V2.8

V 2.8 Update

Changelog

• Required starbase spacing reduced from 4 to 3.
• Balance pass on defenses based on new combat update that makes defenses a lot more worthwhile.
• Updated AI ship blueprints to reflect the changes to the battle system.
• Pacing improvements for the Crusade tech tree.
• Industrial Sector maint reduced from 2 to 1
• Recruit Celebrity requires an Aurorus Arbortetum instead of Helios Ore because, uh, why would any celebrity be interested in raw ore?
• How does that even work? Hey, famous movie star, here's some metallic ore for you. Please do a USO tour. Because... you know, you'll get some ore!  As the famous saying goes, you will attract more celebrities with flowers than...ore.
• Torians can once again increase their population cap (opt-in bug)
• Restored missing improvement and tech text that was missing from the opt-in.
• Commander ships are no longer stackable in a fleet
• Mega Resort -- changed the bonus from +25% bonus to a flat +4.
• Financial buildings now provide +1 to influence growth
• Major boost to defenses: Defenses are now reduced by the squareroot of damage rather than full damage making defenses much better.
• Base Research Lab returned to base game
• Cultural Festival now requires Cultural Influence
• Peacekeeper event won't trigger until at least turn 200 (instead of 100)
• Defenses on Peacekeepers reduced so that they can be worn down faster.
• "Go to" renamed to Auto Pilot.
• More AI research focus attention
• AI improvements to planetary improvement choosing.
• Cosmetic change to the FOW color.
• Cosmetic change to the size of ships on the main map.
• Cosmetic change to the starbox visuals.
• When receiving messages from a Civ, it names the Civ in the title bar.
• Added tooltips to the various "idle" button states.
• Added tooltip support for notifications.
• Clarified message for insufficient population to eject a colony ship.
• AI better at early game administration resource and late game invasion legions
• Upgrading to a ship to a colony ship class penalty increased.
• You can no longer colonize planets with empty colony ships.  This also addresses a problem where the Yor AI could quickly colonize the entire galaxy.
• You can no longer launch colony ships from a starbase without population

Gameplay

• AI now will adjust how big its fleets need to be based on the assignment of the fleet.  Thus, scouts and survey ships don't need escorts while mega fleets now need larger fleets.
• AI smarter at picking quality ship designs.
• AI much better at going after key technologies based on the conditions of the game
• Streamlined the base game tech tree.
• Tweaked the AI fleet governor to use defenders.
• Adjusted the culture tree to be more in line with the planetary improvements
• Set default colony ship population to 1.0
• Minimum population for colony ships increased from 0.5 to 1.
• Decreased the spacing between civilization starting positions and pirates
• Base game laser weapon now comes with Militarization tech.
• Nerfed several of the crazy Lost Treasures DLC rewards
• Navigation Center is now a Galactic Wonder
• Eliminated ship moves going up based on the level of certain planetary improvements
• Galactic Navigation Center global moves decreased from 3 to 1 (yeeesh!) ...and it now longer provides an additional 0.5 points per level! (double yeesh!)
• Galactic Navigator's Guild benefit reduced from providing 4 moves per turn to 1! ...and it no longer provides an additional 0.5 points per level in moves!
• Galactic Mainframe research bonus increased from 0.3 to 0.5
• Starport level benefit increased from 0.5 to 1
• Synthetic Race population increase Promethion cost reduced from 10 to 1
• Synthetic Race population increase Duranitum cost reduced from 5 to 1
• Synthetic Race population increase improvement increases by 0.5 instead of 1
• Changed default invasion from 1 legions to 2.

Bugs

• Base Game: Custom factions with the "Raider Ship Style" will now get the proper ships awarded by events and anomalies.
• Fixed crash in battle tooltip if privateer is stationed by itself in a starbase or shipyard
• Fixed several improvements tooltips that were saying they were both "one per player" and "one per galaxy"
• Fixed typos and sTough
• Added dialog if the game fails to start because the graphics driver fails to initialize.  This is usually caused by out-of-date drivers.  
• Crash fix in the event that the AI can't negotiate with another AI for a tech trade.
• Fixed AI related multiplayer desync bug 
• Fixed shipyard window to always show the military production generated by the sponsors regardless of if there's a ship in the build queue or not
• Fixed issue in influence system where it was displaying "Foreign ship in your ZOC" alerts for ships owned by allied players
• Fixed typo.  Near bay ships...to Nearby ships.

Other Resources

V2.8 Forum Post