Release Status: *** AVAILABLE ***

Our first update for 2024 reveals the powerful Vasari Exodus faction! The Vasari Exodus have the unique ability to become a fully mobile civilization once you research the required technology. Not only does this make them much harder to defeat, but it also allows them to destroy planets in order to inject huge amounts of resources into their coffers. We’ve also included the new Vasari starbase model, complete with all of its devastating combat abilities.

That’s not all, of course. We’ve also done lots of gameplay balance in this update and a made significant improvements to the game’s AI. The AI is no joke on higher difficulty levels now and it will even hold a grudge! Also included is a new 8-player map (Annulus), loads of bug fixes and new improvements for modders.

Version 1.18.14 Change Log

Faction Changes

• Updated Vasari subfaction names in order to better reflect the lore, unique features and playstyles:

  • Rebel changed to Alliance.

  • Loyalist changed to Exodus.

• TEC factions will be renamed in a future update.

Gameplay

• Added XP to all capital ships in the empire on kill.

• Added collectable debris that is generated by destroyed capital ships, titans and starbases.

• Increased maximum players to 8.

• Decolonized all player planets on death; necessary for locked team games.

• Disabled explore ability auto-casting when scout is in the fleet.

• Improved initial structure auto-placement position.

• Phase gates can now be linked between players with synergy alliances.

• Removed code preventing individual player loss in team games.

• Split remaining assets of dead players among the remaining players with a synergy alliance.

• Changed market monopolization to allow players with synergy alliances with the monopolizing player to still buy and sell the affected asset.

• Added auto-cast for mass production - triggered if a planet is building structures or ships.

• Added shield burst restore, restoring shields after cooldown while in combat.

• Disabled shield passive regen if waiting on burst restore.

• Item and asset NPC rewards now bypass the player's reward inventory.

• Added minimum NPC level before exotics are accepted for auctions.

• Doubled pirate raid event bidding duration from 30 to 60.

• Fixed phantom starbases showing up around planets recently bombed. Caused if the starbase was waiting on exotics to start building while the planet is being bombed. Now losing a planet will also kill all fully unbuilt starbases.

• ** Changed construction frigate to spawn near an existing structure instead of randomly in the gravity well.

Balance

• Added Vasari infrastructure items.

• Added Vasari Exodus infrastructure item build group.

• Added Vasari Exodus unlock techs.

• Added Vasari Nano-Antimatter restore item.

• Added Vasari Overseer infrastructure abilities.

• Rebalanced anti-corvette and anti-structure balance.

• Rebalanced exotic market sell prices.

• Rebalanced home planet bonus HP.

• Rebalanced minor faction reputation requirements and rewards.

• Rebalanced monopolization time.

• Rebalanced spawn pirates auction to prefer rogues.

• Rebalanced stripped to the core resource and exotic rewards.

• Rebalanced TEC titan defenses and defensive upgrades.

• Rebalanced Trader Loyalist home planet garrison item.

• Rebalanced Vasari infrastructure item costs.

• Rebalanced Vasari Exodus and Alliance faction unique attributes.

• Rebalanced Vasari Exodus slavery and labor camp.

• Rebalanced Vasari phase gate costs and deploy item availability.

• Rebalanced Vasari starbase speed.

• Rebalanced Vasari titan defenses and defensive upgrades.

• Refactored experience items into research topics.

• Refactored Trader Rebel human doctrine center.

• Refactored Vasari starting items and faction-specific items.

• Removed Vasari Rebel infrastructure items.

• Repositioned Trader media conglomerate and orbital mining control unlock techs.

• Rebalanced AoE ability tooltip improvements.

• Rebalanced phase jump charge up time.

• Rebalanced Pirate Corsair and raid composition.

• Rebalanced planet bombing projectile speed.

• Rebalanced Vasari capital ship abilities.

• Rebalanced Vasari weapon buff components.

• Repositioned capital ship item unlock techs.

• Rebalanced light frigate turn rate.

• Rebalanced light frigates to properly perform their role,

• Increased Capital Ship survivability and refactored weapons.

• Rebalanced asteroid planet gravity well size to fit the new Vasari starbase.

• Rebalanced marginal tax rate for metal and crystal.

• Rebalanced planet surface items and added Vasari genetic adaptation lab.

• Rebalanced Trader Rebel mercenary base item ability cost.

• Rebalanced Vasari economic techs.

• Rebalanced Vasari light frigate costs. Changed some of the cost of the Ravastra Skirmisher to crystal to prevent spam enabled by mono-resource booming.

• Rebalanced Vasari planet track upgrade metal costs.

• Rebalanced Vasari starbase.

• Rebalanced weapon and firing arc refinement.

• Rebalanced Trader economic tech tree.

• ** Rebalanced Vasari Exodus Titan abilities.

AI

• Improved player AI in team games.

• Added basic player AI alliance offer management.

• Removed bonus orbital structure slots from AI at higher difficulty levels.

• Added player AI hatred to players that destroy its planets. Will prioritize attacking players that attack them.

• Fixed AI stuck defending gravity wells with no enemies.

• Fixed AI using the market far more than human players.

• Fixed AI sometimes leaving planets behind uncolonized after attacking.

• ** Improved AI attack behavior. It was waiting too long to attack when the fleet supply was high because the ratio is harder to exceed at higher fleet supply comparisons.

• Improved multiple AI fleets attacking the same gravity well. The AI will now evaluate their state together with combined forces to improve when they move out to attack.

• Removed unwanted unit types from fleet info time-to-kill calculations.

Vasari

• Added Vasari Exodus subfaction (previously known as Vasari Loyalist).

• Added new Vasari Culture Station mesh.

• Added new Vasari Fleet Beacon mesh.

• Edited Vasari exhausts and ambient lights.

• Added Vasari starbase mesh.

• Added Vasari starbase effects and maw adjustment.

• Updated Vasari starbase hardpoints.

• Updated Vasari subfaction names (Rebel changed to Alliance and Loyalist changed to Exodus). TEC will be replaced in an upcoming content update.

• ** Added Vasari Exodus Titan - Vorastra.

• Polished Vasari Alliance death explosions and concussion effects.

Maps

• Added Annulus 8 player map.

• Fixed reading scenario picture data.

• Fixed saving a scenario using the folder of the previous scenario.

• Fixed initial planets of Shuriken map. Stabilized planets near home planets. The map is intended to be somewhat chaotic, but it was a bit too much.

• Stabilized default_home_planet_moons. Reduced initial chaos near home planet.

• Improved design and connectivity of smaller maps.

• Improved map connectivity of some larger maps.

• Fixed gravity well overlaps.

• Fixed NPC planet generation. Prevents paths that result in NPC planets (e.g., pirate) that have to go through a player home planet to reach a star. Prevents paths that result in home planets that have to go through an NPC planet (e.g., pirate) to reach a star. Make sure home planets are not closely connected.

UI

• Added ignore_overlap_checks: Some planets won't shift, like fixed home planet setups. Others can shift around them.

• Added unit limit bonuses based on tags to research text filter search.

• Added use_player_alliance_colors to settings window.

• Adjusted bookmark window pip type sizes.

• Frigate width adjusted for smoother progression.

• Cruiser size changed to avoid resembling a capital ship too closely.

• Changed player icons to use alliance color setting.

• Changed planet_defenses pip group to the more generic planet_orbit to include non-military structures.

• Fixed double-clicking fleet icon not focusing.

• Fixed fleet build ship window not always popping up when fleet icon clicked.

• Cooldown now shown in minutes for large values.

• Added unit_icon_and_name rendering type.

• Improved colonized planets window.

• Orbital structure view no longer dynamically generated based on built structures, making it easier to compare planet rows.

• Fixed civilian structure view showing military slot count summary.

• Improved notification cards with new icons and backdrop enhancements.

• Improved data driving some UI elements.

• Moved rotate ship button from overlapping fleet name text box.

• Split loot capture stats between derelict and ship wreckage.

• Truncated file names in the recorded game list box.

• Updated player alliance colors.

• Used alliance colors for the main view player icon above planets.

• Added more new notification icons.

• Added new backdrop and drop shadow to notification cards.

• Made notifications come in snappier and fancier.

• Added CTRL+left click to select all of the same unit in the right selection window. Useful for selecting all of the same capital ship.

• Fixed single-player loading saved game from multiplayer not fixing up player slots. The player was stuck with a disconnected state in single player.

• Fixed spam of allied planet lost when the ally player has lost due to all planets being removed.

• Restricted ally units lost notifications to synergy alliances instead of cease-fire.

• ** Added auto-merging of fleets. Moving all units from one fleet to another will automagically remove the empty fleet.

• Added recorded game playback timeline bar. Allows you to seek backward and forwards within a recorded game.

• Removed explicit move order given when joining a fleet. This way existing user orders won’t be wiped just by joining a fleet. The newly joined ships will automagically move to the fleet when they have completed their orders (i.e., bombing a planet).

• Fixed stacking buffs not resolving their modifier values correctly in tooltips.

• Added HUD pictures for Vasari ships, structures and starbase.

• Added some research icons for Vasari.

• Updated HUD pictures for pirate ships and yellow stars.

• Fixed fleet damaged notifications being triggered by enemy scouts.

• Improved notification card behavior when at max count. The UI will now more aggressively remove older cards to make way for pending new cards.

• Removed toggle scuttle hotkey constraint of the advanced menu being open.

• Clarified retrofit description.

• Updated Annulus map description.

• Updated TEC research and component icons.

Tooltips

• Added max speed to advanced unit tooltips.

• Added tooltip rendering of asset delta events.

• Added tooltip for right-click to attack the entire stack of units in the selection window.

• Improved toggle_should_stack_unit_input string.

• Suppressed toggle stacking behavior tooltip if the unit is never stackable.

• Added tooltip to is ready button.

• Added notification big tooltip pictures.

• Improved phase resonance tooltips using pip icons.

• Removed defense postfix in pip group tooltip.

• Improved action tooltip line rendering.

• Fixed bottom notification card icon not showing tooltip.

• Added ruler ship count to player tooltips. While it does leak some information about a player outside of detection, not critical or game-breaking, and makes it much less confusing on why someone hasn't died.

Rendering

• Added show mesh outlines toggle to settings window.

• Improved weapon effect culling.

Models:

• Added uber multiply, add, and overlay shaders to improve certain mesh rendering situations (useful to modders as well).

• Fixed emitters not responding to effect property values changing.

• Improved can_try_displace_unit by accounting for linear speed.

• ** Update to fix various wave cannon orientations on capital ships.

Effects

• Added refraction on explosions.

• Added culture effects phase out hull and others.

• Added damage status effects.

• Added phase out, TEC exhaust, antimatter, etc.

• Added construction effect on 3 specific mesh points.

• Added Novalith cannon muzzle and impact effects.

• Added pirate and repair effects.

• Optimized nanite repair and repair cloud.

• Added activation effect stubs for self repairing armor.

• Revised nano repair kit to support different sized effects.

• Added stubs for high yield warheads.

• Edited cast effects and add high yield effects.

• Added stub charge effect for Vasari battleship wave weapon.

• Added maw and micro jump effects.

• ** Added corpses to large, destroyed debris.

• Lots of particle optimization.

• Updated TEC muzzle flashes.

• Updated TEC autocannon effects.

• Added Vasari Exotic refinery ambiance.

• Added various Vasari starbase effects.

• Made a TEC structure ambient lighting pass.

Modding

• Added is_in_fleet unit constraint.

• Added is_ruler_ship to items.

• Added phase resonance capacitor to items.

• Added support for buff effects to show up even when the mesh is not visible.

• Added support for Greed packaged mods.

• Added support for per-victory type pictures.

• Added binding to custom mesh points for exhaust trail and particle effects.

• Added support to bind effects to a specific mesh point index within name grouping.

• Improved play_point_effect position_operator. No longer assumes galaxy_up; added unit_up and galaxy_up as possible action directions. Fix offset being resolved in unit space causing the unit rotation to be applied to the offset when not wanted.

• ** Added has_unit_item flair effect constraint.

• Added optional target sorting to use_operators_in_arc_of_unit action atomic.

Research

• Added research subject to asset delta event context.

Bugfixes

• Fixed player detection bug when lost and have allies.

• Fixed crash if no recorded game is being saved.

• Fixed error attempting to paste image to join code text entry box.

• Fixed fleet pip groups not showing units in the tooltip when in hyperspace.

• Fixed is_ruler_ship item not always working correctly.

• Fixed issues around fully unbuilt starbases/structures.

• Fixed AI taking over your player when loading single-player saved games.

• Fixed asset market tooltip crashing when exclusivity timer expires.

• Fixed doubled up fleet damaged notification. Was caused by a unit traveling ahead of the fleet leader in hyperspace and triggering the notification before the leader exits hyperspace.

• Fixed orbital cannon shell hit effect not attached to the planet. Had to change the effect from a death sequence event (implicitly attached to the dead cannon shell) to be a position operator point effect that is attached to the position operator target (the planet).

• Fixed pirates stacking all Gauss defense turrets at one phase lane.

• Fixed planet bombing weapon effects showing up on planets with no detection.

• Fixed research buff providers not applying buff to orbital structures. Broken due to lacking is_fully_built target filter exemption. Fix is to attempt to provide the buff when not fully unbuilt as well for robustness.

• Fixed units moving to fleet potentially displacing fleet leader. They were moving directly to the fleet position, not accounting for fleet leader radius.

• Fixed units rallying to fleet in the same gravity well holding up hyperspace jumping. Will now ignore any unit with a factory order for purposes of movement out of the current gravity well.

• Fixed fleet units moving ahead of fleet when hyperspacing to fleet when move is issued. Only units in the same gravity well get put into formation together, so any units that are hyperspacing in will quickly move ahead of the synced-formation units once they arrive at the gravity well. Even though they are behind the fleet at the time the move is issued, they would get ahead.

• ** Fixed auto-cast of abilities that spawn units (e.g., TEC carrier missile battery).

• Fixed bug where phase lane stabilizers (phase gates) would not be registered properly if the planet structure plate spinning was active while building.

• Fixed enemy players being able to use each other’s phase gates.

• Fixed error when player AI attempted to increase bounty on invalid planets.

• Fixed issues with auto-order behaviors and hold position. Bug allowed some units to move when auto-attacking in hold position or close-only modes. This is necessary for ships with non-static attack patterns (corvettes, strikecraft).

• Fixed planet income rate tooltips showing modifiers as always positive when they are negative. For example, Vasari Exodus dominant culture penalties on enemies.

• Fixed unit_move failing with spawned phase lanes.

• Fixed units in phase space dying and spawning loot that is outside the gravity well with high velocity.

• Fixed Xeno Corruption providing income bonuses instead of penalties to enemy planets.

• Fixed buff stacking not working correctly in various situations.

• Fixed crash on npc_auction_running notification tooltip.

• Fixed weapons fire only hitting child meshes once shields are down.

• Fixed wrongly quoted strings.

Miscellaneous

• Increased asset event time cutoff from 10 to 20 mins.

• Made asset event tooltip rendering more concise.

• Rebalanced debris reclamation center exclusivity.

• Added is ready button to lobby.

• Fixed ship wreckage loot not showing correct name.

• Added wreckage loot collected notification.

• Fixed issues with derelict loot notifications being raised for wreckage loot.

• Added loot box under derelict discovered icon.

• Fixed spelling of derelict loot collected.

• Added derelict loot notification level icons and pictures.

• Added cycle_debug_statistics_window_view as normal action.

• Fixed bad char in vasari_loyalist_titan_improve_the_maw_unit_item_description.

• Refactored unit_prerequisites to be other_item_requirements.

• Changed algorithm determining NPC level from colonization percentage to highest used fleet supply.

• Fixed units not separated enough in formations.

• Optimized getting linear and angular speeds.

• Added player_asset_delta_source::excavation_reward.

• Fixed assets_excavated secondary_icon.

• Implemented first pass of excavation having assets or unit_items as potential rewards.

• Standardized use of homeworld string vs home planet.

• ** Changed the Maw to iteratively destroy target ships and to have a supply cap.

• Changed the Maw to prefer high supply, closer targets.

• Fixed units rallied to Fabricator not attacking.