The reduction in expansionist behavior of the AI cities is the first step in the game's diplomacy overhaul explained in the War and Peace Devblog. We'll be making further enhancements over the next few weeks along side bug fixes and new content.
New Features
- In-game option menu for controlling sound effect and music volume
- New ship ability – Shield Boost
- New random event – Valuable Minerals in nebulas
Improvements
- Renamed “Neutral” to “Peace” in relationship panels
- Graphics quality level now scales the number of poor asteroids in asteroid fields to increase performance at lower settings
- Right-clicking on map objects snaps the destination to the center of the object
- Can no longer establish a city above a planetoid or planet
- Reduced global audio levels (game was too loud)
- Added “Tab” key to the help screen so it’s clear that you can use this key to select targets, and also added a game tip for the key
- Repair ship button while docked at a city now repairs any ships in your active fleet, and it shows the price to repair all ships. You can no longer repair with nearby hostiles present.
- Some usability improvements to the build menu to make it more clear how to establish a city and outposts
- AI factions start smaller in new solar systems
- AI factions build outposts less aggressively (they expand territory more slowly)
- AI cities have a base command limit of 10 instead of 20
- Reputation penalty for owning a sector beside an AI sector is -10 instead of -20
- AI factions will only become your rival if you have a minimum population of 30
- Radar stations and mining stations cost 3 population instead of 2
- Player max command limit is 70 instead of 50
- AI factions start with -20 reputation with all other AI factions (to offset the reduction in nearby territory reputation penalties)
- Your player ship no longer blocks mouse clicks when selecting objects underneath your ship
- Reduced the energy cost of the Engine Boost ability to 40/sec instead of 60/sec
- Clarified some of the error messages you get when attempting to build radar/mining stations in occupied sectors
Bugs Fixes
- Salvage drone beams no longer go through objects
- Ships no longer tilt awkwardly when going in/out of fast travel
- Fixed a bug where swapping profiles on the main menu saved some of the original profile data on the new profile
- Fixed an issue where reputation scrolling text message sometimes had many numbers after the decimal (9.999999 reputation gained)
- Fixed a bug where distress calls and battles in nebulas sometimes caused pirates to run away from the event
- Fixed a bug that caused war indicators to remain when quitting to main menu and going back into a game
- Fixed a bug that caused the dock button to disappear permanently or remain active permanently when starting a new game without quitting the application
- Fixed a bug where AI fleets will sometimes instantly appear at your location if you are attacking their outposts
