Hey everyone,
The Riftborn update [0.3.2] is now live! This major update introduces the Riftborn major civilization, an Early Access iteration of Multiplayer mode (we're counting on your feedback to make this optimal for the release!), new visual elements to bring more life to the galaxy, AI ameliorations, Battle improvements, changes to the Technology Tree, and more!
Check out the new features of Update 3 in this gameplay video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJl254O6do4
UPDATE 3 - RELEASE NOTES [0.3.2]
[IMPORTANT]: Games started prior to the update will no longer be functional. If you wish to continue a game started before the update, make sure you select the previous Endless Space 2 version, available in the Beta Branch tab, of your game properties.
[New Content]
- The Riftborn major faction has been added - Wiki
- Two additional minor factions have been added: the Bhagaba & the Niris
- Multiplayer has been enabled
- Games can now be played with up to 8 empires
- Added the “Large” size galaxies
- Added two new galaxy shapes: Spiral-8 and Ovoid
- Hero ships are now visible on the fleet by left-clicking on the hero's portrait in the galaxy view
- Hero renaming has been enabled
- Empire / player renaming has been enabled
- 3D feedback of certain anomalies has been added
- Game settings are now visible and some are modifiable in game (only timers and animation speed)
- Galaxy life animations have been added
- Market events: market context can trigger highs and lows of prices
- Population growth control: all population is linked to a luxury that can be used to favour its growth within the empire
- The election process has been redone: now the political parties that will not end in the Senate report their votes to the closest party, which can change the winner at the last minute!
- Added Natural Wonders (no visuals yet)
[Narrative Content]
- Added chapter 3 & 4 of the Horatio quest
- Added chapter 1 & 2 of the Riftborn quest
- Added most of Tutorial, Advanced level
- Updated Expert Tutorial
- Added 6 new Minor Faction Quests
- Added 5 new Population Quests
- Added Community Quest (Mysterious Plague Ship is now known as “The Living Plague”)
- Added 7 Alternative Deeds
- Added Community Event (An Unexpected Visitor is now known as “An Unexpected Guest”
- Added Community Event (Hear my Last Cry)
[Manpower & Ground Battle]
- Manpower is now divided in three elements:
- Manpower on empire is a resource consumed by Systems and Ships
- On system: defences defines the strength of the system defence and how much troops it will generate
- On ships: crews provide a boost in space battle, and is consumed for invasion. They can also be killed during space battle
- All empires start with a full stock of Manpower on their empire
- Manpower is now equally split between all entities requiring some
- Improved feedback related to troop generation (directly display how the system defence and crews will be converted)
- Added a specific Ground Battle strategy and Space Battle Tactic for the Privateers and Minor Factions
- Triggered a notification when the manpower drops close to 0
[Minor Faction Rework]
- Revamped the Minor Faction interface
- Added a new Minor Factions Ideology: Pragmatist
- More actions to improve relations with Minor Factions
- Actions are now based on a trend rather than a flat point value
- Changed thresholds on the bar as follows: Neutral, Cordial, Amicable, Friendly. Each threshold corresponds to a different level of reward
- Having the best relation with a Minor Faction may now grant access to special actions with a cost in Luxury Resources
[Pirates]
- Harmonized Pirate ship designs:
- Nerfed certain Prowler designs that were too strong
- Buffed certain Positron designs that were too weak
- Changed the way Pirates spawn to prevent the unwanted Pirate spam
- Pirates now spawn at a slightly slower rate
- Pirates are now limited in number and won't spawn anymore if there's already a certain number of them.
- Pirates have been given new behaviours allowing them to blockade systems, and target specific nodes
[Senate & Politics]
- Rebellion: now the government after a rebellion depends on the current government, cycling through all of them.
- Removed Rebellion progress while in Anarchy
- Added an experience systems for political parties: reaching certain experience levels unlocks new laws
- Added independent laws that are always available, and free to maintain
- Refined laws content: there are less but more powerful, and they cost an influence upkeep to be maintained
- Reinforce differences between each government
- Democracy: no election actions to influence the result, but better diversity in senate and provide approval boost on population
- Republic: election actions using Dust and stronger alternative version of the Laws
- Federation: bonuses on industry and expansion
- Dictatorship: one party that you select and higher chance of rebellion
[Space Battle]
- Ship Design
- Refactored UI
- New module icons that reflect the power progression
- Added detailed data about ship (DPS per weapon, efficiency, DPS per range, defence absorption, energy / projectile balance, upgrade cost), also displayed in ship tooltip
- Added toggle to hide / show obsolete modules
- Added the possibility to drag and drop modules between slots
- Added double click on any player’s ship thumbnail to open the ship design (in military screen but also in the galaxy)
- Removed module symmetrical multiplayer cost
- Harmonized module multiplayer cost per ship size
- Tweaked heavy mounted slot and add effect explanation in tooltip
- Added a button in the Military Screen under the Ship Designs frame.
- One click upgrades all the modules of the selected Ship Design to their latest version
- Does not replace or remove existing modules, does not fill empty slots
- Deck panel
- Cards are now called tactics
- You can open the battle tactics (new deck panel) even during battle
- Added description in tactics’ tooltip
- Advanced battle screen
- Improved trajectories / stats display
- Improved ship hover feedback (don’t forget: you can move them among flotillas!)
- Added flotilla compatibility feedback of the ship when dragging it
- Added command point required to unlock flotillas
- During battle
- Improved scan view (damage lines, trajectories, shaders etc.)
- Added overview (show entire battle with appropriate feedback included range between paired flotilla)
- Added locked ship feedback
- Added zoom with mouse wheel in free cam even without ship locked
- Battle Report
- Added advanced battle report (first version)
- Added damage gauges with detailed data (weapon type, defence absorption, misses shot, critical hit)
- Added range per paired flotillas per phase with damage ratio
- Battle system
- Changed critic damage: if critical hit, the salvo dismisses all defence absorptions
- Added ship damage bonus when crew on board (some weapons kill crew)
- Added theatre effect: check the battle effect on the special nodes
- Changed the random generator which should give you the same result if you load a save
- Content
- Added 15 support modules to diversify the strategies
- The module that affects fleet and flotilla are exclusive to support ships
- Fixed and increased several battle order effects (battle card new name)
- Increased flak effect (and feedback it in the weapon tooltip)
- Balanced / Tweaked Weapons, Defenses and Hulls (reduced cost, reduced progression, damage and health x2, increase strategic module interest)
[Technology]
- Reworked the whole Military Quadrant to implement the new modules
- Reworked the Science & Exploration Quadrant to implement support modules
- Also added new modules for the Ark, and technologies to unlock them through the game
- Added political impact on technologies
[AI]
- Diplomacy:
- The AI now handles Peace behaviours
- The AI now handles minimal Alliance behaviours
- The AI is now able to detect player actions (regarding itself) and send reactions
- The AI can now create and balance contracts to propose to players
- Improved AI attitudes and attitude annotations
- Improved contract evaluation overall
- Economy:
- System improvement and technologies gains have been reworked
- The AI can now use more exotic improvements like infinite buildings and manpower conversion
- The AI should colonize in a better fashion (more grouped)
- The AI can now handle the new Minor Faction system
- The AI should use the marketplace better overall
- The AI can now buy mercenaries on the marketplace to complete its taskforce
- The AI now make event choices
- Many many tweaks in the decision making process
- Military:
- The AI changes its tactics set according its current strengths and weaknesses
- The AI should now select the most efficient play considering its fleet
- The AI should now redesign its ships to counter its main enemy
- The AI is now capable of understanding when fleets which will be auto-merged before it will attack
- The AI should be more reactive especially in early game
- The AI should keep less ships in its hangars
- Heroes:
- The AI can now assign heroes as admirals
- The AI now assigns all hero skills (governors and admirals) depending on hero role
- The AI can now buy heroes on the marketplace
- Quests:
- The AI can now solve certain quests
- Multiplayer:
- The AI can now take over in "minimal" mode for a few turns if a player drops out
- Faction:
- The AI is able to play as a Riftborn with its specific gameplay
- Performance:
- A LOT of memory and CPU optimisations
[User Interface]
- The Diplomatic and negotiation screens have been reworked
- The ship design screen has been reworked
- The new game screen has been redone
- Reworked the left banner in all menus
- Polished Diplomacy screen:
- Demand button now located on the Negotiation screen (above the pressure gauge)
- HD GUI for any resolution
- New scaling option improved (4K mode)
- Modules icons are brand new! (quest icons are not done yet)
- New display options are now available for tooltip display: Compact, Full & Progressive. By default, Progressive is enabled, which goes from a Compact to a Full Display after a short moment when hovering the mouse. This setting can be changed in the UI Options menu
[Balancing]
- Government changes are more accessible (less anarchy and lower happiness prerequisite) but they have a dynamic influence cost
- Reworked the Lumeris outpost buyout curve to lower their explosive expansion
- Reworked the technology cost curve: the game pace will be slower and feel more engaging
- Diplomatic costs are now dynamic and based on the number of systems owned by the Empire
- Assimilation costs is now dynamic and based on the number of systems owned by the Empire
- First balancing of Minor Faction Quests (not complete yet)
- Strategic deposits quantity has been halved but their individual production increased (1 / 3 / 5 instead of 1 / 2 / 3)
- Hero skills: effects related to size has been generalized
- Hero skills: effects on deposit output has been nerfed
- Rebellion: lowered the threshold which triggers the start of the rebellion
- Increased the number of nodes generated for all sizes
- Added a limit on how many ships can be send to an outpost at a time, making distant outpost harder to feed
- Horatio ideology is now Ecologists (Foood!)
[Known Issues]
- Unlike what the gameplay video says, Multiplayer quests haven't been implemented yet
- Possible loss of sync in Multiplayer if Fast speed animations are used
- Possible loss of sync in Multiplayer if two players have the same wonder in the construction queue and finish it on the same turn
- In Multiplayer, players get a message when another player joins that they have been renamed with that player’s name. This message actually has no effect
- In the diplomacy screen, the contract evaluation bar sometimes fails to update
- In the Advanced Play settings, enemy flotillas sometimes do not appear if the Advanced Play button is clicked too fast. In the case this happens, right click and re-enter the window
- The Riftborn have a strategic issue on their home system: with Many constellations, they won't have their starting resources. With Few/Unique, they will have Titanium & Hyperium on all planets in their home system. We still recommend playing with Few or Unique constellations if you want a challenging game (this issue will be fixed in an upcoming patch)
- Selecting a "Random" galaxy type in multiplayer results in the host and other players not necessarily having the same galaxy appearance (eg a Spiral 8 can have the appearance of an Ovoid galaxy). This has no impact on actual gameplay
- When using the Splicing mechanic with the Horatio, the splicing bonus is added, but the visual feedback doesn't show that bonus
Enjoy!