V1.5

V 1.5 Update

Overview

• Improved Diplomacy. Added new diplomatic interactions including "Leave my territory" and "Demand Tribute." 
• Planetary Spending Wheel. The Planetary Spending Wheel is now available again either  through the "Bureau of Labor" planetary improvement or through the new civilization ability "Coercive." This new ability replaces the Krynn's "Patriotic" ability (which ignored the large empire penalty) which is longer needed.  
• Coercion system.  Setting the civilization or planetary spending to overly specialize in one area reduces raw production.  Penalty is modest for most spending schemes.  
• Removed the large empire penalty. You'll to start a new game to experience this change
• In-Game Metaverse: Clicking on the "Metaverse" button on the main menu will display your gameplay statistics, leaderboard standings, and universal stats via the new "GNN Universe Report".
• Multiplayer Improvements.  Players can now invite their friends to play through Steam.  We have also resolved several crash and lobby problems.   

Gameplay

• Improved Diplomacy. Added new diplomatic interactions including "Leave my territory" and "Demand tribute." Go to the Diplomacy screen and ask to talk about something else to access the new changes.  
• The new "Coercion" faction trait allows the faction to use the planetary spending wheel throughout the empire without building the "Bureau of Labor" Improvement.  This new trait replaces the Kyrnn's Patriot trait which is now obsolete.
• New "Bureau of Labor" Improvement unlocks the Planetary Spending Wheel for a specific planet.  This improvement is unlocked through the "Interstellar Governance" technology.
• Removed Large Empire Penalty. This makes the Krynn's Patriotic ability (which overrode the penalty) obsolete and the former trait has been replaced by the new Coercion trait.  Note: you'll need to start a new game to enjoy this benefit.
• Added Coercion effect to spending wheel.  Spending programs that are overly specializes will be not as efficient in overall production.
• Lowered the Capital Production points bonus
• Raised the default Population growth rate
• Reduced the number of tech required for each Age to better reflect the current tech research norms. 
• Re-balanced ship upgrade costs
• Set minor races frequency game option "common" by default
• Reduced Civilization and Colony Capital production bonuses.   
• To make the galaxy feel more alive, the AI will talk more often.  We've also increased frequency of minor races.

AI

• Added bridge building feature to the AI. if the AI can't reach a target world for invasion, the AI will build military starbases to extend its range.
• AI now does a better job of picking weapon and defense techs  
• AI chooses better weapons and defense systems for its ship.

Multiplayer

• Added Invite Friends button.  Players can now invite their Steam friends to join a multiplayer lobby.  
• Fixed a problem with player count was getting messed up after choosing a custom map and then choosing a different map with a different number of players.  This would cause problems in lobby and sometimes crash.   
• Addressed a problem where the lobby information wasn't always being updated correctly or in a timely manner.   
• Fixed a crash caused by entering Snathi Campaign after leaving the MP lobby 
• If peer who doesn't have the same DLC as the host leaves the lobby and starts a new lobby, the game no longer crashes.     
• The first entry Multiplayer Setup listbox  no longer overlaps the header. 
• Custom factions now appear correctly after restoring games 
• The Auto-upgrade on the Planetary Governor screen will now properly remember its state in multiplayer.   
• When a player with a custom factions leaves a game, the custom factions no longer leave the game as well. 
• Fixed a race condition that would occasionally cause a custom faction to be eliminated when the game started.  If the custom faction was a player, the game would crash.

Graphics / Audio

• Added in-game Metaverse experience. From the main menu, click on Metaverse to see your gameplay statistics, leaderboard standings, and universal stats via the new "Yor Galactic Report". 
• Removed legacy DX9 Dependencies in the atlas generation system to improve stability on startup. 
• Addressed several crashes related to the Atlas generation system 
• Fixed issue with some buttons having a non power of two texture and looking weird on mouse down. 
• Updated the Snathi Peace and War music tracks
• Addressed a problem with the battle viewer where the camera didn't always rotate around the correct axis.

Mods

• Changed flavor text definitions so that they can have groups appended to with mods. 
• Changed the preclusion rule so that the player can build a single improvement from a set that you've defined.   

Ship Designer

• Addressed problems with that made it difficult to attach parts that were scaled or animated in a particular fashion. 
• Attached parts are now scaled correctly when attached to scaled groups within Ship Templates  
• Fixed issues that made it hard to place parts onto grouped parts in ship designer 

UI

• Added tooltips to tile bonuses Planet Window to better explain what they do and help you better plan your world. 
• The Design Button (and a few others) no longer displays incorrectly when pressed.
• Rolling over the turn count now displays the current galactic date. 
• Changed the Campaign and Scenarios Difficulty from a dropdown to a spinner so that it no longer spills past bottom of screen 
• Updated the Treaty Details background image used for highlighting/selecting so it doesn't attempt to upscale an image not meant for that size. 
• Added scrollbars to the dropdowns in the custom faction screen so they don't break out of the bounds of the screen. 
• The Wealth Summary screen does a better job of prioritize important information by hiding items with a value of zero.  .  
• Added text to Starbase Module tooltips so that if they are disabled due to another player claiming the resources/relics that module needs, it will show a message notifying the player that the resources/relics are already claimed. 
• Galaxy difficulty setting no longer moves to the bottom when changed 
• Increased the width of the Large Distances Break tooltip to allow for 3-digit numbers to appear correctly. 
• Added a scrollbar to the Load Ship popup window to make it more obvious that you can scroll the planet's list.  This also prevents the planet names from being clipped in medium UI.  
• Shipyard Next/previous arrows are no longer clipped.    
• On the starbase window, if a resource is already claimed it will now grey out the module name instead of allowing you to build it.
• Battle Viewer: Selecting a ship changes no longer changes to free cam
• Battle Viewer: Ship info now properly updates in top down camera (along with all other cameras) when battle is paused
• Ideology button is now disabled and includes a helpful tooltip if the player has no ideology points.
• Diplomacy button is now disabled until the player meets someone. 
• The focus buttons are hidden when planetary production wheel is unlocked
• Fix logo alignment issue with Fleet tooltip. 

Bugs

• Fixed bad xml value that could lead to Antimatter showing up on maps that had Resources set to none. 
• If a fleet of freighters arrive at a planet, one freighter establishes the route. The remaining freighters are not longer stationed at the planet. 
• Fixing a crash related to pirates building ships 
• Fixed a crash that happened right after invading a minor race planet 
• When decommissioning a Shipyard, stationed ships are now ejected instead of being destroyed.   
• The default custom race images are available again.  
• DLC Available Button should appear for any missing DLC, not just the map pack 
• Updated the Class Zero Planet feedback to clarify that it can't be colonized.   
• Fixed intermittent failure to load campaign saved games that had bad tech tree data. 
• Fixed trade exploit for infinite credits 
• Fixed a divide by zero crash error that happened if you restored a very old save game and won the game on the same turn. 

Other Resources

V1.5 Forum Post