Difference between revisions of "AI War:5.000 Release"

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== Statistics For The Curious ==
 
== Statistics For The Curious ==
  
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* Between 3.120 and 4.000, we pushed out 81 distinct public beta releases over 170 days.  That's an average of one release every 50 hours.  This is with a major chunk of Tidalis's development happening in the middle (it was released July 16th), AND a signficant period with no public releases while we ported AI War from .NET/SlimDX to Unity3D.
+
* Between 4.021 and 5.000, we pushed out 53 distinct public beta releases over 91 days.  That's an average of one release every 41 hours.   
  
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* Community contributors assisted us with over 800 distinct bugs and suggestions-that-were-implemented (counting 95 distinct contributors).
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* Community contributors assisted us with over 680 distinct bugs and suggestions-that-were-implemented (counting 133 distinct contributors).
  
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* The combined release notes for those 81 betas total over 300 kilobytes of text.
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* The combined release notes for those 53 betas total over 360 kilobytes of text.
  
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* Believe it or not, this massive document (which is just under 31,000 words long) is the ''abbreviated'', organized version of the full release notes ([[AI_War_-_Current_Post-3.120_Beta|part I]] and [[AI_War_-_Current_4.0_Beta|part II]], which were over 55,000 words -- or, 222 pages of a novel.
+
* This document (which is over 41,000 words long) is the ''abbreviated'', organized version of the full release notes ([[AI War:Current Post-4.000 Beta|here]]).
  
 
== Highlights ==
 
== Highlights ==
  
−
This release is unreservedly huge. It's a full re-imagining of AI War, practically a sequel (but free to existing customers). Frankly there were more updates here than in a lot of sequels we've seen.  So it is with some difficulty that we compile these highlights, as even the list of highlights is enormous, yet omits a lot of major changes.  Listed here are just the things that have changed in the base game itself, this isn't even including all the stuff that was added as part of the new Children of Neinzul micro-expansion. So here we go:
+
* In general, if version 4.0 was a re-imagining of the game, version 5.0 is a refinement of the game to a mirror-like gloss.  It takes the best of all the past versions, and blends them into what we feel is the definitive AI War experience.  The game will continue to evolve, but 5.0 is the new rock-solid foundation upon which all future work will rest.
  
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* A grand total of 147 new ships have been added to the game.  Again, this is NOT counting the new ones added as part of CoN.  Most of these new ships went to the AI or are things that the players must capture, but there are also dozens and dozens of goodies for the players in the form of new warheads, new mercenaries, new turrets, and new lines of command stations.
+
* Nearly every combat ship in the game has been rebalanced.  These things drift with time, and with the recent introduction of so many ships in the last two expansions and AI War 4.0, a sweeping overhaul was in order.  The hardcore players have been really pleased with how the new balance is, and collaborated on it with us in depth.  At an advanced level, this alone makes it like a whole new game.
  
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* An enormous graphical overhaul has taken place.  Every special effect in the game has been replaced and majorly improved, the HUD and GUI has been completely redesigned and has a cleaner feel to it, and the starfields/nebulae have seen a rather startling improvement as well.  Those new ships come with a bunch of new prerendered-3D graphics, as well.
+
* The AI has gotten some major intelligence upgrades.  It has a new "stalking" mechanic where it bides its time and attacks when you are most vulnerable and least expect it.  It also is more proactive about retreats, better handles play deep strikes, has a network of core shield generators, uses carriers more effectively, and has other effectiveness upgrades.
  
−
* The soundtrack to both AI War and The Zenith Remnant have been completely remastered and re-edited, and in a number of cases have new live performances for trumpet and electric guitar (adding to the existing live vocals and piano).  The soundtrack for Children of Neinzul was also done at this new quality level, of course.  Additionally, two completely-new bonus tracks have been added for free to the base AI War game, and an old track ("Thor") that had been dropped due to quality issues is back and awesome with a live performance.
+
* The difficulty of the game in general hit a low point in the 3.x era, which a lot of players complained about.  The game allows for any skill level, but at the upper end of play it was becoming too easy, and players were having to shift their difficulty level up to the point that it was getting grindy.  Version 4.0 addressed this a bit, but there were so many balance changes there with the introductions of the new guard posts and guardians, not to mention the new player economy in that version, that it still wasn't everything we wanted.  Now, with version 5.0, the old difficulty of the 2.x days returns with a vengeance.  For those players playing on an inflated difficulty based on 3.x or 4.x, they should be prepared to get crushed.
  
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* The interface has been streamlined all over the place, in ways that have really been exciting our hardcore fanbase (who helped design some of the changes).  The biggest amongst these changes are perhaps the more-readable galaxy map, the new context menu (alt+right-click) with things like Auto-Gather-Knowledge and special Transport-Unloading logic, the complete removal of "control nodes" in favor of a much cleaner set of menus, and a larger display-on-demand minimap replacement (hold T).
+
* The early game is now faster, and the game now "gets to the good part" a lot faster.  Consequently, players playing on too high of a difficulty have even been finding themselves losing in the first ten or fifteen minutes of play.  This is very helpful, as then you don't have to play for an hour or two to find out you're outclassed.  On the flip side, the players are able to get going and start taking territory from the AI faster than ever when they are playing on their proper difficulty.
  
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* Many new teach-yourself-to-play-better features have been added: or, as we like to call them, "discoverability features." The new Objectives and References tabs provide a lot of guidance for players without hand-holding them, a new Tip of the Day system on the main menu shows player-submitted tips, and all of the tutorials in the game have been completely redone and updated, and are more helpful than ever before.  A fan even did some awesome new video tutorials for us, which replaced our older 2.0-era series of the same.
+
* Lots and lots of internal performance and particularly memory improvements.  The shift from the .NET platform to Unity/Mono was not without its drawbacks, and some things required a protracted amount of changing in order to get running super-smooth on the Mono runtime.
  
−
* Along the theme of streamlining: Knowledge raiding has been completely rebalanced to no longer be easy or necessary, returning it to the proper role of "last ditch effort to get out of a hole".  This was a really tedious activity since players were embarking on it too often.  Similarly, the endgame was ALWAYS a grind in the old versions, to the point where very few players actually won games, but now the endgame has been completely redone and is more exciting and full of back-and-forth power struggles than ever.  Gameplay activities that were tedious have been cropped and replaced with something more fun, with a great deal of public player testing and feedback.
+
* A complete revamp for Golems (from the TZR Expansion): they're now full-blown superweapons without tons of restrictions.  The player can now choose from the "easy", "medium", and "hard" version of the new "Broken Golems" minor faction to determine what kind of challenge (if any) should balance out the advantage provided by the ultra-powerful Golems.
  
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* Brace yourself: but the entire combat, repair, economic, and construction models have been almost completely rewritten. To the novice player these changes are subtle enough that it feels like basically the same game.  To the more experienced player, these changes are a dream come true, shaving off rough edges left and right and leaving something simpler and more elegant in its place.  We had a corps of 95 community members giving us feedback, after all, so there's been a lot of vetting of this from both newer and experienced players. The main benefits of these particular changes are simplicity, transparency-to-the-player, and internal accuracy in outlier situations.
+
* A whole new (paid) expansion has also been added to the game! Light of the Spire becomes available along with this updated release of the base game.  Briefly summarizing the additions:
 +
** 3 New Minor Factions, including:
 +
*** Larger-than-starships, smaller-than-golems "Spirecraft" superweapons the player can build by mining a variety of finite (and quite rare on the upper end) asteroids.
 +
*** The "Fallen Spire" scripted-campaign (with an optional alternate path to victory!).  Gratuitous plug: Has player-controllable modular capital ships LARGER than Golems.
 +
** Defender Mode, where your only goal is to hold off the AI until the timer runs out.  Allows games as short as 15 minutes or as long as 4 hours (45 minutes is a good place to start).
 +
** 9 New Bonus Ship Types.
 +
** 8 New AI Types.
 +
** 8 New Map Types.
 +
** Over 40 minutes of new music from Pablo Vega.
 +
** And quite a bit more!
  
−
* As part of the new combat model, the old concept of "shields" (as distinct from "force fields") has been removed, and the random-hit-chance and range-related components of the hit chance calculations are gone.  In place of this is a new, simpler, and far better "armor" system that affects damage output instead of hit chance.
+
== AI Updates ==
 +
 
 +
* Hybrids will now launch an attack if at least 7/8ths of the hybrids that are coming are ready, and will not intentionally wait for the last 1/8th.
 +
 
 +
* On difficulty 7 and up, AI ships now spread out 2x as much as before.  AI ships that are waiting before going through a wormhole to a human planet now spread out 4x more diffusely to make them even harder for players to hit.
 +
 
 +
* The AI now uses the intel data it has about the relative strengths of planets (as human players do), when determining whether or not to send its ships through a wormhole they are waiting on.  This is different from the prior method, which was partly randomized, partly based on an accumulated number of 200 ships, and partly based on having a lot of ships incoming.
 +
** This is a far-reaching change to the emergent behavior, which will have many effects on the gameplay, some of which are likely to be unanticipated at this time.  The general expected result is that the AI will not attack players with "trickles" of ships very often anymore, and will instead choose to build up before breaching.  The other expected result is the AI acting more sensibly when its command station has been prematuraly destroyed or when ships are freed from a guard post.
 +
** On lower difficulties (<5), the AI actually overestimates its strength 5x, leading it to make dumber decisions.  On difficulties less than 6, it overestimates its strength by half, leading it to make occasional stupid decisions there.  Both of these are examples of the intentionally-sometimes-off decisions that make the lower-level AIs easier while also making reasonable mistakes a human might.
 +
** On difficulty 9 and up, the AI actually underestimates its strength by half, leading to it to have a greater tendency to wait to strike with overwhelming force.
 +
** These changes should also make the AI more effective in defender mode.
 +
 
 +
* On difficulty 7 and up, when the AI forces on a planet are more than 2x outgunned in terms of firepower, the guards will be freed and will either engage the player forces en masse or will escape to fight another day, as appropriate.
 +
 
 +
* When AI ships are fleeing from a planet, they will now tend to scatter a lot more than they used to, and have a much greater chance of circling around to an undefended or unexpected part of player territory.  Paired with other recent changes that make the AIs more smart about when to attack a planet they are "stalking," this will make them a lot less predictable and a lot more dangerous.
 +
 
 +
* New behavior for the AI!  When the player goes on distant deepstrike runs—defined as having any human military ships more than four hops away from any human or neutral planet—the AIs both goes on high alert and starts spewing out ships from their home planets (or a random planet if their home planets are destroyed).
 +
** The tech level of the spawned ships will be whatever the AI's current tech level is, plus one (obviously between 1-5).  Unless it's an AI home planet that is being deepstruck, or a planet adjacent to an AI home planet (we call these core planets), in which case the tech level is always 5.  Watch out for that: you'll want some sort of launch pad within 4 hops of the AI home planet in order to take it without massive pain.
 +
** The spawned ships will be random fleet ships that the AI is allowed to use in waves, and each AI player will spawn a certain number of ships ship per event-second.
 +
** The event-second interval is defined as ( 11 - Floor(AIDifficultyLevel) ).  So, for difficulty 7 or 7.6, that would be 11 - 7 = 4 seconds per interval.
 +
** The number of ships is defined as Floor(AIDifficultyLevel/2).  So for difficulty 7, it would be 3 ships every 4 seconds, per AI player.  On difficulty 8, it would be 4 ships every 3 seconds, per AI player.
 +
** These spawned ships are in free/threat mode, and will eventually attack the human players in whatever way they think will be most disruptive.  They may engage the deep strikers, but more likely they will try to kill the planets of the players instead.
 +
** Note that all of these numbers are PER PLANET that has a deepstrike on it.  So if you are deepstriking four planets, multiply those numbers by four.  It's best to keep your forces together, and make the deepstrike raids as brief and effective as possible to avoid too strong a retaliation against your forces.
 +
 
 +
* Border Aggression has always had a mechanism whereby it would get more severe the longer players played: the cap of total attacking units plus threat would increase by 20 per hour of play.  The cap would basically not release any ships to border aggression if the total number of enemies attacking and/or threatening exceeds that cap.
 +
** However, there was a catch: the cap was capped at 1/4 the total size of the player's current military.  This cap on the cap has now been removed, so very long games now get ever-increasing border aggression caps.
 +
** Note that this doesn't mean that border aggression will definitely increase linearly over an entire long game, but it won't be artificially kept low if it would have been high late in a 60-hour game or whatever.
 +
 
 +
* Border Aggression is now keyed based on firepower.  The caps for BA now go up by the equivalent of 20 mark III bombers per hour.
 +
 
 +
* The AI now only has a 8% chance of swarming after "irreplaceable" units like ion cannons, ARSes, etc, rather than a 70% chance.
 +
** The AI already has logic in place for valuing targets even beyond this, but much more flexible and less gap-in-the-wall type logic, so having this be very infrequent is good.  However, still having it present is also good, so that occasionally the AI will mass their ships on a frontal assault on something valuable, always a good thing.
 +
 
 +
* Hybrids looking for attack missions are now more likely to heavily prefer a "main target" planet.
 +
 
 +
* When Advanced Hybrids are on for their player, Defensive Hybrids will now switch to an offensive role to add pressure to certain other major AI offensives.  This can make them more of a danger in the mid/late game.  When this happens an alert message ("Defensive Hybrids Are Mobilizing") will be displayed for about 2 minutes after the "switch".
 +
 
 +
* Put in a change that should make the AI react better when saboteur-type ships, or player immobile structures, are on an AI planet.
 +
 
 +
* AI ships will now be angered (rather than just alerted) when firing upon human ships within roughly 11,000 range, which will make them (and their guard posts and fellow guards) fall under normal targeting rules, thus hopefully fixing the situations where human ships were being shot at by a relatively nearby AI ship but not retaliating (they shouldn't retaliate if the AI ship is way far away, as otherwise this can cause long range human ships to aggro the entire planet pretty quick).
 +
 
 +
* Non-melee AI ships that are under a protecting strong force field now will no longer move until they are out from under the force field (from it dying or whatever), though they will still receive orders from the AI as normal.  This makes the AI-ships-under-AI-forcefield case really a lot more back like how it used to be in the 2.0 days, where those were interesting and tricky nests of AI ships to take out.
 +
 
 +
* In the past, for the AI to be allowed to retreat from a planet it had to have had at least half of its ships on the planet for at least 30 seconds.  That prevented a number of back-and-forth behaviors that are now prevented by other means, and this behavior was now leading to some "gap in the wall" type exploits.  The limit has now been changed to 3 seconds instead.
 +
 
 +
* The AI will now more properly react to cloaked ships on its planet; much the same as a human player, it now knows how many ships are there and the general threat at that planet, just not specifically which ships are there or where they are.  Actually, in some cases the AI has long known this (same as the AI), but in some critical decision-making logic it was incorrectly barred from that data.
 +
 
 +
* When looking for ships to add as part of a CPA, the AI now also looks inside barracks and pulls ships out to use in the CPA.  Some (but definitely not all) of the smaller-than-they-should-have-been CPAs were relate to lots of ships being stuck in barracks.
 +
 
 +
* When there are simply too few ships in the galaxy for the desired tech level of CPA, in the past it always has counted downwards.
 +
** So, for example, if you were supposed to get 5000 mark II ships in a CPA but it could only find 1000, then it would look to mark I ships to see if it could find any more.
 +
** However, there were many common cases where there would even still be too few ships in the galaxy of the correct or lower levels.  Now the game will loop back around and start including higher mark ships.
 +
*** So, to continue the example from above, if it had found 1000 mark II ships and, say, 500 mark I ships, then it would start adding mark III ships to the CPA as well.  Odds are very good that it would find the remaining 3500 ships in even just one mark higher, so that would fulfill the order for 5000 ships.
 +
*** Of course, in the event that it doesn't find enough ships directly in the level above, it just keeps counting up, all the way to mark V.
 +
** Bear in mind that certain ships are specifically excluded from CPAs: immobile ships, ships under force fields, ships in carriers, ships that are already free/threat, ships that are minor factions or zombies, ships that are being coordinated by a hybrid hive or similar, ships that aren't counted as "extended mobile military," starships, and guardians.  These restrictions aren't new, but bear mentioning.
 +
 
 +
* Made some various internal improvements to how the AI decides to stay at a planet to defend itself against enemy threats (most notably cloaked enemy threats, but in general).  The specific rules are difficult to really explain as it's all internal math, but in general the result should be for it to more properly weight threats and react more like what a human would do.
 +
 
 +
== General Large Gameplay Additions ==
 +
 
 +
* (LotS-only) New Campaign Type: Defender Mode.
 +
 
 +
* (LotS-only) New Minor Faction: Fallen Spire.
 +
 
 +
* (LotS-only) New Minor Factions: Spirecraft Easy, Spirecraft Medium, Spirecraft Hard.
 +
 
 +
* Three new minor factions have been added to The Zenith Remnant (nearly a year after the expansion's release—crazy, right?).  The purpose of these is to provide a more satisfactory range of experiences with golems to match player tastes, rather than the old "there are always three there" method.  The three minor factions are:
 +
** Broken Golems (Easy)
 +
*** Massive broken golems can be found around the galaxy, ready for humanity to capture and repair them.  Once repaired, they represent enormous power to use against the AI.
 +
*** The EASY version of this minor faction simply gives you the golems with nothing in the way of benefit to the AI.  Consequently, your adjusted score is also halved.
 +
** Broken Golems (Moderate)
 +
*** Massive broken golems can be found around the galaxy, ready for humanity to capture and repair them.  Once repaired, they represent enormous power to use against the AI.
 +
*** The MODERATE version of this minor faction gives you the golems at a moderate energy cost and with a small AI Progress increase upon repairing them from their broken states.  Consequently, your adjusted score is also reduced by 1/3.
 +
*** Using the moderate version will automatically disable the easy version if the easy version is also selected.
 +
** Broken Golems (Hard)
 +
*** Massive broken golems can be found around the galaxy, ready for humanity to capture and repair them.  Once repaired, they represent enormous power to use against the AI.
 +
*** The HARD version of this minor faction simply gives you the golems with nothing in the way of benefit to the AI.  However, whether or not you choose to capture any golems, the AI will be launching periodic large exogalactic strikeforces against you—so you're highly advised to get some golems in order to survive.
 +
*** Using the hard version will automatically disable the easy and moderate versions if either of them is also selected.
 +
 
 +
* (LotS-only) New AI types: Vanilla and Everything.
 +
 
 +
* A new Minor Faction has been added for Light of the Spire: Spire Civilian Leaders
 +
** Up to 10 Spire Civilian Leader Outposts are scattered throughout the galaxy in the control of the AI.  Against their will, every hour each outpost increases the AI Progress by 1.  You have the choice of either destroying these outposts for colloduing with the AI, or freeing the outposts by capturing the planet from the AI.  When freed, each of these outposts will gratefully decrease the AI Progress by 3 every hour.
  
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* One key simplification in this new version is the removal of all the internal ship-specific damage multipliers. In their place, we now have a small number of new "hull types," and ships get visible bonuses against them. This also removes the "Strong Vs and Weak Vs" display in favor of both the raw hull attack multipliers display and a new Reference tab when really detailed data is needed (presumably not often).
+
* Six new maze-like maps have been added for Light of the Spire:
 +
** Maze A
 +
*** Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a grid to create the maze.
 +
** Maze A Easy
 +
*** Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a grid to create the maze, but with random extra links added in various spots.
 +
** Maze B
 +
*** Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a crosshatch to create the maze.
 +
** Maze B Easy
 +
*** Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a crosshatch to create the maze, but with random extra links added in various spots.
 +
** Maze C
 +
*** Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Prims algorithm on a grid to create the maze.
 +
** Maze D
 +
*** Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Prims algorithm on a crosshatch to create the maze.
  
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* Following on with those massive changes, every last ship in the game has been rebalanced to a heavy degree, sometimes pretty much completely.  With a game of this scope, we expect there are still some rough edges in there, but overall it's far better balanced -- and easier to understand the balance in a meaningful way -- than ever before. As part of this, the turrets and starships have both become a lot more specialized and interesting, and more of them are available to players right from the start of the game.
+
* Two new grid-like maps have been added for Light of the Spire:
 +
** Grid
 +
*** Planets are organized into an orderly grid.
 +
** Crosshatch
 +
*** Planets are organized into an orderly grid with the angles also filled in.
  
−
* Performance has gotten a major boost in general with the new version, but additionally we now have new "Performance Profiles" that let the game more easily run on a variety of hardware.  Best of all, these profiles can be swapped in and out in realtime while playing.  This lets borderline computers lower their simulation/graphics load temporarily during a massive battle, then turn those factors back up when the battle concludes.  The game in general also now does a better job of degrading its framerate instead of its overall run speed, which is an enormous boon for multiplayer games where one player is on iffy hardware.  And as if all that wasn't enough, we also have a variety of simple new performance-diagnosing tools right in the Players tab that lets players see each others' framerates, how fast the game is running at the moment compared to realtime, and other helpful things like that.
+
* Added a new LotS AI Plot: Beachheads
 +
** Each wave that the AI sends has a 10% chance of being half-size, but including a Beachhead structure that interferes with supply on the planet being attacked (thus knocking out everything from turrets to forcefields until the beachhead is destroyed), as well as preventing player ships from retreating.  Counterattack waves, event waves, raid engine waves, and other specialized forms of waves won't ever include a beachhead.
 +
** Five marks of AI Beachhead have also been added:
 +
*** Tough, armored, immobile long-range AI ship that gets sent along with some waves.  Interferes with supply on the planet being attacked (thus knocking out everything from turrets to forcefields until the beachhead is destroyed), as well as preventing its enemies' ships from retreating.
  
−
* This next change is also a shocker: we've reduced the default ship caps in the game.  The game has always advertised having 30,000+ ships in realtime, but the truth was that often players were running more like 70,000 to 120,000 ships in large games.  This was simply more of a CPU drain than it needed to be, and tended to make a lot of the AI worlds a grind.  We now have Unit Cap Scales that you can set in the lobby -- and the old "High" option is still there -- but the new default uses about half as many ships, which is still significantly more than we've ever advertised as supporting. And for iffy hardware, you can actually quarter the number of ships in the game, which is ideal for slower laptops or similar.
+
* New Moderate AI Type: Spireling
 +
** Fairly aggressive AI that uses only Spire fleet ships.
 +
** Extra Ships: All Spire fleet ships.
  
−
* Part of the reason for the shift away from just huge numbers of fleet ships is our new emphasis on larger centerpieces. The AIs have massive new command stations and guard posts, as well as mobile Guardians that not only defend but launch often-brutal counterattacks.  Going along with these are the exciting new AI Eye that emphasizes de-blobbing, the new AI Barracks that lets the AIs store up overflow reinforcements for later use, and the AI Carriers which are the late-game AI equivalent of transports.  All of these new things take the place of turrets, which the AI no longer uses at all, and in general they lead to a vastly different feel of game. It's a lot quicker to resolve battles (without making you rushed -- just no longer a grind), and in general it makes planets feel more unique and fun before you even get into the various special weapons that have always been a cornerstone of AI War.
+
* New Moderate AI Type: Thief
 +
** Fairly aggressive AI that uses ships with tractor beams and leech capabilities.  This can lead to a distinct disregard for player property rights.
 +
** Extra Ships: Etherjet tractors, Spire Tractor Platforms, Parasites
  
−
* The AIs aren't the only ones who have been getting a makeover, though.  We already mentioned that players now get a lot more starting turrets and starships for free (and both of those unit classes are now far more central to the game).  Players also now get a lot more knowledge in general (3,000 per planet now, instead of 2,000), and the player economy -- especially in the early game -- has had a massive boost.  Your typical income without economic upgrades will be almost double what it used to be, meaning you can field far more ships, faster, including starships.  Speaking of faster, the player ships used to be 1.4x faster than the AI ships, but now they are a full 2x faster.  This asymmetry plays well into the enhanced feel of the player as a guerrilla warrior against a superior foe.  This unique aspect of the game is really emphasized a lot more, now, and players have responded really well to it in beta.
+
* New Hard AI Type: Retaliatory
 +
** Starts with Counterattack Guard Posts on most planets, and can actually have more than one on a planet (if that planet would have gotten one normally).  This can lead to devastating counter attacks particularly when taking a mkIV planet.
  
−
* Did we mention Mac OSX support?  Thanks to our switch to the Unity 3D engine, AI War is no longer just for Windows.  And while Linux isn't directly supported, we have word that it runs flawlessly in the latest versions of WINE.  And, along these lines, AI War no longer has any prerequisites -- installation and setup is far more painless than in the past.
+
* New Hard AI Type: Crafty Spire
 +
** Starts with various Spirecraft (which are generally bigger than starships and smaller than golems) on its planets.
 +
** Extra Ships: Spirecraft.
  
−
* And these were just the highlights. Read on if you want all the gory details: it's taken us 170 days, 81 releases, 95 testers, and untold man-months to get this awesome new version out.  We're really excited not only about what is represented here already, but what this re-launch of the game will enable us to do both with future free updates and future paid expansions.  Thanks to everyone for their support during this long process!
+
* New Hard AI Type: Extreme Raider
 +
** Very nasty AI that uses raid-oriented fleet ships and really likes sending Raid Starships along with normal waves.
 +
** Extra Ships: Raider, Spire Stealth Battleship, Cutlass, Vampire, Teleport Raider
  
−
== AI Updates ==
+
* New Hard AI Type: Spire Hammer
 +
** Generally solid AI that also adds a powerful Spire ship to each wave (in addition to the normal starship).  At higher tech levels it will even send Capital-ship level vessels.
 +
** Extra Ships: Spire Frigates and Capital Ships.
 +
 
 +
* Added 32 new achievements (2 base-game, 30 LotS).
 +
 
 +
== Co-Op Improvements ==
 +
 
 +
* In multiplayer games, all player-controlled command stations now automatically fold out into mobile builders for allied players.  This saves time and hassle with sending mobile builders around and keeping them alive, making the actual mobile builders now simply a matter for use in enemy/neutral territory.
 +
 
 +
* All fabricators now have foldouts (like advanced factories), so that when one player captures a core fabricator in a multiplayer game, all the players on his/her team now also gain access to use the fabricator.  This prevents the incentivization of players to gift fabricators back and forth between one another, while also raising the usefulness of fabricators in multiplayer games by a substantial margin.
 +
 
 +
* Rebelling Human Colonies now have ship-production foldouts for other players when controlled by the human team.
 +
 
 +
* Re-implemented the Give Resources context menu.
 +
 
 +
== Performance Improvements ==
 +
 
 +
* GZip compression is now used instead of Zip compression for savegames.  This has the advantages of: 1) resulting in significantly smaller save files, especially for large savegames—as much as 30% savings at the upper end; 2) resulting in the correspondingly smaller full sync network requirements for multiplayer; 3) hopefully solving the "pthread_getschedparam" issue on OSX, which seems to quite likely have been related to unintentionally-multithreaded zip processing in the autosave process.
 +
 
 +
* The way that the AI thread keeps track of Astro Train Stations and Special Forces Rally Points (of all sorts) is now significantly more efficient and effective, resulting in somewhat lower RAM and CPU use on the AI thread in general.
 +
 
 +
* The way that expansion enabled status is checked and set in code is now more efficient on RAM and CPU use.
 +
 
 +
* The method for randomizing lists has been made generic rather than object-based, so that lots of boxing and casting no longer occurs with it, saving a bit of CPU and more transient memory usage.
 +
 
 +
* Guardians and guard posts no longer try to load colormasks off the disk (which were all blank, anyway) to save a bit of RAM use and disk access time.
 +
 
 +
* The way that unit data is synced to the AI thread is now better for purposes of cold storage and similar in particular.
 +
 
 +
* An ENORMOUS number of memory-static-ness updates have been made, primarily centering around converting some very central generic dictionaries to arrays.  This also serves as a performance boost, and makes savegames load a little faster, as well as the game itself.
 +
 
 +
* Added some measures to make the game less likely to hang onto memory it no longer needs (excess rollup list space, dead ships still linked to other objects, etc).
 +
 
 +
* The range circles no longer draw with partially-transparent colors for the lines, thus reducing their GPU overhead quite a bit, more or less depending on the GPU in question.
 +
 
 +
* Improved memory/cpu performance of sending/saving planet state (string.concat -> StringBuilder.Append).  Not done terribly commonly, but every bit helps.
 +
 
 +
* A number of rollup lists on the Player object that were really human-only (but which were bloated by lots of AI ships on the AI versions of the objects) have been made human-only.  A few have been removed.  This lets the functionality remain the same while having a bit less ram usage and a bit faster loading of savegames.
 +
 
 +
* The old mission summary was still in the game, taking up time getting periodically recalculated, but invisible.  This was just a porting artifact, and it has now been removed.
 +
 
 +
* A revised savegame format has now been put in place, with an emphasis on using less RAM to create it.
 +
** One happy side effect of this is that that savegame files are now about 7/8 to 4/5 of their former size.  They still load in about the same amount of time, though.
 +
** Another side effect is that the new savegames actually show their loading process as they load, now, rather than just sitting there silently on parsing data.
 +
** At any rate, the chief purpose of this is to make the creation of savegames as well as the syncing of multiplayer network state into a lower-RAM-using process to avoid GC heap errors when players are already running near the RAM redline.  The new format is vastly superior in that regard, possibly using as little as half as much RAM as before, depending on the exact circumstances of the save.
 +
 
 +
* Put in a new CPU-efficiency-improving shift in the targeting logic for ships in FRD mode: while in FRD mode (and always for ships that are snipers), a much-less-accurate but much-faster-to-calculate range value is now used.  Normally accurate ranges are important in battle, because ships have to know if they are in range to hit their target, etc.  However, for ships in FRD mode, they can move to hit their target, so they only need to get a rougher idea of which ships are vaguely closest.
 +
** The main side effect of this change, aside from the speed boost, is that ships in FRD mode will choose more poorly between targets that are close together and also at a diagonal from the targeting ship.
 +
 
 +
* The "are we on the same team" logic, which gets called a lot, is now more efficient in the general all-ais-versus-all-humans cases.
 +
 
 +
* An even more enormous change has been made to how the rollups are calculated, basically making huge chunks of them per-team.  This is a notable speed and RAM boost for large games and especially for multiplayer games.  It particularly makes it more efficient for ships to change planets, and for savegames to be loaded.
 +
 
 +
* Massively refactored the AI-thread rollups in general, so that way fewer object references are required (somewhere around 1/3 as many references as before in single player, and an even lower percentage in multiplayer).  These shifts in general will improve RAM and CPU use on the host computer, amongst the gameplay benefits already noted above.
 +
 
 +
* AI mobile military ship combining is no longer player-specific.  This means that AI ships will be condensed further than they once were when needed (when both AIs have ships at a planet), and it also means that this process requires less CPU to calculate.
 +
** The same is also now true for the creation of AI Carriers out of mobile AI ships, which will result in fewer, more-appropriately-filled-to-capacity carriers in most cases.
 +
 
 +
* Put in a number of internal efficiency improvements with regard to properly clearing internal rollup lists and releasing their memory.
 +
 
 +
* Put in a number of internal transient-RAM-reductions related to converting some AI thread dictionaries to int arrays.
 +
 
 +
* The AI thread now thinks almost entirely in terms of team-based tactics, but especially in terms of things like warp gates, etc.  Thus there really should never again be any situations where one AI player is unable to find a planet to warp into just because there is only one warp gate bordering human planets and that warp gate belongs to the other AI player.
 +
 
 +
* Added in a couple of "safety garbage collections" into  the load savegame process to attempt to prevent the game from grabbing any more memory than it has to when loading large savegames.
 +
 
 +
* Since it did more than we thought it would for the memory efficiency of planet serialization, converted player serialization from string.concat to StringBuilder.Append.
 +
 
 +
* A bunch of more optimizations internal to the foreground objects (ships, structures, etc) has been made.  The general effect of these changes is once again to reduce the memory footprint a bit, but in this case also to help reduce the CPU overhead of creating new foreground objects.  This should help savegame loading speed a small bit, but in our testing it doesn't seem to have been much help so far.
 +
** All in all, these changes plus the other ones earlier in this same release version account for about 205 bytes of RAM saved per ship in the game: that's about 2MB per 10k ships.  Even just in a 70k ship game, that's fairly notable that we could save 14mb there in this fashion.  A lot of these also boost CPU efficiency to a minor degree, which is also cool.
  
−
* A semi-major new "Scrap Wave" mechanic has been added for the AIs.  Any time there are more than 100,000 ships currently in the game, and comparably little is going on in terms of threat/attack/wave counters, the AI will scrap a large number of its ships and then send a wave that is half the size of the number of ships scrapped.
+
* Okay, wow.  We majorly restructured the way that "other objects" (basically, everything that is not a ship: explosions, shots, junk, rocks, shield hits, etc) is stored and initialized in memory.  A lot of this was very old code that hadn't been reimagined significantly since early alpha, way before 1.0.
−
** The AI is prejudiced toward scrapping and sending the lowest-tech mobile military it has, but that will really vary based on what it has available.  If all the AI has is Mark V stuff, this will be a much worse event than if the AI still has a lot of lower-tech stuff.
+
** Not only did our restructuring result in lower overall RAM use for these objects (both ongoing and transient), it also resulted in lower CPU for creating new copies of them—this helps a small bit during very large battles, but it also has extremely reduced the amount of time it requires to load a savegame.  For a savegame that previously took 16 seconds, it now takes 10 seconds, etc.  The effect of this is larger on maps with more planets.
−
** In general, the size of these waves is 1,000 ships multiplied times the difficulty of the first AI player.  The number of scrapped ships will be about twice that.
+
** Also fixed a rather obscure potential desync related to shot movement as part of this.  Nobody had reported it, but it could have randomly struck in fairly uncommon circumstances.
−
** Generally if there are more than about 1,000 threat/attack/wave ships already out in the galaxy, then the AI won't do a scrap wave.  Otherwise it will do continuously scrap waves, one after the next, until it is back down to fewer than 150,000 ships.
 
−
** In the end, if you're like most AI War players you'll never-ever see this mechanic at all.  But if you've got a beast of a machine and love playing 30+ hour-long games on the largest maps, then this will help keep things from bogging down completely.
 
  
−
* AI players are no longer allowed to reinforce their planets if there are more than 175,000 ships currently in the game.
+
* Made ships much more likely to clear their autotargeting lists and release the memory used for them in a timely fashion when no longer in combat.
  
−
* There are now AI-specific versions of the following golems that are used by the Golemite: Armored, Artillery, Black Widow, Regenerator, Botnet.
+
* Some notable performance improvements have been made to the ship collision-avoidance movement algorithms, which are some of the most expensive in the game.
−
** Those versions don't have some of the restrictions that the human-controlled versions do, but neither do they buff reinforcements or waves, and they have 1/2 the normal health for golems of those sorts.
 
  
−
* The AI, on difficulty 7 and up, will now use Mobile Repair Stations on some of its planets.  These are pretty rare, but add to the challenge of those particular planets like the addition of a mark I or mark II fortress does.  The chance for these goes up with higher difficulties.
+
* The AI is a lot more savvy now with some of its internal firepower weightings, using different kinds of weights for different situations.  Overall this makes it feel a lot smarter when it comes to how it decides to do stuff with its free/threat ships.
  
−
* New "AI Barracks" have been added.
+
* A lot of internal changes have been made to make the code for referencing the art more efficient and compact.
−
** Built by the AI to contain offline overflow units from its planets when it has too many units to keep online.  Each barracks contains 200-1200 ships that will come active when the barracks is attacked or destroyed, or when the planet of the barracks no longer belongs to the AI.
 
  
−
* The internal calculations for border aggression have been revamped extensively in the wake of the recent AI ship cap reductions.  It's hard to express exactly what effect these calculation revamps will have, since it varies by AI Progress, difficulty level, and other factors, but in general it should make border aggression not happen until later, while at the same time making it more pronounced for high AI Progresses on higher difficulties.
+
== Interface Improvements ==
  
−
* The thresholds for the number of AI units that can be in cold storage before becoming part of border aggression and attacking the human players has been reduced by 2000 overall.  This puts it into equivalency with the new, lower ship caps, but it also is going to lead to... well, pain, in the case of some existing savegames with massive numbers of ships already in place out in the galaxy.
+
* Added 2 new planet-specific controls:
 +
** Alert When # Enemy Units Present
 +
** Alert When # Aggressive Units Present
 +
** If set to something higher than zero, the alert window will note when the planet has >= the specified number of enemy or threat (respectively) units.  This only works if you have scout intel on the planet (command station or scout drone provide that, among others).
  
−
* Previously, Border Aggression could be really vicious, sending vast quantities of ships cumulatively into threat when there are a lot of planets all with fewer than 200 excess ships on them (the minimum to make a barracks).  And it could also be really vicious in sending a lot of core or mark IV ships at the players when they were used to seeing mark I or II ships in a game.
+
* Augmented the tooltip of the "Threat" section of the resource bar to display a list of all planets with known threat units, and the count thereof.  Only displays planets you have scout intel on.
−
** Now the Border Aggression will never kick in at all if the attack + threat level is already 500 or more.
 
−
** Additionally, when ships would be released via border aggression, and those ships have a tech level that is more than 2 marks higher than the current tech level of that AI player (so, mark IV/V ship with a mark I AI tech level, or mark V ship with a mark II AI tech level, basically), then these excess ships are simply exploded rather than being released.  This keeps the ship caps pruned as needed without causing a ridiculous spike in difficulty and without having players ever get swarmed with core ships early in the game.
 
  
−
* Previously it was possible for the AI to get an inordinate number of MRS's on a single planet; it is now generally limited to 2 per planet.
+
* Added a new tab to the Controls screen called "Ship Design", for defining custom templates for modular ships (i.e. the three marks of Riot Control Starship).
  
−
* AI's no longer use any form of turrets, and any turrets that the AIs did have are now removed from old savegames (including turret remains).  This includes sniper turrets, spider turrets, tractor beams, the works.
+
* Added context menu item for when you have a single ship selected that is modular, for opening the ship design window with that ship's modules prepopulated into the slots so that you can save the design.  You can also change the modules manually or select another defined custom design and apply it to the ship you used to get to the window.
−
** Larger-form AI-only replacements for some of the more notably types of turrets will see a resurgence, but they will be easier to see (and thus to strategize against).  This will also have a positive performance impact, with fewer AI units doing the job of a larger number of older turrets.
 
−
** The emphasis is instead on letting the AIs make use of their ship caps with mobile ships that actually pose a natural form of counterattack risk to players (and which are more interesting, anyway, in the hands of the AI).
 
  
−
* Decoy drones are now capped at 4 per planet for the AI, and speed boosters are now capped at 10 per planet for the AI.  Decloakers and tachyon drones are now capped at 4 and 2 per planet for the A (and the ship caps for the human players have also been reduced to those levels from 10 and 10).
+
* Cross-planet gather points (for docks and otherwise) now visually show movement lines on the planet itself, thus making it far more clear what's going on.
  
−
* The AIs now have a per-planet ship cap of 6 engineers of each mark level.
+
* If a rally post is in FRD mode or attack-move mode, it will now set those modes on any ships that are directed to/through that rally post.
  
−
* The Ship cap scales now affect the size of the maximum allowed wave size per-wave for the AI.  Before it was always 2000, but now that gets affected by each ship cap scale as you'd expect.
+
* The "View Ship Modules" context menu item now works on groups of more than one of the same designable type.  If more than one distinct designable type is in the selection, the option is not available.  Please note that it will only actually display the modules for one of the selected ships, but changes applied to the ships will be applied to them all (meaning that they will all wind up with the same design if you apply anything to the ships).
  
−
* There is now a separate ship cap for starships in a wave compared to fleet ships, to ensure that starships don't get excluded if there are a ton of ships in the wave (while at the same time ensuring that they don't get absolutely gigantic because of the golems or similar).
+
* Added new "Auto Load" command.
 +
** Can be issued via Unit Commmand context menu (either click the button or via context-menu-specific keybind, which has no default binding) or the Auto Load keybind (which also has no default binding).
 +
** When issued:
 +
*** Tells all can-be-transported units in the selection to try to load themselves into a transport on their planet.  If insufficient transport space is available, those that can find room will try to load while the others may do nothing.
 +
*** If any transports are currently in the selection, only those transports are eligible for the auto-load operation.  If no transports are in the selection, all allied transports on the planet are eligible.
 +
*** Each ship to be loaded will prefer nearby transports, but if multiple transports are within roughly 5000 range units of one another, ships will generally prefer to fill one transport before beginning to fill the next.
  
−
* Most AI-controlled wormholes now have a Tachyon Guardian at them, putting the scouting balance approximately back to where it was before the AIs lost turrets.  The difference now, however, is that if these tachyon guardians are destroyed, the AI is very unlikely to rebuild them (though it sometimes will).  This makes it possible to "carve paths" for scouting, whereas before it wasn't really feasible to do that.
+
* Added new control to the Planet-Specific tab of the Controls window: "Redirection Tries To Maintain Garrison Of".
 +
** When this is greater than zero, and the number of allied mobile military ships on the planet is less than the specified number, redirection rally posts won't actually redirect ships entering the planet.
 +
** Functionally this allows you to tell the planet to hold onto a "garrison" of X ships, filling up from the redirection-post patrols you've set up.
 +
** Note that you have relatively little control over the composition of the garrison, since faster ships will tend to fill empty slots unless you've got your patrol groups on group-move.  Nonetheless, this can be useful for making sure a planet has some kind of defensive force without having to nanny it.
  
−
* A certain number (varies by difficulty) of guardians are now seeded at each command station and guard post belonging to the AI, except for special forces guard posts. These ships are mobile and powerful, and present a more serious counterattack threat than the recently-added new guard posts, which are stationary.  In other words, if you launch an attack and botch it, then you it's possible you might have a bunch of guardians turning offensive and coming after you.
+
* Added new control to the Planet-Specific tab of the Controls window: "Stop Building Military If Have Garrison Of".
−
** The AI does not get any guardians at all on planets adjacent to the player home planets.  This is consistent with ion cannons, AI Eyes, etc.
+
** When this is greater than zero, and the number of allied mobile military ships on the planet is greater than or equal to the specified number, build queues on the planet will be suspended (not actually paused, per se, but similar to that).
 +
** This also allows establishing a garrison, and gives you more control over composition but requires that you build a space dock (or whatever) on the planet and set up the queue, etc.  Anyway, you can set up a looping queue of, say, 5 fighters, 1 bomber, and 1 missile frigate and a garrison threshold of 50 and it will produce ships until it hits 50 ships and then stop until some of the ships die or leave; it will then replace those (though not necessarily with the same type, of course).
 +
** Does not impact self-building units like turrets, or the construction of modules on modular ships.
  
−
* During each reinforcement of a planet, the AI is now allowed to add a single guardian to either the command station or one of the guard posts. It is only allowed to add a single guardian per reinforcement, and the command station or guard post in question can't already have its cap of guardians.  If the AI is unable to add a guardian, it does not get any recompense.
+
* The "Mobile Military" filter option on the galaxy map has been renamed to "Mobile Military (Units)." A new option, called "Mobile Military (Firepower)" has been added, which shows the My, Allied, and Team values in terms of the firepower rating of their ships (divided by 10,000) instead of by the raw number of ships.
 +
** When enabled, this also effects the display of the enemy ship counts on the galaxy map.
 +
** This option makes it a lot easier to tell the relative strengths of planets, since ship counts are all but meaningless now: what with spirecraft, golems, guardians, and other large ships making it so that one or two ships can take on hundreds or thousands of smaller ships.  This also helps to account for the relative mark levels of ships, too.
  
−
* The AI will no longer abandon guard posts to pursue the scout starships of the player.
+
* Fabricators will now be listed under the "Build Queues" quick button at the bottom of the screen.
  
−
* The logic for border aggression now scales with the unit cap scale, and also is vastly more tame during the early game in particular, but also pretty much in general. UNLESS you have a mega ton of ships, then it gets a bit more aggressive than before, so it now is more reactive to what you do.
+
* Added both a global and a per-planet "Non Military Do Not Rally" control to the controls window.
 +
** If this toggle is checked, all your non-military ships will ignore all rally posts.
 +
** Please note that if the "Reclaimed Ships Rally To Rally Post" global control is enabled, a non-military ship that has just been reclaimed will still try to rally.
  
−
* The AIs now send leech starships in waves and reinforcements at lower tech levels than they did in the past.
+
* New galaxy map filters have been added for advanced research stations, advanced factories, core fabricators, experimental fabricators, experimental starship fabricators, and broken golems.  The default keybindings are all unbound.
  
−
* The AI players no longer build anti-starship arachnids on their planets in response to player starships arriving.  That's outmoded thinking, as the AI already has plenty of stuff around for the starships.
+
* New galaxy map filters have been added for all of the various detected core shield generators.  This makes it way easier to plot an attack with them.  The default keybindings are all unbound.
  
−
* Fixed bug where minor faction ships firing upon AI guardians (and other AI ships guarding a guard post) could lead to those AI ships turning into threat, by no fault of the human player.
+
* New galaxy map filters have been added for each of the asteroid types.  The default keybindings are unbound.
  
−
* It is definitely now not possible for starships or guardians to be part of cross-planet attacks or border aggression.
+
* New galaxy map filters have been added for detected AI Progress reducers (combined counts of co-processors, data centers, and superterminals). The default keybindings are unbound.
  
−
* In recent releases, AI ships that were guarding could still "break their tether" at the end of their guard radius, which would turn them free and into threat.  Now they remain tethered unless fired upon.  This does not apply to coordinator-ships, namely hybrid hives.
+
* There are now buttons for both the high scores and achievements in the in-game menu, so that players don't have to go out to the main menu to see those.
  
−
* The ship ability "AI Will Abandon Post To Pursue," and its related functions, has been removed.
+
* Added "Export Balance Stats" button to reference tab; its tooltip explains how it functions but basically it's just for use in our new effort to systematically establish a rough-baseline balance of the fleet ship types.  That's still very much a work in progress, of course.
  
−
* The per-guard-post cap of guardians is difficulty-dependent:
+
* Reimplmented "Give Resources" context menu.
−
** On difficulty 5 and below, the only guardians that the AI gets are the "freebie" tachyon guardians.
+
** Keybind: OpenGiveResourcesContextMenu can open this menu any time in the game (unless a nearer-scope active context has the same key bound, of course), no default binding.
−
** These are always there at every difficulty level mentioned hereafter.
+
** Keybind: ContextMenu_TopLevel_OpenGiveResourcesContextMenu can open this menu from the top-level context menu (which is also new in this version).
−
** On difficulty 6, the AI only gets a single guardian at each guard post, and it cannot ever rebuild these when they die.
+
** Keybinds: ContextMenu_GiveResources_ToggleGivingToPlayer1 (and 7 other ones for player 2, 3, ... , 8) works on the give-resources menu and toggles whether the specified player will receive the resources when given.  Defaults to Alpha1 through Alpha8 (top-of-keyboard number keys). Note that giving to multiple players gives the full amount to each, not splitting it or anything complicated like that.
−
** On difficulty 7+, the AI can rebuild guardians, but only gets a single one per guard post (and only starts with one).
+
** Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_IncreaseMetal works on the give-resources menu and increases the metal-to-give by 1,000.  Defaults to Alpha9.
−
** On difficulty 8+, the AI can rebuild guardians and gets two per guard post (and starts with two).
+
** Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_IncreaseCrystal works on the give-resources menu and increases the crystal-to-give by 1,000.  Defaults to Alpha0.
−
** On difficulty 10+, the AI can rebuild guardians and gets three per guard post (and starts with two).
+
** Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_DecreaseMetal works on the give-resources menu and decreases the metal-to-give by 1,000.  Defaults to Minus (next to Alpha0 on many keyboards).
 +
** Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_DecreaseCrystal works on the give-resources menu and decreases the crystal-to-give by 1,000.  Defaults to Equals (next to Minus on many keyboards).
 +
** Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_MakeAmount10000 works on the give-resources menu; while it is held the amount of the increase/decrease metal/crystal keybinds is 10,000 instead of 1,000.  Defaults to LeftControl (and on default settings RightControl is an alias to LeftControl).
 +
** Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_MakeAmount100000 works on the give-resources menu; while it is held the amount of the increase/decrease metal/crystal keybinds is 100,000 instead of 1,000.  Defaults to LeftAlt.
 +
** Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_ExecuteGive works on the give-resources menu, it executes the give operation configured using the other buttons.  Defaults to Backspace (which may prove to be ill-advised, dunno, but it's next to Equals on many keyboards and you can change the bind and a lot of people just use the mouse anyway).  Note that this will also close the context menu unless you're holding the SuppressContextMenuAutoClose keybind that's been around for a while (it defaults to LeftShift).
  
−
* If the AI sends reinforcements to guard something that turns out to be dead (which happens legitimately, if somthing dies at just the wrong time), those reinforcing ships now fizzle and disappear.
+
* Added new top-level context menu that opens when you alt+right-click (that's the default binding) empty space when you have no ships selected (if you have ships selected it still opens the with-selection top-level menu).  The only thing on this new menu is the now-re-implemented Give Resources menu.
  
−
* AI Waves in general are now more of an interesting event, like they were in the pre-2.0 versions.
+
* Added Galaxy-Wide and Planet-Specific versions of three new toggle controls: Auto Build MkI Energy Reactor, Auto Build MkII Energy Reactor, Auto Build MkIII Energy Reactor.
−
** On difficulty 6+, waves are 3x larger.
 
−
** On difficulty 7+, waves are 6x larger.
 
−
** On difficulty 8+, waves are 9x larger.
 
  
−
* Also, the single-starship-with-every-wave is now only included on difficulty 6 and up.
+
* Added "Experimental Auto-Kite Behavior" textbox to the galaxy controls window.
−
** However, on difficulty 8+ it now includes two of them.
+
** This is an experimental control, use at your own risk.
−
** And on difficulty 9+, it now includes three of them.
+
** Valid values are 0 through 50,000 (no commas in the textbox, please). If this is not zero, all your non-melee, non-sniper ships with greater than the specified range will automatically pull away from their target so that they are (effectiveRange - 500) range units away.
 +
** We're working with some players to see if this results in desirable behavior.
  
−
* Added a "grace period" where the counters for roaming enclaves and preservation wardens don't start counting up until a certain time has elapsed.  Currently it's 20 minutes * (10 - AI Difficulty) for the roaming enclaves, and the same (except 15 instead of 20) for the wardens.  So for Diff 7 that's 1 hour, and 45 minutes, respectively.
+
* All of the various galaxy map filters now have both Units and Firepower variants.
  
−
* AI ships now automatically come into existence out of waves in FRD mode.  This gives them a faster reaction time in their first few seconds of life, rather than waiting a second or two for commands from the AI thread.
+
* The Attacking ships tooltip has been updated to show the same kind of sorted per-planet info that the threatening ships tooltip does.
  
−
== General Large Gameplay Additions ==
+
* Added new Galaxy Display Mode: "Detected Threat"; only displays data from planets with current scout intel.
  
−
* The starting human outpost now contains:
+
* Added new Galaxy Display Mode: "Detected Threat Firepower"; only displays data from planets with current scout intel.  This displays the total rough firepower of the threat ships (the raw value is divided by 1000 to make it a bit easier to read; it's a relative value anyway).
−
** Home Command Station
 
−
** A special MkI forcefield that covers a much larger area (but has the same durability as a standard MkI),
 
−
** A Space Dock.
 
−
** A Starship Constructor.
 
−
** One each of Energy Reactor MkI, MkII, and MkIII.
 
−
** Ten each of metal and crystal manufactories.
 
−
** On higher difficulties, a mobile builder and a mercenary space dock.
 
−
** Depending on difficulty (the higher the more), a number of the new Home Human Settlements and Human Cryogenic Pods.
 
  
−
* This one is a HUGE and exciting change to the base game: the endgame has been completely overhauled for AI War.  Previously, the home planets for the AI were always very similar to one another, and often they were something of a grind.
+
* Added new Galaxy Display Mode: "Detected Core Shield Generators"; works like the previously-existing single-type modes, displays all 5 types of core shield generator each with a different color.
−
** The chief problem was that things were too centralized on a single unit on those planets: the AI home command stations.  You had to destroy those, and that was really the only goal; therefore, that was super hard if you didn't have enough firepower, or really easy if you did.
+
** The old single-type modes have been removed.
−
** Now the emphasis is on a distributed network of specialized, much stronger guard posts, as well as a much weaker central home command station.  However, the central home command station can't be touched until all the new AI Core Guard Posts have been destroyed, which means that there are many goals on the planet before you actually get to the final goal of killing the command station itself.
 
−
** There are 9 new types of these specialized guard posts, with various abilities.  Rather than enumerate those here, we'll let you discover those in-game.  Some are more rare than others, and your seeding is different every time, which makes each AI home planet quite unique now.  There is also room for expansion over time with more specialized guard posts in addition to the first 9.
 
−
** The overall net effect is that you can take on the home planet a chunk-at-a-time now, and you can successfully destroy a chunk and then come back much later without having lost any progress.  This is a big improvement over the old system, where you had to build up overwhelming force and win all in one big push; again, that tended to be either too hard or too easy (usually too hard). 
 
−
** Going along with the above, there is now quite a bit of strategy and puzzle-style challenge to figuring out the best attack pattern and order for actually clearing the guard posts on the AI home planets.  Some of the guard posts are likely to support one another, and so your success depends on your ability to make and execute plans here.  The goal is to make the endgame as strategic as the early and middle game, rather than it always devolving into a grind or a cakewalk right at the end.
 
−
** Lastly, the AI home planets previously had really inflated ship caps, in that even if you destroyed guard posts it was impossible to neuter the AI home planets at all.  This is no longer the case, and the AI home planets can now have their effective ship caps whittled down over time.  This way the battles remain epic, but not laggy or grindy, hopefully.  More tweaks may be needed to this over time, too.
 
−
** All of the above DOES affect all existing savegames loaded in the new version. Enjoy!
 
  
−
* Added "Blitz" combat style which is like Fast and Dangerous but the ship speed is doubled again.  Also, "Normal" has been renamed to Epic/4X-like and "Fast and Dangerous" has been renamed to "Normal".
+
* When players have scouted a planet, forever after it will include counts in the upper-left alerts window whenever there are enemy warp gates (reinforce or warp) at a planet.  This should greatly help with player confusion on a number of fronts, the most frequent of which is the AI Eyes in recent times.
  
−
* Added "Blitz" combat style which is like Fast and Dangerous but the ship speed is doubled again.  Also, "Normal" has been renamed to Epic/4X-like and "Fast and Dangerous" has been renamed to "Normal".
+
* Spirecraft, golems, hunter/killers, and avengers all now count as "massive" ships that give the player a warning in the alerts box onscreen while the AI has these ships in free/threat mode.  This way players are still warned about oversized ships that are a particular threat to them, without needing to make the actual Attack and Threat displays into something confusing (aka firepower-based).  
  
−
* The keyboard bindings are now able to be edited.  The editing interface is on the settings menu, and the bindings themselves are stored in inputbindings.dat, separate from all other settings for ease of sharing, etc.
+
* When placing ships via far-zoom, their niche images now show if they have them.  This makes it a lot clearer what's going on there.
  
−
* The way that the "Game Speed" options (+/-) on the keyboard work is now completely different.
+
* The buy buttons in ship menus now include the niche images if they have them.  This makes it a lot easier to tell apart the various types of command stations, and things of that nature.
−
** Previously, the options went from 0 to 10.  Now, they go from -10 to 10... meaning that time can be slowed down as well as sped up.
 
−
** Additionally, in the past when the speed was increased from 0 to 1 it more than doubled the speed of the simulation, whereas increasing it all the way to 10 had very little change compared to the initial shift with 1.  Now the speed scaling is a lot more linear, which is quite helpful.
 
  
−
* There is a new "AI War Pre-4.0 Settings Importer" application that allows players to import pre-4.0 settings files into the new 4.0 version. Unfortunately, the new versions of AI War can't directly read the legacy settings files because of a bug in the Mono framework (regarding deserializing generic collections, if you're curious).
+
* The tech buttons in the science menu now also includes the niche images, rather than including hard-to-read overlay text.
−
** Our settings importer tool also moves across savegame files as a convenience, although there is no compatibility issue with them.
 
  
−
* For CoN:
+
* Filenames for savegames are now fully validated, avoiding characters that are not allowed, filenames that are not allowed on windows (CON, LPT1, etc), and things like directory path separators that would cause the file to get saved into a subdirectory by accident.
−
** Added Hybrid Hives AI Plot.
 
−
** Added "Advanced Hybrids" AI Plot; if the base Hybrids plot is enabled and the Advanced one is not, then the highest tier of Hybrid classes will be disabled (including stuff like the re-coloinzer, which is not quite implemented yet).  Also slightly influences the tech level of equipment available to the lower classes, for instance the first Attacker type will only be able to get a mkI forcefield (instead of mkII) if Advanced Hybrids is off.  If you select Advanced Hybrids and not the base Hybrids plot for an AI player, once you start the game it will act as if you had checked both.
 
−
** Added Neinzul Nester (harder) AI type, which starts the game with Neinzul Nests on most of its planets (half of them on Diff 10, scaling down for lower difficulties).
 
−
** Added Neinzul Rocketry Corps minor faction that initially seeds Neinzul Silos on roughly 8% of the AI planets on the map (fairly distant from any human homeworld, with the mark level of the planet on which they are placed.  On higher difficulties the silos can be of higher level (indeed, IV and V only ever show up on diff 8+).
 
−
** Added Neinzul Youngster (moderate) AI Type.  Its waves' fleet ships are always Neinzul younglings (a mix of all 5, so basically always schizo), and it launches 2 times as many waves as normal.  Its planets are defended pretty lightly.
 
−
** Added Support Corps (easy) AI Type.  It launches no waves of its own but mixes support ships (MRS's, decoy drones, etc) into the waves of its ally.  Support ships are also mixed into normal reinforcements for all AI planets.
 
−
** Added Warp Jumper (hard) AI Type.  It can launch waves against any human planet without a warp jammer on it.  If a wave is "remotely" warped in, it will spawn on the edge of the planet (50000-70000 range out from the center), rather than on a wormhole.  As a consolation, this AI's planets will not have warp gates, and thus will cost 15 AIP instead of 20 to take.
 
−
* Added Neinzul Preservation Warden minor faction.  When this is enabled:
 
−
** The game will periodically check if it should spawn one of these enclave starships.  They are always allied with the AI.
 
−
** The original spawn points are generally on AI core worlds.
 
−
** The enclave starship will then wander towards human territory and be antagonized by any extractors on nearby planets and release its younglings to attack the humans.
 
−
** Once it reaches human territory it typically thinks that the place is a dump and starts on a journey back to an AI core world.
 
−
** The chance of enclave spawn and the rate of youngling production is directly related to the number of extractors currently running in the galaxy.
 
−
* Added Neinzul Roaming Enclave minor faction.  When this is enabled:
 
−
** The game will periodically check if it should spawn one of these enclave starships. 
 
−
** When spawning, it randomly picks between AI-ally, Human-ally, and Enemy-to-all versions of the roaming enclave starship. 
 
−
*** The AI-ally ones will spawn somewhere in AI territory and move towards human territory to raid it (typically having had time to build up a few youngling squadrons).  When damaged to 50% or less it typically retreats to AI territory to regen.
 
−
*** The Human-ally ones will spawn on a human planet, produce (internally) at least one squadron of younglings, and then try to raid AI planets.  When damaged to 50% or less it typically retreats to human territory to regen and rebuild its squadrons.
 
−
*** The Enemy-to-all ones will spawn on an AI planet that borders a non-AI planet, and typically run away as it gets shot at by lots of stuff.  These don't really have anywhere to run and tend not to last long, but they can still spice things up a bit.
 
  
−
* Not really gameplay, but this is huge: completely remastered soundtracks for AI War and TZR!
+
* Added a toggle to the Resource Flows tab of the Stats window, defaulting to un-toggled, that:
 +
** If unchecked, the grid is in "detail" mode and displays one row per ship with a non-zero metal or crystal impact (units with only an energy impact are omitted due to sheer volume).
 +
** If checked, the grid is in "summary" mode and displays one row for each distinct type of ship with a non-zero metal, crystal, or energy impact.  This can be very helpful for figuring out where all your energy is going.
  
−
* There is now a Unit Cap Scale lobby option that allows players to choose between the following options (Normal is now the default, and is applied to all existing saveganes; players may recognize that High was the previous default):
+
* When ships such as viral shredders replicate, they now are automatically added to any control groups that their source ship was in.
−
** Most large-cap ships have half the standard cap (Fighter MkI = 50), and are roughly twice as expensive, twice as strong, etc.
 
−
*** This puts the lowest possible load on the your CPU when you have the biggest-possible battles.
 
−
** Normal caps (Fighter MkI = 99), costs, and strengths.
 
−
*** This puts a moderate load on your CPU when you have really large-scale battles.
 
−
** Most large-cap ships have double the standard cap (Fighter MkI = 198) and are roughly half as expensive, half as strong, etc.
 
−
***This puts a lot more load on the your CPU when you have the biggest-possible battles.
 
  
−
* A new in-game music track, "The Last Chapter," has been added to the base game.
+
* When ships such as viral shredders replicate, if the original was selected, the new ship will also be selected.
  
−
== Co-Op Improvements ==
+
* The icons on the intel summary in the galaxy map now are colorized by player and include the niche icons.
  
−
* The effect on overall ship caps from having more players is now more severe; this keeps the performance more in line even in larger multiplayer games.
+
* A message is now shown in the alerts window when an enemy black hole machine is at the current planet being viewed.
  
−
* The "would you like to reconnect to the disconnected server?" message now only pops up once every 60 seconds at most, rather than immediately popping up again after you are disconnected.  This makes it actually possible to use the menus to quit and do something other than reconnect, etc. It also will no longer actually pop up when the player has the in-game menu or the settings menu open.
+
* The different kinds of alerts in the upper left are now colorized by type, to make telling them apart easier to do.
  
−
== Performance Improvements ==
+
* The "Result" column on the reference tab of the stats screen now displays a percent next to each Win or Loss value, representing the margin of win or loss. 
 +
** So Win(80%) on a row in the table means that the type selected in the dropbox above the table will beat that row's type and still have 80% health/ships left (if it's one vs one it roughly corresponds to how much health the individual will have left, if it's cap vs cap it roughly corresponds to how much total health the ships will have left). 
 +
** A Loss(80%) means that row's type will beat the dropdown's type with 80% left. 
 +
** Sorting by the Result column  will now sort from Win(100%) to Win(1%) to Draw to Loss(1%) to Loss(100%) and vice versa.
  
−
* Some internal networking changes have been made as the start of phasing in a new, more memory-efficient network/savegame format over time.  These first changes add a very slight bit of memory/CPU efficiency on the game host, including in single-player games, but mostly they are laying the groundwork for more extensive future changes.
+
* When in the lobby, if players Ctrl+click a planet that is a valid starting point, they will automatically claim all the planets that have not yet been claimed.  Similarly, ctrl+right-clicking deselects all planets that player had previously selected.  This shows up in the keybindings window under the Anytime controls.
  
−
* Made a rather notable performance improvement to ship explosions (which are just visual, not part of the simulation itself):
+
* The counts of scouts on the galaxy display mode now just displays literal scouts, rather than everything that has scouting ability (like commandos).
−
** Explosions on other planets or otherwise out of your view no longer actually happen, thus saving a goodly amount of sim CPU load when taken in aggregate.
 
−
** When in far zoom, the little debris is too small to see with explosions anyway, so it now doesn't render that, either.  That only happens on larger ships anyway, but this saves the GPU and CPU load of both generating and then rendering this.  A much more minor update than the first, but still notable.
 
  
−
* A significant new early-out performance improvement has been made for range checks.  Especially when there are a lot of ships that are out of range of a battle on a planet (such as those at other guard posts), this now has a notable boost to performance.
+
* A message is now sent to the human players in the chat log if a warp gate guardian is added on a planet adjacent to one of their planets (or next to a neutral planet), stating what type of warp gate guardian was added and on which AI planet.
 +
** In exchange, warp gate guardians, which are pretty nasty, are now twice as likely to occur.  This is still incredibly unlikely however, something like a 2 in 400 chance at the moment—and it will only get less likely as more guardians are added over time (as happens with the dispersal of all guardians).
  
−
* Some performance increases, notably for cases where there are a ton of human ships on a planet with no AI ships.  These changes may result in it taking a little longer for a ship's protections (being under a forcefield, counter-shooter, etc) to update, and for engineers to find something to auto-assist when idle.
+
* The command station foldouts in multiplayer now process the auto-frd-engineers and auto-frd-military controls in the same way as a command station.
  
−
* A number of small performance improvements all throughout the application, moving away from the System.Drawing structs to custom ArcenPoint, ArcenRectangle, and ArcenSize structs.  These structs are more efficient in terms of RAM and CPU, and are Unity-compatible, which the others were not.
+
* Added galaxy-wide and per-planet integer-textbox controls for "Engineers Do Not Assist Large Projects".
 +
** If this is not zero, your engineers will not auto-assist a self-building structure or repair a structure with a per-second metal or crystal cost that is equal to or greater than the specified value.
 +
** This ONLY applies to assisting self-building units and repairing units, it does not apply to assisting build queues (of a Space Dock, for example).
 +
** It only triggers on the higher of the metal or crystal cost-per-second values, not the sum of them.
 +
** If you've defined a value for this at the per-planet level and at the galaxy-wide level, the game will use the per-planet value and ignore the galaxy-wide value for that planet.
 +
** The galaxy-wide version defaults to 400.  There aren't very many things you can normally build that are that high, even on low caps.  But Sniper Turrets and Fortresses and whatnot are certainly up there.  The per-planet versions default to 0, meaning disabled.
  
−
* The seek CPU efficiency of teleporting engineers has been increased significantly.
+
* The standard galaxy-map number-under-planet display of "how many dangerous AI ships are on this planet" will now also display the total number of ships in AI barracks and carriers in parenthesis next to the main number (if that's zero, it doesn't display anything extra).
  
−
* TryFindAssistTarget (engineers looking for something to repair or assist) is now separate from the TryFindOtherTargets throttle, and has been cranked down since those searches can take so long.
+
* When cross planet attacks arrive, they now state (via chat messages) how many ships of each mark level were just freed.
  
−
* TryFindTachyonTargets (tachyon emitters checking for cloaked ships in rage) is now separate from the TryFindOtherTargets throttle, and is fairly generous since even a partial second's delay can make a difference between your turrets eating the raptors for lunch and the raptors eating your command station for theirs.
+
* When AI Eyes or SuperTerminals are spewing out ships, a warning message (like the "you have flown into a minefield" message) is now shown.  This is helpful particularly with the AI Eye for making sure that players (especially new players) aren't accidentally setting them off.
  
−
* Some performance improvements to collision checking, target list filtering and sorting, and the generic basic range checking function.
+
* When alarm posts are triggered, there is now a chat message sent saying what kind of alarm post was triggered and on what planet.
  
−
* Some performance improvements to the "move ship" logic that handles a lot of every-cycle logic for non-cold-storage ships.
+
* The game now makes it clear when a wave or CPA that is incoming was triggered by a ship—guard post, raid engine, scrap wave, or otherwise.  This should substantially help reduce confusion about the deep raids into player territory.
  
−
* A minor performance improvement to CheckForTargetListUpdate.
+
== Graphical Improvements ==
  
−
* Added a separate throttle category for ships that have only overkill targets, so that those ships are more likely to update their target lists in a timely fashion when non-overkill targets show up.
+
* The game is no longer able to use multiple copies of the same starfield background to draw the starfield effect (that was able to make it look blurry when that happened).
  
−
* Some small performance improvements in overall main loop code and AI determination of "how much strength is protecting ship X".
+
* The awesome modified version of the short range guard post, missile guard post, and MLRS guard post that were created by HitmanN as a mod have now been integrated into the main game.
  
−
* A major refactoring in the internal codebase has taken place, fixing a number of bugs and also leading to some performance gains (mainly RAM more than CPU, but also some CPU).
+
* Spire ships now have a new blue explosion animation, like the Zenith ships have a green explosion.
  
−
* Some more efficiency improvements to the AI thread.
+
* The awesome modified version of the beam guardian that was created by HitmanN as a mod has now been integrated into the main game.
  
−
* More internal optimizations that make loading savegames faster than ever, reduces RAM use a bit more, and somewhat lowers the overhead of having a lot of ships moving around in the galaxy.  Also makes rendering lots of ships on the screen slightly more efficient, and corrects a few display-related bugs.
+
* Laser Cannon Modules (for the Riot Control Starships, Hybrids, and Spire capital ships) now use new laser shot graphics generously donated by HitmanN, the Hybrid and Spire lasers use different colors for the different power levels (mkI = red, mkII = orange, mkIII = green, mkIV = blue) and the Riot laser mkI and mkII also use different colors.
  
−
* Changed normal wormhole exit behavior to automatically set destination to a point on a (filled) circle around the wormhole.  Previously ships would sit directly on the wormhole and wait for a collision check; many versions ago this just meant the game slowed to a crawl while the collision checks ran, and in more recent versions the collision-checks-allowed-per-cycle throttle meant that ships just sat on the wormhole forever and got eaten by AOE.  Now they should immediately fan out a bit and check for collisions when they stop.
+
* The actual hull of ships no longer show up as pink or green while being munitions-boosted or shield-boosted.  This looked rather odd, was unneeded, and especially made the spire ships bubble-gum pink, heh.
  
−
* TryFindAssistTarget throttle made more sensitive to the cost of the actual target searches, so that engineers on planets with smaller allied unit counts will be able to get through faster.
+
* "Weak" force fields that protect their allied ships as normal but which do not collide with enemy ships (such as those by shield bearers, etc) now have their own special graphic to denote this.
  
−
* Previously it was possible for the automatic AI engineer retreat logic to place an undue load on the CPU, fixed to pace these calculations.
+
* Put in place the fancy new forcefield-hit effects by Hans-Martin Portmann, which he'd originally created as a mod.
  
−
* A substantial new performance improvement has been made to units on "cold storage" planets with no enemies present: basically, the entire processing of the planet is skipped except every other turn (even for things like special forces or free units on those planets, if other ships on that same planet are in cold storage), which reduces background simulation processing (in other words, not human player ships or battles) to a pretty enormous degree.
+
* The graphics for shield modules have been changed to much, much nicer ones provided by HitmanN, thanks!
−
** To clarify, a turn is 200ms long.
 
−
** The "statistics" for things like the number of attacking ships, threatening ships, etc, are also now only recalculated every other turn, which also helps with load to a much more minor degree.
 
−
** Any ships that are moving on planets of this sort now move twice as fast, since they are artificially only moving half as often.  This keeps it from actually altering gameplay in meaningful ways (though players will likely still find something!).
 
  
−
* Converted some remaining string.concat list-building blocks to StringBuilder.Append, to prevent some (non-impossible) cases that would cause out-of-memory crashes.
+
* The "active" wormholes shown when an advanced warp sensor is present are now shown in a bright yellow instead of the dull red, to avoid issues for red/green colorblind players.
  
−
* There are no longer any prerequisites for running the game.
+
== New Ships ==
  
−
* The game no longer uses GDI+, so it is no longer at all dependent on system fonts, and programs like FRAPS are able to record the menus as well as the actual gameplay.
+
* At long last, due to popular demand, there are now Mark V Fighters in the game.  What's more, there are also now Mark V Bulletproof Fighters and MicroFighters.
  
−
* Thanks largely to the removal of the GDI+ components, the game application itself opens markedly faster now.
+
** There are also now core fabricators for all three of these ship types.
  
−
* The draw-framerate is now independent from the simulation-framerate.
+
* Four new AI Core Guard Posts have been added for LotS: Booster, Cross Planet Attack, Heavy Beam, and Raid Engine.
−
** This is a huge benefit, because now the draw framerate automatically drops under serious load (like a big battle), which lets the actual simulation speed stay at 100% during play in many cases.
+
** All four of these basically add variety to the end-of-game scenarios (most specifically the CPA guard post is wildly different), which has been a long-term goal for the game for a while now. Because of the comparative rarity of AI Core Guard Posts (they only show up on the AI homeworlds), we won't be adding too many of these in this expansion, though—more focus will be going into the regular Guard Posts (mark I-V) that show up on all the AI planets randomly, as variety is even more critical there (in one sense).
−
*** Thus the game doesn't slow down to a crawl during big battles (it just gets briefly choppy, if that), which passes much more quickly and is markedly less frustrating.
 
−
*** Also, if one player has a slightly underpowered machine during a network game, it is less likely to slow down the simulation for the other players, which is also excellent.
 
  
−
* In-game textures are now streamed into the game in a queue, rather than loaded-all-at-once when first encountered.  This avoids choppiness and momentary lag when loading savegames and similar. This does cause images to be invisible and then pop-in during that same time, but that's much preferable in the main.
+
* 35 new guardians have been added to LotS (5 marks each of 7 new guardian types): Carrier, EMP, Self Destruction, Special Forces Rally, Vampire, Warp Gate, and Zombie.
 +
** EMP guardians only appear on difficulty 7 and up.
 +
** Self-destruction guardians only appear on difficulty 8 and up.
 +
** Warp gate guardians only appear on difficulty 7 and up.
 +
** The rest of the guardians have a more normal difficulty spread, and thus appear at all difficulty levels.
  
−
* The methods for rendering general in-game shots is now 1/5th as GPU-intensive as before.  The method for rendering missile shots is now 1/9th as GPU-intensive as before.  The method for rendering explosions are now about 1/2 to 1/4 as GPU-intensive as before.  The method for rendering the new uv-animated line effects is about 1/5 as GPU-intensive as the old "fuzzy line" effects.  Paired with new graphics, they also look better, which gives a double bonus to this shift.
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Gravity Drain (Mark I-V)
 +
** Large, slow ship slows the movement of enemy ships near to it.  Also has powerful short-range lasers.
  
−
* There is now less apparent lag when first loading a game, as the AI thread is started right at the tail end of the load process rather than during the first frames of the game.
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Gravity Ripper (Mark I-V)
 +
** Large, high-health, slow ship temporarily halts the movement of enemy ships with every hit of its weak, short-range, rapid-fire energy bursts.  Best used in combination with other ships to keep fast targets from escaping.
  
−
* In general, the lobby is now vastly faster and more responsive, whereas before it was rather laggy because it had some logic being run many times more than it needed to be.
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Mini Ram (Mark I-V)
 +
** This miniature battering ram specializes in high-health targets, crashing into them for high damage and destroying itself in the process.  Unable to hit smaller ships.
  
−
* The planetary summary now combines various icon layers into intermittent textures, which makes it use on average 5x fewer draw calls to the GPU, and lower transient per-frame memory as well.\
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Tractor Platform (Mark I-V)
 +
** Large, slow alien vessel is bristling with small guns but most importantly many tractor beams.  This has obvious defensive uses, but can also be used to hold enemy ships at bay while longer range allied ships take them out.
  
−
* The buttons along the bottom of the screen (and buy buttons, etc) have been massively upgraded to be far more efficient.
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Teleporting Leech (Mark I-V)
 +
** Large teleporting ship fires lightning shots.  Reclaims enemy ships it kills (reclaimed ships have health = half damage inflicted by reclamator).
  
−
* Performance Profile can now be changed from the Scores tab of the Stats screen.
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Stealth Battleship (Mark I-V)
 +
** Powerful battleship with onboard cloaking options as well as a portable radar dampener that makes enemy ships have to be in very close range to hit it at all (radar dampening does not affect the ability of enemy ships to hit other ships, just this one).
  
−
* Added Performance Profile dropdown to Game Options tab of Lobby.
+
* The last of the new LotS bonus ship classes has been added: Spire Armor Rotter (Mark I-V)
 +
** Shots do fairly little damage, but eat away at the armor of ships they hit with each shot.  Ship armor gradually regenerates over time (it takes up to 10 minutes to fully regenerate, depending on how much armor the target has), but cannot be directly repaired.  Thus the armor rotters can create a window of opportunity for other ships to strike high-armor ships.
  
−
* Added "FPS" and "Viewing" columns to the Scores tab of the Stats window; FPS so you can see what kind of performance other players are getting locally, and Viewing so you can tell what they are looking at (and switch to that view yourself by clicking the button).
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Maw (Mark I-V)
 +
** Huge alien vessel that swallows transportable enemy ships and gradually attritions them.  If the maw is destroyed, they are ejected with whatever health they have left.  External guns also fire at targets at short range while it chews on the swallowed ships.
  
−
* The AI now keeps its guarding ships (except for the really ultra-long-range-ones) in low-power mode until there is actually a need to use them, and then it brings them out of low power mode and often puts them into free mode.  This makes those ships more of a counterattack risk, as well as in general keeping the CPU usage of huge battles on AI planets to a minimum when a bunch of the ships wouldn't be involved in the battle, anyway.
+
* A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Blade Spawner (Mark I-V)
 +
** Large central ship has weak guns, but continously spawns smaller independent blades that crash into enemy ships.
 +
** This also adds mark I-V of Spire Blades.
 +
*** Extremely fast melee ship—loses health over a 10-second period, then self-destructs.  Created inside Spire Blade Spawners, these are uncontrollable but will viciously attack the enemy on the current planet. Players cannot give direct orders to the blades.
  
−
* Some fair performance improvements have been made to large battles on AI planets with a lot of low-power ships.
+
* Spire Mining Ships have been added to the game for the LotS expansion.
 +
** This ship allows the construction of mining enclosures on asteroids.  Each tab in its build menu corresponds to a type of asteroid on which specific mining enclosures can be built.
  
−
* We're now taking steps to "stretch" the mono Garbage Collector at game start, so that it won't garbage collect quite so frequently during normal gameplay. This doesn't solve the every-8-second jitter, but it does make it only about every 19 seconds from what we've seen.  More info: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/23223/how-to-stop-sound-from-skipping-during-gc-collection
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Martyr (Mark I-V)
 +
** This massive ship has no guns, but is bristling with tractor beams.  When it dies, it explodes for extreme damage to enemy ships within its tractor range.
 +
** These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Adamantite, Mark I-IV ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* A huge amount of extra performance (in certain cases) has been gained by setting a maximum time-per-sim-frame that causes fewer sim frames per draw frame to be rendered when there is severe lag.  This makes it so that in situations of extreme lag, the game will remain responsive (though running slower), while in situations of mild to moderate lag, the game will remain at full speed (though drawing fewer frames).  Note to other Unity developers: Time.maximumDeltaTime is awesome.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Shield Bearer (Mark I-V)
 +
** Does relatively low damage, but has very high health and provides a sizable force field to protect allied ships.  Its force field does not reduce the attack power of protected ships.
 +
** These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* The FPS line from the F3 Debug menu now includes a "Game vs Realtime Speed" that shows the correlation between the system clock and the game clock. 100% would be a perfect correlation, and in general the game hovers close to that. However, when the game is running faster than realtime, it will go above 100%, and when it's running slower than realtime it will be below 100%.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Ram (Mark I-V)
 +
** This massive battering ram specializes in high-health targets, crashing into them for extreme damage and destroying itself in the process.  Unable to hit smaller ships.
 +
** These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Adamantite, Mark I-IV ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* A new Game Speed label has been added to the Players tab of the Stats window (where you can adjust your performance profile).  This label shows how well the game is running at the moment, as well as giving advice on if you need to use a lower performance profile or not.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Ion Blaster (Mark I-V)
 +
** Advanced weapon insta-kills most ships with a mark level equal to or lower than its mark value.  Cannot fire upon ships immune to insta-kill.  Unlike the fixed-position ion cannons, these ion ships are both mobile and much shorter-ranged, but they are still extremely deadly.
 +
** These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* A memory/CPU performance improvement has been added relating to when gamecommands are compressed or not.  Actually, this is a slight savings on network bandwidth, too.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Penetrator (Mark I-V)
 +
** Perma-cloaked ship that cannot hit most smaller fleet ships and which must be manually targeted to fire.  It does absolutely astronomical damage, and then is uncloaked and unable to fire for the next half hour.  This ship is Blind, and thus requires the support of scouts or other similar ships to see its target, but otherwise it works best as a lone wolf sort of ship, delivering its payload and then returning to friendly space to rest and recuperate.
 +
** These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* Added code to clear various static temp-working lists right after they are used to prevent them from holding on to references to ships from previous games (and thus planets from previous games, and the ships on those planets, etc; technically it shouldn't still have a reference the planet but you never know), and dead ships from the same game.  All this would have lead to the game requiring more memory than necessary.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Implosion Artillery (Mark I-V)
 +
** Large, high-range, middling-health artillery weapon that does damage based on a percentage of the enemy ship's remaining health (not to be less than 1 damage).  This is most effective when enemy ships have very high remaining health.
 +
** These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* Significant reduction in transient memory allocation on the AI thread, to reduce the frequency of Garbage Collector activity in the app in general, and thus the frequency of hiccups in the music and input handling, etc.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Siege Tower (Mark I-V)
 +
** Huge, slow, low-range, high-piercing, highly-armored, radar-dampened battlestation with multiple shots excellent for taking out large swathes of enemy ships while repelling a beating in return.
 +
** These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* Saving and loading of games is now going to cause a small bit more of a hiccup in game execution, but will also use massively less memory and should have almost no chance of causing out of memory errors.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Jumpship (Mark I-V)
 +
** Expensive, tiny-capacity transport with advanced teleportation and no self-attrition-per-wormhole.  The advanced teleportation lets the jumpship pass through wormholes and across planets without the normal few-second delays that regular teleporting ships face.  On planets with a higher mark than the jumpship, the jumpship expires in about twenty seconds, however.
 +
** These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Xampite to Titanite, Mark I-IV ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* There is now a bit better of a speed throttle on the way that data is sent to the AI thread, leading to less lag on the main game thread when there is a bunch that needs to be sent to the AI.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Attritioner (Mark I-V)
 +
** This massive ship has weak direct guns, but does high attrition damage to all enemy ships once per second (on the order of multiple fixed-position attrition emitters).  Enemy ships on the current planet will notice that they are damaged by attrition and will turn aggressive, however, so be careful of stirring up enemy planets with the attritioners.
 +
** These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* The way that the AI thread gets updated data about units in the game is now through a separate data channel from the way that it gets commands to send waves, updates about planet ownership, and other things.  This has several advantages. First, because we're able to avoid boxing some structs, this is much more memory-static.  Secondly, it prevents the AI thread from getting sluggish on processing things like waves because of a backlog of units to update in ultra-high-unit-count games (north of 70k).  Third, it allowed for the better speed throttle mentioned above, without causing a more general lack of correctness on the part of the AI thread.
+
* A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Scout (Mark I-V)
 +
** These scouts are all perma-cloaked, but move pretty slowly and rapidly lose health if they are on an enemy planet of a higher mark level than the scout itself.  Most of these except for the Mark IV or V spirecraft scouts make for better long-term sentries (thus freeing up your normal scouts to do mobile scouting) rather than as literal scouts that explore.
 +
** These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Xampite to Titanite, Mark I-IV ships.
 +
** Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology.  Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  
−
* An ENORMOUS performance improvement has been made for the game host in large unit-count games in particular.  The AI thread sync logic is now using generic queues instead of lists, resulting in state-sync operations happily taking under 8ms for 15,000 synced units, rather than taking 8ms for only about 20-30 synced units.  This effect will be most pronounced in games with more units.
+
* A new capturable ship type has been added for LotS: Spire Archive.
 +
** These powerful science vessels can be found nearby or on the AI homeworlds.  Capturing them will provide +1/s knowledge income on the archive's planet for all human players while the archive lives, up to a cap that is 3x that of the normal per-planet cap.  If the archive is destroyed, however, there is a hefty AI Progress cost.
  
−
* Another similar large improvement has been made to the pooling of explosions, shot graphics, etc.
+
* New "Redirector Rally Posts" have been added to the base game.  These are NOT mobile, but which can have gather points set like that of a space dock.  You can use this to give cross-planet move orders, and even to set up cross-planet roving patrols of ships if you set up a looping pattern of redirectors.
 +
** The old rally posts are now called "Mobile Rally Posts," since their key feature is that they are mobile.
  
−
* A similar, but smaller improvement has been made to the sending of large, mult-part network messages.
+
* Added a new LotS AI Guardian: Gravity
 +
** Enormous gravity distortion effect slows enemy ships over a wide area.  Middling firepower specially geared towards starships and other large targets.
  
−
* Yet more work has been done to improve the rate of memory utilization in the mono gc.
+
* Added a new LotS AI Guardian: Starship Disassembler
 +
** Huge alien guardian that swallows enemy starships and gradually attritions them.  If the guardian is destroyed, they are ejected with whatever health they have left.  External guns also fire at targets at short range while it chews on the swallowed ships.
  
−
* The game is now strictly limited to 12 open disk threads at a time.  Previously it would usually be that few or fewer, anyway, but in a few cases it could get higher and this could lead to jerkiness on windows and potentially crashes on OSX.
+
* Added a new LotS AI Guardian: Implosion
 +
** Mid-range, middling-health artillery weapon that does damage based on a percentage of the enemy ship's remaining health (not to be less than 1 damage).  This is most effective when enemy ships have very high remaining health.
  
−
* The last of memory-rootedness fixes, for now, has been put in place.  The amount of permanently-added memory after loading a savegame is now only about 2mb.
+
* Five new types of Core Shield Generators have been added to the game: These must be destroyed before the AI Core Guard Posts and AI Home Command Station can be damaged.  The planet on which this shield generator sits must be controlled by the humans before it can be damaged.  These only get seeded on difficulty 4 and up.
 +
** Group A-Prime
 +
*** One of these is seeded on every planet with an advanced research station.
 +
*** The A-Prime shield generators are linked into a very strong network.  All but one of them must be destroyed before the last generator in the group will self-destruct.
 +
** Group B-Secondary
 +
*** One of these is seeded on every planet with an advanced factory.
 +
*** The B-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network.  Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
 +
** Group C-Secondary
 +
*** One of these is seeded on every planet with a fabricator and without an advanced factory.
 +
*** The C-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network.  Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
 +
** Group D-Secondary
 +
*** One of these is seeded on every planet with a counterattack guard post, but with no other core shield generators already in place.
 +
*** The D-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network.  Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
 +
** Group E-Secondary
 +
*** These are scattered on some random planets that do not already have an existing shield generator.
 +
*** The E-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network.  Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
 +
*** This new mechanic is designed to require players capture at least a certain small baseline number of planets before they can even attack the AI homeworlds.  This ensures that ultra-conservative low-planets-held strategies simply aren't valid, and the alternative is somewhere the game been before: having the AI homeworlds be so beefy that they are incredibly grindy in the late game, which also isn't good. That had led to most players "declaring they had won" and stopping before they actually had won.  The logical solution, then, is a multi-stage AI takedown procedure that requires you to take certain planets that it was expected you were required to take, anyway.
 +
*** To those that would complain about how this will prevent certain playstyles: yes, it will.  But only the ones that don't allow for a natural progression of AI difficulty, and so short-circuit (and thus drastically break) the game.  Deep striking and raiding are still a great thing to do, and in fact may be more important than every in some circumstances now, but you can't use that in a preemptive "the enemy's gate is down" sort of fashion to win the game.  If you'll recall, even the battle school teachers changed the rules after Ender used that tactic once, and for good reason: it's fun once, but leads to a broken game after that.
 +
*** Note that achieving the alternate victory in the Fallen Spire progression will take care of this shield network for you, since that victory condition already involves taking plenty of territory, etc.
 +
** These are not seeded into old savegames, but do default to "on" for new games.  They can be turned off on the ships tab of the lobby when setting up a game.
  
−
== Interface Improvements ==
+
* Okay, this one is super exciting.  Six new kinds of Intra-galactic warp gates have been added for players under the CONST tab—no knowledge required to unlock, as these are essentially logistical tools that people would find to be must-unlock techs (like the transports and rally posts had turned out to be—we learned our lesson with that sort of thing).  Here's a description of perhaps the most exciting one of the six:
 +
** Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Advanced Factories
 +
*** When this gate is not in low power mode, all ships produced by the controlling player at any advanced factories will emerge at this gate.  When there are multiple gates of this type, ships emerge from one at random.  Ships that emerge are paralyzed for 60 seconds on account of their ordeal of warping.  If this gate is on an enemy or neutral planet, they are paralyzed for 2 minutes instead.  A gather point, ship stance (FRD, attack move, etc), and so forth can be set on the gate just like on a normal constructor, and the created ships will obey those orders.
 +
** However, there are six in all, one type each for space docks, starship constructors, advanced factories, mercenary space docks, fabricators, and missile silos.
 +
** There is a cap of five per type.  Given that these can be paused and re-enabled, that's pretty useful.
 +
** The short description of this feature basically that the logistical challenges of unit production and delivery are a thing of the past.
 +
*** Before anyone complains about the game "playing itself," note that this is of no help with units that have already been placed.  As has always been the case, you still need to make sure and build your ships in a sensible place for defense or offense, or you can get caught unawares.
 +
*** In terms of space docks, what this new mechanic saves is time of tearing down the docks and rebuilding them somewhere else (at the cost of temporary paralysis, of course, which means that it's not always the best choice for space docks.  But it can save a lot of time when you don't want to be having to repeatedly set up queues as you move your docks around, though.
 +
*** In terms of fabricators and advanced factories, the benefit is absolutely enormous: those are immobile and you don't get to choose where to put them, so in many games that could make them of marginal use simply because of the hassle factor.  Now you can deliver ships to or near to the front lines for the very minor setback of the temporary paralysis on arrival—quite a fair trade.
 +
**** One of the reasons for advanced factories and fabricators being immobile and set in specific positions, however, is that this can lead to interesting situations where you have to defend a planet you might not otherwise want to.  The beauty of this solution is that that dynamic is unharmed, because you still have to defend those distant planets.  All it removes is the logistical challenge of moving the goods from that planet out into the rest of the galaxy.
 +
** In the end, given the AI's exo-galaxy warps for unit creation, it only makes sense that the humans would get something similar for intra-galaxy warps with unit creation.  The symmetry there is actually pretty cool, and at any rate the goal here is savings in micromanagement, which it delivers in spades.
  
−
*Added context menu; the default context menu for your current context can be opened via Alt+Right-click.  There is also a keyboard-only bind that you can set if you want to be able to open it at one keypress.
+
== Ship Logic Updates ==
  
−
*Added "Special Move" item to context menu (when you have ships selected, on planet view) that allows setting of group/formation/attack/frd/queued flags via mouse rather than the various (and sometimes obscure) key combinations.
+
* AI ships will now come out of low-power mode (but not free, as a result of just this) when a shot targeting them is in the air; this will tend to also wake up the rest of their guard group.
  
−
*Added "Stop" item to context menu (when you have ships selected, on planet view) that emulates the "end" key command that cancels all standing commands, formation (if you're on sticky formations, those don't clear with normal moves), etc.
+
* Previously, zombie ships and all the other minor faction ships would really wander far and wide, much moreso than they should have.  Fixed so that they'll now wander only to adjacent planets near to the planet they are currently on each time they decide to go a-wandering.
  
−
*Moved Auto Explore command from the A+E+X key combination to the context menu (only when you have selected ships and at least one is a scout).
+
* Engineers will no longer ignore moving ships when searching for targets to repair.
  
−
*Auto Explore now functions in the absence of unexplored planets (either you've explored them all or you started with all explored), and applies similar auto-pathing logic to unscouted or not-scouted-recently planets (preferring the unscouted, then the not-scouted-for-5-hours, then the not-scouted-for-1-hour, etc).
+
* A whole host of internal logic changes have been made to forcefields.  Most of them are a bit difficult to explain, but the upshot is that now instead of caring about "strong" and "Weak" forcefields in most cases (aside from collision with forcefields), the game just tracks a single protecting forcefield for all the ships, and tracks an additional "firepower-reducing forcefield" for the human ships only.  The only firepower-reducing forcefields for the humans at the moment are those three basic ones and the player home planet ones.  In the past, there was a lot of logic that was incorrectly only looking at "Strong" forcefields for decision making purposes, and now all of that just looks at the generic forcefield protector, which should lead to a lot of subtle ship targeting improvements.  It may also lead to some new issues, go figure, but that's kind of unavoidable as a risk.
  
−
*Auto Exploring scouts no longer try to evade after exiting a wormhole, instead they should shortly pick a new exploration/scouting destination and get moving that way.
+
* When determining firepower against a ship under a forcefield (and thus also hit chance, etc), ships now use the firepower they would have against the forcefield, rather than the ship itself (assuming the attacker isn't immune to force fields).  Given that's the firepower that would hit the forcefield, that's more accurate for decision-making in general, but this is particularly critical as of late because of how some ships are now unable to hit some forcefields (ie, the anitmatter bombs).  This change should prevent things like siege starships from trying to fire against ships that are under a forcefield that just nullifies out all their damage.
  
−
*Auto-explore is now non-random and much more even in deciding between equidistant planets of the same level of "I need to scout this".  So if you have 5 unexplored (or unscouted, in an everything-starts-explored game) planets connected to your home world and build 10 scouts there and put them on auto-explore, 2 each will go to each of those 5 planets.  At least, that's the idea.
+
* Large ships that are colliding with one another, like starships or golems or spirecraft, now do a better job of hanging close together in a group rather than spreading quite so far out.
  
−
*Existing "counter-shot radius" drawing logic (which also draws tractor range, tachyon range, etc) will now draw engineering range if the ship has one and does not have a counter-shot or other auxiliary range.
+
* Mobile ships with tractors now make an effort to move into tractor range as well as attack range if they are chasing a target.  Again, this way etherjet tractors are a lot more likely to actually capture targets (in the past that was less of an issue because of the old shielding model, but now it's a definite concern).
  
−
* Added "Auto Gather Knowledge (Science Only)" to the context menu. When executed, selected science ships will be automatically issued the following orders:
+
* Ships that have regen or vampirism now are automatically overkilled by a corresponding amount by enemy ships; this makes automated fleets of ships (and AI fleets of ships in general) able to actually take care of ships with high regen or high vampirism.
−
** if not on friendly planet, no orders
 
−
** else if on friendly planet but there's knowledge left to get, and not under a strong forcefield:
 
−
*** if command station is under strong forcefield, set destination to that forcefield
 
−
*** else if there are allied forcefields on the planet, set destination for the one nearest to the command station
 
−
*** else set destination for the command station
 
−
** else if there's a planet I can reach through a friendly-planet-only path that has knowledge left to get, set destination to the nearest one (if there are more than one equidistant it picks the first one in the list every time, no random, so groups on one planet will all go to the same other planet).
 
−
** else no orders (but periodically check again)
 
−
** (note: friendly planet is defined as a planet with an orbital command station owned by a player on the same team as the science ship's owner)
 
  
−
* When the energy count is being shown for ships (either by pressing Alt+A, or via the net energy being low for you), transports now show their own energy plus that of all the ships inside themselves.
+
* Ships with the reclamator ability now all do their best to target ships they can actually reclaim.  This is particularly important because of the new ship-level restrictions that reclamators have, but it's also important new logic that they never had in general (previously hitting stuff that was immune to reclamation just as commonly).
  
−
* Command Stations are now shown on the Planetary Summary icon lists on the galaxy map.
+
* Zenith Autobombs and Neinzul Youngling Nanoswarms now do a better job of splitting up rather than focusing on a small set of targets.
  
−
* The DEF build category was really a misnomer at this point, and has been renamed to SUP instead (Support instead of Defense, which more accurately describes those ships).
+
* Human ships no longer automatically open fire on low-power AI ships, though they do still put them in their targeting lists as normal (so that as soon as the AI ship comes out of low-power mode, they are able to fire on them just as quickly as before).  This prevents long-range human ships from accidentally stirring up the guards of AI guard posts unless the player specifically orders them to.  In general this will make the AI guards bumrush the player ships a lot less frequently than they were recently doing, while not losing the first-mover advantage of the human ships against the low-power AI ships.
  
−
* The lobby tooltips now show the costs for each of the starting ship classes (mark I only, but still).
+
* Human ships no longer automatically open fire on guard posts of the AI if those guard posts have not already been "angered."  This means that long-range human ships won't just snipe them without being told to do so, but as soon as the guard posts have entered the battle at all, they will fire at will.  Like the other change about low-power ships, this also doesn't impact the putting of guard posts into the targeting lists, so it doesn't hurt the first-mover advantage of the player ships.  Generally when players get at all in the vicinity of the guard posts the guard post gets angered, so this just prevents snipers and similar from alerting the entire planet without the player desiring for that to happen, for instance.
  
−
* The ship costs (complete with icons and coloring, etc) are now always shown in the ship tooltips, rather than only in the buy menus. This makes it so that players don't have to go to the buy menus in order to make construction decisions.
+
* Human ships no longer automatically open fire on guardians of the AI if those guardians have not already been "angered" AND they are on active guard duty. This works basically on the same principles as the above change to the guard posts, except for guardians that are already freely moving around it ignores them.
−
** Additionally, this gets rid of the need to have energy use on the line with the ship caps, etc.
 
−
** And lastly, it now lets the repair cost move out of the abilities section and into the costs line.
 
  
−
* Hovering over the net energy display at the top of the screen now shows the positive and negative energy amounts that factor into that, for the local player and any teammates.
+
== Balance Updates ==
  
−
* In the tooltips for ships, AI Progress increase/decrease conditions are now shown in highlighted yellow on the same line with resource production, to emphasize this more since AI Progress is essentially a very important resource.
+
* Heavy Beam Cannon health increased by 5x, to make them not insta-die so readily.
  
−
* In the tooltips for ships, the immunities are now split out from the other normal abilities to make it so that they don't crowd out the rest of the abilities for things such as golems, etc.  Now the immunities are shown in a slightly more concise notation, on a separate line, in a different color.
+
* Further balancing of the guardians, specifically:
 +
** Most of the offensive types had their number of shots multiplied by their mark level; since their attack power was already being multiplied by their mark level each level was a much larger increase in dps than might be expected.  For now, all those types now have the same number of shots that the mkIII versions used to have.
 +
** Those types with bonuses against turrets have had those bonuses reduced; Flak guardians in particular will do much less damage against turrets as they're supposed to be the bane of mobile lightly-armored stuff, not everything that has the audacity to exist.  Guardians are still very effective vs turrets (particularly mkI turrets) and are intended to be so.
 +
** The artillery guardian's base range reduced from 25000 + 4000*mk to 30000 + 1000*mk.
 +
** Laser guardian reload time from 2sec => 4sec, shots-per-salvo from 19 = > 11, attack power from 400*mk => 1600*mk.  This makes them even more effective against armored targets (already having 500*mk armor-piercing).
  
−
* The "Number of Simultaneous Shots" is no longer treated as a special ability for display purposes. Instead, when a ship has multiple simultaneous shots, there is now simply an "x2" (or whatever number) notation next to the main attack power.
+
* Fortress balancing to deal with ineffectiveness vs. armored targets and stuff with high bonuses vs UltraHeavy:
−
** This makes it quicker to gauge the real attack power of a ship without having to dive into the abilities, and also takes up less visual space.  The actual functionality it describes is unchanged.
+
** Reload time from 3sec => 6sec.
 +
** Shots-per-salvo from 60/80/100 => 30/40/50.
 +
** Attack power from 2000/3500/5000 => 8000/14000/20000.
 +
** Health from 2,800,000/4,800,000/8,800,000 => 4,000,000/8,000,000/12,000,000.
  
−
* Added 2 galaxy map display overlays: detected hybrids and detected hybrid facilities.  Only displays info on planets that you current have visibility.
+
* Since the introduction of armor, the different unit scales have provided pretty radically different balance between scaled-types (like a bomber) and non-scaled-types (like a flak guardian).  This is due to the fact that 2x as many bombers each with 1/2 as much armor (high caps) are going to die way more than 2x faster against a flak guardian.  Similarly, 1/2x as many bombers each with 2x as much armor (low caps) are going to have a much easier time surviving against the same unscaled flak guardian (even leaving aside the aoe aspect of that).  We've now put in a fix that will make scaled ships always have the same effective armor against non-scaled ships, while maintaining their scaled armor ratings versus each other (since if we just stopped scaling armor at all then scaled ships would take a _lot_ longer to kill each other on some settings).
  
−
* Control Nodes have been removed and replaced with a Controls interface, accessed via the CTRLS button in the lower-left corner of the screen.
+
* Lightning Guardians now have 100000 armor-piercing (like lightning turrets), 4x previous attack power, and 1/2x previous base range (actual range differs from base range due to some post-processing on stats).
  
−
* Added new galaxy-wide control: Engineers Do Not Auto-Assist Low Power Ships; it doesn't interfere with directly targeted repairs and can be useful in preventing your engineers from spending your entire economy on repairing a golem that's been damaged in battle.
+
* Removed AI Progress cost for killing any Neinzul cluster (Neinzul Nests still cost 10 AIP to kill).
  
−
* External invincibility for command stations (provided by certain destructible guard posts) is now visually shown on the command stations, and shown in the hover info for the command station with a count of how many external guard posts are contributing to that invincibility.
+
* Colony ships no longer have any energy cost.
  
−
* The icons that are shown at the top of the intel summary are now sorted by short name (displayed in the line below), rather than just being ordered effectively randomly as they were before.
+
* Cutlasses now have a heavy penalty against command grade hulls, and their attack power (and health) have also been significantly reduced.
  
−
* The ships that show up with an icon on the intel summary view have their own text line directly below in purple, but they were also still showing up in the larger lists of my/allied/enemy ships further down.  Now they have been removed from those lower lists (but not the counts of enemy ships by mark level), so as to make those lists more focused and easier to read.
+
* All of the fleet ships, starships, and turrets (and a few other types of ships) now have a completely revamped cost structure.  In the case of their mark I variants, the costs have been tweaked somewhat, often reduced slightly or even significantly in cases of ships that were exceedingly expensive before. In the case of their mark II, III, IV, and V variants, they are now based on multipliers from the mark I version.
 +
** Those multipliers are x2, x4, x6, and x8, respectively.  This makes the mark V variants enormously more expensive than the mark I variants, which accomplishes two things: first it once again increases the utility of those lower-level ships, and secondly it makes it so that the economy becomes more strained the further into the game players go.  This makes the early game simpler (as it has been lately), while not making the late-game too easy in terms of the decisions regarding territory, economic unlocks, and so forth.
  
−
* Command Stations and Guard Posts now get their own line of icons in the intel summary in the galaxy map.  This prevents them from completely overwhelming all of the other special ship icons by their presence.
+
* The health of all the AI force fields has been increased by 3x, in light of all the new ultra-damaging starships and such that the humans have.
  
−
* Refactored the ship category buttons at the bottom of the main screen to a two-tier model letting the player drill down to either the full list, the low-power list, the non-low-power list, or a list of a specific ship-type.
+
* Home planet command stations for the human players now have 2 million health instead of 300k.
  
−
* Added some basic alert messages when a human planet is under attack by Hybrids, Preservation Wardens, (hostile) Roaming Enclaves, or hostile warheads.
+
* The AI now has a separate fortress line with 10x more health and without the ability to be repaired.  Player fortresses can now be directly repaired, but those fortresses now take 10x longer to build and repair.
  
−
* The lobby has been completely reworked, and avoids potential rendering problems that a minority of players were suddenly seeing based on the old way the lobby was redirecting window output from one window handle to another.
+
* Raid Starships now have 100x more armor than before, and now have 100k armor piercing.  They also now have 5x lower health.  In general, this transforms them into a ship specializing in killing highly-armored targets, including fleet ships such as armor ships, which is a unique role for them amongst starships.  The extra armor that they have, in turn, makes them better suited than ever for doing long-range raids except when they run up against raw-damage-dealing ships such as siege starships and so forth.
  
−
* The way that links between planets are drawn in the galaxy map has been altered substantially:
+
* Neinzul Cockroaches no longer fire translocation shots, as this was overpowered and made offense a lot tougher with them around.
−
** Previously, supply was shown via a darker thicker line underneath the main link lines.  That has been removed, and now the main lines normally draw a bit thinner, and then become thicker to denote supply.
 
−
** The relationship between the two linked planets are now shown via the color of the line.
 
−
*** Gray lines now denote unknown relationship, or a link between two neutral planets.
 
−
*** Yellow lines now denote links between friendly and neutral planets.
 
−
*** Green lines now denote links between friendly planets.
 
−
*** Orange lines now denote links between friendly and enemy planets.
 
−
*** Red lines now denote links between enemy planets or enemy and neutral planets.
 
  
−
* Core Fabricators, Experimental Fabricators, and Experimental Starship Fabricators are now listed with space docks, starship constructors, etc on the "Space Dock" button at the bottom of the screen.
+
* The first set of waves now comes sooner from the AIs, more like it used to in the 2.0 era of the game.  It's been a longstanding bug since 3.0 or thereabouts where the first set of waves always fizzled.
  
−
* The various messages that show near the top of the screen (Paused, Game Does Not Have Focus, You Win, etc) can now show more than one of these messages at once (like if you're paused after you've won and/or the game does not have focus).
+
* The logic for when raid engines trigger is now a lot tougher (it happens when there are ANY human military ships, whereas in the past it took a military fleet of size 100 to trigger them (which was basically a free pass to starships—no longer).
  
−
* A number of keyboard control changes have been made.  If you don't like them, the beauty is that you can now remap them as you wish, but we wanted to take this opportunity to clean up the keycodes to make them as sensible as possible -- they grew up a bit unevenly as the game has developed, and there were a few things that have been bugging us for a while.
+
* Turret rebalance:
−
** Ship contruction keycodes have been made consistent:
+
** Basic, MLRS, Flak, Laser health to 5/3x of what it was.
−
*** It is now possible to build queue-constructed ships in groups of 10 by holding alt.
+
** Lightning Turrets health to 5x what it was.
−
*** It is now possible to build directly-placed ships in groups of 50 by holding ctrl.
+
** Missile Turrets health to 1/3x of what it was.
−
** Ship selection modifier keycodes (when using hotkeys such as S to select science labs, or when clicking items on the planetary summary) have been made more consistent with the general selection modifiers (when just dragging selection boxes):
+
** Laser Turret base range from 6000 to 9000.
−
*** When holding Shift, it now adds the new ship to the selection rather than centering on it.
 
−
*** When holding Space, it now centers on the ship.
 
−
** The button for showing control group assignments, and for showing ship movement/attack lines, and for toggling on all the attack power modifier overlays, has been changed from Ctrl to Alt. 
 
−
*** This keeps the lines, etc, from getting in the way when players are just using the Ctrl key normally, which is a lot -- and still makes it readily accessible to see these lines and control groups at an easy click of the button, though.
 
−
** The keyboard shortcuts for "frame skip" have been removed, as that feature no longer exists (it's no longer needed).
 
−
** The keyboard shortcuts for "game speed" can now go between -10 and 10, rather than 0 and 10.  This allows players to slow down time as well as speed it up.
 
  
−
* The glow around planets that are alerted to the human presence is now red instead of yellow, as with the new blending, etc, the yellow was extremely hard to see.
+
* Various major-electric ships now have the corresponding extreme-armor-piercing (core electric guard post, tazer, all warheads, electric shuttles).
  
−
* The resource bar has seen some rework, making it a bit more concise and relying on icons and tooltips instead of spelling out things like "knowledge" in it.  On the flip side, a few things that were previously unlabeled (like the number of planets under attack at the moment) now have a label.
+
* Following guardians now have 1.4x as much health as before: Tractor, Lightning, Flak, Beam, Laser.
−
** Warnings about energy levels are now shown directly in the resource bar, and more concisely, with a tooltip over them to explain further.
 
−
** The game speed modifier is now shown right next to the game clock in the upper left, and the game clock flashes red and white when slowed down, and green and white when sped up.
 
  
−
* A new ship selection scrollable window now shows up whenever ships are selected, making for a significant update to the old selected ships button and dropdown.
+
* Bomber starship rebalance:
 +
** Attack power 1/3x what it was.
 +
** Reload time 1/9x what it was.
 +
** Attack range from 5000 => 2500.
 +
** Health to 2x what it was.
  
−
* The Planetary Summary window on the right-hand side of the screen has seen significant visual improvements that make it easier to quickly read, especially during battles or multiplayer games.
+
* The ship cap for colony ships has been dropped from 60 to 5, to prevent people from just storing up so many extra colony ships now that there is no energy cost per colony ship.
  
−
* The position and styling of both chat messages and alert messages have been changed a bit, emphasizing readability and keeping the screen as clear as possible for actually showing gameplay.
+
* Laser Guardian
 +
** Bonus against polycrystal 45x => 5x.
 +
** Bonus against light 45x => 5x.
 +
** Bonus against refractive 15x => 5x.
 +
** Bonus against turrets 3x => 1x.
 +
** Base attack power 1800*Mk => 4800*Mk.
  
−
* The main menu is now nigh unrecognizable, it's seen so much rework.
+
* Raider Guardian
 +
** Bonus against heavy 18x => 5x.
 +
** Bonus against artillery 12x => 3x.
 +
** Bonus against turrets 3x => 2x.
 +
** Bonus against swarmer 4x => 3x.
 +
** Base attack power 1200*Mk => 1800*Mk.
  
−
* Our license key screen is now miles better, as well.  It lets you enter all of your license keys on one screen, rather than having a separate screen for each (with the expansions buried in an expansions tab of the settings window). Now it's all on one place, accessible directly from the main menu, and should cut down on confusion as to which license key the application is asking for at any given time (a fair number of people tried to enter their expansion keys as a main key, for example, if they bought the game and expansions at the same time).
+
* FF Bearers (Shield Bearers):
 +
** Health increased from 88000*Mk to 100000*Mk.
 +
** Armor decreased from 4000 to 200.
 +
** FF coverage radius increased by 50%.
  
−
* The current combat style is now shown on the galaxy stats screen, since that's now the only way to see that data while in the game itself.
+
* Armor ship:
 +
** Reload Time from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.
 +
** Armor from 15,000 to 3,000/3,200/3,400/3,600/4,000 for I/II/III/IV/V.
  
−
* The "Hide Ship Recharge Bars" settings option has become a "Show Ship Recharge Bars" option, because these bars really don't need to be shown for most people and they cause significant visual clutter and extra graphical load.
+
* Superfortress health from 90,000,000 to 150,00,000 to be more in line with the recent AI fort hp bonuses.
  
−
* The "Show Ship Bars In Far Zoom" settings option has become a "Hide Ship Bars In Far Zoom" option, because these bars are really important to being able to see the battlefield at a glance from far zoom, and need to be on unless people specifically want to disable them for performance reasons (which isn't likely to be needed, these days, anyway).
+
* Special difficulty factor (currently only used for hybrids and fallen-spire stuff) now scales more granular-ly with difficulty.  For example, it used to be that 7, 7.3, and 7.6 all multiplied the factor by 1 (i.e. no change), and 8 multiplied it by 1.5.  now 7 = 1, 7.3 = 1.15, 7.6 = 1.3, and 8 = 1.5.  And so on with the other partial difficulties.
  
−
* It is now possible to see the AI Plots in the Galaxy Stats window (before it wasn't possible to see what AI Plots were enabled in-game, which was a problem of sorts).
+
* Increased Avenger hull hp to be somewhat greater than a superfortress, again in line with recent hp changes to fortresses.
  
−
* The Debug window (hit F3 to see) has been reworkd a bit to be more compact and yet more helpful. 
+
* Transports can now not unload further than 60,000 range units from planet-center (for reference, the maximum distance anything can be built at is 60,000), to avoid some of the more exploitative usages.
−
** It includes one new line of particular interest, under the GAME SPEED header, that is FPS / Draw Calls.  The FPS number gives a pretty good indicator of the frames per second (averaged from the last 3 seconds), and the Draw Calls tells how many sprites were actually drawn to the graphics card for the non-GUI parts of the game (So all the ships, backgrounds, explosions, all that). 
 
−
*** Both of these help to give a more empirical look at both graphics card performance and graphics card load.\ for when players report that something seems laggy.
 
  
−
* Added a new context menu: Special Unload.
+
* Core Starship rebalance:
−
** Two ways to open: right-click the Unload button (left-click still does the usual basic unload), or use the new OpenSpecialUnload keybind (context: with-selection, defaults to LeftCtrl+U); if your selection does not contain any transports with ships in them, the special unload menu won't display.
+
** Armor from 5000 => 2500.
−
** Displays 1 button with the total number of ships loaded into transports in your selection.
+
** Health from 65,000,000 => 25,350,000 (twice the Spire Starship's).
−
** Displays 1 button for each distinct ship type (so fighter I, fighter II, bomber I, etc), with the number of that type.
+
** Attack Power from 40,000 => 60,000.
−
** If you left click one of the buttons, it will give the order to unload 1 ship of that category.
 
−
*** If the SpecialUnload_MakeUnload_10 keybind (defaults to LeftShift) is active, it does 10 ships instead.
 
−
*** If the SpecialUnload_MakeUnload_50 keybind (defaults to LeftCtrl) is active, 50.
 
−
*** If the SpecialUnload_MakeUnload_All keybind (defaults to LeftAlt) is active, all of that category (so Alt-clicking Fighter I will unload all fighter Is held by all the transports in your selection, and Alt-clicking the top catch-all button will act very much like the basic unload operation).
 
−
** While the window is open, the SpecialUnload_CancelUnload keybind (no default binding) is also available; it will cancel any unloading of the ships in your selection, without cancelling any other orders.
 
−
** Note that this works with fortresses, etc, not just "Transports" proper.
 
  
−
* Added UnloadAll keybind (context: with-selection, no default binding) that is just an alias for the basic Unload button.
+
* Spire Starship given 16000 armor piercing, because it strangely had none despite both the Zenith and the Core starship having it.
  
−
* It is now possible to hide the tutorial instructional messages by holding down the Alt key.
+
* All Fabricators from base health of 60,000 to 1,000,000, since they are lost forever if destroyed and previously a player could lose one before they even realized there were hostiles near it.
  
−
* Since there is a bug in Unity where keys can get into a held-down state permanently (until that key is again pressed and released) after an alt-tab or similar window switching, we've now put in a safety feature: whenever keys are held down for more than four seconds, the name of the key being held down is shown.
+
* Several things with HullType.UltraHeavy changed to HullType.Heavy, since they just didn't have the hp to play in that league.
−
** During normal play, except in a few cases such as holding down to see some sort of overlay (ship lines, attack ranges, etc), this would never even come into practice.  But when someone can't understand why no ships are clickable, etc, and it's because the alt key is behind-the-scenes being held down, now there's an easy visual cue that should get most people to automatically tap the key in question, which solves the problem.  Should save a lot of frustration for folks down the line.
 
  
−
* The Select Starship Constructor key (T) has been removed. The Select Space Dock key (D) now also selects Starship Constructors, fabricators, missile silos, and mercenary space docks in addition to the prior function of selecting space docks and advanced factories.
+
* Most bonuses vs HullType.Heavy reduced to 20-25% of what they were, since they were much more in line with bonuses vs. HullType.UltraHeavy, leading to alarmingly rapid destruction.
  
−
* The attack-move function has been moved to X, and the "open move menu" function has been moved to left alt.
+
* AI-only Black Widow golems 1/2 health modifier (it used to have less than a core starship, and not much more than an old spire starship).
  
−
* There is now a Master Sound Volume slider on the audio tab of the settings screen.  This allows for the relative volumes of all the various sound effects to be left alone, while the overall volume of all sounds are adjusted.  This affects everything except the volume of music.
+
* A completely new formula for wave sizes has now been put in place, and it puts a much more linear weight on AI Progress and difficulty when determining wave size.  This attempts to go back to some of the earlier 2.0-and-before feel of the AI Progress increases while staying away from extreme early game difficulty with the first waves.
  
−
* Objectives tab of Stats screen now handles all the stuff the old mission display did (and a bit more), and also provides mouseover-tooltip and click-to-view-object (where applicable) support.
+
* Impulse Reaction Emitter damage is now multiplied by (sqrt(targetEnergyUse)/10) instead of (targetEnergyUse/100) (the root is computed when the energy use is set, not each time it is needed, of course), much like the zenith polarizer now multiplies by the square root of armor rating instead of armor rating.  Also using the lower divisor to make it more granular.  Base damage is half what it used to be (except the core version which had a much higher base, down to like 1/4 of what it was).
  
−
* Removed Pause-All-Constructors and Lone/Group-toggle button from the bottom global button row, replaced with:
+
* Raid Starships are no longer immune to missiles.
−
** Map button, toggles between galaxy and planet view (will also be used for showing the minimap, when that is implemented).
 
−
** Controls button, opens a new window for changing a variety of galaxy-wide and planet-specific settings.
 
  
−
* All Control Nodes have been removed and replaced with the Controls window. Grief and career counseling is available to those engineer drones suffering existential angst as a result.
+
* FF Bearers are no longer immune to or absorb EMPs (to make it possible to disable their ff coverage via emp).
  
−
* Implemented a replacement for the minimap.  It is not part of the normal GUI but rather an overlay that you can trigger by holding either the Middle Mouse Button + the MakeMiddleMouseScrollingUseMiniMapScale key (context: PlanetView, defaults to LeftShift), or the ShowMinimap key (context: InGame, defaults to T).
+
* The health of all the scout starships have been doubled.
−
** The ShowMinimap keybind (not the middle-mouse-scrolling one) can also be used to "peek" at a planet by holding it and either mousing over a planet in the Galaxy View (it will display the minimap for that planet) {{OBS}} or a wormhole in the Planet View (it will display the minimap for the planet on the other end of the wormhole){{OBS}}.  The peek displays obey the usual rules for visible intel, etc.
 
  
−
* The count of enemies at the current planet is now shown as an alert in the upper left, rather than as a hard-to-see flashing number on top of the command stations quick button.
+
* The health and other stats of the scouts have been improved a bit.
  
−
* The current wave multiplier and reinforcement multiplier, if any, are also now shown at the upper left as an alert.  That way players aren't surprised by massive waves if they have a golem at a planet, etc.
+
* Fleet, Bomber, Siege, Raid, Leech, and Riot Starships all now cost 2x more metal and crystal than before, and thus also take 2x longer to build.  This should hopefully bring their cost-to-benefit ratios more inline with the fleet ships.
  
−
* The pause function is now mapped to both the pause key and the p key.
+
* Dyson Gatling Health increased by factor of 10.  Also, they now take 1000 seconds to auto-decay instead of 200 seconds (it had been 1000 before the removal of a standard 5x health multiplier).  Also can now hit UltraHeavy and Structural hulltypes again, but should still be unable to hit all guard posts to avoid freeing stuff.
 +
* Marauder Buzz Bomb and Marauder Dagger Frigate health and attack power increased by factor of 10.
 +
* Resistance FighterBomber and Frigate health and attack power increased by factor of 3.
 +
* Player-Ally and Enemy-To-All Neinzul Roaming Enclaves health increased by factor of 10; AI-ally ones left as-is since those are painful enough.
 +
* Neinzul Preservation Wardens health and move speed increased up to same as AI-Ally Roaming Enclaves.
  
−
* Low-power ships now show up as grayed out even in far zoom, which is quite helpful.
+
* When a target ship gets into a transport or goes through a wormhole, shots that are incoming to that ship will now hit the the ship immediately.  This prevents players or the AI from being able to use wormholes or transports to fire pot-shots and then disappear.
  
−
* Implemented Special Move context menu section, and the Unit Commands context menu section.
+
* Warp Jammer Command Stations now block counterattack waves.
  
−
* The "Random" options are now highlighted in light red in the lobby AI type dropdowns. This makes it significantly easier to see them, and to tell the groups of AI types apart from one another (the randoms divide them up into sections). The Technologist AI Types, meanwhile, are shown in full red as a warning.  
+
* Counterattack waves are now 4x larger than normal, but take a full 14 minutes to arrive. This makes them more of an event than they used to be, even, but also makes them much easier to prepare for and deal with.
  
−
* Added Messages tab to Stats window, displays all messages (chat log, AI Progress alerts, etc) received during the session. Those messages do not persist into a savegame, so when you load a game this log will be blank.  
+
* Previously, there was an extra wave per wave event for difficulty 8, two extra waves for difficulty 9, and three extra waves for difficulty 10.  This made the game WAY harder for solo play on those difficulties, but much easier the more players you have (since this didn't scale per the number of players).
 +
** Now it has been changed so that there are no extra waves per wave event on difficulties 8 and 9 (as the more recent changes to wave sizing make this unneeded, anyway), and the number of waves per wave event is simply doubled on difficulty 10 (so that way it scales appropriately with the number of players).  Normally there is one wave per home planet of the players per wave event.
  
−
* The mouseover tooltip on the "Planets" section of the resource-display now displays the name, orbital-command-station-type, and number-of-attacking-ships for each planet under attack.
+
* Sniper, Tractor, Tachyon, Artillery, and Laser guardian shots-per-salvo significantly reduced, damage-per-shot increased to maintain same raw dps.  Should shred fleet ships somewhat less.  Flak, Lightning, and Raider guardians a bit more distinctively-against-large-groups now.
  
−
* The Strong/Weak data is no longer shown in the tooltips for ships.  It is still possible to generate this data (we use it for internal ship balancing purposes), but it's no longer exposed through the UI.  There were several problems with it in this past: 1) it was difficult to understand; 2) it was overwhelming to new players; 3) it was often misleading even to advanced players; 4) for anyone playing the betas, it was pretty much perpetually out of date, as it takes us 40 minutes to generat the strong/weak data and we don't do that too often.
+
* Gravity turrets and other ships with gravitational effects now only affect enemy ships, rather than all ships.  This makes them significantly more valuable and less annoying to use.
  
−
* In place of the removed Strong/Weak lines in the tooltips, there is now an "Attack Multipliers" line.  This shows the multipliers that ships have against other hull types.  Many players have wanted to have this for a long time, but in the past it was always too much data (and too complex) to show effectively in-game.  Now that it's been simplified down to vs-hull-type rather than vs-ship-type, it's a lot less data and a lot easier to quickly parse and understand. The hope is that it will also be less overwhelming to new players, and promote more strategic fleet building in general, as the older strong/weak approach was just too nebulous for anything except immediate decision making ("what do I have that's good against X," etc).
+
* The Spire Starship has had its range increased by 10k, it's attack power roughly tripled, and its number of shots cut by half.
  
−
* The number of starships included with each enemy wave is now shown in the alert for the wave.
+
* The Attack Power of the Zenith Starship has been increased 3x, as it was actually lower than the flagship (though with more shots) lately.
  
−
* Added new Reference tab to the Stats screen, it's a fairly powerful tool for seeing which ship types are strong against which.
+
* Space planes now have a new "Radar Dampening" ability that makes them impossible to hit beyond a certain distance. This even affects snipers, ion cannons, and the like—they can't target the space planes until the planes get close enough to them.
−
** Added a "View Reference" option to the when-ships-are-selected context menu, it opens the Reference tab for the selected ship's type (if multiple ships selected, the first ship's type is used).
 
  
−
* The per-second costs of metal and crystal are now shown in a smaller parentheses in the ship costs line in tooltips.  This will help with planning economic expenditures without diverting attention from the total fixed cost of these ships.
+
* Scout drones 1-3 now also have the radar dampening ability, to counteract the recent nerf to scouts based on making them unable to outrun shots through wormholes.
  
−
* Previously, the max zoom level was determined based on the screen resolution. Changed to be resolution-independent.
+
* Warbird Starship health 300,000 => 3,000,000.
 +
* Beam Starship health 900,000 => 4,500,000.
  
−
* Clicking the Map button in the lower left hand corner will now (if on the planet view) pop-up a brief menu with a button for switching to the galaxy map, and a button for displaying the minimap. This method of displaying the minimap differs from the existing button (T) in that the minimap will remain displayed until you click the Map button again, or hit T (or whatever you've bound that one to).
+
* Fighters and bulletproof fighters have been rebalanced a fair bit.
 +
** Their attack power and health, etc, scales up more linearly by mark level, making the higher-level ships much more powerful than before.
 +
** Their attack power in general has increased 5x, while their hull attack multipliers have been dropped 5x.  Any hull multipliers that were less than 5 have simply been removed.
  
−
* There are now separate sliders for the mouse wheel zoom speed and the keyboard zoom speed.
+
* The wave sizes of the aggressive AI types have been toned down quite a bit, from being 2x or 3x larger than normal, to being 1.25x or 1.5x larger in general, or 2x for the mad bomber (which was previously the sole 3x-larger one).
  
−
* There is now a "MESSAGE LOG" button in the upper-right corner of the screen during the game, which goes straight to the messages tab of the stats window.
+
* Bulletproof fighter changed from Heavy hull type to Medium hull type.
  
−
* The planetary summary overlay in the galaxy map has gotten a bit of a visual revamp.
+
* The health of armored and artillery golems has been increased 10x.
−
** It is now tall and thin, rather than fat and wide.
 
−
** The counts for the icons at the top are actually now legible.
 
  
−
* Added a small helper window to the right of the global game-button window on the galaxy map, that displays the current galaxy-display and current galaxy-filter, clicking them allows you to change them.
+
* The Core Neinzul Melee Guard Posts and all the spire Mini Rams now have a shot type of Ram instead of Blades.  The Ram is also a melee type, but ships aren't immune to it.
  
−
* Tachyon Guardians are now shown as icons on the intel summary for planets, as they are very relevant for scouting.
+
* Ion cannons, orbital mass drivers, and core warhead interceptors are no longer immune to minor electric shots.
  
−
* Added several features to the Reference tab of the Stats window:
+
* Previously, when AI waves got too large (more than about 2000 ships), the extra ships of the AI would simply not be included in the wave, leading to very inflexible wave caps.  Now waves are free to get infinitely large, but any ships over the wave caps get added inside carriers instead of as roaming ships.  There is a separate cap for starships in waves (always was), and now the excess starships also go into carriers rather than being cropped out. The net effect of this change is to make the danger from high AI Progress levels continue to rise linearly, rather than capping out at some certain value. However, the reason for the wave caps in the first place was to protect performance, and the use of carriers still accomplishes that while not reducing difficulty overmuch.
−
** Filter By "Scope" can be used to restrict the compared types to:
 
−
*** Ships in My Selection
 
−
*** My Ships On This Planet (empty if you have no scout intel)
 
−
*** Friendly Ships On This Planet (empty if you have no scout intel)
 
−
*** Hostile Ships On This Planet (empty if you have no scout intel)
 
−
*** My Ships (anywhere you have scout intel)
 
−
*** Friendly Ships (anywhere you have scout intel)
 
−
*** Hostile Ships (anywhere you have scout intel)
 
−
*** Ships I Can Build (default) (currently doesn't account for fabricators or advanced factory)
 
−
*** Ships I Can Build Or Unlock
 
−
** Filter By "Category"
 
−
*** Noncombatants
 
−
*** Non-warhead Combatants (default)
 
−
*** Fleet Ships
 
−
*** Starships
 
−
*** Turrets
 
−
*** Warheads
 
−
** The ship types now use TypeName instead of ShortName for description, and so are easier to identify.
 
−
** Also, mousing over a ship name (either the select-dropdown or the first column of the grid) will display the buy-menu detail tooltip for that type.
 
−
** Clicking one of the names in the first column of the grid will select it in the dropdown.
 
−
** Scrollbar on the grid has been removed in favor of paging buttons, this is important for performance when the actual data set is very large.
 
−
** In addition to the "View Reference" context menu item when you have ships selected, if they have a target-to-destroy there will be a "View Target Reference" item that will open the reference tab with the target selected in the dropdown.  If there are multiple targets amongst the ship in your selection, it picks the first one it finds.
 
  
−
* A new Tip of the Day feature is now on the main menu, providing player-provided randomized tips on each startup, which players can cycle through.
+
* The ship cap of the shield bearer ship class has been cut in half, but their individual force field sizes have been doubled, their health has been tripled, and their attack power has been doubled.  Their costs have also been doubled.
  
−
* The game itself has been updated so that on first run on Windows it now prompts players if they want to run the importer or "begin fresh," and the importer can be launched via a button in the settings window for those players who will be playing the game via a distribution service that doesn't use our start menu shortcuts.
+
* The radius of all the human force fields (but not AI force fields) have been increased substantially.
  
−
* Added Mouse tab to the Input Bindings screen; it's just a static listing of controls and cannot be edited, but it is necessary for completeness.
+
* Heavy Beam Cannons buffed:
 +
** MkI beam count 1 => 3
 +
** MkII beam count 3 => 6
 +
** MkIII beam count 7 => 12
 +
** All Marks armor piercing from 2000*mk => 8000 (flat, not multiplied by mark)
  
−
* By default, the screen no longer dims and the music no longer stops while paused. That option can still be unchecked in settings to go back to the old default if players wish.
+
* All of the human-controlled golems now have a self-attrition that makes them require ongoing maintenance from player engineers.  The attrition is slow, however, taking the golems from full health to the brink of death over a two hour span (except for the cursed golem, which takes a mere 40 minutes—still up from the prior 20 minutes there).
 +
** This creates an optional non-energy-related ongoing cost for golems that players can choose to pay or not pay; if they don't wish to repair golems, they can simply be placed out of service somewhere safe.  This also seems fitting with the status of golems as uber-powereful, extremely ancient weapons in poor repair.  And boy are they powerful, they do need something to counteract them a bit even on the Hard golem minor faction.
 +
** AI-controlled golems don't have the self-attrition, but instead have 10x lower health and an inability to be repaired.
  
−
== Graphical Improvements ==
+
* Hive Golem health has been increased 3x (to 48m).  Hive Golem attack has been increased 50x, but their attack range has been reduced by 3k.  Hive Golems also now have a radar dampening range of 10000.  The speed of creation of wasps has been increased 4x.
 +
 
 +
* The health of the botnet golem has been increased 10x.  Armor Piercing on the Botnet Golem has gone up 10x.  The number of secondary shots fired by the botnet golem has been doubled.
  
−
*Updated icon for Heavy Beam Cannons to a new graphic donated by HitmanN.
+
* The previous concept of AI Wave Bonuses (the crazy multipliers that could lead to waves of 700,000 ships, for example) have been removed entirely.  This buffs a number of structures for human use, including captive human settlements, zenith power generators, gravity drill stations, zenith spacetime manipulators, and ion cannons.
  
−
* The graphics for the Mercenary Space dock have been overhauled so that it now looks like an evil version of the regular space dock.
+
* The cost of all ion cannons has gone up 3x.  The cost of the higher-mark ion cannons now go up even more exponentially than before.
  
−
* The borders of the far zoom icons have been made consistent between all the various screens, including the lobby and the intel summaries, and in general look a little less ragged.
+
* The AI Wave and reinforcement bonuses of all golems have been removed.  Golems also no longer require the proximity of AI Warp Gates.
  
−
* The accuracy of drawing angled lines has been improved fairly substantially.
+
* Armored Golem health has once again gone up 10x (to 500m).  The base attack power of armored golems has gone up 100x.  The number of shots of  armored golems has gone down to 1/6th of its prior value.  The armor piercing of armored golems has increased from 10k to 999k.
  
−
* The following modules now use a new shot-movement mechanic to fire their multiple-shot bursts in a brief sequence rather than all at once, to give more of the desired visual effect (gameplay impact should be minimal) :
+
* Artillery Golem health has been increased 20x (to 100m). The base attack power of them has gone up to 50m per shot. The armor piercing of armored golems has increased from 100k to 999k.
−
** Riot machine gun modules now fire 12 shots per salvo with a reload time of 4 seconds, instead of 3-shot salvos with a 1-second reload.
 
−
** Riot laser modules now fire 8 shots per salvo per 8 seconds instead of 4 shots per salvo per 4 seconds.
 
−
** Hybrid machine gun modules (I-IV) changed from firing 2/3/4/5 shots per 1-second reload to 10/15/20/25 shots per 5-second reload.
 
−
** Hybrid laser cannon modules (I-IV) changed from firing 1/2/2/3 shots per 4-second reload to 2/3/4/5 shots per 8-second reload.
 
  
−
* A new and better-looking game HUD visual style is now in place.  This new visual style is also intended to improve readability while also increasing performance.
+
* Black Widow Golems now have 70m health instead of 30m.  The attack range of black widow golems has been increased 4k, and their tractor range has also gone up 4k. The armor piercing of 1k has been removed from black widow golems, and their attack power has increased from 3k to 60k.
−
** The GUI for the game no longer uses bordered text -- this both aids in readability for some players, as well as improving performance, and with the higher-contrast window backgrounds this is more readable than ever.
 
−
** All of the in-game fonts have been replaced and improved with prettier, sharper, more-legible fonts that also contribute better to the sci-fi theme and feel less spreadsheet-like.
 
  
−
* The status text over most of the in-game ships (poor efficiency, exhausted, knowledge income, etc) now appear with a nice little bounding box that makes them look better and also easier to read.  These boxes now conveniently disappear when moused-over, so that they are never in the way of what the player is trying to click on.  When the Alt key is held, all of these also now disappear, which makes it even more convenient.
+
* Regenerator Golem attack power has been increased 100x.
  
−
* The galaxy map has seen a number of improvements.
+
* Cursed Golem range has been increased 100x, and health up by 3x (to 60m). The number of shots has also increased from 3 to 20.
−
** The planet graphics in the galaxy map are now much-improved, and make use of shaders and rotation to make themselves look much more realistic.
 
−
** The lines between the planets on the galaxy map also now use shaders and have a much more modern, realistic look to themselves.
 
−
** The little row of ship icons below each planet has been removed from the galaxy map, as that was useless clutter that made the galaxy map harder to read and which most people didn't notice anyway.
 
  
−
* Flares are now shown on top of player ships, rather than under them.  This is a longstanding request from players who found them too hard to see when under ships.  Holding the alt key now hides the flares, so you get the best of both worlds.
+
* The number of shots of the raider guardians have been cut about 10x, and the attack power of their shots has bee increased about 20x.  Their bonuses have also been changed to specialize against commandgrade, structural, and ultraheavy, with a penalty against turrets.
  
−
* A completely new starfield generation algorithm is now used -- it looks a lot better, is incredibly more varied (not every planet has the same kind of starfield background), and has nice parallax depth to itself. It is way faster to draw than the old SlimDX style of starfields, which is another excellent bonus.
+
* The speed of raid starships has been increased about 50%, and their attack power has gone up 5x. They also have gained a hefty bonus against command grade ships, while losing their bonus against turrets and instead having a penalty.  The armor rating of raid starships has also been increased 3x.
  
−
* A completely new nebula generation algorithm is now used -- it also looks a lot better, and is way way faster to draw than the old SlimDX style of nebulae.  The nebulae no longer have parallax scrolling, but the starfields themselves do a plenty fine job enough of that, and this overall effect looks better.
+
* Missile Frigate Rebalance:
 +
** Reload Time from 20/15/10/8/7 => 11 - ShipLevel (10/9/8/7/6).
 +
** Base Range from 7000 for all marks => 6500 + 500*mk (7000/7500/8000/8500/9000).
 +
** Health from 4,800/16,000/22,000/28,000/33,000 => 9000*mk (9,000/18,000/27,000/36,000/45,000).
 +
** Armor from 150/150/300/600/300 => 150 for all marks.
 +
** Attack Power for MkV from 8000 => 5000.
 +
** Bonus against Neutron from 3x => 5x.
 +
** Added 5x bonuses against Composite and Refractive (previously, no triangle ship had a bonus against either of those).
  
−
* The way that the galaxy map in the lobby is drawn has been completely reworked to look better.
+
* Youngling Nanoswarm Rebalance:
−
** The "obstacles" (black holes, asteroid belts) are no longer shown at all, as they were distracting and just getting in the way of the relevant visuals, anyway -- they are still shown in-game, though, of course.
+
** Removed all damage bonuses (trying to avoid their autotargeting prioritizing damage over other stuff).
−
** The scale and quality of the lines and graphics shown in the galaxy are now far superior to what they previously were, making them easier to read.
+
** Maximum targets affected from 1/3/5/7/9 => 3/5/7/9/11.
−
** The galaxy map in the lobby now scales on both the X and Y axes individually, again to allow for the maximum visibility on varying scree resolutions.
+
** Now does 100*mk armor damage (i.e. "armor rotter" damage) to each affected target.
 +
** Now adds 1*mk seconds of paralysis to each affected target.
 +
** Now does 2*mk engine damage to each affected target.
 +
** Note that the nanoswarm cannot directly target stuff that is immune to reclamation, and may have similar difficulties with ships immune to its new debuffs, but that often other ships caught in the blast may be affected by those debuffs they are not immune to.  Nanoswarms will pay house calls to individuals found filing mantis reports resulting from not reading this release note.
  
−
* Every last shot/weapon visual effect in the game has been completely redone in a much higher-res, fancier fashion.
+
* Zenith Electric Bomber hull type changed from Heavy to Neutron.
  
−
* The explosion visuals have been completely replaced and upgraded.
+
* Fixed a bug in the enforcement of the IsEligibleForHomogenousWave flag that was leading to a wave that would be composed entirely of a non-eligible type simply being a nearly-empty wave (basically it would just have the starship(s)).  Now the wave will only be empty if it somehow does not have any eligible types, but that should be impossible.
  
−
* In recent releases, damage smoke had been unintentionally disabled. It has now been re-enabled, and has been notably upgraded to look a lot more realistic at the same time.
+
* Neinzul Roaming Enclaves:
 +
** Now are much prompter about retreating when under heavy fire.
 +
** Move Speed from 34 => 51, effective range from 5,000 => 10,000, and removed the x0.2 penalties against Light and Ultra Heavy (apples to preservation wardens too).
 +
** HumanAlly variant now has 30x the base health instead of 10x.
 +
** HumanAlly variant can no longer be repaired (this could hurt your economy before, and it's got plenty of self-regen by itself).
  
−
* The shot hit effects have been revamped so that it is much easier to tell when a shot has hit (and it just looks cooler, too).
+
* Random wave sizing factor changed from a number between 1.0 and 1.3 to a number between 0.8 and 1.1.  Wiki updated to reflect the new number.
  
−
* Shield blocks now have a much more distinctive visual look, so that it will hopefully be more obvious to players that something is actually happening out of the ordinary there.
+
* Hybrids can no longer get the starship-esque Spire bonus ships (Blade Spawner, Maw, Stealth Battleship, Tractor Platform) as drones, since its "drone cap" doesn't differentiate by ship power and it would be painfully unbalanced to get hit by a bunch of hybrids escorted by a horde of such ships.
  
−
* All of the old "fuzzy line" effects have been replaced with much fancier and better-looking uv-animated special effects.
+
* Since vampires are refractive, flak turrets and flak guardians now have an 8x bonus against refractive (that's what they've had against close-combat for a while).
  
−
* Beam weapon effects are now animated, and have a different color and animation per mark level (from 0 to V).
+
* Armor maximum percent damage blocked from 95% => 80%.  Health of some high-armor units increased to offset this somewhat:
 +
** Vorticular Cutlass health a bit less than doubled.
 +
** Armor Ship health a bit more than doubled.
 +
** Grenade Launcher had _really_ low health so it's been increased 10x.
 +
** Zenith Electric Bomber health increased somewhat and made more linear with  mark level: 20k/40k/80k/160k/320k => 30k/60k/120k/150k/180k.
 +
** Raid Starship health from 800,000*mk => 1,600,000*mk.
  
−
* Improvements to angled line drawing accuracy.
+
* Raid Starships:
 +
** Multiplier against command-grade hull type (primarily command stations) from 4 => 1.  This should help make them less insta-homeworld-death against the human, but still quick-homeworld-death.
 +
** Multiplier against ultra-heavy hull type from 2 => 4.
 +
** No longer immune to snipers.
  
−
* A completely new way of drawing the savegames on the save and load pages is now in place.  This new method is a lot easier to read, and is by-column instead of by-row.  It also manages to show the last-modified date of each file in a very compact and attractive format, and allows quickly sorting by date with the press of a single button.  The save and load have never looked so good.
+
* Snipers, Sniper Turrets, and Sniper Guardians all now have 100,000 armor piercing.
  
−
* Starship Constructors now have their own icon in far zoom, which a lot of people have been asking for for a while.
+
* Sniper base damage was way out of line (MkII did 900 damage every 9 seconds with a 0.2 ship cap multiplier, Sniper Turret did 3600 damage every 6 seconds with a 1.2 ship cap multiplier, a ratio of 1:36), so base damage from 450*mk => 8100*mk. making the mkIV Sniper have a roughly equivalent dps-for-cap as the sniper turret, and the mkI sniper have roughly 1/4 of that, etc.
  
−
* Recharge bars no longer show for ships that have fewer than 2 seconds total recharge, even if the recharge bars are turned on.
+
* Sniper Turrets now get a 5x vs Close-Combat hulls (Snipers already had this).
  
−
* Ships no longer blink in far zoom when they are shot.  The health bars are so efficient to draw now (and are now on by default) that this was no longer needed.  And the blinking seems not to have been working for a while, anyway.
+
* The armor rating on metal and crystal harvesters has been reduced 10x.
  
−
* "Niche icons" have replaced all the older "niche text" instances on ship icons in far zoom.
+
* Home Cores are now immune to blade attacks.
  
−
* Force fields have been updated with a new visual look that is very transparent except at the edges, which solves the issue of them stacking and looking opaque, as well as just plain looking better.
+
* Data Centers were previously seeded on the core planets (those next to the AI home planets) in great abundance.  Often it would be five or six of them, a huge treasure trove and between the two AI planets constituting often nearly half of the total data centers in the galaxy.  On higher-linked AI home planets, the effect of this could be multiplicative, making them even more crazily overpowered. These have now been removed, but the seeding of other data centers throughout the galaxy has been unchanged.
−
** A huge thanks to I-KP for providing the base image that was used for this.
+
** This obviously makes for way fewer data centers in general (on average perhaps 1/3 the prior numbers), and it also  means there tends to be a max of usually 1 per planet, rather than huge clusters of them.
 +
** This will also strip out the extra data centers on the core planets from existing saves.
  
−
* The effect that goes around individual ships under a force field now matches that of the force field itself, which looks incredibly better and also is tons more clear. No more mysterious green circles to denote this!
+
* The [http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI War:Why_Do_Enemy_Waves_Get_So_Large%3F#Step_7: AI Wave level modifiers] from tech levels have been adjusted to the following:
 +
{| {{table}}
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Mark Level'''
 +
| align="center" style="background:#f0f0f0;"|'''Multiplier'''
 +
|-
 +
| 1||1.5
 +
|-
 +
| 2||0.9
 +
|-
 +
| 3||0.7
 +
|-
 +
| 4||0.6
 +
|-
 +
| 5||0.5
 +
|-
 +
|
 +
|}
  
−
* The visual look for non-attack ranges such as counter-shooting radii, etc, has been updated to look better.
+
* New hybrids will no longer mature into builder classes, since they were responsible with numerous crimes against humanity including "the ai is still building turrets", "good grief that's a lot of forcefields", and "why won't my fleet autotarget those 200 neinzul clusters".
 +
** Builders will be back when we have appropriate things for them to build in moderation.
  
−
* Added "Reduce Visual Stimulation" toggle to the Graphics tab of the Settings window.  Not intended for general use as it really cuts down the graphical quality by disabling many of the animations, but helps some players who are sensitive to strobing effects, etc.  No guarantees that it disables everything it should; if you use this feature and find something that it should be disabling, please let us know.
+
* Engineers mark I-III now take 4x as much damage when on enemy planets.  This makes them still just as useful while on beachheads or in other protected circumstances where they are under forcefields or whatever and thus not taking fire while in enemy territory.  But it makes them vastly less effective in actual combat situations, so that they don't work well mixed in with your main fleet WHILE it is attacking.  However, on defense and on player planets they are just as effective as ever, which is also important.
  
−
* The expansion logos are now drawn on the main menu in addition to the main game logo if the expansions are installed and enabled (full or trial mode).
+
* The multi-repair-range of superfortresses has been doubled, although it's still much smaller than that of the other fortresses.  That's simply not its primary function.
  
−
* The explosions and shots now render under the far zoom icons in far zoom, making it easier to see what's going on clearly in that strategic view.
+
* SuperFortresses, Fortresses, and Mobile Repair Stations now have to remain stationary to do their multi-repairs.  After moving, they must recharge for 60 seconds before they can start doing repairs again: it's best to find a good position for them and leave them there until you're ready to deploy them in a new locale.  In the case of fortresses/superfortresses, this doesn't affect their ability to attack while stationary or moving.
 +
** The intent here is to keep mobile repair stations from being used as mobile heal-instantly fleet-life extenders.
  
−
* Shots and explosions now won't shrink beyond a certain size in far zoom, which makes the battles a lot easier to see from very far zoomed out.
+
* Further Parasite/Leech rebalance:
 +
** The Parasites now have a further 10x added to their attack power, but now always have an 8-second recharge time rather than one that diminishes with their mark level.  Their bonus against medium hulls has thus been cut from 6 to 3.
 +
** The MicroParasite attack recharge has been put back to 2s instead of 8, and now has an attack power of 8000 instead of 800.  Their health has also been doubled.
 +
** The Leech Starship has had their attack buffed a further 40x, giving them a pretty sizble DPS.  Their number of shots has been further reduced from 4x to 1x, helping to make them a lot more likely to convert enemy ships.
 +
** The overall goal is to make Parasites rather slow-firing so that they are not converting everything in sight, but with a high enough DPS that they have a reasonable chance of success in mixed fleets, or with allies, or on their own (in order from least to most successful, there).  These changes are a start, at least, and we'll see how these feel.
  
−
== New Ships ==
+
* Attrition emitters now have teeth: they now do 400 damage per second, rather than 20.
  
−
* Added a new "Home Human Settlement" unit that is only found on the starting human home planets.
+
* Now when an Advanced Research Station is captured, it unlocks not only a new bonus ship type, but also the mark II technology of that ship type.
−
** One of the last free civilian cities, filled with living humans.  They aid your cause by producing a moderate amount of metal and crystal, but the AI Progress will go up by 5 if the city is destroyed.
+
** This helps to allow players to experiment with more bonus ship types without fear, since normally if you are getting a mark I bonus ship type late in the game, that's not very useful and it's hard to tell if the higher-mark ships would be useful.  Those extra ships wind up just being put on guard duty.  This way, players also get mark II ships that are a lot more useful later in the game, and they can make a better decision about whether or not they want mark III/IV variants.
 +
** Of course, it also sweetens the deal for capturing Advanced Research Stations.
  
−
* Added a new "Human Cryogenic Pod" unit that is only found on the starting human home planets.
+
* The knowledge cost of mark III fleet ships has been raised from 5000 to 6000.  This is partly to counterbalance the change above, but also to better account for the fact that you get mark III AND IV ships out of the deal of just unlocking III (assuming you have and hold an advanced factory).
−
** Due to overcrowding in the last human cities, a good portion of the remaining human population has to remain in cryogenic sleep.  After the war is over they can be brought back to life, but for the meantime they contribute to the war effort through the excess solar energy produced as a byproduct of their freeze chambers.
 
−
** The AI Progress goes up by 1 if these are destroyed.
 
  
−
*Added Flak Turrets: mkI, mkII, and mkIII.  Graphics donated by HitmanN (with preliminary work and idea by superking, many thanks to both). The Flak Turrets have only received preliminary balancing, intended to be good against zenith viral shredders, cutlasses, and vampires, and mediocre against other very light ships, and only minorly effective against anything much bigger)
+
* All mkI fleet ships (triangle and bonus types) cost 1/2 as much energy as they used to, to ease the early game energy economy somewhat and to make them more attractive for garrison/support roles later in the game.
  
−
* Two new units have been added: Fortress, and Fortress Mark II, which are scaled down (and cheaper) versions of the Fortress Mark III.
+
* Bulletproof fighter tweaks
 +
** Base range changed to fighter's base range +2000.
 +
** Attack power * 1.1.
 +
** Health changed from fighter's health * 1.1 => 1.75.
 +
** Armor Rating changed from fighter's armor * 0.8 => 1.5 (the 0.8 was from when they were called shields).
  
−
* There are now three separate levels of basic AI command stations, same as the basic human command stations have three levels.
+
* Tachyon Microfighter rebalanced in a similar fashion as the Bulletproof Fighter to basically be a fighter, but with the following modifiers:
−
** The AI command station variants have 5X more health than their human counterparts, and no longer have the human-specific abilities such as resource/energy production, warp detection, build menus, etc.
+
** Obviously, the tachyon range, and the mine immunity that they've always had.
−
** The AI command stations are now the only ones that cause AI Progress to increase. That was previously already the case (the AI Progress went up only when a command station controlled by the AI was destroyed), but now that these are two separate units the tooltips are substantially briefer and clearer.
+
** Half metal cost.
−
** Existing savegames and new games now use only AI command station variants for the AIs, as follows:
+
** Double crystal cost.
−
*** On the AI home planets, they use AI Core Command Stations (same as always).
+
** Reload time from 4 seconds to 3.
−
*** On Mark I and II planets, they use AI Command Stations Mark I.
+
** Base range +1000.
−
*** On Mark III planets, they use AI Command Stations Mark II.
+
** Attack power * 0.75.
−
*** On Mark IV planets, they use AI Command Stations Mark III.
+
** Armor piercing * 0.75.
 +
** Armor rating * 0.75.
 +
** Health * 0.75.
 +
** Ship cap multiplier from 1 => 1.5.
  
−
* Previously, there were only 4 types of command stations that could be built by players. Now there are 10, providing vastly more functionality and branches for varying strategies.
+
* Autocannon Minipod rebalance:
−
** The previously-existing warp jammer command stations have not been touched.
+
** Base Move Speed from 84/85/86/88 to 84 across the board.
−
** The prior Mark I-III command stations have been renamed to Economic command stations, but their functionality is unchanged.
+
** Given 3*mk armor damage per shot, to help counteract their very low power-per-shot and total lack of armor piercing when used in larger groups.
−
** There are now Mark I-III Military command stations.
+
** Base Attack Power from 4/8/16/32 to 160*mk.
−
*** Military Command Stations provide very little in the way of economic gain, but have much more health and the ability to shoot at enemy ships.
+
** Base Health from 3300/5900/8900/14100 to 6000*mk.
−
** There are now Mark I-III Logistical command stations.
+
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 45 => 3.
−
*** Logistical Command Stations provide very little in the way of economic gain, and can't shoot at enemy ships, but they vastly increase the speed of all allied ships in the current system.  They also have middling armor and a smallish force field.
+
** Bonus vs Structural from 45 => 3.
−
** Mark I of the Military, Economic, and Logistical command stations are all available at any time, and have no ship cap.  Marks II and III have to be individually unlocked per branch, and each branch has a ship cap of 6 per mark II/III command station.
+
** Bonus vs Turret from 35 => 3.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 28 => 3.
 +
** The goal here is a cloaked ship that does pretty good "ambush" dps against lightly armored stuff but has a "spin up" time versus more heavily armored targets.  In general they may need more than this to get up to the desired level of usefulness, but this should help bring them out of the bottom-of-the-bin.
  
−
* The old lightning warheads are now lightning warheads mark II.  New lightning warheads mark I and III have been added.  The lightning warhead mark I does much less damage but in a larger area, and for one less AI Progress point.  The lightning warhead mark III does much more damage but in a much smaller area, and for only one more AI Progress point.
+
* One-way doormasters now seed with 3x as many data centers as normal, to make up for the AI Progress cost of all those black hole machines (30 each).  It's still a harder AI than normal, but now not so egregiously so.
  
−
* EMP warheads mark II and III have been added.  For extra AI Progress points, they will paralyze enemy ships for longer intervals.  The higher-mark EMPs are more AI-Progress-cost-effective than using multiple of the existing mark I EMPs.
+
* Zenith viral Shredders are now immune to reclamation, as they unintentionally could multiply from 1 captured by a player to hundreds or thousands.
  
−
* In Zenith-Remnant-Enabled games, there are now Mercenary Beam Frigates.
+
* The parasite line of ships has had their stats rebalanced in general, and linearized.  They now have a lower attack speed, but massively higher attack values (which they now need).
  
−
* There are new Mercenary Parasites and Mercenary EtherJets which allow for new strategic options in any game, but with the usual overly-high costs of mercenary ships.
+
* Leech Starships now cost 2x as much energy to run, and their stats have been linearized also.  They also now have 10x fewer shots, and do 10x more damage than before.
  
−
* Previously, there was only a mark I scout starship.  Now new unlockable mark II, III, and IV scout starships have been added.  Each has progressively better tachyon beams, health, and movement speed, as well as higher costs and progressively lower ship caps.  The mark IV scout starships also are perma-cloaked like the regular mark IV scouts.  The difference is that these scout starships can be unlocked at any time, unlike the regular scouts.  But on the other hand, to unlock all the way through tech IV with regular scouts only requires 3,000 knowledge (and you get a single mark IV scout).  In the case of the scout starships it requires 9,000 (and you get two mark IV scout starships).
+
* All mark V ships are now immune to reclamation (this was always the intent, but a few slipped through before).
−
** These are in no way intended to replace the main scout line, but they do provide a new similar-but-different-in-the-specifics alternative for some circumstances (for one example among many: if there are no advanced factories remaining on the map, and you REALLY need a perma-cloaked scout).  Unlike regular scouts, these are also useful for combat support because of their counter-sniper flares, tachyon beams, etc.
 
  
−
* Previously, there were only mark I and II ion cannons.  Now, mark III, IV, and V ion cannons have also been added.  These new ion cannons can be purchased by humans from the trader for an exorbitant fee, and can be captured from the AI but apply significant wave multipliers against that planet.  Like their lower-level cousins, they insta-kill all non-insta-kill-immune ships with a mark level equal to or lower than their own mark level.  In the case of the mark V ion cannons, this basically means that the best way to take them out is starships.
+
* Ships with the reclamation ability are now only able to reclaim ships that are, at most, one mark level above their current level.  So mark I ships can reclaim mark II ships, and so on.
−
** These will be seeded into existing savegames, but the seed rules in general are as follows:
 
−
*** Mark III ion cannons are only ever seeded for AI players of difficulty 6 or higher, and at most with 1 per planet.
 
−
*** Mark IV ion cannons are only ever seeded for AI players of difficulty 7 or higher, and at most with 1 per planet.
 
−
*** Mark V ion cannons are only ever seeded for AI players of difficulty 8 or higher, and at most with 1 per planet.
 
−
*** Even though there can only be one ion cannon of each mark level per planet, you could indeed see situations where you have a mark III and a mark IV ion cannon both on the same planet.  The likelihood of each mark level of ion cannon appearing is diminishing as the mark level increases.  However, the likelihood of each is increased as the difficulty of the AI player is increased.
 
  
−
* Mark II and III metal and crystal harvesters have been added as four new unlockable technologies.
+
* When reclamators damage an enemy ship, it will only be reclaimed if at least 50% of the damage to that ship was done by the parasites of the current player.
−
** The mark II technologies cost 2000 knowledge each, and the mark III technologies cost 2500 each.  Combined, therefore, they equal the cost of unlocking mark II and mark III economic command stations, respectively.  However, these can be unlocked piecemeal, or in addition to the economic command stations, which adds a lot of flexibility.
 
−
** The gather rate of the mark I harvesters is 12 (same as before), and the new mark II gather rate is 13, and new mark III gather rate is 14.  That might not sound like a big improvement, but when you have a lot of harvesters throughout the galaxy that can add up to a serious degree.  When you don't have many harvesters, however, that's not all that worthwhile.
 
−
** There is, however, a second benefit to these new harvesters: they cost the same to build as the regular harvesters, but they build significantly faster (2x as fast at mark II, 4x as fast at mark III).  On highly-contested planets where harvesters are frequently getting killed, this makes these an attractive alternative to harvester exo-force-fields.
 
−
** Command stations will automatically build the highest tier of harvester available, which is always desirable since the higher tiers of harvester don't cost any more than the lower-tier ones (aside from the knowledge cost to unlock them in the first place).
 
−
*** However, please note that the existing harvesters will NOT automatically be upgraded, as the destruction and reconstruction of them could tank your economy at a bad time.  To upgrade all your harvesters, simply go to each planet, click the select all the harvesters from the planetary summary, and delete the old ones.  New, higher-mark ones will appear in their place.
 
−
** Please keep on the lookout for any odd behavior related to the new harvesters, as these were rather intensive to add to the game in a code sense.  The chance of subtle bugs with these is pretty high, because a lot of various ships interact with them in a lot of various ways.
 
  
−
* Transport Ships Mark II have been added:
+
* Zenith Chameleon rebalance:
−
** These cost far more energy to operate, but they slowly heal all ships contained within themselves; Neinzul Younglings are healed faster.
+
** Move Speed from 28/25/22/18/28 to simply 28 across the board.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 400/1800/2800/4000/8000 to 4000*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 2600/3600/4000/4000 to 4000 across the board.
 +
** Health from 10,000/18,000/30,000/28,000 to 13,000*mk.
 +
** Armor from 500/1000/1500/2000/2500 to 150*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 18 => 3.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 10 => 3.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 1 => 3.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs CommandGrade from 5 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 4 => 1.
 +
** The goal here is a moderately durable, moderately cheap ship providing solid dps (particularly vs big stuff) plus it's little bonus of the stationary-camo.
  
−
* New Mark II and Mark III Tachyon Warheads have been added in addition to the existing Mark I Tachyons.  The new higher marks cost more AI Progress (and more metal and crystal), but have far more health (better for deep strikes), do more localized damage, and cause enemy ships to be decloaked for much longer.
+
* Raid Starships now have radar dampening of 8000, helping to protect them from the likes of artillery guardians.
  
−
* New Mark I and Mark II Armored Warheads have been added in addition to the existing one, which was renamed to Mark III.  The new lower marks have the same level or armoredness, but cost a lot less to build, cost only 10 or 15 AI Progress to use respectively instead of 20, but do less damage to a smaller area.  When you can't get lightning warheads to a target that you're unable to kill any other way, these guys are the way to go, but they're definitely very costly and not to be used casually.  The new lower marks at least provide some more flexibility when going after smaller groups of ships, or lower-health ships.
+
* Mark I-III Scout Starships now have radar dampening like the mark I-III regular scouts do.
  
−
* Nuclear warhead mark II has been added (costs 750k metal and crystal):
+
* Cursed Golems are now immune to both snipers and gravity effects.
−
** Causes a multi-planet nuclear explosion when destroyed by enemy forces or by scrapping.  Destroys all resources and most ships on the planet on which it is set off and all adjacent planets.  Does not affect core ships or starships.  Also causes supply to be permanently lost for all teams at that planet, meaning you then cannot use science labs, docks, etc.
 
−
** Be VERY careful not to detonate it on OR adjacent to a planet belonging to your team!  AI Progress jumps upward by 500 every time a nuclear warhead is detonated, so this is something to be done with extreme care.
 
  
−
* Nuclear warhead mark III (doomsday device) has been added (costs 7.5 million metal and crystal):
+
* Scouts, Scout Starships, Raptors, and Spire Starships are now immune to "gravity effects," which includes the gravity drill, gravity ripper, gravity drains, gravity turret, and similar effects.
−
** When this warhead is destroyed by enemy forces or by scrapping...  the effect is nothing short of a galaxy-wide catastrophe that destroys all resources and most ships on EVERY planet.  It still does not affect core ships or starships, but it causes supply to be lost for all teams on all planets.
 
−
** You can still win the war after using a weapon of this magnitude, but be wary of the terrible cost!  There is not much of a galaxy left to inhabit after an event such as this, and the AI Progress will jump upward by 5000.  This chilling piece of hardware truly belongs amongst the weapons we wish we could disinvent.
 
  
−
* 9 New types of Special AI-Homeworld Guard Posts that have to be destroyed before the home command station itself can be destroyed.
+
* Ion Cannons, Mass Drivers, and Counter Spies now scrap for 0.1% of their cost rather than 10%, to bring the usefulness of melting captured ones down closer to the usefulness of keeping them.
 +
** We won't point any fingers on this one.
  
−
* Five marks each (I-V) of nine new guard posts have been added to the game.  These are specifically NOT for the AI homeworlds, but are now used in place of all of the previously-existing guard posts and stealth guard posts that used to be in the game (special forces guard posts have not been altered.
+
* Decoy Drones and AI Carriers can now be targeted and damaged by siege starships and bomber starships.
−
** These new, specialized guard posts vary in rarity and effect just as do their counterparts on the AI homeworlds, but these have very little overlap in terms of specific function with the homeworld-specific guard posts.  Also, with the exception of the "AI Command Station Shield Guard Post," none of these new guard posts protect the command stations from being destroyed.
 
−
** The primary function of these specialized guard posts is to make the assaults on AI non-homeworld planets more interesting and varied. These first 45 new guard posts should be considered the first steps into this new design paradigm for guard posts, rather than the end-all designs.  In other words, there is lots of room for growth in terms of variety and function with these, same as with the guard posts for the homeworlds.
 
−
** The secondary function of these new guard posts is to raise the difficulty on the non-homeworld planets.  Or, more specifically, to counteract the lowered difficulty that is also contained in this release in the form of the lowered AI per-planet ship caps.  These guard posts now form the centerpieces of more varied sub-battlefields within the larger battlefields of each planetary area.
 
  
−
* Dreadnought I/II/III renamed to Siege Starship I/II/III and given much more distinctive role:
+
* Trying to make parasites not slaughter everything with their newfound dps:
−
** Speed from 12 to 8.
+
** Base Attack power from 40,000*mk => 4,000*mk.
−
** Shields from 1500 to 200.
+
** Ship Cap Multiplier from 1.5 => 0.5.
−
** Base health from 300,000/600,000/900,000 to 1000,00/120,000/140,000.
 
−
** Attack rate from 80/70/60 to 160 for all 3 marks (this means it used to fire once per 4/3.5/3 seconds, and now all fire once per 8 seconds).
 
−
** No longer able to fire on fleet ships (this actually makes its autotargeting behavior much more efficient at its real job).
 
−
** Base attack power from 3200/4800/6400 to 6400/11000/15000.
 
−
** Engine damage per shot from 150/250/350 to 5000/7500/10000.
 
−
** Multiplier against normal forcefields from 1 to 30.
 
−
** Multiplier against starship-based forcefields from 1 to 15.
 
−
** Multiplier against turrets from 1 to 30.
 
−
** Multiplier against heavy defense from 21 to 30 (this includes fortresses, and 1/2 bonus against guard posts and 1/3 against ion cannons).
 
−
** Multiplier against hybrid facilities from 1 to 10.
 
−
** Multiplier against warheads from 0.2 to 1.
 
−
** Removed multipliers against Fighter, Bulletproof-fighter, Microfighter, Zenith Autobombs, Zenith Bombardment, Raider, Teleport Raider, Teleport Battlestation, and Munitions Boosters.
 
−
** Autotargeting now prefers starships (the 30x multiplier against them is still there).
 
−
** Knowledge unlock cost from 2500/4000/6000 to 3000/5000/7000.
 
  
−
* For CoN:
+
* To make them more reasonable as fighter+ types:
−
** Starship Class: Neinzul Enclave Starships Mark I-IV.
+
** Bulletproof fighter hull type from Medium => Light.
−
** Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Youngling Commandos Mark I-V.
+
** Tachyon microfighter hull type from Swarmer => Light.
−
** Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Youngling Tigers Mark I-V.
 
−
** Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Youngling Weasel I-V.
 
−
** Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Youngling Vulture I-V.
 
−
** Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Youngling NanoswarmI-V.
 
−
** Neinzul Regeneration Chamber.
 
−
*** Stationary structure with the capacity to contain 500 Neinzul Youngling ships inside itself.  The player cannot manually load the regeneration chamber, but Neinzul Younglings will automatically seek shelter inside the Regeneration Chamber when their health drops below 30% if they have no other orders. While inside, Neinzul ships are regenerated at the inverse of their normal self-attrition rate, and then are automatically ejected when their health is fully restored.
 
−
** Mercenary Neinzul Enclave Starships (mark I).  That lets you always build Mark I ships anywhere if you're willing to pay 300k metal/crystal for one of these.  Of course, a much cheaper alternative is to spend the knowledge to get some actual regular Enclave Starships from the main Starship Constructor.
 
−
** Neinzul Cluster (I-V versions) AI defensive structure; also added Neinzul Cluster-Bomber AI type (moderate) that starts with a cluster on every one of its planets that isn't right next to a human homeworld.
 
−
** Neinzul Privacy Cluster, a rare form of Cluster that emits tachyon beams and is antagonized by scouts as well as normal military (no other cluster is antagonized by a mere scout).  This type of cluster is seeded on roughly 1 out of every 20 planets of a Neinzul Cluster Bomber AI.
 
−
** Neinzul Nest (I-V) structures, which are like clusters except that they are also angered by the humans controlling their planet or an adjacent planet, or killing AI units on their planet or an adjacent planet.  They also have a greater capacity than normal clusters.  They also differ from clusters in that they have no attack of their own but can take vastly more damage and cost 10 AIP if destroyed instead of 2.
 
−
** Neinzul Viral Swarmer (only one mark) and Neinzul Viral Cluster I-V (which is a cluster that only has the swarmers), and Neinzul Viral Enthusiast (which has viral clusters on every wormhole).
 
−
** Neinzul Bomber (only one mark) and Neinzul Bomber Cluster I-V (which is a cluster that only has the bombers), and extended the Neinzul Cluster-Bomber to pick Bomber Clusters half the time and normal Clusters half the time during initial map generation.
 
−
** Neinzul Silo (I-V) structures.  When a Silo's planet is on alert, it periodically generates minor-faction-controlled warheads that will target human planets and cost no AIP when used (since the human is not using them).
 
  
−
* 50 new types of Guardians have been added to the game (5 each of 10 different overall types): Sniper, Spider, Tractor, Tachyon, Lightning, Flak, Artillery, Heavy Beamm, Laser and Raider. As with the guard posts, the variety of types of guardians will grow with time.
+
* Bomber:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 28/25/22/18/30 => a flat 28 (same as a fighter).
 +
** Base Attack Power from 600/2700/4200/9000/15000 => 1500*mk.
 +
** Base Range from 1000/1300/3000/3400/3000 => 800 + (200*mk).
 +
** Attack Reload Time from 12/12/12/12/8 => a flat 12.
 +
** Base Health from 8,000/20,000/36,000/60,000/65,000 => 9,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 500/1500/3500/3500/5500 => 200 + (300*mk).
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 10 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs CommandGrade from 10 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 10 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery 7 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 3 (Yes, increased).
 +
** Note that Space Tank stats are based off Bomber stats with several multipliers and changes.
  
−
* A new AI Eye unit is now seeded throughout the galaxy. Raider-type aggressive AIs use fewer of these, turtle-type AIs have one on pretty much every planet.
+
* Space Tank:
−
** AI Eyes are a direct feed back to the AI core network: when player ships gang up on the AI overwhelmingly, alarms are tripped and higher-level AI ships come pouring out of the Eye. Either kill the eye first, before bringing in your gigantic fleet, or just do guerrilla-style raids on planets with an Eye. Specifically, the AI Eyes make sure that your ships only ever outnumber the AI ships 2:1.
+
** Move Speed from 0.5 * Bomber's => a flat 12 (same as a missile frigate).
 +
** Metal Cost from 1.2 * Bomber's => 2.2 * Bomber's (note that it has no crystal cost).
 +
** Same bonus changes as the Bomber, except Tanks have a bonus against Polycrystal instead of CommandGrade (and it went from 10 => 6).
  
−
* A new AI Carrier unit has been added to the game:
+
* Sentinel Frigate:
−
** Built by the AI to contain offline overflow units from its planets when it has too many units to keep online, and to then deliver those units as a payload to key human planets. Each carrier contains 200-1200 ships that will come active when the carrier is destroyed.  After a single barracks is built at a planet, the AI builds carriers instead.
+
** Base Health from 120,000/160,000/220,000/280,000/330,000 => 90,000*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 2,000*mk => 20,000*mk (note, this unit has no bonuses).
  
−
== Ship Logic Updates ==
+
* Acid Sprayer:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 40*mk => 450*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs. Composite from 50 => 9.
 +
** Bonus vs. Neutron from 50 => 9.
 +
** Bonus vs. Polycrystal from 38 => 7.
 +
** Bonus vs. Refractive from 38 => 7.
 +
** Base Health from 11,600/15,600/19,600/23,600/31,600 => 12,000*mk.
  
−
* Previously there was just a single "engineering rate" for ships that could assist construction or do repairs.  Now there are separate repair rates and construction rates for engineers.
+
* Sniper:
−
** This lets them do construction at the same rate as always, while doing repairs much faster than in the past, which in turn makes them more viable once again as an alternative to Mobile Repair Stations.
+
** Base Health from 6000/8000/10000/12000 => 30,000*mk.
−
** This also makes a clearer delineation on not allowing Mobile Repair Stations to assist the construction of units.
 
  
−
* Snipers and sniper/spider turrets now use a new Railgun ammo type that strikes its target instantly, leaving a faint white line flashing in its wake as it does so. This fixes the issues with overkill and wasting incoming sniper shots, as well as simultaneously making it easier to see where sniper shots are originating from.
+
* Raptor:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 300/550/800/1050/1800 => 1200*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 1600/2600/3800/6200/9800 => 3500*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 500*mk.
 +
** Bonus against Light from 8 => 3.
 +
** Bonus against UltraLight from 4 => 1.5.
 +
** Bonus against Swarmer from 2 => 1.
 +
** Bonus against Refractive from 1 => 2.
  
−
* EMP Warheads and Tachyon Warheads all now do a small, localized amount of area damage when they explode, in the manner of a lightning warhead but with a much smaller area of effect and level of damage. This gives an added bonus to the use of these warheads, just to sweeten the deal a bit.
+
* Infiltrator:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 120*mk => 270*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 1440/1680/2480/3280 => 2000*mk.
 +
** Bonus against Turret from 10 => 1.
 +
** Bonus against Heavy from 2 => 4.
 +
** Bonus against UltrayHeavy from 4 => 6.
 +
** Bonus against Scout from 2 => 1.
  
−
* "Mines" have now become "minefields."  The following changes now apply to all mines, including regular, EMP, and Area mines.
+
* Eye Bot:
−
** The max health of mines is now 8x higher, as is their regen rate.
+
** Base Attack Power from 2000*mk => 1800*mk.
−
** The metal and crystal costs of mines are now 6x higher.
+
** Base Health from 360/420/620/820 => 1000*mk.
−
** The ship caps on mines are now 4x lower.
+
** Bonus vs Heavy from 4 => 6.
−
** Minefields are now 16x larger than the older mines used to be (256x256 instead of 64x64).
+
** Bonus vs Structural from 20 => 10.
−
** The damage dealt by an individual minefield is now 3x what it was before, and is now shown in the tooltip.
+
** Bonus vs Turret from 20 => 5.
−
** Minefields now take 3x longer to build.
+
** Bonus vs Scout from 2 => 1.
−
* These changes will affect existing savegames, but human players may still have a large number of mines in play that will suddenly look all overlapped and be way above the ship cap for the player.  Once these mines are exploded, they won't rebuild if the player would be over ship cap.  It's a bit of an advantage to mine-loving players who upgrade older savegames; the mines can simply be scrapped to counteract this.
 
  
−
* Individual ships are now only able to hit any minefield once per second. So, for example, if Ship A hits minefield 1, and if it survives that hit, it then has 1 second of immunity to pass by minefields 1, 2, 3, etc. If it moves so slowly that it is still touching minefield 1 after a second has passed (and minefield 1 and Ship A are both still alive), then Ship A will hit minefield 1 again. This would also happen if a ship was tractored or paralyzed on top of a minefield -- it would keep getting hit once per second until either the minefield or the ship was exhausted.
+
* Space Plane:
−
** This is PER SHIP only. So if Ship A hits minefield 1 and gains immunity, that doesn't matter for Ships B or C, which could also hit minefield 1 on that exact same instant.
+
** Base Move Speed from 44/45/46/48/50 => flat 44.
−
** This also does not apply to area effects.  So if Ship A hits minefield 1, and minefield one does area damage or paralysis to Ships B, C, and D, then B, C, and D still can hit minefield 1 or other minefields.  In fact, Ship B could collide with minefield one, damaging itself and doing area damage to Ships A, C, and D.
+
** Base Attack Power from 500/1500/3500/5500/10000 => 600*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 2000/3000/3500/4000/4000 => 2000 + (500*mk).
 +
** Base Health from 600/900/1400/2000/2000 => 1500*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 10 => 5.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 4.
  
−
* Mines are no longer all-or-nothing damage, now that they are minefields. If their damage would overkill the ship that hits them, they now only deal the actual damage that would kill the triggering ship. This in turn reduces the amount of damage taken by the minefield itself, and if there is an area damage effect, it also reduces how much area damage is taken by the other nearby enemy ships.
+
* Stealth Battleship:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 8800*mk => 4500*mk.
 +
** Shots-Per-Salvo from 8/10/12/14/16 => flat 8.
 +
** Energy use from 100 => 800
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 0.5 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 1 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 1 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 1 => 2.
  
−
* Previously, there was a constant rate of engine repair, which meant that ships with high engine health would take a REALLY long time to have their engines repaired. Now the rate of engine repair scales up so that ships with high engine health don't take extra time any longer. The base rate of engine repair has been halved, though.
+
* Laser Gatling:
−
** Additionally, the repair speed bonuses of higher-level engineers now also apply to engine repair, whereas before they did not.
+
** Base Move Speed from 24/25/26/27/28 => flat 24.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 180*mk => 150*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 500*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 1300/1900/2900/3700/3600 => 1750*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 120/220/320/320/460 => 120*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs PolyCrystal from 15 => 3.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 15 => 3.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 5 => 3.
  
−
* The recharge rate of ships is no longer affected by fast & dangerous or blitz combat styles.
+
* Anti-Armor:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1200/2000/3200/6000 => 900*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 10000/14000/18000/22000 => 10000*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 1600/3600/5600/7600 => 2000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 100/150/200/250 = 100*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 14 => 5.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 10 => 5.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 6 => 5.
  
−
* The way that ships that have a failed shot that disappears (because of a dead target/overkill) get a "freebie" has been updated so that they always do, rather than only if their shot was fired in the last second.
+
* Fighter and Tachyon Microfighter base attack power from 1500 => 1300*mk (Bulletproof Fighter staying roughly the same).
  
−
* The paralysis penalty for after teleporting ships move is now a bit more severe, but is capped at 5 seconds. People had complained a bit about the balance with them, and this was something I'd been meaning to do for a while.
+
* Zenith Bombardment:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 8,000*mk => 45,000*mk (note, this unit has no bonuses).
 +
** Base Health from 10,000*mk => 20,000*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 0.5 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Close Combat from 0.5 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 0.25 => 1.
  
−
* The internal mechanics of cloaking, recharge, tachyon, emps, and paralysis have all been altered significantly in a way that is now performance-profile-indepdendent, as well as requiring less processing overhead in general.
+
* Zenith Electric Bomber:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 8,000/27,000/56,000/80,000/120,000 to 32,000*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 30,000*mk => 60,000*mk.
 +
** Armor rating from 1500/2500/4500/4500/4500 to (1000 + 200*mk).
  
−
* An entirely new method of doing ship repairs is now in place.  The old method was uneven, and would often result in too-high costs for some ships and too-low costs for others.  Now the cost of repairing ships is simply 1/4th the metal and crystal it costs to build them, over a span of a half as long as it took to build them in the first place.
+
* Both the Gravity Driller and One Way Doormaster types now have 2x as many data centers as normal (in the prior release, one way doormasters had 3x the norm, but that was a miscalculation on my part).
−
** Note that this is prorated by how much the ship is actually damaged. Assuming that a ship was damaged down to basically zero hitpoints (not possible without it exploding), the above costs would be true.  Assuming that a ship is less than fully damaged, it will cost only the percent time/damage to repair equivalent to that.  So, a ship that is half-dead would take only 1/8th the metal and crystal that it would have taken to build it, and one quarter the time it would have taken to build it.
 
  
−
* An entirely new method of doing ship construction costs is now in place behind the scenes.  The actual effect on gameplay is hopefully going to be minimal (unless we introduced bugs with it), but it's a lot more efficient and is performance-profile agnostic, and fixes a number of prior bugs.
+
* The Starfields have been adjusted to no longer try and draw if they failed to initialize, thus preventing flooding of a ton of issues into a single log file.
  
−
* Regeneration, attrition, and self-attrition are now dealt out in per-second bursts, rather than as a continual stream.
+
* Sniper Turrets:
 +
** Base Health from 24,000 => 100,000.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 6.
 +
** This is to compensate for the Raid Starship getting the 8000 radar dampener range, because now you'll need to plant snipers close to where you expect to face the Raid starships.  Doing so should maintain the sniper turret's use as a counter to the raid starship, however.
  
−
* Though the overall ship caps have been reduced by about half in the normal cases, the ability for players to get lots of higher-level ships has never been better (and the challenge posed by higher-level AI waves has also never been higher):
+
* Spider Turrets now have the same attack power, bonuses, and health as sniper turrets.
−
** The ship caps on mark III ships (for humans only) are now about 114% of their prior values.
 
−
** The ship caps on mark IV ships (for humans only) are now about 280% of their prior values.
 
−
** The ship caps on mark V ships (for humans only) are now about 330% of their prior values.
 
−
** The size of mark II waves of ships (for AIs only) are now about 112% of their prior values.
 
−
** The size of mark III waves of ships (for AIs only) are now about 133% of their prior values.
 
−
** The size of mark IV waves of ships (for AIs only) are now about 175% of their prior values.
 
−
** The size of mark V waves of ships (for AIs only) are now about 171% of their prior values.
 
  
−
* The base move speed of teleporting ships is no longer 1, but instead is 10.  Thus they aren't quite so painful to use in situations where their teleporting ability gets stripped away (such as with gravity drills).
+
* All major weapons are now immune to camouflaging, EMPs/paralysis, munitions boosting, shield boosting, and gravity effects.  This partially buffs them and partially nerfs them, but underscores their epic nature, at least.
  
−
* Electric shuttles are now a lot more effective about not getting right on top of their targets.
+
* Roaming enclaves now only hold 30% as many ships, but when the game spawns new roaming enclaves it spawns an additional enclave (of the same alignment) for every 75 AIP.
  
−
* Players are now limited to a pair of mark I, II, and III cloaker starships. However, the unlock costs for the mark II and III cloaker starships have been dropped from 3000 and 5000, respectively, to 1000 each.
+
* Sniper:
 +
** Base Health from 30,000*mk => 18,750*mk.
 +
** Armor rating from 800+100*mk => 0.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 8100*mk => 7500*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 8 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 5 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 5 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Medium from 3 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 2 => 6.
 +
** Energy use from 100 => 250 (mkI has half energy cost, as usual).
 +
** Metal cost from 1200 => 1500.
  
−
* Ships are now all constructed twice as fast for players, in all combat styles, game speeds, etc. Now docks actually have some utility without engineers, and it takes fewer engineers to make them really do what one would want in terms of time-to-build.
+
* Eyebot:
 +
** Base Health from 1000*mk => 7200*mk.
 +
** Armor rating from 500 => 0.
 +
** Attack Power from 1800*mk => 2000*mk.
 +
** Metal cost from 60 => 100.
 +
** Crystal cost from 60 => 100.
 +
** Energy cost from 10 => 100.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 6 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 10 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 5 => 3.2.
  
−
* All of the move speeds in the game have been increased by a linear 10. The main effect of this is to make the slowest ships not seems SO slow, but in general it still increases the speed of everything by a slight bit so that it's not too sluggish.
+
* Stealth Battleship:
−
** This does affect Epic/4X, Normal, and Blitz combat styles. For normal this is actually an increase of 20, and for Blitz it's an increase of 40.
+
** Base Health from 250,000*mk => 275,000*mk.
 +
** Energy Use from 800 => 2000.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 4,500*mk => 4,000*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 1.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 2 => 1.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 2 => 1.4.
  
−
* Space tugs have been removed from the game, as they have always been fiddly and problematic, as well as a moderate micromanagement need.
+
* Tachyon Microfighter:
−
** The Mobile Repair Stations now have 5x more health, 2X the repair boost rate, and 2X the move speed. They are definitely now the pinnacle of battlefield repair support, but without the fiddly-ness.
+
** Base Health from 10,440*0.9*mk => 7,000*mk.
 +
** Armor rating from 75 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 975*mk => 700*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3.2 => 2.4.
  
−
* The old "Shields" mechanic (not to be confused with force fields) has been removed.
+
* Bulletproof Fighter:
−
** Previously, this caused ships to have a reduced chance of hitting targets depending on their range. Now shots always have a 100% chance of hitting if the ship is in range (which simplifies the use of range circles greatly, and also reduces the need for ships to close range).
+
** Base Health from 20300*mk => 16000*mk.
−
** This also removes the random element from attacks, which is a positive thing for a strategy game of this style.
+
** Armor rating from 150 => 300*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1625*mk => 1400*mk.
 +
** Metal Cost from 200 => 400.
 +
** Armor piercing from 1000*mk => 750*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3.2 => 2.4.
  
−
* A new Armor Rating reduces the power of all shots by its value, but not below 5% of the incoming shot.
+
* Fighter:
 +
** Armor rating from 100 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1300*mk => 1200*mk.
 +
** Armor piercing from 1000*mk => 750*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3.2 => 2.4.
  
−
* The old "Attack Min Range" that was preventing snipers from firing if a target was too close (and causing them to back up if they could) has been removed.
+
* Autocannon Minipod:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 160*mk => 140*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 6000*mk => 3900*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 3 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 3 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 3 => 3.2.
  
−
* A new "Retreat Range" has been added for mobile snipers (in other words, not sniper turrets) as well as Raptors, sentinel frigates, and zenith bombards. This causes those ships to try to keep a certain distance between themselves and the enemy they are firing at, thus preserving themselves.
+
* Raptor:
 +
** Base Health from 3500*mk => 3600*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1200*mk => 1000*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 3 => 1.8.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 1.5 => 1.8.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 1.8.
  
−
* A new "Hull" field is now shown by the Armor field.  The Hull and Armor fields don't have any impact on one another.
+
* Sentinel Frigate:
−
** The Hull type is one of the following: Scout, Light, Medium, Heavy, Artillery, Neutron, Swarmer, Ulra-Light, Close-Combat, Command-Grade, Refractive, Composite, Turret, Ultra-Heavy, Structural, or Polycrystal.
+
** Base Health from 90,000*mk => 75,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 800 => 300*mk.
  
−
* The old system of ship type bonuses has been removed, replaced by simpler (and fewer) bonuses against hull types, instead. This is a lot easier to keep track of for everything, and while it does represent a simplification that we'd been reluctant to make in the past, the other recent added complexities make this a welcome change.
+
* Anti-Armor:
−
** As a side effect of this, the balance of ALL ships has been altered quite heavily. With all the other recent changes, that was inevitable anyway, so we thought it was a good time to also slip this in, while we were rebalancing anyway.
+
** Base Attack Power from 900*mk => 950*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 100*mk => 150*mk.
 +
** Energy Cost from 100 => 50.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 5 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 5 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 5 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 4 => 2.4.
  
−
* Cluster bonuses and penalties to attacks have been removed. This affects autocannon minipods, fortresses, zenith electric bombers, sentinel frigates, and microparasites. These ships have all be rebalanced significantly to account for the removal of these abilities.
+
* Space Plane:
−
** These abilities were ones that were just not all that fun, and were a bit fiddly, and which didn't add anything much to strategy. Hence their being pruned.
+
** Base Health from 1500*mk => 2100*mk.
 +
** Energy Cost from 150 => 100.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 5 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 4 => 2.4.
  
−
* The behavior of certain "planetary roamer" AI ships, mainly starships but also melee ships and a few others, has been overhauled. The planetary roamer status is now not a permanent condition, and means that the AI can use the starships in a more intelligent offensive-oriented fashion.
+
* Acid Sprayer:
 +
** (fixed bug where it wasn't actually multiplying attack power, health, or armor piercing by mark level)
 +
** Base Health from 11,600*mk => 11,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 500*mk => 450*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 1000 => 450*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 9 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 9 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 7 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 7 => 6.
  
−
* Astro Trains moved from optional-ship-category to AI Plot. This plot is automatically enabled for Train Master AIs (it is no longer possible to start a new game against a Train Master without trains; we may add a "Vanilla" AI Type later on to fill that role).
+
* Zenith Chameleon:
 +
** Base Health from 13,000*mk => 14,500*mk.
 +
** Energy Use from 100 => 50.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 3 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 3 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 2.4.
  
−
* Self-building units with either a metal-cost-per-second over 1100 or a crystal-cost-per-second over 1100 will no longer be auto-assisted during construction (but you can manually order units to assist).
+
* Infiltrator:
 +
** Base Health from 2000*mk => 2900*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 500 => 150*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 200+200*mk => 300*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 6 => 4.
  
−
* Ships being unloaded from a transport now must go through the full reloading process before they can fire. This is not normally a big deal but does make it harder to insta-gib stuff with Sieges unloaded from a transport.
+
* Zenith Electric Bomber:
 +
** (fixed bug where health was not multiplied by mark)
 +
** Base Health from 60,000*mk => 75,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 1000+200*mk => 600*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 32,000*mk => 38,000*mk.
 +
** Energy Cost from 1000 => 500.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 10 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 2 => 3.2.
 +
** Removed 0.5 penalty against CloseCombat.
  
−
== Balance Updates ==
+
* Lazer Gatling:
 +
** (fixed bug where health was not multiplied by mark)
 +
** Base Health from 1,750*mk => 1,400*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 120*mk => 150*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 500*mk => 600*mk.
 +
** Energy Cost from 50 => 20.
 +
** Metal Cost from 150 => 80.
 +
** Crystal Cost from 150 => 80.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3 => 1.8.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 3 => 1.8.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 3 => 1.8.
  
−
* Orbital Command Station upgrades now provide more metal/crystal income, in order to make those upgrades more worthwhile. If you consider that an individual harvester produces 12 of metal or crystal, and if you consider how many harvesters can be built on most planets versus how much knowledge is required to get the command station upgrades, the upgrades were previously of lesser value than they should have been.
+
* Bomber:
−
** Mark II now provides 40 of each instead of 28 of each.
+
** Base Health from 9000*mk => 11,000*mk.
−
** Mark III now provides 64 of each instead of 40 of each.
+
** Armor Rating from 200+300*mk => 600*mk.
−
** For the sake of comparison, the Mark I still produces 16 of each, and the Home command station still produces 80 of each.
+
** Base Attack Power from 1500*mk => 1900*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 6 => 10.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 6 => 10.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 3 => 10.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 4 => 10.
  
−
* Science Lab, Science Lab Mk II,and Advanced Research Station can no longer gather knowledge from AI-held planets.
+
* Space Tank:
 +
** Base Health from 7200*mk => 7300*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 200+300*mk => 750*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1800*mk => 2600*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 6 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 6 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 6 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 3 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 4 => 3.2.
  
−
* Added Stationary Science Lab (Mk III) that can gather knowledge from AI-held planets, but costs nearly 4x as much as a MkII lab and normal construction takes half an hour.
+
* Missile Frigate:
−
** Also, it doubles the reinforcements of the AI at that planet, and enrages all of their ships so that they'll attack the lab. You really need a solid beachhead and a lot of incentive (or to have neutered the planet already) to do a knowledge raid now.
+
** Base Health from 9000*mk => 11,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 150 => 150*mk.
 +
** Attack Reload Time from 10/9/8/7/6 => flat 10.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1000*mk => 1600*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 5 => 10.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 5 => 10.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 5 => 10.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 5 => 10.
  
−
* Science Lab Mk II move speed from 16 to 20, knowledge gather rate from 2 to 3.
+
* Zenith Bombardment:
 +
** Base Health from 20,000*mk => 27,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 150 => 150*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 1 => 2.
 +
** Removed penalties against Artillery, CloseCombat, and Light.
  
−
* The amount of available knowledge per planet has been increased from 2,000 to 3,000 to account for the influx of all the cool new technologies that people are able to play with. This also rebalances the game a bit in light of recent difficulty increases, and further marginalizes the need for knowledge raiding on any sort of regular basis.
+
* Armored:
 +
** Base Health from 40,000/60,000/80,000/100,000/140,000 => 25,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 3,000/3,200/3,400/3,600/4,000 => 750*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 400/1,200/2,000/3,000/6,000 => 800*mk.
 +
** Base Range from 200/500/600/800/900 => 300+100*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 9 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs CommandGrade from 6 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 6 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 6 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 6 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 6 => 4.
  
−
* Transports are now such a core part of the game that they are something to always unlock. Thus that was simply a penalty of 1000 knowledge that always had to be incurred. Transports no longer have to be unlocked.
+
* Raider:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 36/38/40/42/45 => flat 36.
 +
** Base Health from 1600/3200/5200/10000/13600 => 3000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 150/225/300/375/500 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 200/400/600/800/1200 => 200*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 3000/4000/5000/6000/7000 => 10000.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 4000/4000/5000/6000/7000 => 4000+100*mk.
 +
** Metal Cost from 100 => 40.
 +
** Crystal Cost from 300 => 120.
 +
** Energy Cost from 50 => 20.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 8 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 12 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 5 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 4.
  
−
* Mobile Repair Stations are far more powerful than they once were; their knowledge cost has been increased from 2,000 to 4,000. Their metal and crystal costs have also been tripled, to 18,000 and 9,000, respectively. Their health has also been reduced from 390k to 300k. This encourages players to not lose them, and keep them near but not right on top of the front lines, which thus makes them not so overpowered.
+
* MLRS:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 240/600/960/1120 => 800*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 2800/3200/3800/3800 => 2800+200*mk.
 +
** Shots-Per-Salvo from 4/6/8/12 => flat 8.
 +
** Reload Time from 6 => 12.
 +
** Base Health from 16800/24800/30800/36800 => 14,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 600/800/1000/1000 => 600*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 16 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 8 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 4 => 2.
  
−
* The knowledge costs of engineer drones mark II and III have now been reduced by 1,000 each.
+
* Neinzul Nesters, Raid Engines, and Alarmist AI types now have 2x the normal number of data centers seeded to offset their AI-Progress-increasing weapons to some extent.  Special Forces captains now have 1.4x the normal number of data centers because of all their special forces guard posts.
 +
** Note that this will not affect existing savegames, since the data center seeding there is already past.
  
−
* Mobile builders now use 100 energy instead of 1500.  Cleanup Drones now use 25 energy instead of 150, and Remains Rebuilders now use 25 energy instead of 1500.  Engineer drones now use 1000, 500, and 250 energy for marks I-III instead of 4000, 2000, and 1000.  The experimental engineer now uses 4000 energy instead of 12000.
+
* Zenith Electric Bombers and Sentinel Frigates now use AIPerGuardPostShipCap (of 4/2/1 on high/normal/low caps, respectively) to avoid big concentrations on AI planets, and to make it easier to engage them a few at a time when attacking AI planets (since planets with many guard posts may still have a pretty scary number of them but they won't generally all dogpile you).
−
** These changes all make it more effective to keep a larger fleet of the various sorts of engineers around, whereas before there was too much incentive to need to micro them when energy was low.
 
  
−
* The energy cost of the missile silo from 40k to 10k.
+
* Youngling Tiger:
 +
** Base Health from 10,000/15,000/20,000/25,000/30,000 => 11,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 400 => 300*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 2400/3000/3600/4200/5000 => 2800*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 40 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 20  => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 20 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Medium from 8 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 4 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.4.
  
−
* The energy cost of all the starship lines has been doubled, except for the raid and leech starship lines.
+
* Youngling Commando:
 +
** Base Health from 10,000/15,000/20,000/25,000/30,000 => 6,600*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 120/220/320/320/460 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 270/540/810/1080/2250 => 1000*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 15 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 10 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 8 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 8 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 1 => 2.
  
−
* The attack power of the fortress has been halved, but the number of shots it gets has been quadrupled.
+
* Youngling Vulture:
 +
** Base Health from 12,000/16,000/20,000/24,000/28,000 => 15,400*mk
 +
** Armor Rating from 400 => 450*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1/3/6/8/10 => 77*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 100000.
 +
** Attack multiplier (from enemy health) now has a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 90.
 +
** Penalty against UltraHeavy removed.
  
−
* The number of shots that the superfortress gets has been doubled.
+
* Youngling Weasel:
 +
** Base Health from 4000/6000/10000/16000/24000 => 15,400*mk
 +
** Armor Rating from 120/220/320/320/460 => 600*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 900/1200/1500/1800/2500 => 2250*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 20 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 1 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 1 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 1 => 4.
  
−
* The knowledge cost of unlocking the flagship has been reduced from 2000 to 1000.
+
* To compensate for the pretty significant buffing of mkIII younglings (by virtue of the new base values for mkI and the linearization of stats by mk) and thus the minor-faction versions, Roaming Enclave and Preservation Warden "hangar size" has been reduced to half of what it was (300 => 150 for roaming, 500 => 250 for wardens), and the time-to-"build"-one-internal-ship has been doubled.  Similar changes made to Neinzul Clusters and Neinzul Privacy Clusters (not to bomber or viral clusters yet, since the neinzul bomber and neinzul viral swarmer haven't been changed yet).
  
−
* The knowledge cost of unlocking the spire starship has been increased from 4000 to 6000.
+
* Space Tank:
 +
** MkI Metal Cost from 1540 => 1000.
  
−
* The knowledge cost of unlocking the Mark I dreadnought has been increased from 1000 to 1500.
+
* Spire Gravity Drain:
 +
** Base Health from 5000+5000*mk => 7,300*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 46,000*mk => 8,200*mk (it was way, way out there).
 +
** Armor Piercing from 50,000 => 100,000.
 +
** Energy Cost from 100 => 400.
 +
** MkI Crystal Cost from 5000 => 3000.
  
−
* The knowledge cost of unlocking the Riot Control Starships have been increased from 1500, 2250, and 3250 for Marks I-III to 2500, 3500, a 4500.
+
* Spire Gravity Ripper:
 +
** Energy Cost from 100 => 300.
 +
** MkI Metal Cost from 3000 => 1800.
 +
** MkI Crystal Cost from 2000 => 1200.
 +
** Base Health from 15,000+15,000*mk => 30,000*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 4000*mk => 1000*mk.
  
−
* The knowledge costs of Tractor Beam II and III turrets have been increased from 1000 and 2000 respectively to 2000 and 4000.
+
* Spire Teleporting Leech:
 +
** Energy Cost from 100 => 400.
 +
** MkI Metal Cost from 3200 => 2200.
 +
** MkI Crystal Cost from 1200 => 800.
 +
** Base Health from 10000*mk => 8,200*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 750*mk => 150*mk.
 +
** Attack Power from 1600*mk => 440*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 1500 => 750*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 6 => 3.2.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 6 => 3.2.
  
−
* The knowledge costs of Gravitational Turrets III and III have been reduced from 4000 and 6000 to 3000 and 4000.
+
* Teleport Battlestation:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 400/700/1000/1300 => 310*mk.
 +
** Shots-per-salvo from 8/12/16/20 => flat 8.
 +
** Base Health from 2800/3800/4800/5800 => 14,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 600/800/1000/1000 => 450*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 600*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 10 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 10 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 2 => 2.4.
  
−
* The knowledge costs of Laser Turret II and III have been increased from 2000 and 3000 to 2500 and 3500.
+
* Shield Bearer:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 22/23/24/25 => flat 22.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 240/480/840/1220 => 3000*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 150,000*mk => 90,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 200 => 0.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 10 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Medium from 10 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 10 => 2.
  
−
* The knowledge costs of MLRS Turrets II and III have been reduced from 2500 and 3500 to 2000 and 3000.
+
* Teleport Raider:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 100/300/500/700 => 120*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 400/800/1400/2000 => 1500*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 150/225/300/375 => 0.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 30 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 4 => 2.
  
−
* The knowledge cost of the Counter-Missile Turret has been increased from 2250 to 4000. The effective range of counter-missile turrets has been increased from 1400 to 6000.
+
* Deflector Drone:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 26/27/28/29 => flat 26.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 900/1500/2100/2700 => 1400*mk.
 +
** Base Health from 300/500/700/1200 => 1900*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 320/420/520/620 => 300*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 20 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 2 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 2.4.
  
−
* The effective range of Counter-Dark-Matter Turrets has been increased from 1400 to 8000, and the effective range of Counter-Sniper Turrets has been increased from 1400 to 4000.
+
* The Unit Formerly Known As Shield Booster:
 +
** Base Health from 11200/15200/19200/23200 => 37,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 3200/3400/3800/4400 => 750*mk.
 +
** Energy Cost from 200 => 500.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 300/600/1200/2400 => 1000*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 10 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 5 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 5 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 2 => 6.
  
−
* The metal/crystal costs of all the Counter turrets has been quadrupled, and the energy use of them has all been doubled.
+
* Zenith Polarizer:
 +
** Base Health from 11600/15600/19600/23600/28600 => 11,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 500 => 450*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 24/48/72/96/180 => 48*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 10,000 => 100,000.
 +
** The multiply-damage-by-square-root-of-target-armor mechanic now gives a minimum attack multiplier of 4 even against targets with less than 16 armor, and a maximum attack multiplier of 100 even against targets with more than 10,000 armor.
  
−
* The health of Mark II Leech Starships has been increased from 160k to 320k, and the health of Mark III Leech Starships has been increased from 160k to 480k.
+
* Munitions Booster:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 18/19/19/20 => flat 18.
 +
** Base Health from 2800/3800/4800/5800 => 37,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 600/800/1000/1000 => 300*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 300/600/1200/2400 => 1000*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 10 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 10 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 2 => 6.
  
−
* The following munitions boosting range changes have been made:
+
* Parasite:
−
** Light Starship from 900 to 3000.
+
** Base Health from 6600*mk => 7200*mk.
−
** Flagship from 1100 to 4000.
+
** Armor Rating from 400+100*mk => 450*mk.
−
** Zenith Starship from 1200 to 5000.
+
** Bonus vs Medium from 3 => 4.
−
** Spire Starship from 1400 to 6000.
+
** Bonus vs Neutron from 2 => 4.
−
** Core Starship from 1600 to 8000.
 
−
** Mark I Munitions Boosters from 1200 to 5000.
 
−
** Mark II Munitions Boosters from 1400 to 6000.
 
−
** Mark III Munitions Boosters from 1600 to 7000.
 
−
** Mark IV Munitions Boosters from 1800 to 8000.
 
  
−
* The munitions boosters are only able to boost a certain number of ships based on the "circular area" of those ships compared to the range of the munitions booster.  By increasing the ranges so much, that would therefore have made munitions boosters vastly more powerful.
+
* Impulse Reaction Emitter:
−
** Instead, the circular area that is actually allowed has now been divided by 6.
+
** Base Health from 11600/15600/19600/23600/31600 => 11,000*mk.
−
** This actually weakens the lower-end munitions boosters by a bit (in terms of how many ships they can boost), but at the same time their vastly increased range makes it so that (such) precision placement of them is no longer needed for the optimal effect on a fleet, and the highest-tier munitions boosters are actually stronger than they were before.
+
** Base Attack Power from 150/300/450/600/720 => 150*mk.
−
** The overall effect is thus to make these far easier to use effectively, and to create more of a power gradation between the lower-tier ones and the higher-tier ones.
+
** Damage/energy scaling changed from multiplying by sqrt(energy)/10 to multiplying by 1 + (energy/1024), with a maximum multiplier of 30.  Note that partial units of 1024 are counted, so something with an energy use of 200 will take roughly 1.2x damage.
  
−
* The following shield boosting range changes have been made:
+
* Spire Armor Rotter:
−
** Mark I Shield Boosters from 600 to 3000.
+
** Base Health from 11000*mk => 14500*mk.
−
** Mark II Shield Boosters from 800 to 4000.
+
** Base Attack Power from 700*mk = 1200*mk.
−
** Mark III Shield Boosters from 1000 to 5000.
+
** Energy Cost from 100 => 250.
−
** Mark IV Shield Boosters from 1200 to 6000.
+
** (MkI) Metal Cost from 1000 => 800.
 +
** (MkI) Crystal Cost from 2400 => 1900.
  
−
* Previously, armor boosters (previously shield boosters) did not have any limits on how many units they could boost; they were simply limited by their incredibly small boosting ranges. Now they follow a "circular area" limitation that is exactly like that of the munitions boosters.
+
* Spider (MkI-IV):
 +
** Base Health from 3600/4200/6200/8200 => 3600*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 60 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 100/300/450/700 => 1000*mk.
 +
** Engine Damage from 15/30/50/90 => 15*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 8 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 1 => 6.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 1 => 6.
  
−
* Attrition Emitters can no longer be paused, and now only use 10k energy instead of 18k.
+
* Etherjet:
 +
** Base Health from 2400/3600/5400/7800 => 2400*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 100/300/700/1100 => 600*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 1000/1500/1750/2000 => 1000+(250*mk).
 +
** Tractor Range from 400/450/500/600 => 400+(50*mk).
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 20 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 4.
  
−
* The energy use of Zenith Electric Bombers has been reduced from 10k to 1k (except for the Core variant, which is now 2k).
+
* Zenith Mirror:
 +
** Base Health from 10,000/25,000/45,000/75,000/95,000 => 11,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 500/1000/2000/4000/8000 => 600*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 100/200/400/800/1600 => 500*mk.
  
−
* Cloaker Starships also now provide both counter-sniper and counter-dark-matter protection, in addition to their cloaking duties.
+
* Spire Tractor Platform:
 +
** Base Health from 60,000*mk => 300,000*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 200*mk => 3,500*mk.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 21/24/27/30/33 => flat 21.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 3000*mk => 750*mk.
 +
** Removed penalty vs Polycrystal.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 1 => 2.
  
−
* Scouts and Cloaker Starships now have a much-increased cloaking booster range. This does not affect how many other ships these units can boost, however, as there was already a finite cap on that.
+
* Zenith Paralyzer:
 +
** Base Health from 3500*mk => 3600*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 350 => 450*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1/2/4/8/16 => 625*mk (this still gives them a really low dps-at-cap, but it's not completely useless).
 +
** Paralysis seconds per shot from 8/10/12/14/18 => 6+(2*mk).
  
−
* Ships in transports now still cost the normal energy they would cost outside the transport.
+
* Human Resistance ship counter-accumulation-rate now scales somewhat with AIP (not that they have any connection to the AI, but it's a decent index for "how big should this be").
−
** Previously, transports could be used to too great of effect in terms of minimizing energy needs simply by loading ships into them.
 
  
−
* The SuperFortress has been buffed again, and the Fortress line has been tweaked in general.  Fortresses now have very long range, longer than any non-sniper turrets or units, but a bit weaker attack on average than before.
+
* The AI home command station has had it's health increased 20x.  It was previously actually 10x lower than expected, but it could have used a boost even above that in light of all the recent changes to the game.
  
−
* The existing Fortress is now renamed to Fortress Mark III, and has had its stats (and costs) increased somewhat.
+
* Zombified ships are all now immune to reclamation (it doesn't say this in their tooltip, as these are regular ships that have been reclaimed as zombies, and they are only reclamation-immune in their zombified state).
  
−
* The Cursed Golem can no longer drop below 1 health from self-attrition.
+
* Both SuperTerminals and AI Eyes now spawn ships as zombie bots, so that they are extra aggressive as well as being non-reclaimable.  This is a nerf from them being reclamator farms.
  
−
* The health of booster trains and regenerator trains have both now been reduced 10x, to 20 million instead of 200 million.  The regular astro trains still have 200 million health, while turret trains still have only around 10 million health.
+
* All marauders and resistance fighters are now immune to Attrition, being insta-killed, camouflaging, EMPs, gravity effects, shield boosting, munitions boosting, paralysis attacks, nuclear explosions, tractor beams, translocation, and black hole machines.  They all also now include a radar dampening range of 4000.
−
** Turret Trains are now autotargeted by player ships like any other ships would be.
 
−
** The three types of Turret Trains have now had their attack increased by a linear 1000 points.
 
  
−
* Warheads, Fortresses, Golems, Starships, and Mark V ships now all no longer absorb EMPs, but now only are immune to them instead.
+
* The attack power of the resistance fighter/bombers and resistance frigates has gone up 10x, and their bonuses against hull types has gone down 10x.  Their health has also gone up 10x, and they are also both now including warp detection and blind in their abilities list.  Speed up from 18 to 48, also.  Their ships caps have been reduced to 1/3 of what it was before, and their metal/crystal cost has gone up 3x.
  
−
* Golems have been majorly rebalanced, to create a new strategic landscape for them -- they have long been the most underused units in the game.
+
* Marauders have been overhauled:
−
** There is no longer and AI Progress cost associated with golems in any way, from repairing them or otherwise.
+
** Marauder BuzzBombs have had their speed decreased from 82 to 60.  Health increased 100x.  Their armor rating and EMP-absorption have been removed, and they no longer explode themselves to deal area damage. They now fire area-of-effect grenades, instead.  This is much, much scarier and more effective, as their firepower remains the same as before—but is now something they can do over and over again.
−
** Golems now have significantly higher repair costs after being initially repaired to be operational.
+
** Marauder Dagger Frigates have had their speed increased from 20 to 60.  Health increased 100x (it was very low in recent times, unintentionall so).
−
** Golems now require supply, which means that they are useless for long-range raiding.
 
−
*** This encourages a (sort of) new school of strategic thought relating to adjacency to keep the golems relevant on offense.  Certainly no other units emphasize this to the same degree, anyway.
 
−
** Golems now require proximity to AI warp gates in order to function -- they have to be within one hop of an AI warp gate in order to attack, etc.
 
−
*** This prevents players from using golems to play "goalie" on their home plants, which could have created impossible-to-lose scenarios for players.
 
−
*** Thematically speaking, this is related to the golems being reliant on exo-galaxy signals echoing from the ancient Zenith civilization.  These signals are normally not able to be picked up at all, but AI warp gates cause them to be amplified to the point where they are faintly available.
 
−
** The cumulative effect of these changes is that golems are no longer such a strategic risk, and they provide some new excitement on the front lines, but are not useful at deep defense or on long-range raiding.
 
  
−
* Acid Sprayers have been completely rebalanced.
+
* Metal and crystal manufactories now have 5x more health.
−
** They have 10x more base damage, and 10x less bonus against Zenith ships.
 
−
** They now have 50% of Zenith bonuses against starships and resources, 40% of Zenith bonuses against engineers, and 25% of Zenith bonuses against turrets.
 
−
** They now have 10x lower shields.
 
  
−
* The ship cap of sniper turrets has been doubled, and their cost has been halved.
+
* All Warheads (except armored) now have 5x more health.
−
** The cost of spider turrets has also been halved, but the cap of spider turrets is the same.
 
−
** These changes don't affect the AI, but make the sniper turrets more useful for human players.
 
  
−
* The Avenger no longer repairs nearby ships.
+
* The attack power of all the lightning warheads have been increased by 3x due to recent game rebalances.  Additionally, their ranges have been increased by 0/250/250.
  
−
* Sniper attack values have been increased 10x, and their reload speed has also been increased 10x.  This makes them more of a "volley" type of unit, good at dealing a lot of damage right when ships enter their field of view, but then taking quite some time before they can do it again (about 60 seconds of reload in most cases).
+
* Hybrids now cannot rebuild modules if they have been angered (fired upon by human player ships) within the last 30 seconds.
−
** The above applies to both snipers-the-unit and sniper turrets.
 
  
−
* Scouts are now immune to sniper shots.
+
* MLRS Turret:
 +
** Base Health from 58,000/74,000/130,000 => 100,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 600/800/800 => 450*mk.
 +
** Base Range from 7000 => 12000.
 +
** Build time from 70/120/170 => 60*mk.
 +
** The dps of this thing was simply _out there_, even at mkI, so with great regret:
 +
** Shots-per-salvo from 12/24/48 => flat 12.
 +
** Seconds-per-salvo from 4 => 8.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1240/1600/2000 => 700*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 16 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 8 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 1 => 2.4.
  
−
* For a long time, shots have sped up to 10 more than the speed of the target they are chasing if the target they were chasing is faster than them. However, now shots speed up to 40 more than the speed of the target if 40 more than the speed of the target is greater than the speed of the shot. This makes it a bit more possible for slower shots to hit faster targets, hopefully without making it too overpowering of a change.
+
* Flak Turret:
 +
** Ship cap multiplier from 1.2 => 0.5.
 +
** Base Health from 110,000*mk => 250,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 100+100*mk => 750*mk.
 +
** Energy Use from 150 => 300.
 +
** Base Metal Cost from 1150 => 2000.
 +
** Base Crystal Cost from 225 => 400.
 +
** Build time from 70 => 120*mk.
 +
** Base Range from -1000+750*mk => 1000*mk (Translation: the real in-game range is going from 2250/3000/3750 => 4000/5000/6000).
 +
** Seconds-Per-Salvo from 8-mk => 7 flat.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 3000*mk => 6,000*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs CloseCombat from 8 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 8 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 3 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 1 => 2.4.
  
−
* Ion Cannons, Orbital Mass Drivers, Counter-Spies, and Core Warhead Interceptors all now have only 120,000 attack range. This covers pretty much all of a planet anyway, but is no longer so large as to be considered a sniper shot. Thus, ships with immunity to sniper shots are no longer immune to these weapons.
+
* Basic Turret:
 +
** Base Health from 46,000/92,000/400,000 => 75,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 600 => 300*mk.
 +
** Build Time from 60/90/120 => 60*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 1800/3600/7200 => 4000*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Crystal Cost from 0 => 400.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 3 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 1 => 2.4.
  
−
* All of the fabricators now use only 0 energy instead of 10000.
+
* Missile Turret:
 +
** Base Health from 56,000/86,000/130,000 => 50,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 1200 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Range from 27,000/27,000/33,000 => 27,000 flat.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 3600/5600/7600 => 5400*mk.
 +
** Base Metal Cost from 300 => 800.
 +
** Base Crystal Cost from 1200 => 300.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 8 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Medium from 6 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 1 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 1 => 2.4.
  
−
* The ship cap of lightning warheads has been reduced from 8 to 6.
+
* Lazer Turret
 +
** Base Health from 200,000/300,000/400,000 =>150,000*mk.
 +
** Armor Rating from 800 => 300*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 600/2000/3000 => 1500*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 500/1500/3500 => 750*mk.
 +
** Build Time from 130/210/250 => 60*mk.
 +
** Base Metal Cost from 600 => 200.
 +
** Base Crystal Cost from 1800 => 900.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 15 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 8 => 2.4
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 1 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.4.
  
−
* The ship cap of EMP warheads has been reduced from 4 to 2.
+
* Translocator health has been increased 7x.  
  
−
* The Mercenary Space Dock now costs 0 energy to use (this is a mercenary outpost, after all), but the players are now limited to having two of them.
+
* Distribution nodes previously granted players between 20k and 200k of metal and crystal each on being burst.  With all the recent economic changes, that's in no way worth even 1 AIP.  Now they give between 300k and 400k of metal and crystal each on being burst (except the trojan ones, obviously, which take away half that).
  
−
* All tractor-beam generating units are now immune to paralysis.
+
* Hunter/Killers are now immune to both artillery and mass drivers.  As are all mark V guardians.  As are core shield generators.  As are all of the  AI core guard posts, and the AI home command station.
  
−
* Gravitation turrets no longer have any effect if out of supply.
+
* The max health of advanced research stations has been reduced by 1/5th.
  
−
* Regenerator golems now no longer regenerate ships if they are in low-power mode or are out of supply.
+
* All spire bonus ship types, and the zenith electric bombers and sentinel frigates, are all now immune to paralysis attacks.
  
−
* Previously, any ships of radius 256 or higher would not be translocatable.  That only applied to things like golems and superfortresses, really.  Now any ships of radius 120 or higher are not translocatable, so that applies to many starships, all the regular fortresses, etc.
+
* All guardians are now immune to paralysis attacks, as are carriers now.
  
−
* The ship cap on mark I force field generators has been increased from 5 to 9.
+
* A couple of force field rebalancements:
 +
** The health of mark I and player home force fields has gone up from 9 million to 14 million.
 +
** The health of mark II force fields has gone up from 18 million to 30 million.
  
−
* Flagships, zenith starships, and spire starships have all been made more 1000 knowledge more expensive.
+
* Metal and crystal harvesters mark II now each cost 3250 knowledge rather than 3000.
  
−
* Mark II fleet ships now only cost 2,500 knowledge to unlock instead of 3,000 knowledge.
+
* Tachyon beam emitters now cost 250 knowledge to unlock instead of 500.  The stealth tachyon emitters now cost 1500 knowledge instead of 1000 to unlock.
  
−
* Mark III/IV fleet ships now cost 5,000 knowledge to unlock instead of 4,000 knowledge.
+
* The regen rate of exo-shields has now been dropped considerably, to regenerating over 20 minutes instead of a ludicrous 30 seconds.  They also now drop remains, however, so that rebuilders can come along and put them back up.
  
−
* The ships that the Zenith Trader will build for the AI has been updated to give better weighting to the ships based on their level of power, and to include the new, more-powerful ion cannons at a fairly low likelihood.
+
* Rather than having exo-shields cost a simple -2 metal and crystal per second, they simply halve the amount of resources generated by whatever ship it is they are protecting.  They also now cos 750 knowledge to unlock instead of 500.
  
−
* The speed of the energy bombs fired by resistance fighter/bombers, neinzul bombers, and zenith bombards have all been doubled.
+
* EtherJet Tractors now have significantly boosted tractor beam ranges (about 500 less than their attack range), so that their likelihood of actually tractoring any enemies goes way up.  And, so that they do a better job of holding enemies at arms' length (though enemies can hit them anyway, they don't have the same luck with whatever is near the etherjets).  In the past, the range of etherjets was short enough that sometimes it seemed like their tractors weren't even working.
  
−
* The health of light starships, flagships, zenith starships, and spire starships have all now been doubled.
+
* The bonus that guardians have against scouts has been changed from 0 to 0.01, again to prevent scouting from being too easy.
  
−
* The metal and crystal cost of nuclear warheads has been increased from 50k each to 75k each.
+
* All ships with force fields on them are now immune to paralysis attacks (since having the paralysis attacks disable the force fields would make the paralyzers way overpowered).
  
−
* Previously, no ships had any attack bonuses against ion cannons.  Now bombers and similar (anything with bonuses against "heavy defense" structures) has 1/3 their normal "heavy defense" bonus against ion cannons.  This makes especially the higher-level ion cannons not quite so fearsome in the hands of the AI, as well as not so permanent-bottlenecking in the hands of the players.
+
* The Starfleet Commander AI type has been completely reinvented.  Now it gets no extra starships in reinforcements, and its per-planet starship caps are just as normal.  On defense, it's just essentially a lightly-defended AI.  However, on offense it now gets 4x the normal starships with every wave, making it a pretty interesting and dangerous offensive raider-type AI.  It was already offensive-oriented, but now it is much more so.
 +
** This makes this AI type significantly easier, as before it could collect dozens of starships at its planets.
  
−
* The recently-added mark III, IV, and V ion cannons can now be captured by players on planet ownership change.  However, they increase the size of incoming enemy waves to that planet by x4, x6, and x10, respectively.  These are definitely not something to capture on border planets without first killing all the adjacent warp gates!
+
* Lightning and Armored Warheads now scale with the ship caps, so that their damage output is higher on the lower cap scale settings, retaining their value appropriately.
−
** The recently-added mark III, IV, and V ion cannons can also now be purchased from the Zenith Trader, but they are ridiculously expensive in metal and crystal.
 
  
−
* Tachyon Warheads now have a ship cap of 2 per player rather than 4 per player.
+
* The tachyon drone's range has been doubled from 750 to 1500, and the decloaker's range has been increased from 15k to 20k.
  
−
* Riot Starships are now immune to blades, which is thematically fitting for them and also makes them not so incredibly prey to vampires.
+
* The ship cap of fortresses has been moved to 5/4/3 for marks I/II/III.
  
−
* Transports, frigates, scout starships, raid starships, and riot starships are now immune to area damage.  This significantly increases their usefulness in situations against things such as grenade launchers, lightning turrets and lightning warheads, and a few other upcoming nasties.
+
* Armored Warhead attack powers have been increased 40x, making them significantly more awesome and perhaps actually strategically viable for once.
  
−
* Core Warhead Interceptors can now be captured by taking over the planet the interceptor is on (now that warheads could be incoming from the AI, this makes sense, but previously it did not).
+
* Lightning Warhead attack powers have been increased 2x to make them a lot more strategically tempting again, too.
  
−
* Attrition emitters, human cryogenic pods, planetary cloakers, counter spies, omega drives, rebelling human colonies, captive human settlements, home human settlements, AI troop accelerators, advanced research stations, and datacenters are all now immune to Dark Matter weapons. This protects them from astro trains, munitions boosters, and a few other similar things.
+
* To be consistent with the other fortresses, there is now an AI superfortress with 5x more health than the human counterpart.
 +
 +
* Fortresses have been significantly buffed:
 +
** Fortresses mark I-III  now fire flame waves rather than missiles (superfortresses already did).  This lets them now hit ships that are immune to missiles, obviously, but it also increases the movement speed of their shots from 54 to 178: a tremendous boost to their ability to wreak a lot of havoc on ships that are fast and/or distant.
 +
** Fortresses mark I-III now have 5x more health (superfortresses already had way more), making them much more substantial in terms of their own survivability.
 +
*** The AI versions of fortresses now only have 5x the health of their human counterparts, not 10x.
 +
** The attack power of fortresses and superfortresses have all been increased 10x, making them a lot more formidable again.
 +
** Superfortresses are now 2.5x more expensive than they were before.
 +
** Regular fortresses are now 10x more expensive than they were before.
 +
** Fortresses mark I-III now cost 3x more energy than before, and cannot be put in low-power mode.
 +
** Superfortresses now cost 15x more energy than before, and cannot be put in low-power mode.
  
−
* Scouts with cloaking boosters no longer will ever boost ships with a mark level lower than their ship level. Thus the in multi-level scout groups, the lower-level scouts will support the higher-level scouts, thus maximizing the chance of overall survival within the group.
+
* Ion cannons, core warhead interceptors, orbital mass drivers, and counterspies are all now immune to radar dampening.
 +
** This is another nerf to scouts, as well as a general buff back to all these ships.
  
−
* Border aggression now only kicks in when there is Threat + Attack of less than 4,000, to avoid latency based on extreme amounts of border aggression on top of waves, etc.
+
* Spider turrets are no longer immune to sniper attacks.
  
−
* Grenade Launcher shots can now only damage a finite number of ships within their explosion radius (like the Flak Turret), specifically 8, 10, 12, 14, and 16 for the mark I, II, III, IV, and V versions respectively.  The actual attack power of these shots has been increased by 50%, in hopes of maintaining the danger of the unit while removing the previous problem of them being capable of exterminating nearly infinite quantities of enemy ships (particularly when AI worlds could accumulate over 1000 core grenade launchers).
+
* Both spider and sniper turrets are now immune to radar dampening, which makes them a lot more interesting and powerful against AI raid starships again (recall that only the humans get these turrets).
  
−
* The reinforcement penalties on all of the golems have been massively reduced, making them significantly more powerful.
+
* Scout health is now 3/5 of its prior value.
  
−
* The max starships that a starfleet commander can have are now 1/3 per planet what it was previously, hopefully making this AI type more reasonable.
+
* Fortresses and superfortresses now only do 10% damage to scout hulls (which includes transports).
  
−
* Starships and warheads now build 3x faster than before, or basically an equivalent rate to space dock units.
+
* A new special ability, "Self Attrition Only When Not Low-Power," is now applied to most units with self-attrition (the spirecraft scouts and jumpships, and the AI special forces guard posts, being the exceptions).  This ability makes it so that things like golems, Neinzul Younglings, etc, can be put into low-power mode whenever they are not actually attacking.
  
−
* AI planets now get fewer slots added to their ship cap per command station and guard post (it was 250, but now it is 150).  Their overall max ship cap is also now lower (1000 per AI player, rather than 2500 per AI player), and on home and core AI planets it is a little higher but still lower overall (1300 now instead of 2500).  These changes are logical given the huge new guard post strengths on the home and core planets (and the new ones coming for regular plants), making it now more about those large structures and less about the huge groups of smaller fleets grouping it out; though of course when the AI attacks the human players, you still get that same dynamic as always.  Without changing the game TOO much, this really lets us save on sim/graphics performance as well as making the offensive actions less of a grindy.
+
* Fixed a bug where Neinzul Youngling Vultures were scaling damage up from a minimum at 100% target health to a maximum at 90% (or lower) target health, they were intended to (and will now) scale from a minimum at 100%-90% target health to a maximum at 10%-0% target health.
  
−
* AI planets now get only about 2/3 of the reinforcements per reinforcement wave that they used to. This avoids having all the planets hitting ship cap (and thus running border aggression constantly, etc). Between this and the above change, this should cut down on the occasional grindyness somewhat, and make sure that the sim speed doesn't have as much risk of dropping in battles.
+
* Further Teleport Raider rebalancing:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 120*mk => 600*mk.
 +
** Seconds-Per-Salvo from 2 => 8.
 +
** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 2 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 4.
  
−
* The infiltrator bonuses have been nerfed about 10x, especially against heavy defense units, as mid-sized groups of infiltrators could kill them in mere seconds.
+
* Scouts I-IV, Scout Starships I-IV, (non-AI) Remains Rebuilders, and Engineers II-III and Experimental (Engineer mkIs _not_ included) are now immune to attrition.
  
−
* Electric shuttle shot-stagger-time increased from 12 cycles to 22, but now tracked separately for mark I, II, III, and IV.  There is now a significant advantage from stacking different mark levels of electric shuttles together, rather than the previous penalty due to lack of control over which marks fired when the stagger was over.
+
* Scout starships have received some rebalancement:
 +
** Mark I now have 120k health instead of 80k.
 +
** Mark II now have 4x the health of mark I instead of 2x.
 +
** Mark III now have 8x the health of mark I instead of 4x.
 +
** Mark IV now have 10x the health of mark I instead of 6x.
  
−
* Lightning turrets now use shot-stagger-time too, 12 cycles and tracked separately by mark I, II, and III (and entirely separately from electric shuttles).
+
* Neinzul Youngling Commandos now have armor piercing of 750*mk (same as fighters).
  
−
* Wormhole guard posts now have 20 million health instead of 2 billion, which means that they can be killed after being stunned via an EMP, but they take a lot of firepower to do so.
+
* The silent doubling of player ship speed has been removed.
 +
** In its place, all of the human command stations now have an ability that doubles the speed of all allied ships on that planet.  This gives the players their same home-field advantage as always, while not letting them run in circles around the AIs on the AI planets.  Also, it really gives a tactical penalty when a command station is lost for the players.
 +
** The AI home planet command stations also now have this new doubles-allied-ship-speed ability, too.  This is new, and makes it so that the AI home planets always have a home-field speed advantage similar to what your ships do on all your planets.
  
−
* Special Forces Guard Posts now have 4 million health instead of 400k. Their attack range has been reduced from 1500 to 1000.
+
* The Core Missile Guard posts have had their attack increased about 4.4x, and their range increased about 2x.
  
−
* Made engineers, cleanup drones, and rebuilders blind.
+
* The movement speed of transport ships has been doubled, from 128 to 248.  They are also now immune to speed boosting.
  
−
* Bonuses against heavy defense now give a bonus against Avengers too.
+
* The movement speed of colony ships has been doubled, from 36 to 72.  They are also now immune to speed boosting.
  
−
* Metal and Crystal Harvesters no longer require energy to operate -- they produce enough energy for themselves directly.
+
* All of the scout ships are now immune to speed boosting, as are eyebots.
  
−
* When AI ships in old savegames are converted to a new type (such as all the guard posts), those now start out at full health rather than whatever their health was previously.
+
* SuperFortresses and all regular fortresses are now immune to speed boosting, munitions boosting, and shield boosting.
  
−
* The engineering range on mobile repair stations has been increased from 15,000 to 20,000.
+
* All AI guardians are now immune to speed boosting.
  
−
* Engineers (including mine layers and cleanup drones) no longer have teleportation.  However, they do all now move at speed 100 and they have vastly larger enginering ranges.  They also no longer automatically move toward targets to heal (they just heal what's in their considerable range).  All in all, this makes engineers vastly easier to control; something that was a learning issue for new players in the past, and an annoyance for experienced players.
+
* The gravity drill now generates 90/s metal and crystal for players, rather than 30/s, in keeping with the new, larger economies.
  
−
* Remains can no longer be gifted.
+
* The Spire Shield Sphere guard posts (core and regular) now have vastly more health, in keeping with other force fields (but a bit stronger).
  
−
* Fortresses now have infinite engine health, as they are unable to have their engines repaired.
+
* Some melee ship changes, at last:
 +
** Vorticular Cutlasses, Hive Golem Wasps, and Spire Blades are now the only ships with the Blade ammo type at the moment.
 +
** Vampires and Zenith Viral Shredders and Neinzul Viral Swarmers now all have a new Fusion Cutter ammo type (with a creepy new sound effect).
 +
** Previously, all ships with health larger than 1 million were immune to blades.  Now they are immune to fusion cutters instead.
 +
** Previoulsy, all turrets were immune to blades.  Now they are immune to fusion cutters instead.
 +
*** The counter-whatever turrets and sniper/spider turrets remain immune to both blades and fusion cutters.
 +
** Military orbital command stations mark I-III, home command station cores I-III, experimental engineers, home human settlements, human cyro pods, mines of all sorts, raid starships I-III, lightning and armored warheads, fallen spire shards and survey markers, spire civilian outposts, and spire archives remain immune to both blade attacks and fusion cutters.
 +
** Self-Destruction Guardians, leech starships, riot control starships, impulse reaction emitters, and acid sprayers are now immune to fusion cutters instead of blades.
 +
** Home Command Stations and fortresses for both the player and the AI are now immune to blades again—in the past they were simply because of those "greater than 1 million health" rule that got moved to fusion cutters.
  
−
* Fortresses now only take 2 hours to fully repair themselves from nearly-dead, rather than 3. SuperFortresses now take 3 hours to repair themselves from nearly-dead instead of 5.
+
* Laser Gatling:
 +
** Base health from 1400*mk => 2800*mk (a cap of Laser Gatlings MkIs used to have roughly 1/3rd as much totaly hp as a cap of Fighter MkIs, now it will be 2/3rds).
 +
** Base MkI Metal/Crystal from 80/80 => 50/50 (so now is half of fighters per-individual, and about 1.4x comparing cap to cap).
  
−
* Siege starships can now hit one type of fleet ship: the Force-Field Bearer. Hard.
+
* The fortress bonus against the scout hull type has been further reduced from 0.1 to 0.05.
  
−
* The various minor faction Neinzul ships are now all immune to reclamation.
+
* Apparently all guardians had a 10x bonus against the scout hull type recently.  This has been removed.  Artillery guardians additionally now have a 0.1 penalty against the scout hull type.  This was hugely hurting both transports and scouts.
  
−
* The mark I and II engineer energy costs have been reduced from 1000, 500 to 250, 200. This makes it far easier to keep a large standing fleet of them on various planets now that they aren't teleporting.
+
* Marauder rebalancing. 
 +
** The rough target is to balance each like a MkIV fleet ship type with a 0.2x ship cap (i.e. a ship type that would have a mkI cap of 40 ships on high caps), since on difficulties less than 9 it's generally unlikely that more than 40 total marauders will spawn unless it's been a long time since there were any eligible cases for a marauder spawn.
 +
** The marauder spawning code will now not spawn more than twice the "high cap", regardless of how long it's been since a marauder spawn.  On difficulties greater than 5 and lower than 9, the high cap is 40, so this new absolute cap will be 80 (which generally means 40 dagger frigates and 40 buzz bombs) on those difficulties.
 +
** Marauder Dagger Frigate:
 +
*** Base Health from 3,300,000 => 2,200,000.
 +
*** Armor Rating from 3,000 => 600.
 +
*** Base Attack Range from 30,000 => 15,000.
 +
*** Bonus vs Structural from 30 => 2.4.
 +
*** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 8 => 2.4.
 +
*** Bonus vs Turret from 8 => 2.4.
 +
*** Bonus vs Light from 6 => 2.4.
 +
*** Bonus vs CommandGrade from 4 => 2.4.
 +
** Marauder Buzz Bomb:
 +
*** Base Health from 3,000,000 => 2,000,000.
 +
*** Base Attack Power from 15,000 => 12,000 (note that these shots can hit 14 targets at once).
 +
*** In many ways this is now a condensed version of the MkIV Grenade Launcher, rather than the Autobomb, so it's been renamed the Marauder Buzz Bomb Launcher.
  
−
* The mark III and Experimental engineers are now once again teleporting, for players who really love that feature. The metal/crystal costs of the mark III engineers have been increased somewhat to compensate, however (about a 50% increase).
+
* Grenade Launcher rebalancing:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 28/25/22/18/28 => flat 28.
 +
** Base Health from 15,000/25,000/45,000/65,000/95,000 => 15,000*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 4000 => 300*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 900/1800/3600/7200/14400 => 1000*mk (note that these shots hit 8/10/12/14/16 targets each).
 +
** Seconds-Per-Salvo from 15/15/10/8/7 => flat 15.
  
−
* All mercenary ships (except the Mercenary Enclave Starship) are now equivalent to MkIV ships (instead of MkII).  They cost 10x the metal and crystal of their normal MkIV counterparts.
+
* Eyebots now have missile ammo, and so it's much easier for the player to protect their command stations and whatnot by simply building counter-missile turrets (which have a tech cost, of course—but note that any counter-whatever turret can be unlocked directly, they are not part of a tech line with prerequisites).
  
−
* EMP Mines now paralyze their targets for 10 seconds instead of 3.
+
* Starship constructors now have a health of 300k instead of 48k, in keeping with the other constructors.
  
−
* Riot control tazers now paralyze their targets for a full second instead of half a second.
+
* The Zenith Trader now has a 20% chance of leaving goodies for the AI players on each planet, rather than a 10% chance.
  
−
* The zenith paralyzers i, ii, iii, iv, v now paralyze their targets for 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 seconds at a time, rather than the older 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.8, 3.2 that they previously did.
+
* Zenith Mirror health increased by 10x to compensate for the 10x bonus everything gets against it (when they were rebalanced, it was without respect to that bonus, thus effective health was pretty pitiful).
  
−
* The recharge rate of snipers and sniper turrets has been decreased from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.
+
* Devourer Golems and Zenith Trade ships are both now immune to gravity and speed boosting.
  
−
* The recharge rate of spider turrets has been increased from 7.5 seconds to 15 seconds, but their attack power and engine damage have both been doubled.
+
* Cursed Golems are now immune to snipers, like all the other golems already were.
  
−
* The recharge times of the flak turrets and heavy beam cannons have been nerfed a bit for the lower levels, and are a tad better for the higher levels now.
+
* Hive Golem Wasps now have 10x more health and attack power.
  
−
* The recharge time for some of the melee ships is now worse, as there is no smaller than a 1 second delay between attacks now.
+
* The damage output of the spider turret now properly matches that of the sniper turret.
  
−
* Various ships that had partial-second recharge times (3.5 seconds, 9.8 seconds, etc) now have been rounded to either one second or the other (not always to the nearest second -- some subtle balance tweaks here).
+
* AI fortresses of all marks now have 6x the health of their human counterparts (instead of 5x), but now have 3x lower range than the human versions.  They also are now immobile.
  
−
* The way that mining golems work has been revamped fairly substantially.  Rather than coming in from way out in deep space (where it is difficult for players to even get to), and then exploding when they reach the planet center, they now just appear somewhere in the planetary gravity well and explode after 90 minutes of existence.
+
* AI Superfortresses now have simply been adjusted to be immobile, but have the same range and health as before.
  
−
* Turrets have all had their costs, health, and attack powers have all been increased 3x.
+
* The health of both mark II and mark III tractor beam turrets have been doubled.
−
** MLRS turrets have also had their number of shots increased 3x.
 
−
** Missile turrets have also had their range increased 3x (although that range no longer goes up with higher marks of them).
 
−
** Tractor beam turrets are each now able to tractor 3x as many ships as before.
 
−
** The attack range of laser turrets has also been cut in half.
 
−
** The attack power of spider and sniper turrets has only been doubled, but their firing rate has increased 3x.
 
−
** These changes exclude heavy beam cannons, counter-anything turrets, gravitational turrets, and lightning turrets.
 
−
** It has been observed that players almost always tend to build turrets only in multiples of 3, if not more.  This means that, if that's the lowest granularity of management really needed, that turrets are requiring more than 3x to 18x the cpu processing power during large battles compared to what they could be using.  Plus it's harder to keep track of 18 things compared to 3 things, and in cases where it doesn't make a strategic difference that's undesirable.  Hence this change.
 
  
−
* The attack bonuses of the various types of turrets (except flak turrets) have been doubled, making them a bit more specialized and also definitely more powerful against their bonus types.
+
* Gravitational turrets now cost about 30% more, but have twice the health they used to have.
−
** Missile turrets have also been weakened against those kinds of ships they are particularly poor against (fighters, raiders, that sort of thing).
 
−
** Laser turrets have basically had all their bonuses completely redone, too.
 
−
** These changes exclude heavy beam cannons, counter-anything turrets, gravitational turrets, tractor beams, and lightning turrets.
 
  
−
* Snipers mark I-IV now all have 1/5th the ship cap they used to relative to other ships, and cost 5x as much, but now also do 5x as much damage and have 5x as much health.  Even better, they also fire 5x faster than before, which makes them considerably more dangerous.
+
* Dyson gatling attack has been doubled, and health has also been doubled.  Fear these.
  
−
* Zenith Paralyzers now fire way less frequently, but paralyze their targets for far longer.
+
* Military Orbital Command Stations all now have translocation lightning as their attack type instead of missiles.
  
−
* The resource cap for players has been increased from 600,000 to 999,999 in light of some of the recent economic and gameplay changes.
+
* Okay, so that command-stations-must-be-built-within-proximity-to-the-colony-ship thing wasn't a hit.  It was tedious and fiddly, and didn't really accomplish its core goal, anyway.  So, the following changes have been made:
 +
** The proximity thing has been removed completely, so as far as how colony ships go, they are back to working like they used to.
 +
** However, whenever a human command station is blown up (NOT when it is scrapped), any colony ships OR mobile builders on that planet are also blown up.  Even if they are currently inside a transport on that planet.
 +
*** These sorts of ships can exist in planets not controlled by a human player, obviously—they have to.  So in their case, it's just a matter of their being on the planet at the exact instant that the command station dies.  If they are, then that's when they are killed.
 +
*** This meets the original goal a lot better, which was to prevent players from too-easily just instantly rebuilding outlying command stations that were lost, with no real delay in the ability to rebuild.
 +
**** With planets near other planets it will still be fast to rebuild—of course—but this provides some incentive to keep planets clustered where possible.  This incentive of clustering planets which is obviously at odds with the goal of keeping AI Progress low, which is the idea: competing incentives, tough choices, etc.  Best if you don't lose the planet at all in the first place, of course.  But now it will feel like you do if that planet was a more distant waypoint between multiple of your planets on an important transport route, for instance.
  
−
* The amount of resources gathered by mark I, II, III harvesters is now 20, 28, and 36 instead of 12, 12, and 16.  The research costs of mark II, III harvesters has gone up to 3000, 4000 from 2000, 2500.
+
* Previously, there was a AIDifficulty percent chance, per AI player, of a mark I or II fortress being added on each planet in the galaxy (for all difficulties 4 and up).
−
** The overall intent of this change is to make the capture of resource-rich planets even more worthwhile.  Also, to make there less of an imperative to HAVE to get the economic upgrades in multiplayer in particular.  Let's keep things moving, not so much waiting around!
+
** Now there is a flat ( AIDifficulty / 2 ) * ( totalPlanets < 80 ? totalPlanets / 80 : 1.0 ) fortresses per AI player on the map, rounded up.
 +
*** For difficulty 7.3 on a 40 planet map, that would be ( 7.3 / 2 ) * ( 40 / 80 ) = 3.65 * .5 = 1.825 = 2 fortresses per AI player.
 +
*** For difficulty 8 on an 80+ planet map, that would be ( 8 / 2 ) * 1.0 = 4 fortresses per AI player.
 +
** Fortress Barons, in addition to the other fortresses (superfortresses and mark III fortresses) that they already get, now get 8x the normal number of mark I and II fortresses in addition (not to exceed the total number of planets controlled by the fortress baron player).
 +
** Mad Bombers now get absolutely no additional fortresses.
 +
** Vicious raiders, technologist raiders, speed racers, special forces captains, radar jammers, and extreme raiders now all get half the normal number of extra fortresses, not to be less than 1 fortress.
 +
** Whether or not the seeded fortress is mark I or II depends on the mark level of the planet.  Mark I and II planets get a mark I fortress, everything higher gets a mark II fortress.
  
−
* Orbital command stations are no longer free in metal and crystal to build. This makes sense, and solves the issue of not being able to build new command stations.
+
* Normally there are a number of "extra forcefields" that are seeded around the AI planets, per AI.  There are normally AIDifficulty * 2 planets with each having either 1 or 2 extra forcefields added per planet. The following frequency changes for these have been made:
 +
** Shield Ninnies now get 4x the normal number of planets with extra forcefields, as well as 3x the normal number of extra forcefields per planet.
 +
** Turtles, technologist turtles, and teleporter turtles now get 3x the normal number of planets with extra forcefields, as well as 2x the normal number of extra forcefields per planet.
 +
** Peacemakers and alarmists now have 2x the normal number of extra forcefields per planet, but on the normal number of planets.
 +
** Mad Bombers now get absolutely no extra forcefields.
 +
** Vicious raiders, technologist raiders, speed racers, special forces captains, radar jammers, and extreme raiders now all get half the normal number of planets with extra forcefields, not to be less than 1 planet.
  
−
* Home Command Stations now generate 300/s metal and crystal rather than 80/s. The home cores now generate 320, 340, and 360, rather than 100, 120, and 140.
+
* AI Eyes now have 400 million health (same as wormhole guard posts) instead of 6 million, and are now destroyed when the last non-wormhole guard post of the AI on that planet is destroyed.
 +
** In general, many fewer AI Eyes are now seeded, but the exact amount fewer is hard to express because it involves a divisor, the number of planets, a floor value of 2 per galaxy, and differences by AI type.
 +
*** In general, with the defensive-type AIs that had extreme numbers of Eyes in the past (just tons and tons of them, they now have about 3x fewer than before.  In terms of the other AI types that had more moderate numbers already, they now have maybe 10% fewer, or thereabouts.
 +
*** Unfortunately, due to the nature of the seeding, the number of AI Eyes will only be reduced in future savegames, not in existing ones.
  
−
* Economic/military/logistical I, II, III command stations now generate 32/16/24, 80/32/48, 160/64/96 rather than 16/4/4, 40/10/10, 64/20/10.  This is a significant boost to both the military and logistical command stations, and an overall boost to the player economy.  These boosts are intended to keep the game moving, and players able to replenish their stores of ships that they lose in battle with the more-heavily-armed AI opposition.
+
* All AI guard posts (except wormhole guard posts and special forces guard posts) now have radar dampening of 7500/7000/6500/6000/5500.
  
−
* Mercenary ships previously were completely uncapped, but this led to some particualrly undesirable situations.  Now they have a cap that is 3x larger than the base cap of their ship cap (but, now that these are mark IV ships, they are a fundamentally different sort of unit, anyway).
+
* Laser Cannon Module (including variants used by Hybrids, Spire Capital Ships, and Spire city defenses) base range from 20k => 10k.
  
−
* Anti-Starship arachnids now fire twice as fast and have twice as high of shields. They also now have half as much a bonus against starships, but twice as much attack power in general.
+
* Siege Starship:
 +
** Base Range from 35000 => 16000 (meaning that actual range from 38000 => 19000).
 +
** Base Health from 1,000,000 => 2,500,000.
  
−
* Ion cannons are no longer able to shoot at warheads in general (before it was just their high mark level that was preventing it).
+
* AI Beam Guardian Base Range from 10k/12k/14k/16k/18k => flat 7k.
 +
* AI Artillery Guardian Base Range from 31k/32k/33k/34k/35k => flat 15k (so slightly less than a siege starship).
 +
* AI Laser Guardian Base Range from 7k/8k/9k/10k/11k/12k => flat 7k.
 +
* AI Vampire Guardian Base Range from 13k/16k/19k/22k/25k => flat 7k.
  
−
* Shield Boosters have become Armor Boosters, and can increase the Armor Rating of a ship up to 200%.  A ship can only have it's armor boosted by one ship at a time.
+
* Spire Starship Base Range from 17k => 10k.
  
−
* Shield Inhibitors are now Armor Inhibitors, and remove all the Armor Rating from all enemy ships at the planet.
+
* Spire Tractor Platform base energy use from 100 => 2000 (it was a bug, 100 is what a ship gets if we forget to define it).
  
−
* Zenith Polarizers now get a bonus based on enemy Armor Rating, since Shields are gone.
+
* Spire Armor Rotter:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 44 => 26.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 8k/9k/10k/11k/12k => flat 4k.
  
−
* Radar Jammers now halve the effective range of all ships on their planet.
+
* Zenith Bombard Guard posts, AI Core booster guard posts, siege starships, starship disassemblers, and zenith bombards now all fire a new "Antimatter bomb" ammo type instead of their former energy bomb type.  Antimatter bombs move about 50% faster than the older shots of these types used to, and most importantly some ships now will be able to have immunity to antimatter bombs (no ships are immune to energy bombs).
 +
** Note that, importantly, bomber starships and bombers in general still have the regular energy bomb ammo type.
  
−
* "Immunity To Beam Weapons" is now separate from "Immunity To AOE".
+
* The following ships now have immunities to antimatter bombs, shifting the balance around some in a way intended to prevent too-easy sniping on both sides in a way that was formerly not interesting because of bombards and siege starships:
−
** The following AOE-immune units are no longer immune to beam weapons:
+
** Counter-missile, counter-sniper, and counter-dark-matter turrets, as well as sniper and spider turrets, and harvester exo-shields (a benefit to the humans).
−
*** Missile Frigates
+
** All of the standalone force fields for both players and AIs (a benefit for both the humans and the AI).
−
*** Transports
+
** The AI fortresses and superfortress for the AI (a benefit for the AI only).
−
*** Raid Starships
+
** The human home command stations, as well as the human military command stations mark I-III, home cores, and the warp jammer command stations (a benefit for the humans only).
−
*** Riot Starships
+
** All AI command stations, special forces guard posts, and warp gates (a benefit for the AI only).
−
** The following AOE-immune units are also immune to beam weapons:
 
−
*** Scouts
 
−
*** Scout Starships
 
−
*** Cleanup Drones
 
−
*** Non-forcefield-generating modules
 
  
−
* The various turret lines are now far more specialized in what sort of ships they best counter, which makes the use of them a lot more interesting.  This is also something players have been asking for for a while.
+
* Snipers and sniper turrets are no longer immune to (able to fire through) force fields.
  
−
* Fabricators (the capturable specialized factories) now cost 0 energy to run (instead of 5000), to make them a more straightforward "I want this" for the player, since they already have to balance the benefits against the costs of actually taking the planet.
+
* All of the player  mark I-III force fields are no longer able to go through wormholes (the AI ones are immobile, so that would be redundant).  Actually, mark III AI force fields were mobile before, but are no longer.
  
−
* Short-range turrets no longer have any crystal cost, and now have doubled metal costs. MLRS turrets now have had their metal and crystal costs swapped (making them more expensive on metal than crystal, now).
+
* Zenith Beam Frigate:
 +
** Base Health from 22k/26k/32k/38k/54k => 22k*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 200/250/300/350/500 => 150*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 500/1000/1500/2000/3000 => 4000*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 8k/9k/10k/12k/12k => 6k/6.5k/7k/7.5k/8k.
 +
** Bonus vs Turret from 8 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 8 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 2 => 1.
 +
** Can now hit a maximum of 10 targets with one shot; there is no particular logic (closest, etc) for selecting which 10 if there are more than that on the line, nor is it desired that there be.
 +
** Beams now always go the full range, rather than stopping at the primary target.
  
−
* Orbital mass drivers are now able to attack guardians.
+
* Raider:
 +
** Ship cap multiplier from 2.5 => 2.
 +
** Base health from 3000*mk => 5500*mk (so, compensating for ship cap change and an additional x1.5 on top of that).
 +
** Base attack from 200*mk => 250*mk (just compensating for ship cap change).
 +
** Bonus vs Turrets from 4 => 1.
  
−
* Engineer drone health has been increased 10x, as has mobile builder health.  Cleanup and rebuilder health was already at or above these levels.
+
* Riot Shield I/II radius from 300/500 => 600*mk.
  
−
* Engineer drones, cleanup drones, rebuilders, and mobile builders all now cost 0 energy to operate.  When the player energy availability is in shambles, it's no fun not being able to build engineers to help the new reactors along.
+
* The move speed of all the player force fields have dropped to a flat 4 (the amount of the mark I forcefields), and they are now immune to speed boosting, and no longer scale up their speeds with faster combat styles.  This reflects that the movement of the forcefields are just for small adjustments, and not any sort of larger tactical engagements, which would be glacially, ridiculously, slow.
  
−
* Bomber starships no longer have multiple shots. They also now have 200x higher base attack power, and no bonuses against any hull types. They also no longer deal any engine damage, and have higher engine health.  Their reload speed has been halved.  They are simply ultra-strong raw-damage units against any target, but with a slow reload speed.
+
* Reclamation:
 +
** Fixed bug where non-zombie reclamation actually required 100% reclaim damage instead of 50% (this made it seem like a reclamator had to get the actual killshot, which wasn't strictly speaking the case, but in practice felt like it).
 +
** Reclaimed ships now have health equal to the reclamation damage done to them (or max health, whichever is less) regardless of whether a zombie reclamator was involved (previously non-zombie reclamations got half that amount of health).
 +
** The reclamation amount for determining "is this reclaimed" and "how much health does it get when reclaimed" is now the sum of what various players have done, though the reclaimed ship still goes to the player with the highest individual reclamation amount against that target.
 +
** Minor faction ships killing a target can no longer trigger reclamation (this was an edge case, but it could have led to a damaged-long-ago AI ship wandering back into AI territory, getting killed by the devourer, and transforming into a human ship on a planet the humans had never been to, etc).
  
−
* Siege Starships also now have no bonuses against any other ship types, but now have 3x overall stronger attack. This solves the problem of them not being strong against starships in recent releases.
+
* Youngling Nanoswarm:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 200+(200*mk) => 400*mk.
 +
** Armor piercing from 500 => 100k.
 +
** For the purposes of reclamation, nanoswarm damage is now multiplied by 16.
  
−
* Human players are now allowed to build mark I-III bomber starships.  The Bomber Starship Fabricator is now the Bomber Starship Mark IV Fabricator.  AI players will also now use all these starships, too.
+
* Manufactory input/output from 12-gives-8 => 20-gives-14 (since 20 is the amount produced by a mkI harvester).
  
−
* The following starships no longer require technology unlocks, and are available to the players right at the start: Bomber I, Leech I, Raid I, Siege I.  The goal here is to make starships clearly more central to the game, with players having a starting selection of these as well as fleet ships, so that they can make more informed decisions when deciding what to upgrade.
+
* Zenith Beam Frigate base range from 5500+(500*mk) => 7500+(100*mk).
  
−
* Similarly, the following turrets no longer require technology unlocks, and are available to the players right at the start: Laser Turret I, Missile Turret I, Lightning Turret I, Flak Turret I. The goal here being that players start out with more of a varied arsenal, and can experiment with various turret types without having to gamble knowledge that they might not want to spend. The idea being that then players will be able to get more familiarity with turrets in general, and can then make more informed decisions.
+
* Human Resistance Fighter spawn rebalance:
 +
** Instead of incrementing the counter every 80 seconds by 1 + (AIP / 50), it now increments by 1 + (AI Tech Level - 1) (or, more simply, by AI Tech Level), but capped at 3.
 +
** All difficulties below 8 now have capLow and capHigh of 10 and 40 (previously difficulties < 5 got 2 and 8).  Difficulties >= 8 still have 20 and 80.  For reference, after the increment it generates a random number between capLow and capHigh, and if the current value of the resistance fighter counter is greater than the random number it tries to generate a resistance fighter spawn.
 +
** Now uses the same absoluteCap rule (equal to capHigh*2) as maruaders, to prevent really massive spawns.
 +
** Re-did the logic of "is planet XYZ eligible for a resistance fighter spawn":
 +
*** It now considers all planets, not just AI-controlled ones.
 +
*** It requires the presence of at least 400 human ships (on high caps, 200 on normal, 100 on low).
 +
*** It requires the presence of at least 300 AI ships (on high caps, 150 on normal, 75 on low).
 +
*** It requires that the number of AI ships be greater than the number of human ships.
 +
*** It requires that (AIShipCount-HumanShipCount) be less than or equal to 8x the number of resistance fighters it's planning to spawn (on high caps, 4x on normal, 2x on low).
  
−
* Missile Turret II and II now costs an extra 1000 knowledge each, and Flak Turrets II and III now cost an extra 750 each.
+
* Resistance Frigate rebalanced to be more like the Marauder Dagger Frigate (not that they're the same ship, but it's easier to balance them together than separately).  FYI, the maruader frigate is balanced roughly as a .2 ship-cap mkIV/mkV bonus-type ship.
 +
** Base Move Speed from 48 => 60.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 150k => 48k.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 20k => 15k.
 +
** Base Health from 1.5m => 2.2m.
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 3000 => 600.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 3 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 2.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 1 => 2.4.
 +
** Energy Use from 3000 => 1000.
  
−
* Previously, there was a 5x health boost being applied to a lot of various types of ships, but now it only applies to the fleet ships built at the space dock.  This makes things a lot less confusing for us internally, and brings the starship health down substantially (they were extremely overpowered until recently).
+
* Resistance Fighter Bomber:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 48 => 60.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 180k => 100k.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 3400 => 4000.
 +
** Base Health from 1.8m => 2.4m.
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 3000 => 1800.
 +
** Engine Health from 200 => Infinite (oddly, the unit def had both a line setting it to infinite, and a line setting it to 200, but the second was later and thus took precedence).
 +
** Base Armor Piercing from 1000 => 1800.
 +
** Bonus vs Medium from 4 => 1.4.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 1.4.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 2 => 1.4.
 +
** Energy Use from 3000 => 1000.
  
−
* The energy required for tractor beam turrets and gravitational turrets was excessive, and has been reduced by 10x.
+
* The decoy drone attack power has gone up 10x.
  
−
* Space Docks, Starship Constructors, Missile Silos, Mercenary Docks, and Advanced Factories all now take 1,000 energy to run.  This is a 10x reduction for most of them, but it brings mercenary docks up from 0.
+
* Dyson Gatlings are all now immune to being insta-killed, and immune to sniper attacks.
  
−
* Home human settlements and human cryogenic pods are now both immune to blade attacks.
+
* Anti-Starship Arachnids are now completely unable to hit any other sort of ship other than starships, but they retain their very powerful nature against starships specifically.
  
−
* There is a new "Player Home" force field generator that is now seeded with the player starting position.  It has a size equal to those "Core" force fields that the AI uses on their home planets, but the strength is only that of a mark I human force field generator.  This gives a bigger protection radius, but no more protection-time-when-under-attack than in the past.
+
* The Zenith Reserve Mark I-V AIP previously was 10*ShipLevel, which got really non-worthwhile by the upper end of that scale.  Now it is 5*shiplevel for AIP.
−
** Once this force field is lost, you'll have to build from your standard pool of force fields, as these can't be rebuilt.
 
  
−
* Wormhole guard posts are no longer perma-cloaked, and now have a small, token attack like the passive guard posts.  These can now be seen and attacked if you wish, although they have 400 million health, so in MOST cases that's a colossal waste of time.  But in an event where you have a ton of firepower and the desire to clear a wormhole without clearing the planet, you can do so.
+
* All astro trains now have command grade hulls rather than ultra heavy.  This acts like a massive boost to their health.
−
** Having these visible also helps to reduce confusion about spawned guardians for things like turtles, where there are multiple wormhole guard posts instead of just one.
 
  
−
* The way that the health scales up for the higher-level vampires was previously far out of balance.  Those have been nerfed back down to reasonable levels.
+
* Missile Turrets now have armor piercing of a flat 90,0000.  This gives players one more recourse against raid starships in the hands of the AI (along with sniper turrets, fighters, and a couple of other turrets).
  
−
* No ships in the game now have a damage bonus of more than 50x against any hull type; this keeps things a little more sane, with things not being QUITE such hard counters, though of course it's still significant.
+
* Wormhole guard posts and AI Eyes now have command-grade hulls instead of ultra heavy.
−
** Armor ships now have 10x higher attack, and 10x lower attack bonuses.
 
−
** Acid Sprayers now have 4x higher attack, and 4x lower attack bonuses.
 
−
** Resistance fighter/bombers, resistance frigates, and anti-armor ships now have 2x higher attack, and 2x lower attack bonuses.
 
−
** The AI Arachnid Guard Posts are now unable to hit smaller craft (like the siege starships cannot), but their range has been increased and their base firepower has been increased massively.  All of their hull-specific bonuses are now gone.
 
  
−
* Anti-Starship arachnids no longer have any bonuses against any type of hulls, and now have 4x higher base attack. They were one-shotting light starships before.
+
* AI Eyes always now seed next to the command stations of the AI, rather than next to guard posts, to prevent them from being under spire shield spheres.
 +
** This won't help existing saves, but it will affect all new campaigns.
  
−
* Players now get two mark II scouts at the start, rather than just one, and now get more manufactories of each type.
+
* Advanced Warp Sensors now have a ship cap of 50, and no longer act as scouts.
  
−
* The health for all fleet ships is now 40% higher. The intent here is to make them a little sturdier, and that's hard to do when their base health is just so low.
+
* Vorticular Cutlass:
 +
** Base Speed from 16/16/16/17 => flat 16.
 +
** Base Health from 7k/12k/18k/24k => 7k*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 2500/2600/2600/2700 => 750*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 3600/6200/9200/12200 => 360*mk.
 +
*** That's a pretty big change, here's the rationale:
 +
*** Generally we let mkI fleet ship types have between 30k and 100k cap-dps (on epic/high) vs non-bonus targets, and scale the bonuses between them (so something with 100k has no bonuses, something with 30k can have a bonus of up to 10x).
 +
*** Previously, the mkI cutlass had a cap-dps of approximately 1.4 _million_ (392 ships * 3600 damage-per-shot / 1 second-per-shot).
 +
*** Provisionally, we're figuring that a melee ship can have 1.5x as much dps, to compensate for the difficulty of actually getting that close, etc.
 +
*** Also, we're figuring that the self-damaging attribute of cutlasses should allow for an additional 2x factor to the dps, for a total factor of 3.
 +
*** So, starting with a div-by-10 nerf, that brings it down to 141k, and accounting for the 3-factor (for melee and self-damaging) that's 47k on the 30-100 scale, so it's actually in the allowed range.  On the sliding-scale of allowed bonuses that comes to about 4.
 +
*** Bear in mind that cutlasses have 10k armor piercing, so they'll basically always get the full damage per shot.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 6 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 3 => 4.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 2 => 4.
  
−
* The counter-missle, counter-sniper, and counter-dark-matter turrets no longer require supply.
+
* Vampire Claw:
 +
** Base Speed from 44/44/44/44/54 => flat 44.
 +
** Base Health from 4400/7800/10500/19200/20400 => 5k*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 600/1200/2400/4800/9600 => 650*mk.
 +
*** We're considering the heals-by-damaging attribute to allow 0.75x as much dps as normal, which combines with the 1.5x melee factor into 1.125x.
 +
*** Previous mkI cap-dps was about 70k, or 62k on the 30-100 scale, which allows a bonus of about 3, which is exactly what it already had, interestingly; there was room for a minor buff too.
  
−
* Player ships now move 2x as fast as enemy ships, rather than 1.4x as fast.
+
* Zenith Viral Shredder:
 +
** Base Speed from 16/16/16/17 => flat 16.
 +
** Base Health from 9600/14200/18200/24200 => 11k*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 500/600/600/700 => 450*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 500/1000/1750/2625 => 575*mk.
 +
*** We're counting the self-replicating capability as allowing 0.75x as much dps as normal, so 1.125x combined with the melee attribute.
 +
*** Previous mkI cap-dps was about 98k, or 87k on the 30-100 scale, and we decided to go with no-bonuses since the replication depends on actual damage done rather so replication rate was highly dependent on whether bonus targets were available and while that's not the end of the world we'd like to try things without that factor involved, so a cap-dps of about 112k is acceptable (and is about what they have now).
 +
** Bonus vs Neutron from 3 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite from 2 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Medium from 2 => 1.
  
−
* The health of captive human settlements, home human settlements, and human cryogenic pods, has all been increased 10x.
+
* Zenith Traders now path randomly between any planets, not just AI planets.  That still means they will be a lot less likely to visit you in the start of the game, but it also means that they have a chance of visiting even your homeworld again (even if it's in a dead end), though the chance is way smaller.  The longer the game goes on, of course, the better the chance.  And if you wind up controlling most of the planets in the galaxy, the trader will spend most of their time on your planets.
  
−
* The bonuses for the armor ship have been shifted around such that they are now just generally great against small, light craft in addition to turrets, command stations, and structural stuff.
+
* Various astro train changes:
 +
** Attack range increased 10x.
 +
** Max health up from 200m to 800m.
 +
** Turret trains:
 +
*** Attack range increased 10x.
 +
*** Max health changed from 1m/2m/200m to 30m/50m/70m.
 +
** Booster trains:
 +
*** Attack range increased 10x.
 +
*** Max health up from 20m to 600m.
 +
** Regenerator trains:
 +
*** Attack range increased 10x.
 +
*** Max health up from 20m to 600m.
  
−
* Core Warhead Interceptors are no longer destroyed with the AI command station.  This means that they can actually be captured now.
+
* Bomber Starship:
 +
** Base Move Speed from 45/44/43/42 => flat 45.
 +
** Base Health from 4m/6m/16m/20m => 4.7m*mk (to a cap health of about 20m).
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 3000/3700/4400/5100 => 1500*mk (2x max fleet-ship armor).
 +
** Base Attack Power from 93k/120k/143k/173k => 70k*mk.
 +
*** Our approach to balancing starships is still a work in progress, but the previous mkI cap-dps was 186k.  This change brings it below 150k which is still pretty high but between the high cost (compared to fleet ships, anyway), short range, and can't-hit-small-stuff attributes we figure that's worth a 1.5 factor.  The linearization of the attack power is going to make the higher mark versions pretty intimidating, in any event.
  
−
* Ion Cannon reload times now scale with the unit cap, so they still fire every 2 seconds on High, 4 seconds on Normal, and 8 seconds on Low. This is to maintain relative balance against fleet ships.  This means that they are now less effective at stopping scout swarms on Normal and Low (since scout caps don't scale), but we do not anticipate many complaints from that.
+
* Siege Starship:
 +
** Energy Use from 2000/2000/2400 => flat 2k.
 +
** Base Health from 2.5m/3m/3.5m => 2.5m*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 200 => 300*mk.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 192k/330k/450k => 200k*mk.
 +
*** This is a slight buff from the existing 120k mkI cap-dps.  If anything this is a bit low with the restrictions on antimatter-bomb ammo but these are already so strong that we don't want to buff them too much on this pass.
 +
** Engine Damage from 5000/7500/10000 => 5k*mk.
  
−
* Zenith Polarizer damage is now multiplied by the square root of the target's armor rating instead of by the target's armor rating. Base damage increased by 12x.
+
* Leech Starship:
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 300 => 300*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Light from 4 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 4 => 2.
 +
** Bonus vs Swarmer from 4 => 2.
  
−
* The ranges of the human tractor beam turrets have been significantly increased.
+
* Spire Mini-Ram
 +
** Base Health from 20k/30k/40k/50k/60k => 30k*mk.
 +
** Metal Cost from 6000 => 1500.
 +
** Leaving attack power at 200k*mk.
 +
*** We've had reports of these being underpowered, but we'd like to see how the recently added 2x bonus vs structural (i.e. forcefields) affects things.  Currently a full cap of mkI rams has a base dps of just under _10 million_.  Or 20 million against forcefields.  Or 40 million against forcefields on normal or blitz combat style.  An AI forcefield mkI has 52 million hitpoints.  So we'll boost the bonus a bit so a full cap of mkI rams can take down a mkI AI ff.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 3.
  
−
* Previously, black hole machines had an infinite ship cap, but they now have a ship cap of 2.
+
* Spire Blade Spawner
 +
** Base Health from 30k*mk => 150k*mk (these have a really low ship cap).
 +
** Energy Cost from 100 => 1000 (mkI costs half, as usual).
 +
** Leaving Blade attack power at 60k*mk.
 +
*** It spawns 1 blade every 2 seconds, so that's roughly 30k dps per spawner or 270k dps at a cap of 9 spawners (on high caps).  That's pretty high, actually, but most feedback has seemed to indicate a feeling that these are underpowered.  We'll see.
  
−
* The following Zenith Trader costs have changed in light of the new (more powerful) player economy:
+
* Spire Maw
−
** Black Hole Machines are now 4x more expensive.
+
** Base Health from 200k*mk => 300k*mk (very, very low ship cap).
−
** Ion Cannons Mark I and II are now 4x more expensive.
+
** Base Attack Power from 1100*mk => 1400*mk
−
** Higher-mark Ion Cannons are now 2x more expensive.
+
*** This brings the base cap-dps up to 30k, the very low end for direct dps, but normally has 10x bonuses. No bonuses in this case, instead that's accounted for by the swallow-and-attrition behavior.
−
** Counter Spies are now 4x more expensive.
+
** Shots-per-salvo from 8/10/12/14/16 => flat 8.
−
** Super Fortresses are now 4x more expensive.
+
** Energy Use from 100 => 2000 (mkI costs half).
−
** Orbital Mass Drivers are now 6x more expensive.
 
−
** Zenith Power Generators are now 3x more expensive.
 
−
** Planetary Armor Boosters and Inhibitors are now 6x more expensive.
 
−
** Radar Jammers I and II are now 5x more expensive.
 
  
−
* Zenith Power Generators now produce 400k energy instead of 200k, owing to their increased cost.  They also now have a 4x wave bonus, rather than a 2x bonus.
+
* Sniper base attack power from 7500*mk => 6000*mk.
  
−
* The ship cap of transports has been dropped from 60 to 20, but transports now only cost 1/5th the former amount of energy.
+
* Sentinel Frigate base attack power from 20k*mk => 14k*mk.
  
−
* The health of scouts is now 7x lower; they were overpowered, lately.
+
* Teleport Raider:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 600*mk => 800*mk.
 +
** Base Armor Piercing from 150*mk => 300*mk.
  
−
* The AI Progress costs of the Zenith Reserves have all been about cut in half.
+
* Teleport Battlestation Base Attack Power from 310*mk => 400*mk.
  
−
* The AI Progress cost of the Distribution nodes has been reduced from 2 to 1.  Also, the possible and minimum amounts that they give out have both been been doubled.  And, in the case of a trojan node, the amount that they take away has been halved.
+
* Teleporting Leech Base Attack Power from 440*mk => 550*mk.
  
−
* On non-friendly planets, speed boosters now can no longer increase speed to more than 2x of the original value.  They can still boost stuff up to near-light-speed on planets controlled by the same team.
+
* Zenith Awesomebomb (oops, I mean Autobomb)
 +
** Base Health from 10k/20k/30k/40k => 11k*mk.
 +
** Can now hit a maximum of 10 units.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 4k/6k/8k/10k => 4k*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
 +
*** We've gotten a lot of reports of these being overpowered, and we think that's primarily due to the fact that it could hit any number of targets within their radius.  The actual "what's an acceptable dps?" question is a lot more complicated.
 +
*** Their previous cap-dps for mkI was about 784k.  And that's when hitting only one target.  But that also assumes that you're hitting a target with a full cap of autobombs every second, which isn't realistic.  Assuming that you're producing 2 autobombs per second that's about 1/100th of a cap, multiplied by 10 targets per hit, we could say that it's ok for the standard cap-dps calculation to be 10x what it is for a standard fleet ship type.  That means on the 30-100 scale that autobombs are about 78k.
 +
*** So, rather than tweak it around more, we'll just leave the mkI damage as-is and make the other marks linear with it.  The allowed bonus in that range is roughly 2.
 +
** Bonus vs. Polycrystal from 5 => 2.
 +
** "Bonus" vs. CloseCombat from 0.5 => 1.
 +
** "Bonus" vs. Artillery from 0.5 => 1.
  
−
* Vampire claws no longer have armor, to make them not quite as hard to kill.  It's still necessary to use the right counter (laser turrets are good, check the reference tab), but now swarms of fighters can bring them down too, in a pinch.
+
* Youngling Nanoswarm
 +
** Base Health from 500 + 50*mk => 3400*mk (not that health matters terribly much for these).
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 75 + 25*mk => 0.
 +
** Base Attack Power intentionally left at 400*mk.
 +
*** In parallel to the comments on the Zenith Autobomb, the "cap-dps" (oddly computed as it is) for nanoswarms is about 313k.  But it has an attribute that makes that count 16x times as much for reclamation purposes, putting it in roughly the 5-million category for that.  Also, Nanoswarms can only hit 3/5/7/9/11 targets, which shifts it a bit downward from the autobomb (except for the higher marks... may need to make the target-count thing a flat 5 or so).  But the main thing is that the nanoswarm is intentionally not about the damage, it's just supposed to do _some_, and to be an effective reclamator, and apply a variety of other debuffs (armor damage, engine damage, paralysis) just for the fun of it.
  
−
* Sentinel Frigates are now immune to insta-kill.
+
* Electric Shuttle
 +
** Base Energy Cost from 100 => 400 (MkIs, as usual, have half energy cost).
 +
** Metal Cost from 100 => 300.
 +
** Crystal Cost from 500 => 1500 (the main reason for the resource cost increase is that these are a 1/4 cap ship, so the build-to-cap expenses were way lower than is normal).
 +
** Base Health from 7200/10000/14000/20000 => 30k*mk (this brings their cap health up to 10m, average is 15m).
 +
** Base Armor Rating from 100 => 150*mk.
 +
** Seconds-Per-Salvo from 20/19/18/17 => flat 20.
 +
** Base Attack Power from 200/600/1000/1500 => 400*mk.
 +
*** Previously these had a mkI cap-dps of... 490.  That's against one target, obviously.  Against 100 targets that's 49000, which is inside the 30-100 scale, but against 1000 targets or 2000 targets, etc, it gets really high.  It's not too insanely high but in order to maintain that the more "normal" cases have to have a much lower than average dps.
 +
*** So we're introducing a new form of "aoe-capping" to avoid the truly asymptotic cases and also avoid the ship being too ineffective against a small number of targets, and removing the normal bonuses; basically it has a "bonus" against larger groups.
 +
** Can hit a maximum of 200 targets in one blast, but if there are fewer than that many eligible targets in range it will keep hitting them until it has done 200 hits or until it has hit all of them 5 times.
 +
*** This means that the cap-dps vs groups of 40 or more is about 196k, and the cap-dps against a single target is only 4900 (which is reallllly low, but still 10x what it used to be and basically they're not supposed to be good against single targets).
 +
** The "staggering" mechanic is still in place to prevent alpha strikes (which has both positive and negative impacts on the unit's effectiveness, actually), we can look at reducing the stagger post-5.0.
 +
** None of these various "number of targets" value scale with unit caps; we may change that later but in general it's not a priority to maintain exactly the same balance across different caps, so long as each has a reasonable balance of its own.
 +
** Bonus vs Artillery from 4 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 4 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs Structural from 4 => 1.
 +
** Bonus vs CommandGrade from 4 => 1.
 +
** "Bonus" vs Medium from 0.75 => 1.
  
−
* Harvester Exo-Shield regeneration increased so that self-healing from nearly dead to full takes 30 seconds, instead of 2 hours.
+
* All cross planet attacks are now twice as large as they used to be.  In essence, this puts them back to where they were on Normal before the prior version, as that seemed like a good level what with the new, larger wave sizes and such.  On Low ship caps they will still be 1/2 what they were a couple of releases back, based on being quartered and now doubled.  And for High ship caps, it's just now twice as large as it's ever been.
  
−
* The artillery golem no longer self-damages as it attacks. It has vastly less health, though, and now only fires half as often.
+
* Zenith Beam Frigate:
 +
** Base Attack Power from 4000*mk => 3200*mk.
 +
** Max targets hit per shot from 10 => 9.
  
−
* The armored golem is no longer self-damaging as it attacks, but also has vastly less health -- but vastly more armor.
+
* Spire Blade Spawner:
 +
** Seconds-per-blade-spawn from 2 => 3.
 +
** Blade health from 60k*mk => 30k*mk.
 +
** Blade damage from 60k*mk => 50k*mk.
 +
** Blade lifetime from 10 seconds => 15 seconds.
  
−
* The botnet golem is no longer self-damaging, but now has a lot less health and far lowered move speed.
+
* Bomber Starship armor from 1500*mk => 600*mk (now the same as bombers).
  
−
* Lightning Turrets now have extremely high armor piercing ability, as well as a hefty bonus against refractive hulls.
+
* Marauders:
 +
** Spawns now only happen when the marauder counter is "fully charged" (40 for diffs < 9, 80 otherwise) instead of having a random chance of triggering early.
 +
** The counter is now capped at the "fully charged" level instead of 2x that, to avoid "stockpiling" resulting in multiple spawns over a short interval.
 +
** The "number of marauders to spawn" was computed by roughly "number of human military ships here" minus "number of AI military ships here" (and capped at the value of the marauder counter).  It now takes simply either "number of human military ships here" or "number of AI military ships here", whichever is larger (though capped at 4x the smaller value) and divides it by 8.  This number is then doubled on normal unit caps, and quadrupled on low caps.  Anyway, the upshot should be less chance of small marauder spawns that cause the marauder counter to stay "stockpiled".
  
 
== Misc Changes ==
 
== Misc Changes ==
  
−
*Extended "warp in the clowns" cheat to take 2 additional parameters (separated by commas), the first is a case-insensitive ForegroundObjectType name, the second is the base wave size (which is multiplied up down and sideways, but allows relative control).
+
* Various AI types are now disabled based on the current options in the lobby.
 +
** If an AI belongs to a specific expansion, it is now disabled if that expansion is disabled in the LOBBY, not just in the overall License Keys / Expansions setting for the game itself.
 +
** If Mines are disabled, so is the Mine Enthusist.
 +
** If Starships are disabled, so is the Starfleet Commander.
 +
** If Heavy Defense is disabled, so is the Fortress Baron.
 +
** If Teleporting is disabled, so is the Teleporter Turtle.
 +
** If Parasites are disabled, so are the Technologist Parasite and Feeding Parasite.
 +
** If Cloaking is disabled, so are the Camoflager, the Counter Spy, the Shadow Master, and the Stealth Master.
 +
** If the Astro Trains AI Plot is disabled for either player, then those players cannot be a Train Master.
 +
 
 +
* Decreased the difficulty of the player-adjacent Mark IV planet in the intermediate tutorial.
 +
 
 +
* Added explicit logic for preventing most non-ai-ally minor faction ships from being able to hit anything that can cause freeing of ai ships (namely command stations and guard posts); this had been handled properly before but after the switch to hull-type-based bonuses some gaps opened up, and may be responsible for some of the inexplicable early-game attacks people have been seeing.
 +
 
 +
* Spire Starships are now considered Mark IV, instead of Mark III.
 +
 
 +
* The remaining trial time is now shown as a countdown timer in the alerts box in the upper left of the screen while playing.  This should make it a lot more obvious when players accidentally start a trial game, as well as making it more clear how much time remains for players who did intend to start a trial game.
 +
 
 +
* Auto-created manufactories are always now disabled at the start of the game.
 +
 
 +
* Achievements for victories against AI types, minor factions, AI plots, on various planet counts, for controlling various planet counts, winning and losing in general or against certain difficulties, and so forth are all now Conquest-only.  Other achievements, based on things such as points, time, resources, kills/losses, and reclaimining/scrap are still able to be won in Defender mode.
 +
 
 +
* Re-implemented the small window that used to draw when placing a ship, that tells you why the icon is red if the proposed location is not valid.
 +
 
 +
* A new version of the Unity Engine, 3.1, is now in use (updating from prior version 3.0).
 +
 
 +
* The way that the text wrapping is handled on the intel summary is now better, appropriate to its new taller-but-narrower appearance.
 +
 
 +
* The EMP on death ability now shows how many seconds the EMP is for.
 +
 
 +
* Guns have been removed from the Neinzul Enclave Starships, at the request of players to have these work more like space docks (not selecting with military ships, etc).
 +
 
 +
* The "Grid" map type from The Zenith Remnant has been renamed to "Lattice" instead, as it really was not a true grid.
 +
 
 +
* All ships that have tractor beams on them are now immune to the tractor beams of other ships.
 +
 
 +
* Added a new cheat for Light of the Spire: Impact Is Imminent (+1 Of Each Asteroid Type On The Current Planet)
 +
 
 +
* AI Reinforce-guard-post logic now stops prioritizing the "majority" type at that guard post when a certain cap is reached, that cap is related to the human ship cap, this should help avoid massive piles of z-bombers and stealth battleships, though it won't completely prevent them.
 +
 
 +
* Minimum ship cap multiplier for wave size from 0.3 => 0.03.  This should help with the killer waves of zenith electric bombers, spire stealth battleships, etc.
 +
 
 +
* Spire Blades (from a Spire Blade Spawner) and Wasps (from a Hive Golem) no longer get regenerated by Regenerator Golems/Trains.
 +
 
 +
* All ships that are unable to be repaired now automatically get infinite engine health (to prevent them from being permanently stranded).
 +
 
 +
* Three new commands have been added to Light of the Spire for enabling the new minor factions in existing savegames (but ONLY if none of the three is already on—you can't use this to switch back and forth between them):
 +
** cmd:activate spirecraft easy
 +
** cmd:activate spirecraft moderate
 +
** cmd:activate spirecraft hard
 +
 
 +
* Three new commands have been added to The Zenith Remnant for enabling the new minor factions in existing savegames (but ONLY if none of the three is already on—you can't use this to switch back and forth between them):
 +
** cmd:activate broken golems easy
 +
** cmd:activate broken golems moderate
 +
** cmd:activate broken golems hard
 +
 
 +
* Broken Golems are no longer seeded as a part of the base Zenith Remnant campaigns (it used to seed 3 in every TZR campaign) -- however, any preexisting seeded golems will remain in existing saves.
 +
 
 +
* The ability "AI Reinforces When This Enters AI Planet" has been removed from the game, as only golems used it and now they do not.
 +
 
 +
* The ability "Requires Proximity Of AI Warp Gate" has been removed from the game, as only golems used it and now they do not.
 +
 
 +
* All map seeds now give twice as many possible starting positions (16 instead of 8), to allow for players to have greater variety with less clicking through map seeds to find the ships they want (especially with all the new ship types lately).
 +
** If there are fewer than  the allotted number of ship types available given the current expansions and ship complexity, then the number of valid starting positions will be reduced as appropriate.
 +
 
 +
* The Enable Advanced Logging setting now also causes two new logs to be written: MainThreadWaveComputationLog and AIThreadWaveComputationLog (which is only written on the host's machine in an mp game).  These will have a lot of details in how a wave's size was computed, which is helpful in diagnosing exactly what's going on if we continue to have unexpectedly-sized (generally unexpectedly-large) waves.
 +
 
 +
* Enclave Starship collision priority from 9000 => 875, putting it below rally posts (and standard ff-gens and command station cores) but above just about everything else that's mobile.
 +
 
 +
* Shield Bearers and Spirecraft Shield Bearers now have collision priority of 566, making them less likely to be bounced out to the edges of a group and more likely to cover more units.
 +
 
 +
* When players have exhausted the ship cap for a type of ship, that now takes precedence over the ENER error message on the buttons when players are in low-energy situations.
 +
 
 +
* Special Forces ships that arrive on player planets now go into "free" mode instead of just passing through while on special forces mode.  Similarly, whenever special forces ships find themselves on a planet with a human-controlled non-scout/scout-starship unit, they will also go into "free" mode.  This is how it used to be, but sometime since 4.0 it's changed, likely because minor factions were accidentally stirring up special forces units.  That will no longer happen.  Also, Zombie units will be ignored for these purposes.
 +
 
 +
* There were still some cases of commands being issued to AI ships that were in low-power mode, so we've added a much more aggressive check that makes it essentially impossible for a low-power-mode AI ship to receive a UnitCommand.
 +
 
 +
* Rather than having Counterattack Guard Posts die (and launch a counterattack wave) when the command station on their planet is now killed, instead they now provide protection to their command station until they are killed.  Thus the same net effect is in place for players—players can't kill the command station without also killing the counterattack guard post—but it is no longer possible for players to ACCIDENTALLY trigger the counterattack guard post, which is a big improvement.
 +
 
 +
* Guardians are now immune to the effect of the camouflager.
 +
 
 +
* AI Stealth Guard Posts now have the cloaking super boost ability.
 +
 
 +
* Neinzul Cockroaches are now immune to reclamation.
 +
 
 +
* All Neinzul ships in general are now immune to reclamation.  This makes them excellent against botnet golems in particular now.
 +
 
 +
* Wasps and Spire Blades are now immune to reclamation.
 +
 
 +
* Science Labs are no longer seeded on AI planets, or able to be captured on planet ownership change.  It was just clutter, was slightly confusing, and was slightly problematic with the new logic.
 +
 
 +
* When an AI ship that is captured upon planet ownership change is on a player planet, that AI ship now changes hands automatically to the player who controls the planet.
 +
 
 +
* Added a new cheat: Military Takeover
 +
** Spawn Military Command Station, Thus Capturing The Planet Even If The AI Held It
 +
 
 +
* Added a new cheat: Like Dynamiting Fish In A Bucket
 +
** Spawn an Advanced Research Station under the control of the first AI.
  
−
*Added support for use of "any" as the second parameter of the spawn-immediate-wave cheat, so "warp in the clowns,any,1" will send in a wave of any, but will use the 1 size modifier instead of whatever the AI Progress would dictate at the time.  Note that the impact of the size parameter is very different in the "any" case than if you specify an actual ship type; generally it results in much larger numbers (so you probably want to start with using "1" as the size parameter, and work up from there).
+
* Distribution nodes and Zenith reserves are now captured on planet ownership change.  It allows them to be scrapped when needed instead of having to send ships to already secured planets on the other side of the galaxy.
  
−
*MkIV scout now no longer evades after exiting a wormhole.
+
* Other mouse-move and middle-mouse-scrolling handling changes and another way of updating the world-point each frame, in hopes that it won't break something else.
  
−
* added parametrized version of knowledge cheat: "Give Me K,x" (where x is an integer >= -50000 and <= 50000) changes using player's knowledge by x.
+
* Wasps and Spire Blades no longer make an explosion sound when they die.
−
* added parametrized version of ai progress cheat: "Get Angry,x" (where x is an integer >= -2000 and <= 2000) changes AIP by x.
 
  
−
* A new, Unity-friendly way of handling version numbers has been implemented.
+
* Wasps and Spire Blades no longer effect the counts of number of ships lost or built, and no longer effect score.
  
−
* Only a very few ships (a couple of Golems) had differing metal and crystal repair costs.  These have been adjusted so that metal and crystal costs are always the same, and the tooltip is now more concise with simply specifying the repair rate as something that is always applying equally to metal and crystal.
+
* The Exo-Galactic Wormholes now spawn way further out than beofre when in the hands of a Backdoor Hacker.  This prevents bombers and similar from being in immediate range of the home forcefields with these.
  
−
* There is a new internal format for storing player data inside savegames, which makes it easier to find issues and desyncs relating to player data.
+
* Rather than there being three cloaking states—full, partial, and none—there are now only two—full and none.  Now there is never a case where players can shoot at an enemy ship without being able to see what it is. Ships are either cloaked or they are not.
  
−
* Immobile AI ships that were at a planet the last time the planet was scouted are now visible through the fog of war (as in many other RTS games).
+
* Ships with shot-out engines are no longer completely unable to move.  Now they just have the infuriatingly-slow move speed of 1.  This prevents such situations as wormhole guard posts permanently trapping player ships.  Now ships can always at least move away, albeit extremely slowly, to then be later repaired.  This also helps to reduce the micro needed with engineers related to engine health.
  
−
* The game now randomly selects from all the possible title music tracks (from the base game and any installed expansions) when deciding which title music track to use.
+
* Neinzul Cockroaches can no longer be regenerated.
  
−
* Warhead silos and starship constructors were seeded onto enemy planets as a capturable for human players to take over in the past, mainly so that players would be sure to eventually discover these constructors if the players were not diligent in exploring the build menus.  However, now that these constructors are seeded at the start, this is no longer needed, and it was sometimes confusing to players anyway (some thought that the silos or starship constructors would be used against them, which was not the case).  These will no longer be seeded into new games on AI planets.
+
* Attrition Emitters can no longer be reclaimed.
  
−
* PermaMines have been removed from the game, as the game has evolved to a point where they just didn't make sense any longer (free transports is a big part of that, plus the permamines just involved too much micro in general).  PermaMines have been changed into regular mines.
+
* There is now a "Has Cheated" option shown in the Galaxy Stats window, since that's the internal value that score-modifiers go on rather than Cheats Enabled.  It doesn't care if you have cheats enabled, it just cares if you used any.  Now that's more clear when that's the case and when it's not.  Commands don't count as cheats, of course.
  
−
* Added 24 achievements. 1 for the base game (win a game with the Avenger plot enabled), and 23 for CoN.
+
* The current game version is now shown in the galaxy stats window, so that players have a way of checking the game version from within the game itself.
  
−
* Human-controlled attrition emitters now do not damage AI-held units that cause AI progress on death (like distribution nodes and zenith reserves).
+
* When a player uses a command, it now shows "CMD" instead of "CHEAT" for the sake of clarity.
  
−
* Cloaker starships now prefer to cloak ships with transport capacity or buy menus over other ships.  However, this preference will not let it "kick out" an ship already chosen by the starship for cloaking in order to "make room" for a transport (or whatever) that has just come into range.
+
* When a ship is having its radar jammed by a global planetary effect (this does NOT refer to radar dampening against a single ship), the drawn attack range of the ship is shown as halved.
  
−
* The AI will no longer use the following ships as homogenous waves:
+
* When players unlock higher-mark metal or crystal harvesters, all existing lower-mark harvesters are immediately upgraded to the new higher-mark versions at full health, at no metal/crystal cost.
−
** Forcefield Bearers
+
** However, any lower-mark harvesters that are still under construction won't upgrade until after they finish constructing.
−
** Munitions Boosters
 
−
** Zenith Autobombs
 
−
** Shield Boosters
 
−
** Youngling Nanoswarms
 
−
** Zenith Paralyzers
 
  
−
* Astro trains in general (including turret trains), and also astro train stations, are now a lower priority for player ships to auto-attack.  This will help somewhat with ships getting distracted by turret trains, but if ships are already latched on and firing on it, it may still be 5-10 seconds before they decide to shoot at something else, so this may not have as large an effect as some might prefer.
+
* Planets that have been destroyed, or which don't have supply for the local player, now won't be included in pathing that should be limited to planets that have knowledge left (those planets are considered as having no knowledge left).
  
−
* The settings screen will never prompt players to restart the game now (previously it did on resolution changes and on expansions being enabled/disabled). Yay!
+
* Ships that are immune to speed boosting now actually have that shown in their list of immunities.
  
−
* It is no longer possible to manually select a starfield type in the game settings -- a completely new starfield generation algorithm is now used.
+
* All ships that are not directly autotargeted by human players are now immune to the effects of attrition.  This prevents things like spirecraft attritioners from harming enemy-held fabricators, ARSes, etc.
  
−
* Same as with the starfields, it is no longer possible to select styles of nebulae, as they are now handled differently and better.  Also, nebulae detail levels can no longer be set in the game settings, but nebula can now be turned off via a toggle if desired.
+
* All ships that can be captured on planet ownership change, or which swallow enemy ships, are now immune to camouflaging.
  
−
* The option "Scale Game On Large Monitors (Keeps game objects the same relative size on larger and smaller monitors, but may cause lowered overall quality)" has been removed, as it no longer applies on the new platform (it looked awful on the old platform, anyway).
+
* The logic for "excess starship removal" on AI planets is now significantly better, and will never clean up starships because of an excess of free/threat starships, which might just have clustered on a planet.  Only "planetary roamer" starships will be kept to a specific cap, now.
  
−
* The "Disable Very Far Zoom" option has been removed from settings.  It's long-since been clear that nobody in their right mind would want to do that.
+
* Additionally, AI ships that have active commands from the AI will no longer be automatically put back into low-power mode even if they otherwise would be.
  
−
* The "Disable Cleartype" option has been removed from settings because it also has no meaning on the Unity platform (text comes from prerendered textures, never from the OS, now).
+
* Two new cheats have been added to the game:
 +
** Fog This! (Change Fog of War To "Complete Visibility")
 +
** Better Than Trelawney (Reveal Random AI Types)
  
−
* The "Default Frame Skip" option has been removed (as has the "frame skip" feature in general), because Unity 3D manages the render-vs-sim framerate automatically (and does a much better job of it, we might add).
+
* A new command has been added to the game: "cmd:enable cheats" turns on cheats for the current campaign, but does not itself count as a cheat.
 +
** Note: Having cheats enabled does not affect score or the game's outcome at all, until players actually use the cheats.  Disabling cheats is simply a "safety net" mechanism so that players don't accidentally use cheats, and so that players can't grief by suddenly cheating out of the blue.
 +
** Further note that this command cannot be used when there is more than one active player (in other words, if you use "manage players" to disable all the players but the host, you ''can'' use this command).  This is another anti-griefing safety measure.
 +
** Lastly, this specific alteration to the savegame does not require a full sync and so does not create a conversion save file, etc.  It just makes the changes right in memory, as it's a comparably simple change to the save.
  
−
* The "Extra Tooltip Font Size" option has been removed, as fonts can't be dynamically resized in the same way on Unity 3D the way we're using the fonts. BUT, because the game now supports true fullscreen, that shouldn't ever be a need any more, anyway -- this feature was added for a few players so that they could compensate for the text looking too small when viewed at their overlarge desktop resolution.
+
* The small buttons on the left of the galaxy map for the display mode and display filter have been removed, as they were redundant with the much better dropdowns at the bottom of the screen since 4.0.
  
−
* The settings option "Use Simple Render For Far Zoom Icons (Slower, But Prevents Invisible Icons On Some Graphics Card Drivers)" has been removed, as with the new Unity 3D system there is no risk of the invisible icons -- again, yay.  Now it's definitely always nice and fast for everyone, and there's one fewer confusing settings options.
+
* Mobile Builders are now immune to reclamation.
  
−
* The "Always Show Selected Units Hover Text" settings option has been removed, as the new Selected Ships window has replaced the entire older way of handling selected ships (and this new way is much better).
+
* Doubled number of precomputed circular offset points for pre-displacement stuff like large-number-of-unit moves and exiting wormholes, etc.
  
−
* The "Combine Planetary Summary Icon Colors" and "Hide Planetary Summary Icon Counts" settings options have been removed, as the planetary summary has been revised substantially enough that these sorts of options really don't have any solid purpose any longer (and we're really making an effort to weed out settings options of that sort, so that the useful ones are easier for players to look at and find).
+
* Colony ships are now immune to reclamation.
  
−
* The settings options "Disable Blending of Shot/Explosion Effects" and "Use Simple Shot Effects" have been removed from the settings screen, as these were performance-boosting settings that no longer are needed with the new special effects rendering methods now employed by the game.
+
* Added a new cheat: We Like Carriers, which spawns in a MASSIVE wave with 1 second left on the timer. (As you may guess from many of our cheats, this was added for testing, even though it's interesting outside of that context).
  
−
* The "Disable Explosion Debris/Embers" option has been removed, as the debris/ember emission has been taken out of the engine in favor of more complex base explosion effects (the end result looks better and runs more efficiently).
+
* Previously, the logic for human resistance fighters to spawn was a bit fiddly and wasn't always working as intended.  It's been overhauled so that on AI planets, resistance fighters have a chance of joining in when there are at least 300 human-allied military ships, and the AI still outnumbers the humans in terms of ship count; while on human or neutral planets, there must be at least 400 human-enemy military ships, and the resistance fighters may join in.
  
−
* The "Show Window Toolbar" settings option has been removed, as unfortunately that's not something we can control in Unity.
+
* Zombie and Minor Faction ships are no longer allowed to be regenerated.
  
−
* New settings options have been added that make it possible to set the windowed resolution to anything, or to set the fullscreen resolution to a list of general resolutions, and to toggle which one is presently active. Basically, the identical setup to Tidalis.
+
* The spawning logic for human marauders previously was that there had to be at least 100 enemy-to-AI and AI-allied ships on the planet, unless the difficulty was set to 8 or higher, in which case it was just completely random.
 +
** The spawning logic has been changed so that on AI planets or neutral planets, there must be at least 100 human military ships present (so that marauders are more likely to show up during big attacks); and so that on human planets there must be at least 10 AI-allied military ships on the planet.  The AI difficulty level no longer has any impact on this.
  
−
* The Unit Relative strengths is no longer compiled into the game itself, but is now in a UnitRelative.dat file that is in the RuntimeData folder. This lets players update the relativestrengths file if they are so inclined (sometimes it takes us a while to do it).
+
* The way that rebelling human colonies work has now been completely revamped in terms of what happens once you capture them:
 +
** They now provide foldouts in multiplayer.
 +
** They cannot be used to create ships while the minor faction still controls them (previously, when the rebel colony was in supply, they could).
 +
** The ships they create are now created through a queue as you would expect, rather than through direct placement.
 +
** The colonies are captured on planet ownership change, rather than continuing to belong to a minor faction.
 +
** This fixes a number of prior bugs and logical issues with the rebelling human colonies:
 +
*** Previously, the colonies gave no economic benefit to players, despite claiming to, because they were controlled by a minor faction.
 +
**** Interestingly, no-one ever reported this one.
 +
*** Recently, it was impossible to build any ships using the colonies.
  
−
* Previously, the game only ran in a "faux fullscreen" mode that was the size of the player's desktop resolution.  For many that worked very well, but for some that made the fonts unusably small.  Now, thanks to Unity 3D, the game supports both true fullscreen as well as windowed mode.
+
* Previously, there was no "Event flare" for rebelling human colonies on the galaxy map.  Now there is, when they are still in the hands of the AI.
−
** Unfortunately this means the loss of the "faux fullscreen" mode, which we're sorry to see go, but that is not yet something Unity 3D supports.
 
−
** The game also now supports resizing (and changing between fullscreen and windowed modes) in realtime.  Previously, the game had to be restarted whenever sizing changes were made.
 
  
−
* A brand new Tidalis-style in-game updater is now included.  This beats the pants off any updaters we used in the past in terms of speed, efficiency, and overall flow.
+
* Mining Golem attack power has been increased 10x, armor has been decreased 3x.  Health of the mining golem has been increased from 40m to 120m.
 +
** When mining golems explode, they now destroy the planet and all the resource points, but no ships.  This means that there is no risk of AI Progress increase from them, they just cut off access to resources.
 +
** Mining golems are now only seeded on planets in player territory, or within one hop of player territory.
 +
** Instead of a single mining golem per planet, it is now one per human player in multiplayer games.
 +
** Instead of a single planet getting a mining golem at once, three planets all get them at the same time, now.
 +
** Mining golems are now spawned every four hours (or so), rather than every 8ish hours.
 +
** The net effect here is that with this minor faction on, you'll have planets exploding and sometimes you'll just need to let them explode.  This can put crimps in your and/or AI supply, and can also put the pressure on in terms of resource availability.
 +
** Mining Golems also now have 10k radar dampening.
 +
** Now that Mining Golems spawn so close to the human planets, there is only a 30-minute countdown timer on them, rather than 90 minutes.
  
−
* The screenshots function (F12) was previously unable to function on some computers.  It should now work for everyone.
+
* Advanced Factories, Fabricators, and Captive Human Settlements are now immune to nukes.
  
−
* The screenshot function, plus any external video recording software (FRAPS, XFire, etc) previously would not pick up the menus in the game because of their GDI+ nature.  Now this works with all of them.
+
* Player-Ally Dyson Gatlings no longer self-attrition on human-controlled planets.  This shouldn't be too unbalancing because the humans would have to capture a contiguous line of planets, the spawns only come so fast, etc.
−
** Also previously, externally-inserted overlays like the Steam interface and XFire had to have special support (as in the case of Steam) to avoid conflicts between the overlay and our GDI+ menus.  Now that is no longer a consideration either, it all works as you'd expect.
 
  
−
* Our installer is now much better.  The old versions used MSI packages, which are clunky and extraordinarily slow.  It helps that we now have no prerequisites for the game, but the installer is miles better even discounting that.
+
* Modules can no longer be assigned to a control group, since that was really buggy and unintended anyway.
  
−
* The update checker now uses the main Arcen site, rather than Amazon S3, as we have the bandwidth to spare for that sort of simple thing and it will no longer cost us anything.
+
* If either of the two icon rows on the intel summary in the galaxy map need to get wider than they can, they now will wrap down to the next line.
  
−
* The update checker also now is substantially more flexible in terms of being able to download update files from any other server (as specified in the update file), rather than only from a server compiled into the game itself.  This uses a tad more bandwidth for update checks, but the added flexibility is well worth it.
+
* The "Can't Go Through Wormholes" ability has been removed from any ships that are unable to move, thus preventing useless text in their descriptions.
  
−
* The old version of the "AI War Pre-4.0 Settings Importer" did not work because it was in a folder with a file called AIWar.exe in it.  Based on how .NET looks for file assemblies, that was causing it to look at the wrong file for trying to bind.  Now the importer has been updated to run instead from inside the RuntimeData folder of the game install folder, which bypasses this issue.
+
* Bomber Starships now use the energy wave shot type, rather than energy burst, so that their attack is visually and aurally more impressive.
  
−
* The tutorials window has had some changes: the link to the videos page, and the link to the community wiki, have both been removed.  A direct link to the "Fast Facts: A Crash Course On AI War" has been added.
+
* Ships with modules can no longer be camouflaged.
  
−
* A number of refinements have been made to the tutorial playback engine (scrolling messages, clickable messages, etc).
+
* The alerts box now remembers its widths from the last 12 seconds, and doesn't shrink below whatever the max size was during that period (it keeps track of the sizes once per second).  This prevents the alerts box from jittering around in size as numbers count down on the wave timers, for instance.
  
−
* All of the tutorials in the game have been revised fairly substantially.
+
* Some tweaks to the resource bar display:
 +
** The parentheses around the unused resource gatherers label on the resource bar has been removed to prevent wrapping issues.
 +
** The total income display on the resources bar next to the current net income for metal and crystal has been removed.  Those are both accessible through the tooltip for those items, and it was both cluttering and causing-of-wrapping-issues to have it included.
 +
** Both the metal and crystal resource sections of the resource bar are now 10px narrower each.  On 1024px-wide screen resolutions, this should prevent threat, etc, from ever going off the right side of the screen, while still not having any wrapping like we used to have here (thanks to the above change).
  
−
* The DebugMustAuthCyclesIncrement (F4) and DebugAuthCycles (F5) key bindings have been removed, as the ability to make the game simulation run slower (and the addition of the debug log) make this pretty unneccessary now.
+
* A change has been put in place to make ships immediately re-check for new forcefield protection as soon as they lose protection from a prior force field.  This was previously the case for command stations only.  This will have some performance impact, but will greatly help correctness in the case of multi-stacked force fields.
  
−
* The debug-related keybindings for F6, F9, and F10 have all been removed.
+
* Ships that are still under construction are now immune to all forms of paralysis—paralysis shots, EMPs, whatever.  This prevents a number of little issues.
  
−
* The toggle score display (F2) option has been removed, as the score is no longer shown directly on the screen at all times.
+
* The exo-shield and energy reactor remains now can't be rebuilt when on a planet that doesn't have a player command station (the exo shields because those are linked to nonexistent harvesters, so those are pointless).
  
−
* The main score now shown in the scores panel of the stats window is the adjusted score (which is what is mainly used on scoreboards).  The raw score is now also still shown -- this was the old score that is shown in-game -- but it is given a lower priority.
+
* Energy reactors now drop remains when they die, so that remains rebuilders can rebuild them automatically.
  
−
* The score benefit from using mercenary ships has now been slashed 10x.
+
* Improved the AI thread's information about guarding objects and exo-shields.  This should fix some of the issues relating to units dancing, etc.
  
−
* When there are multiple available title music tracks, as is the case when players have an expansion installed, the game will now pick randomly between those songs and play them at the title menu and lobby.  That way it's not always the same track just looping instantly, and all the title music tracks can still be enjoyed when you've got the expansions.
+
* The way that exo-shields work has now been completely re-done.  Rather than providing a single-ship forcefield, the exo-shield now just adds its health to that of the original ship.  For purposes of the AI thread, the AI is now WAY better at deciding when to attack ships under exo-shields (in the past it would pretty much just ignore them).  Additionally, the way that exo-shields work is a lot more RAM-efficient.  Also, a ship can now be protected by both a regular force field and an exo-shield at the same time, unlike before.  The visuals of exo-shields also now show up like the "ship based force fields" of riot starships and similar.
  
−
* Removed the Galaxy Display for starship constructors, since they are already counted in the All Constructors display.
+
* Exo-shields no longer die when their target protected object dies, they simply become unlinked and will later link with anything valid that is within range of them.
  
−
* It is now possible to see the screen/viewport sizes in the F3 debug menu.
+
* The various resource-gathering-type ships are no longer including the "captured on planet ownership" flag, as that was pointless given that the AI no longer has them.
  
−
* AI planets with most units in cold storage and no human presence generally only process every other sim cycle (but double the movement, etc); this looks odd when viewing such a planet via complete-visibility, and now that the game actually syncs some of the local-interface data for each human player across the network, we have changed this so that an AI planet currently being viewed by a human player will never use the every-other-cycle model.
+
* All metal and crystal harvesters and all energy reactors are now destroyed on a planet when the command station is lost.  The main goal of this is making the loss of a command station more meaningful again, as it used to be for other reasons, but it happily also means that energy reactors can no longer be constructed on neutral/enemy planets (thus preventing circumvention of the AI Progress needed for energy via that sort of strategy).
  
−
* Ship damaged smoke and embers have been removed.
+
* When there are extra metal or crystal harvesters on a planet (typically from old and semi-messed-up-saves), all of the harvesters of the type-in-excess are now removed (and presumably are then rebuilt afterward).  This prevents some situations of essentially accidental-cheating.  A message is sent when the harvesters of a planet are reset in this way.
  
−
* Player Home Command Stations are now considered mark V.
+
* The effects of gravity drills, gravitational turrets, etc, are now calculated approximately 3x more frequently, and thus increase CPU load a bit but at the same time make the gravity turrets in particular more effective.
  
−
* Advanced Research Stations are now considered Mark V ships.
+
* Much improved the colors of the control group labels on the planetary summary, so that they are actually legible again (first time these have been legible since the port to unity).
  
−
* Warheads are now actually marks I-III rather than all being mark V.
+
* It is now possible to replace an existing command station that belongs to you all in one action: simply build the new command station on an planet and it will replace the existing one.
 +
** Additionally, when this action is taken, it no longer triggers the when-command-station-dies logic for other ships on the planet; they don't notice the swap.  This is extremely useful for reactors and harvesters, which otherwise would be unavoidably destroyed when the command station was scrapped before the replacement was built.
 +
** This also causes the planet to not leave control of the player, even while the command station replacement is self-building, whereas before it would normally have been neutral in color for a while.
  
−
* The AI force fields versus the human force fields are no longer colored differently.  The reason for that has long since passed, and consistency is now more important.
+
* Normally tractor beams will not latch onto ships with an effective speed of 0 (from engine damage or whatever), but now that logic is only for IMMOBILE tractor beam sources.  Mobile ships like martyrs, etherjets, etc, can now pick up ships with zero current move speed that would normally have move speed.
  
−
* The ships included in the Strong/Weak data export now exclude starships, turrets, command stations, guard posts, golems, heavy defenses, astro trains, and anything that is not classified as "extended mobile military."
+
* Barracks checks were previously always 200 only occurring if there were an excess 200 units at the planet, even though the barracks capacity amounts were scaled with the different unit cap scales.  This meant that barracks/carriers were rarely being seeded into normal and low ship cap scale games, except for older savegames that had these.
−
** This is because, for balance purposes, these various ships can't be quantified in a useful way by this export.  So it saves signficant time creating the export to ignore them.  In this specific release, for example, it cuts the number of pairings of ships down from 11,902 down to 4,877.  Additionally, it's saving some of the slowest pairings, which is even better.
+
** This has been fixed so that the check floor is now 200/100/50 at high/normal/low ship caps, which means that barracks and carriers are WAY likelier to show up in those kinds of games.  Correspondingly, now border aggression is less of a thing there, as it already was on high (still a thing, just not so much of one).
  
−
* The "excel xml" files that were previously being exported often had problems being read in many programs, including Excel 2007.  They were using an older Excel 2003 format that was not widely supported, and that was not even working for the Arcen staff any longer.  The game has now been updated to export true .xls files in the BIFF8 format, which is supported by pretty much every spreadsheet program since Excel 97.
+
* Fortresses no longer have the ability to transport ships.  That was somewhat useless, and the counter for the transport overlapped with the repair-ability counter.  Any fortresses transporting ships in existing saves will eject them.
−
** Special thanks to the awesome open source [http://code.google.com/p/excellibrary/ excellibrary] component for this, which we're using a stripped-down version of for this.
 
  
−
* Previously, Mark V ships were sometimes called Core ships, and sometimes called Mark V ships.  Some of the ships even had different names at the core level: Core Predator, Core Leech, etc.  All of these have now been made consistent, using the Mark V nomenclature.  There are still some references to "Core" in the game, but that's meant as "on or adjacent to the AI home planet," rather than "Mark V."  That distinction was always there, but muddied by the fact that mark V ships were also more generally called "Core."  This should hopefully avoid some confusion in the future.
+
* Spire Blades and Hive Golem Wasps are now immune to being insta-killed so that they don't distract ion cannons.
  
−
* Now if there is any threat within the first 60 seconds of a new game, those threatening ships are instead added to special forces.  This catches any overflow from the start of a game, just in case.
+
* When one resource is at the resource cap and the other is not, the manufactories now start turning on to minimize the wasted overflow.
  
−
* Moved F3-Debug part of ship-mouseover-tooltip to the next-to-cursor tooltip box, since there wasn't room for it in the main tooltip-window anyway.
+
* The AI players should now properly value the per-planet ship caps for creating experimental and support-corps ships, and in general will flood them into planets a whole lot less.
  
−
* If a guard post has more than two guardians assigned to it, it will automatically prune down to two guardians.  This is a safety measure just in case something happens with the normal logic for making sure that guardians don't get too plentiful per-guard-post.
+
* The experimentalist and support corps ships are now more likely to send their specialty ships along with waves.
−
** Note that there is a single "freebie" tachyon guardian at every AI-controlled wormhole that is not guarding any of the guard posts, and which therefore doesn't count.
 
  
−
* Added some "defensive programming" to prevent crashes due to occasional problems loading sound files on OSX.
+
* Player ships that are in low power mode no longer are able to recharge their weapons.  Note that when this happens, the recharge bar will automatically be shown for the ship, no matter what the context, to let the player know what is happening.  This prevents the incentive to use some micro-intensive tactics.
  
−
* The old "Snap Cursor To Window" game setting has been removed, as there is no way to do this in Unity.
+
* The yellow color of players in the tutorials is now brighter (on new savegames only) to be easier to see.
  
−
* By default, LeftShift and RightShift are now treated as the same key (same with LeftAlt/RightAlt and LeftCtrl/RightCtrl).  There is a new toggle on the interface tab of the settings screen to make the game treat those two separately.
+
* In the past, the combat styles would just invisibly affect the attack powers and movement speeds of ships.  Now it actually shows the real values in the interface, to be clearer what is happening there.
  
−
* There is also a new toggle on the interface tab of the settings screen to suppress the normal "multi-building-while-holding-shift" behavior that happens when, for example, placing tractor turrets by holding down the left-mouse-button and shift.  The default behavior is the same as it's always been, but with this toggle you can use shift solely for the purpose of "do not clear the item out of my cursor when I place one".
+
* Scouts and scout starships have had their base movement speed doubled.  However, their speed also no longer increases like other ships when the combat style is increased.  This prevents scouting from being too easy/hard on the various combat styles.
  
−
* The number of available sound effects at any one given has been chopped in half, to avoid a crash issue on some OSX machines.  It shouldn't really affect playback even in large battles, as there was already a different kind of limiter, but it should prevent the crash.
+
* Similarly, human transports and AI carriers no longer scale up in speed with the faster combat styles, but have had their base speed doubled.
  
−
* The pause text at the top of the screen now shows up in the same position on the galaxy map that it does on the planetary view.  It also now moves out of the way when you move your mouse cursor there.
+
* Ships that metamorphose (like Golems), that replicate (like viral shredders), which get rebuilt by rebuilders, and which get created via things like the mining enclosures (like spirecraft) now properly count as being built.
  
−
* The armor booster tooltip has been updated to be more clear, saying 3X instead of 200% (they are actually equivalent).
+
* Various "short name" changes have been made for consistency:
 +
** Z Elec Bomber is now Electric Bomber.
 +
** Frigate is now Missile Frigate.
 +
** MicroFight is now MicroFighter.
 +
** Shuttle is now Elec Shuttle.
 +
** Infil is now Infiltrator.
 +
** Laser is now Laser Gat.
 +
** Autocan is now Autocannon.
 +
** Deflect is now Deflector.
 +
** Grenade is now Grenade Launch.
 +
** Z Mirror is now Mirror.
 +
** Z Paralyzer is now Paralyzer.
 +
** Z Beam Frigate is now Beam Frigate.
 +
** Z Chameleon is now Chameleon.
 +
** Z Polarizer is now Polarizer.
 +
** Z Shredder is now Viral Shredder.
 +
** Commando is now Yng Commando.
 +
** Tiger is now Yng Tiger.
 +
** Vulture is now Yng Vulture.
 +
** Weasel is now Yng Weasel.
 +
** Nanoswarm is now Yng Nanoswarm.
 +
** S Armor Rotter is now Armor Rotter.
 +
** S Blade Spawner is now Blade Spawner.
 +
** S Gravity Drain is now Gravity Drain.
 +
** S Gravity Ripper is now Gravity Ripper.
 +
** S Maw is now Maw.
 +
** S Mini Ram is now Mini Ram.
 +
** S Stealth Battleship is now Stealth Battleship.
 +
** S Teleporting Leech is now Teleporting Leech.
 +
** S Tractor Platform is now Tractor Platform.
  
−
* Autosave is now enabled for tutorials.
+
* Various "wave name" changes have been made for consistency:
 +
** Frigates are now Missile Frigates.
 +
** Tanks are now Space Tanks.
 +
** Cutlasses are now Vorticular Cutlasses.
 +
** Spiders are now Spider Bots.
 +
** Autocannons are now Autocannon Minipods.
 +
** Planes are now Space Planes.
 +
** EtherJets are now EtherJet Tractors.
 +
** Force Field Bearers are now Shield Bearers.
 +
** Armors are now Armor Ships.
 +
** Anti-Armors are now Anti-Armor Ships.
 +
** Bombards are now Zenith Bombards.
 +
** AutoBombs are now Zenith AutoBombs.
 +
** Commandos are now Neinzul Youngling Commandos.
 +
** Tigers are now Neinzul Youngling Tigers.
 +
** Vultures are now Neinzul Youngling Vultures.
 +
** Weasels are now Neinzul Youngling Weasels.
 +
** Nanoswarms are now Neinzul Youngling Nanoswarms.
  
−
* The license keys entry textboxes now automatically strip out extra whitespace and newlines, making it easier to cut-and-paste into them from various external sources.
+
* Various "full name" changes have been made for consistency:
 +
** Heavy Bombers are now Bombers.
  
−
* Previously the loca-strings for the GalaxyDisplay and GalaxyDisplayFilter items included a description of which keys to press to trigger them. Since the keybindings are now dynamic those were no longer necessarily accurate and have been removed. In the future we can have them display the actually-currently-bound key like some of the other context menus but that will require some refactoring of those particular menus that will have to wait until post-4.0.
+
* Various "ship type name" changes have been made for consistency/clarity:
 +
** Z Elec Bomber is now Elec Bomber.
 +
** Z Mirror is now Mirror.
 +
** Z Paralyzer is now Paralyzer.
 +
** Z Beam Frigate is now Beam Frigate.
 +
** Z Chameleon is now Chameleon.
 +
** Z Polarizer is now Polarizer.
 +
** Z Shredder is now Shredder.
 +
** Z AutoBomb is now AutoBomb.
 +
** Z Bombardment is now Bombard.
 +
** Spire Armor Rotter is now Armor Rotter.
 +
** Spire Blade Spawner is now Blade Spawner.
 +
** Spire Gravity Drain is now Gravity Drain.
 +
** Spire Gravity Ripper is now Gravity Ripper.
 +
** Spire Stealth Battleship is now Stealth Battleship.
 +
** Spire Teleporting Leech is now Teleporting Leech.
 +
** Spire Tractor Platform is now Tractor Platform.
 +
** Spire Maw is now Maw.
 +
** Spire Mini Ram is now Mini Ram.
 +
** These changes also affecet the sort order of the ship icons in the planetary summary.
  
−
* The way that sound effects are pooled has been adjusted downward once again, to keep the amount of disk access and sound over-bleeding to a minimum.  This makes the battles sound a little less chaotic, which is another plus, and hopefully it will help (or fix) the remaining OSX crash.  This is a mild boost to performance on both platforms, incidentally.
+
* When AI ships are EMP'd or paralyzed or tractored, they are now both angered and—this last only if they are an AI ship—taken out of low power mode.  This makes them autotargetable, and also means they probably just became free-threat.
  
−
* The "this key has been held down for x seconds" display no longer shows when the hud has been disabled (for those scenic views).
+
* Riot Control Starships now show up with a ship type of Riot Starship rather than Fleet Starship, to avoid confusion.
  
−
* The description of the Harvester Exo-Force-Field has been made more brief.
+
* Science Labs Mark III now count as "sabotage" units that stirs up the AI into creating threat/free ships from its command station sort of like how an AI Eye would work.  This replaces the old way of stirring up the existing ships sitting on the planet, which didn't work too well for a lot of reasons.
 +
** Science Labs Mark III also no longer cause the AI to get a reinforcement bonus, and they now generate 6/s knowledge instead of 2/s.  This makes them a lot more attractive to actually use, but also substantially more risky.
  
−
* The Harvester Exo-Force-Field has been renamed to Harvester Exo-Shield, its original name, since there's no longer a reason to differentiate between force fields and shields.  Also, Force Field Bearers are now back to being called Shield Bearers, for the same reason.
+
* Windowing system reworked from using GUI.Window to the more primitive GUI.Box, handling the various other windowing stuff in our own code.  GUI.Window did a pretty good job but we were butting up against several limitations and thus decided to just "roll our own".  Thankfully, the engine is flexible enough to allow this.  Note that this is a pretty wide-reaching change and may cause all kinds of odd problems.  For what it's worth, in our tests we were able to play just fine.
  
−
* Music is now paused during multi-step processes (GameInit, StartGameFromLobby, and LoadGame) to avoid skipping, and since the music track changes from the title screen to in-game anyway.
+
* The Raptor retreat radius has been increased from 5k to 9k.
  
−
* The pdf game manual has been updated and revised.
+
* When a planet is being viewed by a human player, the AI ships will no longer be in cold storage.  This prevents issues with things like planetary cloakers, camouflager AI types, etc.
  
−
* The tutorials are all now played on Normal speed rather than the former Epic.  This prevents the ship movement, etc, from feeling sluggish, and doesn't really make the game feel any more difficult since the AI ships almost never take the initiative here, anyway.  Better first impression, and all that.
+
* AI Carriers are now able to be hit by the various types of ships that can't hit fleet ships (siege starships, etc).
  
−
* The intermediate tutorial in particular has been hugely revamped (even moreso than the other three, which saw huge updates):
+
* Additionally, AI Carriers can now be hit by orbital mass drivers.
−
** It now introduces the CTRLS screen, including rebuilders and engineer FRD automation.
+
 
−
** It now covers using starships as a key part of every offensive, as well as the benefits of scout starships.
+
* Ships that are immune to being scrapped now show that in their immunities list.
−
** It now includes a LOT more offensive/defensive tips that players really ought to know when playing for real.
+
 
−
** The tutorial now includes a much more natural difficulty progression, so that players won't feel so lost when starting their first real post-tutorial campaign without the hand-holding.
+
* When command stations are scrapped, the colony ships on that planet are now destroyed the same as if the command station was killed by enemies.
−
** It now includes tips for a better economy, as well.
+
 
−
** Knowledge Raiding is no longer included in this tutorial, as it's now quite secondary.
+
* When random AI types are assigned, the game now explicitly tries to avoid assigning the same AI type to both players.
−
** It covers getting surprised by the enemy, and instructing the player to pause to have time to react.
+
 
−
** It also now skips the part on ion smashing, as the other parts of the tutorial are now more interesting and basically cover that, making this a lot less interesting.
+
* Put in a fix to prevent older savegames and the tutorials from having their resource points and wormholes all rearranged because of the new random stuff.  This was tougher than perhaps it sounds, actually.  The placement of stuff in the tutorials (not wormholes or resource points) is still going to be a bit different than it used to be, though—so any feedback folks care to give us on how that's working and if there's anything amiss in the tutorials, would be much appreciated!
−
** The intermediate tutorial is also now six steps shorter than before, although a lot of the existing steps are more robust and interesting than before.  It should take about the same amount of time to complete as before.
+
 
 +
* Added new command: "cmd:copy game setup to lobby", that tries to populate your "LastMapStyle" and whatnot settings from the game currently loaded (it has to kinda guess at planet count in some cases).  Mostly useful for the developers to debug mapgen situations from a save, but some players may have use of it.
 +
 
 +
* When ships are regenerated by a regenerator golem, they are now revived with full engine and armor health.
 +
 
 +
* The Support Corps AI Type will no longer seed its ships in a guard capacity, and instead will have vastly more of them seeded with its ally's waves.  The support corps AI type also no longer includes engineer drone IIs.
 +
 
 +
* The AI is now completely disallowed from using mobile repair stations.  They didn't use them correctly, and it was just a hassle in general with them.  They will be automatically removed from existing savegames where the AI has them.
 +
 
 +
* AI Special Forces Rally Post Guardians now have zero extra armor and zero extra health compared to the basic guardian template.  Their attack is now 10k * shiplevel rather than just a token shiplevel value.  They no longer have cloaking, they no longer have self-attrition, they no longer hunt the human homeworlds, and they are no longer direct-only targeted.
 +
** However, they now have a new ability: not only do they draw the AI special forces ships to them in the way they always have, but the AI also gets special forces reinforcements added at this guardian during each reinforcement event at the guardian's planet (they don't count as a guard post in any other fashion, though - not for ship counts or anything like that).
 +
 
 +
* All of the AI forcefields, and the AI spire shield spheres (except the core ones on the AI home planets) now automatically die if they are protecting no ships and not on an AI planet.
 +
 
 +
* Some of the older AI types now have new unlocks (assuming the appropriate expansions and enabled ships, etc):
 +
** Teleporter Turtles now get Spire Teleporting Leeeches.
 +
** Mad Bombers now get Zenith Electric Bombers, Zenith Chameleons, and Zenith Bombards.
 +
** The Tank now gets Youngling Tigers.
 +
** Shadow Master and Stealth Master now get the Spire Stealth Battleships.
 +
** The Feeding Parasite and Technologist Parasite now get the Spire Teleporting Leeches and Youngling Nanoswarms.
 +
 
 +
* Two new Light of the Spire cheats have been added:
 +
** Spirecraft To The Rescue (+1 Of Each Spirecraft Type On The Current Planet)
 +
** Fallen Friends Arise (+1 Of Each Fallen Spire Military Vessel Type On The Current Planet)
 +
 
 +
* Added a new base game cheat: Gimme Absolutely Positively Everything, which gives the player one of every type of ship.  Even AI ships, etc.
 +
 
 +
* When desyncs are encountered, a new DesyncErrors.txt is logged on the host.  I'm not sure why we never did this before.
 +
** It also shows individual chat messages to all players saying who desynced.  This is a bit redundant with the other chat message that gets sent, but it's from a different branch of code and thus even though probably both will fire, at least we can be sure one of them will definitely do so in all cases.
 +
 
 +
* AI Eyes are no longer auto-targeted.
 +
 
 +
* Re-implemented the dump button (when debug mode is on) on the save-game screen; the load-game screen version's one is still not implemented.
 +
 
 +
* When players are being waited on or have desynced, a message to that effect now goes out from the game host.
 +
 
 +
* There are now separate messages for "Waiting for Players..." and "DESYNC..." to help remove any confusion on those points.
 +
 
 +
* Marauder spawn-chance-and-size logic now the same for diffs 1-4 as for diffs 5-8.6; previously the 1-4 diffs would get much smaller but much more frequent marauder spanws that could lead to significant player-annoyance without actually increasing the challenge much.
 +
 
 +
* Since Hybrid facilities are no longer (for now) constructed during the game, the Hybrid Facilities galaxy map filter will now display data for all planets you've ever scouted.
 +
 
 +
* AI ships that create forcefields will now never be put into low-power mode by the AI.
 +
 
 +
* The "template abbreviation" drawn on top of each template option in the buy menu for riot control starships and spire capital ships was previously always drawn in one color (black); that displayed fine for the spire ships but not well for the riot ships.  Now it will use white for the riot ships and black for the spire ships.
 +
 
 +
* Resistance Fighter Bombers and Resistance Frigates now have the "HasWarpEngineMufflers" flag, which prevents the warp-in and warp-out sounds from playing when they go through a wormhole (kinda nice when they're patrolling your planets at a rapid pace).
 +
 
 +
* Changed the relationship between AI difficulty and wave size to a new algorithm that hopefully provides a more useful/granular range of difficulty while also compensating for the difficulty-spike (on low-caps particularly) introduced in 4.072.  Details omitted since they're somewhat complex and are likely to change significantly in the next release.
  
 
== Bugfixes ==
 
== Bugfixes ==
Line 1,511: Line 2,577:
 
* AI Carriers engine health from 100 => infinity.
 
* AI Carriers engine health from 100 => infinity.
  
−
* Multi-shot ships no longer are able to get any "freebie" shots if their target dies while their shots are incoming against it.  This nerfs the mutli-shot ships to a minor degree, but more significantly it is a CPU-cheap way of solving a huge bug that was recently leading to multi-shot ships sometimes getting loads and loads of freebie shots that they weren't supposed to -- leading to things like the "rapid fire artillery guardian," for instance.
+
* Multi-shot ships no longer are able to get any "freebie" shots if their target dies while their shots are incoming against it.  This nerfs the mutli-shot ships to a minor degree, but more significantly it is a CPU-cheap way of solving a huge bug that was recently leading to multi-shot ships sometimes getting loads and loads of freebie shots that they weren't supposed to—leading to things like the "rapid fire artillery guardian," for instance.
  
 
* Shot damage is now recalculated right when a ship is hit, so that if targets were changed (was the forcefield, now the ship, or vice-versa) the appropriate damage is now done rather than an inflated or reduced amount.
 
* Shot damage is now recalculated right when a ship is hit, so that if targets were changed (was the forcefield, now the ship, or vice-versa) the appropriate damage is now done rather than an inflated or reduced amount.
Line 1,609: Line 2,675:
 
* Fixed a since-the-port-to-Unity bug with ships being selected, where if you drag-selected once it would select military-only, and then on the second time over the same group it would select all.
 
* Fixed a since-the-port-to-Unity bug with ships being selected, where if you drag-selected once it would select military-only, and then on the second time over the same group it would select all.
  
−
* Fixed a number of issues with per-planet AI ship count limiters kicking in when they should not have been.  This is most notable for things like AI starships that are included in a wave to an AI planet, or just included to a planet in general, for instance.  Now only guarding or planetary roamer ships are even included in the ship caps -- free/threat ships, special forces ships, etc, don't count, since they are all transient, anyhow.
+
* Fixed a number of issues with per-planet AI ship count limiters kicking in when they should not have been.  This is most notable for things like AI starships that are included in a wave to an AI planet, or just included to a planet in general, for instance.  Now only guarding or planetary roamer ships are even included in the ship caps—free/threat ships, special forces ships, etc, don't count, since they are all transient, anyhow.
  
 
* Fixed a bug that could cause uv textures to become accidentally flipped.
 
* Fixed a bug that could cause uv textures to become accidentally flipped.
Line 1,619: Line 2,685:
 
* Fixed some bugs with the Resource Flows tab of the Stats window where it wouldn't include everything that was causing an impact on metal or crystal (notably self-building turrets, etc).
 
* Fixed some bugs with the Resource Flows tab of the Stats window where it wouldn't include everything that was causing an impact on metal or crystal (notably self-building turrets, etc).
  
−
* Fixed a bug that could cause "ghosting" of old graphics (and thus both incorrect drawing as well as performance degradation) in certain circumstances. We never actually saw evidence of this occurring in AI War -- we found it via Tidalis -- but it's something that definitely could have been happening, especially temporarily as images were being loaded in to the game.
+
* Fixed a bug that could cause "ghosting" of old graphics (and thus both incorrect drawing as well as performance degradation) in certain circumstances. We never actually saw evidence of this occurring in AI War—we found it via Tidalis—but it's something that definitely could have been happening, especially temporarily as images were being loaded in to the game.
  
 
* The logic used for most minor faction and zombie ships for deciding to move on to a different planet should now ignore the presence of any enemy target that they are incapable of actully hitting (so neutral and player-ally Dyson Gatlings won't get stuck because of mk5 ships on the planet, etc).
 
* The logic used for most minor faction and zombie ships for deciding to move on to a different planet should now ignore the presence of any enemy target that they are incapable of actully hitting (so neutral and player-ally Dyson Gatlings won't get stuck because of mk5 ships on the planet, etc).
Line 1,766: Line 2,832:
  
 
* Fixed a surprisingly longstanding (but heretofore unrecognized) bug that was making the random number generator sometimes be highly non-random.  This was leading to things like a very odd default pattern of collision offsetting.
 
* Fixed a surprisingly longstanding (but heretofore unrecognized) bug that was making the random number generator sometimes be highly non-random.  This was leading to things like a very odd default pattern of collision offsetting.
−
** Really, this changes EVERYTHING about the seeding in the game.  Map seeds now will give completely different (and much more varied) results, there will be less "false statistical clustering" going on, and even the patterns of where guard posts are seeded in planets looks pretty different.  This bug dates back to March 6, 2009, before the game was even released -- one of the longest-standing bugs we've seen, especially of this magnitude.
+
** Really, this changes EVERYTHING about the seeding in the game.  Map seeds now will give completely different (and much more varied) results, there will be less "false statistical clustering" going on, and even the patterns of where guard posts are seeded in planets looks pretty different.  This bug dates back to March 6, 2009, before the game was even released—one of the longest-standing bugs we've seen, especially of this magnitude.
 
** This also seems to fix the "all new ships seed in a line" bug that has been around for a while.
 
** This also seems to fix the "all new ships seed in a line" bug that has been around for a while.
  
Line 1,813: Line 2,879:
  
 
* We wish to express our gratitude to our community for its tremendous help in testing, bug reporting, suggestions, patience, good humor, and encouragement.  In particular, the following members have helped us with at least one bug or suggestion (the number in parenthesis is a rough count of the number of distinct cases they helped with) :
 
* We wish to express our gratitude to our community for its tremendous help in testing, bug reporting, suggestions, patience, good humor, and encouragement.  In particular, the following members have helped us with at least one bug or suggestion (the number in parenthesis is a rough count of the number of distinct cases they helped with) :
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[[Category:AI War Release Notes]]
 +
[[Category:Release Notes]]

Latest revision as of 11:55, 16 September 2017

Statistics For The Curious

  • Between 4.021 and 5.000, we pushed out 53 distinct public beta releases over 91 days. That's an average of one release every 41 hours.
  • Community contributors assisted us with over 680 distinct bugs and suggestions-that-were-implemented (counting 133 distinct contributors).
  • The combined release notes for those 53 betas total over 360 kilobytes of text.
  • This document (which is over 41,000 words long) is the abbreviated, organized version of the full release notes (here).

Highlights

  • In general, if version 4.0 was a re-imagining of the game, version 5.0 is a refinement of the game to a mirror-like gloss. It takes the best of all the past versions, and blends them into what we feel is the definitive AI War experience. The game will continue to evolve, but 5.0 is the new rock-solid foundation upon which all future work will rest.
  • Nearly every combat ship in the game has been rebalanced. These things drift with time, and with the recent introduction of so many ships in the last two expansions and AI War 4.0, a sweeping overhaul was in order. The hardcore players have been really pleased with how the new balance is, and collaborated on it with us in depth. At an advanced level, this alone makes it like a whole new game.
  • The AI has gotten some major intelligence upgrades. It has a new "stalking" mechanic where it bides its time and attacks when you are most vulnerable and least expect it. It also is more proactive about retreats, better handles play deep strikes, has a network of core shield generators, uses carriers more effectively, and has other effectiveness upgrades.
  • The difficulty of the game in general hit a low point in the 3.x era, which a lot of players complained about. The game allows for any skill level, but at the upper end of play it was becoming too easy, and players were having to shift their difficulty level up to the point that it was getting grindy. Version 4.0 addressed this a bit, but there were so many balance changes there with the introductions of the new guard posts and guardians, not to mention the new player economy in that version, that it still wasn't everything we wanted. Now, with version 5.0, the old difficulty of the 2.x days returns with a vengeance. For those players playing on an inflated difficulty based on 3.x or 4.x, they should be prepared to get crushed.
  • The early game is now faster, and the game now "gets to the good part" a lot faster. Consequently, players playing on too high of a difficulty have even been finding themselves losing in the first ten or fifteen minutes of play. This is very helpful, as then you don't have to play for an hour or two to find out you're outclassed. On the flip side, the players are able to get going and start taking territory from the AI faster than ever when they are playing on their proper difficulty.
  • Lots and lots of internal performance and particularly memory improvements. The shift from the .NET platform to Unity/Mono was not without its drawbacks, and some things required a protracted amount of changing in order to get running super-smooth on the Mono runtime.
  • A complete revamp for Golems (from the TZR Expansion): they're now full-blown superweapons without tons of restrictions. The player can now choose from the "easy", "medium", and "hard" version of the new "Broken Golems" minor faction to determine what kind of challenge (if any) should balance out the advantage provided by the ultra-powerful Golems.
  • A whole new (paid) expansion has also been added to the game! Light of the Spire becomes available along with this updated release of the base game. Briefly summarizing the additions:
    • 3 New Minor Factions, including:
      • Larger-than-starships, smaller-than-golems "Spirecraft" superweapons the player can build by mining a variety of finite (and quite rare on the upper end) asteroids.
      • The "Fallen Spire" scripted-campaign (with an optional alternate path to victory!). Gratuitous plug: Has player-controllable modular capital ships LARGER than Golems.
    • Defender Mode, where your only goal is to hold off the AI until the timer runs out. Allows games as short as 15 minutes or as long as 4 hours (45 minutes is a good place to start).
    • 9 New Bonus Ship Types.
    • 8 New AI Types.
    • 8 New Map Types.
    • Over 40 minutes of new music from Pablo Vega.
    • And quite a bit more!

AI Updates

  • Hybrids will now launch an attack if at least 7/8ths of the hybrids that are coming are ready, and will not intentionally wait for the last 1/8th.
  • On difficulty 7 and up, AI ships now spread out 2x as much as before. AI ships that are waiting before going through a wormhole to a human planet now spread out 4x more diffusely to make them even harder for players to hit.
  • The AI now uses the intel data it has about the relative strengths of planets (as human players do), when determining whether or not to send its ships through a wormhole they are waiting on. This is different from the prior method, which was partly randomized, partly based on an accumulated number of 200 ships, and partly based on having a lot of ships incoming.
    • This is a far-reaching change to the emergent behavior, which will have many effects on the gameplay, some of which are likely to be unanticipated at this time. The general expected result is that the AI will not attack players with "trickles" of ships very often anymore, and will instead choose to build up before breaching. The other expected result is the AI acting more sensibly when its command station has been prematuraly destroyed or when ships are freed from a guard post.
    • On lower difficulties (<5), the AI actually overestimates its strength 5x, leading it to make dumber decisions. On difficulties less than 6, it overestimates its strength by half, leading it to make occasional stupid decisions there. Both of these are examples of the intentionally-sometimes-off decisions that make the lower-level AIs easier while also making reasonable mistakes a human might.
    • On difficulty 9 and up, the AI actually underestimates its strength by half, leading to it to have a greater tendency to wait to strike with overwhelming force.
    • These changes should also make the AI more effective in defender mode.
  • On difficulty 7 and up, when the AI forces on a planet are more than 2x outgunned in terms of firepower, the guards will be freed and will either engage the player forces en masse or will escape to fight another day, as appropriate.
  • When AI ships are fleeing from a planet, they will now tend to scatter a lot more than they used to, and have a much greater chance of circling around to an undefended or unexpected part of player territory. Paired with other recent changes that make the AIs more smart about when to attack a planet they are "stalking," this will make them a lot less predictable and a lot more dangerous.
  • New behavior for the AI! When the player goes on distant deepstrike runs—defined as having any human military ships more than four hops away from any human or neutral planet—the AIs both goes on high alert and starts spewing out ships from their home planets (or a random planet if their home planets are destroyed).
    • The tech level of the spawned ships will be whatever the AI's current tech level is, plus one (obviously between 1-5). Unless it's an AI home planet that is being deepstruck, or a planet adjacent to an AI home planet (we call these core planets), in which case the tech level is always 5. Watch out for that: you'll want some sort of launch pad within 4 hops of the AI home planet in order to take it without massive pain.
    • The spawned ships will be random fleet ships that the AI is allowed to use in waves, and each AI player will spawn a certain number of ships ship per event-second.
    • The event-second interval is defined as ( 11 - Floor(AIDifficultyLevel) ). So, for difficulty 7 or 7.6, that would be 11 - 7 = 4 seconds per interval.
    • The number of ships is defined as Floor(AIDifficultyLevel/2). So for difficulty 7, it would be 3 ships every 4 seconds, per AI player. On difficulty 8, it would be 4 ships every 3 seconds, per AI player.
    • These spawned ships are in free/threat mode, and will eventually attack the human players in whatever way they think will be most disruptive. They may engage the deep strikers, but more likely they will try to kill the planets of the players instead.
    • Note that all of these numbers are PER PLANET that has a deepstrike on it. So if you are deepstriking four planets, multiply those numbers by four. It's best to keep your forces together, and make the deepstrike raids as brief and effective as possible to avoid too strong a retaliation against your forces.
  • Border Aggression has always had a mechanism whereby it would get more severe the longer players played: the cap of total attacking units plus threat would increase by 20 per hour of play. The cap would basically not release any ships to border aggression if the total number of enemies attacking and/or threatening exceeds that cap.
    • However, there was a catch: the cap was capped at 1/4 the total size of the player's current military. This cap on the cap has now been removed, so very long games now get ever-increasing border aggression caps.
    • Note that this doesn't mean that border aggression will definitely increase linearly over an entire long game, but it won't be artificially kept low if it would have been high late in a 60-hour game or whatever.
  • Border Aggression is now keyed based on firepower. The caps for BA now go up by the equivalent of 20 mark III bombers per hour.
  • The AI now only has a 8% chance of swarming after "irreplaceable" units like ion cannons, ARSes, etc, rather than a 70% chance.
    • The AI already has logic in place for valuing targets even beyond this, but much more flexible and less gap-in-the-wall type logic, so having this be very infrequent is good. However, still having it present is also good, so that occasionally the AI will mass their ships on a frontal assault on something valuable, always a good thing.
  • Hybrids looking for attack missions are now more likely to heavily prefer a "main target" planet.
  • When Advanced Hybrids are on for their player, Defensive Hybrids will now switch to an offensive role to add pressure to certain other major AI offensives. This can make them more of a danger in the mid/late game. When this happens an alert message ("Defensive Hybrids Are Mobilizing") will be displayed for about 2 minutes after the "switch".
  • Put in a change that should make the AI react better when saboteur-type ships, or player immobile structures, are on an AI planet.
  • AI ships will now be angered (rather than just alerted) when firing upon human ships within roughly 11,000 range, which will make them (and their guard posts and fellow guards) fall under normal targeting rules, thus hopefully fixing the situations where human ships were being shot at by a relatively nearby AI ship but not retaliating (they shouldn't retaliate if the AI ship is way far away, as otherwise this can cause long range human ships to aggro the entire planet pretty quick).
  • Non-melee AI ships that are under a protecting strong force field now will no longer move until they are out from under the force field (from it dying or whatever), though they will still receive orders from the AI as normal. This makes the AI-ships-under-AI-forcefield case really a lot more back like how it used to be in the 2.0 days, where those were interesting and tricky nests of AI ships to take out.
  • In the past, for the AI to be allowed to retreat from a planet it had to have had at least half of its ships on the planet for at least 30 seconds. That prevented a number of back-and-forth behaviors that are now prevented by other means, and this behavior was now leading to some "gap in the wall" type exploits. The limit has now been changed to 3 seconds instead.
  • The AI will now more properly react to cloaked ships on its planet; much the same as a human player, it now knows how many ships are there and the general threat at that planet, just not specifically which ships are there or where they are. Actually, in some cases the AI has long known this (same as the AI), but in some critical decision-making logic it was incorrectly barred from that data.
  • When looking for ships to add as part of a CPA, the AI now also looks inside barracks and pulls ships out to use in the CPA. Some (but definitely not all) of the smaller-than-they-should-have-been CPAs were relate to lots of ships being stuck in barracks.
  • When there are simply too few ships in the galaxy for the desired tech level of CPA, in the past it always has counted downwards.
    • So, for example, if you were supposed to get 5000 mark II ships in a CPA but it could only find 1000, then it would look to mark I ships to see if it could find any more.
    • However, there were many common cases where there would even still be too few ships in the galaxy of the correct or lower levels. Now the game will loop back around and start including higher mark ships.
      • So, to continue the example from above, if it had found 1000 mark II ships and, say, 500 mark I ships, then it would start adding mark III ships to the CPA as well. Odds are very good that it would find the remaining 3500 ships in even just one mark higher, so that would fulfill the order for 5000 ships.
      • Of course, in the event that it doesn't find enough ships directly in the level above, it just keeps counting up, all the way to mark V.
    • Bear in mind that certain ships are specifically excluded from CPAs: immobile ships, ships under force fields, ships in carriers, ships that are already free/threat, ships that are minor factions or zombies, ships that are being coordinated by a hybrid hive or similar, ships that aren't counted as "extended mobile military," starships, and guardians. These restrictions aren't new, but bear mentioning.
  • Made some various internal improvements to how the AI decides to stay at a planet to defend itself against enemy threats (most notably cloaked enemy threats, but in general). The specific rules are difficult to really explain as it's all internal math, but in general the result should be for it to more properly weight threats and react more like what a human would do.

General Large Gameplay Additions

  • (LotS-only) New Campaign Type: Defender Mode.
  • (LotS-only) New Minor Faction: Fallen Spire.
  • (LotS-only) New Minor Factions: Spirecraft Easy, Spirecraft Medium, Spirecraft Hard.
  • Three new minor factions have been added to The Zenith Remnant (nearly a year after the expansion's release—crazy, right?). The purpose of these is to provide a more satisfactory range of experiences with golems to match player tastes, rather than the old "there are always three there" method. The three minor factions are:
    • Broken Golems (Easy)
      • Massive broken golems can be found around the galaxy, ready for humanity to capture and repair them. Once repaired, they represent enormous power to use against the AI.
      • The EASY version of this minor faction simply gives you the golems with nothing in the way of benefit to the AI. Consequently, your adjusted score is also halved.
    • Broken Golems (Moderate)
      • Massive broken golems can be found around the galaxy, ready for humanity to capture and repair them. Once repaired, they represent enormous power to use against the AI.
      • The MODERATE version of this minor faction gives you the golems at a moderate energy cost and with a small AI Progress increase upon repairing them from their broken states. Consequently, your adjusted score is also reduced by 1/3.
      • Using the moderate version will automatically disable the easy version if the easy version is also selected.
    • Broken Golems (Hard)
      • Massive broken golems can be found around the galaxy, ready for humanity to capture and repair them. Once repaired, they represent enormous power to use against the AI.
      • The HARD version of this minor faction simply gives you the golems with nothing in the way of benefit to the AI. However, whether or not you choose to capture any golems, the AI will be launching periodic large exogalactic strikeforces against you—so you're highly advised to get some golems in order to survive.
      • Using the hard version will automatically disable the easy and moderate versions if either of them is also selected.
  • (LotS-only) New AI types: Vanilla and Everything.
  • A new Minor Faction has been added for Light of the Spire: Spire Civilian Leaders
    • Up to 10 Spire Civilian Leader Outposts are scattered throughout the galaxy in the control of the AI. Against their will, every hour each outpost increases the AI Progress by 1. You have the choice of either destroying these outposts for colloduing with the AI, or freeing the outposts by capturing the planet from the AI. When freed, each of these outposts will gratefully decrease the AI Progress by 3 every hour.
  • Six new maze-like maps have been added for Light of the Spire:
    • Maze A
      • Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a grid to create the maze.
    • Maze A Easy
      • Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a grid to create the maze, but with random extra links added in various spots.
    • Maze B
      • Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a crosshatch to create the maze.
    • Maze B Easy
      • Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Recursive Backtracker algorithm on a crosshatch to create the maze, but with random extra links added in various spots.
    • Maze C
      • Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Prims algorithm on a grid to create the maze.
    • Maze D
      • Planets are organized into a maze-like grid that uses the Prims algorithm on a crosshatch to create the maze.
  • Two new grid-like maps have been added for Light of the Spire:
    • Grid
      • Planets are organized into an orderly grid.
    • Crosshatch
      • Planets are organized into an orderly grid with the angles also filled in.
  • Added a new LotS AI Plot: Beachheads
    • Each wave that the AI sends has a 10% chance of being half-size, but including a Beachhead structure that interferes with supply on the planet being attacked (thus knocking out everything from turrets to forcefields until the beachhead is destroyed), as well as preventing player ships from retreating. Counterattack waves, event waves, raid engine waves, and other specialized forms of waves won't ever include a beachhead.
    • Five marks of AI Beachhead have also been added:
      • Tough, armored, immobile long-range AI ship that gets sent along with some waves. Interferes with supply on the planet being attacked (thus knocking out everything from turrets to forcefields until the beachhead is destroyed), as well as preventing its enemies' ships from retreating.
  • New Moderate AI Type: Spireling
    • Fairly aggressive AI that uses only Spire fleet ships.
    • Extra Ships: All Spire fleet ships.
  • New Moderate AI Type: Thief
    • Fairly aggressive AI that uses ships with tractor beams and leech capabilities. This can lead to a distinct disregard for player property rights.
    • Extra Ships: Etherjet tractors, Spire Tractor Platforms, Parasites
  • New Hard AI Type: Retaliatory
    • Starts with Counterattack Guard Posts on most planets, and can actually have more than one on a planet (if that planet would have gotten one normally). This can lead to devastating counter attacks particularly when taking a mkIV planet.
  • New Hard AI Type: Crafty Spire
    • Starts with various Spirecraft (which are generally bigger than starships and smaller than golems) on its planets.
    • Extra Ships: Spirecraft.
  • New Hard AI Type: Extreme Raider
    • Very nasty AI that uses raid-oriented fleet ships and really likes sending Raid Starships along with normal waves.
    • Extra Ships: Raider, Spire Stealth Battleship, Cutlass, Vampire, Teleport Raider
  • New Hard AI Type: Spire Hammer
    • Generally solid AI that also adds a powerful Spire ship to each wave (in addition to the normal starship). At higher tech levels it will even send Capital-ship level vessels.
    • Extra Ships: Spire Frigates and Capital Ships.
  • Added 32 new achievements (2 base-game, 30 LotS).

Co-Op Improvements

  • In multiplayer games, all player-controlled command stations now automatically fold out into mobile builders for allied players. This saves time and hassle with sending mobile builders around and keeping them alive, making the actual mobile builders now simply a matter for use in enemy/neutral territory.
  • All fabricators now have foldouts (like advanced factories), so that when one player captures a core fabricator in a multiplayer game, all the players on his/her team now also gain access to use the fabricator. This prevents the incentivization of players to gift fabricators back and forth between one another, while also raising the usefulness of fabricators in multiplayer games by a substantial margin.
  • Rebelling Human Colonies now have ship-production foldouts for other players when controlled by the human team.
  • Re-implemented the Give Resources context menu.

Performance Improvements

  • GZip compression is now used instead of Zip compression for savegames. This has the advantages of: 1) resulting in significantly smaller save files, especially for large savegames—as much as 30% savings at the upper end; 2) resulting in the correspondingly smaller full sync network requirements for multiplayer; 3) hopefully solving the "pthread_getschedparam" issue on OSX, which seems to quite likely have been related to unintentionally-multithreaded zip processing in the autosave process.
  • The way that the AI thread keeps track of Astro Train Stations and Special Forces Rally Points (of all sorts) is now significantly more efficient and effective, resulting in somewhat lower RAM and CPU use on the AI thread in general.
  • The way that expansion enabled status is checked and set in code is now more efficient on RAM and CPU use.
  • The method for randomizing lists has been made generic rather than object-based, so that lots of boxing and casting no longer occurs with it, saving a bit of CPU and more transient memory usage.
  • Guardians and guard posts no longer try to load colormasks off the disk (which were all blank, anyway) to save a bit of RAM use and disk access time.
  • The way that unit data is synced to the AI thread is now better for purposes of cold storage and similar in particular.
  • An ENORMOUS number of memory-static-ness updates have been made, primarily centering around converting some very central generic dictionaries to arrays. This also serves as a performance boost, and makes savegames load a little faster, as well as the game itself.
  • Added some measures to make the game less likely to hang onto memory it no longer needs (excess rollup list space, dead ships still linked to other objects, etc).
  • The range circles no longer draw with partially-transparent colors for the lines, thus reducing their GPU overhead quite a bit, more or less depending on the GPU in question.
  • Improved memory/cpu performance of sending/saving planet state (string.concat -> StringBuilder.Append). Not done terribly commonly, but every bit helps.
  • A number of rollup lists on the Player object that were really human-only (but which were bloated by lots of AI ships on the AI versions of the objects) have been made human-only. A few have been removed. This lets the functionality remain the same while having a bit less ram usage and a bit faster loading of savegames.
  • The old mission summary was still in the game, taking up time getting periodically recalculated, but invisible. This was just a porting artifact, and it has now been removed.
  • A revised savegame format has now been put in place, with an emphasis on using less RAM to create it.
    • One happy side effect of this is that that savegame files are now about 7/8 to 4/5 of their former size. They still load in about the same amount of time, though.
    • Another side effect is that the new savegames actually show their loading process as they load, now, rather than just sitting there silently on parsing data.
    • At any rate, the chief purpose of this is to make the creation of savegames as well as the syncing of multiplayer network state into a lower-RAM-using process to avoid GC heap errors when players are already running near the RAM redline. The new format is vastly superior in that regard, possibly using as little as half as much RAM as before, depending on the exact circumstances of the save.
  • Put in a new CPU-efficiency-improving shift in the targeting logic for ships in FRD mode: while in FRD mode (and always for ships that are snipers), a much-less-accurate but much-faster-to-calculate range value is now used. Normally accurate ranges are important in battle, because ships have to know if they are in range to hit their target, etc. However, for ships in FRD mode, they can move to hit their target, so they only need to get a rougher idea of which ships are vaguely closest.
    • The main side effect of this change, aside from the speed boost, is that ships in FRD mode will choose more poorly between targets that are close together and also at a diagonal from the targeting ship.
  • The "are we on the same team" logic, which gets called a lot, is now more efficient in the general all-ais-versus-all-humans cases.
  • An even more enormous change has been made to how the rollups are calculated, basically making huge chunks of them per-team. This is a notable speed and RAM boost for large games and especially for multiplayer games. It particularly makes it more efficient for ships to change planets, and for savegames to be loaded.
  • Massively refactored the AI-thread rollups in general, so that way fewer object references are required (somewhere around 1/3 as many references as before in single player, and an even lower percentage in multiplayer). These shifts in general will improve RAM and CPU use on the host computer, amongst the gameplay benefits already noted above.
  • AI mobile military ship combining is no longer player-specific. This means that AI ships will be condensed further than they once were when needed (when both AIs have ships at a planet), and it also means that this process requires less CPU to calculate.
    • The same is also now true for the creation of AI Carriers out of mobile AI ships, which will result in fewer, more-appropriately-filled-to-capacity carriers in most cases.
  • Put in a number of internal efficiency improvements with regard to properly clearing internal rollup lists and releasing their memory.
  • Put in a number of internal transient-RAM-reductions related to converting some AI thread dictionaries to int arrays.
  • The AI thread now thinks almost entirely in terms of team-based tactics, but especially in terms of things like warp gates, etc. Thus there really should never again be any situations where one AI player is unable to find a planet to warp into just because there is only one warp gate bordering human planets and that warp gate belongs to the other AI player.
  • Added in a couple of "safety garbage collections" into the load savegame process to attempt to prevent the game from grabbing any more memory than it has to when loading large savegames.
  • Since it did more than we thought it would for the memory efficiency of planet serialization, converted player serialization from string.concat to StringBuilder.Append.
  • A bunch of more optimizations internal to the foreground objects (ships, structures, etc) has been made. The general effect of these changes is once again to reduce the memory footprint a bit, but in this case also to help reduce the CPU overhead of creating new foreground objects. This should help savegame loading speed a small bit, but in our testing it doesn't seem to have been much help so far.
    • All in all, these changes plus the other ones earlier in this same release version account for about 205 bytes of RAM saved per ship in the game: that's about 2MB per 10k ships. Even just in a 70k ship game, that's fairly notable that we could save 14mb there in this fashion. A lot of these also boost CPU efficiency to a minor degree, which is also cool.
  • Okay, wow. We majorly restructured the way that "other objects" (basically, everything that is not a ship: explosions, shots, junk, rocks, shield hits, etc) is stored and initialized in memory. A lot of this was very old code that hadn't been reimagined significantly since early alpha, way before 1.0.
    • Not only did our restructuring result in lower overall RAM use for these objects (both ongoing and transient), it also resulted in lower CPU for creating new copies of them—this helps a small bit during very large battles, but it also has extremely reduced the amount of time it requires to load a savegame. For a savegame that previously took 16 seconds, it now takes 10 seconds, etc. The effect of this is larger on maps with more planets.
    • Also fixed a rather obscure potential desync related to shot movement as part of this. Nobody had reported it, but it could have randomly struck in fairly uncommon circumstances.
  • Made ships much more likely to clear their autotargeting lists and release the memory used for them in a timely fashion when no longer in combat.
  • Some notable performance improvements have been made to the ship collision-avoidance movement algorithms, which are some of the most expensive in the game.
  • The AI is a lot more savvy now with some of its internal firepower weightings, using different kinds of weights for different situations. Overall this makes it feel a lot smarter when it comes to how it decides to do stuff with its free/threat ships.
  • A lot of internal changes have been made to make the code for referencing the art more efficient and compact.

Interface Improvements

  • Added 2 new planet-specific controls:
    • Alert When # Enemy Units Present
    • Alert When # Aggressive Units Present
    • If set to something higher than zero, the alert window will note when the planet has >= the specified number of enemy or threat (respectively) units. This only works if you have scout intel on the planet (command station or scout drone provide that, among others).
  • Augmented the tooltip of the "Threat" section of the resource bar to display a list of all planets with known threat units, and the count thereof. Only displays planets you have scout intel on.
  • Added a new tab to the Controls screen called "Ship Design", for defining custom templates for modular ships (i.e. the three marks of Riot Control Starship).
  • Added context menu item for when you have a single ship selected that is modular, for opening the ship design window with that ship's modules prepopulated into the slots so that you can save the design. You can also change the modules manually or select another defined custom design and apply it to the ship you used to get to the window.
  • Cross-planet gather points (for docks and otherwise) now visually show movement lines on the planet itself, thus making it far more clear what's going on.
  • If a rally post is in FRD mode or attack-move mode, it will now set those modes on any ships that are directed to/through that rally post.
  • The "View Ship Modules" context menu item now works on groups of more than one of the same designable type. If more than one distinct designable type is in the selection, the option is not available. Please note that it will only actually display the modules for one of the selected ships, but changes applied to the ships will be applied to them all (meaning that they will all wind up with the same design if you apply anything to the ships).
  • Added new "Auto Load" command.
    • Can be issued via Unit Commmand context menu (either click the button or via context-menu-specific keybind, which has no default binding) or the Auto Load keybind (which also has no default binding).
    • When issued:
      • Tells all can-be-transported units in the selection to try to load themselves into a transport on their planet. If insufficient transport space is available, those that can find room will try to load while the others may do nothing.
      • If any transports are currently in the selection, only those transports are eligible for the auto-load operation. If no transports are in the selection, all allied transports on the planet are eligible.
      • Each ship to be loaded will prefer nearby transports, but if multiple transports are within roughly 5000 range units of one another, ships will generally prefer to fill one transport before beginning to fill the next.
  • Added new control to the Planet-Specific tab of the Controls window: "Redirection Tries To Maintain Garrison Of".
    • When this is greater than zero, and the number of allied mobile military ships on the planet is less than the specified number, redirection rally posts won't actually redirect ships entering the planet.
    • Functionally this allows you to tell the planet to hold onto a "garrison" of X ships, filling up from the redirection-post patrols you've set up.
    • Note that you have relatively little control over the composition of the garrison, since faster ships will tend to fill empty slots unless you've got your patrol groups on group-move. Nonetheless, this can be useful for making sure a planet has some kind of defensive force without having to nanny it.
  • Added new control to the Planet-Specific tab of the Controls window: "Stop Building Military If Have Garrison Of".
    • When this is greater than zero, and the number of allied mobile military ships on the planet is greater than or equal to the specified number, build queues on the planet will be suspended (not actually paused, per se, but similar to that).
    • This also allows establishing a garrison, and gives you more control over composition but requires that you build a space dock (or whatever) on the planet and set up the queue, etc. Anyway, you can set up a looping queue of, say, 5 fighters, 1 bomber, and 1 missile frigate and a garrison threshold of 50 and it will produce ships until it hits 50 ships and then stop until some of the ships die or leave; it will then replace those (though not necessarily with the same type, of course).
    • Does not impact self-building units like turrets, or the construction of modules on modular ships.
  • The "Mobile Military" filter option on the galaxy map has been renamed to "Mobile Military (Units)." A new option, called "Mobile Military (Firepower)" has been added, which shows the My, Allied, and Team values in terms of the firepower rating of their ships (divided by 10,000) instead of by the raw number of ships.
    • When enabled, this also effects the display of the enemy ship counts on the galaxy map.
    • This option makes it a lot easier to tell the relative strengths of planets, since ship counts are all but meaningless now: what with spirecraft, golems, guardians, and other large ships making it so that one or two ships can take on hundreds or thousands of smaller ships. This also helps to account for the relative mark levels of ships, too.
  • Fabricators will now be listed under the "Build Queues" quick button at the bottom of the screen.
  • Added both a global and a per-planet "Non Military Do Not Rally" control to the controls window.
    • If this toggle is checked, all your non-military ships will ignore all rally posts.
    • Please note that if the "Reclaimed Ships Rally To Rally Post" global control is enabled, a non-military ship that has just been reclaimed will still try to rally.
  • New galaxy map filters have been added for advanced research stations, advanced factories, core fabricators, experimental fabricators, experimental starship fabricators, and broken golems. The default keybindings are all unbound.
  • New galaxy map filters have been added for all of the various detected core shield generators. This makes it way easier to plot an attack with them. The default keybindings are all unbound.
  • New galaxy map filters have been added for each of the asteroid types. The default keybindings are unbound.
  • New galaxy map filters have been added for detected AI Progress reducers (combined counts of co-processors, data centers, and superterminals). The default keybindings are unbound.
  • There are now buttons for both the high scores and achievements in the in-game menu, so that players don't have to go out to the main menu to see those.
  • Added "Export Balance Stats" button to reference tab; its tooltip explains how it functions but basically it's just for use in our new effort to systematically establish a rough-baseline balance of the fleet ship types. That's still very much a work in progress, of course.
  • Reimplmented "Give Resources" context menu.
    • Keybind: OpenGiveResourcesContextMenu can open this menu any time in the game (unless a nearer-scope active context has the same key bound, of course), no default binding.
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_TopLevel_OpenGiveResourcesContextMenu can open this menu from the top-level context menu (which is also new in this version).
    • Keybinds: ContextMenu_GiveResources_ToggleGivingToPlayer1 (and 7 other ones for player 2, 3, ... , 8) works on the give-resources menu and toggles whether the specified player will receive the resources when given. Defaults to Alpha1 through Alpha8 (top-of-keyboard number keys). Note that giving to multiple players gives the full amount to each, not splitting it or anything complicated like that.
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_IncreaseMetal works on the give-resources menu and increases the metal-to-give by 1,000. Defaults to Alpha9.
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_IncreaseCrystal works on the give-resources menu and increases the crystal-to-give by 1,000. Defaults to Alpha0.
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_DecreaseMetal works on the give-resources menu and decreases the metal-to-give by 1,000. Defaults to Minus (next to Alpha0 on many keyboards).
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_DecreaseCrystal works on the give-resources menu and decreases the crystal-to-give by 1,000. Defaults to Equals (next to Minus on many keyboards).
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_MakeAmount10000 works on the give-resources menu; while it is held the amount of the increase/decrease metal/crystal keybinds is 10,000 instead of 1,000. Defaults to LeftControl (and on default settings RightControl is an alias to LeftControl).
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_MakeAmount100000 works on the give-resources menu; while it is held the amount of the increase/decrease metal/crystal keybinds is 100,000 instead of 1,000. Defaults to LeftAlt.
    • Keybind: ContextMenu_GiveResources_ExecuteGive works on the give-resources menu, it executes the give operation configured using the other buttons. Defaults to Backspace (which may prove to be ill-advised, dunno, but it's next to Equals on many keyboards and you can change the bind and a lot of people just use the mouse anyway). Note that this will also close the context menu unless you're holding the SuppressContextMenuAutoClose keybind that's been around for a while (it defaults to LeftShift).
  • Added new top-level context menu that opens when you alt+right-click (that's the default binding) empty space when you have no ships selected (if you have ships selected it still opens the with-selection top-level menu). The only thing on this new menu is the now-re-implemented Give Resources menu.
  • Added Galaxy-Wide and Planet-Specific versions of three new toggle controls: Auto Build MkI Energy Reactor, Auto Build MkII Energy Reactor, Auto Build MkIII Energy Reactor.
  • Added "Experimental Auto-Kite Behavior" textbox to the galaxy controls window.
    • This is an experimental control, use at your own risk.
    • Valid values are 0 through 50,000 (no commas in the textbox, please). If this is not zero, all your non-melee, non-sniper ships with greater than the specified range will automatically pull away from their target so that they are (effectiveRange - 500) range units away.
    • We're working with some players to see if this results in desirable behavior.
  • All of the various galaxy map filters now have both Units and Firepower variants.
  • The Attacking ships tooltip has been updated to show the same kind of sorted per-planet info that the threatening ships tooltip does.
  • Added new Galaxy Display Mode: "Detected Threat"; only displays data from planets with current scout intel.
  • Added new Galaxy Display Mode: "Detected Threat Firepower"; only displays data from planets with current scout intel. This displays the total rough firepower of the threat ships (the raw value is divided by 1000 to make it a bit easier to read; it's a relative value anyway).
  • Added new Galaxy Display Mode: "Detected Core Shield Generators"; works like the previously-existing single-type modes, displays all 5 types of core shield generator each with a different color.
    • The old single-type modes have been removed.
  • When players have scouted a planet, forever after it will include counts in the upper-left alerts window whenever there are enemy warp gates (reinforce or warp) at a planet. This should greatly help with player confusion on a number of fronts, the most frequent of which is the AI Eyes in recent times.
  • Spirecraft, golems, hunter/killers, and avengers all now count as "massive" ships that give the player a warning in the alerts box onscreen while the AI has these ships in free/threat mode. This way players are still warned about oversized ships that are a particular threat to them, without needing to make the actual Attack and Threat displays into something confusing (aka firepower-based).
  • When placing ships via far-zoom, their niche images now show if they have them. This makes it a lot clearer what's going on there.
  • The buy buttons in ship menus now include the niche images if they have them. This makes it a lot easier to tell apart the various types of command stations, and things of that nature.
  • The tech buttons in the science menu now also includes the niche images, rather than including hard-to-read overlay text.
  • Filenames for savegames are now fully validated, avoiding characters that are not allowed, filenames that are not allowed on windows (CON, LPT1, etc), and things like directory path separators that would cause the file to get saved into a subdirectory by accident.
  • Added a toggle to the Resource Flows tab of the Stats window, defaulting to un-toggled, that:
    • If unchecked, the grid is in "detail" mode and displays one row per ship with a non-zero metal or crystal impact (units with only an energy impact are omitted due to sheer volume).
    • If checked, the grid is in "summary" mode and displays one row for each distinct type of ship with a non-zero metal, crystal, or energy impact. This can be very helpful for figuring out where all your energy is going.
  • When ships such as viral shredders replicate, they now are automatically added to any control groups that their source ship was in.
  • When ships such as viral shredders replicate, if the original was selected, the new ship will also be selected.
  • The icons on the intel summary in the galaxy map now are colorized by player and include the niche icons.
  • A message is now shown in the alerts window when an enemy black hole machine is at the current planet being viewed.
  • The different kinds of alerts in the upper left are now colorized by type, to make telling them apart easier to do.
  • The "Result" column on the reference tab of the stats screen now displays a percent next to each Win or Loss value, representing the margin of win or loss.
    • So Win(80%) on a row in the table means that the type selected in the dropbox above the table will beat that row's type and still have 80% health/ships left (if it's one vs one it roughly corresponds to how much health the individual will have left, if it's cap vs cap it roughly corresponds to how much total health the ships will have left).
    • A Loss(80%) means that row's type will beat the dropdown's type with 80% left.
    • Sorting by the Result column will now sort from Win(100%) to Win(1%) to Draw to Loss(1%) to Loss(100%) and vice versa.
  • When in the lobby, if players Ctrl+click a planet that is a valid starting point, they will automatically claim all the planets that have not yet been claimed. Similarly, ctrl+right-clicking deselects all planets that player had previously selected. This shows up in the keybindings window under the Anytime controls.
  • The counts of scouts on the galaxy display mode now just displays literal scouts, rather than everything that has scouting ability (like commandos).
  • A message is now sent to the human players in the chat log if a warp gate guardian is added on a planet adjacent to one of their planets (or next to a neutral planet), stating what type of warp gate guardian was added and on which AI planet.
    • In exchange, warp gate guardians, which are pretty nasty, are now twice as likely to occur. This is still incredibly unlikely however, something like a 2 in 400 chance at the moment—and it will only get less likely as more guardians are added over time (as happens with the dispersal of all guardians).
  • The command station foldouts in multiplayer now process the auto-frd-engineers and auto-frd-military controls in the same way as a command station.
  • Added galaxy-wide and per-planet integer-textbox controls for "Engineers Do Not Assist Large Projects".
    • If this is not zero, your engineers will not auto-assist a self-building structure or repair a structure with a per-second metal or crystal cost that is equal to or greater than the specified value.
    • This ONLY applies to assisting self-building units and repairing units, it does not apply to assisting build queues (of a Space Dock, for example).
    • It only triggers on the higher of the metal or crystal cost-per-second values, not the sum of them.
    • If you've defined a value for this at the per-planet level and at the galaxy-wide level, the game will use the per-planet value and ignore the galaxy-wide value for that planet.
    • The galaxy-wide version defaults to 400. There aren't very many things you can normally build that are that high, even on low caps. But Sniper Turrets and Fortresses and whatnot are certainly up there. The per-planet versions default to 0, meaning disabled.
  • The standard galaxy-map number-under-planet display of "how many dangerous AI ships are on this planet" will now also display the total number of ships in AI barracks and carriers in parenthesis next to the main number (if that's zero, it doesn't display anything extra).
  • When cross planet attacks arrive, they now state (via chat messages) how many ships of each mark level were just freed.
  • When AI Eyes or SuperTerminals are spewing out ships, a warning message (like the "you have flown into a minefield" message) is now shown. This is helpful particularly with the AI Eye for making sure that players (especially new players) aren't accidentally setting them off.
  • When alarm posts are triggered, there is now a chat message sent saying what kind of alarm post was triggered and on what planet.
  • The game now makes it clear when a wave or CPA that is incoming was triggered by a ship—guard post, raid engine, scrap wave, or otherwise. This should substantially help reduce confusion about the deep raids into player territory.

Graphical Improvements

  • The game is no longer able to use multiple copies of the same starfield background to draw the starfield effect (that was able to make it look blurry when that happened).
  • The awesome modified version of the short range guard post, missile guard post, and MLRS guard post that were created by HitmanN as a mod have now been integrated into the main game.
  • Spire ships now have a new blue explosion animation, like the Zenith ships have a green explosion.
  • The awesome modified version of the beam guardian that was created by HitmanN as a mod has now been integrated into the main game.
  • Laser Cannon Modules (for the Riot Control Starships, Hybrids, and Spire capital ships) now use new laser shot graphics generously donated by HitmanN, the Hybrid and Spire lasers use different colors for the different power levels (mkI = red, mkII = orange, mkIII = green, mkIV = blue) and the Riot laser mkI and mkII also use different colors.
  • The actual hull of ships no longer show up as pink or green while being munitions-boosted or shield-boosted. This looked rather odd, was unneeded, and especially made the spire ships bubble-gum pink, heh.
  • "Weak" force fields that protect their allied ships as normal but which do not collide with enemy ships (such as those by shield bearers, etc) now have their own special graphic to denote this.
  • Put in place the fancy new forcefield-hit effects by Hans-Martin Portmann, which he'd originally created as a mod.
  • The graphics for shield modules have been changed to much, much nicer ones provided by HitmanN, thanks!
  • The "active" wormholes shown when an advanced warp sensor is present are now shown in a bright yellow instead of the dull red, to avoid issues for red/green colorblind players.

New Ships

  • At long last, due to popular demand, there are now Mark V Fighters in the game. What's more, there are also now Mark V Bulletproof Fighters and MicroFighters.
    • There are also now core fabricators for all three of these ship types.
  • Four new AI Core Guard Posts have been added for LotS: Booster, Cross Planet Attack, Heavy Beam, and Raid Engine.
    • All four of these basically add variety to the end-of-game scenarios (most specifically the CPA guard post is wildly different), which has been a long-term goal for the game for a while now. Because of the comparative rarity of AI Core Guard Posts (they only show up on the AI homeworlds), we won't be adding too many of these in this expansion, though—more focus will be going into the regular Guard Posts (mark I-V) that show up on all the AI planets randomly, as variety is even more critical there (in one sense).
  • 35 new guardians have been added to LotS (5 marks each of 7 new guardian types): Carrier, EMP, Self Destruction, Special Forces Rally, Vampire, Warp Gate, and Zombie.
    • EMP guardians only appear on difficulty 7 and up.
    • Self-destruction guardians only appear on difficulty 8 and up.
    • Warp gate guardians only appear on difficulty 7 and up.
    • The rest of the guardians have a more normal difficulty spread, and thus appear at all difficulty levels.
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Gravity Drain (Mark I-V)
    • Large, slow ship slows the movement of enemy ships near to it. Also has powerful short-range lasers.
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Gravity Ripper (Mark I-V)
    • Large, high-health, slow ship temporarily halts the movement of enemy ships with every hit of its weak, short-range, rapid-fire energy bursts. Best used in combination with other ships to keep fast targets from escaping.
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Mini Ram (Mark I-V)
    • This miniature battering ram specializes in high-health targets, crashing into them for high damage and destroying itself in the process. Unable to hit smaller ships.
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Tractor Platform (Mark I-V)
    • Large, slow alien vessel is bristling with small guns but most importantly many tractor beams. This has obvious defensive uses, but can also be used to hold enemy ships at bay while longer range allied ships take them out.
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Teleporting Leech (Mark I-V)
    • Large teleporting ship fires lightning shots. Reclaims enemy ships it kills (reclaimed ships have health = half damage inflicted by reclamator).
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Stealth Battleship (Mark I-V)
    • Powerful battleship with onboard cloaking options as well as a portable radar dampener that makes enemy ships have to be in very close range to hit it at all (radar dampening does not affect the ability of enemy ships to hit other ships, just this one).
  • The last of the new LotS bonus ship classes has been added: Spire Armor Rotter (Mark I-V)
    • Shots do fairly little damage, but eat away at the armor of ships they hit with each shot. Ship armor gradually regenerates over time (it takes up to 10 minutes to fully regenerate, depending on how much armor the target has), but cannot be directly repaired. Thus the armor rotters can create a window of opportunity for other ships to strike high-armor ships.
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Maw (Mark I-V)
    • Huge alien vessel that swallows transportable enemy ships and gradually attritions them. If the maw is destroyed, they are ejected with whatever health they have left. External guns also fire at targets at short range while it chews on the swallowed ships.
  • A new LotS bonus ship class has been added: Spire Blade Spawner (Mark I-V)
    • Large central ship has weak guns, but continously spawns smaller independent blades that crash into enemy ships.
    • This also adds mark I-V of Spire Blades.
      • Extremely fast melee ship—loses health over a 10-second period, then self-destructs. Created inside Spire Blade Spawners, these are uncontrollable but will viciously attack the enemy on the current planet. Players cannot give direct orders to the blades.
  • Spire Mining Ships have been added to the game for the LotS expansion.
    • This ship allows the construction of mining enclosures on asteroids. Each tab in its build menu corresponds to a type of asteroid on which specific mining enclosures can be built.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Martyr (Mark I-V)
    • This massive ship has no guns, but is bristling with tractor beams. When it dies, it explodes for extreme damage to enemy ships within its tractor range.
    • These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Adamantite, Mark I-IV ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Shield Bearer (Mark I-V)
    • Does relatively low damage, but has very high health and provides a sizable force field to protect allied ships. Its force field does not reduce the attack power of protected ships.
    • These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Ram (Mark I-V)
    • This massive battering ram specializes in high-health targets, crashing into them for extreme damage and destroying itself in the process. Unable to hit smaller ships.
    • These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Adamantite, Mark I-IV ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Ion Blaster (Mark I-V)
    • Advanced weapon insta-kills most ships with a mark level equal to or lower than its mark value. Cannot fire upon ships immune to insta-kill. Unlike the fixed-position ion cannons, these ion ships are both mobile and much shorter-ranged, but they are still extremely deadly.
    • These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Penetrator (Mark I-V)
    • Perma-cloaked ship that cannot hit most smaller fleet ships and which must be manually targeted to fire. It does absolutely astronomical damage, and then is uncloaked and unable to fire for the next half hour. This ship is Blind, and thus requires the support of scouts or other similar ships to see its target, but otherwise it works best as a lone wolf sort of ship, delivering its payload and then returning to friendly space to rest and recuperate.
    • These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Implosion Artillery (Mark I-V)
    • Large, high-range, middling-health artillery weapon that does damage based on a percentage of the enemy ship's remaining health (not to be less than 1 damage). This is most effective when enemy ships have very high remaining health.
    • These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Siege Tower (Mark I-V)
    • Huge, slow, low-range, high-piercing, highly-armored, radar-dampened battlestation with multiple shots excellent for taking out large swathes of enemy ships while repelling a beating in return.
    • These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Reptite to Adamantite, Mark I-V ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Jumpship (Mark I-V)
    • Expensive, tiny-capacity transport with advanced teleportation and no self-attrition-per-wormhole. The advanced teleportation lets the jumpship pass through wormholes and across planets without the normal few-second delays that regular teleporting ships face. On planets with a higher mark than the jumpship, the jumpship expires in about twenty seconds, however.
    • These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Xampite to Titanite, Mark I-IV ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Attritioner (Mark I-V)
    • This massive ship has weak direct guns, but does high attrition damage to all enemy ships once per second (on the order of multiple fixed-position attrition emitters). Enemy ships on the current planet will notice that they are damaged by attrition and will turn aggressive, however, so be careful of stirring up enemy planets with the attritioners.
    • These each get created as 1 ship from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new LotS Spirecraft ship class (built on the new asteroids) has been added: Scout (Mark I-V)
    • These scouts are all perma-cloaked, but move pretty slowly and rapidly lose health if they are on an enemy planet of a higher mark level than the scout itself. Most of these except for the Mark IV or V spirecraft scouts make for better long-term sentries (thus freeing up your normal scouts to do mobile scouting) rather than as literal scouts that explore.
    • These each get created as 2 ships from one asteroid ranging from Pysite to Titanite, Mark I-V ships, or as 4 ships from one asteroid ranging from Xampite to Titanite, Mark I-IV ships.
    • Spirecraft are massive ships using advanced materials that mean they can't be repaired by any known technology. Use them wisely, or find a new asteroid belt to build encampments and replace them.
  • A new capturable ship type has been added for LotS: Spire Archive.
    • These powerful science vessels can be found nearby or on the AI homeworlds. Capturing them will provide +1/s knowledge income on the archive's planet for all human players while the archive lives, up to a cap that is 3x that of the normal per-planet cap. If the archive is destroyed, however, there is a hefty AI Progress cost.
  • New "Redirector Rally Posts" have been added to the base game. These are NOT mobile, but which can have gather points set like that of a space dock. You can use this to give cross-planet move orders, and even to set up cross-planet roving patrols of ships if you set up a looping pattern of redirectors.
    • The old rally posts are now called "Mobile Rally Posts," since their key feature is that they are mobile.
  • Added a new LotS AI Guardian: Gravity
    • Enormous gravity distortion effect slows enemy ships over a wide area. Middling firepower specially geared towards starships and other large targets.
  • Added a new LotS AI Guardian: Starship Disassembler
    • Huge alien guardian that swallows enemy starships and gradually attritions them. If the guardian is destroyed, they are ejected with whatever health they have left. External guns also fire at targets at short range while it chews on the swallowed ships.
  • Added a new LotS AI Guardian: Implosion
    • Mid-range, middling-health artillery weapon that does damage based on a percentage of the enemy ship's remaining health (not to be less than 1 damage). This is most effective when enemy ships have very high remaining health.
  • Five new types of Core Shield Generators have been added to the game: These must be destroyed before the AI Core Guard Posts and AI Home Command Station can be damaged. The planet on which this shield generator sits must be controlled by the humans before it can be damaged. These only get seeded on difficulty 4 and up.
    • Group A-Prime
      • One of these is seeded on every planet with an advanced research station.
      • The A-Prime shield generators are linked into a very strong network. All but one of them must be destroyed before the last generator in the group will self-destruct.
    • Group B-Secondary
      • One of these is seeded on every planet with an advanced factory.
      • The B-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network. Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
    • Group C-Secondary
      • One of these is seeded on every planet with a fabricator and without an advanced factory.
      • The C-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network. Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
    • Group D-Secondary
      • One of these is seeded on every planet with a counterattack guard post, but with no other core shield generators already in place.
      • The D-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network. Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
    • Group E-Secondary
      • These are scattered on some random planets that do not already have an existing shield generator.
      • The E-Secondary shield generators are linked into a weak network. Destroy any one of the generators in the group, and the rest will self-destruct.
      • This new mechanic is designed to require players capture at least a certain small baseline number of planets before they can even attack the AI homeworlds. This ensures that ultra-conservative low-planets-held strategies simply aren't valid, and the alternative is somewhere the game been before: having the AI homeworlds be so beefy that they are incredibly grindy in the late game, which also isn't good. That had led to most players "declaring they had won" and stopping before they actually had won. The logical solution, then, is a multi-stage AI takedown procedure that requires you to take certain planets that it was expected you were required to take, anyway.
      • To those that would complain about how this will prevent certain playstyles: yes, it will. But only the ones that don't allow for a natural progression of AI difficulty, and so short-circuit (and thus drastically break) the game. Deep striking and raiding are still a great thing to do, and in fact may be more important than every in some circumstances now, but you can't use that in a preemptive "the enemy's gate is down" sort of fashion to win the game. If you'll recall, even the battle school teachers changed the rules after Ender used that tactic once, and for good reason: it's fun once, but leads to a broken game after that.
      • Note that achieving the alternate victory in the Fallen Spire progression will take care of this shield network for you, since that victory condition already involves taking plenty of territory, etc.
    • These are not seeded into old savegames, but do default to "on" for new games. They can be turned off on the ships tab of the lobby when setting up a game.
  • Okay, this one is super exciting. Six new kinds of Intra-galactic warp gates have been added for players under the CONST tab—no knowledge required to unlock, as these are essentially logistical tools that people would find to be must-unlock techs (like the transports and rally posts had turned out to be—we learned our lesson with that sort of thing). Here's a description of perhaps the most exciting one of the six:
    • Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Advanced Factories
      • When this gate is not in low power mode, all ships produced by the controlling player at any advanced factories will emerge at this gate. When there are multiple gates of this type, ships emerge from one at random. Ships that emerge are paralyzed for 60 seconds on account of their ordeal of warping. If this gate is on an enemy or neutral planet, they are paralyzed for 2 minutes instead. A gather point, ship stance (FRD, attack move, etc), and so forth can be set on the gate just like on a normal constructor, and the created ships will obey those orders.
    • However, there are six in all, one type each for space docks, starship constructors, advanced factories, mercenary space docks, fabricators, and missile silos.
    • There is a cap of five per type. Given that these can be paused and re-enabled, that's pretty useful.
    • The short description of this feature basically that the logistical challenges of unit production and delivery are a thing of the past.
      • Before anyone complains about the game "playing itself," note that this is of no help with units that have already been placed. As has always been the case, you still need to make sure and build your ships in a sensible place for defense or offense, or you can get caught unawares.
      • In terms of space docks, what this new mechanic saves is time of tearing down the docks and rebuilding them somewhere else (at the cost of temporary paralysis, of course, which means that it's not always the best choice for space docks. But it can save a lot of time when you don't want to be having to repeatedly set up queues as you move your docks around, though.
      • In terms of fabricators and advanced factories, the benefit is absolutely enormous: those are immobile and you don't get to choose where to put them, so in many games that could make them of marginal use simply because of the hassle factor. Now you can deliver ships to or near to the front lines for the very minor setback of the temporary paralysis on arrival—quite a fair trade.
        • One of the reasons for advanced factories and fabricators being immobile and set in specific positions, however, is that this can lead to interesting situations where you have to defend a planet you might not otherwise want to. The beauty of this solution is that that dynamic is unharmed, because you still have to defend those distant planets. All it removes is the logistical challenge of moving the goods from that planet out into the rest of the galaxy.
    • In the end, given the AI's exo-galaxy warps for unit creation, it only makes sense that the humans would get something similar for intra-galaxy warps with unit creation. The symmetry there is actually pretty cool, and at any rate the goal here is savings in micromanagement, which it delivers in spades.

Ship Logic Updates

  • AI ships will now come out of low-power mode (but not free, as a result of just this) when a shot targeting them is in the air; this will tend to also wake up the rest of their guard group.
  • Previously, zombie ships and all the other minor faction ships would really wander far and wide, much moreso than they should have. Fixed so that they'll now wander only to adjacent planets near to the planet they are currently on each time they decide to go a-wandering.
  • Engineers will no longer ignore moving ships when searching for targets to repair.
  • A whole host of internal logic changes have been made to forcefields. Most of them are a bit difficult to explain, but the upshot is that now instead of caring about "strong" and "Weak" forcefields in most cases (aside from collision with forcefields), the game just tracks a single protecting forcefield for all the ships, and tracks an additional "firepower-reducing forcefield" for the human ships only. The only firepower-reducing forcefields for the humans at the moment are those three basic ones and the player home planet ones. In the past, there was a lot of logic that was incorrectly only looking at "Strong" forcefields for decision making purposes, and now all of that just looks at the generic forcefield protector, which should lead to a lot of subtle ship targeting improvements. It may also lead to some new issues, go figure, but that's kind of unavoidable as a risk.
  • When determining firepower against a ship under a forcefield (and thus also hit chance, etc), ships now use the firepower they would have against the forcefield, rather than the ship itself (assuming the attacker isn't immune to force fields). Given that's the firepower that would hit the forcefield, that's more accurate for decision-making in general, but this is particularly critical as of late because of how some ships are now unable to hit some forcefields (ie, the anitmatter bombs). This change should prevent things like siege starships from trying to fire against ships that are under a forcefield that just nullifies out all their damage.
  • Large ships that are colliding with one another, like starships or golems or spirecraft, now do a better job of hanging close together in a group rather than spreading quite so far out.
  • Mobile ships with tractors now make an effort to move into tractor range as well as attack range if they are chasing a target. Again, this way etherjet tractors are a lot more likely to actually capture targets (in the past that was less of an issue because of the old shielding model, but now it's a definite concern).
  • Ships that have regen or vampirism now are automatically overkilled by a corresponding amount by enemy ships; this makes automated fleets of ships (and AI fleets of ships in general) able to actually take care of ships with high regen or high vampirism.
  • Ships with the reclamator ability now all do their best to target ships they can actually reclaim. This is particularly important because of the new ship-level restrictions that reclamators have, but it's also important new logic that they never had in general (previously hitting stuff that was immune to reclamation just as commonly).
  • Zenith Autobombs and Neinzul Youngling Nanoswarms now do a better job of splitting up rather than focusing on a small set of targets.
  • Human ships no longer automatically open fire on low-power AI ships, though they do still put them in their targeting lists as normal (so that as soon as the AI ship comes out of low-power mode, they are able to fire on them just as quickly as before). This prevents long-range human ships from accidentally stirring up the guards of AI guard posts unless the player specifically orders them to. In general this will make the AI guards bumrush the player ships a lot less frequently than they were recently doing, while not losing the first-mover advantage of the human ships against the low-power AI ships.
  • Human ships no longer automatically open fire on guard posts of the AI if those guard posts have not already been "angered." This means that long-range human ships won't just snipe them without being told to do so, but as soon as the guard posts have entered the battle at all, they will fire at will. Like the other change about low-power ships, this also doesn't impact the putting of guard posts into the targeting lists, so it doesn't hurt the first-mover advantage of the player ships. Generally when players get at all in the vicinity of the guard posts the guard post gets angered, so this just prevents snipers and similar from alerting the entire planet without the player desiring for that to happen, for instance.
  • Human ships no longer automatically open fire on guardians of the AI if those guardians have not already been "angered" AND they are on active guard duty. This works basically on the same principles as the above change to the guard posts, except for guardians that are already freely moving around it ignores them.

Balance Updates

  • Heavy Beam Cannon health increased by 5x, to make them not insta-die so readily.
  • Further balancing of the guardians, specifically:
    • Most of the offensive types had their number of shots multiplied by their mark level; since their attack power was already being multiplied by their mark level each level was a much larger increase in dps than might be expected. For now, all those types now have the same number of shots that the mkIII versions used to have.
    • Those types with bonuses against turrets have had those bonuses reduced; Flak guardians in particular will do much less damage against turrets as they're supposed to be the bane of mobile lightly-armored stuff, not everything that has the audacity to exist. Guardians are still very effective vs turrets (particularly mkI turrets) and are intended to be so.
    • The artillery guardian's base range reduced from 25000 + 4000*mk to 30000 + 1000*mk.
    • Laser guardian reload time from 2sec => 4sec, shots-per-salvo from 19 = > 11, attack power from 400*mk => 1600*mk. This makes them even more effective against armored targets (already having 500*mk armor-piercing).
  • Fortress balancing to deal with ineffectiveness vs. armored targets and stuff with high bonuses vs UltraHeavy:
    • Reload time from 3sec => 6sec.
    • Shots-per-salvo from 60/80/100 => 30/40/50.
    • Attack power from 2000/3500/5000 => 8000/14000/20000.
    • Health from 2,800,000/4,800,000/8,800,000 => 4,000,000/8,000,000/12,000,000.
  • Since the introduction of armor, the different unit scales have provided pretty radically different balance between scaled-types (like a bomber) and non-scaled-types (like a flak guardian). This is due to the fact that 2x as many bombers each with 1/2 as much armor (high caps) are going to die way more than 2x faster against a flak guardian. Similarly, 1/2x as many bombers each with 2x as much armor (low caps) are going to have a much easier time surviving against the same unscaled flak guardian (even leaving aside the aoe aspect of that). We've now put in a fix that will make scaled ships always have the same effective armor against non-scaled ships, while maintaining their scaled armor ratings versus each other (since if we just stopped scaling armor at all then scaled ships would take a _lot_ longer to kill each other on some settings).
  • Lightning Guardians now have 100000 armor-piercing (like lightning turrets), 4x previous attack power, and 1/2x previous base range (actual range differs from base range due to some post-processing on stats).
  • Removed AI Progress cost for killing any Neinzul cluster (Neinzul Nests still cost 10 AIP to kill).
  • Colony ships no longer have any energy cost.
  • Cutlasses now have a heavy penalty against command grade hulls, and their attack power (and health) have also been significantly reduced.
  • All of the fleet ships, starships, and turrets (and a few other types of ships) now have a completely revamped cost structure. In the case of their mark I variants, the costs have been tweaked somewhat, often reduced slightly or even significantly in cases of ships that were exceedingly expensive before. In the case of their mark II, III, IV, and V variants, they are now based on multipliers from the mark I version.
    • Those multipliers are x2, x4, x6, and x8, respectively. This makes the mark V variants enormously more expensive than the mark I variants, which accomplishes two things: first it once again increases the utility of those lower-level ships, and secondly it makes it so that the economy becomes more strained the further into the game players go. This makes the early game simpler (as it has been lately), while not making the late-game too easy in terms of the decisions regarding territory, economic unlocks, and so forth.
  • The health of all the AI force fields has been increased by 3x, in light of all the new ultra-damaging starships and such that the humans have.
  • Home planet command stations for the human players now have 2 million health instead of 300k.
  • The AI now has a separate fortress line with 10x more health and without the ability to be repaired. Player fortresses can now be directly repaired, but those fortresses now take 10x longer to build and repair.
  • Raid Starships now have 100x more armor than before, and now have 100k armor piercing. They also now have 5x lower health. In general, this transforms them into a ship specializing in killing highly-armored targets, including fleet ships such as armor ships, which is a unique role for them amongst starships. The extra armor that they have, in turn, makes them better suited than ever for doing long-range raids except when they run up against raw-damage-dealing ships such as siege starships and so forth.
  • Neinzul Cockroaches no longer fire translocation shots, as this was overpowered and made offense a lot tougher with them around.
  • The first set of waves now comes sooner from the AIs, more like it used to in the 2.0 era of the game. It's been a longstanding bug since 3.0 or thereabouts where the first set of waves always fizzled.
  • The logic for when raid engines trigger is now a lot tougher (it happens when there are ANY human military ships, whereas in the past it took a military fleet of size 100 to trigger them (which was basically a free pass to starships—no longer).
  • Turret rebalance:
    • Basic, MLRS, Flak, Laser health to 5/3x of what it was.
    • Lightning Turrets health to 5x what it was.
    • Missile Turrets health to 1/3x of what it was.
    • Laser Turret base range from 6000 to 9000.
  • Various major-electric ships now have the corresponding extreme-armor-piercing (core electric guard post, tazer, all warheads, electric shuttles).
  • Following guardians now have 1.4x as much health as before: Tractor, Lightning, Flak, Beam, Laser.
  • Bomber starship rebalance:
    • Attack power 1/3x what it was.
    • Reload time 1/9x what it was.
    • Attack range from 5000 => 2500.
    • Health to 2x what it was.
  • The ship cap for colony ships has been dropped from 60 to 5, to prevent people from just storing up so many extra colony ships now that there is no energy cost per colony ship.
  • Laser Guardian
    • Bonus against polycrystal 45x => 5x.
    • Bonus against light 45x => 5x.
    • Bonus against refractive 15x => 5x.
    • Bonus against turrets 3x => 1x.
    • Base attack power 1800*Mk => 4800*Mk.
  • Raider Guardian
    • Bonus against heavy 18x => 5x.
    • Bonus against artillery 12x => 3x.
    • Bonus against turrets 3x => 2x.
    • Bonus against swarmer 4x => 3x.
    • Base attack power 1200*Mk => 1800*Mk.
  • FF Bearers (Shield Bearers):
    • Health increased from 88000*Mk to 100000*Mk.
    • Armor decreased from 4000 to 200.
    • FF coverage radius increased by 50%.
  • Armor ship:
    • Reload Time from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.
    • Armor from 15,000 to 3,000/3,200/3,400/3,600/4,000 for I/II/III/IV/V.
  • Superfortress health from 90,000,000 to 150,00,000 to be more in line with the recent AI fort hp bonuses.
  • Special difficulty factor (currently only used for hybrids and fallen-spire stuff) now scales more granular-ly with difficulty. For example, it used to be that 7, 7.3, and 7.6 all multiplied the factor by 1 (i.e. no change), and 8 multiplied it by 1.5. now 7 = 1, 7.3 = 1.15, 7.6 = 1.3, and 8 = 1.5. And so on with the other partial difficulties.
  • Increased Avenger hull hp to be somewhat greater than a superfortress, again in line with recent hp changes to fortresses.
  • Transports can now not unload further than 60,000 range units from planet-center (for reference, the maximum distance anything can be built at is 60,000), to avoid some of the more exploitative usages.
  • Core Starship rebalance:
    • Armor from 5000 => 2500.
    • Health from 65,000,000 => 25,350,000 (twice the Spire Starship's).
    • Attack Power from 40,000 => 60,000.
  • Spire Starship given 16000 armor piercing, because it strangely had none despite both the Zenith and the Core starship having it.
  • All Fabricators from base health of 60,000 to 1,000,000, since they are lost forever if destroyed and previously a player could lose one before they even realized there were hostiles near it.
  • Several things with HullType.UltraHeavy changed to HullType.Heavy, since they just didn't have the hp to play in that league.
  • Most bonuses vs HullType.Heavy reduced to 20-25% of what they were, since they were much more in line with bonuses vs. HullType.UltraHeavy, leading to alarmingly rapid destruction.
  • AI-only Black Widow golems 1/2 health modifier (it used to have less than a core starship, and not much more than an old spire starship).
  • A completely new formula for wave sizes has now been put in place, and it puts a much more linear weight on AI Progress and difficulty when determining wave size. This attempts to go back to some of the earlier 2.0-and-before feel of the AI Progress increases while staying away from extreme early game difficulty with the first waves.
  • Impulse Reaction Emitter damage is now multiplied by (sqrt(targetEnergyUse)/10) instead of (targetEnergyUse/100) (the root is computed when the energy use is set, not each time it is needed, of course), much like the zenith polarizer now multiplies by the square root of armor rating instead of armor rating. Also using the lower divisor to make it more granular. Base damage is half what it used to be (except the core version which had a much higher base, down to like 1/4 of what it was).
  • Raid Starships are no longer immune to missiles.
  • FF Bearers are no longer immune to or absorb EMPs (to make it possible to disable their ff coverage via emp).
  • The health of all the scout starships have been doubled.
  • The health and other stats of the scouts have been improved a bit.
  • Fleet, Bomber, Siege, Raid, Leech, and Riot Starships all now cost 2x more metal and crystal than before, and thus also take 2x longer to build. This should hopefully bring their cost-to-benefit ratios more inline with the fleet ships.
  • Dyson Gatling Health increased by factor of 10. Also, they now take 1000 seconds to auto-decay instead of 200 seconds (it had been 1000 before the removal of a standard 5x health multiplier). Also can now hit UltraHeavy and Structural hulltypes again, but should still be unable to hit all guard posts to avoid freeing stuff.
  • Marauder Buzz Bomb and Marauder Dagger Frigate health and attack power increased by factor of 10.
  • Resistance FighterBomber and Frigate health and attack power increased by factor of 3.
  • Player-Ally and Enemy-To-All Neinzul Roaming Enclaves health increased by factor of 10; AI-ally ones left as-is since those are painful enough.
  • Neinzul Preservation Wardens health and move speed increased up to same as AI-Ally Roaming Enclaves.
  • When a target ship gets into a transport or goes through a wormhole, shots that are incoming to that ship will now hit the the ship immediately. This prevents players or the AI from being able to use wormholes or transports to fire pot-shots and then disappear.
  • Warp Jammer Command Stations now block counterattack waves.
  • Counterattack waves are now 4x larger than normal, but take a full 14 minutes to arrive. This makes them more of an event than they used to be, even, but also makes them much easier to prepare for and deal with.
  • Previously, there was an extra wave per wave event for difficulty 8, two extra waves for difficulty 9, and three extra waves for difficulty 10. This made the game WAY harder for solo play on those difficulties, but much easier the more players you have (since this didn't scale per the number of players).
    • Now it has been changed so that there are no extra waves per wave event on difficulties 8 and 9 (as the more recent changes to wave sizing make this unneeded, anyway), and the number of waves per wave event is simply doubled on difficulty 10 (so that way it scales appropriately with the number of players). Normally there is one wave per home planet of the players per wave event.
  • Sniper, Tractor, Tachyon, Artillery, and Laser guardian shots-per-salvo significantly reduced, damage-per-shot increased to maintain same raw dps. Should shred fleet ships somewhat less. Flak, Lightning, and Raider guardians a bit more distinctively-against-large-groups now.
  • Gravity turrets and other ships with gravitational effects now only affect enemy ships, rather than all ships. This makes them significantly more valuable and less annoying to use.
  • The Spire Starship has had its range increased by 10k, it's attack power roughly tripled, and its number of shots cut by half.
  • The Attack Power of the Zenith Starship has been increased 3x, as it was actually lower than the flagship (though with more shots) lately.
  • Space planes now have a new "Radar Dampening" ability that makes them impossible to hit beyond a certain distance. This even affects snipers, ion cannons, and the like—they can't target the space planes until the planes get close enough to them.
  • Scout drones 1-3 now also have the radar dampening ability, to counteract the recent nerf to scouts based on making them unable to outrun shots through wormholes.
  • Warbird Starship health 300,000 => 3,000,000.
  • Beam Starship health 900,000 => 4,500,000.
  • Fighters and bulletproof fighters have been rebalanced a fair bit.
    • Their attack power and health, etc, scales up more linearly by mark level, making the higher-level ships much more powerful than before.
    • Their attack power in general has increased 5x, while their hull attack multipliers have been dropped 5x. Any hull multipliers that were less than 5 have simply been removed.
  • The wave sizes of the aggressive AI types have been toned down quite a bit, from being 2x or 3x larger than normal, to being 1.25x or 1.5x larger in general, or 2x for the mad bomber (which was previously the sole 3x-larger one).
  • Bulletproof fighter changed from Heavy hull type to Medium hull type.
  • The health of armored and artillery golems has been increased 10x.
  • The Core Neinzul Melee Guard Posts and all the spire Mini Rams now have a shot type of Ram instead of Blades. The Ram is also a melee type, but ships aren't immune to it.
  • Ion cannons, orbital mass drivers, and core warhead interceptors are no longer immune to minor electric shots.
  • Previously, when AI waves got too large (more than about 2000 ships), the extra ships of the AI would simply not be included in the wave, leading to very inflexible wave caps. Now waves are free to get infinitely large, but any ships over the wave caps get added inside carriers instead of as roaming ships. There is a separate cap for starships in waves (always was), and now the excess starships also go into carriers rather than being cropped out. The net effect of this change is to make the danger from high AI Progress levels continue to rise linearly, rather than capping out at some certain value. However, the reason for the wave caps in the first place was to protect performance, and the use of carriers still accomplishes that while not reducing difficulty overmuch.
  • The ship cap of the shield bearer ship class has been cut in half, but their individual force field sizes have been doubled, their health has been tripled, and their attack power has been doubled. Their costs have also been doubled.
  • The radius of all the human force fields (but not AI force fields) have been increased substantially.
  • Heavy Beam Cannons buffed:
    • MkI beam count 1 => 3
    • MkII beam count 3 => 6
    • MkIII beam count 7 => 12
    • All Marks armor piercing from 2000*mk => 8000 (flat, not multiplied by mark)
  • All of the human-controlled golems now have a self-attrition that makes them require ongoing maintenance from player engineers. The attrition is slow, however, taking the golems from full health to the brink of death over a two hour span (except for the cursed golem, which takes a mere 40 minutes—still up from the prior 20 minutes there).
    • This creates an optional non-energy-related ongoing cost for golems that players can choose to pay or not pay; if they don't wish to repair golems, they can simply be placed out of service somewhere safe. This also seems fitting with the status of golems as uber-powereful, extremely ancient weapons in poor repair. And boy are they powerful, they do need something to counteract them a bit even on the Hard golem minor faction.
    • AI-controlled golems don't have the self-attrition, but instead have 10x lower health and an inability to be repaired.
  • Hive Golem health has been increased 3x (to 48m). Hive Golem attack has been increased 50x, but their attack range has been reduced by 3k. Hive Golems also now have a radar dampening range of 10000. The speed of creation of wasps has been increased 4x.
  • The health of the botnet golem has been increased 10x. Armor Piercing on the Botnet Golem has gone up 10x. The number of secondary shots fired by the botnet golem has been doubled.
  • The previous concept of AI Wave Bonuses (the crazy multipliers that could lead to waves of 700,000 ships, for example) have been removed entirely. This buffs a number of structures for human use, including captive human settlements, zenith power generators, gravity drill stations, zenith spacetime manipulators, and ion cannons.
  • The cost of all ion cannons has gone up 3x. The cost of the higher-mark ion cannons now go up even more exponentially than before.
  • The AI Wave and reinforcement bonuses of all golems have been removed. Golems also no longer require the proximity of AI Warp Gates.
  • Armored Golem health has once again gone up 10x (to 500m). The base attack power of armored golems has gone up 100x. The number of shots of armored golems has gone down to 1/6th of its prior value. The armor piercing of armored golems has increased from 10k to 999k.
  • Artillery Golem health has been increased 20x (to 100m). The base attack power of them has gone up to 50m per shot. The armor piercing of armored golems has increased from 100k to 999k.
  • Black Widow Golems now have 70m health instead of 30m. The attack range of black widow golems has been increased 4k, and their tractor range has also gone up 4k. The armor piercing of 1k has been removed from black widow golems, and their attack power has increased from 3k to 60k.
  • Regenerator Golem attack power has been increased 100x.
  • Cursed Golem range has been increased 100x, and health up by 3x (to 60m). The number of shots has also increased from 3 to 20.
  • The number of shots of the raider guardians have been cut about 10x, and the attack power of their shots has bee increased about 20x. Their bonuses have also been changed to specialize against commandgrade, structural, and ultraheavy, with a penalty against turrets.
  • The speed of raid starships has been increased about 50%, and their attack power has gone up 5x. They also have gained a hefty bonus against command grade ships, while losing their bonus against turrets and instead having a penalty. The armor rating of raid starships has also been increased 3x.
  • Missile Frigate Rebalance:
    • Reload Time from 20/15/10/8/7 => 11 - ShipLevel (10/9/8/7/6).
    • Base Range from 7000 for all marks => 6500 + 500*mk (7000/7500/8000/8500/9000).
    • Health from 4,800/16,000/22,000/28,000/33,000 => 9000*mk (9,000/18,000/27,000/36,000/45,000).
    • Armor from 150/150/300/600/300 => 150 for all marks.
    • Attack Power for MkV from 8000 => 5000.
    • Bonus against Neutron from 3x => 5x.
    • Added 5x bonuses against Composite and Refractive (previously, no triangle ship had a bonus against either of those).
  • Youngling Nanoswarm Rebalance:
    • Removed all damage bonuses (trying to avoid their autotargeting prioritizing damage over other stuff).
    • Maximum targets affected from 1/3/5/7/9 => 3/5/7/9/11.
    • Now does 100*mk armor damage (i.e. "armor rotter" damage) to each affected target.
    • Now adds 1*mk seconds of paralysis to each affected target.
    • Now does 2*mk engine damage to each affected target.
    • Note that the nanoswarm cannot directly target stuff that is immune to reclamation, and may have similar difficulties with ships immune to its new debuffs, but that often other ships caught in the blast may be affected by those debuffs they are not immune to. Nanoswarms will pay house calls to individuals found filing mantis reports resulting from not reading this release note.
  • Zenith Electric Bomber hull type changed from Heavy to Neutron.
  • Fixed a bug in the enforcement of the IsEligibleForHomogenousWave flag that was leading to a wave that would be composed entirely of a non-eligible type simply being a nearly-empty wave (basically it would just have the starship(s)). Now the wave will only be empty if it somehow does not have any eligible types, but that should be impossible.
  • Neinzul Roaming Enclaves:
    • Now are much prompter about retreating when under heavy fire.
    • Move Speed from 34 => 51, effective range from 5,000 => 10,000, and removed the x0.2 penalties against Light and Ultra Heavy (apples to preservation wardens too).
    • HumanAlly variant now has 30x the base health instead of 10x.
    • HumanAlly variant can no longer be repaired (this could hurt your economy before, and it's got plenty of self-regen by itself).
  • Random wave sizing factor changed from a number between 1.0 and 1.3 to a number between 0.8 and 1.1. Wiki updated to reflect the new number.
  • Hybrids can no longer get the starship-esque Spire bonus ships (Blade Spawner, Maw, Stealth Battleship, Tractor Platform) as drones, since its "drone cap" doesn't differentiate by ship power and it would be painfully unbalanced to get hit by a bunch of hybrids escorted by a horde of such ships.
  • Since vampires are refractive, flak turrets and flak guardians now have an 8x bonus against refractive (that's what they've had against close-combat for a while).
  • Armor maximum percent damage blocked from 95% => 80%. Health of some high-armor units increased to offset this somewhat:
    • Vorticular Cutlass health a bit less than doubled.
    • Armor Ship health a bit more than doubled.
    • Grenade Launcher had _really_ low health so it's been increased 10x.
    • Zenith Electric Bomber health increased somewhat and made more linear with mark level: 20k/40k/80k/160k/320k => 30k/60k/120k/150k/180k.
    • Raid Starship health from 800,000*mk => 1,600,000*mk.
  • Raid Starships:
    • Multiplier against command-grade hull type (primarily command stations) from 4 => 1. This should help make them less insta-homeworld-death against the human, but still quick-homeworld-death.
    • Multiplier against ultra-heavy hull type from 2 => 4.
    • No longer immune to snipers.
  • Snipers, Sniper Turrets, and Sniper Guardians all now have 100,000 armor piercing.
  • Sniper base damage was way out of line (MkII did 900 damage every 9 seconds with a 0.2 ship cap multiplier, Sniper Turret did 3600 damage every 6 seconds with a 1.2 ship cap multiplier, a ratio of 1:36), so base damage from 450*mk => 8100*mk. making the mkIV Sniper have a roughly equivalent dps-for-cap as the sniper turret, and the mkI sniper have roughly 1/4 of that, etc.
  • Sniper Turrets now get a 5x vs Close-Combat hulls (Snipers already had this).
  • The armor rating on metal and crystal harvesters has been reduced 10x.
  • Home Cores are now immune to blade attacks.
  • Data Centers were previously seeded on the core planets (those next to the AI home planets) in great abundance. Often it would be five or six of them, a huge treasure trove and between the two AI planets constituting often nearly half of the total data centers in the galaxy. On higher-linked AI home planets, the effect of this could be multiplicative, making them even more crazily overpowered. These have now been removed, but the seeding of other data centers throughout the galaxy has been unchanged.
    • This obviously makes for way fewer data centers in general (on average perhaps 1/3 the prior numbers), and it also means there tends to be a max of usually 1 per planet, rather than huge clusters of them.
    • This will also strip out the extra data centers on the core planets from existing saves.
Mark Level Multiplier
1 1.5
2 0.9
3 0.7
4 0.6
5 0.5
  • New hybrids will no longer mature into builder classes, since they were responsible with numerous crimes against humanity including "the ai is still building turrets", "good grief that's a lot of forcefields", and "why won't my fleet autotarget those 200 neinzul clusters".
    • Builders will be back when we have appropriate things for them to build in moderation.
  • Engineers mark I-III now take 4x as much damage when on enemy planets. This makes them still just as useful while on beachheads or in other protected circumstances where they are under forcefields or whatever and thus not taking fire while in enemy territory. But it makes them vastly less effective in actual combat situations, so that they don't work well mixed in with your main fleet WHILE it is attacking. However, on defense and on player planets they are just as effective as ever, which is also important.
  • The multi-repair-range of superfortresses has been doubled, although it's still much smaller than that of the other fortresses. That's simply not its primary function.
  • SuperFortresses, Fortresses, and Mobile Repair Stations now have to remain stationary to do their multi-repairs. After moving, they must recharge for 60 seconds before they can start doing repairs again: it's best to find a good position for them and leave them there until you're ready to deploy them in a new locale. In the case of fortresses/superfortresses, this doesn't affect their ability to attack while stationary or moving.
    • The intent here is to keep mobile repair stations from being used as mobile heal-instantly fleet-life extenders.
  • Further Parasite/Leech rebalance:
    • The Parasites now have a further 10x added to their attack power, but now always have an 8-second recharge time rather than one that diminishes with their mark level. Their bonus against medium hulls has thus been cut from 6 to 3.
    • The MicroParasite attack recharge has been put back to 2s instead of 8, and now has an attack power of 8000 instead of 800. Their health has also been doubled.
    • The Leech Starship has had their attack buffed a further 40x, giving them a pretty sizble DPS. Their number of shots has been further reduced from 4x to 1x, helping to make them a lot more likely to convert enemy ships.
    • The overall goal is to make Parasites rather slow-firing so that they are not converting everything in sight, but with a high enough DPS that they have a reasonable chance of success in mixed fleets, or with allies, or on their own (in order from least to most successful, there). These changes are a start, at least, and we'll see how these feel.
  • Attrition emitters now have teeth: they now do 400 damage per second, rather than 20.
  • Now when an Advanced Research Station is captured, it unlocks not only a new bonus ship type, but also the mark II technology of that ship type.
    • This helps to allow players to experiment with more bonus ship types without fear, since normally if you are getting a mark I bonus ship type late in the game, that's not very useful and it's hard to tell if the higher-mark ships would be useful. Those extra ships wind up just being put on guard duty. This way, players also get mark II ships that are a lot more useful later in the game, and they can make a better decision about whether or not they want mark III/IV variants.
    • Of course, it also sweetens the deal for capturing Advanced Research Stations.
  • The knowledge cost of mark III fleet ships has been raised from 5000 to 6000. This is partly to counterbalance the change above, but also to better account for the fact that you get mark III AND IV ships out of the deal of just unlocking III (assuming you have and hold an advanced factory).
  • All mkI fleet ships (triangle and bonus types) cost 1/2 as much energy as they used to, to ease the early game energy economy somewhat and to make them more attractive for garrison/support roles later in the game.
  • Bulletproof fighter tweaks
    • Base range changed to fighter's base range +2000.
    • Attack power * 1.1.
    • Health changed from fighter's health * 1.1 => 1.75.
    • Armor Rating changed from fighter's armor * 0.8 => 1.5 (the 0.8 was from when they were called shields).
  • Tachyon Microfighter rebalanced in a similar fashion as the Bulletproof Fighter to basically be a fighter, but with the following modifiers:
    • Obviously, the tachyon range, and the mine immunity that they've always had.
    • Half metal cost.
    • Double crystal cost.
    • Reload time from 4 seconds to 3.
    • Base range +1000.
    • Attack power * 0.75.
    • Armor piercing * 0.75.
    • Armor rating * 0.75.
    • Health * 0.75.
    • Ship cap multiplier from 1 => 1.5.
  • Autocannon Minipod rebalance:
    • Base Move Speed from 84/85/86/88 to 84 across the board.
    • Given 3*mk armor damage per shot, to help counteract their very low power-per-shot and total lack of armor piercing when used in larger groups.
    • Base Attack Power from 4/8/16/32 to 160*mk.
    • Base Health from 3300/5900/8900/14100 to 6000*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 45 => 3.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 45 => 3.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 35 => 3.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 28 => 3.
    • The goal here is a cloaked ship that does pretty good "ambush" dps against lightly armored stuff but has a "spin up" time versus more heavily armored targets. In general they may need more than this to get up to the desired level of usefulness, but this should help bring them out of the bottom-of-the-bin.
  • One-way doormasters now seed with 3x as many data centers as normal, to make up for the AI Progress cost of all those black hole machines (30 each). It's still a harder AI than normal, but now not so egregiously so.
  • Zenith viral Shredders are now immune to reclamation, as they unintentionally could multiply from 1 captured by a player to hundreds or thousands.
  • The parasite line of ships has had their stats rebalanced in general, and linearized. They now have a lower attack speed, but massively higher attack values (which they now need).
  • Leech Starships now cost 2x as much energy to run, and their stats have been linearized also. They also now have 10x fewer shots, and do 10x more damage than before.
  • All mark V ships are now immune to reclamation (this was always the intent, but a few slipped through before).
  • Ships with the reclamation ability are now only able to reclaim ships that are, at most, one mark level above their current level. So mark I ships can reclaim mark II ships, and so on.
  • When reclamators damage an enemy ship, it will only be reclaimed if at least 50% of the damage to that ship was done by the parasites of the current player.
  • Zenith Chameleon rebalance:
    • Move Speed from 28/25/22/18/28 to simply 28 across the board.
    • Base Attack Power from 400/1800/2800/4000/8000 to 4000*mk.
    • Base Attack Range from 2600/3600/4000/4000 to 4000 across the board.
    • Health from 10,000/18,000/30,000/28,000 to 13,000*mk.
    • Armor from 500/1000/1500/2000/2500 to 150*mk.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 18 => 3.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 10 => 3.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 1 => 3.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.
    • Bonus vs CommandGrade from 5 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 4 => 1.
    • The goal here is a moderately durable, moderately cheap ship providing solid dps (particularly vs big stuff) plus it's little bonus of the stationary-camo.
  • Raid Starships now have radar dampening of 8000, helping to protect them from the likes of artillery guardians.
  • Mark I-III Scout Starships now have radar dampening like the mark I-III regular scouts do.
  • Cursed Golems are now immune to both snipers and gravity effects.
  • Scouts, Scout Starships, Raptors, and Spire Starships are now immune to "gravity effects," which includes the gravity drill, gravity ripper, gravity drains, gravity turret, and similar effects.
  • Ion Cannons, Mass Drivers, and Counter Spies now scrap for 0.1% of their cost rather than 10%, to bring the usefulness of melting captured ones down closer to the usefulness of keeping them.
    • We won't point any fingers on this one.
  • Decoy Drones and AI Carriers can now be targeted and damaged by siege starships and bomber starships.
  • Trying to make parasites not slaughter everything with their newfound dps:
    • Base Attack power from 40,000*mk => 4,000*mk.
    • Ship Cap Multiplier from 1.5 => 0.5.
  • To make them more reasonable as fighter+ types:
    • Bulletproof fighter hull type from Medium => Light.
    • Tachyon microfighter hull type from Swarmer => Light.
  • Bomber:
    • Base Move Speed from 28/25/22/18/30 => a flat 28 (same as a fighter).
    • Base Attack Power from 600/2700/4200/9000/15000 => 1500*mk.
    • Base Range from 1000/1300/3000/3400/3000 => 800 + (200*mk).
    • Attack Reload Time from 12/12/12/12/8 => a flat 12.
    • Base Health from 8,000/20,000/36,000/60,000/65,000 => 9,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 500/1500/3500/3500/5500 => 200 + (300*mk).
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 10 => 6.
    • Bonus vs CommandGrade from 10 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 10 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Artillery 7 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 3 (Yes, increased).
    • Note that Space Tank stats are based off Bomber stats with several multipliers and changes.
  • Space Tank:
    • Move Speed from 0.5 * Bomber's => a flat 12 (same as a missile frigate).
    • Metal Cost from 1.2 * Bomber's => 2.2 * Bomber's (note that it has no crystal cost).
    • Same bonus changes as the Bomber, except Tanks have a bonus against Polycrystal instead of CommandGrade (and it went from 10 => 6).
  • Sentinel Frigate:
    • Base Health from 120,000/160,000/220,000/280,000/330,000 => 90,000*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 2,000*mk => 20,000*mk (note, this unit has no bonuses).
  • Acid Sprayer:
    • Base Attack Power from 40*mk => 450*mk.
    • Bonus vs. Composite from 50 => 9.
    • Bonus vs. Neutron from 50 => 9.
    • Bonus vs. Polycrystal from 38 => 7.
    • Bonus vs. Refractive from 38 => 7.
    • Base Health from 11,600/15,600/19,600/23,600/31,600 => 12,000*mk.
  • Sniper:
    • Base Health from 6000/8000/10000/12000 => 30,000*mk.
  • Raptor:
    • Base Attack Power from 300/550/800/1050/1800 => 1200*mk.
    • Base Health from 1600/2600/3800/6200/9800 => 3500*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 500*mk.
    • Bonus against Light from 8 => 3.
    • Bonus against UltraLight from 4 => 1.5.
    • Bonus against Swarmer from 2 => 1.
    • Bonus against Refractive from 1 => 2.
  • Infiltrator:
    • Base Attack Power from 120*mk => 270*mk.
    • Base Health from 1440/1680/2480/3280 => 2000*mk.
    • Bonus against Turret from 10 => 1.
    • Bonus against Heavy from 2 => 4.
    • Bonus against UltrayHeavy from 4 => 6.
    • Bonus against Scout from 2 => 1.
  • Eye Bot:
    • Base Attack Power from 2000*mk => 1800*mk.
    • Base Health from 360/420/620/820 => 1000*mk.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 4 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 20 => 10.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 20 => 5.
    • Bonus vs Scout from 2 => 1.
  • Space Plane:
    • Base Move Speed from 44/45/46/48/50 => flat 44.
    • Base Attack Power from 500/1500/3500/5500/10000 => 600*mk.
    • Base Attack Range from 2000/3000/3500/4000/4000 => 2000 + (500*mk).
    • Base Health from 600/900/1400/2000/2000 => 1500*mk.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Light from 10 => 5.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 4.
  • Stealth Battleship:
    • Base Attack Power from 8800*mk => 4500*mk.
    • Shots-Per-Salvo from 8/10/12/14/16 => flat 8.
    • Energy use from 100 => 800
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 0.5 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 1 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 1 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 1 => 2.
  • Laser Gatling:
    • Base Move Speed from 24/25/26/27/28 => flat 24.
    • Base Attack Power from 180*mk => 150*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 500*mk.
    • Base Health from 1300/1900/2900/3700/3600 => 1750*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 120/220/320/320/460 => 120*mk.
    • Bonus vs PolyCrystal from 15 => 3.
    • Bonus vs Light from 15 => 3.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 5 => 3.
  • Anti-Armor:
    • Base Attack Power from 1200/2000/3200/6000 => 900*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 10000/14000/18000/22000 => 10000*mk.
    • Base Health from 1600/3600/5600/7600 => 2000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 100/150/200/250 = 100*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 14 => 5.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 10 => 5.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 6 => 5.
  • Fighter and Tachyon Microfighter base attack power from 1500 => 1300*mk (Bulletproof Fighter staying roughly the same).
  • Zenith Bombardment:
    • Base Attack Power from 8,000*mk => 45,000*mk (note, this unit has no bonuses).
    • Base Health from 10,000*mk => 20,000*mk.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 0.5 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Close Combat from 0.5 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Light from 0.25 => 1.
  • Zenith Electric Bomber:
    • Base Attack Power from 8,000/27,000/56,000/80,000/120,000 to 32,000*mk.
    • Base Health from 30,000*mk => 60,000*mk.
    • Armor rating from 1500/2500/4500/4500/4500 to (1000 + 200*mk).
  • Both the Gravity Driller and One Way Doormaster types now have 2x as many data centers as normal (in the prior release, one way doormasters had 3x the norm, but that was a miscalculation on my part).
  • The Starfields have been adjusted to no longer try and draw if they failed to initialize, thus preventing flooding of a ton of issues into a single log file.
  • Sniper Turrets:
    • Base Health from 24,000 => 100,000.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 6.
    • This is to compensate for the Raid Starship getting the 8000 radar dampener range, because now you'll need to plant snipers close to where you expect to face the Raid starships. Doing so should maintain the sniper turret's use as a counter to the raid starship, however.
  • Spider Turrets now have the same attack power, bonuses, and health as sniper turrets.
  • All major weapons are now immune to camouflaging, EMPs/paralysis, munitions boosting, shield boosting, and gravity effects. This partially buffs them and partially nerfs them, but underscores their epic nature, at least.
  • Roaming enclaves now only hold 30% as many ships, but when the game spawns new roaming enclaves it spawns an additional enclave (of the same alignment) for every 75 AIP.
  • Sniper:
    • Base Health from 30,000*mk => 18,750*mk.
    • Armor rating from 800+100*mk => 0.
    • Base Attack Power from 8100*mk => 7500*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 8 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 5 => 1.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 5 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Medium from 3 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 2 => 6.
    • Energy use from 100 => 250 (mkI has half energy cost, as usual).
    • Metal cost from 1200 => 1500.
  • Eyebot:
    • Base Health from 1000*mk => 7200*mk.
    • Armor rating from 500 => 0.
    • Attack Power from 1800*mk => 2000*mk.
    • Metal cost from 60 => 100.
    • Crystal cost from 60 => 100.
    • Energy cost from 10 => 100.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 6 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 10 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 5 => 3.2.
  • Stealth Battleship:
    • Base Health from 250,000*mk => 275,000*mk.
    • Energy Use from 800 => 2000.
    • Base Attack Power from 4,500*mk => 4,000*mk.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 1.4.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 2 => 1.4.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 2 => 1.4.
  • Tachyon Microfighter:
    • Base Health from 10,440*0.9*mk => 7,000*mk.
    • Armor rating from 75 => 150*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 975*mk => 700*mk.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 4 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3.2 => 2.4.
  • Bulletproof Fighter:
    • Base Health from 20300*mk => 16000*mk.
    • Armor rating from 150 => 300*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1625*mk => 1400*mk.
    • Metal Cost from 200 => 400.
    • Armor piercing from 1000*mk => 750*mk.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 4 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3.2 => 2.4.
  • Fighter:
    • Armor rating from 100 => 150*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1300*mk => 1200*mk.
    • Armor piercing from 1000*mk => 750*mk.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 4 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3.2 => 2.4.
  • Autocannon Minipod:
    • Base Attack Power from 160*mk => 140*mk.
    • Base Health from 6000*mk => 3900*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 3 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 3 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 3 => 3.2.
  • Raptor:
    • Base Health from 3500*mk => 3600*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1200*mk => 1000*mk.
    • Bonus vs Light from 3 => 1.8.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 1.5 => 1.8.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 1.8.
  • Sentinel Frigate:
    • Base Health from 90,000*mk => 75,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 800 => 300*mk.
  • Anti-Armor:
    • Base Attack Power from 900*mk => 950*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 100*mk => 150*mk.
    • Energy Cost from 100 => 50.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 5 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 5 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 5 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 4 => 2.4.
  • Space Plane:
    • Base Health from 1500*mk => 2100*mk.
    • Energy Cost from 150 => 100.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 4 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Light from 5 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 4 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 4 => 2.4.
  • Acid Sprayer:
    • (fixed bug where it wasn't actually multiplying attack power, health, or armor piercing by mark level)
    • Base Health from 11,600*mk => 11,000*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 500*mk => 450*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 1000 => 450*mk.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 9 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 9 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 7 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 7 => 6.
  • Zenith Chameleon:
    • Base Health from 13,000*mk => 14,500*mk.
    • Energy Use from 100 => 50.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 3 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 3 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 2.4.
  • Infiltrator:
    • Base Health from 2000*mk => 2900*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 500 => 150*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 200+200*mk => 300*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 6 => 4.
  • Zenith Electric Bomber:
    • (fixed bug where health was not multiplied by mark)
    • Base Health from 60,000*mk => 75,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 1000+200*mk => 600*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 32,000*mk => 38,000*mk.
    • Energy Cost from 1000 => 500.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 10 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 2 => 3.2.
    • Removed 0.5 penalty against CloseCombat.
  • Lazer Gatling:
    • (fixed bug where health was not multiplied by mark)
    • Base Health from 1,750*mk => 1,400*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 120*mk => 150*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 500*mk => 600*mk.
    • Energy Cost from 50 => 20.
    • Metal Cost from 150 => 80.
    • Crystal Cost from 150 => 80.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 3 => 1.8.
    • Bonus vs Light from 3 => 1.8.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 3 => 1.8.
  • Bomber:
    • Base Health from 9000*mk => 11,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 200+300*mk => 600*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1500*mk => 1900*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 6 => 10.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 6 => 10.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 3 => 10.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 4 => 10.
  • Space Tank:
    • Base Health from 7200*mk => 7300*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 200+300*mk => 750*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1800*mk => 2600*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 6 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 6 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 6 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 3 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 4 => 3.2.
  • Missile Frigate:
    • Base Health from 9000*mk => 11,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 150 => 150*mk.
    • Attack Reload Time from 10/9/8/7/6 => flat 10.
    • Base Attack Power from 1000*mk => 1600*mk.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 5 => 10.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 5 => 10.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 5 => 10.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 5 => 10.
  • Zenith Bombardment:
    • Base Health from 20,000*mk => 27,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 150 => 150*mk.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 1 => 2.
    • Removed penalties against Artillery, CloseCombat, and Light.
  • Armored:
    • Base Health from 40,000/60,000/80,000/100,000/140,000 => 25,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 3,000/3,200/3,400/3,600/4,000 => 750*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 400/1,200/2,000/3,000/6,000 => 800*mk.
    • Base Range from 200/500/600/800/900 => 300+100*mk.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 9 => 4.
    • Bonus vs CommandGrade from 6 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 6 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Light from 6 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 6 => 4.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 6 => 4.
  • Raider:
    • Base Move Speed from 36/38/40/42/45 => flat 36.
    • Base Health from 1600/3200/5200/10000/13600 => 3000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 150/225/300/375/500 => 150*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 200/400/600/800/1200 => 200*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 3000/4000/5000/6000/7000 => 10000.
    • Base Attack Range from 4000/4000/5000/6000/7000 => 4000+100*mk.
    • Metal Cost from 100 => 40.
    • Crystal Cost from 300 => 120.
    • Energy Cost from 50 => 20.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 8 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 12 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 5 => 4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 4.
  • MLRS:
    • Base Attack Power from 240/600/960/1120 => 800*mk.
    • Base Attack Range from 2800/3200/3800/3800 => 2800+200*mk.
    • Shots-Per-Salvo from 4/6/8/12 => flat 8.
    • Reload Time from 6 => 12.
    • Base Health from 16800/24800/30800/36800 => 14,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 600/800/1000/1000 => 600*mk.
    • Bonus vs Light from 16 => 2.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 8 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 4 => 2.
  • Neinzul Nesters, Raid Engines, and Alarmist AI types now have 2x the normal number of data centers seeded to offset their AI-Progress-increasing weapons to some extent. Special Forces captains now have 1.4x the normal number of data centers because of all their special forces guard posts.
    • Note that this will not affect existing savegames, since the data center seeding there is already past.
  • Zenith Electric Bombers and Sentinel Frigates now use AIPerGuardPostShipCap (of 4/2/1 on high/normal/low caps, respectively) to avoid big concentrations on AI planets, and to make it easier to engage them a few at a time when attacking AI planets (since planets with many guard posts may still have a pretty scary number of them but they won't generally all dogpile you).
  • Youngling Tiger:
    • Base Health from 10,000/15,000/20,000/25,000/30,000 => 11,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 400 => 300*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 2400/3000/3600/4200/5000 => 2800*mk.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 40 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 20 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 20 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Medium from 8 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 4 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.4.
  • Youngling Commando:
    • Base Health from 10,000/15,000/20,000/25,000/30,000 => 6,600*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 120/220/320/320/460 => 150*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 270/540/810/1080/2250 => 1000*mk.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 15 => 1.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 10 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 8 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Light from 8 => 2.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 2.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 1 => 2.
  • Youngling Vulture:
    • Base Health from 12,000/16,000/20,000/24,000/28,000 => 15,400*mk
    • Armor Rating from 400 => 450*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1/3/6/8/10 => 77*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 100000.
    • Attack multiplier (from enemy health) now has a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 90.
    • Penalty against UltraHeavy removed.
  • Youngling Weasel:
    • Base Health from 4000/6000/10000/16000/24000 => 15,400*mk
    • Armor Rating from 120/220/320/320/460 => 600*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 900/1200/1500/1800/2500 => 2250*mk.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 20 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 4.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 1 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 1 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 1 => 4.
  • To compensate for the pretty significant buffing of mkIII younglings (by virtue of the new base values for mkI and the linearization of stats by mk) and thus the minor-faction versions, Roaming Enclave and Preservation Warden "hangar size" has been reduced to half of what it was (300 => 150 for roaming, 500 => 250 for wardens), and the time-to-"build"-one-internal-ship has been doubled. Similar changes made to Neinzul Clusters and Neinzul Privacy Clusters (not to bomber or viral clusters yet, since the neinzul bomber and neinzul viral swarmer haven't been changed yet).
  • Space Tank:
    • MkI Metal Cost from 1540 => 1000.
  • Spire Gravity Drain:
    • Base Health from 5000+5000*mk => 7,300*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 46,000*mk => 8,200*mk (it was way, way out there).
    • Armor Piercing from 50,000 => 100,000.
    • Energy Cost from 100 => 400.
    • MkI Crystal Cost from 5000 => 3000.
  • Spire Gravity Ripper:
    • Energy Cost from 100 => 300.
    • MkI Metal Cost from 3000 => 1800.
    • MkI Crystal Cost from 2000 => 1200.
    • Base Health from 15,000+15,000*mk => 30,000*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 4000*mk => 1000*mk.
  • Spire Teleporting Leech:
    • Energy Cost from 100 => 400.
    • MkI Metal Cost from 3200 => 2200.
    • MkI Crystal Cost from 1200 => 800.
    • Base Health from 10000*mk => 8,200*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 750*mk => 150*mk.
    • Attack Power from 1600*mk => 440*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 1500 => 750*mk.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 6 => 3.2.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 6 => 3.2.
  • Teleport Battlestation:
    • Base Attack Power from 400/700/1000/1300 => 310*mk.
    • Shots-per-salvo from 8/12/16/20 => flat 8.
    • Base Health from 2800/3800/4800/5800 => 14,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 600/800/1000/1000 => 450*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 600*mk.
    • Bonus vs Light from 10 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 10 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 2 => 2.4.
  • Shield Bearer:
    • Base Move Speed from 22/23/24/25 => flat 22.
    • Base Attack Power from 240/480/840/1220 => 3000*mk.
    • Base Health from 150,000*mk => 90,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 200 => 0.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 10 => 2.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Medium from 10 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 10 => 2.
  • Teleport Raider:
    • Base Attack Power from 100/300/500/700 => 120*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 150*mk.
    • Base Health from 400/800/1400/2000 => 1500*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 150/225/300/375 => 0.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 30 => 2.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 4 => 2.
  • Deflector Drone:
    • Base Move Speed from 26/27/28/29 => flat 26.
    • Base Attack Power from 900/1500/2100/2700 => 1400*mk.
    • Base Health from 300/500/700/1200 => 1900*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 320/420/520/620 => 300*mk.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 20 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 2 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 2.4.
  • The Unit Formerly Known As Shield Booster:
    • Base Health from 11200/15200/19200/23200 => 37,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 3200/3400/3800/4400 => 750*mk.
    • Energy Cost from 200 => 500.
    • Base Attack Power from 300/600/1200/2400 => 1000*mk.
    • Bonus vs Light from 10 => 6.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 5 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 5 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 2 => 6.
  • Zenith Polarizer:
    • Base Health from 11600/15600/19600/23600/28600 => 11,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 500 => 450*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 24/48/72/96/180 => 48*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 10,000 => 100,000.
    • The multiply-damage-by-square-root-of-target-armor mechanic now gives a minimum attack multiplier of 4 even against targets with less than 16 armor, and a maximum attack multiplier of 100 even against targets with more than 10,000 armor.
  • Munitions Booster:
    • Base Move Speed from 18/19/19/20 => flat 18.
    • Base Health from 2800/3800/4800/5800 => 37,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 600/800/1000/1000 => 300*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 300/600/1200/2400 => 1000*mk.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 10 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 10 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 2 => 6.
  • Parasite:
    • Base Health from 6600*mk => 7200*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 400+100*mk => 450*mk.
    • Bonus vs Medium from 3 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 2 => 4.
  • Impulse Reaction Emitter:
    • Base Health from 11600/15600/19600/23600/31600 => 11,000*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 150/300/450/600/720 => 150*mk.
    • Damage/energy scaling changed from multiplying by sqrt(energy)/10 to multiplying by 1 + (energy/1024), with a maximum multiplier of 30. Note that partial units of 1024 are counted, so something with an energy use of 200 will take roughly 1.2x damage.
  • Spire Armor Rotter:
    • Base Health from 11000*mk => 14500*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 700*mk = 1200*mk.
    • Energy Cost from 100 => 250.
    • (MkI) Metal Cost from 1000 => 800.
    • (MkI) Crystal Cost from 2400 => 1900.
  • Spider (MkI-IV):
    • Base Health from 3600/4200/6200/8200 => 3600*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 60 => 150*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 100/300/450/700 => 1000*mk.
    • Engine Damage from 15/30/50/90 => 15*mk.
    • Bonus vs Light from 8 => 6.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 6.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 1 => 6.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 1 => 6.
  • Etherjet:
    • Base Health from 2400/3600/5400/7800 => 2400*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 100/300/700/1100 => 600*mk.
    • Base Attack Range from 1000/1500/1750/2000 => 1000+(250*mk).
    • Tractor Range from 400/450/500/600 => 400+(50*mk).
    • Bonus vs Light from 20 => 4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 4.
  • Zenith Mirror:
    • Base Health from 10,000/25,000/45,000/75,000/95,000 => 11,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 500/1000/2000/4000/8000 => 600*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 100/200/400/800/1600 => 500*mk.
  • Spire Tractor Platform:
    • Base Health from 60,000*mk => 300,000*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 200*mk => 3,500*mk.
    • Shots per salvo from 21/24/27/30/33 => flat 21.
    • Armor Piercing from 3000*mk => 750*mk.
    • Removed penalty vs Polycrystal.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Light from 1 => 2.
  • Zenith Paralyzer:
    • Base Health from 3500*mk => 3600*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 350 => 450*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1/2/4/8/16 => 625*mk (this still gives them a really low dps-at-cap, but it's not completely useless).
    • Paralysis seconds per shot from 8/10/12/14/18 => 6+(2*mk).
  • Human Resistance ship counter-accumulation-rate now scales somewhat with AIP (not that they have any connection to the AI, but it's a decent index for "how big should this be").
  • The AI home command station has had it's health increased 20x. It was previously actually 10x lower than expected, but it could have used a boost even above that in light of all the recent changes to the game.
  • Zombified ships are all now immune to reclamation (it doesn't say this in their tooltip, as these are regular ships that have been reclaimed as zombies, and they are only reclamation-immune in their zombified state).
  • Both SuperTerminals and AI Eyes now spawn ships as zombie bots, so that they are extra aggressive as well as being non-reclaimable. This is a nerf from them being reclamator farms.
  • All marauders and resistance fighters are now immune to Attrition, being insta-killed, camouflaging, EMPs, gravity effects, shield boosting, munitions boosting, paralysis attacks, nuclear explosions, tractor beams, translocation, and black hole machines. They all also now include a radar dampening range of 4000.
  • The attack power of the resistance fighter/bombers and resistance frigates has gone up 10x, and their bonuses against hull types has gone down 10x. Their health has also gone up 10x, and they are also both now including warp detection and blind in their abilities list. Speed up from 18 to 48, also. Their ships caps have been reduced to 1/3 of what it was before, and their metal/crystal cost has gone up 3x.
  • Marauders have been overhauled:
    • Marauder BuzzBombs have had their speed decreased from 82 to 60. Health increased 100x. Their armor rating and EMP-absorption have been removed, and they no longer explode themselves to deal area damage. They now fire area-of-effect grenades, instead. This is much, much scarier and more effective, as their firepower remains the same as before—but is now something they can do over and over again.
    • Marauder Dagger Frigates have had their speed increased from 20 to 60. Health increased 100x (it was very low in recent times, unintentionall so).
  • Metal and crystal manufactories now have 5x more health.
  • All Warheads (except armored) now have 5x more health.
  • The attack power of all the lightning warheads have been increased by 3x due to recent game rebalances. Additionally, their ranges have been increased by 0/250/250.
  • Hybrids now cannot rebuild modules if they have been angered (fired upon by human player ships) within the last 30 seconds.
  • MLRS Turret:
    • Base Health from 58,000/74,000/130,000 => 100,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 600/800/800 => 450*mk.
    • Base Range from 7000 => 12000.
    • Build time from 70/120/170 => 60*mk.
    • The dps of this thing was simply _out there_, even at mkI, so with great regret:
    • Shots-per-salvo from 12/24/48 => flat 12.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 4 => 8.
    • Base Attack Power from 1240/1600/2000 => 700*mk.
    • Bonus vs Light from 16 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 8 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 4 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 1 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 1 => 2.4.
  • Flak Turret:
    • Ship cap multiplier from 1.2 => 0.5.
    • Base Health from 110,000*mk => 250,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 100+100*mk => 750*mk.
    • Energy Use from 150 => 300.
    • Base Metal Cost from 1150 => 2000.
    • Base Crystal Cost from 225 => 400.
    • Build time from 70 => 120*mk.
    • Base Range from -1000+750*mk => 1000*mk (Translation: the real in-game range is going from 2250/3000/3750 => 4000/5000/6000).
    • Seconds-Per-Salvo from 8-mk => 7 flat.
    • Base Attack Power from 3000*mk => 6,000*mk.
    • Bonus vs CloseCombat from 8 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 8 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 3 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 1 => 2.4.
  • Basic Turret:
    • Base Health from 46,000/92,000/400,000 => 75,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 600 => 300*mk.
    • Build Time from 60/90/120 => 60*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 1800/3600/7200 => 4000*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 150*mk.
    • Base Crystal Cost from 0 => 400.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 2 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 3 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 1 => 2.4.
  • Missile Turret:
    • Base Health from 56,000/86,000/130,000 => 50,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 1200 => 150*mk.
    • Base Range from 27,000/27,000/33,000 => 27,000 flat.
    • Base Attack Power from 3600/5600/7600 => 5400*mk.
    • Base Metal Cost from 300 => 800.
    • Base Crystal Cost from 1200 => 300.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 8 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Medium from 6 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 4 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 1 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 1 => 2.4.
  • Lazer Turret
    • Base Health from 200,000/300,000/400,000 =>150,000*mk.
    • Armor Rating from 800 => 300*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 600/2000/3000 => 1500*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 500/1500/3500 => 750*mk.
    • Build Time from 130/210/250 => 60*mk.
    • Base Metal Cost from 600 => 200.
    • Base Crystal Cost from 1800 => 900.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 15 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 8 => 2.4
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 1 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Heavy from 1 => 2.4.
  • Translocator health has been increased 7x.
  • Distribution nodes previously granted players between 20k and 200k of metal and crystal each on being burst. With all the recent economic changes, that's in no way worth even 1 AIP. Now they give between 300k and 400k of metal and crystal each on being burst (except the trojan ones, obviously, which take away half that).
  • Hunter/Killers are now immune to both artillery and mass drivers. As are all mark V guardians. As are core shield generators. As are all of the AI core guard posts, and the AI home command station.
  • The max health of advanced research stations has been reduced by 1/5th.
  • All spire bonus ship types, and the zenith electric bombers and sentinel frigates, are all now immune to paralysis attacks.
  • All guardians are now immune to paralysis attacks, as are carriers now.
  • A couple of force field rebalancements:
    • The health of mark I and player home force fields has gone up from 9 million to 14 million.
    • The health of mark II force fields has gone up from 18 million to 30 million.
  • Metal and crystal harvesters mark II now each cost 3250 knowledge rather than 3000.
  • Tachyon beam emitters now cost 250 knowledge to unlock instead of 500. The stealth tachyon emitters now cost 1500 knowledge instead of 1000 to unlock.
  • The regen rate of exo-shields has now been dropped considerably, to regenerating over 20 minutes instead of a ludicrous 30 seconds. They also now drop remains, however, so that rebuilders can come along and put them back up.
  • Rather than having exo-shields cost a simple -2 metal and crystal per second, they simply halve the amount of resources generated by whatever ship it is they are protecting. They also now cos 750 knowledge to unlock instead of 500.
  • EtherJet Tractors now have significantly boosted tractor beam ranges (about 500 less than their attack range), so that their likelihood of actually tractoring any enemies goes way up. And, so that they do a better job of holding enemies at arms' length (though enemies can hit them anyway, they don't have the same luck with whatever is near the etherjets). In the past, the range of etherjets was short enough that sometimes it seemed like their tractors weren't even working.
  • The bonus that guardians have against scouts has been changed from 0 to 0.01, again to prevent scouting from being too easy.
  • All ships with force fields on them are now immune to paralysis attacks (since having the paralysis attacks disable the force fields would make the paralyzers way overpowered).
  • The Starfleet Commander AI type has been completely reinvented. Now it gets no extra starships in reinforcements, and its per-planet starship caps are just as normal. On defense, it's just essentially a lightly-defended AI. However, on offense it now gets 4x the normal starships with every wave, making it a pretty interesting and dangerous offensive raider-type AI. It was already offensive-oriented, but now it is much more so.
    • This makes this AI type significantly easier, as before it could collect dozens of starships at its planets.
  • Lightning and Armored Warheads now scale with the ship caps, so that their damage output is higher on the lower cap scale settings, retaining their value appropriately.
  • The tachyon drone's range has been doubled from 750 to 1500, and the decloaker's range has been increased from 15k to 20k.
  • The ship cap of fortresses has been moved to 5/4/3 for marks I/II/III.
  • Armored Warhead attack powers have been increased 40x, making them significantly more awesome and perhaps actually strategically viable for once.
  • Lightning Warhead attack powers have been increased 2x to make them a lot more strategically tempting again, too.
  • To be consistent with the other fortresses, there is now an AI superfortress with 5x more health than the human counterpart.
  • Fortresses have been significantly buffed:
    • Fortresses mark I-III now fire flame waves rather than missiles (superfortresses already did). This lets them now hit ships that are immune to missiles, obviously, but it also increases the movement speed of their shots from 54 to 178: a tremendous boost to their ability to wreak a lot of havoc on ships that are fast and/or distant.
    • Fortresses mark I-III now have 5x more health (superfortresses already had way more), making them much more substantial in terms of their own survivability.
      • The AI versions of fortresses now only have 5x the health of their human counterparts, not 10x.
    • The attack power of fortresses and superfortresses have all been increased 10x, making them a lot more formidable again.
    • Superfortresses are now 2.5x more expensive than they were before.
    • Regular fortresses are now 10x more expensive than they were before.
    • Fortresses mark I-III now cost 3x more energy than before, and cannot be put in low-power mode.
    • Superfortresses now cost 15x more energy than before, and cannot be put in low-power mode.
  • Ion cannons, core warhead interceptors, orbital mass drivers, and counterspies are all now immune to radar dampening.
    • This is another nerf to scouts, as well as a general buff back to all these ships.
  • Spider turrets are no longer immune to sniper attacks.
  • Both spider and sniper turrets are now immune to radar dampening, which makes them a lot more interesting and powerful against AI raid starships again (recall that only the humans get these turrets).
  • Scout health is now 3/5 of its prior value.
  • Fortresses and superfortresses now only do 10% damage to scout hulls (which includes transports).
  • A new special ability, "Self Attrition Only When Not Low-Power," is now applied to most units with self-attrition (the spirecraft scouts and jumpships, and the AI special forces guard posts, being the exceptions). This ability makes it so that things like golems, Neinzul Younglings, etc, can be put into low-power mode whenever they are not actually attacking.
  • Fixed a bug where Neinzul Youngling Vultures were scaling damage up from a minimum at 100% target health to a maximum at 90% (or lower) target health, they were intended to (and will now) scale from a minimum at 100%-90% target health to a maximum at 10%-0% target health.
  • Further Teleport Raider rebalancing:
    • Base Attack Power from 120*mk => 600*mk.
    • Seconds-Per-Salvo from 2 => 8.
    • Bonus vs Polycrystal from 2 => 4.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 2 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Refractive from 2 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 4.
  • Scouts I-IV, Scout Starships I-IV, (non-AI) Remains Rebuilders, and Engineers II-III and Experimental (Engineer mkIs _not_ included) are now immune to attrition.
  • Scout starships have received some rebalancement:
    • Mark I now have 120k health instead of 80k.
    • Mark II now have 4x the health of mark I instead of 2x.
    • Mark III now have 8x the health of mark I instead of 4x.
    • Mark IV now have 10x the health of mark I instead of 6x.
  • Neinzul Youngling Commandos now have armor piercing of 750*mk (same as fighters).
  • The silent doubling of player ship speed has been removed.
    • In its place, all of the human command stations now have an ability that doubles the speed of all allied ships on that planet. This gives the players their same home-field advantage as always, while not letting them run in circles around the AIs on the AI planets. Also, it really gives a tactical penalty when a command station is lost for the players.
    • The AI home planet command stations also now have this new doubles-allied-ship-speed ability, too. This is new, and makes it so that the AI home planets always have a home-field speed advantage similar to what your ships do on all your planets.
  • The Core Missile Guard posts have had their attack increased about 4.4x, and their range increased about 2x.
  • The movement speed of transport ships has been doubled, from 128 to 248. They are also now immune to speed boosting.
  • The movement speed of colony ships has been doubled, from 36 to 72. They are also now immune to speed boosting.
  • All of the scout ships are now immune to speed boosting, as are eyebots.
  • SuperFortresses and all regular fortresses are now immune to speed boosting, munitions boosting, and shield boosting.
  • All AI guardians are now immune to speed boosting.
  • The gravity drill now generates 90/s metal and crystal for players, rather than 30/s, in keeping with the new, larger economies.
  • The Spire Shield Sphere guard posts (core and regular) now have vastly more health, in keeping with other force fields (but a bit stronger).
  • Some melee ship changes, at last:
    • Vorticular Cutlasses, Hive Golem Wasps, and Spire Blades are now the only ships with the Blade ammo type at the moment.
    • Vampires and Zenith Viral Shredders and Neinzul Viral Swarmers now all have a new Fusion Cutter ammo type (with a creepy new sound effect).
    • Previously, all ships with health larger than 1 million were immune to blades. Now they are immune to fusion cutters instead.
    • Previoulsy, all turrets were immune to blades. Now they are immune to fusion cutters instead.
      • The counter-whatever turrets and sniper/spider turrets remain immune to both blades and fusion cutters.
    • Military orbital command stations mark I-III, home command station cores I-III, experimental engineers, home human settlements, human cyro pods, mines of all sorts, raid starships I-III, lightning and armored warheads, fallen spire shards and survey markers, spire civilian outposts, and spire archives remain immune to both blade attacks and fusion cutters.
    • Self-Destruction Guardians, leech starships, riot control starships, impulse reaction emitters, and acid sprayers are now immune to fusion cutters instead of blades.
    • Home Command Stations and fortresses for both the player and the AI are now immune to blades again—in the past they were simply because of those "greater than 1 million health" rule that got moved to fusion cutters.
  • Laser Gatling:
    • Base health from 1400*mk => 2800*mk (a cap of Laser Gatlings MkIs used to have roughly 1/3rd as much totaly hp as a cap of Fighter MkIs, now it will be 2/3rds).
    • Base MkI Metal/Crystal from 80/80 => 50/50 (so now is half of fighters per-individual, and about 1.4x comparing cap to cap).
  • The fortress bonus against the scout hull type has been further reduced from 0.1 to 0.05.
  • Apparently all guardians had a 10x bonus against the scout hull type recently. This has been removed. Artillery guardians additionally now have a 0.1 penalty against the scout hull type. This was hugely hurting both transports and scouts.
  • Marauder rebalancing.
    • The rough target is to balance each like a MkIV fleet ship type with a 0.2x ship cap (i.e. a ship type that would have a mkI cap of 40 ships on high caps), since on difficulties less than 9 it's generally unlikely that more than 40 total marauders will spawn unless it's been a long time since there were any eligible cases for a marauder spawn.
    • The marauder spawning code will now not spawn more than twice the "high cap", regardless of how long it's been since a marauder spawn. On difficulties greater than 5 and lower than 9, the high cap is 40, so this new absolute cap will be 80 (which generally means 40 dagger frigates and 40 buzz bombs) on those difficulties.
    • Marauder Dagger Frigate:
      • Base Health from 3,300,000 => 2,200,000.
      • Armor Rating from 3,000 => 600.
      • Base Attack Range from 30,000 => 15,000.
      • Bonus vs Structural from 30 => 2.4.
      • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 8 => 2.4.
      • Bonus vs Turret from 8 => 2.4.
      • Bonus vs Light from 6 => 2.4.
      • Bonus vs CommandGrade from 4 => 2.4.
    • Marauder Buzz Bomb:
      • Base Health from 3,000,000 => 2,000,000.
      • Base Attack Power from 15,000 => 12,000 (note that these shots can hit 14 targets at once).
      • In many ways this is now a condensed version of the MkIV Grenade Launcher, rather than the Autobomb, so it's been renamed the Marauder Buzz Bomb Launcher.
  • Grenade Launcher rebalancing:
    • Base Move Speed from 28/25/22/18/28 => flat 28.
    • Base Health from 15,000/25,000/45,000/65,000/95,000 => 15,000*mk.
    • Base Armor Rating from 4000 => 300*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 900/1800/3600/7200/14400 => 1000*mk (note that these shots hit 8/10/12/14/16 targets each).
    • Seconds-Per-Salvo from 15/15/10/8/7 => flat 15.
  • Eyebots now have missile ammo, and so it's much easier for the player to protect their command stations and whatnot by simply building counter-missile turrets (which have a tech cost, of course—but note that any counter-whatever turret can be unlocked directly, they are not part of a tech line with prerequisites).
  • Starship constructors now have a health of 300k instead of 48k, in keeping with the other constructors.
  • The Zenith Trader now has a 20% chance of leaving goodies for the AI players on each planet, rather than a 10% chance.
  • Zenith Mirror health increased by 10x to compensate for the 10x bonus everything gets against it (when they were rebalanced, it was without respect to that bonus, thus effective health was pretty pitiful).
  • Devourer Golems and Zenith Trade ships are both now immune to gravity and speed boosting.
  • Cursed Golems are now immune to snipers, like all the other golems already were.
  • Hive Golem Wasps now have 10x more health and attack power.
  • The damage output of the spider turret now properly matches that of the sniper turret.
  • AI fortresses of all marks now have 6x the health of their human counterparts (instead of 5x), but now have 3x lower range than the human versions. They also are now immobile.
  • AI Superfortresses now have simply been adjusted to be immobile, but have the same range and health as before.
  • The health of both mark II and mark III tractor beam turrets have been doubled.
  • Gravitational turrets now cost about 30% more, but have twice the health they used to have.
  • Dyson gatling attack has been doubled, and health has also been doubled. Fear these.
  • Military Orbital Command Stations all now have translocation lightning as their attack type instead of missiles.
  • Okay, so that command-stations-must-be-built-within-proximity-to-the-colony-ship thing wasn't a hit. It was tedious and fiddly, and didn't really accomplish its core goal, anyway. So, the following changes have been made:
    • The proximity thing has been removed completely, so as far as how colony ships go, they are back to working like they used to.
    • However, whenever a human command station is blown up (NOT when it is scrapped), any colony ships OR mobile builders on that planet are also blown up. Even if they are currently inside a transport on that planet.
      • These sorts of ships can exist in planets not controlled by a human player, obviously—they have to. So in their case, it's just a matter of their being on the planet at the exact instant that the command station dies. If they are, then that's when they are killed.
      • This meets the original goal a lot better, which was to prevent players from too-easily just instantly rebuilding outlying command stations that were lost, with no real delay in the ability to rebuild.
        • With planets near other planets it will still be fast to rebuild—of course—but this provides some incentive to keep planets clustered where possible. This incentive of clustering planets which is obviously at odds with the goal of keeping AI Progress low, which is the idea: competing incentives, tough choices, etc. Best if you don't lose the planet at all in the first place, of course. But now it will feel like you do if that planet was a more distant waypoint between multiple of your planets on an important transport route, for instance.
  • Previously, there was a AIDifficulty percent chance, per AI player, of a mark I or II fortress being added on each planet in the galaxy (for all difficulties 4 and up).
    • Now there is a flat ( AIDifficulty / 2 ) * ( totalPlanets < 80 ? totalPlanets / 80 : 1.0 ) fortresses per AI player on the map, rounded up.
      • For difficulty 7.3 on a 40 planet map, that would be ( 7.3 / 2 ) * ( 40 / 80 ) = 3.65 * .5 = 1.825 = 2 fortresses per AI player.
      • For difficulty 8 on an 80+ planet map, that would be ( 8 / 2 ) * 1.0 = 4 fortresses per AI player.
    • Fortress Barons, in addition to the other fortresses (superfortresses and mark III fortresses) that they already get, now get 8x the normal number of mark I and II fortresses in addition (not to exceed the total number of planets controlled by the fortress baron player).
    • Mad Bombers now get absolutely no additional fortresses.
    • Vicious raiders, technologist raiders, speed racers, special forces captains, radar jammers, and extreme raiders now all get half the normal number of extra fortresses, not to be less than 1 fortress.
    • Whether or not the seeded fortress is mark I or II depends on the mark level of the planet. Mark I and II planets get a mark I fortress, everything higher gets a mark II fortress.
  • Normally there are a number of "extra forcefields" that are seeded around the AI planets, per AI. There are normally AIDifficulty * 2 planets with each having either 1 or 2 extra forcefields added per planet. The following frequency changes for these have been made:
    • Shield Ninnies now get 4x the normal number of planets with extra forcefields, as well as 3x the normal number of extra forcefields per planet.
    • Turtles, technologist turtles, and teleporter turtles now get 3x the normal number of planets with extra forcefields, as well as 2x the normal number of extra forcefields per planet.
    • Peacemakers and alarmists now have 2x the normal number of extra forcefields per planet, but on the normal number of planets.
    • Mad Bombers now get absolutely no extra forcefields.
    • Vicious raiders, technologist raiders, speed racers, special forces captains, radar jammers, and extreme raiders now all get half the normal number of planets with extra forcefields, not to be less than 1 planet.
  • AI Eyes now have 400 million health (same as wormhole guard posts) instead of 6 million, and are now destroyed when the last non-wormhole guard post of the AI on that planet is destroyed.
    • In general, many fewer AI Eyes are now seeded, but the exact amount fewer is hard to express because it involves a divisor, the number of planets, a floor value of 2 per galaxy, and differences by AI type.
      • In general, with the defensive-type AIs that had extreme numbers of Eyes in the past (just tons and tons of them, they now have about 3x fewer than before. In terms of the other AI types that had more moderate numbers already, they now have maybe 10% fewer, or thereabouts.
      • Unfortunately, due to the nature of the seeding, the number of AI Eyes will only be reduced in future savegames, not in existing ones.
  • All AI guard posts (except wormhole guard posts and special forces guard posts) now have radar dampening of 7500/7000/6500/6000/5500.
  • Laser Cannon Module (including variants used by Hybrids, Spire Capital Ships, and Spire city defenses) base range from 20k => 10k.
  • Siege Starship:
    • Base Range from 35000 => 16000 (meaning that actual range from 38000 => 19000).
    • Base Health from 1,000,000 => 2,500,000.
  • AI Beam Guardian Base Range from 10k/12k/14k/16k/18k => flat 7k.
  • AI Artillery Guardian Base Range from 31k/32k/33k/34k/35k => flat 15k (so slightly less than a siege starship).
  • AI Laser Guardian Base Range from 7k/8k/9k/10k/11k/12k => flat 7k.
  • AI Vampire Guardian Base Range from 13k/16k/19k/22k/25k => flat 7k.
  • Spire Starship Base Range from 17k => 10k.
  • Spire Tractor Platform base energy use from 100 => 2000 (it was a bug, 100 is what a ship gets if we forget to define it).
  • Spire Armor Rotter:
    • Base Move Speed from 44 => 26.
    • Base Attack Range from 8k/9k/10k/11k/12k => flat 4k.
  • Zenith Bombard Guard posts, AI Core booster guard posts, siege starships, starship disassemblers, and zenith bombards now all fire a new "Antimatter bomb" ammo type instead of their former energy bomb type. Antimatter bombs move about 50% faster than the older shots of these types used to, and most importantly some ships now will be able to have immunity to antimatter bombs (no ships are immune to energy bombs).
    • Note that, importantly, bomber starships and bombers in general still have the regular energy bomb ammo type.
  • The following ships now have immunities to antimatter bombs, shifting the balance around some in a way intended to prevent too-easy sniping on both sides in a way that was formerly not interesting because of bombards and siege starships:
    • Counter-missile, counter-sniper, and counter-dark-matter turrets, as well as sniper and spider turrets, and harvester exo-shields (a benefit to the humans).
    • All of the standalone force fields for both players and AIs (a benefit for both the humans and the AI).
    • The AI fortresses and superfortress for the AI (a benefit for the AI only).
    • The human home command stations, as well as the human military command stations mark I-III, home cores, and the warp jammer command stations (a benefit for the humans only).
    • All AI command stations, special forces guard posts, and warp gates (a benefit for the AI only).
  • Snipers and sniper turrets are no longer immune to (able to fire through) force fields.
  • All of the player mark I-III force fields are no longer able to go through wormholes (the AI ones are immobile, so that would be redundant). Actually, mark III AI force fields were mobile before, but are no longer.
  • Zenith Beam Frigate:
    • Base Health from 22k/26k/32k/38k/54k => 22k*mk.
    • Base Armor Rating from 200/250/300/350/500 => 150*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 500/1000/1500/2000/3000 => 4000*mk.
    • Base Attack Range from 8k/9k/10k/12k/12k => 6k/6.5k/7k/7.5k/8k.
    • Bonus vs Turret from 8 => 1.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 8 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 2 => 1.
    • Can now hit a maximum of 10 targets with one shot; there is no particular logic (closest, etc) for selecting which 10 if there are more than that on the line, nor is it desired that there be.
    • Beams now always go the full range, rather than stopping at the primary target.
  • Raider:
    • Ship cap multiplier from 2.5 => 2.
    • Base health from 3000*mk => 5500*mk (so, compensating for ship cap change and an additional x1.5 on top of that).
    • Base attack from 200*mk => 250*mk (just compensating for ship cap change).
    • Bonus vs Turrets from 4 => 1.
  • Riot Shield I/II radius from 300/500 => 600*mk.
  • The move speed of all the player force fields have dropped to a flat 4 (the amount of the mark I forcefields), and they are now immune to speed boosting, and no longer scale up their speeds with faster combat styles. This reflects that the movement of the forcefields are just for small adjustments, and not any sort of larger tactical engagements, which would be glacially, ridiculously, slow.
  • Reclamation:
    • Fixed bug where non-zombie reclamation actually required 100% reclaim damage instead of 50% (this made it seem like a reclamator had to get the actual killshot, which wasn't strictly speaking the case, but in practice felt like it).
    • Reclaimed ships now have health equal to the reclamation damage done to them (or max health, whichever is less) regardless of whether a zombie reclamator was involved (previously non-zombie reclamations got half that amount of health).
    • The reclamation amount for determining "is this reclaimed" and "how much health does it get when reclaimed" is now the sum of what various players have done, though the reclaimed ship still goes to the player with the highest individual reclamation amount against that target.
    • Minor faction ships killing a target can no longer trigger reclamation (this was an edge case, but it could have led to a damaged-long-ago AI ship wandering back into AI territory, getting killed by the devourer, and transforming into a human ship on a planet the humans had never been to, etc).
  • Youngling Nanoswarm:
    • Base Attack Power from 200+(200*mk) => 400*mk.
    • Armor piercing from 500 => 100k.
    • For the purposes of reclamation, nanoswarm damage is now multiplied by 16.
  • Manufactory input/output from 12-gives-8 => 20-gives-14 (since 20 is the amount produced by a mkI harvester).
  • Zenith Beam Frigate base range from 5500+(500*mk) => 7500+(100*mk).
  • Human Resistance Fighter spawn rebalance:
    • Instead of incrementing the counter every 80 seconds by 1 + (AIP / 50), it now increments by 1 + (AI Tech Level - 1) (or, more simply, by AI Tech Level), but capped at 3.
    • All difficulties below 8 now have capLow and capHigh of 10 and 40 (previously difficulties < 5 got 2 and 8). Difficulties >= 8 still have 20 and 80. For reference, after the increment it generates a random number between capLow and capHigh, and if the current value of the resistance fighter counter is greater than the random number it tries to generate a resistance fighter spawn.
    • Now uses the same absoluteCap rule (equal to capHigh*2) as maruaders, to prevent really massive spawns.
    • Re-did the logic of "is planet XYZ eligible for a resistance fighter spawn":
      • It now considers all planets, not just AI-controlled ones.
      • It requires the presence of at least 400 human ships (on high caps, 200 on normal, 100 on low).
      • It requires the presence of at least 300 AI ships (on high caps, 150 on normal, 75 on low).
      • It requires that the number of AI ships be greater than the number of human ships.
      • It requires that (AIShipCount-HumanShipCount) be less than or equal to 8x the number of resistance fighters it's planning to spawn (on high caps, 4x on normal, 2x on low).
  • Resistance Frigate rebalanced to be more like the Marauder Dagger Frigate (not that they're the same ship, but it's easier to balance them together than separately). FYI, the maruader frigate is balanced roughly as a .2 ship-cap mkIV/mkV bonus-type ship.
    • Base Move Speed from 48 => 60.
    • Base Attack Power from 150k => 48k.
    • Base Attack Range from 20k => 15k.
    • Base Health from 1.5m => 2.2m.
    • Base Armor Rating from 3000 => 600.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 3 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 2.4.
    • Bonus vs Light from 1 => 2.4.
    • Energy Use from 3000 => 1000.
  • Resistance Fighter Bomber:
    • Base Move Speed from 48 => 60.
    • Base Attack Power from 180k => 100k.
    • Base Attack Range from 3400 => 4000.
    • Base Health from 1.8m => 2.4m.
    • Base Armor Rating from 3000 => 1800.
    • Engine Health from 200 => Infinite (oddly, the unit def had both a line setting it to infinite, and a line setting it to 200, but the second was later and thus took precedence).
    • Base Armor Piercing from 1000 => 1800.
    • Bonus vs Medium from 4 => 1.4.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 1.4.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 2 => 1.4.
    • Energy Use from 3000 => 1000.
  • The decoy drone attack power has gone up 10x.
  • Dyson Gatlings are all now immune to being insta-killed, and immune to sniper attacks.
  • Anti-Starship Arachnids are now completely unable to hit any other sort of ship other than starships, but they retain their very powerful nature against starships specifically.
  • The Zenith Reserve Mark I-V AIP previously was 10*ShipLevel, which got really non-worthwhile by the upper end of that scale. Now it is 5*shiplevel for AIP.
  • All astro trains now have command grade hulls rather than ultra heavy. This acts like a massive boost to their health.
  • Missile Turrets now have armor piercing of a flat 90,0000. This gives players one more recourse against raid starships in the hands of the AI (along with sniper turrets, fighters, and a couple of other turrets).
  • Wormhole guard posts and AI Eyes now have command-grade hulls instead of ultra heavy.
  • AI Eyes always now seed next to the command stations of the AI, rather than next to guard posts, to prevent them from being under spire shield spheres.
    • This won't help existing saves, but it will affect all new campaigns.
  • Advanced Warp Sensors now have a ship cap of 50, and no longer act as scouts.
  • Vorticular Cutlass:
    • Base Speed from 16/16/16/17 => flat 16.
    • Base Health from 7k/12k/18k/24k => 7k*mk.
    • Base Armor Rating from 2500/2600/2600/2700 => 750*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 3600/6200/9200/12200 => 360*mk.
      • That's a pretty big change, here's the rationale:
      • Generally we let mkI fleet ship types have between 30k and 100k cap-dps (on epic/high) vs non-bonus targets, and scale the bonuses between them (so something with 100k has no bonuses, something with 30k can have a bonus of up to 10x).
      • Previously, the mkI cutlass had a cap-dps of approximately 1.4 _million_ (392 ships * 3600 damage-per-shot / 1 second-per-shot).
      • Provisionally, we're figuring that a melee ship can have 1.5x as much dps, to compensate for the difficulty of actually getting that close, etc.
      • Also, we're figuring that the self-damaging attribute of cutlasses should allow for an additional 2x factor to the dps, for a total factor of 3.
      • So, starting with a div-by-10 nerf, that brings it down to 141k, and accounting for the 3-factor (for melee and self-damaging) that's 47k on the 30-100 scale, so it's actually in the allowed range. On the sliding-scale of allowed bonuses that comes to about 4.
      • Bear in mind that cutlasses have 10k armor piercing, so they'll basically always get the full damage per shot.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 6 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 3 => 4.
    • Bonus vs Light from 2 => 4.
  • Vampire Claw:
    • Base Speed from 44/44/44/44/54 => flat 44.
    • Base Health from 4400/7800/10500/19200/20400 => 5k*mk.
    • Base Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
    • Base Attack Power from 600/1200/2400/4800/9600 => 650*mk.
      • We're considering the heals-by-damaging attribute to allow 0.75x as much dps as normal, which combines with the 1.5x melee factor into 1.125x.
      • Previous mkI cap-dps was about 70k, or 62k on the 30-100 scale, which allows a bonus of about 3, which is exactly what it already had, interestingly; there was room for a minor buff too.
  • Zenith Viral Shredder:
    • Base Speed from 16/16/16/17 => flat 16.
    • Base Health from 9600/14200/18200/24200 => 11k*mk.
    • Base Armor Rating from 500/600/600/700 => 450*mk.
    • Base Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
    • Base Attack Power from 500/1000/1750/2625 => 575*mk.
      • We're counting the self-replicating capability as allowing 0.75x as much dps as normal, so 1.125x combined with the melee attribute.
      • Previous mkI cap-dps was about 98k, or 87k on the 30-100 scale, and we decided to go with no-bonuses since the replication depends on actual damage done rather so replication rate was highly dependent on whether bonus targets were available and while that's not the end of the world we'd like to try things without that factor involved, so a cap-dps of about 112k is acceptable (and is about what they have now).
    • Bonus vs Neutron from 3 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Composite from 2 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Medium from 2 => 1.
  • Zenith Traders now path randomly between any planets, not just AI planets. That still means they will be a lot less likely to visit you in the start of the game, but it also means that they have a chance of visiting even your homeworld again (even if it's in a dead end), though the chance is way smaller. The longer the game goes on, of course, the better the chance. And if you wind up controlling most of the planets in the galaxy, the trader will spend most of their time on your planets.
  • Various astro train changes:
    • Attack range increased 10x.
    • Max health up from 200m to 800m.
    • Turret trains:
      • Attack range increased 10x.
      • Max health changed from 1m/2m/200m to 30m/50m/70m.
    • Booster trains:
      • Attack range increased 10x.
      • Max health up from 20m to 600m.
    • Regenerator trains:
      • Attack range increased 10x.
      • Max health up from 20m to 600m.
  • Bomber Starship:
    • Base Move Speed from 45/44/43/42 => flat 45.
    • Base Health from 4m/6m/16m/20m => 4.7m*mk (to a cap health of about 20m).
    • Base Armor Rating from 3000/3700/4400/5100 => 1500*mk (2x max fleet-ship armor).
    • Base Attack Power from 93k/120k/143k/173k => 70k*mk.
      • Our approach to balancing starships is still a work in progress, but the previous mkI cap-dps was 186k. This change brings it below 150k which is still pretty high but between the high cost (compared to fleet ships, anyway), short range, and can't-hit-small-stuff attributes we figure that's worth a 1.5 factor. The linearization of the attack power is going to make the higher mark versions pretty intimidating, in any event.
  • Siege Starship:
    • Energy Use from 2000/2000/2400 => flat 2k.
    • Base Health from 2.5m/3m/3.5m => 2.5m*mk.
    • Base Armor Rating from 200 => 300*mk.
    • Base Attack Power from 192k/330k/450k => 200k*mk.
      • This is a slight buff from the existing 120k mkI cap-dps. If anything this is a bit low with the restrictions on antimatter-bomb ammo but these are already so strong that we don't want to buff them too much on this pass.
    • Engine Damage from 5000/7500/10000 => 5k*mk.
  • Leech Starship:
    • Base Armor Rating from 300 => 300*mk.
    • Bonus vs Light from 4 => 2.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 4 => 2.
    • Bonus vs Swarmer from 4 => 2.
  • Spire Mini-Ram
    • Base Health from 20k/30k/40k/50k/60k => 30k*mk.
    • Metal Cost from 6000 => 1500.
    • Leaving attack power at 200k*mk.
      • We've had reports of these being underpowered, but we'd like to see how the recently added 2x bonus vs structural (i.e. forcefields) affects things. Currently a full cap of mkI rams has a base dps of just under _10 million_. Or 20 million against forcefields. Or 40 million against forcefields on normal or blitz combat style. An AI forcefield mkI has 52 million hitpoints. So we'll boost the bonus a bit so a full cap of mkI rams can take down a mkI AI ff.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 2 => 3.
  • Spire Blade Spawner
    • Base Health from 30k*mk => 150k*mk (these have a really low ship cap).
    • Energy Cost from 100 => 1000 (mkI costs half, as usual).
    • Leaving Blade attack power at 60k*mk.
      • It spawns 1 blade every 2 seconds, so that's roughly 30k dps per spawner or 270k dps at a cap of 9 spawners (on high caps). That's pretty high, actually, but most feedback has seemed to indicate a feeling that these are underpowered. We'll see.
  • Spire Maw
    • Base Health from 200k*mk => 300k*mk (very, very low ship cap).
    • Base Attack Power from 1100*mk => 1400*mk
      • This brings the base cap-dps up to 30k, the very low end for direct dps, but normally has 10x bonuses. No bonuses in this case, instead that's accounted for by the swallow-and-attrition behavior.
    • Shots-per-salvo from 8/10/12/14/16 => flat 8.
    • Energy Use from 100 => 2000 (mkI costs half).
  • Sniper base attack power from 7500*mk => 6000*mk.
  • Sentinel Frigate base attack power from 20k*mk => 14k*mk.
  • Teleport Raider:
    • Base Attack Power from 600*mk => 800*mk.
    • Base Armor Piercing from 150*mk => 300*mk.
  • Teleport Battlestation Base Attack Power from 310*mk => 400*mk.
  • Teleporting Leech Base Attack Power from 440*mk => 550*mk.
  • Zenith Awesomebomb (oops, I mean Autobomb)
    • Base Health from 10k/20k/30k/40k => 11k*mk.
    • Can now hit a maximum of 10 units.
    • Base Attack Power from 4k/6k/8k/10k => 4k*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
      • We've gotten a lot of reports of these being overpowered, and we think that's primarily due to the fact that it could hit any number of targets within their radius. The actual "what's an acceptable dps?" question is a lot more complicated.
      • Their previous cap-dps for mkI was about 784k. And that's when hitting only one target. But that also assumes that you're hitting a target with a full cap of autobombs every second, which isn't realistic. Assuming that you're producing 2 autobombs per second that's about 1/100th of a cap, multiplied by 10 targets per hit, we could say that it's ok for the standard cap-dps calculation to be 10x what it is for a standard fleet ship type. That means on the 30-100 scale that autobombs are about 78k.
      • So, rather than tweak it around more, we'll just leave the mkI damage as-is and make the other marks linear with it. The allowed bonus in that range is roughly 2.
    • Bonus vs. Polycrystal from 5 => 2.
    • "Bonus" vs. CloseCombat from 0.5 => 1.
    • "Bonus" vs. Artillery from 0.5 => 1.
  • Youngling Nanoswarm
    • Base Health from 500 + 50*mk => 3400*mk (not that health matters terribly much for these).
    • Base Armor Rating from 75 + 25*mk => 0.
    • Base Attack Power intentionally left at 400*mk.
      • In parallel to the comments on the Zenith Autobomb, the "cap-dps" (oddly computed as it is) for nanoswarms is about 313k. But it has an attribute that makes that count 16x times as much for reclamation purposes, putting it in roughly the 5-million category for that. Also, Nanoswarms can only hit 3/5/7/9/11 targets, which shifts it a bit downward from the autobomb (except for the higher marks... may need to make the target-count thing a flat 5 or so). But the main thing is that the nanoswarm is intentionally not about the damage, it's just supposed to do _some_, and to be an effective reclamator, and apply a variety of other debuffs (armor damage, engine damage, paralysis) just for the fun of it.
  • Electric Shuttle
    • Base Energy Cost from 100 => 400 (MkIs, as usual, have half energy cost).
    • Metal Cost from 100 => 300.
    • Crystal Cost from 500 => 1500 (the main reason for the resource cost increase is that these are a 1/4 cap ship, so the build-to-cap expenses were way lower than is normal).
    • Base Health from 7200/10000/14000/20000 => 30k*mk (this brings their cap health up to 10m, average is 15m).
    • Base Armor Rating from 100 => 150*mk.
    • Seconds-Per-Salvo from 20/19/18/17 => flat 20.
    • Base Attack Power from 200/600/1000/1500 => 400*mk.
      • Previously these had a mkI cap-dps of... 490. That's against one target, obviously. Against 100 targets that's 49000, which is inside the 30-100 scale, but against 1000 targets or 2000 targets, etc, it gets really high. It's not too insanely high but in order to maintain that the more "normal" cases have to have a much lower than average dps.
      • So we're introducing a new form of "aoe-capping" to avoid the truly asymptotic cases and also avoid the ship being too ineffective against a small number of targets, and removing the normal bonuses; basically it has a "bonus" against larger groups.
    • Can hit a maximum of 200 targets in one blast, but if there are fewer than that many eligible targets in range it will keep hitting them until it has done 200 hits or until it has hit all of them 5 times.
      • This means that the cap-dps vs groups of 40 or more is about 196k, and the cap-dps against a single target is only 4900 (which is reallllly low, but still 10x what it used to be and basically they're not supposed to be good against single targets).
    • The "staggering" mechanic is still in place to prevent alpha strikes (which has both positive and negative impacts on the unit's effectiveness, actually), we can look at reducing the stagger post-5.0.
    • None of these various "number of targets" value scale with unit caps; we may change that later but in general it's not a priority to maintain exactly the same balance across different caps, so long as each has a reasonable balance of its own.
    • Bonus vs Artillery from 4 => 1.
    • Bonus vs UltraLight from 4 => 1.
    • Bonus vs Structural from 4 => 1.
    • Bonus vs CommandGrade from 4 => 1.
    • "Bonus" vs Medium from 0.75 => 1.
  • All cross planet attacks are now twice as large as they used to be. In essence, this puts them back to where they were on Normal before the prior version, as that seemed like a good level what with the new, larger wave sizes and such. On Low ship caps they will still be 1/2 what they were a couple of releases back, based on being quartered and now doubled. And for High ship caps, it's just now twice as large as it's ever been.
  • Zenith Beam Frigate:
    • Base Attack Power from 4000*mk => 3200*mk.
    • Max targets hit per shot from 10 => 9.
  • Spire Blade Spawner:
    • Seconds-per-blade-spawn from 2 => 3.
    • Blade health from 60k*mk => 30k*mk.
    • Blade damage from 60k*mk => 50k*mk.
    • Blade lifetime from 10 seconds => 15 seconds.
  • Bomber Starship armor from 1500*mk => 600*mk (now the same as bombers).
  • Marauders:
    • Spawns now only happen when the marauder counter is "fully charged" (40 for diffs < 9, 80 otherwise) instead of having a random chance of triggering early.
    • The counter is now capped at the "fully charged" level instead of 2x that, to avoid "stockpiling" resulting in multiple spawns over a short interval.
    • The "number of marauders to spawn" was computed by roughly "number of human military ships here" minus "number of AI military ships here" (and capped at the value of the marauder counter). It now takes simply either "number of human military ships here" or "number of AI military ships here", whichever is larger (though capped at 4x the smaller value) and divides it by 8. This number is then doubled on normal unit caps, and quadrupled on low caps. Anyway, the upshot should be less chance of small marauder spawns that cause the marauder counter to stay "stockpiled".

Misc Changes

  • Various AI types are now disabled based on the current options in the lobby.
    • If an AI belongs to a specific expansion, it is now disabled if that expansion is disabled in the LOBBY, not just in the overall License Keys / Expansions setting for the game itself.
    • If Mines are disabled, so is the Mine Enthusist.
    • If Starships are disabled, so is the Starfleet Commander.
    • If Heavy Defense is disabled, so is the Fortress Baron.
    • If Teleporting is disabled, so is the Teleporter Turtle.
    • If Parasites are disabled, so are the Technologist Parasite and Feeding Parasite.
    • If Cloaking is disabled, so are the Camoflager, the Counter Spy, the Shadow Master, and the Stealth Master.
    • If the Astro Trains AI Plot is disabled for either player, then those players cannot be a Train Master.
  • Decreased the difficulty of the player-adjacent Mark IV planet in the intermediate tutorial.
  • Added explicit logic for preventing most non-ai-ally minor faction ships from being able to hit anything that can cause freeing of ai ships (namely command stations and guard posts); this had been handled properly before but after the switch to hull-type-based bonuses some gaps opened up, and may be responsible for some of the inexplicable early-game attacks people have been seeing.
  • Spire Starships are now considered Mark IV, instead of Mark III.
  • The remaining trial time is now shown as a countdown timer in the alerts box in the upper left of the screen while playing. This should make it a lot more obvious when players accidentally start a trial game, as well as making it more clear how much time remains for players who did intend to start a trial game.
  • Auto-created manufactories are always now disabled at the start of the game.
  • Achievements for victories against AI types, minor factions, AI plots, on various planet counts, for controlling various planet counts, winning and losing in general or against certain difficulties, and so forth are all now Conquest-only. Other achievements, based on things such as points, time, resources, kills/losses, and reclaimining/scrap are still able to be won in Defender mode.
  • Re-implemented the small window that used to draw when placing a ship, that tells you why the icon is red if the proposed location is not valid.
  • A new version of the Unity Engine, 3.1, is now in use (updating from prior version 3.0).
  • The way that the text wrapping is handled on the intel summary is now better, appropriate to its new taller-but-narrower appearance.
  • The EMP on death ability now shows how many seconds the EMP is for.
  • Guns have been removed from the Neinzul Enclave Starships, at the request of players to have these work more like space docks (not selecting with military ships, etc).
  • The "Grid" map type from The Zenith Remnant has been renamed to "Lattice" instead, as it really was not a true grid.
  • All ships that have tractor beams on them are now immune to the tractor beams of other ships.
  • Added a new cheat for Light of the Spire: Impact Is Imminent (+1 Of Each Asteroid Type On The Current Planet)
  • AI Reinforce-guard-post logic now stops prioritizing the "majority" type at that guard post when a certain cap is reached, that cap is related to the human ship cap, this should help avoid massive piles of z-bombers and stealth battleships, though it won't completely prevent them.
  • Minimum ship cap multiplier for wave size from 0.3 => 0.03. This should help with the killer waves of zenith electric bombers, spire stealth battleships, etc.
  • Spire Blades (from a Spire Blade Spawner) and Wasps (from a Hive Golem) no longer get regenerated by Regenerator Golems/Trains.
  • All ships that are unable to be repaired now automatically get infinite engine health (to prevent them from being permanently stranded).
  • Three new commands have been added to Light of the Spire for enabling the new minor factions in existing savegames (but ONLY if none of the three is already on—you can't use this to switch back and forth between them):
    • cmd:activate spirecraft easy
    • cmd:activate spirecraft moderate
    • cmd:activate spirecraft hard
  • Three new commands have been added to The Zenith Remnant for enabling the new minor factions in existing savegames (but ONLY if none of the three is already on—you can't use this to switch back and forth between them):
    • cmd:activate broken golems easy
    • cmd:activate broken golems moderate
    • cmd:activate broken golems hard
  • Broken Golems are no longer seeded as a part of the base Zenith Remnant campaigns (it used to seed 3 in every TZR campaign) -- however, any preexisting seeded golems will remain in existing saves.
  • The ability "AI Reinforces When This Enters AI Planet" has been removed from the game, as only golems used it and now they do not.
  • The ability "Requires Proximity Of AI Warp Gate" has been removed from the game, as only golems used it and now they do not.
  • All map seeds now give twice as many possible starting positions (16 instead of 8), to allow for players to have greater variety with less clicking through map seeds to find the ships they want (especially with all the new ship types lately).
    • If there are fewer than the allotted number of ship types available given the current expansions and ship complexity, then the number of valid starting positions will be reduced as appropriate.
  • The Enable Advanced Logging setting now also causes two new logs to be written: MainThreadWaveComputationLog and AIThreadWaveComputationLog (which is only written on the host's machine in an mp game). These will have a lot of details in how a wave's size was computed, which is helpful in diagnosing exactly what's going on if we continue to have unexpectedly-sized (generally unexpectedly-large) waves.
  • Enclave Starship collision priority from 9000 => 875, putting it below rally posts (and standard ff-gens and command station cores) but above just about everything else that's mobile.
  • Shield Bearers and Spirecraft Shield Bearers now have collision priority of 566, making them less likely to be bounced out to the edges of a group and more likely to cover more units.
  • When players have exhausted the ship cap for a type of ship, that now takes precedence over the ENER error message on the buttons when players are in low-energy situations.
  • Special Forces ships that arrive on player planets now go into "free" mode instead of just passing through while on special forces mode. Similarly, whenever special forces ships find themselves on a planet with a human-controlled non-scout/scout-starship unit, they will also go into "free" mode. This is how it used to be, but sometime since 4.0 it's changed, likely because minor factions were accidentally stirring up special forces units. That will no longer happen. Also, Zombie units will be ignored for these purposes.
  • There were still some cases of commands being issued to AI ships that were in low-power mode, so we've added a much more aggressive check that makes it essentially impossible for a low-power-mode AI ship to receive a UnitCommand.
  • Rather than having Counterattack Guard Posts die (and launch a counterattack wave) when the command station on their planet is now killed, instead they now provide protection to their command station until they are killed. Thus the same net effect is in place for players—players can't kill the command station without also killing the counterattack guard post—but it is no longer possible for players to ACCIDENTALLY trigger the counterattack guard post, which is a big improvement.
  • Guardians are now immune to the effect of the camouflager.
  • AI Stealth Guard Posts now have the cloaking super boost ability.
  • Neinzul Cockroaches are now immune to reclamation.
  • All Neinzul ships in general are now immune to reclamation. This makes them excellent against botnet golems in particular now.
  • Wasps and Spire Blades are now immune to reclamation.
  • Science Labs are no longer seeded on AI planets, or able to be captured on planet ownership change. It was just clutter, was slightly confusing, and was slightly problematic with the new logic.
  • When an AI ship that is captured upon planet ownership change is on a player planet, that AI ship now changes hands automatically to the player who controls the planet.
  • Added a new cheat: Military Takeover
    • Spawn Military Command Station, Thus Capturing The Planet Even If The AI Held It
  • Added a new cheat: Like Dynamiting Fish In A Bucket
    • Spawn an Advanced Research Station under the control of the first AI.
  • Distribution nodes and Zenith reserves are now captured on planet ownership change. It allows them to be scrapped when needed instead of having to send ships to already secured planets on the other side of the galaxy.
  • Other mouse-move and middle-mouse-scrolling handling changes and another way of updating the world-point each frame, in hopes that it won't break something else.
  • Wasps and Spire Blades no longer make an explosion sound when they die.
  • Wasps and Spire Blades no longer effect the counts of number of ships lost or built, and no longer effect score.
  • The Exo-Galactic Wormholes now spawn way further out than beofre when in the hands of a Backdoor Hacker. This prevents bombers and similar from being in immediate range of the home forcefields with these.
  • Rather than there being three cloaking states—full, partial, and none—there are now only two—full and none. Now there is never a case where players can shoot at an enemy ship without being able to see what it is. Ships are either cloaked or they are not.
  • Ships with shot-out engines are no longer completely unable to move. Now they just have the infuriatingly-slow move speed of 1. This prevents such situations as wormhole guard posts permanently trapping player ships. Now ships can always at least move away, albeit extremely slowly, to then be later repaired. This also helps to reduce the micro needed with engineers related to engine health.
  • Neinzul Cockroaches can no longer be regenerated.
  • Attrition Emitters can no longer be reclaimed.
  • There is now a "Has Cheated" option shown in the Galaxy Stats window, since that's the internal value that score-modifiers go on rather than Cheats Enabled. It doesn't care if you have cheats enabled, it just cares if you used any. Now that's more clear when that's the case and when it's not. Commands don't count as cheats, of course.
  • The current game version is now shown in the galaxy stats window, so that players have a way of checking the game version from within the game itself.
  • When a player uses a command, it now shows "CMD" instead of "CHEAT" for the sake of clarity.
  • When a ship is having its radar jammed by a global planetary effect (this does NOT refer to radar dampening against a single ship), the drawn attack range of the ship is shown as halved.
  • When players unlock higher-mark metal or crystal harvesters, all existing lower-mark harvesters are immediately upgraded to the new higher-mark versions at full health, at no metal/crystal cost.
    • However, any lower-mark harvesters that are still under construction won't upgrade until after they finish constructing.
  • Planets that have been destroyed, or which don't have supply for the local player, now won't be included in pathing that should be limited to planets that have knowledge left (those planets are considered as having no knowledge left).
  • Ships that are immune to speed boosting now actually have that shown in their list of immunities.
  • All ships that are not directly autotargeted by human players are now immune to the effects of attrition. This prevents things like spirecraft attritioners from harming enemy-held fabricators, ARSes, etc.
  • All ships that can be captured on planet ownership change, or which swallow enemy ships, are now immune to camouflaging.
  • The logic for "excess starship removal" on AI planets is now significantly better, and will never clean up starships because of an excess of free/threat starships, which might just have clustered on a planet. Only "planetary roamer" starships will be kept to a specific cap, now.
  • Additionally, AI ships that have active commands from the AI will no longer be automatically put back into low-power mode even if they otherwise would be.
  • Two new cheats have been added to the game:
    • Fog This! (Change Fog of War To "Complete Visibility")
    • Better Than Trelawney (Reveal Random AI Types)
  • A new command has been added to the game: "cmd:enable cheats" turns on cheats for the current campaign, but does not itself count as a cheat.
    • Note: Having cheats enabled does not affect score or the game's outcome at all, until players actually use the cheats. Disabling cheats is simply a "safety net" mechanism so that players don't accidentally use cheats, and so that players can't grief by suddenly cheating out of the blue.
    • Further note that this command cannot be used when there is more than one active player (in other words, if you use "manage players" to disable all the players but the host, you can use this command). This is another anti-griefing safety measure.
    • Lastly, this specific alteration to the savegame does not require a full sync and so does not create a conversion save file, etc. It just makes the changes right in memory, as it's a comparably simple change to the save.
  • The small buttons on the left of the galaxy map for the display mode and display filter have been removed, as they were redundant with the much better dropdowns at the bottom of the screen since 4.0.
  • Mobile Builders are now immune to reclamation.
  • Doubled number of precomputed circular offset points for pre-displacement stuff like large-number-of-unit moves and exiting wormholes, etc.
  • Colony ships are now immune to reclamation.
  • Added a new cheat: We Like Carriers, which spawns in a MASSIVE wave with 1 second left on the timer. (As you may guess from many of our cheats, this was added for testing, even though it's interesting outside of that context).
  • Previously, the logic for human resistance fighters to spawn was a bit fiddly and wasn't always working as intended. It's been overhauled so that on AI planets, resistance fighters have a chance of joining in when there are at least 300 human-allied military ships, and the AI still outnumbers the humans in terms of ship count; while on human or neutral planets, there must be at least 400 human-enemy military ships, and the resistance fighters may join in.
  • Zombie and Minor Faction ships are no longer allowed to be regenerated.
  • The spawning logic for human marauders previously was that there had to be at least 100 enemy-to-AI and AI-allied ships on the planet, unless the difficulty was set to 8 or higher, in which case it was just completely random.
    • The spawning logic has been changed so that on AI planets or neutral planets, there must be at least 100 human military ships present (so that marauders are more likely to show up during big attacks); and so that on human planets there must be at least 10 AI-allied military ships on the planet. The AI difficulty level no longer has any impact on this.
  • The way that rebelling human colonies work has now been completely revamped in terms of what happens once you capture them:
    • They now provide foldouts in multiplayer.
    • They cannot be used to create ships while the minor faction still controls them (previously, when the rebel colony was in supply, they could).
    • The ships they create are now created through a queue as you would expect, rather than through direct placement.
    • The colonies are captured on planet ownership change, rather than continuing to belong to a minor faction.
    • This fixes a number of prior bugs and logical issues with the rebelling human colonies:
      • Previously, the colonies gave no economic benefit to players, despite claiming to, because they were controlled by a minor faction.
        • Interestingly, no-one ever reported this one.
      • Recently, it was impossible to build any ships using the colonies.
  • Previously, there was no "Event flare" for rebelling human colonies on the galaxy map. Now there is, when they are still in the hands of the AI.
  • Mining Golem attack power has been increased 10x, armor has been decreased 3x. Health of the mining golem has been increased from 40m to 120m.
    • When mining golems explode, they now destroy the planet and all the resource points, but no ships. This means that there is no risk of AI Progress increase from them, they just cut off access to resources.
    • Mining golems are now only seeded on planets in player territory, or within one hop of player territory.
    • Instead of a single mining golem per planet, it is now one per human player in multiplayer games.
    • Instead of a single planet getting a mining golem at once, three planets all get them at the same time, now.
    • Mining golems are now spawned every four hours (or so), rather than every 8ish hours.
    • The net effect here is that with this minor faction on, you'll have planets exploding and sometimes you'll just need to let them explode. This can put crimps in your and/or AI supply, and can also put the pressure on in terms of resource availability.
    • Mining Golems also now have 10k radar dampening.
    • Now that Mining Golems spawn so close to the human planets, there is only a 30-minute countdown timer on them, rather than 90 minutes.
  • Advanced Factories, Fabricators, and Captive Human Settlements are now immune to nukes.
  • Player-Ally Dyson Gatlings no longer self-attrition on human-controlled planets. This shouldn't be too unbalancing because the humans would have to capture a contiguous line of planets, the spawns only come so fast, etc.
  • Modules can no longer be assigned to a control group, since that was really buggy and unintended anyway.
  • If either of the two icon rows on the intel summary in the galaxy map need to get wider than they can, they now will wrap down to the next line.
  • The "Can't Go Through Wormholes" ability has been removed from any ships that are unable to move, thus preventing useless text in their descriptions.
  • Bomber Starships now use the energy wave shot type, rather than energy burst, so that their attack is visually and aurally more impressive.
  • Ships with modules can no longer be camouflaged.
  • The alerts box now remembers its widths from the last 12 seconds, and doesn't shrink below whatever the max size was during that period (it keeps track of the sizes once per second). This prevents the alerts box from jittering around in size as numbers count down on the wave timers, for instance.
  • Some tweaks to the resource bar display:
    • The parentheses around the unused resource gatherers label on the resource bar has been removed to prevent wrapping issues.
    • The total income display on the resources bar next to the current net income for metal and crystal has been removed. Those are both accessible through the tooltip for those items, and it was both cluttering and causing-of-wrapping-issues to have it included.
    • Both the metal and crystal resource sections of the resource bar are now 10px narrower each. On 1024px-wide screen resolutions, this should prevent threat, etc, from ever going off the right side of the screen, while still not having any wrapping like we used to have here (thanks to the above change).
  • A change has been put in place to make ships immediately re-check for new forcefield protection as soon as they lose protection from a prior force field. This was previously the case for command stations only. This will have some performance impact, but will greatly help correctness in the case of multi-stacked force fields.
  • Ships that are still under construction are now immune to all forms of paralysis—paralysis shots, EMPs, whatever. This prevents a number of little issues.
  • The exo-shield and energy reactor remains now can't be rebuilt when on a planet that doesn't have a player command station (the exo shields because those are linked to nonexistent harvesters, so those are pointless).
  • Energy reactors now drop remains when they die, so that remains rebuilders can rebuild them automatically.
  • Improved the AI thread's information about guarding objects and exo-shields. This should fix some of the issues relating to units dancing, etc.
  • The way that exo-shields work has now been completely re-done. Rather than providing a single-ship forcefield, the exo-shield now just adds its health to that of the original ship. For purposes of the AI thread, the AI is now WAY better at deciding when to attack ships under exo-shields (in the past it would pretty much just ignore them). Additionally, the way that exo-shields work is a lot more RAM-efficient. Also, a ship can now be protected by both a regular force field and an exo-shield at the same time, unlike before. The visuals of exo-shields also now show up like the "ship based force fields" of riot starships and similar.
  • Exo-shields no longer die when their target protected object dies, they simply become unlinked and will later link with anything valid that is within range of them.
  • The various resource-gathering-type ships are no longer including the "captured on planet ownership" flag, as that was pointless given that the AI no longer has them.
  • All metal and crystal harvesters and all energy reactors are now destroyed on a planet when the command station is lost. The main goal of this is making the loss of a command station more meaningful again, as it used to be for other reasons, but it happily also means that energy reactors can no longer be constructed on neutral/enemy planets (thus preventing circumvention of the AI Progress needed for energy via that sort of strategy).
  • When there are extra metal or crystal harvesters on a planet (typically from old and semi-messed-up-saves), all of the harvesters of the type-in-excess are now removed (and presumably are then rebuilt afterward). This prevents some situations of essentially accidental-cheating. A message is sent when the harvesters of a planet are reset in this way.
  • The effects of gravity drills, gravitational turrets, etc, are now calculated approximately 3x more frequently, and thus increase CPU load a bit but at the same time make the gravity turrets in particular more effective.
  • Much improved the colors of the control group labels on the planetary summary, so that they are actually legible again (first time these have been legible since the port to unity).
  • It is now possible to replace an existing command station that belongs to you all in one action: simply build the new command station on an planet and it will replace the existing one.
    • Additionally, when this action is taken, it no longer triggers the when-command-station-dies logic for other ships on the planet; they don't notice the swap. This is extremely useful for reactors and harvesters, which otherwise would be unavoidably destroyed when the command station was scrapped before the replacement was built.
    • This also causes the planet to not leave control of the player, even while the command station replacement is self-building, whereas before it would normally have been neutral in color for a while.
  • Normally tractor beams will not latch onto ships with an effective speed of 0 (from engine damage or whatever), but now that logic is only for IMMOBILE tractor beam sources. Mobile ships like martyrs, etherjets, etc, can now pick up ships with zero current move speed that would normally have move speed.
  • Barracks checks were previously always 200 only occurring if there were an excess 200 units at the planet, even though the barracks capacity amounts were scaled with the different unit cap scales. This meant that barracks/carriers were rarely being seeded into normal and low ship cap scale games, except for older savegames that had these.
    • This has been fixed so that the check floor is now 200/100/50 at high/normal/low ship caps, which means that barracks and carriers are WAY likelier to show up in those kinds of games. Correspondingly, now border aggression is less of a thing there, as it already was on high (still a thing, just not so much of one).
  • Fortresses no longer have the ability to transport ships. That was somewhat useless, and the counter for the transport overlapped with the repair-ability counter. Any fortresses transporting ships in existing saves will eject them.
  • Spire Blades and Hive Golem Wasps are now immune to being insta-killed so that they don't distract ion cannons.
  • When one resource is at the resource cap and the other is not, the manufactories now start turning on to minimize the wasted overflow.
  • The AI players should now properly value the per-planet ship caps for creating experimental and support-corps ships, and in general will flood them into planets a whole lot less.
  • The experimentalist and support corps ships are now more likely to send their specialty ships along with waves.
  • Player ships that are in low power mode no longer are able to recharge their weapons. Note that when this happens, the recharge bar will automatically be shown for the ship, no matter what the context, to let the player know what is happening. This prevents the incentive to use some micro-intensive tactics.
  • The yellow color of players in the tutorials is now brighter (on new savegames only) to be easier to see.
  • In the past, the combat styles would just invisibly affect the attack powers and movement speeds of ships. Now it actually shows the real values in the interface, to be clearer what is happening there.
  • Scouts and scout starships have had their base movement speed doubled. However, their speed also no longer increases like other ships when the combat style is increased. This prevents scouting from being too easy/hard on the various combat styles.
  • Similarly, human transports and AI carriers no longer scale up in speed with the faster combat styles, but have had their base speed doubled.
  • Ships that metamorphose (like Golems), that replicate (like viral shredders), which get rebuilt by rebuilders, and which get created via things like the mining enclosures (like spirecraft) now properly count as being built.
  • Various "short name" changes have been made for consistency:
    • Z Elec Bomber is now Electric Bomber.
    • Frigate is now Missile Frigate.
    • MicroFight is now MicroFighter.
    • Shuttle is now Elec Shuttle.
    • Infil is now Infiltrator.
    • Laser is now Laser Gat.
    • Autocan is now Autocannon.
    • Deflect is now Deflector.
    • Grenade is now Grenade Launch.
    • Z Mirror is now Mirror.
    • Z Paralyzer is now Paralyzer.
    • Z Beam Frigate is now Beam Frigate.
    • Z Chameleon is now Chameleon.
    • Z Polarizer is now Polarizer.
    • Z Shredder is now Viral Shredder.
    • Commando is now Yng Commando.
    • Tiger is now Yng Tiger.
    • Vulture is now Yng Vulture.
    • Weasel is now Yng Weasel.
    • Nanoswarm is now Yng Nanoswarm.
    • S Armor Rotter is now Armor Rotter.
    • S Blade Spawner is now Blade Spawner.
    • S Gravity Drain is now Gravity Drain.
    • S Gravity Ripper is now Gravity Ripper.
    • S Maw is now Maw.
    • S Mini Ram is now Mini Ram.
    • S Stealth Battleship is now Stealth Battleship.
    • S Teleporting Leech is now Teleporting Leech.
    • S Tractor Platform is now Tractor Platform.
  • Various "wave name" changes have been made for consistency:
    • Frigates are now Missile Frigates.
    • Tanks are now Space Tanks.
    • Cutlasses are now Vorticular Cutlasses.
    • Spiders are now Spider Bots.
    • Autocannons are now Autocannon Minipods.
    • Planes are now Space Planes.
    • EtherJets are now EtherJet Tractors.
    • Force Field Bearers are now Shield Bearers.
    • Armors are now Armor Ships.
    • Anti-Armors are now Anti-Armor Ships.
    • Bombards are now Zenith Bombards.
    • AutoBombs are now Zenith AutoBombs.
    • Commandos are now Neinzul Youngling Commandos.
    • Tigers are now Neinzul Youngling Tigers.
    • Vultures are now Neinzul Youngling Vultures.
    • Weasels are now Neinzul Youngling Weasels.
    • Nanoswarms are now Neinzul Youngling Nanoswarms.
  • Various "full name" changes have been made for consistency:
    • Heavy Bombers are now Bombers.
  • Various "ship type name" changes have been made for consistency/clarity:
    • Z Elec Bomber is now Elec Bomber.
    • Z Mirror is now Mirror.
    • Z Paralyzer is now Paralyzer.
    • Z Beam Frigate is now Beam Frigate.
    • Z Chameleon is now Chameleon.
    • Z Polarizer is now Polarizer.
    • Z Shredder is now Shredder.
    • Z AutoBomb is now AutoBomb.
    • Z Bombardment is now Bombard.
    • Spire Armor Rotter is now Armor Rotter.
    • Spire Blade Spawner is now Blade Spawner.
    • Spire Gravity Drain is now Gravity Drain.
    • Spire Gravity Ripper is now Gravity Ripper.
    • Spire Stealth Battleship is now Stealth Battleship.
    • Spire Teleporting Leech is now Teleporting Leech.
    • Spire Tractor Platform is now Tractor Platform.
    • Spire Maw is now Maw.
    • Spire Mini Ram is now Mini Ram.
    • These changes also affecet the sort order of the ship icons in the planetary summary.
  • When AI ships are EMP'd or paralyzed or tractored, they are now both angered and—this last only if they are an AI ship—taken out of low power mode. This makes them autotargetable, and also means they probably just became free-threat.
  • Riot Control Starships now show up with a ship type of Riot Starship rather than Fleet Starship, to avoid confusion.
  • Science Labs Mark III now count as "sabotage" units that stirs up the AI into creating threat/free ships from its command station sort of like how an AI Eye would work. This replaces the old way of stirring up the existing ships sitting on the planet, which didn't work too well for a lot of reasons.
    • Science Labs Mark III also no longer cause the AI to get a reinforcement bonus, and they now generate 6/s knowledge instead of 2/s. This makes them a lot more attractive to actually use, but also substantially more risky.
  • Windowing system reworked from using GUI.Window to the more primitive GUI.Box, handling the various other windowing stuff in our own code. GUI.Window did a pretty good job but we were butting up against several limitations and thus decided to just "roll our own". Thankfully, the engine is flexible enough to allow this. Note that this is a pretty wide-reaching change and may cause all kinds of odd problems. For what it's worth, in our tests we were able to play just fine.
  • The Raptor retreat radius has been increased from 5k to 9k.
  • When a planet is being viewed by a human player, the AI ships will no longer be in cold storage. This prevents issues with things like planetary cloakers, camouflager AI types, etc.
  • AI Carriers are now able to be hit by the various types of ships that can't hit fleet ships (siege starships, etc).
  • Additionally, AI Carriers can now be hit by orbital mass drivers.
  • Ships that are immune to being scrapped now show that in their immunities list.
  • When command stations are scrapped, the colony ships on that planet are now destroyed the same as if the command station was killed by enemies.
  • When random AI types are assigned, the game now explicitly tries to avoid assigning the same AI type to both players.
  • Put in a fix to prevent older savegames and the tutorials from having their resource points and wormholes all rearranged because of the new random stuff. This was tougher than perhaps it sounds, actually. The placement of stuff in the tutorials (not wormholes or resource points) is still going to be a bit different than it used to be, though—so any feedback folks care to give us on how that's working and if there's anything amiss in the tutorials, would be much appreciated!
  • Added new command: "cmd:copy game setup to lobby", that tries to populate your "LastMapStyle" and whatnot settings from the game currently loaded (it has to kinda guess at planet count in some cases). Mostly useful for the developers to debug mapgen situations from a save, but some players may have use of it.
  • When ships are regenerated by a regenerator golem, they are now revived with full engine and armor health.
  • The Support Corps AI Type will no longer seed its ships in a guard capacity, and instead will have vastly more of them seeded with its ally's waves. The support corps AI type also no longer includes engineer drone IIs.
  • The AI is now completely disallowed from using mobile repair stations. They didn't use them correctly, and it was just a hassle in general with them. They will be automatically removed from existing savegames where the AI has them.
  • AI Special Forces Rally Post Guardians now have zero extra armor and zero extra health compared to the basic guardian template. Their attack is now 10k * shiplevel rather than just a token shiplevel value. They no longer have cloaking, they no longer have self-attrition, they no longer hunt the human homeworlds, and they are no longer direct-only targeted.
    • However, they now have a new ability: not only do they draw the AI special forces ships to them in the way they always have, but the AI also gets special forces reinforcements added at this guardian during each reinforcement event at the guardian's planet (they don't count as a guard post in any other fashion, though - not for ship counts or anything like that).
  • All of the AI forcefields, and the AI spire shield spheres (except the core ones on the AI home planets) now automatically die if they are protecting no ships and not on an AI planet.
  • Some of the older AI types now have new unlocks (assuming the appropriate expansions and enabled ships, etc):
    • Teleporter Turtles now get Spire Teleporting Leeeches.
    • Mad Bombers now get Zenith Electric Bombers, Zenith Chameleons, and Zenith Bombards.
    • The Tank now gets Youngling Tigers.
    • Shadow Master and Stealth Master now get the Spire Stealth Battleships.
    • The Feeding Parasite and Technologist Parasite now get the Spire Teleporting Leeches and Youngling Nanoswarms.
  • Two new Light of the Spire cheats have been added:
    • Spirecraft To The Rescue (+1 Of Each Spirecraft Type On The Current Planet)
    • Fallen Friends Arise (+1 Of Each Fallen Spire Military Vessel Type On The Current Planet)
  • Added a new base game cheat: Gimme Absolutely Positively Everything, which gives the player one of every type of ship. Even AI ships, etc.
  • When desyncs are encountered, a new DesyncErrors.txt is logged on the host. I'm not sure why we never did this before.
    • It also shows individual chat messages to all players saying who desynced. This is a bit redundant with the other chat message that gets sent, but it's from a different branch of code and thus even though probably both will fire, at least we can be sure one of them will definitely do so in all cases.
  • AI Eyes are no longer auto-targeted.
  • Re-implemented the dump button (when debug mode is on) on the save-game screen; the load-game screen version's one is still not implemented.
  • When players are being waited on or have desynced, a message to that effect now goes out from the game host.
  • There are now separate messages for "Waiting for Players..." and "DESYNC..." to help remove any confusion on those points.
  • Marauder spawn-chance-and-size logic now the same for diffs 1-4 as for diffs 5-8.6; previously the 1-4 diffs would get much smaller but much more frequent marauder spanws that could lead to significant player-annoyance without actually increasing the challenge much.
  • Since Hybrid facilities are no longer (for now) constructed during the game, the Hybrid Facilities galaxy map filter will now display data for all planets you've ever scouted.
  • AI ships that create forcefields will now never be put into low-power mode by the AI.
  • The "template abbreviation" drawn on top of each template option in the buy menu for riot control starships and spire capital ships was previously always drawn in one color (black); that displayed fine for the spire ships but not well for the riot ships. Now it will use white for the riot ships and black for the spire ships.
  • Resistance Fighter Bombers and Resistance Frigates now have the "HasWarpEngineMufflers" flag, which prevents the warp-in and warp-out sounds from playing when they go through a wormhole (kinda nice when they're patrolling your planets at a rapid pace).
  • Changed the relationship between AI difficulty and wave size to a new algorithm that hopefully provides a more useful/granular range of difficulty while also compensating for the difficulty-spike (on low-caps particularly) introduced in 4.072. Details omitted since they're somewhat complex and are likely to change significantly in the next release.

Bugfixes

  • Resolved various issues (related sound, GUI textures, error logging, etc) causing instability on OSX. This involved multiple sweeping rewrites of the sound subsystem, but hey, whatever it takes.
  • Fixed a rare bug that could cause the lobby to draw without the planets actually showing, while throwing a lot of exceptions, upon the second or third run of the program (but not always!). This seems to only have happened if the players were viewing the galaxy map when they exited out of the game, and possibly only if they were hovering over a plant at the time.
  • Hopefully fixed a rare AI Assertions bug that could be caused by a "race condition" of sorts when starting a new game or restarting the AI thread.
  • Since the 4.0 switch, the "Automatically Check for Updates" settings option was doing nothing. Now it properly disabled automatic update checks.
  • Added a new "Left Mouse <=> Right Mouse" AnyTime KeyBind (defualts to None on windows, defaults to LeftApple on a mac), for people who were having problems getting the normal ctrl+left = right logic on a mac one-button mouse.
  • When the AI Type that would be selected is unavailable (due to options being changed as above, for instance), it now defaults to Random Moderate/Easier instead.
  • When the player or AI colors would be set to nothing in the lobby based on their old values not being available, it now sets them to the first entry in the list instead.
  • Fixed a bug where Youngling Commando MkIIIs were not scaling with the unit cap.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the galaxy-map helper-window from switching out of displaying the last find-mode target. Also changed the find-mode text to reflect that left clicking empty space ends it, rather than right-clicking empty space.
  • Fixed bug occasionally causing a null exception in GameButton.SelfRender early in the game. This was being caught, logged, and ignored so it probably wasn't hurting anything, but definitely good to have it fixed.
  • Fixed a bug preventing player from buying ships from a human rebel colony.
  • Fixed bug preventing the mercenary space dock from building a ship whose base type was prohibited by the Available Ships lobby setting (so if you had it on "simple" you couldn't build ether jets or beam frigates from the mercenary space dock, but now you'll be able to).
  • Fixed an (apparently) rare crash bug in the tutorial that happens right after capturing the ARS. If the underlying bug happens it may cause problems, but at least shouldn't crash.
  • Previously the save window, load window, and stats window would not functionally fit on a 1024x600 screen (1024x768 is the lowest resolution supported, but we try to make 1024x600 work at least minimally functional), fixed the sizing of controls so this works now.
  • Also fixed the settings window to fit (albeit barely) on 1024x600.
  • Also fixed the lobby window for 1024x600, though this one is a bit more intrusive: when the lobby window first initializes, if the height of the current resolution is less than 768, it omits the logo at the top of the right window, so there's room for the start game button at the bottom. This looks a bit weird but it's at least functional.
  • Previously, the "Attack Recharge" was also being used as an "Ability recharge" for a growing number of ships (raid engines, cleanup drones, rebuilders, etc). That led to a number of bugs so subtle that no-one has ever reported them (mostly with the raid engine), but now we've split these apart and the various bugs are thus resolved.
  • Fixed bug where if you had the game in non-trial mode and your last-started-game's available ships setting was something other than "Simple", and then switched to trial mode (by adding an expansion without a key), and then tried to start a new game it would fail.
  • Fixed some inconsistencies in AI "can I give another order to this unit yet?" logic.
  • Fixed some bugs skewing the overall "special difficulty" modifier (based on homeworld/player count and AI difficulty); it was only used for hybrids, so the problems may not have been apparent.
  • Fixed some rare null-exception bugs in the lobby when coming in with a messed up settings.dat.
  • The images for the AI Carrier, Raider Guardian, and Laser Guardian have once again been included in this beta release since the 4.021 update on Steam for some reason still didn't include them.
  • Fixed a bug that's probably been around since unit scaling and armor where the game was frequently using the normal-cap base-attack-value instead of low, when playing on low. With this fixed, it is likely that stuff will die faster on low now.
  • Fixed a null-exception bug in hybrid-hive logic that was killing the ai thread when it was unable to pathfind to certain objects.
  • A message is now shown when a savegame is saved, to provide visual feedback that the save actually did occur. It's only been since SlimDX that this message was missing, incidentally, but it's fixed now.
  • Fixed bug where the minor-faction-shots-never-anger-AI logic was causing it to not even apply the repair-cooldown from the damage. Changed to handle LastDamaged separately from LastAngered.
  • Fixed swapping of text between two keybinds on the controls window.
  • System.IO.File.AppendAllText is no longer used, in favor of a wrappered System.IO.StreamWriter. It is apparently possibly the case that the AppendAllText does not close properly, or uses a secondary thread, in Mono on OSX. That's not 100% certain, but as a matter of safety at this stage we're trying to eliminate extra held handles that might exist.
  • Fixed index out of bounds exception in reference tab.
  • Fixed a sizing issue that was causing an error message and for the special forces guardian to not appear in far zoom.
  • Modules firing will now apply the same "cannot be cloaked for x seconds" logic to their parent ships as to themselves.
  • AI Carriers engine health from 100 => infinity.
  • Multi-shot ships no longer are able to get any "freebie" shots if their target dies while their shots are incoming against it. This nerfs the mutli-shot ships to a minor degree, but more significantly it is a CPU-cheap way of solving a huge bug that was recently leading to multi-shot ships sometimes getting loads and loads of freebie shots that they weren't supposed to—leading to things like the "rapid fire artillery guardian," for instance.
  • Shot damage is now recalculated right when a ship is hit, so that if targets were changed (was the forcefield, now the ship, or vice-versa) the appropriate damage is now done rather than an inflated or reduced amount.
  • Previously, SuperTerminals and AI Eyes were not limited in what they spawned based on the types that the controlling AI had unlocked. Fixed.
  • Put in a fix that prevents a semi-rare exception from killing the AI thread.
  • Fixed bug where superterminal would stop generating ships once it tried to cross from MkIV to MkV ships. For now it will just stick with MkIV.
  • Fixed bug where AI players were having no wave-eligible core ship types unlocked, and in some cases no core ship types unlocked at all. This caused various problems. Now all AI players will have the core fighter, core bomber, and core missile frigate unlocked. This will be applied retroactively to savegames as they are loaded.
  • The way AI/minor-faction ships with module templates are created fixed to be much less fiddly (this was leading to avengers and AI-controlled Riots spawning with no modules).
  • Previously, when an AI ship contained other ships (carriers, etc) that was not reflected in the threat/attack meters properly. Now it is.
  • "Ally to all" minor faction ships were previously being affected by attrition. Fixed.
  • Previously, rally posts were able to be damaged by mines. Fixed.
  • Fixed bug where minor faction ships were consuming player energy.
  • Previously, self-attrition was impairing engineers from being able to repair ships with self-attrition. Fixed.
  • The AI now has some new logic for cleaning up certain old ships on its thread, to hopefully avoid issues with "ghost" warp gates and such that would lead to waves that shouldn't happen. That may or may not have been happening before, but we suspect it might have been and this adds on some safety checks to hopefully prevent it.
  • Nanoswarm now considered to use non-shell ammo, so bulletproof stuff should no longer be immune to them.
  • Fixed a bug where multiple science lab mkIIIs on one planet were reporting as if multi-stacking the reinforcement multipliers, even though they were not actually multiplying them.
  • Fixed some discrepancies in applying AI-Type-specific modifiers to wave sizes between mixed-wave and homogenous-wave branches.
  • Fixed a bug where the WaveSize multiplicative factor was being applied twice (once on the AI thread, once on the main thread), leading to factors < 1 causing smaller-than-intended waves and factors > 1 causing larger-than-intended waves. In some cases the factors were >= 10, and you can imagine how bad that got.
  • Fixed some mixed-wave messages showing up as homogenous and thus misleading the player as to the content of the wave (now just says Enemy Ships in those cases).
  • Fixed unintended inflation of counter-attack-wave size. May still be some issues but this should fix the biggest of them.
  • Fixed a bug that would allow the selection of a non-available bonus ship type in the lobby, but not actually allow the construction of that type in the game. Fixed to not allow the choice in the first place.
  • Warheads produced by the Neinzul Rocketry Corps will now actually do something. Their behavior was probably disabled a while ago when a wholesale revision was made to how the AI thread issued commands for minor faction ships (or, more precisely, how it does not).
    • Be afraid.
  • Fixed a bug where the game was not recomputing the coordinate in "world space" under the mouse cursor if the game was moving under the cursor without the cursor actually moving (panning, zooming, switching planets, etc).
  • Fixed unintended inflation of schizo waves where each distinct type would have a minimum of its effective ship-cap; now ignores that rule for waves containing at least two non-starship types.
  • Fixed bug causing the "minimum wave size for difficulty" logic to be twice as high as intended.
  • Raid Engines now no longer trigger on zombie ships since the human player has no way of controlling where they go.
  • Raid Engines used to be capable of triggering multiple times at once if multiple adjacent planets and/or the engine's own planet satisfied the conditions at once. Changed to only trigger at most once per "reload".
  • Fixed bug preventing ships from leaving cold storage if they were on a planet with > 4000 attack+threat ships (this led to capturables not being captured, zero-health ships not going away, ai ships sitting there and not firing and not fireable-upon, etc).
  • The galaxy map filter for detection of hybrid hives and hybrid hive facilities now works properly when fog of war is off.
  • The Unity resolution configuration screen is no longer allowed to be opened. It was pointless, anyway, as the game overrides it.
  • The "runsim" command line argument was previously crashing the game when used. As it's no longer supported, it's now been removed.
  • Previously, shot damage was only being reduced by 75% at the time of attack, not when the shot damage was actually being calculated for things like estimated damage display. Fixed.
  • Previously, shot damage was being capped at the maximum health of the target at the time of firing. Fixed.
  • Previously, if overkill damage was being dealt to an enemy ship, it would self-heal, self-damage, or help-with-replication at the overkill amount rather than the actual amount of damage needed to kill the ship. Fixed.
  • Previously, shots that self-heal, self-damage, or help-with-replication, were taking effect when they were shot, rather than when they hit. This was particularly troublesome with self-damaging shots, which could cause a ship to massively over-damage itself for very little gain. Fixed.
  • AI MRS and Fortresses were still repairing broken golems preemptively. Fixed.
  • When the game is unable to unlock a bonus ship type for human players/home-planets that is unique for their team (usually due to playing with a lot of players on the simple ship types with no or few expansions), it now unlocks something that is unique for each player instead of for the team as a whole. The only time players would get nothing is if they already had all the ship types available.
  • Previously, the game had a chance to sometimes hang if it was unable to unlock a new bonus ship for a player at various junctures. Fixed.
  • The WithSelection context is now only active in planet-view, never in galaxy-view. It now also overrides any conflicting PlanetView binds. These two changes should resolve some really confusing input-causing-multiple-unrelated-things-to-happen issues we've been seeing (including the K causing both low-power-mode and knowledge-display-filter thing).
  • Fixed a fairly longstanding bug that was totally messing up the detection of whether one input context was "narrower" than another, and thus should have precedence when one if its keybinds conflicted with another active context's keybinds.
  • Distribution nodes and zenith reserves will no longer be targeted or damaged by AI ships.
  • Distribution nodes and zenith reserves that are scrapped will now give their proper benefit.
  • The ship caps and other stats in the planetary summary are now always synced with the local player's stats. Previously they often used global defauts that weren't correct for the current game.
  • Put in a fix that should make it harder for AI ships to be brought out of low-power-mode when the player attacks and then drop back into low-power during the battle.
  • Fixed odd bug with the code that sends updates on planets (specifically on the wormholes, in this case) to the AI thread.
  • Fixed up some age-old nonsensical code from the AI thread, the unclarity of which had been the cause of some recent bugs with threat accumulating.
  • Fixed a major longstanding typo in the AI loop dating back to sometime pre-3.120, wherein huge numbers of the AI's planets often would not be evaluated for AI logic, attacking, etc. Actually, depending on the circumstances of the savegame, it could affect no planets or it could affect virtually all of them. In one example save from Spikey00, for instance, it was only processing 4 planets out of 120 for the AI... with the result that over 17,000 ships accumulated in threat.
    • This one took forever to track down, but was super worth it. A lot of the "why didn't the CPA ships actually attack" issues probably trace back to this. Not sure why exactly this issue has been seeming more prevalent in the last week (perhaps related to the other, more recent issues reported in the line item above), but it's very clearly some code that dates all the way back to the initial import to Unity and before.
  • Previously, AI ships that were being "coordinated" by other AI ships (such as hybrid hives) were counting as threat. Fixed.
  • Fixed a since-the-port-to-Unity bug with ships being selected, where if you drag-selected once it would select military-only, and then on the second time over the same group it would select all.
  • Fixed a number of issues with per-planet AI ship count limiters kicking in when they should not have been. This is most notable for things like AI starships that are included in a wave to an AI planet, or just included to a planet in general, for instance. Now only guarding or planetary roamer ships are even included in the ship caps—free/threat ships, special forces ships, etc, don't count, since they are all transient, anyhow.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause uv textures to become accidentally flipped.
  • Fixed a hang-causing bug in processing the removal of a ship with coordinated underlings (like a Hybrid).
  • Fixed bug that could result in resistance fighter ships built by a human player at a resistance colony being produced as minor faction units and thus not costing energy (until the game was saved and reloaded, apparently, potentially resulting in a nasty shock).
  • Fixed some bugs with the Resource Flows tab of the Stats window where it wouldn't include everything that was causing an impact on metal or crystal (notably self-building turrets, etc).
  • Fixed a bug that could cause "ghosting" of old graphics (and thus both incorrect drawing as well as performance degradation) in certain circumstances. We never actually saw evidence of this occurring in AI War—we found it via Tidalis—but it's something that definitely could have been happening, especially temporarily as images were being loaded in to the game.
  • The logic used for most minor faction and zombie ships for deciding to move on to a different planet should now ignore the presence of any enemy target that they are incapable of actully hitting (so neutral and player-ally Dyson Gatlings won't get stuck because of mk5 ships on the planet, etc).
  • Fixed bug where neinzul clusters were only checking for non-mine military enemy units to see if they should spawn their internal squadrons. Now checks all enemy units. Will still not trigger on scouts unless it's a privacy cluster (though it will trigger in that case, it hasn't been for a while).
  • Reworked the AutoCreateUnitOutside behavior used by Neinzul Clusters and Hybrid Hive Spawners to not require that the source ship still exist when the command is processed, and to be triggered on death, so that taking out a cluster in one shot does not bypass its spawning of its internal squadrons.
  • AI ships that are immune to force fields will never now prioritize attacking them over ships under it (this makes raid starships way more dangerous than before in the hands of the AI, incidentally). It was previously simply a property being mis-applied on some ships that later got ff immunity belatedly. Now it automatically removes that flag for anything with the immunity.
  • All guardians are now immune to being insta-killed.
  • Fixed an inaccuracy in the Zenith Reserve tooltip.
  • Fixed an inaccuracy in the decoy drone description.
  • Previously, using 0 as the seed on some map types could cause the game to lock up. Fixed.
  • Fixed an inaccuracy in the Tachyon Guardian description.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where modules would not always draw on top of their parent ship.
  • Fixed an extremely longstanding bug (since pre-1.0) where in certain rare circumstances, specific harvesters could not be built.
  • Fixed an inaccuracy in the Armored Golem description text.
  • Clarified the description text on Zenith SpaceTime Manipulators and Speed Boosters to note that they affect all friendly ships EXCEPT minor faction ships (in other words, your ships and allied human ships).
  • Previously, speed boosters and similar could override the cap of things like gravity drills, which made combos like gravity drills plus logistics command stations ridiculously overpowered. Fixed.
  • Fixed a bug in the resource flows that could previously cause self-building ships to stall out, most notably force fields under some various circumstances (such as being shot, but not just limited to that).
  • Fixed a bug that could sometimes cause the health of a self-building ship to be artificially too-high. This could cause all sorts of problems, such as engineers ceasing helping to repair it, etc.
  • Fixed a related bug that could sometimes cause the remaining time-to-build to be massively incorrectly reported.
  • Previously, EMP detonations were causing force fields to blink on and off rather than disabling them completely. Fixed.
  • Fixed an issue that previously existed where when ships were group-moving and speed-boosted, but some of the ships were immune to speed boosting, and those ships would then get left behind.
  • Previously, very old games were not having their AI units upgraded to their new counterparts properly. Fixed.
  • Previously, the "Show Ship Recharge Bars" setting was not properly being read out of the settings file into the settings visual display, causing it to reset to the default if players closed the application and later restarted it and opened the settings screen again. Fixed.
  • Fixed bug since the first Unity versions where disabling a trial-mode expansion would not fully bring the game out of trial mode (even if it was the only trial-mode piece left) until you restarted the application. This also fixes the same bug for when a valid license key was actually entered and previously the game had to be restarted before that key fully "took."
  • If a handicap was previously set on a player, then it wouldn't get reset properly when a new game or tutorial was started. This is a bug going all the way back to 1.0 or before, apparently. Fixed.
  • Previously, the Zenith Power Generator did not show up in the reactors quick-button lists. Fixed.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the Warp Jumper AI type to not always be able to attack any human planet that wasn't warp jammed.
  • Previously, when a bully or assassin AI type could not find a valid planet to attack belonging to the weakest/strongest player (respectively), they would warp in to ???. Now they will warp in against other players if their favorite target is not available.
  • Put in more exception-preventing code in the single-select dropdowns to prevent a rare issue.
  • Fixed loooooongstanding bug where a completed game would not show up on the high scores list if another record was already there with the same map seed and a higher score. It will now prefer a record with the IsGameOver flag, even if the score is equal or lower. Also made it log the game result more promptly after IsGameOver is set.
  • Fixed several typos in the tutorial.
  • The speed floor for Speed Racer and tag teamer ships wasn't working correctly with the new way that the combat style speeds are applied (as in, it was correct only on Epic). Fixed.
  • The global "speed limit" was previously 150, including various speed boosts, etc. However, the "silent doubling" for player ships was applied after that. This meant that in the last version, the speed of player ships was now capping out at 150 instead of 300. Worse, because the combat style speed bonuses were previously after-the-speed-limit as with the silent doubling, those were also getting capped at 150... rather than 1200 in terms of blitz for player-controlled ships. Yikes. The new speed cap is now 1400, to account for the cumulative old cap plus a little extra wiggle room to account for even-speedier ships.
  • The gravitational turret mark II/III health was unintentionally lower than mark I. Fixed.
  • Previously, the "Can't use wormholes" tag was uselessly applied to mark II/III command stations. Fixed.
  • En-dashes and Em-dashes are now automatically converted to hyphens when checking license key validity. This prevents issues with players typing the wrong kind of dash and it saying their license key is not valid.
  • Previously, the low-power hotkey (K) would not toggle ships with build queues. Fixed.
  • Fixed longstanding bugs with icon-grouping that would cause ships and health bars to be drawn in spurious places.
  • Fixed bug that was having multiplied-by-square-root-of-target-armor (zenith polarizer) and multiplied-by-100-minus-percent-of-target-health-remaining (youngling vulture) attack power calculations use the minimum and maximum multipliers of the _target_ rather than the attacker. Now uses the attacker's min/max. FYI, the polarizer is supposed to have a min/max of 4x/100x and the vulture is supposed to have a min/max of 10x/90x (the defaults both was getting most of the time were 1x/100x).
  • Fixed a longstanding issue that affected a very small number of players (but more recently was suddenly more widespread... actually a good thing in terms of finding and fixing it) where the mouse edge scrolling did not work properly in some circumstances, most notably in windowed mode. The explanation on this one is long and convoluted: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=937#c7847
  • Previously, using very high or low speed modifiers would cause explosions and similar to have the inverse amount of animation speed from what they should have. Fixed.
  • Converted away all internal references from Time.smoothDeltaTime to our own Game.Instance.GameDeltaTime, which prevents occasional skipping and lag in certain animations and scrolling the background stars as players pan the view, etc.
  • Previously, the Neinzul Enclave Starship mercenaries used the old graphics for the actual ship, but the new graphic for the icon. Fixed.
  • The objectives window will no longer act like nuked planets can be knowledge-gathered.
  • The lobby Map Type, Campaign Type, Minor Faction, and AI Plot lists now properly update when an expansion is enabled or disabled in the lobby expansion list.
  • Auto-explore/Auto-gather-knowledge orders were previously not being persisted through save/load, but now are.
  • Auto-explore/Auto-gather-knowledge orders were previously not clearing when a ship was given another direct order, but only when given the "stop" order; they now clear whenever the ship clears all its commands (generally when given an order to do something else without the shift key held).
  • Previously it was possible for using the "quick buttons" at the bottom to select ships in such a way that ships from multiple distinct planets were in your selection, leading to various problems like unintended orders. Now when using the quick buttons the selection will be completely cleared first.
  • Removed the Map Button context menu from the list on the input-bindings screen, since it didn't actually have any bindings and would cause an error if you tried to open it.
  • Added a couple missing localization strings for the edit-binding screen.
  • Fixed a bug where very high-sensitivity mice could actually have their inputs periodically rounded down to zero when edge scrolling, or where having a very high performance profile could cause this even with normal mice.
  • Fixed inaccuracy in Riot Tazer tooltip.
  • Ship modules now automatically take on the cloaking status of their parent ship.
  • Previously, AI ships would remain in cold storage if there were only cloaked player ships on a planet, which was problematic with things like spire penetrators. Fixed so that it only does this for ships that are cloaked AND which have no attack power (aka, scouts).
  • Previously, when a ship that was actively tractoring other ships was loaded into a transport, it was still tractoring those ships. Fixed.
  • Fixed a number of text wrapping and overlap issues in the ship hover window.
  • Zenith Mirrors are once again immune to blades, to prevent cutlasses from one-shotting themselves against the mirrors.
  • Previously, group movement could override the effects of gravity beams and drills. Fixed.
  • There was also some logic that was previously causing ships to be capped at 2x their normal movement speed from some but not all kinds of speed boosters. That was some old logic that hung around too long, apparently. Fixed.
  • Previously, there was a bug that was causing ships that were immune to gravity effects to not be able to be speed-boosted when group moving. Fixed.
  • Previously, the total number of allowed lines in the alerts window was 16. That meant that if there were a ton of waves plus other messages, some messages could be invisible. Fixed.
  • Scouts, spirecraft scouts, and spirecraft jumpships are now immune to being swallowed. Scout starships already were.
  • When an EMP goes off, it is now assured to hit AI ships that were in cold storage; apparently in some rare circumstances previously it was able to miss ships in cold storage. Since this bug could possibly also happen with tachyon warheads, a safety check was put in place to make sure that was prevented, too. Nukes were already assured of not having this problem.
  • A pretty sweeping internal change has been made for how group move is tracked and applied. This should hopefully resolve all the problems with the mixtures of group moving and speed boosting and speed-boost-immune ships.
    • This may cause some accidental bugs if we typed something wrong (that's the architecturally-dstructive part, and why we avoided doing that before), but it should also fix the actual bugs it's meant to fix.
    • The core of this change is basically tracking two group move speeds, rather than one: slowest boostable speed, and slowest non-boostable speed.
    • Ships in savegames that are already group-moving might be still acting briefly wrong. Simply giving them another group-move order will straighten them out, if so. By "briefly wrong," we mean that they might be moving too fast or too slow compared to what they really should be, the same as they were already moving in the old savegame.
    • This should also fix the "player ships are always moving too slowly" bug that was in the last version (it was really just a group-move thing).
  • Fixed bugs with ship coordination where ships left behind on a planet by the coordinator could get _really_ confused about whether to go to the appropriate wormhole to catch up or to go to the coordinator's coordinates.
  • Fixed a bug with various beam weapons where the firing ship would stay slightly out of range and the beam wouldn't hit anything. Will now always fire such that the beam will reach the primary target (unless stopped by some other object, in the case of human and spire beam weapons).
  • The Resource Flows tab of the stats screen now uses LastEnergyProduced instead of UnitData.EnergyProduction for reporting positive energy flows, thus fixing the bug where it was inacurrately reporting the energy contribution of poor-efficiency reactors.
  • The tooltips for the various random ai type options in the lobby now refresh properly when expansion-enabledness is changed, etc.
  • Fixed textual bug that was making the "abilities" line in ship data always reflect high-cap numbers (notably, for armor piercing), now refreshes the abilities line if the cap has changed since the last time.
  • The Bonus-ship-type-detail-window used on lobby mouseovers now snaps to the bottom of the screen rather than displaying from the same top-left as the options window if it's too tall for that to fit on the screen.
  • Put in some changes to the per-second logic for command stations to make it much less likely that the auto-construction controls would "double-build", by making a command station wait about 3 seconds after being constructed to start looking at auto-build stuff, and also wait at least 1 whole second (and potentially 2) between checking the logic instead of potentially checking it at the end of one second and again at the beginning of another.
  • When drawing in-game, the Settings window now snaps to the top of the screen rather than the bottom of the resource bar when the resolution is not tall enough to accomodate both.
  • Fixed a surprisingly longstanding (but heretofore unrecognized) bug that was making the random number generator sometimes be highly non-random. This was leading to things like a very odd default pattern of collision offsetting.
    • Really, this changes EVERYTHING about the seeding in the game. Map seeds now will give completely different (and much more varied) results, there will be less "false statistical clustering" going on, and even the patterns of where guard posts are seeded in planets looks pretty different. This bug dates back to March 6, 2009, before the game was even released—one of the longest-standing bugs we've seen, especially of this magnitude.
    • This also seems to fix the "all new ships seed in a line" bug that has been around for a while.
  • Fixed another couple of bugs where the game's random number generator was recently not as random as one might have hoped. These were much more recent, in the main, as issues.
  • Fixed some bugs that were inflating AI Eye seeding by roughly 2x.
  • Fixed a bug that may have been causing AI ships to aggro when firing on a minor-faction ship.
  • Previously, only mark V guard posts were immune to being insta-killed. Now they all are.
  • Previously, the AI could still get gravitational turrets from the Zenith Trader. Fixed.
  • Minor Faction ships are no longer barred from shooting at low-power AI ships. This fixes some issues with the devourer not doing its job, as well as the dyson gatlings not doing their thing always, too.
  • Fixed bug where auto-knowledge-gather ships would "give up" after a few planets, even if more eligible ones were available.
  • Previously there was a bug where the ship icons on the galaxy view intel summary would appear even when the proper scouting had not been done. Fixed.
  • Allied minor faction ships (including asteroids) are no longer able to be seen in the planetary summary sidebar on planets where the player does not have a scout.
  • Since the port to unity, the cloaked enemy ships indicator was never showing on the planetary summary sidebar. This was a pretty handy indicator, especially for helping with confusion for newer players, and it has finally been brought back.
  • Previously CPA size was not scaled with unit caps. Odd that it's taken so long to notice. Anyway, fixed.
  • The game will now check Enter and Return together, like it does leftalt/rightalt, etc. This should help clear up some confusion with the chat textbox on certain OSX keyboards.
  • Fixed a couple of murky pieces of code that could have been desyncs, but probably were not. At least they are clearer as to being correct, now.
  • Fixed another really obscure desync that no one had actually run into yet. It would only occur if one player had their UI turned off and the other didn't, and a grenade went off.
  • Fixed a desync that would occur whenever the harvesters were reset in a multiplayer game.
  • Previously, enemy-to-all minor faction units (like marauders and some roaming enclaves) could get protection from human forcefields, counter-sniper turrets and the like. Fixed so that these particular units cannot get those protections from any source at all (none of them have such inherently, and being an enemy-to-all precludes getting them from anyone else).
  • Fixed a potential desync bug related to objects tracking which ships they've shot so far in a cycle.
  • Ships that emit attrition effects are now immune to cloaking and camouflaging.
  • Fixed a relatively longstanding error (since unit cap scale was introduced) in wave size computation: previously the wave size would be multiplied by the unit-cap-scale-multiplier (high = 1, normal = 0.5, low = 0.25) and then later by the ship-type-specific ship cap multiplier (e.g. on high fighter = 1, sentinel-frigate = 0.1, zenith-bombard = 0.25); the problem is that thte ship-type-specific cap was _already_ multiplied by the overall unit-cap-scale multiplier. So waves on high had the correct size, normal waves were 1/2 the correct size, and low waves were 1/4 the correct size.
    • Since the balance of wave sizes has been generally acceptable lately, we don't want to just totally shatter that to fix this math mistake on our part. Instead we are fixing that but also dividing the base size of waves by 2. So waves on normal will continue to be the same size as before, waves on high will actually be half the previous size, and waves on low will be double the previous size.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where the lobby bonus-type tooltips would always display ship caps as if the base cap were 100 instead of 196.

Community Contributors

  • We wish to express our gratitude to our community for its tremendous help in testing, bug reporting, suggestions, patience, good humor, and encouragement. In particular, the following members have helped us with at least one bug or suggestion (the number in parenthesis is a rough count of the number of distinct cases they helped with) :
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