Hello Explorers and welcome to Master of Orion, Early Access - Stage 2!

We are very happy to release this update, and move forward in our Early Access program. As you will see this version is packed with a lot of improvements, many of which were only possible thanks to your amazing feedback.

Again, please remember that our game is still in development, some changes may be subject to further review.

We are eager to get more of your feedback!

Highlights

Detailed Changes

• Three new playable races: Klackon, Meklar and Terran Khanate
  
  
  
  • Klackon Traits (Tireless, Uncreative, Hive-minded)
    
    
    
    • Homeworld Minerals: Poor
      
    • Uber Planet: Cavernous (transforms from Arid)
      
    • +50% Food from Population
      
    • +25% Production from Population
      
    • Starting Tech: Biology
      
    
    
  • Meklar Traits (Industrious, Erratic, Unpredictable)
    
    
    
    • -50% Food Consumption
      
    • +25% Production from Population
      
    • Ship Auto Repair Enabled (instantly repairs after combat)
      
    • Starting Tech: Physics
      
    
    
  • Terran Khanate Traits (Hard, Determined, Violent)
    
    
    
    • -20% Ship Production Cost
      
    • +25% Beam Attack
      
    • +20% Command Points
      
    • Starting Tech: Engineering
      
    
    
  
  
• Support for Mac OS X (Not optimized yet, please take a look at our recommended specs)
  
• Custom Race creation enabled
  
• New victory Condition: Technological Victory
  
• Improved ship auto-upgrade
  
• Improved tooltips for morale
  
• Added missing holograms in Breakthrough (research) screen
  

• Racial Perks have been re-assigned and re-balanced
  
  
  
  • Alkari - New trait: Ship Combat Speed Bonus
    
  • Bulrathi - New trait: +25% Ground Combat Rating
    
  • Human - New traits: +25% Trade Treaties bonus; Improved Disposition from diplomacy
    
  • Psilon - New trait: -25% Ground Combat Rating
    
  • Sakkra - -25% Food Consumption trait replaced with +50% Population Growth
    
  
  
• Research progression and pacing has been rebalanced, especially for the midgame and endgame
  
• Deep Sea Cooling research bonus changed from +25% to +3 and moved to Advanced Engineering (tier 3)
  
• Moon Laboratory research bonus changed from +4 to +6
  
• Improved galaxy generation to increase differentiation of star colors and planets over different galaxy ages
  
• Ships are now upgradable and repairable when orbiting all owned colonies and outposts, as well as allied colonies
  
• Added difficulty levels: Easy, Average, Hard and Very Hard (Average being the one where the AI is playing with the same economical benefits as the human player)
  
• Improved Jump Gates: now built by Space Factory at Warp Points, moved earlier in the tech tree (from tier 7 to tier 6), and travel speed when using them doubled
  
• Re-balanced Racial Biases
  
• Vast improvements on differentiation of races (bonus/malus, strategy, diplomacy, etc.)
  
• Enabled 8 races for Circular Large galaxy (was 6 because the races restriction for EA1); Spiral currently remains limited to 6
  
• Music and Voice Over has been properly balanced
  

• Fixed bug in AI asking for invalid technologies
  
• Fixed OffensivePact send WarDeclaration in Client and DespiseBreakPromise check
  
• Improved colonization behavior: Now the AI is able to manage multiple Colony ships at the same time and its colonization schemes are not hindered by its war efforts
  
• Improved war preparation: Defensive and offensive analysis has been improved
  
• vastly improved production
  
• Improved Strategic analysis: AI will make more decisions based on chances of obtaining different victory conditions
  
• Improved Strategic analysis finetuning of potential targets for war
  
• Improved handling of multiple war fronts
  
• Performance optimization in engage task
  
• Improved combat analysis: New formula for estimating relative fleet strength
  
• Defensiveness personality trait now used in defense formula
  

• Monsters collision/avoidance boxes fixed
  
• Fixed Space Dragon 3D mesh
  
• New Combat Screen with detailed information on fleets
  
• Pause as a mechanic: Tactical battles start in paused mode in order to make the important initial tactical decisions
  
• Fixed range feedback on tooltip and overlay
  
• Size of pirate ships has been Increased
  
• Added civilian ships to tactical battle: They hold their ground at the back of the battlefield and flee if they get attacked
  
• Added Retreat option: Ships must reach the edge of the battlefield and warp out to successfully retreat
  
• Several fixes for tactical UI
  
• “Tactical” button replaced with “Take Command”
  
• ”Simulate” button replaced with “Auto-Resolve”
  
• Added Speed and Range Controls (Implementation, Integration into the game)
  
• Added Tactical Options (Pause on Options, Esc brings Options, Confirm Simulate on Leave, Populate Options Menu accordingly).
  
• Added Persistence to tactical options
  
• Fixed Facing, size and modifiers costs
  
• Intro improvements
  

• Changes in arrow icon and jump gates
  
• Animation changes on Main Menu and Single Player
  
• Added buildings list to manage structures
  
• Added UX components for speed and range controls
  
• Updated Invasion/Bombardment UI
  
• Added buttons to specify how many Troop Transports should be used on a given invasion
  
• Tactical
  
  
  
  • New Icons added
    
  • Animated Auto-cast feedback added
    
  
  
• GNN
  
  
  
  • Fixed a bug where the race name would repeat in the headline
    
  
  

• Fixed trading: Player is unable to request Exchange Tech when the player does not have technology for Exchange Tech
  
• Fixed State Machine: Some lines of dialogue where not being triggered as intended
  

• New localizations: German, French, Polish, Czech, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Japanese
  
• Updated Localizations
  
• New changes on Game Credits screen
  

• Improved Audio Manager
  
• Improved Tactical mode sounds
  
• Improved Strategy mode sounds
  
• Several mixer updates, general click sound updated, "upgrade" button sound added and GNN music loop-able
  

Dev Diary #2

The Past

• Feb. 18th: We revealed the voice cast for Master of Orion and the official start date for Early Access
  
• Feb. 23rd: Streamers began broadcasting their play sessions on Twitch, and YouTubers started releasing “Let’s Play” and impressions videos
  
• Feb. 25th: We soft launched on Steam and immediately saw a spike in activity
  
• Feb. 26th: Early Access officially kicked off, with tens of thousands of you purchasing the Collector’s Edition and launching your campaigns to conquer the stars
  
• Feb. 29th: We sent the first round of feedback you had to the development team, covering more than 100 topics ranging from pacing, combat controls, race balance and the dreaded turn limit
  
• Mar. 4th: The first update for Master of Orion, 40.13, went live and included the option to disable the turn limit by turning off Excellence, or setting the turn limit yourself if you left it on
  
• Mar. 8th: We compiled and sent another round of feedback to the development team, identifying another 30+ topics
  
• Mar. 11th: We published our “response to feedback” post to let you know we’re listening and will be making changes
  

The Present

• Three new races: Klackon, Meklar and Terran Khanate
  
• New victory condition: Technological
  
• New feature: Custom Races
  
• New operating system: Mac OS X
  
• New language support for text localization: German, French, Polish, Czech, Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Japanese
  

• Difficulty settings have been expanded from Average to: Easy, Normal, Hard and Very Hard
  
• Galaxy generation has been altered so that biomes, richness and gravity are more consistent with the star systems they are found in (i.e. Red, Orange, Yellow stars, etc.)
  

• Initial pass on race traits to improve diversity; this will be ongoing for the remainder of Early Access
  
• Tech tree progression has been adjusted, particularly for technologies in the mid and late game; on average it should take longer to progress through the tech tree
  

• Significant improvements to AI behavior, particularly when it comes to diplomacy, colony management and expansion
  
• AI now does a better job utilizing ship upgrades—not just hulls, but systems and weapons as well
  

• Blueprint upgrade logic has been improved and will receive further improvements in future patches
  
• Ships will no longer be scrapped if you decide to scrap a blueprint
  

• A structures list has been introduced that includes by-type filters (i.e. Food, Research, Production, etc.); this list can be accessed by clicking the “View” button to the right of Manage Structures
  
• Auto-build logic has been improved
  

• An option to start battles paused has been added to the Gameplay section of Options
  
• An option to disable AI by default has been added to the Gameplay section of Options
  
• An option to start battles in the Cinematic camera mode has been added to the Gameplay section of Options
  
• We’ve improved the design of the pre-combat UI
  
• We’ve changed the names of the combat buttons in pre-combat to:
  
  
  
  • Tactical -> Take Command
    
  • Simulate -> Auto-Resolve
    
  
  
• A ship speed slider has been added, allowing you to adjust the speeds (in percentage) for ships
  
• A “match speed” button has been added that when selected will match the speeds of all of your ships
  
• A range-to-target slider has been added that will allow you to specify minimum and maximum ranges for your ships’ weapons; no more in-your-face combat unless you want that
  
• A retreat button has been added; ships must reach the edge of the map and then spend a few seconds warping out before they can retreat successfully
  
• Formation bonuses have been introduced that provide unique bonuses based on the formation(s) your ships are flying in
  

The Future