Patch Notes

[Monticube]

Final Theory - Patch 1.4 and the Royal Navy DLC

The Royal Navy DLC is now available.
This release is the first DLC navy for Final Theory with still more to come. As always a huge thanks to all of our players. Your support and enthusiasm is what has allowed the continued development of the game. This navy has been a long time coming, and we know a lot of you have been waiting patiently for it's release. We're so delighted to say, the wait is over and it's time to take the Royal Navy for a spin.

The ships of the Royal Navy feature a mix of new abilities and weapons, gold armor plating, particle beams, cluster bombs, long range missiles and more.

• 7 different ship classes to command + 1 deployable ship.
  
• 7 fleet-wide stackable ship bonuses.
  
• 8 ship tiers featuring weapons, abilities and skill points.
  
• 56 module upgrades to choose from.
  
• Play as, or against the Royal Navy.
  
• Supports the main game, Quick Battles and Custom Battles right out of the box.
  (You don't have to unlock any achievements before you can use the navy.)
  
• Quick Battles and Custom Battles support PvP through Steam Remote Play Together.

New map ability: Propaganda Campaign
Launch satellites to broadcast propaganda and convince neutral or enemy regions to join your fight against the Empire. Take advantage of the enemies failed propaganda attempts that can lead to incursion opportunities deep behind enemy lines. Propaganda can also be used against small enemy fleets if threatened by a substantially larger fleet. The equivalent ships will be added to your ship reserves if the fleet chooses to defect to your dominion. Be aware that unsuccessful attempts can lead to the region changing it's allegiance entirely, which can quickly become unpleasant if not dealt with. It's best to have a contingency plan in place before launching a propaganda campaign.

Level 4 Empire garrisons will now be guarded by the Royal Navy.
Back when Final Theory was in it's early stages of development we always wanted to make the final battle feel special. But developing a second navy for this one event was sadly beyond our means. With the development and release of the Royal Navy we can finally add this small piece to the puzzle, and this final battle against the Royal Navy will be available to all players.

Lower difficulties reworked.
We've made several adjustments to the difficulty levels with each patch, but each time it seems we haven't quite hit the mark in regards to the lower difficulties. This time we've pulled out all the stops and reworked the first two difficulties, Novice and Capable, to allow for a more casual playthrough, and to provide a more forgiving experience for new players setting out to learn the game. Since these changes are quite extensive we advise players to start a new game rather than resuming a previous save game. You can certainly resume an old game if you want to, but you'd end up with a mix of the loaded game state governed by the new rules. This only applies to the Novice and Capable difficulty levels.

If you've previously beaten the game on the old Novice or Capable difficulties then you'll want to move to the Proficient difficulty. The Proficient difficulty has been tweaked slightly to accommodate this move.

Game engine updated.
We've update the game engine yet again to ensure the best possible performance and game stability. Since our players use PCs ranging anywhere from entry level to top end gaming rigs, we continue to do our best to deliver a stable, performant and pleasant experience to as many players as possible. This does not mean however that we support PCs that are below minimum requirements, but the new update should deliver better performance for all and especially to players hovering near the edge.

QOL Additions:
An auto resolve setting has been added to the game options, to handle what happens when the player is attacked by an enemy fleet. This option can be set to "never auto resolve", "always auto resolve" or auto resolve based on the number of ships in the player's fleet. If you're an experienced player you'll probably want to set this setting to the "1-2 ships" option. This provides nice uninterrupted gameplay when those tiny straggling fleets get attacked. Aka. Nuke Frigates ;)

The game notifications have been expanded to include useful information particularly for new players, in addition to the usual ship unlock information.

An icon has been added to the empire's roaming fleets. This is to indicate to players that the empire's roaming fleets are particularly dangerous, and that they are not "just" a regular AI player fleet.

Ability Changes:
Antimatter Torpedoes.
The base reload time has been increased from 3 to 4 turns.

Kinetic Guns.
Base shield pierce chance has been increased slightly.

The Plasma Cannons, Plasma Blasters and Armor Repairer have had their graphics FX updated.

Bug Fixes:
Fixed a bug where the ship's nameplate would sometimes show an incorrect amount of health when deploying corvettes.

Side Notes:
The navy selection window has been updated. If you've picked up the Royal Navy DLC you can now assign it to any player you like including the Empire. Level 4 garrisons will always be set to the Royal Navy regardless of this setting.

Base Ship Information - The Royal Navy

Corvette
Class: Interceptor
Damage: Moderate
Mobility: High

Frigate
Class: Support
Damage: Moderate
Mobility: Medium

Destroyer
Class: Assault
Damage: Moderate
Mobility: High

Cruiser
Class: Tactical Assault
Damage: Considerable
Mobility: Very Low

Battlecruiser
Class: Support Hybrid
Damage: Considerable
Mobility: Medium

Carrier
Class: Assault Hybrid
Damage: Considerable
Mobility: Low

Battleship
Class: Assault
Damage: Devastating
Mobility: Medium

Dreadnought
Class: Command
Damage: Considerable
Mobility: Low

[Monticube]

Patch Notes

Final Theory - Patch 1.1

Fleet bonus added.
Each ship now features a bonus effect that applies to every ship in the fleet.
These fleet bonus effects can be mixed depending on fleet composition and in some cases stacked.
The fleet bonus expires if the ship that's granting the bonus is destroyed.

Shield Hardening and Armor Hardening added.
Ships that have these abilities can greatly increase the durability of an allied ship's shield and armor.

Ship construction time added.
Starports now take a varying number of turns to construct ships depending on ship class.

Difficulty levels have been rebalanced and shifted to better match both new and experienced strategy players.
Recommended starting level has changed from proficient to capable.
Waypoints are displayed on the map at lower difficulty levels to reveal the empire garrison locations.
Starting fleet size increased to 3 at lower difficulty levels.
Grandmaster difficulty added and unlocked from the get-go, but not recommended for your first playthrough.
You no longer receive a free ship when unlocking a new ship class at higher difficulty levels.

Ability Changes:
Antimatter Torpedoes base shield penetration chance increased and base damage increased.
Kinetic Guns and Kinetic Cannons base shield penetration chance lowered.
Barrage Missiles are now Area of Effect weapons, hitting all enemy ships adjacent to the target.
Defence Turret effectiveness increased slightly.

QOL Additions:
Save games now display more information and can be renamed and deleted.
Station icons can now be clicked to select a region.
Shield Booster animation duration halved.
Armor Repairer animation duration halved.
Micro Jump Drive animation duration not changed at all. Because it's awesome :)
Salvage Fleet ability changed to Salvage Ships and now allows any number of ships to be salvaged.

Additional Changes:
Graphics of empire fleet deployments changed to better illustrate their deployment from neighboring garrisons.
Ship nameplates tweaked and bearing icons removed.

Ship Specific Changes

Corvettes:
Base armor and shield values lowered.
Now distributes it's adjustment points evenly between shield, armor and weapons.

Frigates:
Construction time decreased.
Armor Hardener ability added.
Shield Boost missiles removed.
Fleet bonus added. Grants weapon shield penetration chance to all ships in the fleet.

Destroyers:
Construction time decreased.
Shield Hardener ability added.
Fleet bonus added. Increases shield boost effectiveness of all ships in the fleet.

Cruisers:
Base armor value increased.
Now has the Micro Jump Drive ability from the start.
Plasma Torpedoes ability added. Deals high damage to both shields and armor.
Auxiliary Power ability added. Enables the cruiser to recover it's shield when down.
Armor Hardener ability added.
Fleet bonus added. All guns and cannons in the fleet deal increased damage.
Module Upgrades changed.

Battlecruisers:
Construction time and cost increased.
Fleet bonus added. All missile launchers in the fleet deal increased damage.

Carriers:
Base armor value lowered.
Construction time and cost increased.
Fleet bonus added. Increases armor repairer effectiveness of all ships in the fleet.

Battleships:
Base armor value increased.
Construction time and cost increased.
Fleet bonus added. Increases base armor of all ships in the fleet.

Dreadnoughts:
Base armor value increased.
Construction time and cost increased.
Fleet bonus added. Increases base shield energy of all ships in the fleet.

[Monticube]

Patch Notes

Final Theory - Patch 1.2

Game engine updated.
We've updated the game engine to get even better game performance and stability.
While technical changes might not be that interesting to the majority of players, we do want to prioritize performance and stability to make sure every player has a great experience when playing the game.

Windowed mode is now supported.
If you're currently using the workaround, you can revert those changes and use the in-game windowed mode instead.

Phase Drives added. (Recommended for experienced players.)
You can now enable instant ship movement in the game options.
If enabled you'll see the phase drive listed in ship features of all small ships.
Ships need to move more than one hex for the drives to kick in.

Ability Changes:
Shield Hardening and Armor Hardening.
The size of the missile batteries have been reduced to shorten the animation a bit.
The damage reduction effect has changed from 60% to 50%.

Shield Booster Missiles.
The size of the missile batteries have been reduced to shorten the animation a bit.
The amount of shield boosting remains the same.

QOL Additions:
The mouse cursor is normally hidden during some parts of the game, but this feels unnatural in windowed mode. The game now doesn't hide the mouse cursor at all when playing in windowed mode.
Fixed a problem where the save games window could get stuck if the game encountered files it couldn't read. Typically due to tampering with save games ;D

Additional Changes:
Enemy freighters are now visible on the map. This adds a bit more information about where to strike the enemy.

Bug Fixes:
Fixed a bug where Defence Turrets sometimes stopped firing and charge times would become irregular.
Fixed a bug that was causing some strange behavior when running the game without VSync.
Fixed a bug where the AI could sometimes get stuck during combat.
Fixed a bug where you could fire directional weapons through other ships under certain conditions.

Ship Specific Changes

Corvettes:
Phase Drive added.

Frigates:
Phase Drive added.
Fleet bonus effect can now be stacked up to 6 times. (Maximum changed from 21% to 42%)

Destroyers:
Phase Drive added.
Fleet bonus effect can now be stacked up to 5 times. (Maximum changed from 30% to 50%)

Cruisers:
Phase Drive added.
Fleet bonus effect can now be stacked up to 4 times. (Maximum changed from 6% to 12%)

Battlecruisers:
Ship upgrade path changed.
Module upgrades changed.
Armor Repairer ability removed.
Defence Turret ability removed.
Shield Hardener ability added. Adds high damage resistance to an allied ship's shield.
Auxiliary Power ability added. Enables the ship to recover it's shield when down.
Fleet bonus effect increased and can now be stacked up to 4 times. (Maximum changed from 10% to 24%)

Carriers:
Fleet bonus effect reduced but can now be stacked up to 3 times. (Maximum changed from 15% to 24%)

Battleships:
Fleet bonus effect reduced but can now stack 2 times. (Maximum changed from 8% to 12%)

Dreadnoughts:
Fleet bonus effect reduced but can now stack 2 times. (Maximum changed from 8% to 12%)

[Monticube]

Patch Notes

Final Theory - Patch 1.3

New game modes added: Quick and Custom Battles
Both game modes support Player vs. AI and Player vs. Player through Remote Play Together. Jump straight into the action with quick battles, or setup a custom battle with the exact ships, upgrades and adjustments you want to use. Deploy up to 15 ships each and battle against your friends by inviting them to join your game. Simply launch the game, click on a friend from your friends list and select Remote Play Together. Only the host player needs to have the game installed in order to use this amazing Steam exclusive multiplayer feature.

Learn more about Steam Remote Play Together

More player colors added.
You can now choose between 8 player colors and you have the option to assign colors to each of the players in the game including the empire. We've also gone through a few thousand color swatches and selected names that are a bit less immersion breaking while still keeping the relation to actual colors. For example most of you guys and gals choose to play as red, and those of you will now be flying the colors of The Crimson Dominion.

AI updated.
The AI has been streamlined into a single version and it has learned a few new behaviors. A few of the odd behaviors have been ironed out as well but we've opted to keep the simulated miss clicks in, since human players make mistakes as well.

Greater rewards added.
The galactic map now holds more resources than ever before and rewards from combat have been increased. Ship construction times have also been decreased. These changes will allow you to build bigger fleets and acquire more upgrades, while still keeping the resources scarce enough as to not ruin the ambiance of the game.

Achievements window added.
A new window for viewing achievements has been added to the game's main menu, with an option to collect achievements from lower difficulty levels. The collect achievements button will scan your achievements and check if there are any achievement eligible for unlocking, but only up to the highest matching unlocked tier. For example if you've unlocked the Proficient Tier 2 achievement and do a scan, then this will award you the Novice Tier 1 & 2 as well as the Capable Tier 1 & 2 achievements, but not tiers 3 and 4. You can run the check several times once you've unlocked more achievements.

Autoresolve updated.
Delegating command of your forces to your subordinates would too often result in catastrophe. We've therefore adjusted the autoresolve to make it a bit more useful. Autoresolve will still have inherent risk to it though. We know you guys and gals hate losing a shiny new Dreadnought in an autoresolve, but if ships were to become exempt from risk you could potentially defeat the game with just a few Dreadnoughts.

We'll keep an eye on these changes and make further adjustments as needed in minor updates.

Ability Changes:
Kinetic Guns.
The size of the salvo has been reduced to shorten the animation a bit.
Base damage has been increased.

Shield Booster.
The animation has been shortened a bit.
The amount of shield boosting remains the same.

Kinetic Cannons.
Base damage has been increased.

EMP Cannons.
Base damage has been increased.

QOL Additions:
The default game settings have changed to reflect the most common settings used by players. This means Auto focus regions and ships, Skip ships on standby when cycling, Set standby on end turn and Use phase drives are now enabled by default. You can still change these settings at any time.

Changes made to Player colors, AI or Human opponent preference and Custom battle settings will be automatically saved by the game.

Additional Changes:
The game has what we call Attackers Advantage in combat. Meaning the attacking player will always be able to charge special weapons before the defending player. We've now split defensive abilities into their own cycle and these will now charge at the beginning of the defenders turn rather than the attackers. This change helps in leveling the playing field.

Bug Fixes:
Fixed a bug where shield related sounds wouldn't play at the intended pitch.
Fixed a bug where the AI, under rare conditions, could achieve larger fleets than could be supported by it's Dominion by merging smaller fleets. Sneaky AI :)
Fixed a few typos in various info texts.

Side Notes:
The increased map resources do not apply to previous save games, as there's no way for the game to calculate the differences in already harvested resources. They do however apply when creating new Tacknium deposits and the increased rewards from combat will also apply.

We've added a navy selection window, but this is simply in preparation for the upcoming release of the DLC navies. You can safely ignore it for now.

If you're playing the game on a shared account, you might want to talk it over before clicking on the collect achievements button. Say if family members are playing on different difficulty levels and they want to unlock achievements on their own. There is no way to undo this action once the achievements have been collected.

Ship Specific Changes

Corvettes:
Base damage of Kinetic Guns increased.

Frigates:
Base damage of Kinetic Guns increased.

Destroyers:
Construction time reduced from 2 to 1 turns.

Cruisers:
Construction time reduced from 3 to 2 turns.
Construction cost increased from 200 to 300.

Battlecruisers:
Construction time reduced from 4 to 3 turns.
Construction cost increased from 400 to 450.
Base damage of EMP Cannons increased.

Carriers:
Construction time reduced from 5 to 4 turns.

Battleships:
Construction time reduced from 6 to 4 turns.
Base damage of Kinetic Cannons increased.

Dreadnoughts:
Construction time reduced from 7 to 5 turns.