Overlooked space strategy game inspired by Stellaris is now cheaper than ever
For the sake of argument, let's say you were more than a little disappointed with Civilization 7. You're waiting for the new season of Stellaris. Manor Lords updates are still in the works. Cities Skylines 2...isn't there yet. Essentially, there's a good chance that a strategy-ga
For the sake of argument, let's say you were more than a little disappointed with Civilization 7. You're waiting for the new season of Stellaris. Manor Lords updates are still in the works. Cities Skylines 2...isn't there yet. Essentially, there's a good chance that a strategy-game-shaped gulf has appeared in your life - there are a lot of solid choices out there, but perhaps you've worked through them all already. In that case, meet Ixion. Created by Bulwark, the studio behind Warhammer 40k Mechanicus, while it's not without its fans, it's also managed to slip under the mainstream radar. If you've not heard of it, or you've been waiting for a robust reason to play, Ixion is now cheaper than ever.
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Administrators!
Today is a momentous day, as we have reached one year of interstellar exploration and to celebrate, DOLOS A.E.C. invites you to celebrate the first anniversary of IXION.
First and foremost, we’re delighted to share the exciting news that the IXION universe just got a little more diverse and now offers Italian localisation. We’re so grateful to all our Italian administrators who assisted us in this mission and we can’t wait to hear what you think.
But that's not all, Administrators!
DOLOS AEC has provided us with trading cards of their fearless leaders that you can collect them in game. Earn the cards and trade them for game badges!
There’s also an IXION profile bundle now available in the Steam Points Shop! Personalise your profile with interstellar artwork! :rocket:
And the anniversary celebration doesn’t end there! To express our gratitude to our amazing administrators who have created an incredible community around the game and worked hard to save humanity, we are hosting a special giveaway. Five lucky players will have the chance to win an exclusive Anniversary Administrator Pack which includes an IXION T-Shirt, pin badge, art book and a prestigious DOLOS Administrator training award.
To enter the giveaway, we thought we would mark IXION‘s first anniversary by reflecting on your achievements so far. We want to see your TIQQUN screenshots showing your IXION journey via this 
Do you want to grab a copy of the exclusive physical edition of the art book?
In honour of DOLOS Day, we’re giving away four copies of the book.
To enter, all you need to do is answer the question, “What was your favourite part of IXION?” Submit your answer on this Google Form: https://forms.gle/3RdL5ZwTsnkXJg1q9
The competition closes on Thursday 27th July and we will be hand-picking the winners from all submissions.
We’ve teamed up with 11 Bit Studios to bring to you The City Builder Survival Bundle.
As it’s the Steam Summer Sale, you’ll get 35% off IXION. If you purchase the bundle, you’ll get an extra 15% off the already discounted price.
Join our dedicated 
Any new playthrough will now begin with a choice of three difficulty modes:
Journey: This mode is for players who want to enjoy the game’s narrative and is recommended for those unfamiliar with the city-builder genre.
Default: This is the intended IXION experience and is recommended for players familiar with city builders.
Challenge: An unrelenting fight for survival; this mode is for Administrators who really want to test their skills.
Want a bit more customization so you can play IXION how you envisioned? Then this fourth option is for you. In Custom mode, you can adjust a wide variety of game mechanics to your taste. Tired of the constant hull degradation. Turn it off. Not getting enough workers from cryopods? Change the ratio. Accidents happening too often? Decrease the frequency.
You can also adjust these difficulty parameters via the pause menu mid-playthrough – including in your existing saves!
Pave your own pathway to the stars by customising your IXION playthrough with our all-new difficulty settings; Journey, Default, Challenge and of course a fully customisable option.
You’ll be able to update IXION from around 6pm BST/10am EST on the 8th and we hope to see you there!
While you wait, why not join our dedicated Discord to discuss IXION with other Administrators.
Congratulations to Threlkish and @Ask_Again_Later for this submission.
Our Top 5 were (in no particular order):
- Extremophile
- I Give You The Stars
- Employee Of The Month
- Wheel In The Sky
- For The Few Who Stand In The Light...
We want to thank everyone for submitting their entries and we look forward to releasing the Difficulty Options very soon so you can customise your IXION experience.
Since release in December, a lot of players have expressed a desire for a less punishing experience that would give them a better chance of seeing the game’s gripping narrative through to its epic conclusion. With that in mind, the update will include an ‘Easy’ difficulty mode that will present a more manageable challenge, ensuring the Tiqqun’s hull, and its crew’s trust in you, are easier to maintain.
For those hard-bitten Administrators seeking an even greater challenge than the original, intended gameplay experience (which will now be classified as ‘Normal’ mode), there’ll be a ‘Hard’ difficulty setting available, too. If you finished the game soon after launch, this is a great excuse to return to the Administrator’s chair and experience all our post-release updates while putting your station-management skills to the test.
Each of the three aforementioned modes have been carefully tuned to ensure a balanced experience that never feels either trivial nor unachievable. You will, however, have the opportunity to tweak and tune the game’s individual difficulty parameters yourself in the fourth and final game mode, ‘Custom’; here you will find a dizzying array of parameters to adjust, allowing you to put on your game designer hat* and set your own level of challenge.
In terms of what this schedule change means for our other planned updates, such as Accessibility and Visual Tech Support, we’ll provide an update on in due course.
*Update does not come with hat
We have updated the way the starvation mechanic works in IXION.
The crew will continue to eat at set intervals, with meal cycles occurring every 5 cycles. If they are not provided with food at this time they will begin to starve. After missing three meals, the starving population will progressively die.
A crew member will now recover from starvation after eating a single meal. (Previously for starvation to resolve, a crew member would need to consume as many meals as they had missed).
Additionally, rather than waiting for up to 5 cycles till the next meal cycle, starving crew members have the option to eat at the start of the next cycle in which enough food is available. This behavior can be toggled on or off for a Sector from within the Mess Hall's building panel.
Technologies related to the critical path of the game will now only require time to research, with no associated science point cost.
Resource Transfer: implemented a simplified version of the resource transfer UI (the previous settings will still be available as a toggle option)
Cryonics Center: Simplified the building’s UI and removed the Sector limit to better convey that the Cryonics Center’s options only determine the destination of awakened crew, and not the type of crew to be woken
Fixed an issue where some planets had a graphical issue
Fixed solar panel construction placeholders displaying extremely brightly
