Release Status: *** COMING SOON ***

May brings the onset of Spring at Stardock and Ironclad; it’s a good time to reflect on how things are progressing. We’ve received a lot of great feedback from players so far and it’s allowed us to enhance the game in many ways already.

This month’s release includes several highly requested features:

• TEC Titans - The Ankylon and Ragnarov re-enter the war with all the Sins II trimmings!

• TEC Novalith Cannon - This deadly superweapon returns exclusive to the TEC Rebel faction, granting them incredible power.

• New Fleet System - You asked, and we agreed wholeheartedly: This update includes the first draft of our new fleet system.

• Planet Updates - Constructor ships return along with planet elevators and orbital traffic.

Change Log

Fleet System

• Players can now form fleets of ships via the left-side empire window.

  • Add a new fleet by hovering over the left-side empire window and left-clicking the + button.

    • Selecting unit(s) and right clicking the fleet button will also create the fleet and add the units.

    • Selecting unit(s) and right clicking an existing fleet will add the units to the fleet.

    • Remove a unit from a fleet by clicking the ‘Leave Fleet’ button in the advanced ship actions menu.

  • Units rallied to a fleet will join it.

  • Remove a fleet by dragging it out of the empire window.

• Reinforce

  • Fleets can reinforce their ranks using the fleet’s build interface when the fleet is selected.

    • The fleet will optimize where ships are produced based on the fleet’s location and various other factors.

• Orders

  • In addition to reinforcement, fleet orders include move, attack, hold position and stop. Based on feedback we will add new orders, states and behaviors.

• Fleets that have lost enough ships to empty a row of the formation will automatically compress to tighten the formation as appropriate.

Unit Control

• Added rotate-in-place command to ships. Hold ALT when right clicking in a gravity well to have selected units face the direction you specify.

• Changed left and right click to attack all enemy units in a selection window stack (e.g., to attack all siege frigates just click once on the stack in the selection window; instead of shift queue attack each unit in turn).

• Removed strikecraft from the highest-level bandbox priority so they no longer get included with regular units.

• Fixed order lines conflicting with phase lane rendering. Phase lanes are now suppressed and smoothly fade back in when order lines go away.

• Improved ability button UI for channeling abilities.

• Forced new key bindings to be used.

Gameplay

• Added Trader Rebel and Loyalist Titans.

• Added Novalith Cannon to TEC Rebels.

• Upgraded TEC Rebel Insurgency to 300 supply (up from 50).

• Auction Updates:

  • Added auction losing refund percentage (50%) for all players.

  • Added auction lost refund bonus research to TEC Rebels.

• Minor Faction Updates:

  • Added Metal Monopolization reward: Provides you with a time limited exclusivity contract with the metal market.

  • Added Crystal Monopolization reward: Provides you with a time limited exclusivity contract with the crystal market.

  • Added Black Market Andvar reward: Provides you with a smuggled cache of Andvar.

  • Replaced Elite Mining Crews reward with Advanced Mining Rig: Highly customized mining machinery boosts metal extraction rates.

• Added initial planet elevators and orbital traffic to help signal planet development level.

• Added initial construction ships to build structures.

• Ships in drydock will now fly out of the factory when construction is completed.

• All planet bonuses were given more accurate planet_type constraints.

• Added planet bonus constraint to avoid surface level conflicts.

• Removed various obsolete planet bonuses that will be replaced in a future update.

• Added queuing of ship components without a shop.

• Added queueing of starbase components while under construction.

• Changed home planet starting bonuses to planet components.

• Upgraded Retrofit Bay to recharge its antimatter faster (to keep the heals coming!).

• Fixed research prices.

Garrisons

• Added new garrison states “roam offensive” and “roam defensive.”

• Garrison supply reduced by 25% (except for the home planet garrison).

• Doubled garrison unit build times.

• Moved garrison order management to the garrison planet component. The component itself will now represent the three different behaviors.

• Fixed garrison units being stacked with normal units in selection window.

Galaxy Generation

• Added formation spawning for player starting units.

• Improved how formations spawn in a gravity well.

• Setup formations for minor factions.

• Update map names and descriptions.

Visuals

• Added initial star model.

• Added initial gas giant model.

• Updated Trader normal and adaptive shield effects.

• Updated various weapon and ability particle effects.

• Added initial ship and structure under construction effects.

• Added initial star and star surface texture.

HUD

• Updated bottom bar.

• Added Exotic Factory building counts blink duration.

• Added flash to Exotic button when any exotics received.

• Added flashes to top bar buttons (e.g., trade import points acquired).

• Added invalid ability target planet alpha. Replaces old unused underlays; now consistent with picking alliance offer planets.

• Added new dialog frame to all HUD dialogs.

• Added saving of notification cards.

• Aligned Exotic Factory owned and building counts with one another.

• Changed alliance offer notifications to be persistent with progress bars.

• Changed top bar assets text to be consistent with other components.

• Fixed delay between consuming last item and it being removed from inventory.

• Fixed notification card layout off by 1 errors.

• Fixed notifications aligning with top bar buttons.

• Fixed players window opening sometimes when closing alliance offer window.

• Fixed selection of single ships not showing up in planet pip group rendering.

• Improved errors around missing research labs. Now explicitly says “labs” instead of just “research” to avoid confusion.

• Removed extra thick phase lanes for PSIDAR.

• Split up count text on all HUD buttons to top and bottom when building, consistent with the Exotic Factory window.

• Stabilized clock text as it increments.

• Updated victory window to use new dialog frame.

• Update orbit direction line colors and length.

• Improved unit selection outline aliasing.

• Reduced size of garrison unit underlay.

Tooltips

• Added unit order tooltips. You can now see that units are attacking a group of units and not just one unit.

• Improved auction tooltips.

• Fixed hit box used for auction tooltips.

• Improved modifier tooltip rendering to show ratio values.

• Added exotic count action tooltip line rendering.

Audio

• Updated Dunov Energy Transfer sound fx and duration.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed scouts no longer exploring due to autocast wiping out orders every update.

• Fixed alliance offers expiring not refunding assets and exotics.

• Fixed autocast of untargeted abilities not working when given explicit orders.

• Fixed bug in late game culture rate spread. Resistance and synergy were not properly checking the update tick, so old phantom resistance that doesn’t exist anymore was being factored in.

• Fixed create_unit atomic failing to create units. Caused two abilities on the Marza to no longer work.

• Fixed death sequence effects spawning when zooming in after a unit has died.

• Fixed higher research tiers being acquired before lower tiers are finished.

• Fixed hyperspace exit effects showing when zooming in late to a gravity well.

• Fixed player window auto-opening when game is over.

• Fixed built ships all coming out of the same factory.

• Fixed some buff effects not being released.

• Fixed “Underdevelopment” spelling.

• Fixed confusing culture resistance research subject names.

• Fixed various strings.

• Crashes and Asserts:

  • Fixed hard crashes in d3d11 when meshes are missing.

  • Fixed crash bug when using consumable items.

  • Fixed crash in firing missiles.

  • Fixed crash when moving planet track upgrades.

Misc.

• Added the ability to render WebM format videos.

  • Added teaser trailer to game start.

• Added more optimizations to mesh rendering.

• Fixed various collision issues.