1.1b
This patch is now live with the following patch notes:
Polish language implemented
I've added some sanity checks to the code to try and eliminate the Mirror Fleet bug. I have not been able to reproduce this issue on my end, but when you get enough people playing the game, it'll pop up. I hope this fix will eliminate the bug. After this patch, please let me know.
Fighters will now take damage over time if their mothership is destroyed; this should eliminate situations where a pair of ace dogfighters take nearly forever to finish off their battle. They'll have about 45 seconds of life left after their mothership dies.
(Experimental) I am eliminating the Garrison mechanic, which reduced the command point cost of ships that were in orbit - as an experiment in controlling fleet sizes
(Also Experimental) - the base CP for a battleship is increased from 4 to 5; Titans from 5 to 7. I want titans to be a much larger investment, and encourage some more mixed use of forces
(Experimental too) - You may now build a number of free frigates equal to half your Command Point Cap (rounded up, if the number is odd)
Changed the way "free CP" ships are represented in the fleet UI. previously they would contribute to the "on paper" CP cost of the fleet, and you'd have to figure out whether a ship was free or not; now I specifically assign a ship to be free or not, which will result in an accurate CP readout on the GUI.
Defensive Station hitpoints are increased by about 300%
Attempted fix in place for scenario where AI ships will maneuver off the combat map; I have not been able to reproduce this bug but my hypothesis is that it is an error in the target selection code; I have done some work here to do a little sanity checking and ensure that AI ships refresh their targets a bit more frequently
Rebalanced all of the combat audio to avoid corrupt, crackling sounds when too many weapons are firing off at once; you should also observe a nice performance increase as a result
Fixed a bug where weapons that deal Damage over time were not properly applying their Dots, although the damage text would appear
I've changed the AI's fleet building logic to prioritize making its biggest ships first, and then it will backfill with free corvettes and frigates
v1.1
New Content:
• Added more than 1500 bad-ass ship designs to the AI's arsenal.
• The AI routines responsible for building fleets have been upgraded to provide a more substantial challenge heading into the late game. Experienced players may very well find themselves out-gunned!
• New Race Customization Options! These are "Game-Changers" to provide some more unique challenges for you.
- Titan Quest: You begin the game with Titan Construction technology but can ONLY build Titan class military vessels
- Total War: You cannot build colony ships. This should be a fun challenge.
- Newcomer: Your empire was late to the StarDrive party. Other empires start with two additional colonies in nearby systems
• Added a number of new technologies and ship modules that will be available through a new in-game event
• New Galaxy Shape Added: Ring
• Added Broadside Weapon Mounts for the following weapons
- Heavy Torpedo
- Plasma Torpedo
- Anti-Matter Torpedo
- EMP Torpedo
- Photon Torpedo
- Quantum Torpdo
Tweaks & Balance
• Changed some of the Strategic AI behaviors to research technologies that you may not have seen the AI research before
• The Tactical AI now has a new play in its playbook to try and bring down those destroyers lurking on the edge of combat
• The AI will now engage in some limited technology trading between themselves. I had previously decided as a matter of design to restrict this behavior to prevent the AI from appearing to have an overwhelming advantage, but there are some techs that are just too important for the AI to go without. Therefore the AI will now trade with Known races to acquire certain techs that are important to it
• The Shipyard Checklist will now produce a red "Ammo" error if you attempt to build a ship with a weapon equipped while not having the energy or ordnance storage necessary to fire the weapon; previously this would have only produced a yellow "Ammo" warning. This will prevent players from being able to create a design with a weapon mount that is unable to fire
• The cost of future tech research increases the further down the tree that you go. This should prevent you from ever running out of future tech, which can break the game if you get that far, and it will slow down tech progression in the late game
• The 2x5 mass driver has its range reduced to 800, with a large damage fall-off occuring past 600.
• If your approval level ever hits 0, then your people will simply refuse to work or perform research because literally no one likes you enough to do anything for you.
• The AI will only demand tribute if it believes that its fleet is stronger than yours
• My mouse wheel broke and so I realized that for people without good mouse scroll wheels, the +/- buttons on the minimap needed some more fine-grained control. So that's in there now.
• Added support for Corvette-only weapons to compliment the new technologies available
• The game's initial load up time is reduced by a fair margin
• Future Tech can no longer be assimilated or stolen by spies, which kills a few wonky birds with one stone
• The maximum population of a planet is now determined by the citizens living on the planet - not the owner of a planet. For instance, if you conquer an aquatic world, the aquatic species that lives there will be able to continue to breed and grow into their planetary population cap. You will not be able to place more non-aquatic citizens there than your own cap would ever allow. If the Population cap of a planet is increased relative to your own species' cap due to a trait like aquatic or subterranean, then the population readout will reflect this in parenthesis: i.e. a world might read as 7/5 (14). Meaning 7 citizens live there - your cap is 5, but due to the bonuses of the citizens, the real cap is 14.
Bug Fixes:
• Fixed a bug with the AI sometimes colonizing in your space still; added some extra safety nets for scenarios where space BECOMES your core space when the AI colony ship is already en route
• Capturing a blockaded planet in ground combat will no longer cause the planet to be blockaded for the immediate turn thereafter; this bug may have been the cause of some very edge case scenarios where you might find a mirror of your own blockading fleet invading your colony. I'm not declaring that issue fully resolved but I'm still working towards isolating the cause and I suspect that this now-dead bug may be the culprit
• Fixed a few achivements that were not unlocking properly
• Fixed an issue where the AI could still potentially colonize in Player space; this was caused by the AI aborting its attempt to colonize a valid planet due to a hostile presence in the vicinity, and picking a second choice without the same territorial considerations it usually employs to choose a colonization target
• Fixed an issue with the new Approval penalty that is incurred when exceeding tolerance when also having a leader that improves your tolerance levels
• The Gauss cannon should no longer punch through shields
• Fixed a bug (it was a typo) that was causing the expansionism penalty to diplomatic relations to remain constant, when the desired effect was to have it diminish over time
• The Hire Hero window will no longer be overridden by pop-ups from quests or diplomatic interactions
v1.0h
• You can no longer order your fleets to intercept your own Civilian transports or merchant fleets. Previously you could merge a combat fleet with a civilian fleet and this could cause a game hang or potentially a crash
• Improved the terran ground combat map as it was a bit sparse on details
• The "Stormwracked" planet attribute will now be removed when you complete the special project to do so; previously if the planet was currently undergoing a storm when you fixed the special, then it would remain storming indefinitely. This fix will apply retroactively to your saved games
• AIs that prefer to use carriers are getting some new ship loadout options for their battleships
• Fixed a bug that could cause a hang on load in the late game
• Upon reconsidering the issue, I've decided to nerf 3x3 cruise missile damage. They are extremely reliable right now due to their speed and hitpoints, and I'm unhappy with how quickly a focused barrage can take out even a battleship in short order. The focus for missiles is reliable damage at mid-long range, but they can be stuffed with Jammers and point defense.
• Increased the number of screenships that the AI will try to use for its Capital ships, and I've made them want to be tighter in on their wards to try and be there for missile barrage intercepts
• 2 direct hits from a flak cannon is now sufficient to kill a cruise missile. Point defense lasers will remain largely ineffective; I am looking into adding some higher tech point defense
• Continuing to expand your empire despite being warned by an AI will no longer result in an AI automatically declaring war on you
• The expansionism penalty to diplomatic relations will subside over time
• The expansionism penalty to relations will not be applied if you are colonizing inside a system where you already own a colony, and you are the only empire occupying the system
• Fixed a scenario where the AI wants a trade treaty and creates an offer that exceeds your tolerance levels
• Colonizing within the Core space of an AI will require a declaration of war before you can proceed
• Added an Open Borders Treaty to diplomacy. This allows you to re-arm, repair, and refuel inside the other's territory. It also extends your fuel range through their territory. This treaty takes the place of the Non-Aggression Pact for purposes of defraying the relations hit that comes from moving through the core space of another empire.
• Updated the English dialog texts and AI behavior to offer an Open Borders treaty instead of a Non-Aggression Pact upon a core-space incursion by player fleets (if they like you enough).
• You can now, as an emergency measure, exceed your normal tolerance levels in diplomacy at the expense of pissing off your people. An appropriate pop-up warning has been added when attempting to do this. Cybernetics continue to be immune to being pissed off about anything, which is a point to consider for balance purposes as we go through with the changes to this system. The AI will remain inflexible with its tolerance levels
• Heavy fighters will now be equipped with a 1x1 Rocket launcher instead of the Flak or Cluster Cannon. This should both increase their effective DPS and also increase YOUR effective FPS, because the cluster cannon could bog your framerates when used en masse
• If you declare war upon a race with whom you have an open borders treaty, you will receive an "Untrustworthy" penalty to relations with all other races. You also get this penalty if you had a non-aggression pact
• The "untrustworthy" penalty is now increased to a base of -20 points from -10.
• Artillery given a steep damage falloff past 600 range
v1.0g
• Fixed an issue where ship designs from an uninstalled Mod would cause your game to hang on load
• Added a targeting penalty for long-range shooting ( >300). The longer the range, the greater the penalty. This penalty can be alleviated with experience
• The ECM Jammer and Advanced ECM jammer will now provide what I'm calling "Targeting Defense". Ships shooting ballistic weapons at ships with these Jammers will now receive a stackable penalty to their accuracy
• After running the numbers on a bunch of energy cannon weapons, I have determined that basic lasers are still, relative to other energy cannon weapons, overpowered. So I have the option of either buffing the other cannon weapons, or reducing the effectiveness of lasers. I'm doing a little bit of both. So lasers are again being reduced in damage, but disruptors and other energy cannon weapons are gaining bonuses. Just FYI I'm balancing these cannon weapons by their DPS per slot footprint at point blank range. We'll see much smoother and noticable arc of improvement as you obtain better cannon weaponry
• Anti-Matter Cannon gets a graphical improvement with its rework. Added a 2x3 spinal anti-matter cannon. The AM cannon is brought more in line with the Plasma Cannon - it's got really high point blank damage but a quicker fall-off, but no dissipation vs. shields. Increased Ordnance costs for the weapon. It's meant to be a point blank dominator
• Eliminated a bug where, if your fleet was blockading a planet, and the planet finished construction of a space station, then you would switch roles and end up having to fight your own fleet!
• The AI will now attempt to rally its war fleets in safer places. Previously they would choose a system that was free of enemy threats, but they wouldn't think too hard about what was in between the rallying fleet and the rally position, which could lead to some poor strategic deployments
• The Ai will be a bit more patient when regrouping its forces now before going on offense. They had some behaviors where they would send an offensive fleet out while several other task forces were trying to rendezvous, leading to a potential conga line of ships
• On Easy, Normal, and Hard, the AI is going to be less Homicidal over small grievances like refusing to pay tribute. They will need to be madder at you to declare a war, with different thresholds depending on the difficulty and their needs
v1.0f
• Eliminated a bug that could cause your game to hang at 100% turn
• The AI will now refit larger portions of its fleet at a time to make sure that its ships have the best available technology
• The AI will now potentially use ships designed by the player when buildings its fleet. Approximately 25% of the time, it will choose from among the best and largest designs that it is capable of building even if these designs are not necessarily in its game plan. So if you designed a badass Titan and the AI has the tech, it's going to try to build some of them. The other side of this is that if you designed a few clunkers then the AI is going to be using some of those!
• Added a new AI strategy that will focus on getting early Mass Driver cruisers deployed, with a continued focus on using long-range kinetics as it techs up
• The Plasma Cannon is now more bad-ass and useful. Very high point blank damage with a rapid fall-off, plus damage over time. The weapon takes a large penalty vs shields but is very efficient otherwise
• I have increased the strength of Plasteel relative to steel by 50%. This provides a clear intermediate step between steel and more advanced armors. The AIs that choose to go for an armored route over Class I shields will see a nice benefit here.
• Fixed a bug where trading for or assimilating all techs in a branch would not advance you to the next branch in the research tree
• Plasma torpedo has been adjusted to accomodate changes to plasma cannon
• Potential fix in place for bug where you are sometimes intercepted by a mirror copy of your fleet. Ironically I think this was caused by an earlier attempt to eliminate the issue. Please let me know if the issue persists after downloading this patch
• Wall Street is nerfed and will cap out at 50 BC per turn. Sorry fellas. Liberal government is in charge
• Fixed a bug where the improper damage amount was being displayed in the floating text popups for weapons that do more or less damage vs. shields (i.e. mass drivers)
v1.0e
• Performance optimization of approximately 50% for space battles. I did a serious nitty-gritty pass on the physics calculations and was able to really improve things. Smaller battles that were already running at 60fps, you won't notice a change. But In situations of 20+ cruisers on a side with hundreds of laser bolts flying around, I was able to improve FPS by 50% on average.
• Fixed issue with Defensive Battery not gaining AP. Changed it to have a greater range but fewer hit points
• Hard and Brutal mode AIs will now cheat a bit to provide some more challenge for players who are upset about some of the scalebacks to difficulty. I'm giving the AI a 15% and 30% bonus to production and research, respectively, on those diffuclty levels. Please let me know if this increases your challenge satisfactorily
• Starbases will receive a maximum of 1 Gauss Cannon mount; Battle Stations 2, Star Fortresses 3. The weapon is simply too powerful. Starbases will now upgrade to Mass Drivers for their cannon weaponry if it is available
• Mass Driver Rate of Fire is halved but damage is doubled. This will make each shot count more without reducing effectiveness overall, but accuracy counts more. See shield change re: mass drivers below
• Starbase long range kinetic weaponry is now far less accurate. Battle stations and Star Fortresses have better accuracy.
• Starbases will now use shields
• You can now click on a planet's name to zoom in on it. Should help when there are big ships in the way
• All Battleships and Titans have had their sizes on the strategy map adjusted (if necessary) to avoid blotting out planets. This and the fact that you can click a planet's name should now be helpful in eliminating the issue where you are having a hard time accessing a planet
• Hard and Brutal will have more frequent random attacks- Brutal moreso than hard
• Phasors have had their damage and range buffed relative to Fusion and Ion Beams. Fusion and Ion Beams have received smaller buffs
• Canopy Shields receive a massive HP boost to compensate for the fact they they are impossible to miss
• The 1x3 and 2x2 laser cannon mounts have had their damage reduced by approximately 25%. This will make the 3x3 a clear winner in terms of DPS per slot, and should encourage upgrading to better weapons as they become available
• Weapons that fall into the "Kinetic Cannon" category are now slapped with a 50% penalty to damage versus shields - except the gauss cannon. This include Mass Drivers, Artillery, Flak, and Cluster Cannons. There are currently no real counters to these weapons; this change will make shields more effective against fleets focusing on Kinetic Weapons
• Mines now work appropriately
• Space Stations all receive a very nice hitpoint buff
• The AI will now attempt to limit the size of a sneak attack based on the difficulty settings. On Easy it will not bring a fleet that is bigger than the 75% of player's entire fleet. On Normal it will try to bring an equivalent-sized fleet, keeping the rest in reserve. On Hard, it is allowed to exceed the size of the player's fleet but will leave reserves. On Brutal it will not limit itself at all.
• Ships that are refit will now take the name of the new ship class unless they already had a customized name
• Every few turns, the AI will look to see if it can refit any ships to have upgraded technology, and pick a ship to refit if it can. Previously it was looking only to replace losses with upgraded ships
v1.0d
• The "Hostile Threats" slider will now remove all neutral threats (crystals etc) from the galaxy when set on the Lowest setting.
• A new "Disable Attacks" option is now added to the galaxy creation menu. This will disable all attacks by neutral factions - pirates, monsters, remnant, etc. Any event which spawns a fleet as a dynamic threat is switched off with this option
• Fixed fighters spinning off if the game was paused and unpaused as they took a shot that didn't kill them
• The random bleepy bloops, GNN, and Diplomacy screens are now properly tied to the volume sliders in the options menu
• The AI will now limit its use of moles to a more manageable amount
• It is now far easier to kill both moles and spies on defense; this is a two way street, as the AI has the same benefits
• If a ship has its engines knocked out or is otherwise disabled, then it will come to a halt. This should fix any errors seen with ships flinging off into space
• Fixed draylok titan shield not working
• Fixed a couple more ship designs that were wonky
v1.0c
• Added some optimizations to battles that have tons of fighters (200+). The optimizations will apply to all battles of course, but I'm really aiming at getting the FPS up for those crazy huge battles
• Researching Phasors will now upgrade your fighter weapons appropriately
• Mac / Linux fix for hanging at 100% on a turn
• Fixed malfillion's ship
• Easy mode is now easier. You will see fewer Portal Spawns, and the AI is penalized in its production and research capacity. The AI will still be aggressive but they will simply be slower about its economy, which will hopefully help out new players. There are no changes to Normal difficulty and above
• Fixed a scenario where the AI could sneak attack you even though you had a peace treaty
• Buffed Fighters across the board to have more hitpoints. I think they are too flimsy right now. They get a very solid buff. Also, I noticed that the AI was not properly using upgraded fighter weaponry. Expect fighter swarms to be much more deadly
• You'll see slightly reduced portal spawns across all difficulties now. The initial spawn will happen when you're a bit further along in your development now. And even longer out for easy mode.
• Fixed a bug that could prevent successful completion of a battle arena mission
• The Ai will not pester you as often with various demands and requests to trade
• A Non-Aggression Pact will be far more effective at preventing an empire from attacking you if they detect weakness
v1.0b
• fixed problems with the foreign language versions. Issues with dialogs or text not appearing or appearing incorrectly, or with textures appearing as Question Marks
v1.0a
• Game textures could fail to load if your Windows install was not on C:
- this may also affect people who had trouble loading the game in the first place. We'll see if this patch fixes your problems
• fixed a hang that could occur at the end of a turn
