*** RELEASED 2/4/2022 ***

Features

• Lots of new flavor text.
• Mimot lore story expanded on.
• Tech Navigator added
• New events
  • Iridium Market Collapse
  • Torian Terrorist
  • Drengin Gladiator
  • Fleeing Scientist
  • Stolen Drive

Balance

• New super project: Iridia Exchange. Provides +4 adjacency bonuses Wealth trait civs only.
• Wealthy trait civs no longer get a capital mainframe and other super projects for tech
• Slight decrease in the cost of planetary improvements
• Certain planetary trait improvements now provide adjacency bonuses.
• Turns now represent ONE MONTH instead of ONE WEEK
• Slightly more players recommended per map size.
• Day of the month is randomized for flavor
• One year anniversary event changed to Five year (60 turns) event.
• Starting Cluster size chosen by player enforced.
• Overcrowded penalty to approval reduced.
• Crime penalty to approval reduced (until it gets pretty high then BAM!)
• Leaders assigned to factions provide greater benefits.
• New policy: Wealth Civs only = The Great Expansion. 3X to planetary growth on capital world.
• Yor no longer result in a negative approval rating when you are at war with their species.
• Iridium default expectations increased by 8.
• Drastic reduction in the cost of weapons and defenses in ship construction (increase military ship pacing)
• New component: Efficient constructor module.  Wealthy trait civs get a cheaper version of the constructor module.
• No Ship component costs more than 1 slot.
• Corporate Sector start with Translator tech.  Will require an advisor change so that we aren't looking at a blank diplomacy screen.
• Subspace stream lanes are now 100X faster for ships rather than 20 times.
• Marginal worlds are now either class 1 or 2 rather than up to 5 (eliminate confusion as to what that number is). Really these should probably just be class 1 planets.
• Marginal worlds are more specific about what kinds of raw resources they have based on what type of world it is.
• Earth minerals increased from 3 to 4
• Drengi wealth reduced from 5 to 3
• Drengi fertility reduced from 12 to 10
• Altaria minerals increased from 3 to 4
• Iridia minerals increased from 3 to 4
• Iridia wealth reduced from 8 to 4
• Iridia planet class increased from 25 to 29
• Iconia minerals increased from 3 to 4
• Iconia Fertility reduced from 6 to 5
• Kryseth minerals increased from 3 to 4
• Kryseth fertilty reduced from 12 to 10
• Arcea minerals increased from 3 to 6
• Arcea tech reduced from 3 to 2
• Fen minerals increased from 3 to 5
• Fen Tech reduced from 3 to 2
• Balance and variance pass across all map sizes and sector counts. Big big changes here.
• Occasional planet frequency changed from 1.75 to 1.8 (slightly more planets).
• Reduced the chance of escape with the flash engine.
• Reduced the number of red suns slightly (sorry superman).
• Switched some events to provide constructors instead of colony ships.
• Intuitive civilization trait now gives 1 free Culture trait rather than free research.
• Certain civilization trait now provides 30 research per culture trait unlock rather than 100.
• Improved distribution of planet starting locations.
• Switched the default planet frequency to common.
• Influence gradually grows based on turn number at a slower rate.
• Tiny ship mass slots increased from 1 to 2.
• Tiny ship default moves increased from 8 to 9.
• Small ship mass slots increased from 3 to 4.
• Small ship default moves increased from 7 to 8.
• Medium ship mass slots increased from 6 to 8.
• Medium ship default moves increased from 6 to 7.
• Large ship mass slots increased from 9 to 10.
• All starbase modules now cost 1 starbase module
• Sector scanners no longer cost a Thulium. (but do cost a module..)
• Surveillance System module no longer costs Thuliuim.
• Starbase relic upgrades no longer rely on exotic resources but instead require Promethion to upgrade.
• Starbase military enhancements no longer rely on exotic resources but now require Durantium instead.
• Starbase factory enhnacements no longer require exotic resources but instead use Durantium.
• Starbase lab modules no longer require exotic resources but instead use Promethion.
• Starbase economic enhancements no longer use exotic resources but instead use a bit of Promethion AND Durantium.
• Starbase Culture modules no longer require exotic resources but instead use Durantium.
• Starbase pinnacle (the top level upgrades) do still require an exotic resource.
• Rebalanced prestige.
• Diplomacy: If your civilization is too far out of range then "Ripe for conquest" and "we want to conquer the galaxy" are no longer counted since they don't apply to you.
• Default out of range bonus reduced from 5 to 1.
• Xenophobic multiplier on out of range diplomacy bonus increased from 2 to 4.
• Citizen approval ratings when you're at war with their species penalty increased except for the Mimots.
• Drengin and Yor approval penalty greatly increased.
• Laser ship component cost reduced from 30 to 25
• Particle beam cost reduced from 45 to 32
• New component: Experimental Laser
• Disruptor cost reduced from 55 to 50
• Enhanced disruptor cost reduced from 55 to 50
• New component: Advanced disruptor. More powerful, costs 2 Elerium.
• Similar balance changes to kinetic and missile weapons
• New Advanced versions of most weapons where there is now an additional "advanced" component that uses even more of a special resource than the enhanced.
• Fusion Power plant cost reduced from 600 to 200.
• Singularity power plant reduced from 1000 to 500
• Eyes of Universe grants a culture point upon being constructed
• Research Mission cost reduced from 100 to 80
• Credits mission reduced from 120 to 100
• Production mission reduced from 100 to 60 (testing)
• Exotic Resources mission cost reduced from 240 to 140
• Influence mission cost reduced from 180 to 150.
• Generally lowers the number of resource rewards from events.
• Increased the number of special planet features found on fixed layout planets like Earth.
• The Prison improvement is not one per player and reduces global crime by 5%, but also lowers Approval on the planet it is on.
• The Museum event now gives out ideology points correctly.
• Reduced AI default difficulty from Normal to Easy now that the AI is playing better.
• Rush cost multiplier reduced from 5X to 4X.
• Draft colonist cost increased from 25 control to 33 and cooldown increased from 5 to 8.
• Telescope takeover cost increased from 10 to 15.
• Print money control cost increased from 20 to 60.
• Print money cooldown time reduced from 25 to 15.
• Reduced Medium Taxation from 50% to 33%.
• Manti are slightly happier to make up for them being unhappy if on a dry world.
• Increased hostility of shared borders.
• Less precursor relics.
• Added the Trade Network improvement.
• Reduces the amount of money made form Trade Routes.

Fixes

• Fixed missing HP icon in the ship designer screen.
• Fixed an issue where you could target sectors you hadn't discovered with artifact powers.
• Fixed event generated planets not using the specified planet class in the event def
• Fixed issue where other popups can interrupt the cutscene wnd (when you get things like a colonization popup in the middle of a movie playing).
• Stuck turn fixes.
• Fixed an issue where you could select your research project from the tech nav.
• Fixed an issue where some ships showed "Component" in their description.
• Crash fixes.
• Fixed an issue where improvements that gave culture points weren't working.
• Fixed an issue that could make it possible to perform a Colony Upgrade.
• Fixed the Chimeric Biomass artifact power to correctly grant +2 tiles.
• Fixed the Planetary Stimulus policy.
• Removed the obsolete election robot advice.
• Fixed the Comet event (one of the choices wasn't providing the quest reward).
• Fixed an issue where the AI would fail to load colonists onto ships, leaving a colonist on the planet.
• Fixed the options screen so that all options are displayed.
• Fixed the Nanite Transmitter artifact power.
• Fixed the free Frigate provided by the Acquisitions tech.
• Fixed an issue where improvements that gave Culture Points weren't working.
• Typo fixes.

AI

• Ai is better at building fleets.
• AI more likely to build asteroid miners.
• General AI improvement on what ships to build when
• AI much smarter about what improvements to build.
• AI less likely to send out missions from its shipyards
• AI puts more effort into building up planetary production 
• AI better about choosing technologies during times of war
• AI a bit better at specializing citizens
• AI much MUCH more reasonable about trading techs
• Big revamp on the AI ship design system to make their ships focus on what they are best at.
• Made the Ai convert other units if needed to loadout ships.
• AI won't spam with messages as much (spam spam spam).
• AI won't load citizens on ships if it have 3 or less citizens on the planet.
• New AI war capability: They will declare war on their least favorite civ under certain circumstances without being enraged.

UI

• Updated ship graphics.
• Visual pass on making the ship designer screen cleaner.
• Text: Speed changed to moves.
• Text: Tiny changed to Tiny Hulls (will require some UI adjustments because it's longer).
• Text X changed X Hulls.
• Text references of weeks changed to months.
• Text: Capacity changed to Equipment slots.
• Text: Base cost changed to Base Manufacturing cost.
• Text: Favor ship tooltip in shipyard now mentions it is a toggle.
• Text: Reference to Galactic Achievements changed to Galactic Challenges.
• Text: Mention of map size change to number of sectors.
• Added hull size to the ship tooltip.
• Implemented an options slider for being able to define when the contents of star clusters is faded out.
• Updated planet hud wnd to always show if the planet is defended or under siege, regardless of which zoom size it uses.
• Updated the Load Transport Popup Wnd to display the name of the colony citizens are being selected from.
• Military bonuses are now shown in shipyard tooltips.
• You now receive a warning when another player gets close to a prestige victory.
• We no longer move the camera automatically to a planet that is under siege.
• Added new event images.
• Changing tech research times in UI to use icon-number rather than words, and changing spacing.
• New Promethion mining movie.
• Modified transport required text.
• Minimum angle increased.
• Camera view moves to icon view quicker.
• New probes and asteroid miner ships for the Drengin, Altarian, Krynn, Yor, Iconian, Arcean, Torian and the Onyx Hive.
• If you have the grid on it disappears if you are zoomed in and appears as you zoom out.
• Updated the precursor relic icon colors to match the bonuses they provide.