Hello everybody,

We've got truly exciting news for fans of Endless Space 2 today: The Nakalim are reawakening thanks to a new patch! We had received a lot of feedback about the Awakening DLC, both about the new gameplay features it adds and the faction featured in it: Many players felt that the content of this DLC did not live up to its promise, so we knew big changes had to be made. While we were working on that, we also took the opportunity to overhaul the balance of space combat. Some of you may have already been testing this on a beta branch, but the patch is now ready for full release so all our players can enjoy the many changes.

Before we talk about the features of this patch, we want to take a moment to thank the people who helped us make this a reality. We contracted our VIPs Cyrob and CaptainCobbs to work on this patch, because we knew they understood the game at a deep level and were also familiar with the relevant community feedback. They in turn consulted ChaosWillRise and Frostgremlin for advice and help with the combat rebalance.

Now, what does this new update bring to the game and to the Awakening DLC? Let's briefly cover some of the highlights (but the full patch notes are available for the curious at the end of this post):

Combat Rebalance (base game)

Reading the strategy discussions and feedback in our community, we could see that only a few combat strategies were considered powerful by experienced players. We want our players to feel like they can experiment with different approached to combat and adapt to their enemies, so we have made extensive changes to the balance of ships and modules to encourage more varied tactics and fleet compositions as well as strategic counterplay. You can find an extensive list of changes in the full patch notes, but here's a short summary of important changes:

• Weapon and Defense modules were rebalanced, including a significant buff to shield capacities 
• Flak and missile fire rates were adjusted for better interactions between them 
• Special weapons (e.g. Swarm Missiles, Railguns) have been rebalanced so they should fill specialized niches 
• Support module have been rebalanced, including modules that can only be mounted on Coordinators or can only affect each flotilla once 
• Rebalanced battle tactics including new powerful but specialized tactics as curiosity rewards 

Academy Difficulty and Expansion (Awakening)

One common complaint about the Academy in the Awakening DLC was that they expand too quickly and interfere with your expansion by claiming systems and sieging yours. At the same time, their fleet was too powerful to pick a fight with them until later in the game. While many players disliked the impact this had on gameplay, some also felt it did not make narrative sense for Isyander's organization. With the Re-Awakening Update, we are introducing a few changes that should help players get their desired experience:

• Academy fleets will no longer siege player systems while you are at neutral relations with them 
• The strength of Academy fleets now scaled with Academy level and starts much weaker than before 
• The Advanced Game Setup screen now includes a setting for how much the Academy will expand, from not at all to aggressively 
• The Academy Difficulty setting on the Advanced Game Setup screen has been expanded with an additional "Endless" level of difficulty 

Academy Diplomacy (Awakening)

For those players who enjoy the added challenge of dealing with the Academy, or who like the idea of more actively supporting or opposing Isyander's plans, we have also expanded the ways to interact with the Academy and rebalanced some of the roles. The key features of this change are:

• Added new interactions with the Academy accessed on a separate screen: 
  • Earn favor with the Academy by donating during role assignment 
  • Nakalim may also donate systems to gain a lot of favor 
  • Spend favor to use various interactions, like requesting control of an Academy system 
  • Each faction also has access to one unique action 

• The Master of Dust has become the Legate: Declare Crusades against other empires to let other players attack them freely 

Expanded Nakalim Affinity (Awakening)

Given the feedback we have seen about the Nakalim, we realized that many players felt this faction was not living up to the promise of awakening an ancient empire. Dealing with their slow research was an uphill struggle, while the affinity did not provide many tools to compensate for this. To address this, we have expanded the Nakalim Affinity with new features that should improve the feeling of reclaiming old glory. Some of the core changes are:

• The Last Empire: Nakalim now suffer a 50% penalty to planetary FIDS production by default, but this penalty can be removed by using relics to construct the Temple planetary improvement. With enough Temples, you will be able to construct Cathedrals of the Lost as system improvements, which give huge bonuses to the system and unlock Relic Slots for your empire that provide powerful boost. 
• Well-founded: The Nakalim begin the game with knowledge of their entire constellation (or a large radius on single-constellation maps) 
• Slumbering Ruins: You can find "Slumbering Ruins" that will give new colonies a big boost if awakened by a Nakalim player 
• Beliefs not Breakthroughs: This trait now allows you to trade technologies with other empires at increased cost, but science gained from ship destruction after battles is reduced. 
• Rebalancing: Various adjustments to faction traits used by the Nakalim, Nakalim-specific system improvements and hero skills, and the spawn distribution of relics 

Based on the feedback we got from our beta testers, we're confident that these changes will allow all our players to explore new battle tactics and fleet compositions, while enriching the experience of dealing with the Academy or restoring the ancient empire of the Nakalim.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/392110/ENDLESS_Space_2/

To celebrate the release of this update, we are putting Endless Space 2, the Awakening DLC, and all other DLCs on sale! Now is a great time to round out your collection and explore these new options.

Have fun,

The Amplitude Team

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Endless Space 2 Re-Awakening Update: Version 1.5.60

Combat Changes (base game)

• Weapon/Defense/Support Module related changes: 
  • Defense module stats are rebalanced, and Shield Capacities are substantially buffed. 
  • Weapon DPS values, fire rates, effective ranges, Weapon Hull & Shield penetration values are tweaked. 
  • Strategic modules, EMP Weapons, Railguns, Swarm Missiles, Blast Effect Batteries, and Squadrons are adjusted in terms of their stats, effects, and use cases. 
  • Support modules are balanced, some are reworked, and new ones are added. Flotilla-wide effects are expanded. 

• Ship Hull changes:
  • Ship Health, Hull weakness, and manpower capacities are adjusted. Carriers are significantly nerfed. 
  • Coordinator and Protector ship bonuses are significantly buffed, and new effects are added. 
  • Ship targeting priorities are changed and made visible in the ship design view under the ship "Role" UI. 
  • New Attacker and Protector Ship Hull Upgrades are added to the tech tree, increasing their module multiplier to x1.25 

• Battle Tactics changes:
  • Battle Tactic effects, ranges, and tech stage placements are changed. Their UI is made to be more descriptive. 
  • New situational but powerful battle tactics and upgraded versions of existing tactics are added to the curiosity rewards. 

• Squadron changes:
  • Squadron movement speeds are substantially buffed. 
  • Fixed squadrons dealing significantly more damage than intended 
  • Squadron stats are adjusted in line with new squadron roles: Light & Heavy Bombers, Interceptor & Strike Fighters. 

• Mechanics & Other Changes:
  • Flak damage, Flak fire rate, and projectile health values are adjusted. Flak targeting orders are adjusted. Swarm missile, BEB, EMP missile, and normal missile fire rates are aligned. UI is updated to provide more information. 
  • Fixed Evasion: Evasion used to provide only half of the intended effect; now works correctly. 
  • Ship level-up effects are adjusted. 
  • Fixed ship experience on construction. 
  • New tags for modules are added: "Only once per ship" "Only once per flotilla" "Can only be used on Medium Support Ships" 
  • Curiosity rewards and drop rates have been rebalanced. 
  • Re-added removed technology "Vacuum Protection", moved the following items onto it: 
    • Advanced Explosive Drones (Empire Improvement) Increased bombardment damage from ground battle strategies 
    • Extreme Swarm Missile (module) 
    • EMP Disruption Field (module) 
    • Repulsive Plates (module)

  • "Weapon Interference Beam" unlock with either Advanced Game Theory or Tensor Algorithms 
  • "Shield Interference Missiles" unlock with either Advanced Fusion Power or Hyperium Magnetics 
  • Cleaver module has had its damage and manpower damage increased to match its tier 

Academy Changes (Awakening)

• Reduced Academy Aggression 
  • Academy fleets no longer siege player colonies and outposts while at neutral relations 
  • Academy fleet power now scales with Academy level and starts much lower 
  • Introduced "Endless" Difficulty setting for the Academy 
  • Introduced "Academy Expansion" setting 
  • Adjusted the speed at which the Academy gains levels to better align with players 

• Introduced Academy Diplomacy
  • Improve your relationship by donating during role assignment periods 
  • Nakalim gain favor by donating systems to the Academy 
  • Ask for favors at the cost of relations 
  • Each faction has access to one unique favor 

• Adjusted Legate role (formerly Master of Dust): can declare a Crusade against a player, which allows any other empire to attack their fleets regardless of their diplomatic relation. 
• Each major faction now has its own preferred Academy roles 
• Academy ship equipment and fleet strength have been entirely reworked 
• Ships loaned from the Academy are now prohibited from invading 

Nakalim Changes (Awakening)

• Gameplay Affinity: The Last Empire 
  • -50% Base FIDS on Planets by default 
  • Can build Temples (Cost 1 Relic and 1 Turn), which remove the FIDS malus and convert Base Science into Influence. 
  • Systems that have temples on all planets can build a Cathedral (Cost 1120 Industry, no Relics), which provide the following bonuses on their system: 
    • +10% FIDSI 
    • +30% Influence Radius 
    • +5 Vision 
    • 5% Enemy Health damaged per turn of Fleets in Influence Radius 
    • 20% Friendly Health repaired per turn of Fleets in Influence Radius 
    • Increases number of total empire relics that can be allocated (See below) 

• Cathedrals provide empire relic slots, which provide powerful empire-wide bonuses and require multiple relics to activate. Any bonus may be activated at any time, but only one per Cathedral may be active. These replace Food/Industry/Dust/Influence relics, and are toggleable on / off. Empire relics focus on increasing one of the innate strengths of the Nakalim, with one changing based off of leading political party
  • Exploration Slot - +25% Movement Point efficiency, +5 Vision Range on Fleets & Systems 
  • Expansion Slot - +1 Colonization Threshold per Cathedral, No disapproval from planet type on planets with temples 
  • Diplomacy Slot - provides a constant amount of minor faction relation and increased influence radius 
  • Political Slot: Get bonuses for all elected parties, but government types with fewer political parties get more powerful bonuses 
    • Industrialist - +50% Strategic Deposit Generation on Temples 
    • Scientist - +20 Dust, +10 Influence, +10 Manpower per Unassigned Relic 
    • Pacifist - +100% Trade Value on Systems with Cathedrals, +40% Fleet Health Regeneration in Friendly Territory, +20% Troop Health per Temple in System 
    • Ecologist - +100% Luxury Deposit Generation on Temples 
    • Religious – Heroes are earned faster and can be assigned outside of Borders 
    • Militarist - -20% retrofit Dust cost, Fleets can be retrofitted outside of Friendly Territory 

• Can assign a relic to a hero, which provides the following bonuses (you can no longer assign multiple relics to a hero, the effect is now binary):
  • +25% XP on Hero 
  • +50% Hero Recovery Rate 
  • +10% FIDSI on Fervent, +5 Approval per Temple on System 
  • +10% Fleet Health, +10% Fleet Damage, +10% Fleet Evasion, +10% Fleet Shields 

• Unassigned relics generate 50 science, can be upgraded via empire improvements 
• Adjusted relic spawning formulas to respawn them once they reach a certain threshold and to focus their spawning location on getting further and further, eventially stopping near the middle of the galaxy. 
• Trait: Beliefs not Breakthroughs
  • Planets do not generate science 
  • Systems only produce half science 
  • Science gained from battle rewards is halved 
  • Technologies can be traded at higher than normal cost 

• Trait: Forgotten Lore
  • Technologies granted by Forgotten Lore now do not reduce the Sophon research bonus 
  • Created a lower level version of Forgotten Lore that only unlocks tier 1 technologies 

• New Trait: Slumbering Ruins
  • Some systems will be marked as Slumbering Ruins per Nakalim player. These systems are marked to all Nakalim players, and retain their status even if colonized by another empire or obliterated (though, owned by another player it needs to first be conquered, or if obliterated it needs to be repaired). 
  • The system can be awakened from its dormant state by colonizing it. 
  • Awakening a Slumbering Ruin provides a small amount of Major Population, a few early game buildings (if not already constructed), and a temporary flat FIDSI bonus. 
  • Once Awakened, a system cannot be reawakened by another Nakalim player, but all Nakalim players can see that it was reawakened. 

• New trait: Well Founded
  • Starts with the area around them revealed (Starting constellation on non-unique galaxies, radius of systems around them on unique galaxies) 

• Trait: Apathetic Colonists
  • Outposts generate 25% less food 
  • Colonies ship 25% less food to outposts 

• Systems can now be gifted to the Academy as an invasion outcome 
• Added an "Align" Minor Faction interaction that allows "vassalizing" a minor faction 
• Nakalim heroes: Rebalanced most skills 
• Nakalim Population
  • +2 Approval (+1 Approval Spliced) 
  • +2 FIDSI on Happy (+0.5 FIDSI Spliced) 
  • Collection Bonuses 
    • 10 Population: Boosts Religious politics 
    • 20 Population: +10 Approval on systems with Nakalim 
    • 50 Population: Unlocks a new offensive and defensive ground battle strategy 

  • Politics: Religious, Relativist (Science -> Religious), Utopian (Industrial -> Ecologist) 
• Xirmisala Population
  • +1 Food 
  • +4 Dust on Happy 
  • Collection Bonuses 
    • 10 Population: Boosts Religious politics 
    • 20 Population: +10% Dust on systems with Xirmisala 
    • 50 Population: Unlocks the Dust Dowsing Law 

  • Politics: Religious, Relativist (Science -> Religious), Utopian (Industrial -> Ecologist) 
• Relics can now be collected while a fleet is cloaked 
• Nakalim now start with a colonizer and 2 explorers 

Modding Changes

• Adding new modifier operations, Minimum & Maximum 
• Increased the ability of modders to change Academy diplomacy, AI, ship spawns, etc. 
• Exposed multiple new formulas in the registry, along with the ability to revert the academy back to using "stress" instead of relying on academy levels 

Other Changes

• Slightly increased infantry health and damage 
• Unfallen now start with an additional vineship 
• Influence conversion unlock tech has been moved to T2 Empire Development 
• Explorer hull upgrade tech has been moved to T2 Science and Exploration 
• Reduced the military support requirement of the Sophons Quest "Chapter 2. Seeding the Cloud - Part 1" and the "Masters of the Arena" quests so that they were reasonably achievable 
• Changed screen placement of several T3 &T4 Military technologies (no gameplay changes) 
• Clarified some confusing tooltips 
• Dust Bonanza no longer has an upkeep cost 
• Denarque University industry cost reduced by 2/3 
• Improved AI from using some incorrect module combinations 

Bugfixes 

• Battle Result Notifications no longer block the turn, while keeping the big stability improvement that originally caused this issue (Note: This fix works for Single Player and Multiplayer hosts only, but not Multiplayer clients, who will still need to dismiss the battle report notification to let the end turn progress) 
• The Academy's aggression & power level scaling has been fixed 
• Isolated systems are no longer blocked from being colonized by the quest Death Without a Corpse 
• Horatio's Main Quest: Chapter 2 (Industrialist) will no longer get stuck if another empire destroys the fleets (It will complete) 
• Relics gained from converting will always be 2, it is no longer scaled by gamespeed which resulted in 1.33 relics on slow 
• Quest "Forged in Battle" Now is 25-55 turns instead of 10-70 by galaxy size 
• System Trade Value no longer scales with Game Speed 
• The mining probe lifetime of multiple Behemoth modules is no longer additive, now taking the highest instead 
• Influence gained from Lumeris pop bonus is now shown in the Empire Influence tooltip 
• Unfallen Terraform Options (Hot types to Forest) now use the forest art (previously all were Savannah) 
• Optics Research Lab's yield is now shown in the System Science Tooltip 
• All Singularities now affect heroes as intended 
• The Diagnostics.xml file should no longer be filled with errors if the Nakalim main menu screen is displayed 
• Fixed Nakalim being after the Umbral Choir in the faction selection 
• Behemoths no longer shown under Faction Hulls for every faction 
• Capped many cost reductions from reaching 0% 
• GasWarm now has the Temperate tag 
• Fixed Custom Umbral Shadows not having GUI Elements 
• Fixed Influence Radius flickering and huge influence border growth projects 
• Fixed many slots on Academy ships not functioning properly 
• Fixed Behemoth Mining not properly transferring its FIDSI to your planets 
• Fixed some icons some icons appearing as much lower resolution than they should 
• Fixed malus for missing colonization tech not showing up in planet FIDSI breakdowns 
• Fixed some empire relic effects not toggling correctly 
• Fix miscellaneous tooltips from not showing up properly / being duplicated 
• Fixed starting Behemoth modules not unlocking when you research the Behemoth hull technology 
• Fixed Bait / Jammer modules not correctly applying movement effect 
• Added missing EmpireAttitude localization strings 
• Adding missing warning strings 
• Fixed many typos 
• Fixed Hero Skill GUI showing an incorrect amount of available relics 
• FIDSI per Population bonuses on Planets no longer appear as though they are giving you a large percentage 
• Fixed Aligning a minor faction not failing any assimilation quests associated with it 
• Fixing colonization module tooltip appearing in the incorrect category 
• Fixed some modules appearing as though they require a different strategic resource in the tech tree 
• Minor factions can no longer run out of quests to give 
• Fixed brainwashed faction still allowing their boosts to be used 
• Fixed terraformation not showing difference between planet FIDSI