(Live) v2.94 Update Changelog

[RammaStardock]

2.94 Key Features

• Optimized Galaxy Map Generation Galaxy Maps are more optimized for player placement and player turn time.
  
• Gameplay Balance Improvements. We have updated citizen specialties, combat, ship hulls, and resources to make for a more enjoyable experience.
  
• UI Screen Refinement We enhanced the player UI by fixing bugs on the Planetary Improvement Screen, Shipyard Screen and Ship Designer Screen.

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January 23rd, 2025 Changelog
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AI

• AI prioritizes culture techs more
  
• Genius AI bonuses reduced from 33% warfare buff to 25%.
  
• Fixed stuck turn issue when AI tries to build a Starbase on top of one of its rally points

Art

• Updated Battle Arenas
  
• Replaced old Earth Image
  
• Updated missing ship designer thumbnails
  
• Fixed low resolution “The Criminals Syndicate” event image
  
• Updated Minor Race and Hostile Entry sliders
  
• Updated ship materials, lighting and textures
  
• Fixed thumbnail for Drengin Worker ships

Crash Fixes

• Fixed a game crash where the AI is looking for wars that don't exist.
  
• “Secret Policy Crime” reduction changed from eliminating all crime on colonies to reducing crime by 3%

Gameplay

• Citizen Specialty Rework
  
• Populations provide a percentage buff to Research and Manufacturing
  
• “Minister of Justice” crime reduction reduced slightly
  
• “Atmospheric Scrubbers” only available to Amphibious races now
  
• Prisons are available earlier in the tech tree
  
• Citizens and their specializations now provide a multiplier bonus rather than a flat bonus

Colonies

• Colony Capitals now provide a flat wealth reward instead of a percentage when leveled up
  
• Farm Level’s effect on food production is increased from 5% to 10%
  
• Taxation makes citizens more angry
  
• Prison cost is reduced from 5 to 1 Duranitum
  
• Corrosive worlds can potentially be colonized
  
• “Colonial Law" and “Policy Crime” reduction on planets reduced from -0.1 to -0.03

Combat

• Weapon ranges slightly increased
  
• Missiles now get an additional shot and give +1 more damage
  
• Armor Degradation restored to 5% per turn
  
• “Fighter Module Evasion” fixed to be flat instead of a multiplier

Diplomacy

• Players can trade Colonies and Starbases with each other in the Trade Screen
  
• The AI will now ignore certain diplomatic conditions if other diplomatic conditions are in place

Missions

• Fixed bug where players are unable to complete “A Distant Signal” in “The Opportunity” mission
  
• Updated “The Opportunity” mission to use “Space War Tactics”

Research

• “Aid Research” project now available as soon as the “Tech Capital” is built
  
• “Subspace Scanning” moved behind “Artificial Gravity” in the tech tree
  
• Tech costs now go up slightly faster
  
• Fixed bug where “Cybnetic Ability” couldn't get the “Regenerative Gels” tech
  
• “Nanite Repair Cloud” repairs per round reduced from 10% to 2%
  
• Fixed bug where the tech tree does not show up correctly when loading an older save
  
• Balance update for Starbase Relic bonuses from being harvested

Resources

• Buying and selling resources is much more market driven than before
  
• Luxury resources have been made much rarer and more valuable
  
• Bombarded worlds are much more likely to have luxury resources

Ship Hull

• Medium ships space increased from 32 to 36
  
• Large ship space increased from 60 to 80
  
• Huge ship space increased from 100 to 200
  
• Cargo ship space increased from 20 to 30
  
• Fixed bug where engine components weren't considering the mass of the ship as part of their space requirement

Orbitals

• Orbitals have been added behind a tech
  
• Made Orbital icons smaller
  
• Changed “Logistics Network” Orbital Icon

Victory Conditions

• Adjusted Prestige Victory to make it more difficult to achieve

Localization

• Fixed formatting and translation issues for all available languages

Map Generation

• Update the Auto-Explore system to be much faster, more intelligent and focus on Stars exploration
  
• Increased the size of the largest single sector map
  
• Planets will spawn more consistently with their spawn type
  
• Maps spawn more stars than before
  
• Abundant habitable planet spawn setting spawns more habitable planets
  
• Max habitable planet cap is increased
  
• Blackholes, in general, are slightly more common
  
• Fixed a crash that occurs when a game has a lot of players, and the players are set in close proximity on a very large map
  
• Distant player setting will attempt to evenly spread-out players amongst sectors

FOW Refresh System

• New caching system has been created for FOW that drastically reduced late game turn times on large maps
  
• FOW is more optimized for turn systems, modifier systems, fleet systems and waypoint systems
  
• Fixed the issue where the FOW will do a full refresh for its own objects, effecting late game performance
  
• FOW no longer updates in real-time when an AI moves its ships

Player Placement

• Player placement will now attempt to put players mostly on their own in their own sector if the player chooses "very far" on the setting and there are multiple sectors
  
• Players placed in the same sector will be separated by distance based the player distance settings
  
• AI Players are no longer clumped together in a single sector if there are other sectors
  
• Starting locations are fairer for each player based on the player settings
  
• Player placement in maps is now faster and place players in satisfying and different locations

Multiplayer

• Fix bug when players try to leave a finished multiplayer game it will not allow them to return to the main menu
  
• Fixed early desync when players attempt to mine with an asteroid ship

Optimization

• Decreased the time it takes to load a saved game
  
• Improved save game load speed
  
• Reduction in the late game frequency of AI ship designs

Tutorial

• If a game is already in progress the first-time tutorial screen will no longer appear

UI

• Fixed bug where the Diplomats wrongly reported they were providing a bonus to diplomacy in UI
  
• Cultural Points are displayed in the Resource Bar
  
• Fixed Report Button to bring up the Fleet Details screen
  
• Fixed Tiny UI scaling issues

Planet Screen

• Added in planetary improvement filters
  
• District list is smaller

Ship Designer Screen

• Ship Designer is updated to guarantee a ship is being designed for the player

Shipyard Screen

• Fixed text clipping bug for items in the build queue
  
• Removed redundant "available projects" text in the Shipyard list
  
• Obsolete and Favorite buttons easier to click
  
• Resizing UI to make the list of ships cleaner
  
• Fixed bug when Shipyard displays “N/A” for the owner after invading another planet
  
• Build list in Shipyard properly fades out

Megastructures DLC

AI

• Fixed AI from investing too much Gigamass into non-Megastructures

Architect

• Improved Architect construction effects
  
• Fixed bug when building a Megastructure in a fleet, ships will still build if the architect had been ejected from the fleet

Art

• Updated Megastructure Materials and Orbitals

Minor Civilization

• Ringworlder quest is much less common

Resources

• Gas Giant Gigamass increased from 2 to 5
  
• Gigamass techs are more expensive
  
• Some ship components now use Energy instead of Gigamass
  
• Balanced energy generation to Gigamass cost for Solar Farms and Dyson Spheres

Ship Components

• New ship components moved to be later in the tech tree
  
• New ship components are not automatically designed by the AI for the player anymore

Stellar Gateways

• Toggle button is properly disabled when a Megastructure is under construction
  
• Added correct icons for decommissioning a Stellar Gateway

UI

• Added “This Planet Has No Gigamass” text when a dead world has no Gigamass

[skunkno1]

Gonna enjoy exploring those new map setting. Thanks!

[Hybrida]

Okay everyone lets take a moment of silence for the “Nanite Repair Cloud”. We all knew this day was coming... Pay respect to our fallen friend, please.

[Texas Aggie]

Thank you on Hull sizes - about time we see more love there

[Texas Aggie]

“Colonial Law" and “Policy Crime” reduction on planets reduced from -0.1 to -0.03.

This is Broken and needs to be reverted back- I've got tons of anti Crime upgraded and still tons of crime. Also the minister on justice seems to do almost nothing to stop crime regardless of stats - this is a bug.


Also this build seems VERY sluggish - almost unplayable - previous builds were not this bad. Lots of hesitation as if the CPU is having trouble processing.

[Supply Side Jesus]

>>>Buying and selling resources is much more market driven than before.

In every game I play on small map durantium is always in short supply. There needs to be more of it available on small maps if you can’t buy it in bulk.

[DarkFire]

Game crashing after colonizing 'any' planet in late-middle part of the game (Tried colonizing 5 different planets with the same results). Restarted my PC with little success. Only on this build. Played several, far longer games with multiple mega-structures built - Never crashed once. Also Elerium not as common as before. Had to trade for app. 20% from other Civs. 'Texas Aggie' is right about the rise in crime rate. It's almost like the southern border was left wide open by the previous administration...

[Silric]

Before you lunch this have a look about how the factions get placed on the map. For test i did try a faction using the cartograph skill. I mean this skill wich shows all starting positions from all factions. All AI factions start close togeher in one sector. The minor factions are placed a little bit better arround the hole map. I did test several times wiht diffrent settings always the same result. To check i did try the same wihtout this beta version. Same settings and i can see starting positions all arround the map(like it should be i guess).

And an commend for this minor factions(great you bring them into game ), when i for example choose in Map setting for "many" minor factions it should be some more on a map for example 17 Players and then just about 7 minor factions is for me more like i choose the option "only a few" for minor factions. I hope we can see some more contend about these little factions in future like events for example. It makes the galaxy more alive.

[RammaStardock]

Additional changes have now been marked under January 22nd, 2025

[RammaStardock]

This update has been pushed from Insiders to Live

[Cordell]

When the dust settles I hope there will be some thought towards optimizing for the Steam Deck. This would be a perfect game for that. The planets look really strange in the detail/guild view. I've tried to tweak settings but it looks pretty bad, everything else looked OK. It does run just looks funny at 1280.

[Frogboy]

Originally posted by DarkFire:

Game crashing after colonizing 'any' planet in late-middle part of the game (Tried colonizing 5 different planets with the same results). Restarted my PC with little success. Only on this build. Played several, far longer games with multiple mega-structures built - Never crashed once. Also Elerium not as common as before. Had to trade for app. 20% from other Civs. 'Texas Aggie' is right about the rise in crime rate. It's almost like the southern border was left wide open by the previous administration...

I think this was fixed in the final version. If you run into any issues, let us know.

[Frogboy]

Originally posted by Texas Aggie:

“Colonial Law" and “Policy Crime” reduction on planets reduced from -0.1 to -0.03.

This is Broken and needs to be reverted back- I've got tons of anti Crime upgraded and still tons of crime. Also the minister on justice seems to do almost nothing to stop crime regardless of stats - this is a bug.


Also this build seems VERY sluggish - almost unplayable - previous builds were not this bad. Lots of hesitation as if the CPU is having trouble processing.

I think this depends on how many colonies you have attached to a core world. The real question is whether we should add new anti-crime improvements or techs.

[Frogboy]

Also this build seems VERY sluggish - almost unplayable - previous builds were not this bad. Lots of hesitation as if the CPU is having trouble processing.

This was fixed in the final update before we went live. There was a bug where as your ships moved it was tryijng to recalculate ALL the FOW for all your ships! d'oh!

[Buzzerker]

Any improvements to this game makes me happy. I've been playing it since early access and I have two DLC.

[starmac]

Another update and the game crashes .....