Master of Orion
The Survey Team - A Silicoid Short Story
Due to character limits we're not able to post the full story in this article, but we've created a discussion thread in the community hub with the tale of The Survey Team in all its glory.
Click here to read the full story, and feel free to ask questions about Silicoid lore. We'll pass them on to our loremaster for answers.
Economic Victory Primer
That said, it’s also a fun new way to approach the game for players that enjoy building large, sprawling empires (not just wide, tall is probably more important here) and aren’t as interested in combat or diplomacy. The new minor civilizations feature works quite nicely when taking this path, as some of them will periodically gift research and credits, and once ally, will contribute their GDP (more on that below) to yours.
When you first hear “economic” you might think that piles of BC are the key to success. While they do help, that is not the only thing you will need to focus on to accomplish economic dominance.
There are three prerequisites that must be met before being deemed winner by economic victory:
- The Interstellar Stock Exchange must have been active for at least 10 turns
- You must control at least 50% of the active shares in the Galactic Monetary Fund
- You must control at least 50% of the Galactic Gross Domestic Product for 10 turns
Now let’s break those three requirements down a bit more…
Interstellar Stock Exchange
This is unlocked once at least one race has constructed a Planetary Stock Exchange (PSE). This structure is unlocked via the Galactic Economics technology. Be careful here, as this is a choice tech, meaning you have to choose either the Planetary Stock Exchange (+2 BC per pop, System Unique) or Advanced City Planning (+5 tiles in all colonies). Of course, you can also gain access to the PSE by trading for the tech in diplomacy or stealing it with espionage.
Once the ISE is active all races can begin purchasing shares of the Galactic Monetary Fund.
Galactic Monetary Fund
Also fairly straightforward, this element of the economic victory requires purchasing shares on the Interstellar Stock Exchange. These shares fluctuate in price--they have buy and sell values each turn--based on 1% of the combined Galactic Gross Domestic Product (GGDP). Share prices will increase gradually over the course of the game, with some variation based on purchase activity over the last two turns, but can also decrease in cases where large colonies are destroyed--thus resulting in a dip in the GGDP.
All players can purchase shares of the Galactic Monetary Fund, even those not focused on the economic victory. This will be important to keep an eye on as you can use your excess BC to prevent opponents from achieving victory.
Galactic Gross Domestic Product
Here’s where the complexity comes into play. The Galactic Gross Domestic Product is the combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of all races in the galaxy. A race’s GDP is not just about BC generation--it’s influenced by multiple factors.
For those into the mechanics under the hood, here is what makes up the GGDP:
GGDP = Total Population (including Minor Civilizations) + Total Income (before expenses and operating costs) + Total Production + Total Structures (including orbital defenses)
Your GGDP contribution can be increased by doing the following:
- Increasing your BC generation--not just how much profit you make each turn
- Increasing your population
- Focusing population on production
- Completing structures
As you can see, this victory condition is more about building a strong empire infrastructure rather than rapidly colonizing worlds. Build tall, complete your structures and make sure to keep your population focused on production whenever you’re able. Get your Morale structures up and increase your tax rate.
Working with minor civilizations proves valuable here, as they gift BC periodically and contribute their GDP to yours once ally. Trade treaties with friendly races will also be very valuable, so be sure to keep them active whenever you’re able.
Utilize the Trade Goods project as much as possible to provide a buffer for purchasing GMF shares, buying out structures in the future, gifting BC to minor civilizations, forming trade treaties or to use BC as lump sum payments to races to improve disposition.
Keep your GDP above everyone else’s and you’ll be on the fast track to conquering the stars with the new economic victory condition.
Master of Orion Version 43.4 Patch Notes (Early Access 3)
Need to keep this short and sweet because the patch notes take up all the characters! A note from the development team before we dive into the changes:
After a lot of work we are proud to present this massive update. As you will see this version is packed with important new features, new playable races and several improvements. We want to thank you all for your amazing feedback that is helping us improve the game.
Please remember that MOO is still in development; some of these changes may be subject to further review. As always, we are eager to get more of your feedback!
IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT OLD SAVED GAMES: Because of significant changes going into EA3, your old saved games from EA2 or earlier will not work with this version of the game. We are setting up a new BETA branch of the game with the previous build (Windows and Mac only) so you can continue any pending attempts to conquer the stars. This branch is called "earlyaccess2" and can be accessed via the Betas tab in Properties.
Highlights:
- New playable races: Silicoid and Darlok
- Espionage: Train spies and assign them to offensive and defensive missions
- Minor Civilizations: interact with non-starfaring races to gain rewards, including influencing your diplomatic and economic victory paths
- New Victory condition: Fill your coffers and claim economic supremacy by controlling the Galactic Monetary Fund
- Weapon Miniaturization: Improve your legacy weapons by making them smaller and cheaper
- Support for Linux and SteamOS
- New galaxy size: HUGE
- More AI improvements
- Improved Multiplayer
- Improved Tactical Battles
- Improved overall balance: Better suited for both tall and wide empires and with a smoother progression in the late game
- Improved performance (faster turn processing and less hickups when zooming in and out of the galaxy)
- New and improved GNN gags
- By popular demand, we added the option to mute your advisors while still retaining other voiceover audio
- Over 400 bug fixes
Detailed list of changes:
General
- Improved GNN animations and environment
- New GNN Events added
- Miniaturization added for all weapon types and bombs
- Replaced Military Power score with Attack (average DPS) and Defense (effective hit points) ratings
- New Espionage feature added
- Security (Espionage-related) added to Capitol and Government Support Facility
- New Tutorial Match added
- Improved weapon modifiers are now unlockable through the tech tree progression
- Improved performance: Turn processing
- Improved performance: Diplomacy audiences
- Improved performance: Memory management
- Improved performance: Framerates
- Added support to show multiple GNN events in same turn
- Several diplomatic dialogues updated
- Blockade income is no longer affected by empire modifiers
Visual Improvements
- Added new Stellar Converter cutscene for destroying a planet
- Improved emperor holograms on Diplomacy Screen
- New ship models for transports and colony ships added for each race
- New ship models for transports and colony ships on the galaxy map
Gameplay Balance
- Planet population capacity increased by 4 for each planet size
- Rebalanced planetary Biomes (adjusted: total food, available cells and diminishing returns)
- Rebalanced planetary mineral richness (adjusted: total production output, available cells)
- The multiplier for successive terraforming projects on the same planet has been increased, making it more difficult to terraform the poorer biomes to Terran and Gaia
- Introduced many additional “choice required” technologies in the tech tree
- Redistributed food buildings along the tech tree to smooth out progression and make food more important in late stages of the game
- Rebalanced Galaxy ages
- Uber Planets have been rebalanced to be more similar to the Terran biome
- Colony ship production cost increased for improved pacing
- Races with Uber Planet trait now start the game on their corresponding Uber Planet
Racial Traits
We’ve completed a major balance pass on racial traits. Below are the traits for each race as of Early Access 3.
Alkari
- Homeworld specials: Artifacts
- +25% Beam defense
- Ship combat speed bonus
- Ship travel speed bonus
- Physics starting tech
Bulrathi
- Large homeworld
- Rich homeworld minerals
- +25% ground combat rating
- High Gravity tolerance
- +25% Beam defense
- Physics starting tech
Darlok
- -25% assimilation power
- +10% Security
- -10% Mission duration
- Ship improvement: Stealth (ships can get closer to enemies before being detected)
- Government starting tech
Human
- +10% security
- +25% BC from Trade Treaties
- +25% BC from Trade Goods
- Improved Negotiations
- Improved Disposition
- Government starting tech
Klackon
- Cavernous homeworld
- Uber Planet: Cavernous
- Poor homeworld minerals
- +50% Food from population
- +25% Production from population
- Biology starting tech
Meklar
- -50% Food consumption
- +25% Production from population
- +10% Morale
- Ship auto-repair enabled
Mrrshan
- Large homeworld
- Grassland homeworld
- Uber Planet: Grassland
- +25% ground combat rating
- Extended Barracks
- Engineering starting tech
Psilon
- Small homeworld
- Homeworld specials: Artifacts
- +50% Research from population
- -25% ground combat rating
- Low Gravity tolerance
- Government starting tech
Sakkra
- Tropical homeworld
- Uber Planet: Tropical
- -25% Research from population
- +25% population growth
- -25% Pollution generation
- Biology starting tech
Silicoid
- Large homeworld
- Inferno homeworld
- Uber Planet: Inferno
- -25% Research from population
- Does not consume Food
- Does not generate Food
Terran Khanate
- -20% ship cost
- +25% Beam attack
- Increased Marine training rate
- +20% Command Points
- Engineering starting tech
Artificial Intelligence
- Improved Research AI efficiency
- Improved Production AI efficiency (Better handling for new colonies)
- Improved Deal evaluation
- Improved threat evaluation
- Local War AI: Now your enemies will decide to go to war for strategic targets
- Improved invasion tactics
- Colony ships are now escorted by military ships when threats are nearby
- Changed colonization logic so that it considers shared systems
- Improved Space Pirates AI
User Interface
- Production queue visibility is now stored in saved game
- Improved Ship Design screen
- Added Disable Advisor option in options menu
- Production queue visibility is now stored in turn info
- Several fixes and tweaks for tactical UI
- New NEW YEAR animated notification when starting a new turn
- Updated colony ships thumbnails
- Scrollbar has been re-skinned
- Base icon for fleets now scale with camera distance (like ship icons)
- Added many new tooltips across UI elements in the game
- Added new icons to Notifications
- Added Income from blockades on Empire Economy tooltip
- Several minor UI tweaks
Tactical Mode
- New special systems: Lightning Field, Plasma Web, Tractor Beam, Warp Dissipator and Wide Area Jammer
- Improved Admiral AI (now uses match speed, and takes into account planetary defenses)
- Improved fleet deployment
- Auto Upgrade now considers modifiers in weapon slots
- Added abstract representation for clearer understanding of the battlefield when zoomed out
- New option added: reset camera on pause (on by default)
- New hazard: Nebulae (jams missiles but blocks shield regeneration when ships are in them)
- Combat Numbers revamped
- Added Automated Repair visual effects
- Blackhole now affects asteroids
- Missile Accuracy now configurable on a per-missile basis
- Improved balance on range dissipation damage for lasers and beams
- After-battle combat briefing now animates damaged/destroyed ships
- Added bombard and invade validation (specially for multiplayer)
Multiplayer
- Removed UI lock while waiting for players
- Turn time limit added (this is a work in progress)
- Enabled Invite Friends button in match setup
- Several stability-related fixes
SFX
- New ambience sounds for colonization cutscenes
- Added Terran Khanate audios for GNN
- Asteroids sounds added
- Various sound effects added to UI
Notable Bug Fixes
- Bugfix on Galactic Council vote value
- Bugfix for endless Processing Turn occurs when submitting turn after having max Pollution value on Uber Planet
- Trade treaties now will deduct the cost on both parties
- Softlock Bugfix when the AI attacked even after peace treaty was accepted
- Bugfix on memory attacked on War Declaration
- Bugfix when AI evaluate offer or demand deal Items on deal
- Bugfix when being in Truce with a race AI is still cable to threaten to attack demanding something, howeveriIf player declines the demand the war won't be declared
- Fixed combat screen sending results multiple times
- Bugfix: when game goes into a softlock after retreating
- Bugfix: Bombarding unfinished outposts
- Bugfix: Softlock when Enemy AI invades player
- Bugfix: ESC during tactical battle
- Bugfix: Using time compression resulted in some out of syncs
- Bugfix: A player is able to destroy other race's ships without declaring war
- Multiplayer
- Bugfix for locked multiplayer next turn button
- Bugfix on match setup when updating game information for lobbies
- Crash fix on match setup
Minor Civilizations Overview
Minor Civilizations (MC) are non-spacefaring, non-fleet building races that can be discovered as you explore the galaxy. When encountered they tend to be located on desirable worlds but the player must make the decision to invade or work to make them an ally over time. Making a MC into an ally can bring long term benefits that far exceed conquering the planet itself.
Generation and Discovery
Minor Civilizations are generated randomly at the rate of approximately 1 MC per 2 major races (rounded up). MCs will not spawn in a player’s home system and will be distributed in a balanced manner across the galaxy.
Similar to pirate bases or anomalies a MC will give off a “pulse” when first encountered with your advisor also displaying a message. Once you discover the planet for the first time a greeting pop-up will occur to let you know which MC race you have encountered. To view additional information on this race click the VIEW button to see race name, disposition, available quests, and other information.
MC Race Interaction
Once you've encountered the MC you have a number of options available:
- Ignore – You may simply bypass the Minor Civilization and not respond to quests.
- Conquer – You may invade their system, colonize their planets and even conquer their homeworld.
- Interact – You may complete quests and gift BC to raise your disposition and, ultimately, make them an ally.
When discovered a new race will be neutral in their disposition to you. Through your actions, or even inactions, this disposition can be increased to ally faction or decreased until you become hated.
For every action that affects a MC negatively you will receive a warning message. You may accept or cancel your action at this time. If accepted your disposition will decrease.
If you decide to raise your disposition, to include raising any negative disposition, you may use a number of methods. Many of these will involve quests that the MC itself will request of you periodically during the game.
Minor Civilization Quests
Quests are the means by which your disposition can be improved. Ignoring quests will cause a negative to your disposition. Note that as your disposition increases or decreases some quests will become unavailable while others will become available.
MC quests are as follows:
- Gift Technology - You will be asked to unlock a specific technology for the MC
- Eliminate Pirate Base - A pirate base in a nearby system will need to be removed
- Eliminate Space Monster - You must destroy a space monster in a system near the MC
- Eliminate Blockade - You are asked to remove a blockade over the MC
- Eliminate Enemy Major Race - You are tasked with removing a major race from the game
- Destroy Intruder Colony - Another major race has colonized one of their worlds against their will
- Colonize in Our System - You are asked to colonize a planet within the MC's system
- Claim Our System - You must build military outposts at each of the warp points leading out of the MC’s system
- Gift Cloning Center - You are asked to gift the Cloning Center to the MC
- Build Interplanetary Administration at System - You are asked to build the Interplanetary Administration in one of your colonies within the MC's system
In addition to this, you may also gift BC periodically in 50, 100 and 200 BC increments until you've reached Friend status. The higher the BC gift, the more disposition impact it has, though it will diminish over time with continued BC gifts.
When MCs request you to complete a quest a new button will appear where the NEXT TURN button is located. You may not continue your turn until you have accepted or declined the MC’s quest. If a quest has been accepted the MC planet will appear with an exclamation mark over it.
Minor Civilization Disposition Rewards and Penalties
As you increase your disposition with an MC benefits will begin to be realized. These can include:
- Friendly Disposition
- Researcher class will contribute Research points to your empire periodically
- Trader class will contribute Credits to your empire periodically
- Warrior class will contribute Marines to a random colony in your empire periodically
- Request colonization of planets in their system except for their homeworld
- Request claiming their system (must build a military outpost at a warp point)
- Researcher class will contribute Research points to your empire periodically
- Allied Disposition
- Will become Hated toward any race you are at war with
- Will vote for you at the Galactic Council (Diplomatic Victory)
- Their GDP is added to yours (Economic Victory)
- Gifted Cloning Center will send a random POP to one of your planets periodically
- Building Interplanetary Administration within Ally system will export production and food to your in-system colony with the administration constructed
- Will become Hated toward any race you are at war with
MCs may be Friend disposition and below with any and all of the major races. However, they may only ever have one Ally. If you or your opponent has reached maximum disposition Ally status cannot be taken unless the disposition is lowered.
If you maintain a negative disposition of angry or hated it becomes increasingly difficult to raise your disposition. When Hated the MC may also call on other major races to eliminate you. Also if you attempt to turn a MC with Ally status from an AI controlled major race that major race will look upon it unfavorably.
In general it is recommended to seek out and secure systems near Minor Civilizations early in the game, particularly if you are going for economic or diplomatic victories. You never know how the other major races will treat them, so there is always the potential of losing a valuable ally if you do not plan accordingly to protect them.
We hope you enjoyed this early look at Minor Civilizations, and can't wait to hear your feedback on this new feature being introduced with Early Access 3.
Disclaimer: This is from a development version of Master of Orion. Information is subject to change.
Espionage Feature Overview
Getting Started
Espionage is not available right away; you’ll need to unlock a specific technology within the tech tree—Xeno Relations—to get started down your path of subterfuge. Unlocking this technology will grant access to the Spy Center, the building required to train spies. The Spy Center is Empire Unique, meaning only one can be built across your entire empire.
Completing the Spy Center will immediately grant you one spy (“Alpha”) and begin training additional spies. New spies will become available roughly every 15 turns until you’ve reached a maximum of 10 spies. Traits and technologies can reduce the time it takes to train spies, as well as increase the maximum number of spies you can have at any one time.
If a spy is lost on a mission, their space will be freed up and another spy will be trained to replace them. If the Spy Center is destroyed, your existing spies remain available but no additional spies are trained until the Spy Center is reconstructed.
Spy Management
Managing your spies is done via the new Espionage window, which can be accessed by clicking on the Espionage icon in the top-right menu, third from the left between Research and Ship Design.
From this window you can see what your spies are up to at-a-glance, and clicking on a spy gives access to controls for that spy.
Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It
The core gameplay behind Espionage is to send spies to carry out missions on enemy colonies. This takes place across a branching mission structure that starts out simple and can result in some fairly dramatic, gameplay-changing events.
Here is an overview of the mission options available to you:
- Acquire Data: The most basic espionage mission, this allows you to unlock additional information about a colony including Population, Credits, Defense, Morale and Pollution.
Once you’ve acquired data on the colony you unlock four new missions to choose from:
- Infiltrate Cybercrime: Reveals Research generation, Research structures and the technology currently being researched. It also unlocks the following missions:
- Hacking: Prevents the target colony from generating Research points for a specific number of turns.
- Steal: Steals a random technology from the target race.
- Hacking: Prevents the target colony from generating Research points for a specific number of turns.
- Infiltrate Agronomy: Reveals Food generation and Food structures. It also unlocks the following missions:
- Famine: Cancels any food surplus on the colony for a specific number of turns.
- Contaminate: Causes food poisoning, reducing the colony population by a minimum of 1.
- Famine: Cancels any food surplus on the colony for a specific number of turns.
- Infiltrate Trade Unions: Reveals Production generation and Production structures, as well as the current item in the Production queue. It also unlocks the following missions
- Strike: Prevents Production generation by population for a specific number of turns.
- Sabotage: Destroys a random structure. The chance of a structure being selected for destruction is proportional to its cost.
- Strike: Prevents Production generation by population for a specific number of turns.
- Infiltrate Diplomacy: Once complete it unlocks the following missions:
- Destabilize: Lowers disposition for the target race with other AI races.
- Revolt: Causes a colony to revolt, rendering it useless until the target race invades with Marines to restore order.
- Destabilize: Lowers disposition for the target race with other AI races.
As long as missions are successful the Acquire Data mission does not have to be repeated. Once you’ve unlocked the end-tier missions, you also don’t have to infiltrate again unless your spy is discovered. Keep in mind that the greater the reward, the higher difficulty it will be to complete a mission.
Spy vs. Spy
Defending against spies will be an important part of gameplay even if you’re not using the Espionage system offensively. To that end, a new attribute has been introduced for colonies: Security. Each turn there is a chance that a spy will be discovered and their mission deemed a failure, and this is based on the Security rating of the colony.
If a spy is discovered, there are two possible outcomes:
- They can be deported, which simply resets all mission progress at the colony and sends them back to the colony with the Spy Center
- They can be eliminated, which removes them from your spy pool and requires training a new spy to replace them
Security can be boosted in multiple ways:
- Structures like the Global DNA Scanner (+6 Security)
- Assigning a spy to a colony on the Counter Espionage mission
- Achievements unlocked in the tech tree like Neural Scanner (+8 Security for all colonies)
In general it is recommended to use a mix of spies for Counter Espionage and offensive missions. Your most important colonies will be big targets for Espionage, so deploying spies to increase their security will be critical to retaining full control.
We hope you enjoyed this preview of Espionage, and look forward to hearing your feedback on the system once you’ve had a chance to try it out in the next phase of Early Access.
Disclaimer: This is from a development version of Master of Orion. Information is subject to change.
Master of Orion Panel at PAX East!
Calling all 2016 PAX East attendees and Master of Orion “explorers!” Save the date of April 23 at 3:00 pm for Master of Orion: Bringing Back the Legend!
This exclusive panel will combine the insights of the Master of Orion vision team and the stellar talents of the game’s voiceover cast to give a truly unique look at the process of bringing back the beloved 4X game! Add to the panel a limited edition (1,500) exclusive Master of Orion “Pinny Arcade” pin available only to this panel’s attendees, and you have a PAX East panel experience that must not be missed.
Moderated by the Nerdist’s video game editor Malik Forte, this holistic view of the game’s development will be led by Wargaming Director of Product Vision Chris Keeling and Master of Orion Creative Writer Kelsey Howard. Joining the team will be cast members Alan Tudyk (Firefly), Dwight Schultz (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Nolan North (Uncharted 4) to share their approach for creating the personalities of Master of Orion’s most iconic aliens and robots.
Immediately after the panel, be sure to join the panel participants at the PAX East Autograph Area (Queue Room) for a signing of a PAX exclusive Master of Orion poster by the game’s cast and development team.
Watch from home on the PAX official Twitch channel live 3:00 PM ET
Identity Crisis - A Darlok Short Story
Due to character limits we're not able to post the full story in this article, but we've created a discussion thread in the community hub with the tale of Identity Crisis in all its glory.
Click here to read the full story, and feel free to ask questions about Darlok lore. We'll pass them on to our loremaster for answers.
Master of Orion Version 42.8 Patch Notes
Today we're releasing a new version of Master of Orion that includes a number of fixes to issues you've reported since the latest phase began on March 25th. This update should download automatically depending on your download settings.
Read on for the notes, and please keep the feedback and bug reports coming!
- Fixed a crash in tactical combat when there is a large numbers of ships participating
- Fixed: the player is now able to retreat during tactical battles
- Fixed several issues with the Weapon Modifiers not working or not showing the appropriate feedback
- Fixed: Production carry-over not working after buyout
- Fixed a soft-lock when pressing ESC while seeing Orion's defeat dialogue
- Fixed: discovering "Mega Fluxers" now upgrades the ships designs correctly
- Updated the Custom Race button
- Fixed: Several localizations
- Fixed: Added a fade in for the Terran diplomacy screen
- Fixed: the branch-able tech node was showing null tooltips
- Fixed: the FLAG checkbox was not working and was overlapping with the planet info
- Fixed: removed "Heightened Intelligence" research bonus when population is on strike
- Improved Terran and Human Diplomacy background effects (holograms)
- Fixed issues with Terran race's materials
Master of Orion Version 42.6 Hotfix Notes
We hope that you are enjoying the second stage of Master of Orion Early Access!
We found some issues that we wanted to fix as soon as possible so we worked hard to do a quick Hotfix today.
Fixed Issues
- Fixed Support for offline mode on Steam
- Fixed endless black screen where loading save games for the first time without launching a match beforehand
- Fixed broken diplomacy screen on some configurations
- Fixed issue where a significant FPS dropdown occurs during turn submit processing on the Large map size on certain game phase
- Fixed several issues and exploits regarding loading and the excellence victory condition
- Pressing Tab during tactical while AI fleet no longer makes control panel of the selected ship to appear
- Fixed an error that seldom appears when attempting to join a multiplayer lobby
- Fixed In-game EULA Overlapping
- Fixed multiple cases of "endless processing turn" that occurred
- Fixed: Monsters do not spawn on asteroid belts anymore
Known Issues
- Battle briefing screen may contain wrong information when a pirate fleet attacks a player's planet
- A player might be able to see an anomaly but not be able to travel to it the required system is not revealed
- A fleet is able to move after performing Destroy a planet action
New Tactical Combat Options
With version 42.4.1 we've added new control options to tactical combat. These options are very much a first pass, so they do not all include descriptive tooltips yet. Because of that, we've put together some detailed information on what each option does.
New Controls on Tactical Combat
Two new sliders and three buttons have been added to the Tactical Combat controls, allowing for finer control over your squadrons.
The Throttle Slider
The single-knob slider on the top, allows the player to control the speed of the selected squadrons. All selected ships will move at a percentage of their top speed, as indicated by the slider position. Placing the slider at the leftmost position will make all ships move at a dead slow pace, while the rightmost setting makes them all move at full speed.
Match speed Button
Right next to the Throttle is the "Match Speed" button. Pressing this button will adjust each selected squadron's Throttle gauge so that all squadrons match the speed of the slowest vessel (Useful for creating escorts for larger, heavier ships and for delaying your frigates and destroyers from running headlong into the enemy). This button only becomes enabled when multiple squadrons are selected.
Threatened Area Slider
Beneath the Throttle control there is a double-knobbed slider to control the squadron's threatened area. This is the distance where the squadron will attempt to keep its target. Moving either knob will display a colored area bewteen two circles around the ship (The left knob controls the inner circle, the minimum distance, while the right slider controls the outer limit, the maximum distance). The squadron will maneuver in order to keep its current target closer than the maximum distance, but will attempt to distance itself from the target if it comes closer than the minimum distance.
Bear in mind that max range caps at the squadron's longest range weapon, but it does not take into consideration shorter ranged weapons (So you may effectively be denying your squadrons the posibility of using their short range weapons if you set the threatened area too far out). Also worth noticing is that the threatened area does not prevent the vessel from taking potshots at other targets within range, it only factors while maneuvering against the current target - So even if the threat area is set at max range, the squadrons' shorter range weapons will fire against enemies that strafe close by.
Cease Fire Button
Next to the Threat Controls is the Cease Fire button. This command forbids the squadron from taking any offensive action until disabled or the squadron is given a direct attack order by the player.
Retreat Button
The last button added on this version is the Retreat button. This control issues an uninterruptible order to the squadron to abandon the battle. The squadron will commence maneuvers to face away from battle (Back towards the player's side "Starting Area"), and after a few moments will warp out of combat, surviving the battle even if the player's side is defeated. Keep in mind the ship is extremely vulnerable while preparing to escape, so use this command wisely.