1.0.4 Patch Released

Hello everyone,

NOTE: We realized that the 1.0.4 release dev log was not processed. Here it goes. Patch 1.0.5 is right in the corner.

"we've just released the 1.0.4 patch! This a huge update that touches in all aspects of the game, especially on balance and AI improvements. There's also new features, some ship 3D models were improved, UI tweaks and many bug fixes.

The changes have a significant impact on how the game plays. The early game shall be perceived as "less slow" now, as some players have reported an issue there. The AI was much improved in several aspects. It's more aggressive, equips its ships better and brings bigger invasion fleets now. There was a host of balance changes and we think the game is more fun now, with a more stretched out mid-game and a late game that appears a bit later.

The next updates shall continue to improve the game, with balance changes, new features, fixes, and a special focus on graphics!

Compatibility note: The saves from 1.0.3 are not compatible with 1.0.4, so you must start new games to benefit from all the changes and fixes of this new update. There were also changes made to the playable races, so please delete all your custom races, then you can create new ones with no problem. As usual, if you find any issues please let us know. Check here for the bug reporting guidelines.

If you want to finish your current game with the previous version (1.0.3) you can opt for the Beta branch on Steam and unlock the "unstable" version with password "interstellarsg".

Thanks a lot to everyone who has bought the game, and a special thank you to everyone who has been providing feedback and suggestions. We're always listening, so please keep those suggestions coming.

Have fun!
Adam Solo & Hugo Rosado
Praxis Games


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---- VERSION 1.0.4 ----
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# NEW
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• Added counter for the next Galactic Council assembly in the Empire Overview screen.
• Now possible to construct planets on asteroid belts, gas giants and barren planets even when the player has an outpost present.
• New number of colonies maintenance concept: +1BC maintenance in colony per colony owned except homeworld (example: 20 colonies takes 19x19 for 361 BC).
• Each maneuverability level now also provides +5% Ship Attack (accuracy) bonus. Before it only provided Ship Defense (dodge) bonus; more rotation speed and combat speed.

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# BALANCE
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• Planet construction projects now 50% more expensive to build.
• Lynx ancient frigate ship found in ruins now has Class VII shields instead of Class X.
• Scourge of the Stars event now fires later in a game (was firing early, and offering a too powerful ship too early in the game).
• Adamantium Armor and Positron Torpedo now found a bit later in the game (previously, they could be found in ruins a bit too early causing too much of an imbalance in the game).
• Research now costs 10% more across the board.
• Homeworld now provides +2 BC.
• Ancient Artifacts bonuses to research now +20% each, was +25% before; and artifacts slightly less likely to be found in ruins than before.
• The Hasty Vagabond event now provides +15% research boost to propulsion instead of previous +20%.
• The Battle Graveyard event now provides +10% weapons and defenses research instead of previous +15% to both. Also, the event now requires 150 BC instead of previous 100.
• Powerful and Tasty event weapons and planetary engineering bonus changed from +25% to +15%.
• Planetary Conscious space culture perk nerfed from +100% eco level bonus to +50%.
• Support Ships now cost 4 SSP instead of previous 3.
• Support Ships now provide +50 FLAT production + 2 production per infrastructure level in the empire (instead of previous +5).
• Support Ships now have a 100 production cap per support ship instead of previous 150.
• Support Ships now have a 200 planetary engineering cap per support instead of no limit.
• Support Ships now cost 4125 production instead of previous 3750.
• Offworld Support technology (that unlocks support ships) now a level 3 tech instead of previous 2 when playing with fixed tech trees.
• Planetary Engineering infrastructure perks now provide +5/15/35 planetary engineering to support ships instead of previous +10/25/50.
• Unlocking all planetary engineering infrastructure perks now grants +15% planetary engineering bonus instead of previous 25%.
• Slight revision of infrastructure development level up costs. Slightly more costly now.
• Research bonuses from leader skills (e.g. Weapons Specialist) per research tech in field now grant +4/8/12 RP (was +5/10/15 before).
• Space Fervor "Colonies start with 2 POP" bonus removed.
• Space Fervor now provides +100 production when building colony ships on the Homeworld.
• New level 3 planetary engineering tech "Advanced Colonization" now provides 2 POP in colonies at colonization time (moved from Space Fervor)
• Command Centers (all colonies have one) now provide 20 production instead of previous 5.
• Economic Capital now 25% cheaper to build.
• Star base slightly more expensive to build now.
• Leader Operations Skill now provides +2 SSP per skill point instead of previous +1.
• Orbital stations now provide +3/4/5 SSP for star base, battle station and star fortress instead of previous +2/4/6.
• Titans now cost 12 SSP, was 7 before.
• Titans now have +50% more armor and health points and cost +25% more to build.
• Battleships now cost 7 SSP, previously was 5.
• Cruisers now cost 4 SSP, was 3 before.
• Assault ships now cost 1SSP instead of previous 2.
• Frigates now offer 55 space to install equipment. Previously they offered 50.
• Galactic Amusement Park now costs 15 BC to maintain (was 0 before).
• Galactic Navigation Archive costs 15 BC to maintain (was 0 before).
• Galactic Space Port costs 20 BC to maintain (was 0 before).
• Galactic Industrial Conglomerate costs 25 BC maintenance (was 0).
• Galactic Knowledge Exchange now costs 12 BC (before cost no maintenance)
• Galactic Relic Collection now costs 15 to maintain (was 0 before).
• Galactic Surveillance Network now costs 15 BC to maitain (was 0 before).
• Deep Core Mine now costs 8 BC to maintain, was 10.
• Robotic Factory now costs 4 BC to maintain, was 5.
• Planetary Gravity Generator and Planetary Anti-Gravity Generator now 7 maintenance each, was 2 BC before.
• Cultural Exchange Complex now costs 3 BC to maintain, was 5 before.
• Warp Interdictor maintenance costs now 10 was 9.
• Civil Engineering and Aerospace Engineering Infrastructure full unlock bonus (all 6 perks picked) now provides 750 production distributed between all colonies (e.g. 10 colonies receive +75 production each). Before was +100 production per full unlock for all colonies (didn't scale well with game size).
• Events "Normal" frequency reduced slightly.
• Misty (Aethenna Demu) leader found in ruins now found a bit later in the game. However, and although unlikely, it's still possible for her to appear early.
• Construction rush now causes a -10% morale penalty for 5 turns instead of previous -15%.
• Titans now suffer from a -30% base Ship Defense penalty due to their big hull instead of previous -20% (making them a bit easier to hit than before).
• Phasor beam weapon space requirement increased from 30 to 35.
• Phasor beam weapon cost requirement increased from 80 to 120.
• Armor Piercing weapon modification now requires two miniaturization levels instead of only 1.
• Graviton Flux beam weapon space requirement increased from 25 to 30.
• Graviton Flux cost increased from 60 to 80 per weapon instance.
• Plasma Cannon max damage now 75, was 50.
• Death Ray max damage now 500, was 100 (it's not a typo).
• Gauss-Coil Gun kinetic weapon space requirement decreased from 90 to 80 and max damage increased from 50 to 60.
• Disruptor beams now do 70 maximum damage per weapon instance, was 60 before.
• Armor Piercing and Shield Piercing weapon modifications space and cost requirements increased from +50% to +75%.
• Miniaturization space value results rounded up to nearest integer (were being rounded down before).

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# AI
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• AI now more challenging and a bit more aggressive when playing in the Average difficulty level.
• AI now much more challenging and aggressive in the higher difficulty levels, especially when playing with the "Impossible" difficulty level for the AI, and especially when going with the player "Emperor" difficulty.
• AI now equips its ships much better with higher level tech weapons, armor and shields. It was not focusing enough on weapons and defenses.
• AI ship refit improvements. The AI now refits their ships more aggressively.
• AI now sends much bigger fleets when invading colonies and taking outposts. Before we could see the AI sending a lone destroyer or cruiser to invade a colony. Now it should send a much bigger and better prepared invasion fleet.
• AI now declares war more sensibly (doesn't start too many wars, especially in the higher difficulty levels).
• Fixed an issue that was causing the AI to concentrate all of its ships in a single fleet, leading to a "cat" and "mouse" chase through the galaxy with the human player.
• AI now conducts more simultaneous invasion attempts and raids when it has superior forces than the enemy, especially in the late game.

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# PERFORMANCE
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• Updated game to a new more recent Unity version, which should solve some crashes and problems when launching the game for players with particular ATI cards and others.

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# UI / GRAPHICS
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• Ships graphical improvements and small changes in some models to increase distinctiveness between classes.
• Feedback now provided in combat when ships' armor are impervious or see damage reduced from beam damage due to having Neutronium Armor Coating with sources of Neutronium.
• Now possible to sort ships and fleets in the Overview Panel by "Stationed or "Travelling" status.
• Empire information such as treasury amount, research spending, etc now seen in all the screens involving managing leaders (hire leader, level up, desires, traits, etc).
• Made more clear that the "Engage" button, when pressed, allows the fleet present in the system to engage any rival forces present during the turn processing (i.e. after pressing Next Turn).
• Feedback provided on the ruins icon when searching ancient ruins (ruins icon now glows).
• The Research Exchange screen in the Diplomacy options now provides information on each technology costs, so the player can understand the real value of the techs being offered at a glance.
• Formatting corrections in the Ship Design screen for weapon modifications.
• Maneuverability tooltip in the Ship Design screen now displays also in the "+" and "-" buttons.

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# GAMEPLAY
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• Frigates and destroyers can't equip Fighter Bays and Bomber Bays now (only Cruisers and above can).

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# BUGS
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• Fixed a bug that was causing combats to freeze when fighters were involved and an enemy ship would flee.
• Fixed a bug in the space combat where sometimes the combat would freeze and the player would get control over the AI ships due to game corruption.
• Fixed an issue that was allowing the player to switch off the AI weapons when clicking on them after scanning the AI ships.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the Draguul and Moltar AIs to equip more than 1 weapon instance in their Spinal Mount equipped Titans (only 1 weapon instance with spinal mount is allowed).
• Fixed a bug in the "Copy Design" function that was causing the original design to install the most advanced shields causing negative space and allowing the design to be built.
• Fixed a bug in the "Eliminate Design" function in the Ship Design screen where sometimes the design would not be eliminated and after copying a design the previously deleted design would return.
• Fixed a bug in the space combat when using the Combat Jump Displacement special system which was allowing the special to be used 3 times in a row in a single activation.
• Fixed a bug that was being caused by captured space monsters. Capturing space monsters shouldn't be allowed (and is/was not supported by the code). The bug was fixed. Still, players are warned that there may be issues when capturing space monsters in other parts of the code.
• Fixed a bug in the "More than a Diplomat" event that would cause the event to not allow any option to be selected, not allowing the game to continue.
• Fixed a bug when 2 space culture level ups were possible in the same turn, one from the normal course of events and the other offered by an event, it was not allowing the game to proceed if the 2nd level up was obtained from the event before resolving the first.
• Fixed an issue that was not allowing the game to proceed when all the possible space culture perks were picked. Although unlikely, this could happen in an extremely high turn amount game.
• Fixed an issue that was causing more Ultra Rich worlds to be generated near the player homeworld when playing with the "Emperor" player difficulty level than it should.
• Fixed a bug when using the Prestige unique ability which could attribute secondary skills to leaders that their type (colony or ship leader) would not allow.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the strategic resources research decisions to not trigger when constructing the Galactic Space Port (that provides 1 source of each). Strategic resource decisions were also not being unlocked when obtaining resources from trade.
• Fixed an issue where technologies obtained from the Galactic Knowledge Exchange wonder were causing two research action notifications sometimes, preventing the game to proceed unless one would put two techs in the research queue and deselect both.
• Fixed a bug when a leader was gaining a trait it was cancelling another leader's desire due to an issue in the "Ok" button in the trait gain screen.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the Epocholon leader (only found in a an event) to level up every turn.
• Fixed an issue that was sometimes causing the wrong event images to be shown for follow-up events.
• Fixed a bug in the "Renowned Explorer" and "Smuggler's Den" events, where the option was given for a particular leader to appear, but the leaders didn't show up.
• Fixed an issue that was allowing rushed construction projects to be removed from the building queue while consuming 1 construction slot each time this was repeated. Now a rushed construction cannot be removed from the queue.
• Fixed an issue in the Overview Screen to not refresh when this screen was switched OFF and then turned ON again, it would not refresh the information presented.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the incorrect space and cost requirements when using the "No range dissipation" weapon modification. The correct values are +25% space and +25% cost but was actually applying +50% to both.
• Fixed a typo on the Ship Design screen, the shield blocking points tooltip, had "olong" instead of "long" in the text.
• Fixed a bombing presentation glitch where the last bomb drop was always reported as mass destruction in the UI and the log even when it was not.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the "Steal Tech" screen to not show up when the steal tech order was given from inside the leaders management screen.
• Fixed a typo where the Cruiser ship construction option tooltip would say "A star base is required to build the cruiser", the correct wording is "An orbital station...". A star base is just one type of orbital station.
• Fixed a bug that was allowing a race with no population left to vote in the galactic council, resulting in "negative" votes.
• Fixed a bug that was causing an "invisible" last colony from a rival to be reported when the rival actually didn't have any, preventing the game from finishing.
• Fixed a bug where the wrong image was being shown for unassimilated Nova POPs.
• Fixed a bug where assimilated POPs were benefiting from both their original Government morale modifier and the one of their new overlords.

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