Hello all,

The newest update is now Live for all players, details can be found below. With dates reflecting when the updates were pushed to insider build originally.

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5/10/23 Insiders Build  |  v1.51 Changelog

Audio 

• New battle music 
• New music for the Altarians 

Battles 

• Updated the scaling of ships for battle viewer to make more impact. 

Engine 

• Fix for potential crash if Steam not initialized 

Gameplay 

• Added Artifact Events 
• AI will target colonies again, just at a much lower priority. This is because the AI will need to conquer colonies to get range to the more valuable worlds. 
• Asteroid policy now provides a 100% bonus instead of +1 (as asteroids give 0.1 production so the +1 flat was literally a 1000% buff). 
• Created 9 new anomalies. 
• Further adjustments on default map zoom options. 
• Removed some unhelpful, confusing policies. 
• Fighter tactical speed increased from 2 to 3. 
• Missile cooldown increased from 9 to 12. 
• Adjusted the probe module so that it also uses 30% of a ship's mass in addition to 1 point so you can't cheese it. You know who you are. 
• Beam cooldown increased from 3 to 6. 
• Removed a bunch of odd components that were available on ship designs on turn 1 that shouldn't have been. 
• Ship range further reduced by default from 24 to 20. 
• Starfaring ship range buff reduced from +50% to +25%. 

Graphics 

• Fix for visible sectors when zooming out (but not in galaxy view) 
• Sector power bar is no longer shrunk and hidden under your faction logo. 

Text 

• Changed "Military" to say "Shipyard Manufacturing" 
• Ideology Trait Choice renamed Trait Discount 
• Changed wording on Soldiers to explain what they do. 
• Explain the Military Stimulus in non-word salad language. 
• Renamed turns to months for better immersion. 
• Turns renamed months. 
• Updated references "Survey" to correctly reference to "Flag" ships. 

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5/9/23 Insiders Build  |  v1.51 Changelog

Art 

• More variety in colonization event images. 
• More variety in event images. 
• Removed the old static blueprints for GC3-style commanders
• Updated the "Empathic Connection" to look more empathic 
• New event images 
• Phamysht Leader movie is less choppy 
• Replacement for placeholder terror star cinematic 
• Updated Korath Portrait 
• Updated the GC4 log 
• Icon shown on the game menu screen to the new Supernova logo
• Terror Stars: Fixed animation of planets turning to asteroids after getting blasted 
• Range lines are more prominent 

Battle 

• The battle area increased from 8000km to 8500km. 
• Set target ship to use a single line on the Battle Log 
• Fix volley damage range bug with survey vs. shipyard 
• Moved the light to be more top-down in the follow cam
• SPACE BAR toggle pause 

Custom Factions 

• You can now re-generate the custom faction images
• Faction images are now stored on the cloud and downloaded on an "as needed" basis   
• A larger variety of aliens are now available to generate
• Trade performed text speaker swapped
• Move generated images to the 'faction' directory and stop using the full path for the search 
• Custom Factions: Fix for getting stuck when generating new leader images 
• Increased the query string size
• Reduced some cases of "failed to authenticate" when pressing the Generate button
• Fixed a minor formatting issue with submitted text

Factions 

• Crystalline civ is now officially named "The Luxar," along with a history. 
• Drengin given cruelty ideology 
• Drengin hated faction added to Torians
• Iconians lose the Peaceful trait and gain the Scientific trait
• Krynn lose Harmony, gain liberty 

Gameplay 

• Adjusted how culture trait discounts work. You get discounts based on quest choices with an additional 5% boost every time you pick one
• Balance pass on colonizing events
• Balance pass on faction power calculation
• Balance pass on Prestige victory weights
• Beam range increased from 1000km to 1200km
• Beam weapon cooldown reduced from 4 to 3. 
• Decreased the target value of asteroid mines. 
• Default speed changed to 1. 
• Economists no longer give free trade licenses. 
• The player or the AI must have a universal translator before the AI contacts the player. 
• Fixed a logic problem that would cause other opponents to win a non-prestige victory to let you try to continue the game, which then could cause endless defeat cutscenes, bad saves getting made, etc. Generally bad news. 
• Fixed issue where high-end specialists produced less because they had special (and obfuscated) needs. 
• Fixed Thermal Blooming cost from 2380 to 380. (thank you for the report!) 
• General buff on how improvements on planets give you as they level up. Improvements might give you less initially, but they will give you more as they level up. 
• Increased the perceived AI value of high-quality worlds when colonizing. 
• Missile cooldown increased from 8 to 9 
• Missile Range increased from 1500km to 2400km. 
• Race trait cruelty was removed and changed to Harmony. 
• Reduced default ship range by 25% 
• Reduced expectations of high-end units so that they don't effectively reduce their output. 
• Reduced tactical speed so that battles are more easily monitors and weapon ranges have more impact. 
• Removed the block that prevented attacks on core worlds that have a military Starbase nearby. 
• Security lights Policy now requires "Colonial Bureaucracy." 
• Terran Alliance starting ideology changed to liberty. 
• Torians given Opportunistic trait instead of Peaceful. 
• Drengi home world greatly improved in quality. They still lose. 
• Drones no longer locked by Synthetic trait requirement which frees up mining. 
• Explorers Ability increases sensor range by +2 
• Further balance of tactical speed changes. Fighters now move much faster. 
• New diplomacy modifiers for " different kind of species," "We are natural enemies," and " We covet your territory." 
• Orbital Improvements can now affect ship stats for specific battle roles (e.g., an orbital academy now gives a HP bonus to fighters). 
• The Blasphemy event can now only happen once per game. 
• Tolerance Trait Text change from +1000 influence on +100 
• The free ship range decreased.  
• AI won't colonize worlds in another player's area of influence. 

Graphics 

• Influence Lines are less jaggy on the main map. 
• Main Map Pause should also pause FX and Particles 

Misc. 

• Fixed various crashes related to unit creation 

Invasions 

• Planetary Resistance affects turns to invade. It simply Turns to invade = Planetary Defense / Fleet Conquest 
• Added a dialog telling you that your fleet is insufficient to conquer a planet
• AI players will no longer bother to lay siege to low-quality colony worlds 
• Ship Design Tooltips no longer show "legions" carried unless the ship is a troop transport 

Text 

• Enraged changed to hateful in diplomacy description
• Fix for Pragmatic, Malevolence, and Benevolence Title text 
• Space Doctrine text made clearer. 
• Lots of fixes for grammar and spelling  
• Updated text to be clearer when you are helping an alien civ 
• Changed "Hate Speech" to Blasphemy 
• Changed text so that it's obvious when you are about to agree to declare war on someone. 
• Removed the old command ship names
• Restore the Korath cruiser name 
• Better descriptions for ships, resources, and units 

UI 

• Clarified Artifact's infocard "decay" buffs to better show they reduce decay 
• Added an alert when starting a survey on an Anomaly 
• Adjusted tooltips to be further away from the controls when the camera is zoomed in 
• Cultural Progression Screen updates 
• Fixed cases where the GNN text doesn't overflow the text boxes 
• Full balance pass on the map UI options to declutter the map as you zoom out 
• Show Planetary Defense HP stat 
• The "Train as worker" button now behaves correctly