Interstellar Space: Genesis free update 1.2 and Natural Law expansion released!
Hello everyone,
we have two big news today!
Free update to version 1.2
Interstellar Space: Genesis' free 1.2 update is now live for everyone! The update has been on the unstable branch for a while to make sure it would be ready for prime-time in the best shape possible. Testing went very well and we're confident we're in a very good shape. Thanks to everyone who played the unstable build and provided feedback!
Version 1.2 adds lot of new features, important QoL improvements, balance changes and bug fixes, many of which in response to player feedback. The highlights include a free new alternative fleet set for the Humans, new tactical auto-combat feature, faster tactical combat animation options, improved auto-resolve calculations, the option to hide future technologies when going with random tech trees, rally points, and much more!
You can find the full change log for this update at the end of this post.
Natural Law expansion released
Interstellar Space: Genesis' new expansion Natural Law is now available!
The expansion includes 2 new races, each fully equipped with new fleet sets and unique new capabilities, which are also usable by custom races. It also includes 9 new fully animated ruler options, 4 new music tracks (added for free to the Soundtrack DLC), and 4 new leaders!
Compatibility and finishing an ongoing game
Saves from previous versions are not compatible with 1.2.
If you want to finish your current game with the previous version (1.1.4) go to the Steam client -> Games -> View Games Library -> Right-Click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Choose Betas tab -> Select the "old_version" branch.
Thanks
We want to thank everyone who has helped test this update. Big thanks to everyone who has bought the game so far. A big thank you also to our artists Darío Martín Dominguez (3D), Camilo Abelayras (2D), Igor Puškarić (3D) and Ryan McQuinn (Music) for producing the beautiful new art and music for the Natural Law expansion. Thank you.
We hope you like this first expansion and the free 1.2 update. We'd love to have your feedback on the game and see it shared with others. Please let us and others know how you feel by leaving a review if you get a chance.
Have fun! The Development Team Praxis Games
UPDATE (Nov 24th): Update 1.2.1 released! Check here for the changes.
UPDATE (Dec 3th): Update 1.2.2 released! Change list here for the changes.
VERSION 1.2 (free update change list)
NEW
New Human alternative fleet set! Based on the original Human fleet, which was replaced on the 1.1 update. Now, this fleet comes back, much improved by our artists and at same level of polish of the other fleets and is another option to use in custom races.
New Auto-Combat feature! This new combat mode allows the AI the fight with both the player's and the enemy's fleets. An optional 'super fast' mode allows the auto-combat battle to unfold very fast.
New 'Fast Combat Animations' speed allows for faster combat sessions. You can toggle between standard and fast speed for animations, and the game keeps that setting until changed again.
New 'Hide Future Tech' game option! When going with random tech trees, the player can opt to show all the technologies as of now or to hide all future technologies, which are revealed as the player researches a tech in the previous field.
Added a 'Reset queue' option to the Research screen. Allows clearing all techs from the queue.
Added a 'Tech re-order' function to the Research screen. Allows re-prioritizing techs in the queue.
New Rally Points feature! Allows setting up automated routes for new ships to congregate at a designated star system.
Added new AI dialog for all races when accepting and rejecting peace treaties.
New game option to group some of the most frequent and less critical game notifications. Options are: 'Show All', 'Group' or 'Don't Show'. Grouped notifications will present a single notification which can be expanded into its individual notifications, if wished.
Now possible to load and save game via mouse double-click.
New option to go from the colony screen to the system view screen.
Combat bonuses for attacking and defending marines now displayed in space combat boarding operations.
New 'Rotate Right / Left' arrow buttons added as an alternative way to using the mouse to rotate a ship in battle.
AI IMPROVEMENTS
More AI personality added to all races. Each race will now make even more of their choices based on their affinities, namely when choosing culture perks, infrastructure level ups, technology research, leader level up choices and others.
The AI now equips more 'Fighter Bays' and 'Bomber Bays' in their more advanced Orbital Stations (e.g. Battle stations and Star fortresses). Actually, 'Fighter Bays' were not being installed by the AI in Star fortresses due to a bug.
The AI players now ask for more or fewer credits from their strategic resources deals depending on their attitude towards the other players and also depending on the game stage (deals more expensive in the late-game).
The AI now considers designing and building ships using the alternative model for each ship class. Previously, the AI always produced ships with the same model (i.e. always using the same graphical variant).
Fixed a bug when the AI attacked lonely orbital stations (no guarding fleets) it would always attack the orbital station even if their objective was to take another settlement in that system, leading to small raids against formidable orbital stations.
BALANCE
Homeworlds now enjoy from an intrinsic +30 production bonus instead of previous +10. This should help speed up the very early game a little.
Logistics technologies range extended by +1 parsec each. Standard, Improved and Enhanced Logistics now provide 6/8/10 parsecs range where before it was 5/7/9. This should provide more to explore at the beginning.
Hurrying construction is now much cheaper than before. It was too costly before which caused little use for this important feature.
Hurrying construction cooldown reduced from 5 turns to 3, which is the amount of the turns where hurrying is not possible in that colony after the previous hurry was made.
Hurrying construction morale penalty reduced from -10% to -5% during the cooldown period.
Overcrowding now causes +15POPs to have -50% morale and +25POPs to have -75%. This penalty is applied to the individual POPs above the threshold and not to all the POPs of the colony as before.
Technological Capital building cost reduced by around 30%.
Economical Capital building cost reduced by around 35%.
Cultural Capital building cost reduced by 25%.
Supercomputer a bit cheaper to build now.
Orbital stations now also a bit cheaper to build.
Technological Capital is now a level 1 tech by default, was level 2 before.
Imperial Space Academy now a level 2 tech by default, was level 1 before.
Neutron Beams's stun effect chance lowered a bit. The stun effect happened too often before, especially with many neutron beam weapons installed.
Matter Streamer super kinetic weapon now does 150 damage, was 100 before. The cost per weapon installed was increased from 750 to 1000 and the space required per weapon is now 125 (was 250).
Defending marines now benefit from a defensive bonus, making a bit harder to board and capture ships now. Defending marines know the ship and can defend it better!
Unique powerful technology obtained from the 'Battle Graveyard' event is now obtained a bit later. This super tech could be offered a bit too soon in the game.
Space miniaturization effect slightly reduced in the higher levels. The equipment size reduction is now 100-80-65-50-40-33% for no miniaturization to the maximum miniaturization level 5, where before it was 100-80-65-50-35-25%. This will allow installing slightly less low-tech weapons as before, making high-tech weapons even more meaningful.
Ion Cannon max damaged now 10, was 12.
'Habitat Control' formula changed to apply diminishing returns for the amount of planetary engineering production available, causing less of an effect on population growth, especially on colonies with more population, with a slight increase in young colonies.
Fighters now have a 3 hit points base instead of 2HP, times the armor level. So, it's effectively a +50% HP for fighters.
GAMEPLAY
Fleet combat auto-resolve improvements: - now factors several key special systems, weapons immunity, much improved missiles and PD weapons calculations and others.
Orbital stations now rotate 90 degrees each turn. This will make them a bit tougher.
Space monsters not boardable now. It was an unofficial feature till now and not envisaged in the design, and while it could be fun to capture those buggers it was causing many issues as it was not intended to be supported. That said, we have big plans for space monsters going forward.
The game now asks if the player wants to use the 'Resilient Settlers' unique ability and colonize planets for which the colonization tech is already available. Before, the ability was automatically used in all planets, since it offered a morale boost, irrespective if the colonization tech was allowed or not.
When the player defies the election ruling, all the other AIs now make peace with each other. Before, they only declared war on the defying player, but their current wars were kept going on.
Captured orbital stations are now destroyed at the end of the combat. Before, after orbital stations were captured they would still be there in the next turn and had to be fought again.
Deep Cover spy leaders now gain more XP when they are assigned and working under cover.
PERFORMANCE
Significant performance boost done to the late game, especially noticeable when playing bigger maps with lots of colonies. Opening and closing the overview panel is much faster, colonizing new worlds and many other functions like closing and opening windows resulting in a much smoother late game experience.
The second game played in the same game session now plays much faster. These are games played after finishing a previous game or quitting an ongoing game and starting a new one without quitting the game to desktop first. This was actually a bug.
Optimizations done to all terrains resulted in significant performance improvements when showing colonies.
UI / GRAPHICS
The galaxy map background was brought in closer to the star field and is a bit denser now, allowing for a smoother visualization of the stars that appear to blend better with the background now.
Galaxy map planetary and supernova remnant nebulae are a bit dimmer now, allowing them to blend better with the background.
The galaxy map star field "corners" were smoothed out a bit to attenuate the "square" feeling, giving it more of a rounder shape.
Graphical improvements to all ship models, orbital stations and space monsters especially when viewed at an angle.
We now show the remote exploration sector grid coordinates also on the top and right side of the grid.
WASD and arrow keys to pan around the map were quite slow when compared to mouse pan. Panning with keys is much faster now.
Replaced the Draguul soldier with the proper character and animation (it was displaying an older character from a previous iteration).
New asteroid exploitations icons added.
New research field icons in the research screen replace the old versions. Look much better now!
The hull reinforcement icons in the ship design screen were replaced with more polished versions.
The culture 'Interstellar Geology' bonus now displays "+50% to strategic resources extracted", to make it more clear the bonus is applied to the mined sources only.
Second tech in the research queue now displayed in the current research panel tooltip.
Tribute deals information is now broken down per empire in the empire treasury tooltip. Displays how much money is paid or obtained, the empires involved and the tribute percentage in question.
Added the recommended number of players per map size, viewable in the 'Galaxy Size' tooltip.
New 'Number of Players' tooltip in the 'New Game Setup' screen mentions custom races can be created to play games with more than six players.
Scrollbars added to the 'Diplomatic Summary' section of the 'Empire Overview' screen to allow listing all treaties with players in the designated area.
The colony overview panel now shows a new icon for colonies that happen to have a built orbital station.
The Human emperor character is now displayed with better quality, especially in the 'Empire Overview' panel. Also, slight graphical improvements were done to all the characters across the board.
All bullet point dashes " - " in tooltips were replaced with bullet points " • ".
The Planet construction notification now shows a selection object around the system where the project was finished, highlighting where the planet construction project can take place.
Players are now informed when an ongoing 'Planet Construction' project is no longer possible in that system.
Combat 'actions' (examples: scan, rotate) were sometimes called 'operations' in the combat UI. This was harmonized and now they are called 'actions' everywhere.
Combat 'actions' tooltips were revised to explain the mechanisms better (example: the 'rotate' function usage is now explained better, among others).
Combat round number added to the space combat UI next to the "End turn" button.
Free ships obtained from events and ruins searching now explain that the SSP (Ship Support Points maintenance) still applies.
Ground combat strength value in system view is now rounded. Was showing long decimal value.
Outpost labels in the galaxy map are shown a bit brighter to make them easier to see, especially for the darker colors.
Technology icons for tech type and associated strategic resources are now also displayed in technologies in the 'Steal Tech' screen when conducting an espionage action. Also, some minor fixes and tweaks to the 'Steal Tech' UI.
The 'Economic Capital' production tax bonus is now displayed in the production tooltip as extra money "from Economic Capital" instead of "from Buildings", to make it clear the bonus comes from that empire improvement.
'Available Constructions' renamed to "Construction Projects" in the colony view screen.
The color of the colony 'Command Center' building is now associated with the empire color and not the race's default color, as before.
Automatic ship design generation now generates ships in the ship design 'garage' (where all the ship models are listed) considering both models available and not only the 'A' model variant, as before. Alternate models are generated on slots 6 to 9.
A new confirmation dialog pop up was added to the New Game screen when the player starts a game with the production and/or research speed sliders set to a value below 100%, which is the default value. Less than 100% production or research speeds are only advisable to experienced players who wish to have a slower experience.
The pop up warning raised when cancelling a ship refit project with progress is now displayed in yellow.
Notification icons now a bit smaller. Allows for more notifications to be displayed at once.
Game version text at the bottom right of the main menu now directs to the latest updates.
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug in the galaxy map generation algorithm that was causing the balanced properties of a generated map to be overridden with the wrong number of ideal and tolerable worlds expected for the difficulty setting of choice. This was sometimes causing too few ideal planets to be generated leading to very bad starts near the player, and some AI players, especially in maps with shorter distances between systems and with more players. Now, the correct and expected number of ideal and tolerable worlds is being generated.
Fixed a bug in the galaxy map generation algorithm that was causing the players' homeworlds to sometimes be generated too close of each other even if there was a lot of "empty" space left in the map. This was more of an issue in the larger maps, starting at 'Large' size.
Fixed a bug on how population growth was being calculated from the 'Habitat Control' eco-engineering project. Total production towards planetary engineering was still being taken into account and used to full effect towards 'Habitat Control' in the same turn a terraforming or another eco-engineering project was finished, leading to more population growth being generated in that turn than it should.
Fixed another issue that was causing 'Habitat Control' to not take into account any spilled (overflow) planetary engineering production that could be available from a previously finished eco-engineering or terraforming project.
Fixed a bug in the necessary production to develop a planet to infrastructure level 13. The value was set to 11.5 million production required but the correct value is 1.5 million.
Fixed a bug in the leader desires to build a wonder, these were not being unfulfilled when the wonder was built by another empire.
Fixed a bug that was not allowing the AI to install 'Fighter Bays' on Star fortresses.
Fixed a bug in the 'Ship Design' screen that was allowing the 'Fire Arc' weapon modification to be manipulated when the 'Spinal Mount' weapon modification was installed in that weapon slot. With spinal mount, a weapon has a fixed 90 degrees front firing arc.
Fixed another bug involving the 'Spinal Mount' modification where the accuracy value in combat could show less than 100% sometimes even though a weapon with the spinal mount modification will always hit.
Fixed an issue that was causing the shields animation to always play despite the fact shields were down or the ship was disabled. Now, the shield effect only plays when shields take damage.
Fixed a bug that was disabling the weapons overload action after clicking on an enemy ship even if no weapons could reach or were selected to fire against the target.
Fixed a glitch in the 'Research screen' where sometimes the strategic resource icons could show a bit outside the tech buttons' designated areas for them.
Fixed an issue that was causing the Kaek ships to display a faulty engine trail in combat. The effect was ok in the ship design screen, but not in combat.
Fixed a bug when starting a game in 'Gigantic', going to the main menu and starting a game in a 'Small' map would not display the map (map was not centered).
Fixed a few dialog text errors and typos.
Fixed an issue that was causing an AI request for another AI to make peace with the human player to cause instant peace without informing the player about it. A notification is now sent to the Human player explaining why the peace treaty happened when it is requested by another AI player.
Fixed a bug that was allowing the 'Continue' button in the 'Main Menu' screen to become active and pressable after removing the last save from the saves folder, causing the game to freeze when launching.
Fixed an issue in the 'Boarding panel' in the combat UI where the number of killed marines could show the previous boarding numbers at the beginning of the next boarding round.
Fixed a bug that was causing ships to gain more crew experience than they should in battle encounters involving the Human player and an AI fleet. Fights between AI fleets were not generating this bogus extra XP to be gained.
Fixed a UI display bug in the colonies' overview panel where in rare cases a colony could display the gravity value in yellow even when the gravity was ideal to the race in that colony.
Fixed an issue that was not allowing the 'R' key to be used to activate / deactivate the 'Rotate' ship action in battle.
Fixed a bug when offspring space monsters attacked a system only defended by orbital stations, the creatures would not prompt a fight and just disappeared. Now they attack an orbital station in that system.
Fixed an issue in the space combat boarding screen where the combat bonuses for the attacker and defender marines were showing the incorrect number and were not updating properly.
Fixed a bug in the boarding capturing calculation which was producing an incorrect value for the chance of an attacking marine killing a defending marine.
Fixed an issue in the boarding screen which was showing the incorrect message upon a failed raid. Now shows "Raid attempt failed" where before it would display "Capture attempt failed".
Fixed yet another bug on the boarding mechanic that was not allowing combat to proceed when a monster offspring was captured and there were still other monster offspring monsters of that type left in the battlefield.
Fixed a bug where grey images could be seen in the soldier panel after a battle report was presented. This happened when a second combat happened involving only civilian ships in the losing side.
Fixed an issue in the Ambassador leaving diplomatic message. The incorrect generic sentences were being used in some occasions, where now the correct new messages are being displayed depending on the race in question.
Fixed a glitch with how some galactic wonder buildings were displayed in the Terran terrain, which could show the wonders as if they were slightly "on air".
Fixed a glitch involving the 'Space Elevator' planetary improvement, which could appear in front of the Colony screen 'Close Button' in some terrains and monitor resolutions, not allowing the colony screen to be closed via that button.
Fixed a bug in the New Game screen that was reverting the player's production and research speed sliders both to 50% without the player noticing when a custom race was deleted or modified. This would case extremely slow sessions, which would be a huge issue for new players.
Fixed a bug in the battle report that would display ships that were stunned right before being destroyed as captured.
Fixed a bug in the ship design screen when playing with the Nova Vida. Pressing the arrow to the left in the ship hangar would show an orbital station model instead of the alternative Nova ship model.
Fixed a type on the 'Graft and Corruption' event where it said "Please condecorate the garrison commander..." is now "Please decorate the garrison commander...".
Fixed an issue when using the Illusion Materializer special system, the AI ships would identify their illusion ships in the ship's name, which defeated the purpose of the player not knowing which were illusions and which were not.
Fixed a bug that could lead to a freeze when starting a game when coming from an ongoing game when there were rally points established in that previous game.
Fixed a glitch where sometimes it was not possible to click on the "No Shields" button when going with no shields in a ship design.
Fixed an issue with the overview panel where sometimes you'd have to click twice on the 'Overview' text to toggle the view.
Fixed another issue with the overview panel that would revert showing it after getting back from the system view or other window even when the overview panel was set to not be displayed by the player.
Fixed an issue with the 'wormhole discovered' notification grouping, it was showing a corrupt tooltip due to erroneous color tags.
Fixed another issue with the notification grouping mechanism where sometimes tech discovered notifications were grouped even when only one tech was obtained in that turn. This happened with tech stealing from espionage and obtained from raids on planets, although there could be other instances involving other sources of obtained techs.
Fixed a bug in the leaders panel after a spy job was undertaken from there. The leaders panel would become non-responsive and needed to be closed with 2 right mouse clicks (because the tech breakthrough window was not being displayed, was not visible).
Fixed an issue in the 'Mass destruction' bombing tooltip in the planetary assault screen that was omitting that eco 3 worlds were immune to bombing fallout from mass destruction. Eco 3 worlds are immune to both ecological class reduction and bombing fallout.
Fixed a bug that was allowing 'strategic resources' associated technologies to be stolen by espionage even if the player had not unlocked that strategic resources' path by research decision.
Fixed a bug in the 'Atlas Choked' event, the -50 cost in one of the options was not made unavailable when there were not enough funds.
Fixed a bug in the combat ship rotation function. It was only rotating 10º per maneuverability level installed in the ship. This was corrected to 15º per level, as described in the tooltip. This results in more turning angle when rotating ships. As a result, rotating ships feels much better now.
Fixed a freeze when viewing a Swamp colony using the 'Maximum' graphics quality setting with very high resolutions (e.g. 4K 3840 × 2160, 3440 x 1440 and others).
Typo fixed in hint text. "avoid scraping your starting frigates" now reads "avoid scrapping your starting frigates"
Fixed an issue in the Atmospheric and Terrestrial Terraforming tech tooltips, where the note on tech cost was not formatted correctly.
Fixed a bug in the 'Labor Strike' and "Atlas Choked' events where it was possible to choose some of the options asking for money even when not enough credits were available in the treasury.
Fixed an issue in the 'Empire Overview' Terraforming and Eco-Engineering bonuses, which could display numbers with many decimals. The values are now rounded.
Fixed an issue in the system view when using the new grey color for the empire color, it could be confused with vacant planets and other objects.
Dev Plays Natural Law
Watch as one of the dev shows off some of the new features that come with the Natural Law expansion as well as the free 1.2 patch!
ISG Dev Diary #13: Natural Law - The Cerixx
Greeting citizens! I'm Keith and I'm here today to share with you our second dev diary about Interstellar Space Genesis's first expansion, Natural Law. This time I'm going to present you with all the evidence we have about our second new race, the Cerixx.
THE HIGH COURT OF THE CERIXX
From their homeworld's high court, the Justice Division of the Cerixx Sentinels serves as the galaxy's self-proclaimed judge, jury, and executioner. The Cerixx assert the galactic laws they enforce are for the common good, but rumors of rampant corruption have led many to allege they are nothing but a self-serving criminal enterprise. In response, the Cerixx have made the counterclaim that the galaxy is a dangerous place and it sure would be a shame if something happened to their accusers.
For nearly their entire existence, their homeworld's harsh and dangerous conditions confined the Cerixx to their icy caves. This short and stocky race, one devoid of natural defenses or creativity, was too weak to combat the wild ways of nature. With each supply run requiring a hazardous journey outside, those who survived learned to horde what they had and take care of their own needs first. Bartering became an essential skill for one's survival.
No one has unraveled the mystery of how this seemingly inconsequential race acquired the advanced technology that radically altered the trajectory of their existence. However it happened, once they gained control over their advanced human-sized mechs, their lives were changed forever. With these new found weapons they quickly dominated nature's challenges, broke free from their icebound prisons, and eventually reached the stars.
After years of being bullied into submission, technology made them feel powerful for the very first time. Power, and therefore tech, is now their obsession. Lacking an aptitude for scientific research, their Science Division must act more like brokers for the latest tech, using their wealth and influence to acquire the latest tech in any way possible.
Their sudden rise to power has led to a society built on avarice, arrogance, and aggression. It is said that every young Cerixx learns to serve themselves first, their empire second, and whoever can pay the most third. The formation and omnipresent threat of the Justice Division may be the only reason their empire managed to unite as one.
RULER - JUSTICE VYRRIN
As chief justice of the Cerixx, Justin Vyrrin is the highest ranking and most feared member of the elite Justice Division. This status has made her the de facto leader of the Cerixx Sentinels.
RULER - MARSHAL TYRAAK
Marshal Tyraak, head marshal of the Military Division, is the Cerixx's alternate ruler. His elite mech features hover jets and a unique control scheme allowing operation via brain waves alone.
FLEET
The Cerixx fleet features their animated insignia as well as numerous hangar bays in support of their frequent use of AI piloted strike craft.
The "Executioner" titan is their command carrier responsible for bringing the galaxy's greatest fugitives to justice. Given its name, it may come as no surprise that justice most often involves the total annihilation of these threats.
MUSIC
The Cerixx have inspired two new tracks that are added with Natural Law.
"Blasted to Beats", a combat track, features fast paced and inescapable beats that are just as bold and aggressive as they are.
"Writ of Habeas Corpses", their diplomatic track, features a chattering introduction to their high court followed by electronic sounds which ensure they have your undivided attention.
NEW UNIQUE ABILITY - CONTAINMENT
The Cerixx have obtained access to a powerful device which allows them to trap and detain rival fleets for "questioning". Whether they acquired this device off the black market, or via some other means, is yet another of this race's mysteries.
Containment allows placing a magnetic energy field on any system you've got basic scan data on and which is within your supply range. It is unlocked as soon as you meet an opposing empire.
It will trap any opposing fleets. as well as any incoming fleets and ships which enter the system, for its 5 turn duration. These ships can still take actions within the system, including combat, but they can't leave the system or flee from combats that occur there during this time.
It is worth noting this ability carries a cooldown necessitating its careful and calculated use. In addition, others do not appreciate this act being carried out against them and stern diplomatic penalties will be incurred.
NEW UNIQUE ABILITY - INVESTIGATION
Using a network of confidential informants, undercover assets, and cyber intelligence experts, the Cerixx are renowned for the sudden coordinated exposure and capture of rival spies operating within their empire.
Investigation is unlocked after the first time you detect someone performing a spy action against your empire. Once activated, it allows you to immediately discover and remove any spies operating within your empire. It will then enter a lengthy cooldown while you rebuild your undercover network of assets.
Aside from removing rival spies, it also provides an opportunity to expand your wealth by ransoming these captives back to their respective owners. As their cost is based on their primary skill points, a hefty sum can be made should their empires desire to get their best and brightest back.
Once found though your investigation, leaders are either returned to their empires if the ransom is paid or returned to the pool of available leaders for others to hire.
NEW TITAN ABILITY - COMMAND CARRIER
The Cerixx reliance on technology and their desire for self-preservation has led them to make frequent use of AI controlled strike craft which can safely keep them at a distance. Their "Executioner" titans have therefore been specially equipped as carriers and provide numerous bonuses to its strike craft.
Command Carrier is a passive ability which must be paired with a Fighter Bay, a Bomber Bay, or ideally both. These systems use no additional space when equipped on this titan, but retain their additional cost.
This titan's advanced carrier capabilities provide additional health, speed, and resupply benefits to all strike craft such as fighters and bombers that are networked to (launched from) it. Unlike standard strike craft, these ships do not run out of ammo and must only return when new target selection is required.
To eliminate downtime associated with target selection, it is recommended to use this titan's strike craft against larger and harder targets with limited PD and large amounts of armor, structure, and systems that need to be whittled down.
UNTIL NEXT TIME...
The Cerixx may be the new sheriffs in town, but they aren't the only new faces you'll soon be seeing. If you missed it, check out our previous diary for info on the Palacean.
Interstellar Space: Genesis - Natural Law releases on November 18th. Please be sure to check out our trailer and wishlist the expansion on Steam!
We're thrilled to announce that Natural Law, our first expansion pack to Interstellar Space: Genesis will release on November 18th!
Along with the expansion release, we'll also release the free 1.2 update to the public on the same day. This free update adds a lot of new features, important QoL improvements, balance changes and bug fixes, many of which in response to player feedback. The highlights include faster tactical combat animation options, a new tactical auto-combat feature, improved auto-resolve calculations, the option to hide future technologies when going with random tech trees, rally points, and much more! The full patch notes will be revealed on November 18th. However, here's the bulk of the changes.
A surprise!
And... it's not all! We truly love our fans, so we'd like to announce that we will offer a new fleet set to everyone who owns and buys the game when the expansion and the free update are out! This will be a second Human fleet set that will be available when customizing a new race. Any race can play with this new fleet. It is based on an old Human fleet, that was replaced when we released the 1.1 update. Now, the original Human fleet comes back, much improved by our artists and at same level of polish of the other fleets.
Next Dev Diary - The Cerixx
Keep an eye out for our next dev diary on Natural Law to learn more about the new Cerixx race as we approach the launch of the expansion and the free 1.2 update! In the meantime, you can check our previous dev diary released a couple of weeks ago about the other new race, the Palacean.
To always be on top of the news on ISG and Praxis Games, please subscribe to our newsletter!
Hi everyone, I'm Keith, one of the designers of Interstellar Space Genesis' first expansion, Natural Law. In today's diary, I have the honor of giving you a deeper dive into one of our two new races, the one that puts the "Natural" in Natural Law, the Palacean.
THE RISE OF THE PALACEAN
The rise of the Palacean would never have occurred if not for the extraordinary environmental conditions present in their homeworld. As one of the galaxy's only naturally occurring tropical paradises, their homeworld's high humidity and welcoming environment allowed their race to break free from the shackles of the sea and ascend not only to the surface, but eventually, to the stars themselves.
The Palacean may represent them, but they do not make decisions for the Palacean Assembly on their own. The unique environment that granted them a better life also led to the rise of a wide variety of other sentient and highly intelligent flora and fauna. The Assembly have worked together in symbiotic harmony to create their utopia and it is universally agreed that every member is entitled to have their voice be heard.
Grateful for the gift nature has given them, the Palacean Assembly view their homeworld as nature's blueprint for the galaxy. Only by making every planet just as beautiful and wondrous can they achieve nature's mission.
Though they hold no ill-will towards other lifeforms, they view life which is incompatible with their mission as irrelevant and therefore ultimately marked for eventual extinction. This perspective may strike others as cold and self-centered, but among the Assembly the eradication of those in their way is nothing more than a matter of natural selection.
RULER - MAJIDEN
Their elected representative and primary ruler is Majiden, a highly regarded Palacean politician renowned for always considering the needs of the entire Assembly.
RULER - KOTLEDON
Their alternate ruler is Kotledon, an elder Palacean druid devoted to heeding nature's call. With his trusted companion and advisor perched by his side, he is ready to uphold nature's wishes, no matter the cost.
FLEET
The Palacean fleet is inspired by their humble origins and portrays the beauty and elegance of the Palacean Assembly.
The pride of the fleet is their titan itself, the mighty Apex. It's a ship built for war, but one also built to house and protect the many living creatures and their families that live their lives in service to it.
MUSIC
The Palacean have inspired two new tracks that are added with Natural Law.
"Metamorphic Journey", a galaxy map track, tells the story of the Palacean journey from their humble beginnings to their triumphant rise to the stars.
"Symbiotic Confluence", their diplomatic track, features a variety of instruments and voices representing the many voices of the Assembly each weighing in with their opinions.
NEW TRAIT - "ECOCENTRIC"
The tropical paradise of the Palacean, Triobah, is a Gaia environment. It is a rare planet which through natural means has reached its ecological peak.
Ecocentric is a new trait which starts a race's homeworld at Eco level 3. This not only symbolizes a planet's natural support for life, but it also provides powerful early bonuses to morale and population growth.
Combined with the large size of their homeword, this trait lends support to the Palacean Assembly's ability to build a powerful tall empire early on.
NEW UNIQUE ABILITY - COLONIAL RESTRUCTURING
The Palacean Assembly's use of organic and naturally occurring materials, as well as the help of their flora and fauna, allows their infrastructure deployment to be highly flexible.
Colonial Restructuring allows a colony to completely change its current infrastructure selections instantly. Unlocking this ability requires maxing out the infrastructure in any colony. It is then usable on any of your colonies, whether they currently have maxed infrastructure or not.
Unlocking this can require a bit of planning, as achieving maximum infrastructure on a medium or larger planet can be a bit of a challenge early on. Whereas many see tiny and small planets as low priority targets, a crafty Palacean often sees these as prime targets of opportunity to unlock this rather potent capability.
Such versatility makes those with this ability among the quickest to react to changing conditions across the galaxy. Whether in times of peace or times of war, there's no situation it isn't able to help handle.
NEW UNIQUE ABILITY - RESOURCE SURGE
If the Palacean Assembly are nature's chosen than strategic resources are nature's fruit. To feed their insatiable appetites, they have studied them and developed unique extraction techniques to periodically increase their yield.
Resource Surge allows extracting 50% more resources for a short period of time from all strategic resources.
While relatively easy to unlock by acquiring 2 of any specific strategic resource, the boost it provides is both powerful and versatile. Whether used to drive their economic engine or to boost their combat prowess, having this ability at the ready can ensure you are ready for any situation.
This ability can also be used in conjunction with the "Interstellar Geology" space culture for those that really want to maximize their total yield in pursuit of a strategic resource heavy strategy.
NEW TITAN ABILITY - STELLAR BLAST
The enormous "Apex" titan of the Palacean is home to many living species of plant and animal alike. The bodily functions and processes of these creatures generate an immense amount of energy capable of powering all aspects of their ship. In addition, they've developed a method of tactically releasing the excess from the ship as a surprising natural defense mechanism.
Stellar Blast is an activated titan ability that unleashes a blast of energy powerful enough to spread across a vast distance from the ship. While this energy is completely ineffective against the hardened hulls of larger craft, it on the contrary devastatingly effective against all manner of missiles and small strike craft such as fighters and bombers.
While this blast is immensely powerful and certain to clear the immediate area of all but the most resilient small scale targets, one must remember that this build-up takes a few turns to recharge once used.
UNTIL NEXT TIME...
The Palacean may be a potent new race ready to terraform and uplift the entire galaxy, but they are not the only newcomers who want to make their presence known.
Stay tuned for our next dev diary, as the Cerixx Sentinels would like to have a word with you about the services they'll be providing, whether you asked for them or not...
Fixed a freeze when viewing a Swamp colony using the 'Maximum' graphics quality setting with very high resolutions (e.g. 4K 3840 × 2160, 3440 x 1440 and others).
Notification icons now a bit smaller. Allows for more notifications to be displayed at once.
Typo fixed in hint text. "avoid scraping your starting frigates" now reads "avoid scrapping your starting frigates"
Fixed an issue in the Atmospheric and Terrestrial Terraforming tech tooltips, where the note on tech cost was not formatted correctly.
Fixed an issue in the 'Empire Overview' Terraforming and Eco-Engineering bonuses, which could display numbers with many decimals. The values are now rounded.
Fixed an issue in the system view when using the new grey color for the empire color, it could be confused with vacant planets and other objects.
Game version text at the bottom right of the main menu now directs to the latest updates.
Compatibility note: Save games are compatible with the previous version (1.2 unstable 3).
I remind that the 1.2 update is not yet available for everyone. To play the '1.2 unstable 4' version you need to opt in for Steam's Beta branch. On the Steam client go to Games -> View Games Library -> Right-Click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Choose Betas tab -> Select the "unstable" Beta branch. The game shall start updating to 1.2 unstable 4.
Please keep sending us your feedback to our official forums, on the Steam forums, on our Discord server or if you prefer just email contact@praxis-games.com with a save and the Player and Player-prev log files you can find in this folder: C:\\Users\\\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Praxis Games\\ISG\\
Thanks a lot for your feedback everyone! Please keep it coming.
Third update to 1.2 unstable released
A new update to 1.2 unstable is now available! This is version 1.2 unstable 3 and it adds the following.
Version 1.2 unstable 3
New asteroid exploitations icons added.
New research field icons in the research screen replace the old versions. Look much better now!
The hull reinforcement icons in the ship design screen were replaced with more polished versions.
The culture 'Interstellar Geology' bonus now displays "+50% to strategic resources extracted", to make it more clear the bonus is applied to the mined sources only.
Further optimizations done to all the terrains resulting in a smoother experience in the colony screen, which is now less demanding on graphical cards.
The pop up warning raised when cancelling a ship refit project with progress is now displayed in yellow.
Fixed a bug in the 'Atlas Choked' event, the -50 cost in one of the options was not made unavailable when there were not enough funds.
Fixed a bug in the combat ship rotation function. It was only rotating 10º per maneuverability level installed in the ship. This was corrected to 15º per level, as described in the tooltip. This results in more turning angle when rotating ships. As a result, rotating ships feels much better now.
Compatibility note: Save games appear to be compatible with the previous version (1.2 unstable 2), but it's recommended to play new games with this new version to benefit from all the changes of this new update and to avoid any save compatibility issues.
I remind that the 1.2 update is not yet available for everyone. To play the '1.2 unstable 3' version you need to opt in for Steam's Beta branch. On the Steam client go to Games -> View Games Library -> Right-Click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Choose Betas tab -> Select the "unstable" Beta branch. The game shall start updating to 1.2 unstable 3.
Please keep sending us your feedback to our official forums, on the Steam forums, on our Discord server or if you prefer just send an email to contact@praxis-games.com with a save and the Player and Player-prev log files you can find in this folder: C:\\Users\\\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Praxis Games\\ISG\\
Thanks a lot for the feedback everyone! Please keep it coming.
Interstellar Space: Genesis - Natural Law Announced!
As we approach this milestone, we'd like to reflect on just how different the game you played at release in 2019 is from the game you'll soon be playing in the 1.2 update. From the eye catching graphical changes we made in the 1.1 overhaul, to the numerous new features and gameplay additions we've introduced, things have certainly come a long way so far. We absolutely couldn't have gotten here without the support, encouragement, and great ideas of our fans. You've truly helped make the game a better one.
With our first expansion, our objective was to really infuse the galaxy with a great deal more variety and flavor. To do that, we knew we would need to introduce some more friendly, and potentially not so friendly, faces. As 4X fans ourselves, we knew there was no better way to do that than through the introduction of a new race to the game.
We here at Praxis Games couldn't just stop at one new race though. We wanted to offer two brand new races. As a result, and now for the first time, Natural Law will allow you to play eight player games filled with distinctly different looking alien races. We're also delighted you'll be able to use them to take full advantage of the larger galaxy size and spacing we added by popular demand in one of our post-release updates.
Every race in ISG comes with a host of features and the Palacean and Cerixx are certainly no exception. Each comes with a set of fully animated characters, animated fleets (with variant models for most ships hulls), custom civilian buildings, and a colony headquarters. They also have brand new diplomatic music tracks and dialog which are thematically tied to their unique sense of style. It is with thanks to our wonderful and talented artists that these races really come to life.
Let's not forget the new mechanics each race brings to the fray either. Each race has two brand new unique abilities as well as a new titan ability. One of the new races, the Palacean, also brings a brand new trait into the game, Ecocentric, which starts their homeworld off as an ecological paradise among the stars. All of these features will also be fully usable with custom races for all expansion owners.
While two new races certainly bring a lot to the table, we knew there was still more we wanted to do. This is why we set out to also add a brand new ruler, each once again with a unique set of neutral, happy, and angry animations, for EVERY RACE in the game. Not just for the six base game races either, but all eight races including the Palacean and Cerixx. With these additions, we'll now have a total of 16 unique rulers in the game, more than doubling the base game's total.
16 rulers? It's a nice number, but who wants to stop there? Not us! No, we just had to add a bonus third human ruler too, bringing our total to 17 unique rulers! Each of the nine alternate rulers is fully playable using the default races or by creating your own custom ones. Want to have three unique human empires dueling it out in your galaxy? Why not, sounds like fun to us!
What about leaders you ask? We hear you, we weren't going to let the new races miss out on that, and so we've introduced four new leaders to the game. With two from each of the new races, they are up for grabs by any empire lucky enough to get their hands on them.
In addition to the diplomatic tracks mentioned above, we've also added two more music tracks, a galaxy map track and a battle track, bringing us to a total of four new tracks to the game. Both of these can be previewed in our video trailer above. If you haven't seen it yet, definitely check it out after reading this! Also, it's worth noting that all soundtrack DLC owners will receive these new music tracks for free.
If you're interested in learning more about the new Palacean and Cerixx races, keep an eye out for our dev diaries as we approach the launch of the expansion, which will happen very soon. We'll be diving deeper into their origins and motivations, as well as their new unique abilities and titan abilities.
We hope you like what we've got lined up for this first expansion. If you do, please wishlist Natural Law so you'll be kept up to date on its release!
Also, we'd love to have your feedback on the game, in its current version or the 1.2 Beta if you have a chance, and see it shared with others. Thanks and please stay tuned for more coverage on Natural Law.
The Dev Team Praxis Games
Major update to 1.2 unstable
A major update to 1.2 unstable is up! This is version 1.2 unstable 2.
This update fixed some important bugs and issues and also introduced significant balance changes which will hopefully result in a more satisfying experience for everyone. As a result, the early game should now be more fluid and with more things happening. To allow that, some key buildings' costs were reduced and the logistics' range was increased which should allow for more exploration in the beginning!
Compatibility note: Save games appear to be compatible with the previous version (1.2 unstable), but it's preferable to play new sessions to test this new build with more confidence.
I remind that the 1.2 update is not yet available for everyone. To play the '1.2 unstable 2' version you need to opt in for Steam's Beta branch. On the Steam client go to Games -> View Games Library -> Right-Click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Choose Betas tab -> Select the "unstable" Beta branch. The game shall start updating to 1.2 unstable 2.
Please keep sending us your feedback to our official forums, on the Steam forums, on our Discord server or if you prefer just send an email to contact@praxis-games.com with a save and the Player and Player-prev log files you can find in this folder: C:\\Users\\\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Praxis Games\\ISG\\
The changes of this new update are:
Version 1.2 unstable 2
AI IMPROVEMENTS
The AI now considers designing and building ships using the alternative model for each ship class. Previously, the AI always produced ships with the same model (i.e. always using the same graphical variant).
BALANCE
Homeworlds now enjoy from an intrinsic +30 production bonus instead of previous +10. This should help speed up the very early game a little.
Logistics technologies range extended by +1 parsec each. Standard, Improved and Enhanced Logistics now provide 6/8/10 parsecs range where before it was 5/7/9. This should provide more to explore at the beginning.
Hurrying construction is now much cheaper than before. It was too costly before which caused little use for this important feature.
Hurrying construction cooldown reduced from 5 turns to 3, which is the amount of the turns where hurrying is not possible in that colony after the previous hurry was made.
Hurrying construction morale penalty reduced from -10% to -5% during the cooldown period.
Technological Capital building cost reduced by around 30%.
Economical Capital building cost reduced by around 35%.
Cultural Capital building cost reduced by 25%.
Supercomputer a bit cheaper to build now.
Orbital stations now also a bit cheaper to build.
Technological Capital is now a level 1 tech by default, was level 2 before.
Imperial Space Academy now a level 2 tech by default, was level 1 before.
Neutron Beams's stun effect chance lowered a bit. The stun effect happened too often before, especially with many neutron beam weapons installed.
Matter Streamer super kinetic weapon now does 150 damage, was 100 before. The cost per weapon installed was increased from 750 to 1000 and the space required per weapon is now 125 (was 250).
GAMEPLAY
Battle Stations now don't rotate at the end of a turn when their Internal Systems Heath is zero.
PERFORMANCE
The second game played in the same game session now plays much faster. These are games played after finishing a previous game or quitting an ongoing game and starting a new one without quitting the game to desktop first. This was actually a bug.
UI / GRAPHICS
Automatic ship design generation now generates ships in the ship design 'garage' (where all the ship models are listed) considering both models available and not only the 'A' model variant, as before. Alternate models are generated on slots 6 to 9.
A new confirmation dialog pop up was added to the New Game screen when the player starts a game with the production and/or research speed sliders set to a value below 100%, which is the default value. Less than 100% production or research speeds are only advisable to experienced players who wish to have a slower experience.
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug in the New Game screen that was reverting the player's production and research speed sliders both to 50% without the player noticing when a custom race was deleted or modified. This would case extremely slow sessions, which would be a huge issue for new players.
Fixed a bug in the battle report that would display ships that were stunned right before being destroyed as captured.
Fixed a bug in the ship design screen when playing with the Nova Vida. Pressing the arrow to the left in the ship hangar would show an orbital station model instead of the alternative Nova ship model.
Fixed a type on the 'Graft and Corruption' event where it said "Please condecorate the garrison commander..." is now "Please decorate the garrison commander...".
Fixed an issue when using the Illusion Materializer special system, the AI ships would identify their illusion ships in the ship's name, which defeated the purpose of the player not knowing which were illusions and which were not.
Fixed a bug that could lead to a freeze when starting a game when coming from an ongoing game when there were rally points established in that previous game.
Fixed a glitch where sometimes it was not possible to click on the "No Shields" button when going with no shields in a ship design.
Fixed an issue with the overview panel where sometimes you'd have to click twice on the 'Overview' text to toggle the view.
Fixed another issue with the overview panel that would revert showing it after getting back from the system view or other window even when the overview panel was set to not be displayed by the player.
Fixed an issue with the 'wormhole discovered' notification grouping, it was showing a corrupt tooltip due to erroneous color tags.
Fixed another issue with the notification grouping mechanism where sometimes tech discovered notifications were grouped even when only one tech was obtained in that turn. This happened with tech stealing from espionage and obtained from raids on planets, although there could be other instances involving other sources of obtained techs.
Fixed a bug in the leaders panel after a spy job was undertaken from there. The leaders panel would become non-responsive and needed to be closed with 2 right mouse clicks (because the tech breakthrough window was not being displayed, was not visible).
Fixed an issue in the 'Mass destruction' bombing tooltip in the planetary assault screen that was omitting that eco 3 worlds were immune to bombing fallout from mass destruction. Eco 3 worlds are immune to both ecological class reduction and bombing fallout.
Fixed a bug that was allowing 'strategic resources' associated technologies to be stolen by espionage even if the player had not unlocked that strategic resources' path by research decision.
Thanks a lot for the feedback everyone! Please keep it coming.
1.2 Beta Update available on unstable Steam branch
Hello everyone!
Version 1.2 of Interstellar Space: Genesis is a huge free! update and is now available for public testing on Steam's unstable Beta branch!
Please note that 1.2 unstable is an optional beta update. So, if you want to help test it alongside us you have to manually opt in to get access. In your Steam library, right click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Properties -> Betas tab -> Select the "unstable - Unstable Beta Branch for Testing" branch. The game will update and off you go!
1.2 adds a lot of new features, important QoL improvements, balance changes and bug fixes, many of which in response to player feedback. The highlights include a new tactical auto-combat feature, faster tactical combat animation options, improved auto-resolve calculations, the option to hide future technologies when going with random tech trees, rally points, and much more! See below in the full release note for the details.
We will be monitoring your reports for major bugs and fixing them. Please report them in our official forums, on the Steam forums, on our Discord server or if you prefer just send an email to contact@praxis-games.com with a save and the Player and Player-prev log files you can find in this folder: C:\\Users\\\\AppData\\LocalLow\\Praxis Games\\ISG
Compatibility note: Saves from previous versions are not compatible with 1.2 unstable.
Thanks!
The Dev Team Praxis Games
UPDATE (Oct 13th): A major update to 1.2 unstable was released! More info about 1.2 unstable 2 here. UPDATE (Oct 25th): The third update to 1.2 unstable is now available! This is version 1.2 unstable 3 and adds the following. UPDATE (Oct 27th): Fourth update to 1.2 unstable is now up! Changes here.
Version 1.2 unstable
NEW
New Auto-Combat feature! This new combat mode allows the AI the fight with both the player's and the enemy's fleets. An optional 'super fast' mode allows the auto-combat battle to unfold very fast.
New 'Fast Combat Animations' speed allows for faster combat sessions. You can toggle between standard and fast speed for animations, and the game keeps that setting until changed again.
New 'Hide Future Tech' game option! When going with random tech trees, the player can opt to show all the technologies as of now or to hide all future technologies, which are revealed as the player researches a tech in the previous field.
Added a 'Reset queue' option to the Research screen. Allows clearing all techs from the queue.
Added a 'Tech re-order' function to the Research screen. Allows re-prioritizing techs in the queue.
New Rally Points feature! Allows setting up automated routes for new ships to congregate at a designated star system.
New game option to group some of the most frequent and less critical game notifications. Options are: 'Show All', 'Group' or 'Don't Show'. Grouped notifications will present a single notification which can be expanded into its individual notifications, if wished.
Now possible to load and save game via mouse double-click.
New option to go from the colony screen to the system view screen.
Combat bonuses for attacking and defending marines now displayed in space combat boarding operations.
New 'Rotate Right / Left' arrow buttons added as an alternative way to using the mouse to rotate a ship in battle.
AI IMPROVEMENTS
The AI now equips more 'Fighter Bays' and 'Bomber Bays' in their more advanced Orbital Stations (e.g. Battle stations and Star fortresses). Actually, 'Fighter Bays' were not being installed by the AI in Star fortresses due to a bug.
The AI players now ask for more or fewer credits from their strategic resources deals depending on their attitude towards the other players and also depending on the game stage (deals more expensive in the late-game).
Fixed a bug when the AI attacked lonely orbital stations (no guarding fleets) it would always attack the orbital station even if their objective was to take another settlement in that system, leading to small raids against formidable orbital stations.
BALANCE
Defending marines now benefit from a defensive bonus, making a bit harder to board and capture ships now. Defending marines know the ship and can defend it better!
Unique powerful technology obtained from the 'Battle Graveyard' event is now obtained a bit later. This super tech could be offered a bit too soon in the game.
Space miniaturization effect slightly reduced in the higher levels. The equipment size reduction is now 100-80-65-50-40-33% for no miniaturization to the maximum miniaturization level 5, where before it was 100-80-65-50-35-25%. This will allow installing slightly less low-tech weapons as before, making high-tech weapons even more meaningful.
Ion Cannon max damaged now 10, was 12.
'Habitat Control' formula changed to apply diminishing returns for the amount of planetary engineering production available, causing less of an effect on population growth, especially on colonies with more population, with a slight increase in young colonies.
GAMEPLAY
Fleet combat auto-resolve improvements: - now factors several key special systems, weapons immunity, much improved missiles and PD weapons calculations and others.
Orbital stations now rotate 90 degrees each turn. This will make them a bit tougher.
Space monsters not boardable now. It was an unofficial feature till now and not envisaged in the design, and while it could be fun to capture those buggers it was causing many issues as it was not intended to be supported. That said, we have big plans for space monsters going forward.
The game now asks if the player wants to use the 'Resilient Settlers' unique ability and colonize planets for which the colonization tech is already available. Before, the ability was automatically used in all planets, since it offered a morale boost, irrespective if the colonization tech was allowed or not.
When the player defies the election ruling, all the other AIs now make peace with each other. Before, they only declared war on the defying player, but their current wars were kept going on.
Captured orbital stations are now destroyed at the end of the combat. Before, after orbital stations were captured they would still be there in the next turn and had to be fought again.
PERFORMANCE
Significant performance boost done to the late game, especially noticeable when playing bigger maps with lots of colonies. Opening and closing the overview panel is much faster, colonizing new worlds and many other functions like closing and opening windows resulting in a much smoother late game experience.
Optimizations done to the Swamp and Acid terrains to improve the performance when showing colonies in those terrains.
UI / GRAPHICS
The galaxy map background was brought in closer to the star field and is a bit denser now, allowing for a smoother visualization of the stars that appear to blend better with the background now.
Galaxy map planetary and supernova remnant nebulae are a bit dimmer now, allowing them to blend better with the background.
The galaxy map star field "corners" were smoothed out a bit to attenuate the "square" feeling, giving it more of a rounder shape.
Replaced the Draguul soldier with the proper character and animation (it was displaying an older character from a previous iteration).
Tribute deals information is now broken down per empire in the empire treasury tooltip. Displays how much money is paid or obtained, the empires involved and the tribute percentage in question.
Added the recommended number of players per map size, viewable in the 'Galaxy Size' tooltip.
New 'Number of Players' tooltip in the 'New Game Setup' screen mentions custom races can be created to play games with more than six players.
Scrollbars added to the 'Diplomatic Summary' section of the 'Empire Overview' screen to allow listing all treaties with players in the designated area.
The colony overview panel now shows a new icon for colonies that happen to have a built orbital station.
The Human emperor character is now displayed with better quality, especially in the 'Empire Overview' panel. Also, slight graphical improvements were done to all the characters across the board.
All bullet point dashes " - " in tooltips were replaced with bullet points " • ".
The Planet construction notification now shows a selection object around the system where the project was finished, highlighting where the planet construction project can take place.
Players are now informed when an ongoing 'Planet Construction' project is no longer possible in that system.
Combat 'actions' (examples: scan, rotate) were sometimes called 'operations' in the combat UI. This was harmonized and now they are called 'actions' everywhere.
Combat 'actions' tooltips were revised to explain the mechanisms better (example: the 'rotate' function usage is now explained better, among others).
Combat round number added to the space combat UI next to the "End turn" button.
Free ships obtained from events and ruins searching now explain that the SSP (Ship Support Points maintenance) still applies.
Ground combat strength value in system view is now rounded. Was showing long decimal value.
Outpost labels in the galaxy map are shown a bit brighter to make them easier to see, especially for the darker colors.
Technology icons for tech type and associated strategic resources are now also displayed in technologies in the 'Steal Tech' screen when conducting an espionage action. Also, some minor fixes and tweaks to the 'Steal Tech' UI.
The 'Economic Capital' production tax bonus is now displayed in the production tooltip as extra money "from Economic Capital" instead of "from Buildings", to make it clear the bonus comes from that empire improvement.
'Available Constructions' renamed to "Construction Projects" in the colony view screen.
The color of the colony 'Command Center' building is now associated with the empire color and not the race's default color, as before.
BUG FIXES
Fixed a bug in the galaxy map generation algorithm that was causing the balanced properties of a generated map to be overridden with the wrong number of ideal and tolerable worlds expected for the difficulty setting of choice. This was sometimes causing too few ideal planets to be generated leading to very bad starts near the player, and some AI players, especially in maps with shorter distances between systems and with more players. Now, the correct and expected number of ideal and tolerable worlds is being generated.
Fixed a bug in the galaxy map generation algorithm that was causing the players' homeworlds to sometimes be generated too close of each other even if there was a lot of "empty" space left in the map. This was more of an issue in the larger maps, starting at 'Large' size.
Fixed a bug on how population growth was being calculated from the 'Habitat Control' eco-engineering project. Total production towards planetary engineering was still being taken into account and used to full effect towards 'Habitat Control' in the same turn a terraforming or another eco-engineering project was finished, leading to more population growth being generated in that turn than it should.
Fixed another issue that was causing 'Habitat Control' to not take into account any spilled (overflow) planetary engineering production that could be available from a previously finished eco-engineering or terraforming project.
Fixed a bug in the necessary production to develop a planet to infrastructure level 13. The value was set to 11.5 million production required but the correct value is 1.5 million.
Fixed a bug in the leader desires to build a wonder, these were not being unfulfilled when the wonder was built by another empire.
Fixed a bug that was not allowing the AI to install 'Fighter Bays' on Star fortresses.
Fixed a bug in the 'Ship Design' screen that was allowing the 'Fire Arc' weapon modification to be manipulated when the 'Spinal Mount' weapon modification was installed in that weapon slot. With spinal mount, a weapon has a fixed 90 degrees front firing arc.
Fixed another bug involving the 'Spinal Mount' modification where the accuracy value in combat could show less than 100% sometimes even though a weapon with the spinal mount modification will always hit.
Fixed an issue that was causing the shields animation to always play despite the fact shields were down or the ship was disabled. Now, the shield effect only plays when shields take damage.
Fixed a bug that was disabling the weapons overload action after clicking on an enemy ship even if no weapons could reach or were selected to fire against the target.
Fixed a glitch in the 'Research screen' where sometimes the strategic resource icons could show a bit outside the tech buttons' designated areas for them.
Fixed an issue that was causing the Kaek ships to display a faulty engine trail in combat. The effect was ok in the ship design screen, but not in combat.
Fixed a bug when starting a game in 'Gigantic', going to the main menu and starting a game in a 'Small' map would not display the map (map was not centered).
Fixed a few dialog text errors and typos.
Fixed an issue that was causing an AI request for another AI to make peace with the human player to cause instant peace without informing the player about it. A notification is now sent to the Human player explaining why the peace treaty happened when it is requested by another AI player.
Fixed a bug that was allowing the 'Continue' button in the 'Main Menu' screen to become active and pressable after removing the last save from the saves folder, causing the game to freeze when launching.
Fixed an issue in the 'Boarding panel' in the combat UI where the number of killed marines could show the previous boarding numbers at the beginning of the next boarding round.
Fixed a bug that was causing ships to gain more crew experience than they should in battle encounters involving the Human player and an AI fleet. Fights between AI fleets were not generating this bogus extra XP to be gained.
Fixed a UI display bug in the colonies' overview panel where in rare cases a colony could display the gravity value in yellow even when the gravity was ideal to the race in that colony.
Fixed an issue that was not allowing the 'R' key to be used to activate / deactivate the 'Rotate' ship action in battle.
Fixed a bug when offspring space monsters attacked a system only defended by orbital stations, the creatures would not prompt a fight and just disappeared. Now they attack an orbital station in that system.
Fixed an issue in the space combat boarding screen where the combat bonuses for the attacker and defender marines were showing the incorrect number and were not updating properly.
Fixed a bug in the boarding capturing calculation which was producing an incorrect value for the chance of an attacking marine killing a defending marine.
Fixed an issue in the boarding screen which was showing the incorrect message upon a failed raid. Now shows "Raid attempt failed" where before it would display "Capture attempt failed".
Fixed yet another bug on the boarding mechanic that was not allowing combat to proceed when a monster offspring was captured and there were still other monster offspring monsters of that type left in the battlefield.
Fixed an issue in the Ambassador leaving diplomatic message. The incorrect generic sentences were being used in some occasions, where now the correct new messages are being displayed depending on the race in question.
Fixed a glitch with how some galactic wonder buildings were displayed in the Terran terrain, which could show the wonders as if they were slightly "on air".
Fixed a glitch involving the 'Space Elevator' planetary improvement, which could appear in front of the Colony screen 'Close Button' in some terrains and monitor resolutions, not allowing the colony screen to be closed via that button.
