI retrofitting.

• Improved player AI exotic management.

• Improved player AI loot collection.

• Improved unit AI collision avoidance.

• Improved unit AI pathfinding.

• Improved unit AI combat 'target track' movement.

• Improved garrison AI.

• Fixed AI still updating when player is dead.

• Fixed a variety of AI combat, colonization and production issues.

• Prevented AI from allying with other AI in team games.

Visual Effects:

• Added new effect for Dunov energy transfer beam.

• Fixed popping particles that had a fade-in / fade-out combination.

• Updated death sequences. Updated death sequences to be cleaner, more interesting.

• Fixed incorrect particle and sound fx on Javelis and the Sova’s missile battery pod.

• Added new phase lane vfx for charge/travel/exit.

Gameplay:

• Added parallel research build queues per domain. Research domains are now completely separated from the top bar onwards.

• Improved early game economy.

• Increased trade income.

• Improved battle length.

• Adjusted lobby game speed options.

• Adjusted spawn loot guardian's range.

• Fixed exotic duplication bug when moving build queue.

• Fixed Human Doctrine being duplicated on home planet.

• Fixed Missile Guidance Computer and Targeting Array items not removing their bonuses to nearby allied units when the item is removed.

• Reduced squadrons of low-level carrier capital ship.

• Updated tier/price/windfall of Focused Exploration research.

• Rebalanced pirate ratios and removed obsolete medium pirate.

• Made first capital ship build instantly.

• Fixed pirate balance issue.

Galaxy Generation:

• Fixed resource asteroids intersecting structures.

• Fixed structures spawning in structures or asteroids.

• Fixed structures building outside the build area when possible.

• Fixed units spawning inside a star or planet.

• Fixed loot guardians spawning on top of loot.

User Interface:

• Added auto overlap detection to bookmark window and top bar.

• Added tip on how to rename units.

• Disabled culture takeover blinks around planet icons.

• Fixed assert when selecting 200% dpi.

• Fixed autocast animation being scaled by dynamically changing simulation time.

• Fixed crash giving rally orders to stacks of units in production window.

• Fixed crash in passive ability range rendering.

• Fixed game not remaining paused when changing settings or entering save game name (single-player only).

• Fixed minor layout issues at non-standard dpi settings.

• Fixed other dpi's being not pickable if auto_scale_dpi_to_fit_display is set to false.

• Fixed phase lane being deleted blink from speeding up with game speed settings.

• Fixed scout triggering enemy_units_detected_at_unowned_planet at all visited gravity wells.

• Fixed shield bars growing out of bar area.

• Fixed structure building pips blink being modified by game speed.

• Fixed time scale issues with UI and shaders.

• Clouds and other shader-based effects are no longer affected by global game speed options set in lobby.

• UI animations no longer affected by any game speed changes and will always pulse or otherwise animate at a consistent speed (will still pause if game is paused though).

• Fixed volume sliders not initialized when settings file was deleted from filesystem.

• Improved transition between both research window domain windows.

• Linked research window is compressed setting between both domains. Expectation is that changing it in one location will change it in the other as well.

• Linked research window text filter between both domains.

• Improved asset change notifications.

• Suppressed planet track completed and exotic built notifications.

• Fixed selection window capital ship level up fill color flash showing up for other players.

• Fixed bug stuck at 125% dpi in settings window. Users will now be able to pick 100% again from the list.

• Updated top bar visuals and layout.

  • Changed default input bindings to match new top bar button order.

• Updated research window.

  • Added research text filter count indicators.

  • Added flash to top bar research buttons when research completed.

  • Added instant transitions between research domain windows.

  • Changed research window to only fade in.

  • Added link arrows between research tiers.

  • Changed research buttons to show current points instead of number of research subjects active. This makes it more consistent with other top bar numbers.

  • New watermark images for compressed view

  • Redesigned header and footer

• Fixed rename unit issues: Entering an empty name will properly refresh to restore the original name. Name changes will be sync’d between windows (e.g., colonized planets at top and selected planet at bottom).

• Suppressed missiles and torpedoes from being added to selection window.

• Removed running auction from NPC tooltip.

• Updated HUD pictures for TEC units.

Tooltips:

• Added colonized planets summary tooltip.

• Added Human Doctrine buff values to research subject tooltips.

• Added unlocked/improved abilities to research subject tooltips.

• Fixed non-homeworld Human Doctrine buff not showing up on unit tooltips.

• Fixed research domain tooltip list of structures/items providing points.

• Improved research text filtering.

  • Will now filter on both the unit and ability names for any unlocked abilities (e.g., Retrofit Bay - Repair).

  • Will filter on keywords ability, unlock, improve (if level > 0) for any unit abilities improved by research.

  • Will filter on unlocked ability properties (modifiers, trade capacity, custom labels).

  • Will filter on unlocked item ability (and properties).

  • Will filter on unlocked item modifiers (unit, planet, player, etc.).

• Made all hull restore rate values in abilities positive green color.

• Shortened some ship unlock research names to make tooltips more compact.

Research:

• Added parallel research build queues per domain. Now research domains are now completely separated on the top bar.

Audio:

• Fixed Magnetic Singularity sound not being played when initially created.

• Fixed TEC autocannon selected dialog from using Advent dialog.

• Added Magnetic Singularity sound FX.

• Major audio re-balance: Normalized loudness across sound assets and adjust attenuations accordingly.

• Updated TEC autocannon defense structure to use new autocannon sound FX and updated burst pattern to match Kol.

• Updated gauss defense structure sound FX.

• Updated death sequences and adjust volumes so the final explosions pop more.

• Fixed incorrect particle and sound fx on Javelis and the Sova’s missile battery pod.

Notifications

• Added pirate raid notification.

• Added auction notification sound.

• Added notification for destroying an enemy planet.

• Added notifications for ship and planet components finished building.

• Added per notification type durations. All notifications are not equal; can make some shorter or longer.

• Inverted progress bar for auction notification.

• Moved notifications behind global windows.

• Added support for notification card interaction when the game is paused. You can now right-click and remove notifications while the game is paused.

Event Dialog

• Added event dialog system.

• Added player dialog for enemy units arriving.

• Added player dialog for planet related events.

• Added player dialog for various click errors (e.g., insufficient credits, research needed, etc.).

• Added player specific dialog bindings to notifications.

• Added research completed dialog.

• Added planet development completed player dialog.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed being able to build over trade port limit of a planet by building in groups.

• Fixed trade port overlap.

• Fixed auctions running after the game is over.