Research Redesign
The legacy research system was replaced with a new tech tree.
Research now accumulates toward generating Tech Points.
Tech Points are used to instantly unlock Technologies.
All Technologies cost 1 Tech Point.
Each new Tech Point requires more Research than the last, creating implicit long-term scaling.
Technologies are placed on a spatial, hex-based research grid.
Tech Points can be spent only on adjacent Technologies to already researched nodes.
Wonder Technologies sit far from the origin and require sustained, focused commitment.
Breakthrough Technologies and Mystery/Story Technologies are discovered separately and are not bound to the main research grid.
Initiatives are additional entry points to different sections of the board that you can uplock by completing certain goals.
Anomalies and exploration can unlock off-path Technologies within a capped radius of current progress.
Added ~50 new Technologies.
Added a Search function.
Replaced the old research queue with a new Wishlist. Wishlisted Technologies will be auto-researched when the needed Tech Points and connections become available. The amount of wishlisted Technologies is not capped, but they cannot be freely rearranged in the queue - there are controls to remove Technologies from the Wishlist, to move a selected Technology to the top of the Wishlist, and to clear the whole Wishlist.
Exchange Technology with Rival Colonies is now Exchange Research and works by offering a Technology that the player has unlocked and the Rival hasn't. In exchange, the Rival provides Research. The amount of Research received in this exchange is based on the Rival’s Research per Sol.
Unlocking all the available technologies is possible but extremely hard.
Find out more about Research redesign and the design intent behind it in the "Lab Leaks" Dev Diary.
Services Redesign
The legacy Services system that relied on visits was replaced with a new system with an aggregated approach.
The Stats (Health, Sanity, Comfort, Morale) of all Colonists in a Dome are now affected by the availability of Service buildings in that Dome, without the need for Colonists to actually visit the buildings in order to receive their effects. The aggregated bonuses from all available Services are applied to each Colonist every Sol.
The impact on Colonist Stats scales with the building’s Performance.
Each Service building has a Service Type and a Service Capacity. Buildings of the same Type (for example, the Spacebar and the Small Spacebar) are combined into a single pool that affects the entire Dome.
Some Service Types are age-specific - Playgrounds provide their bonuses only to children, and Spacebars are only for adults.
When a Service Type has less Capacity than the Dome population, the Stat gain is reduced proportionally.
The Capacity scales with the number of open workshifts.
Any spare Capacity can be used by Colonists in connected Domes with no penalty.
Comfort and Morale now have a current value and a Target value for each Colonist. Service buildings and other modifiers affect the Target rather than the Stat itself, and at each rest the Colonist’s actual stat moves gradually toward the Target.
Working in most workplaces now drains some of the workers' Stats every day. The actual impacted Stats depend on the type of building.
Visits still trigger resource consumption, attendance counters used by laws, and per-visit bonuses.
Workshift changes don't interrupt visits unless the building is left with no active shifts or is outright turned off, in which case the visitors are politely invited to leave.
The new Passage Hub building unlocks more opportunities to create interconnected Domes.
Want to learn more about the Service system overhaul? You can read the “Being of Service” Dev Diary.
Balance changes
The Food resource (and the Delicacies resources in the Feeding the Future DLC) now has a Decay effect. At the end of each Sol, 4% of stockpiled Food will disappear.
Colonists
Colonists now have a Natural Disposition value for Comfort, set at the 20-40 range to introduce some variation in their Stats.
The Hippie Trait now receives a flat +10 Comfort with Parks instead of a 2× multiplier.
The Earthsick status is now applied when below the threshold of 30 Comfort rather than exactly at it.
Founders can no longer get Earthsick.
Removed the Tourist-exclusive Satisfaction Stat. Tourists now rate their experience on Comfort and Morale.
Overstaying Tourists now receive a penalty of −10 Morale per Sol.
Resource availability
Rebalanced the Surface Metals deposits.
Meteors yield less Metals but can now drop Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals.
Buildings construction and maintenance
Raised the building costs in Concrete and Metals.
Slightly increased Concrete maintenance costs.
Buildings
The Space Elevator now operates only in an automated mode and can export all available resources similar to Rockets. It no longer imports non-resource cargo (prefabs). It now travels every 12h.
Naturalist Habitats’ effects on their residents were increased to +40 Comfort, +10 Health, +10 Sanity.
Fungal Farms can no longer be built on the Martian surface.
The Capital City now has a larger workplace radius around it.
The Mohole Mine and The Excavator can now be constructed in the Underground.
Comfort sources values have been broadly rebalanced
Amphitheater +10 (was +20)
Temple +30 (was +40)
Geoscape Dome +20 (was +25)
Martian Festivals +5
Hanging Gardens no longer applies its bonus to Residences but rather gives a +30 Comfort to adult Colonists and now counts as a Decoration for the Ecologist.
Supply grids (Power, Water and Oxygen) now shut down all consumers on an unbalanceable shortage rather than turning off some individual buildings.
Landscaping
All landscaping requires an RC Dozer and can no longer be performed by Drones.
Landscaping times went up ~15%.
"Change Surface" got 50% faster.
Technologies
“Explorer AI” now gives +30% Research per Research-granting Anomaly scanned instead of a flat per-Sol amount.
“Martian Patents” now provides Funding per Sol, increasing with each Tech Point spent, rather than a flat one-time gain.
“Martian Copyrights” now provides 1000 M (was 2000 M).
“Martian Festivals” effect reduced to +5 Comfort (was +10).
Removed “Advanced Mineral Composites”,“Self-Sufficient Lighting” and “Decommission Protocol” (salvage is now available from the start).
Laws
New Law - “Onboarding Program” with a tiered option to spend Funding for the chance of arriving Colonists to develop a Trait.
Removed the “Birth Restrictions” Law.
Replaced “Outsourcing” and “Additional Sponsor Research" with “Research Outsourcing” which provides tiered Research-for-Funding options.
“Sensor Tower” Law effects nerfed to -20% Rocket travel time and +10% Research (from −30%/+30%), and now requires a working tower.
“Resource Subsidy” Law now only affects Earth/Mars/Asteroid travel, not planetary anomalies.
“Black Market” prices are now lower overall and shown per-unit.
Sponsors
Doubled Japan's deep-scan bonus so a direct deep scan matches scanning in two steps.
Church of the New Ark's Hydroponic Farm drawback is now a flat −30 instead of −50%.
New and changed content
Reworked Tutorials
New events
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with the “Growth Stimulators” Tech causing plants to grow 2× slower instead of +50% faster.
Open Farm now shows the building’s total expected production when choosing a crop. Previously it was showing the production per hex.
Fixed some cases in which Tourists were unable to depart - they can now use Shuttles to reach a Rocket.
Fixed an issue where the RC Constructor couldn’t build several buildings.
Fixed a case where Drones building an Elevator would path to spots on another map.
Fixed an issue where the Ancient Artifact disappeared when near the edge of the screen.
Fixed an issue where in some cases Colonists were dying from Hypothermia while on an Expedition.
Fixed an issue where the “Extra Applicants” Law would grant Applicants for Milestones completed by a Rival Colony.
Colonies with Paradox as Sponsor are no longer left without a Shuttle Hub after declaring Independence. These colonies fallback to the default Shuttle Hub. You can regain access to the sponsor-specific buildings after Independence.
Fixed a case in which Dust Storms were still happening despite 100% Atmosphere.
Fixed a case where Shuttles would continue to fly despite there being a Dust Storm.
Destroyed Shuttles now drop their carried resources as stockpiles instead of deleting them.
Fixed cases in which Self-sufficient Domes could be constructed with missing life support buildings. If any of the components are not available as prefabs or researched, the text in the build menu will display the reason.
Fixed cases in which building a Train Station over an existing Track deleted the Track elements next to it.
Fixed a case in which the Construction Nanites Breakthrough would cause Cables to be built incorrectly in segments.
Fixed an issue where landscaping with nanites would not yield Waste Rock.
Fixed an issue where residences in the Underground were not counted as available when ordering a Passenger Rocket.
Dust Devils no longer affect Colonists inside Passages (unless the Domes are opened).
Dust Storm effects now start only on maps that actually have them.
Quality of Life
New Rocket workflow
Added several new buttons in Rockets’ info panels:
"Select destination" - pick from all the available destinations without opening the Planetary View separately;
"Accept fuel" - enable or disable the refueling of the Rocket;
"Carry return trip fuel" - enable or disable the loading of additional return trip fuel when the Rocket's destination is an Asteroid;
"Wait for manual launch" - enable or disable automatic take-off once loading/unloading is completed and there are no other problems with the Rocket (only applicable for manual mode when the destination is Earth).
When the destination is set to Earth and the Rocket is in manual mode, an “Exports” section appears in its info panel, allowing the on/off toggling of all exportable resources (Rare Metals and Exotoc Minerals, plus Fuel when playing with Oligarch). The export amount cannot be tweaked in manual mode - the Rocket will try to load as much as possible from the allowed resources. If you’d like to be more precise with the amounts you export, use automated mode - there are no changes there.
Rockets arriving to Mars from Earth will set their destination to Earth automatically.
Rockets now have a 3-second grace period just before departing. During that time, you can change requests, cancel the flight or perform any other actions.
Opening Planetary View, picking a destination and choosing a Rocket for it works as before - there are no changes there.
Added the buttons for packing and unpacking of Drones to the info panels of Rockets.
General UI
The build menu now better highlights the availability of prefabs and the locked/unlocked state of buildings.
The first Rocket landing shows deposits in range.
Rearranged some build menu items.
Reordered the list of Commander Profiles - recommended first, then by challenge rating.
Added a low-Comfort warning in the Colonist info panel.
Colonist stat breakdown now lists named modifiers separately (e.g. beauty deposits show as "Vista" under Comfort).
Selecting a Tech in the "New Tech Unlocked" notification opens the Research screen focused on that tech.
Some fullscreen UIs now have a rollover text when hovering the cursor over their title. It's indicated by an “i” icon on the right side of the title. The corresponding controller support was also added for displaying these hints while holding down a button.
Train Stations now connect to Domes that have at least one entrance inside the Station’s work radius to make the answer to the “is this Dome serviced by this Station” question more intuitive.
Added an “Expected Funding” row in the Rocket’s infopanel if the destination is set to Earth.
Added rollover tooltips for Milestones.
“Global Support” breakthrough - buildings that are unlocked are shown in a notification.
Removed the “Increase approval by” section from the faction’s rollover as that is now explained in the “Approves of/Disapproves of” sections.
The resource bar now shows the actual consumption for the current grid, displays the single most-prominent grid on-screen (refreshed once per second), and hides Seeds when unavailable.
Pipe hexes are visible during placement of all buildings.
Added a warning when a construction will block the pipe connection hex of another building.
Workplace infopanel now shows Performance as a percentage.
Water and Oxygen resources now have separate rollovers in the Resource Bar.
The Funding rollover now provides additional information on how Funding is gained and spent.
Planetary expeditions now prefer Unemployed Colonists, as employed expedition-goers keep their job slots which stops buildings from working.
Resources from destroyed buildings now fit into a small number of taller piles instead of a lot of normal-sized piles.
You can now buy more than 20 Drones with resupply Rockets from Earth. Rockets still can control only 20, so if the excess Drones can’t find another controller nearby, they will get orphaned.
Added a toggle option for Electronics storage in the info panel of the Recon Center.
The RC Dozer now clears Cave-ins when in automated mode.
The RC Dozer now looks for Waste Rock needed for landscaping projects in a larger radius instead of just waiting.
The RC Dozer will no longer dump Waste Rock on the ground, unless it’s full and it needs to continue working on a project. If there is a Dumping Site nearby, it will unload the Waste Rock there.