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Patch notes for V 0.8.3.0

Patch notes for V 0.8.3.0 (Build ID: 671270)

This major update adds the Trade Route mechanics, overhauls the System UI, and adds a large number of bugfixes and small changes.

Major Feature: Trade Routes

We've added trade routes that allow you to send metal, food, population or energy transferred from one planet or star system to another each turn. You can set up a new trade route from the planet Services panel, select a destination planet, pick a material, and then decide how much of the material you want to send each turn.

  • Trade Routes are drawn as lines on the galaxy map
  • Trade route lines change colour based on the trade route's state
  • Added Show Trade Routes checkbox in the options panel to toggle the trade route lines on and off
  • Added Send Excess Population checkbox in the options panel. When enabled, trade routes sending population will only send excess population that isn't needed to run the planet's infrastructure.
  • Replaced Diplomatic Frequencies technology with Trade Route technology and moved Elite Ship Crew up one tier
  • Added a List of trade routes to the Services tab on the planet screen
  • Added buttons for each trade route to cycle through resources: Food, Population, Metal, Energy
  • Added Delete button to each trade route, and increment/decrement buttons
  • Added a direction indicator arrow to each trade route, and clicking it swaps direction
  • Implemented trade route mechanics that execute all imports and exports. If a planet is blockaded, don't process imports.
  • Implemented different states for trade routes: Unsustainable, Expires in 5 turns, Expires in 1 turn, Blockaded, Empty, OK
  • Added warning notification for trade routes that go offline
  • Trade routes that are set up with invalid planets are automatically removed. This is good for if a planet is taken over or destroyed.
  • Enemy ships now blockade planets, shutting down trade routes.
  • Made it so that intra-system trade routes can't be blockaded

    Major Feature: System UI & Fleets

    The Star System UI has been overhauled to convey information about the entire star system divided into three tabs (Stats, Friendly Ships, and Other Ships). The Stats tab contains aggregated stats from all planets in this star system, the Friendly Ships tab contains a shortcut to the shipyard and a list of your ships stationed in the system, and the Other Ships tab contains a list of all enemy ships in the system. Fleets no longer overlap the star they're stationed at, and will now be automatically merged if they are going to the same destination.

  • Added aggregated system stats to the Stats tab
  • Added all trade routes involving the system to the bottom of the Stats tab
  • Added Shipyard, Select All and Scrap Ships buttons to the Friendly Ships tab.
  • Added a list of friendly ships to the friendly ships tab. Left click selects ships, right click shows more info.
  • Ships are now marked off as sent to their destination and the fleet is only created when the End Turn button is pressed
  • Fleets stationed at a planet no longer overlap the star and clicking on them now opens the star window at the ship panel instead of the fleet window.
  • Fleets now automatically combine if they're both en route to the same location and are 0.5ly or less apart
  • When you send a Fleet somewhere, its speed is now normalised so that the last turn isn't abnormally close to the target star.
  • Added a list of Enemy Ships to the Other Ships tab, divided up by race
  • The Planet tooltip now shows how explored the planet is in 10% increments
  • The stats population/turn, food/turn, metal/turn and energy/turn are now drawn on the planet tooltip.
  • Added an indicator of whether or not you can trade with a planet to the bottom of planet tooltip.
  • Added an indicator of planet ownership to the Planet tooltip
  • Added new Long Range Scans graphics
  • The star's name is now drawn in system window

    Minor Changes:

  • Removed tooltips from some tabs on the UI that were really self-explanatory
  • The Planet AI no longer builds farming cities on planets that are not suitable for farming.
  • The Planet AI no longer builds a starbase on tiny planets with a limit of only one city.
  • The player now starts with a Damaged Science Vessel again instead of a Damaged Colony Ship
  • Splinter Colonies can occasionally fail to establish themselves for various reasons. If this happens, it now results in a different message.
  • The Morale Penalty stat can now also give a planet a positive bonus to morale, which reduces back to 0 at 10 per turn.
  • Added Show Sensor Range checkbox in the options panel to toggle the sensor sphere graphics
  • Added Show Star Lines checkbox to toggle the star lines from the galactic plane
  • Added Show Galaxy Plane checkbox to toggle the entire galaxy plane on and off
  • Adjusted the size of star names and distance from the star so that they always draw at an appropriate size and position.
  • Added fade to star names based on distance from the camera.
  • Added Star Name Fade checkbox in the options panel to toggle the new star fade effect on and off
  • Right clicking now cancels building placement, infrastructure placement, scouting, oil drilling, and soil enrichment.
  • The radial menu will no longer appear when right clicking to cancel placement of stuff.
  • Adjusted the zoom on cities to get closer to the buildings.
  • Planet Tax now includes money made from Market buildings
  • The notification for breaking into the Space Colonisation age now appears as an opened window instead of being added to the taskbar.
  • Changed the Save and Load game code. This may fix the save game crashes some players were having.
  • Added a Save and Load game retry limit of 3 with 1 second pauses between attempts.

    Bugfixes:

  • Fixed a Planet AI bug that caused it to sometimes (very rarely) forget to build farms and power (oops!)
  • Fleets now always display the correct number of turns left to go
  • Fixed a glitch that happened when a fleet that was already en route to one system was selected and pointed toward another
  • Added the ground work code for a new Disaster system, which will be implemented in a future update.
  • Fixed a bug where planets couldn't run infrastructure or buildings off imported energy if the planet's energy storage was zero..
  • Fixed bug with population growth bonuses from breeding programme tech leading to huge growth
  • Fixed a bug that prevented reusable Survey Ships from exiting the planet to be re-used
  • Fixed a bug where survey ships weren't regenerated after loading the game if they were scanning a planet, causing a crash when they finished scanning
  • The auto road algorithm should now correctly go to the nearest city even if it crosses the planetary seam.
  • Fixed a bug where you couldn't build cities on the seam of planets, which becomes obvious on tiny planets.
  • Soil Enrichment can now be done on hexes inside existing farms
  • Right clicking while soil enriching no longer crashes the game, and instead cancels soil enrichment.
  • Fixed a number of crashes related to clicking at the top left of the screen accidentally clicking on buttons that are disabled.
  • Fixed a number of windows displaying at the wrong size on scaled down user interfaces
  • Fixed a display bug that made buildings seem like they weren't built yet after loading the game
  • Fixed some overlapping text on the planet graphs
  • Fixed a bug where the taskbar would slide off screen on screen resolutions smaller than 1920x1080
  • Fixed the position and scale close button on the ship info window when you right click on a ship in the ship window
  • Fixed Energy Battery, Metal Silo and Food Silo buildings to no longer use power per turn so that they stay online when the power goes out.

    Cheers,
    -- Brendan, Lead Developer