[1.4.21] Patch Notes

[The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales]

IMPORTANT: Due to various changes made in this patch, this patch is incompatible to saves from previous versions of the game. If you have old saves you want to finish, go to the "Betas" tab of the game's properties on Steam and select Version "1.4.13 - Backup"


Fixes:

• Reduced occurrence of desync on multiplayer games
  
• Gameplay effect tooltips should no longer disappear (Seems this fix unfortunately did not stick.)
  
• Systems should no longer become mutinous while affected by the Joy Initiative hero skill.
  
• Players no longer randomly lose allied status with minor factions
  
• Vodyani no longer lose “brainwashed” status with minor factions when eliminating other Vodyani empires
  
• Vodyani “Core Vessels” law no longer lowers food output when it was already negative
  
• The “Engine Masking” reward of the “What’s This?” UC quest now functions properly
  
• Hero ships can no longer use Boarding Defense modules
  
• Basryxo “Bountiful Byproducts” effect is now applied correctly and will no longer lower your Industry
  
• The “Munchie Madness” Quest will no longer ask the player to reach a negative amount of Food
  
• Depleted planets now correctly display the malus for being depleted
  
• Text will no longer overflow in the Event Notification of “Smoking Gun – Part 1”
  
• Fixed certain "per phase" ship modules not applying their effect in the final phase

Balancing:

Combat

• Universal Aerodynamic (Era 4) now grants +3 Command Points
  
• Autonomous construction (Era 2) now grants +1 Command Point per unlocked Hull Type
  
• Added Command Point bonuses to Era Unlocks of the Military Quadrant
  
• Fleet accelerator modules can only be equipped on hero ships.
  
• Increased the strategic/luxury cost of the fleet accelerator modules from 3 to 6
  
• Repair Module Repair After Battle and Repair After Phase values reduced
  
• Shield Module and Flotilla Shield Module Energy Defense and Shield Capacity values increased
  
• Hull Plating Module Projectile Defense and Health Bonus values increased

Governments and Laws

• Federation's over colonization threshold now increases only with heroes that represent the political parties currently in the senate.
  
• Democracy now grants 10% law upkeep and activation cost reduction per law enacted instead of 5%
  
• Added a one-time cost to activate laws in addition to the upkeep
  
• Saints & Sinners now gives +20 Approval on all Systems and an additional +20 Approval on Systems with governors

Dust Production and Inflation

• Inflation now affects upkeep at a reduced value scaled based on the number of empires you are currently at war with

Influence Production

• Culture Center influence percentage bonus reduced (20% -> 15%), +40 per system level unmodified
  
• Body Language Institute influence percentage bonus reduced (+10% -> 5%)
  
• Introduced 2 Influence per pop upkeep for Trade Agreements and Science Agreement
  
• Increased Science Treaty per turn growth rate (5 -> 10) and maximum science gain (450 -> 750)
  
• Treaties that have an upkeep cost will get cancelled if the user is not able to maintain the upkeep (just like laws)

Hissho

• FIDSI malus from Resource Recoverers now applies on ALL systems and not only main system.
  
• The Hissho ground battle outcome Occupy now takes 15 Keii
  
• The Hissho ground battle outcome Subdue gives no keii
  
• The Hissho ground battle outcome Raze now gives 5 Keii
  
• Added a one-time Keii cost to most peaceful treaties

Behemoths

• Adjusted cost of firing Obliterator shots
  
• Obliterators can only be fired if you are at war with the target
  
• Added Adamantian and Antimatter cost to Obliterator shots
  
• Increased cost of Obliterator shots
  
• Doubled cooldown time of Obliterators
  
• Added an empire-wide malus of -20% Influence and -40 approval for 4 turns to firing obliterators
  
• Increased economic bonuses of the Citadel (+10% Industry and Science -> 20% Food, Industry, Science, and +10% Influence)
  
• Economic bonuses of the Citadel now display in the research tooltip
  
• Decreased Behemoth C3 Center cost multiplier (x2.0 -> x1.5)
  
• Added a confirmation prompt with a preview of upkeep changes when queuing Behemoth C3 Centers

[Rayder]

Yo literally wtf? Is Hissho still meant to actually be playable? Their maximum number of system is 2. TWO, before over-colonization penalties set in on their Keii cost to turn outposts as well as the -5% on home systems.

now it's -5% FIDSI on ALL systems, for every system you own above TWO. This is for a faction that gets no bonuses to max systems from the techs that usually give them from the left side of the tech tree.

On top of that the way to bypass that, which is switching to Federation, is now nerfed to the ground.

I guess the only consolation is that at least they also nerfed Vodyani rapid expansion via nerfing Saints and Sinners.

[Rayder]

IMO this patch completely changes the balance of power between warlike and pacifist factions, in favor of the latter.

Federation is no longer the easy fall-back for factions that rapidly expand and then steam roll that into a mid and late game military victory. Approval management will now be much harder and arguably this is for the better. The factions that have built in mechanics that ignore approval (Hissho Keii and Vodyani Republic + saints and sinners) are no longer as powerful as they were before.

Peaceful factions with innate approval bonuses and that run with Democracy such as Unfallen stand to benefit a great deal.

What I don't like about this patch is that it makes playing aggressive and waging war much less rewarding than it already is, on top of the forced Truce or pay a load of Influence mechanic.

[roy7]

Originally posted by Thrasher:

Yo literally wtf? Is Hissho still meant to actually be playable? Their maximum number of system is 2. TWO, before over-colonization penalties set in on their Keii cost to turn outposts as well as the -5% on home systems.

I believe the Hissho game play style isn't supposed to be taking extra systems at all. And the FIDSI fix is long long long overdue. Consider this discussion from a year ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EndlessSpace/comments/951jps/supremacy_the_hissho_are_beyond_busted_and_should/

[Rayder]

Yo the more I look at this the more screwed up it feels.

You now HAVE TO switch to Federation as Hissho or you're completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I loaded up my save with Hissho where I was running well with 13/18 system pre-patch, switching to Federation because I felt the penalty to my home-system was crippling.

Post-Patch my overcolonization penalty is 13/8, which means all my systems get -25% to base FIDSI. This is kinda bearable(not really) since the malus is only to the FIDSI generated by pops and not from other sources.

I tried a government switch just to see what it's like. BOOM 13/2. -55% malus to all systems. Wow. It just feels bad as a game mechanic. I don't even feel like playing Hissho on endless is possible now without using Federation. You've got less choice instead of more.

Like maybe Hissho are still playable, but I personally play strategy games to play well and get rewarded for it. Right now you're penalized for expanding and waging war which are two things you're supposed to do as Hissho...(?). I'm personally not touching this faction again.

[Rayder]

Originally posted by roy7:

Originally posted by Thrasher:

Yo literally wtf? Is Hissho still meant to actually be playable? Their maximum number of system is 2. TWO, before over-colonization penalties set in on their Keii cost to turn outposts as well as the -5% on home systems.

I believe the Hissho game play style isn't supposed to be taking extra systems at all. And the FIDSI fix is long long long overdue. Consider this discussion from a year ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EndlessSpace/comments/951jps/supremacy_the_hissho_are_beyond_busted_and_should/

This mining glitch has already been fixed. Mining probe FIDSI income is PUNY compared to whatever it was when it was bugged.

Also, there has not been a faction in a strategy game I have played where a basic thing like expanding was "against its playstyle", and fewer where waging war and taking enemy holdings was "against the playstyle", certainly not in ES2 where basically every faction benefits from taking enemy systems. Especially Hissho.

Now granted, Hissho were still pretty busted because they ignored approval and could use Federation to eventually overcome the annoying FIDS penalty to their home system.

Now that FIDS penalty is not annoying but CRIPPLING, and instead of having the option to switch to Federation, if you don't switch to Federation you can enjoy watching every system you have suffer a massive penalty as soon as you get more than 1 other system. It's stupid. It defeats the purpose of ignoring approval because the FIDS penalty acts as negative and UNAVOIDABLE disapproval anyway. it just feels lame and bad to play.

[patrick]

Federation can feel a bit busted at times, but with hacking already in the game it‘s a wonky strategy anyways, because people can hack your home system and if you overexpand heavily you can end in a disapproval cycle because you can‘t change back due to unhappiness. Making it dependant on the exact vote results aswell makes it alot more unreliable. I‘d prefer a smaller reliable bonus over a bigger unreliable one.

The problem that i see with the whole overexpansion thing is that the only reliable and repeatable method of increasing the cap demands level 4 systems, when going beyond 3 or even 2 permanently sets you back compared to people who wait with that until they have tier 3 luxuries. If there were some system by which luxuries of systems and your empire could be changed, possibly at a cost, then that dilemma wouldn‘t be there. Aswell as the problem that i have to wait 15+ turns after razing an enemey system which i only razed in order to remove their trash system developments, more turns in the late game where there's less turns until the end of the game left. This part is quite counterintuitive in my opinion.

Science agreements converge against a fixed value with a flexible (per pop) value, did i get that right? So if i have 100 pops, i pay 200 influence for 750 science at best, and if i have 375 pops i trade influence and science 1:1? That would mean that around 142 pops it‘d probably be best to cancel tje agreement. In my opinion that‘s not ideal design, but it‘s an understandable game mechanic where it‘s clear to see when it‘s beneficial or not.

I agree that fleet accelerators were busted but i‘d prefer the game to allow all ships to use them, but only count the biggest value in the fleet . So that you coule stack a ahip full of them, use it as a „towship“, but couldn‘t stack towships. Well, i‘ll get used to it.

I like all the bug fixes, especially that thing with the minor faction.

[Tonatsi]

Im sorry; some of those nerfs are too harsh.

[Grzemek]

Damn, those are some huge changes, let's see how they play out. I'm sure of one thing, I'm not spending 2240 Industry and 25 Antimatter to get +5% Influence in one system, even with those extra Influence expenditures.

Also Resource Recoverers isn't only to FIDS from population, it's from all sources. At 20 systems over the limit you will have negative food (because consumption), zeroed out IDS, and Influence will be untouched. Unless this part has been changed with this very patch. But the relentless nature of the malus that keeps chunking away from the base down to 0 (or up to 100%, same thing) sounds not fun. Looks like Ancestral Reverence is back on the menu. So Hissho are basically Umbral Choir now, with centralizing Production on Uchi. Too bad we can grow only 1 pop per turn.

[rcuajunco]

for single player i want an option to play 1.4.20 basically i want option to finish games created before this patch in single player.

[The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales]

You can finish your old games by rolling back to 1.4.13 as mentioned in the original post. That one was the last publicly available version: everything between 1.4.13 and 1.4.21 were internal testing versions only.

[patrick]

Originally posted by Sabotague:

Damn, those are some huge changes, let's see how they play out. I'm sure of one thing, I'm not spending 2240 Industry and 25 Antimatter to get +5% Influence in one system, even with those extra Influence expenditures.

Also Resource Recoverers isn't only to FIDS from population, it's from all sources. At 20 systems over the limit you will have negative food (because consumption), zeroed out IDS, and Influence will be untouched. Unless this part has been changed with this very patch. But the relentless nature of the malus that keeps chunking away from the base down to 0 (or up to 100%, same thing) sounds not fun. Looks like Ancestral Reverence is back on the menu. So Hissho are basically Umbral Choir now, with centralizing Production on Uchi. Too bad we can grow only 1 pop per turn.

From what i've gathered in the discord ancestral reverence likely doesn't change the malus you receive from being over the limit, it only affects keii costs.

The idea behind the change seems to be to empathise the behemoth mining aspect as core of your hissho strategy. The boni displayed when selecting a mine are "per pop", so if you equip a miner well and let it farm good planets (they have to be unsettled) you should hopefully have a stronger home system.

As far as i remember, autonomous administration still works for hissho as for other factions, so in the long run, you can also get wider with them (through conquest most likely). But initially you have to rely on those boni to make your home system more powerful.

They could possibly be a real powerhouse lategame, because more systems can mean more C3 centers, which means more miners, which means more FIDS per pop on your home system. Those would stack with any % boni from system improvements and economic behemoths i think, so that could be pretty good.

[Elliott]

Whats the reason behind the non-Obliterator Behemoth buffs?

[Rayder]

Originally posted by patrick:

Originally posted by Sabotague:

Damn, those are some huge changes, let's see how they play out. I'm sure of one thing, I'm not spending 2240 Industry and 25 Antimatter to get +5% Influence in one system, even with those extra Influence expenditures.

Also Resource Recoverers isn't only to FIDS from population, it's from all sources. At 20 systems over the limit you will have negative food (because consumption), zeroed out IDS, and Influence will be untouched. Unless this part has been changed with this very patch. But the relentless nature of the malus that keeps chunking away from the base down to 0 (or up to 100%, same thing) sounds not fun. Looks like Ancestral Reverence is back on the menu. So Hissho are basically Umbral Choir now, with centralizing Production on Uchi. Too bad we can grow only 1 pop per turn.

From what i've gathered in the discord ancestral reverence likely doesn't change the malus you receive from being over the limit, it only affects keii costs.

The idea behind the change seems to be to empathise the behemoth mining aspect as core of your hissho strategy. The boni displayed when selecting a mine are "per pop", so if you equip a miner well and let it farm good planets (they have to be unsettled) you should hopefully have a stronger home system.

As far as i remember, autonomous administration still works for hissho as for other factions, so in the long run, you can also get wider with them (through conquest most likely). But initially you have to rely on those boni to make your home system more powerful.

They could possibly be a real powerhouse lategame, because more systems can mean more C3 centers, which means more miners, which means more FIDS per pop on your home system. Those would stack with any % boni from system improvements and economic behemoths i think, so that could be pretty good.

Wow, if that's the way Behemoth miners work for Hissho then Amp has done a really really poor job of communicating how things work.

I have always had a gripe with the documentation for this game.

The documentation for combat mechanics is non-existent.

The documentation for exactly what "flotilla crew destruction" does is non-existent. it sounds like a completely worthless thing to have.

I didn't know the mining FIDS was anything other than an afterthought for Hissho, but I suppose now I know how it works, it could be interesting to try out.


The thing that ticks me off the most is WHY would some support modules not receive from the X2, X4, X8 bonuses from behemoths when they still cost X2, X4 and X8?

I understand it would be way too overpowered to have my behemoths give X8 bonuses or even X2 to many of the support modules, but then why am I spending extra Industry for those modules when I get the value of one of them?

It actively nerfs your Behemoth building the more techs you get. It's counter-intuitive and dumb. It needs to be documented (module multiplication only applies to weapon, armor and certain support modules like on kill dust/science) or better yet, flat out eliminated.

[patrick]

Well, there's the argument that a module with the same effect is more safely stored on a ship with lots of hitpoints, armor/shields, and weapon damage, so i think the cost would be somewhat justified. One of the reasons why people use protectors in the late game at all is because they can put support modules there, and if they would be equally efficient on large ships, people would just put them on large ships where they are more safely placed against enemey damage. A damaged large ship can be repaired but a destroyed small ship is lost entirely, together with it's modules.

It's a bit more problematic with the scaling behemoth costs, because you pay a % increase on industry for every behemoth as far as i remember, so getting simple modules get quite expensive. Practically, the cost multiplier from the number of behemoths built seems to be more important than times 1 or 8 cost on the modules anyways, though. So i don't think it's such a big problem.

I agree on the documentation issue, but quite a few things on todays patch appear to be higher priority than that. It would probably help if we gathered some things that appear unclear. In case of doubt, you can ask on steam or discord.

[Renesco]

Still can't sell, scrap or decommission citadel shields. You had ONE job amplitude!

Also lol at all the Hissho nerfs, they were already weaksauce and now they're just downright terrible.

Fleet accelerator modules can only be equipped on hero ships.

Rip fast reaction utility fleets, hello more busywork