Enhanced 4X Mod version 1.72 Incoming news

Hello E4X players,

When I released Enhanced 4X 1.7, I promised the next update would contain some cool new things that took advantage of the Random Event system introduced in the Stellar Phenomenon DLC. While I was a bit delayed in fulfilling that promise as I have been working heavily on a new E4X based mod, Star Wars: Interregnum, the wait is almost over. In the next few days the Enhanced 4X Mod version 1.72 will be released, which will add 6 new random events, some changes that hopefully make multistar maps more fun to play, German language support for E4X, and the usual minor gameplay improvements.

New Random Events

One of the biggest complaints with the Stellar Phenomenon DLC was that almost all the random events were to some degree negative to the players that experienced them. While it is true that bad things that happen to your enemies are good things for you, it nonetheless made this cool feature seem more annoying that helpful. To help remedy that, all 6 of the new random events are (mostly) beneficial to the player(s) they happen to, which will hopefully give you more incentive to turn random events on and make the galaxy feel a bit more unique and alive. The new random events are...

• Commodity Boom: Heavy demand for raw materials from other sectors have lead to a spike in metal and crystal prices, causing mining companies to invest heavily in new resource production. Increases resource extraction rates at all planets by 25%.

• Exiled Pirate Captain: A pirate captain has been exiled from his band of pirates and forced to flee to a random planet. He will fight for the owner of the planet in exchange for some of the tax income the planet produces. If he flees to an unowned planet, he will attempt to conquer the planet himself, and will attack anyone that tries to take it from him.

• Immigrants: The constant turmoil in the galaxy has caused waves of refugees and immigrants to flee to a randomly selected planet. Permanently increases the maximum population of the planet by 15% and boosts population growth rate by 25% for a time.

• Mining Rush: An extremely rich mineral deposit has been found, drawing large numbers of miners to a random planet and greatly increasing the mining rate at the planet. Increase the population growth rate of a random planet by 40% and the resource extraction rate by 66%.

• Phasic Anomaly: A strange anomaly in phase space has temporarily linked all of a random player's territory. Allows ships to jump between all planets you own for the duration of the random event.

• Property Bubble: A booming property market has lead to a building spree at a given planet, greatly reducing the cost and time required to purchase planet upgrades on a random planet. However, the bubble proves to be unsustainable and will eventually pop, causing a string of capital loses and toxic loans that reduce tax income gathered for a time.

As with other features that rely on DLC components, these random events will only be available for players who have purchased the Forbidden Worlds DLC. However, players who do not have the DLC can still play version 1.72 just fine, even online with other players that have the DLC.

Multistar Map Improvements

While not actual changes to the maps themselves, version 1.72 contains several tweaks design to make playing on multistar maps a bit more fun. The biggest of these allows travel between different star systems to be much quicker. Jumping between different solar systems is now 50% faster, and ships can now move 50% faster while in Star Gravity wells, so it doesn't take forever to move your fleet across a star. This change was implement to try and improve the performance of the AI on such maps, as it appears they take travel time into consideration in deciding what planets to attack and thus often ignore other star systems until they have completely conquered their home solar system.

In addition, for Stellar Phenomenon DLC owners, you'll notice black holes and neutron stars no longer reduce your phase jump speed when moving away from them, which should make them much less annoying.

German Language Support

For German players of E4X who've wanted to play the mod in their native language, the wait is nearly over. E4X player Xanth has kindly translated most of the text in the mod into German, and this will be included either in the main E4X 1.72 download or as a small language patch. Please tell your friends in the German Sins community about it.