Version	Major	Minor	Patch
1.0.x	1.0
1.1.x	1.1	1.1.1
1.2.x	1.2	1.2.1	1.2.2
1.3.x	1.3	1.3.1
1.4.x	1.4
1.5.x	1.5
1.6.x	1.6

Version 1.0

Bugfixes

• Fixes to bugs introduced in the recent bugfix patches (ex: hero skills not working, happiness GUI)
• Allowed Combat Ships to target colonizers, behemoths, and special ships
• Fixed Agridrugs and Split Second Ablatives Icons being switched
• Increased Pirate Node Spawn Range to 1-4 systems (from 2-3) to prevent lag in games where systems are mostly controlled

Merged with "All the Traits" Mod and Added Additional Traits

• For each of the FIDS, the following options exist:
  • Primary Only: Flat ( 1 - 5 )
  • Secondary Only
  • Cold ( 1 - 5 )
  • Temperate ( 1 - 5 )
  • Hot ( 1 - 5 )
  • Fertile ( 1 - 5 )
  • Sterile ( 1 - 5 )
  • Gas ( 3, 5, 10, 12, 15 )
  • When Happy ( 1 - 5 )
  • On Strategic ( 2 )
  • On Anomaly ( 5 )
  • Per Assimilated Minor Faction ( 1 )
  • Per Backdoor ( 1 )
• For Influence, the following options exist:
  • Primary Only: Flat ( 1 - 3 )
  • Secondary Only
  • Cold ( 1 - 3 )
  • Temperate ( 1 - 3 )
  • Hot ( 1 - 3 )
  • Fertile ( 1 - 3 )
  • Sterile ( 1 - 3 )
  • Gas ( 2, 3, 5 )
  • When Happy ( 1 - 3 )
  • On Strategic ( 1 )
  • On Anomaly ( 3 )
  • Per Assimilated Minor Faction ( 1 )
  • Per Backdoor ( 1 )
• For Happiness, the following options exist:
  • Primary Only: Flat ( 2, 4, 6 )
  • Secondary Only
  • Cold ( 1 - 5 )
  • Temperate ( 1 - 5 )
  • Hot ( 1 - 5 )
  • Fertile ( 1 - 5 )
  • Sterile ( 1 - 5 )
  • Gas ( 3, 5, 10, 12, 15 )
  • When Happy ( 1 - 5 )
  • On Strategic ( 2 )
  • On Anomaly ( 5 )
  • Per Assimilated Minor Faction ( 1 )
  • Per Backdoor ( 1 )
• For Empire Manpower, the following options exist:
  • Primary Only: Flat ( 1 - 3 )
  • Secondary Only
  • Cold ( 2, 4, 6 )
  • Temperate ( 2, 4, 6 )
  • Hot ( 2, 4, 6 )
  • Fertile ( 2, 4, 6 )
  • Sterile ( 2, 4, 6 )
  • Gas ( 3, 6, 10 )
  • When Happy ( 2, 4, 6 )
  • On Strategic ( 2 )
  • On Anomaly ( 5 )
  • Per Assimilated Minor Faction ( 1 )
  • Per Backdoor ( 1 )
• For System Manpower, the following options exist:
  • Primary Only: Flat ( 5, 10, 15 )
  • Secondary Only
  • Cold ( 5, 10, 15 )
  • Temperate ( 5, 10, 15 )
  • Hot ( 5, 10, 15 )
  • Fertile ( 5, 10, 15 )
  • Sterile ( 5, 10, 15 )
  • Gas ( 10, 15, 20 )
  • When Happy ( 5, 10, 15 )
  • On Strategic ( 10 )
  • On Anomaly ( 25 )
  • Per Assimilated Minor Faction ( 5 )
  • Per Backdoor ( 5 )
• For Defensive Damage, the following options exist:
  • Primary Only: Flat ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Secondary Only
  • Cold ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Temperate ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Hot ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Fertile ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Sterile ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Gas ( 50, 75, 100 )
  • When Happy ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • On Strategic ( 50 )
  • On Anomaly ( 100 )
  • Per Assimilated Minor Faction ( 25 )
  • Per Backdoor ( 25 )
• For System Manpower Capacity, the following options exist:
  • Primary Only: Flat ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Secondary Only
  • Cold ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Temperate ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Hot ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Fertile ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Sterile ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • Gas ( 50, 75, 100 )
  • When Happy ( 25, 50, 75 )
  • On Strategic ( 50 )
  • On Anomaly ( 100 )
  • Per Assimilated Minor Faction ( 25 )
  • Per Backdoor ( 25 )
• For FIDSI, the following options exist (Primary Only):
  • FIDSI (1 - 3 )
  • FIDSI per System Level ( 1 - 3 )
• For Depletion, the following options exist (Secondary Only):
  • AntiDepletion ( 1/2, 1 )
  • Depletion (1/2, 1)

Major Faction Rebalancing

• Vodyani
  • Rebalanced Vodyani Essence Collection
    • Buffed minor faction essence tribute per turn
    • Buffed pacific conversion from 100 per pop to 750 per pop
    • Quintupled leeching modules' essence per CP destroyed in battle from 1, 2 and 4 (for respective tiers) to 5, 10, and 20
    • Nerfed leeching speed of tier 2 and 3 leecher modules from 37.5 and 100 to 25 and 50
  • Disabled Combining Vodyani Manpower Module and Meditation Modules
    • Previously, manpower modules would refill ground defenses, making invasion nearly impossible
• Sophons
  • Enabled to Use Omniscience Ability on Affinity Techs (previously, Omniscience did not apply to Sophon ship hull technologies)
• Unfallen
  • Buffed Vineships
    • Reduced vining time by 20-25% (15 to 12 on Normal speed, 8 to 6 on Fast speed)
    • Made hull cost flat (400 on Normal, 200 on Fast) instead of scaling with military tech tier (partially reverted in later version)
    • Added +1 movement on Vineships
  • Gave Unfallen Explorers a Defense/Support Flex Slot
• Lumeris
  • Added +30% Buyout Cost Reduction
  • Removed Inflation from Lumeris Colonization
• Riftborn
  • Increased the production cost of a Stasis Singularity to 10 each of quadrinix and orichalcix (from 1 of each)
• Umbral Choir
  • Reduced Burning Metal law (Umbral Choir quest reward) from 5 to 2 Hacking Speed per Backdoor
• Hissho
  • Reduced upgraded modules (unlocked with Behemoth Exploitation 1 and 2) from 30% and 50% FIDS extraction, respectively, to 20% and 25%
  • No change to deposit value multipliers
• Cravers
  • Reduced module unlocked with Behemoth Advanced Climatology from 0.5 to 0.1 Science per Depletion Point
• Horatio
  • Changed Horatio's starting minors to 1 Bhagaba and 1 Pulsos

Added New Overall Game Options

• More timer options for overall end turn, per tech stage, and per extra system
• Added a separate slider for luxury count
• Made Minor Faction Quantity show exact number, and added more options

GUI Improvements

• Added Ship Role Icons to Hull Names
• Removed Behemoths from Ship List in Faction Previews

Overall Mechanics Changes

• Allowed having multiple starting population traits
• Enabled Unlock of Squadrons Modules that Require Strategic Resources through Technology rather than Quest
• Antimatter-consuming squadrons are unlocked with Hyperfield Generators
• Adamantian-consuming squadrons are unlocked with Subatomic Disruption
• Buffed Lock-On Modules
• Increased damage bonus (applies flotilla-wide vs the targeted enemy) on Antimatter module from 4% to 6% per CP targeted; also increased damage boost from 10% to 15%
• Increased damage bonus (applies flotilla-wide vs the targeted enemy) on Quadrinix module from 6% to 10% per CP targeted; also increased damage boost from 15% to 20%
• Reduced Trade and Science Agreements Cost to a flat 50 influence, rather than 0.5 per pop
• Doubled Base Trade HQ Output (both Luxury and Dust)
  • This change was removed in version 1.4
• Reworked Economic Behemoths
  • Made bonuses a flat + 20 food and production per module per turn
  • Removed dust and science bonuses
  • Added a -5% industry cost on star system improvements per module (non-wonders), to a max reduction of -95% (Tooltip will say "-100%")
• Removed Science Behemoths Blueprint (Redundant with Economic Behemoth Blueprint)
• Made All Behemoths Stackable within Fleets
  • A subsequent update made economic Behemoths no longer stackable, to prevent the Hissho from assigning a hero to their starting Behemoth for XP
• Gave Behemoths Targeting Weights (Previously were Random)
  • Juggernaut: 25
  • Behemoth: 22
  • Carrier and Ark: 20
  • Obliterator: 12
  • Hunter: 8
  • Coordinator: 7
  • Attacker, Protector and Hero: 2
  • Others: 1
• Added a Resource Cost to Fire Juggernaut Ion Wave
  • Now costs 25 of each tier 3 and tier 2 strategic resource per usage
• Increased Maximum Amount of Purchases on Market to 999
• Lowered Thresholds to Achieve Minor Faction Population Collection Bonuses
  • Reduced from 10, 20 and 50 to 5, 10, and 20
• Reduced Denarque University Production Cost by 2/3 (ex: from 3120 to 1040 production on Normal speed)

Rebalanced Minor Civilization Assimilation Traits

• Buffed Pilgrims' trait to probe vision range from 1.5x to 2x
• Tripled the Effects of the Epistis traits
• Applied Gnashast Second Trait to all Troop types, not just Infantry
• Nerfed Culturally Resistant to 0.05 Influence per Food (also rename)
• Made Tikanan Swarming Infantry affect all troop types, nerfed it to 15% bonus, and renamed it to Swarm Tactics
• Changed Harmony Mind over Body to add 0.1 Science per 1 Industry
• Replace Xirmisala academy weapons trait with Science added to Food, buffed academy donation trait to 20%. Make xirmisala secondary trait sterile

Version 1.1

Merged with Idrinth's Academy Rework

• Isander's initial stress is reduced, so he won't start in late game mode when there are 12 Nakalim players
• Lower Stress fleets are smaller, so early game won't have carriers to handle
• Reduced manpower on master fleets, to reduce utility of the fleet for invasions
• The Academy doesn't colonize

Removed the Academy's auto-siege of neutral systems

Created different Role Preferences by faction for AI selection of Academy roles

• Currently the AI will select roles in the following order, regardless of faction: Admiral, Vault Keeper, Master of Dust, Librarian.
• New Role Preferences now vary by faction, as follows:
• Sophons: L, MD, A, VK
• Cravers: A, VK, L, MD
• United Empire: VK, MD, A, L
• Horatio: MD, A, VK, L
• Riftborn: L, A, MD, VK
• Unfallen: MD, VK, L, A
• Vodyani: A, VK, MD, L
• Lumeris: MD, VK, L, A
• Vaulters: L, A, MD, VK
• Hissho: A, VK, MD, L
• Umbral Choir: L, VK, MD, A
• Nakalim: VK, A, MD, L

Buffed Academy Roles to provide innate bonuses of some sort

• Librarian: +100% hacking speed, can research technologies 1 tier above what is unlocked (stacks with Scientist mandatory law)
• Master of Dust: No cost for Proposal, Upkeep or Cancelation of trade deals (also applies to counterparties of each deal)
• Vault Keeper: +10% influence radius
• Admiral: +5% damage on weapons modules per military technology stage

Reworked academy diplomatic relation states

• In Neutral or Unmet, now enabled the following interactions:
  • OpenBorders
  • WelcomeFleetsAfterRetreat
  • Migration
• In Neutral or Unmet, now disabled the following interactions:
  • CanRootStarSystems
  • CaptureSystemsWithInfluence
  • BlockTradingRoutes
  • CanDestroyInfluencedPlanets
  • CanDestroyOwnedPlanets
  • AttackOwnedSystems
  • GuardBlockade
  • SiegeOwnedSystems
  • VisionSharing
  • GuardProtect
  • UnitRecovery
• In Hostile, now disabled the following interactions:
  • VisionSharing
  • GuardProtect
  • Migration
  • UnitRecovery
• In Allied, now enabled the following interactions:
  • VisionSharing
  • GuardProtect
  • WelcomeFleetsAfterRetreat
  • Migration
  • UnitRecovery
• In Allied, now disabled the following interactions:
  • GuardBlockade
  • ColonizeHuntingGrounds

Nerfed Spear of Isyander

• Will focus on energy defense/attack
• Will focus on killing high CP ships (so the usefulness scales as the game goes on)

Rebalanced Additional Minor Civilizations and Population

• Added influence bubble expansion for Z'vali assimilation trait (replaced diplomatic pressure trait)
• Buffed Bhagaba population (+1 influence, +2 influence on fertile),
• Added 5% conversion of food to influence for Bhagaba assimilation trait (added to 25% increase in cost of pacific conversion)

Added Faction Traits

• Starting with a Juggernaut or Military Behemoth
• Make Trade Not War (unable to declare war without militarists in government)
• Peace and Prosperity (free proposal, upkeep and cancellation of trade agreements)
• Starting with an extra colony ship, explorer, defender, or attacker
• Variations of biophobic (gas, hot, and cold)
• Starting resources
• Adding / subtracting extra systems before disapproval
• Starting on all types of planets
• Starting era 2 techs
• Starting Anomaly traits
• Duplicate Extreme Foremen so custom factions work
• Added Major faction population starting populations (Merged with permission of CyRob)

Added GUI Improvements

• Added to the amount of information that shows in a module tooltip
• Renamed the "Disband" button to "Garrison"

Rebalanced Major Factions

• Sophons
  • Replaced "Raise Military Support" quest with "Maintain 1 Militarist law for X Turns", with X = 10 * Gamespeed
• Riftborn
  • Increased civilian ship movement speed by 2
• UE
  • Buffed Population, with +1 Industry to UE, +1 Influence to Sheredyn and Mezari
• Lumeris
  • Changed "Pay It Forward" law to be Independent and removed influence upkeep
  • Changed "Safer Streets" law to be Independent and removed influence upkeep; changed reward to +1 colonization cap per Trade Company
• Horatio
  • Added Green Thumb trait (renamed "Growth Plan") for +10% food
  • Buffed Price of Perfection II to only apply a 10% price increase (down from 20%)
  • Buffed starting planet Industry (+4) by adding a Komatiite Volcano anomaly
• Unfallen
  • Buffed starting planet Industry (+4) by adding a Komatiite Volcano anomaly
• UC
  • Nerfed unique Overcloaker module to be one per ship and only 10% damage boost (from 25%)

Added New Overall Game Options

• Added a "Toggle PVP Hacking" settings slider
• Added a slider for the total number of unique planets in the galaxy
• Added a filter for Nakalim on the Empire Chronicles screen

Overall Mechanics Changes

• Nerfed Drift Buds from 100% to 50% increase in Star System Trade Value, due to other increases in Trade Value
• Enabled Behemoth Scrapping
  • Made C3 Centers and Non-Citadel Behemoths Scrappable
  • Made the upkeeps of behemoths triple if you scrap a C3 and are then over the behemoth limit
• Rebalanced Combat Modules
  • Fixed swarm missiles not receiving cooldown de/buffs
  • Increased the speed of fighters and bombers so they reach battle more quickly

Added Sublustris's quest fixes

• "The Ugly Plague" Horatio population quest completion trigger bug (failure to count as complete despite achieving production goal)
• "The Reborn" Nakalim solo quest completion trigger (failure to count as complete despite achieving approval goal)

Version 1.1.1

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Vodyani food consumption scaling with game speed
  • Divided by game speed multiplier in the ark food calculation (to cancel out multiplication elsewhere in the formula)
• Fixed Bug that Spawned Starting Anomalies on Turn 1 Instead of Turn 2
  • Related only to new traits in the mod that assign starting anomalies to a faction's home planet

Made maximum shields scale equally with ship level as ship health does

• As a ship gains XP, it will gain both 5% more health and max shields per level (vs only health in vanilla)

Version 1.2

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Species Stability act effect stacking up every turn it was enabled
• Fixed Lost Cities (+2 happiness per pop luxury) applying more happiness than intended (now +2 per pop, instead of 2 * System Population per pop)

Added New Overall Game Options

• Added sliders for spawn counts of isolated nodes, curiosities, and anomalies
• Added a 32x and 64x Animation Speed

GUI Improvements

• Added helpful formulas into related tooltips (ex: technology cost, food consumption)
• Added tooltip for boarding pods being affected by infantry upgrades
• Forced Certain Hidden Faction Bonuses to be Publicly Visible Traits
  • Horatio ships (innately) have 10% more health
  • Riftborn and Cravers ships have 10% less health
  • Craver ships hold 10% more troops
  • Craver ships are 10% cheaper

Added New Faction Traits

• AI personalities
• Starting wonders

Overall Mechanics Changes

• Relocated Squadrons Modules on Tech Tree
• Moved Advanced Bomber to Adamantian Alloys
• Moved Advanced Plasma Bombers to Structured Antimatter
• Buffed Cleaver (Photobomber unique antimatter Beam) to 30 DPS and added 20% hull penetration
• Buffed the Academy Systems
  • +5 Food per Population
  • +5 Dust per Population
  • x2 System Food Production
  • +25 System Manpower per Population
  • +10 Defensive Bombardment Damage per Population
  • All Planets forced to 14 slots

Major Faction Adjustments and Rebalancing

• UE
  • Added an option in the UE population quest to not convert your pop for custom factions
• Unfallen
  • Swapped starting techs: Planetary Landscaping for Xenolinguistics
  • Buffed Koyasil Kinetics to have 68 DPS, Raw Damage 115, 300 Damage vs missiles, 8 vs squadrons,
  • Buffed Heart's Hammer to have 25 DPS, Raw Damage 168
  • Changed one support slot on the Loam-class (Unfallen Protector) to be a support/defense slot
  • Replaced Guardian's population law with +10% Defensive Ground Damage per Peace, +15% per Alliance
• Vaulters
  • Replaced 1 support slot on each Vaulter military ship with a support/defense slot
  • Gave Vaulter population 30 Manpower Capacity on Strategic Deposit instead of 25 Ground Battle Damage
  • Gave Foundlings +4 Science instead of +3
  • Gave Bereaved +50 Manpower Capacity instead of +20 Manpower and +3 science on cold
• Nakalim
  • Buffed bad Nakalim Quest Rewards
    • Replaced Reliquary of Glory with a new Quest Reward that completely removes the temple FIDSI malus
    • Temple of the Denaserdi buffed to +25 Influence per Planet without Temple on System
    • Galactic Faith Museum buffed to +10 Happiness per Temple on System
    • Relic Exploitation Site buffed to +50 Industry per Temple on System
    • Center for Denaserdi Remembrance buffed to +50 Dust per Temple on System
  • Gave Nakalim New Science and Defense Buildings
  • Added Kamdir Martial School (replaces Electromagnetic Shield), -20% Population and Improvement Destruction, +300 System Manpower Capacity, +150 Ground Battle Manpower Limit, +5% Health Bonus on Ground Troops per Temple on System
  • Added Echo Foundation (replaces Magnetic Field Generators), +1 Science per Science Relic per Anomaly on System
  • Replaced Nakalim Collection Bonus 3 with 2 Ground Battle Strategies
    • Replaced +5% academy tithe
    • Precision A2G Strikes (replaces Orbital Bombardment), -20% Ground Battle Attacker limit, and +400 Bombardment Damage, 50% Population and Improvement destruction
    • Manipular Formation Tactics (replaces Guerilla), +50% Max Health on Troops, -1% Troop Damage
  • Fixed Academy-given relics being a "percentage of a relic" on certain game speeds
  • Replaced Nakalim Population Trait: Now generates +1 FIDS, +1 FIDS and 2 happiness with temple
  • Replaced Nakalim Counselor Ability
    • Replaced +1 raw planet science per major population with +10 science per planet, so that the Nakalim can use it

Version 1.2.1

Bug Fixes

• Fixed AI repeatedly offering trade-deals it can't maintain
• Fixed an animation bug with Nakalim Ground Battle strategies

GUI Improvements

• Re-arranged Nakalim ground strategies to be like vanilla
• Make Academy named ships not show up in ship design menu

Major Faction Rebalancing

• Made Unfallen major population have a lower chance of incrementing population so that they can utilize some of their quest buildings more easily
• Nerfed Vodyani tier 2 and 3 "All Must Provide" modules from 25 and 50 essence per turn to 20 and 30, respectively
• Made a specific combination of Vodyani custom faction traits unable to build academy ships

Replaced all major populations with variants that use the custom modifiers optimized for the mod

Version 1.2.2

Gave Spear of Isyander +5% Weapon Module Damage per Military Era

Moved Temple of Denarserdi to the other Nakalim Quest Route

Improved Military Behemoth Management

• Allowed military behemoth designs to be deleted,
• Allowed for multiple designs to be created

Rebalanced Diplomatic Cost Reductions

• Capped all diplomatic cost reductions at 90%, and
• Made all diplomatic cost reduction skills/abilities be multiplicative instead of additive

Version 1.3

Bug Fixes

• Prevented Behemoths being garrisoned, to avoid crashing the game
• Removed Behemoth terraforming, to avoid crashing the game with other terraforming changes
• Fixed Ecologist law applying -25% malus output on gas planets even when the tech is researched
• Fixed Population boosts not working for ESG traits
• Fixed several newly added faction traits not having effects
• Fixed Librarian +100% hacking speed buff (was not being applied previously)
• Fixed targeting priorities for UE Gjallafire quest module (couldn't target Behemoths)
• Fixed Shield capacity provided by Shield defense modules and Flotilla shielding not scaling with the ship level as intended (from v1.1.1)
• Fixed Mezari population collection bonus 3 not applying
• Fixed UE Chapter 1.1 Scientific path reward tooltip not displaying the actual value

Game Options

• Added timer options: 5 and 10 seconds per tech stage, 5 per system
• Added setting to disable Alliances
• Added setting to scale home-system defensive buffs with alliance size
• Added setting to disallow UC to hack sanctuaries on Home systems
• Added ESG Settings Panel
• Added a game option for terraforming unique planets
• Added a game option for free terraforming (IE, both directions, not 0 industry cost)
• Added a game option for Jovian terraforming
• Added a game option for planet size terraformation
• Added traits to start with Mixed/Negative anomalies on home system
• Tied the Unique Planet questline to the Academy Quest setting (such that disabling the Academy Quest effectively removes Scavenged Ramscoops)
• Tied the terraforming changes of Riftborn to Biophobic

GUI Improvements

• Added tooltip explanations of minor population collection law effects in population management screen
• Colored module effects based upon the factors with which they scale:
  • Red: scales with module multiplier
  • Blue: scales with module multiplier and level

Major Faction Rebalancing

• Riftborn
  • Halved strategic resource cost of titanium and hyperium singularities
  • Prevented construction of singularities from blocking the production queue
  • Started with a Dense Atmosphere anomaly on home planet
  • Replaced a defense slot on Hunter with a defense/support slot
  • Made first quest easier
    • Ecologist option reduced from 5 curiosities with a level 3+ hero to 7 curiosities (no hero requirement)
    • Industrialist option reduced from 9 system improvements to 7
    • Pacifist option reduced from 50 relation points with 2 to 1 minor civilization
    • Buffed Riftborn population collection bonus 3 to add -50% Terraformation Cost (in addition to -50% movement point cost to use wormholes)
    • Reduced Tower of Temporal Paradox adamantian cost to 25 (from 50) and buffed effect to 15 incremental dust per turn (from 2)
• UC
  • Added trait with -20% Manpower Capacity on ships
• UE
  • Replaced a defense slot on attacker with a support/defense slot
  • Replaced a weapon slot on explorer ship with a attack/support slot
  • Started home planet with a High Energy Plasmasphere anomaly
  • Added +100% empire-level influence trait
  • Changed quest reward (Scifi Design Schools) to an empire trait rather than a building
  • Reduced dust requirement for counselor hero quest
  • Baseline Bonus increased from +10% to +15% industry and from 0.1 influence per industry to 0.2
  • Mount of Zelevas: Increased from +100 industry and +40 influence per system level and +2% industry per population type in empire to +150 industry and +100 influence per system level, and +2% industry and influence per population type in empire
  • Cyborg patriots quest reward: Added effect of +30% troop health on empire
  • Sheredyn
    • Sheredyn baseline bonus : Added +20 influence per CP destroyed on empire (no change to 20% ship cost reduction)
    • Sheredyn population collection bonus: From +5 to +10 influence per 100 system manpower
    • Sheredyn College : From +20% to +30% XP on heroes on empire
  • Mezari
    • Daily slogan to +50% food bonus on outposts to apply before industrialist level 1 law, after +100% food bonus from boosting outpost
    • Who's Yuri quest reward building generates an additional +1 science per pop.
    • Mezari baseline bonus : From +10% to +15% science on empire, added new +100 science per cp destroyed on empire.
    • Journey to the Stars quest reward building: From 2 to 3 approval per science building, added incremental -30% overpopulation malus, 3 science per pop
• Vaulters
  • Made Material Expertise strategic cost equal to luxury cost
  • Open Source Defense Systems : From +5 science per ship or defense improvement to +50 science and +0.8% science per ship or defense improvement
  • System science station : From +5 approval per anomaly to +5 approval per anomaly, +30 science per anomaly and +2 science per pop on anomaly
  • NAL module: From +2 xp per turn on ships to +15 xp per turn on ships
  • Raised Opbot from level 7 to 9 when initially recruited
  • Reduced Vaulter quest requirement from 50% to 35% of galaxy explored
  • Reduced quest requirement from 7 curiosities explored with hero to 15 curiosities (no hero requirement)
  • Reduced quest requirement from 4 buildings to 3
• Nakalim
  • Started with a Colonizer
  • Made population anti-scientist instead of anti-industrial
  • Made Xirmisala population anti-militarist instead of anti-scientist
  • Gave Temples +1 Population Slot
• Unfallen
  • Nerfed vine speed (5 to 6 turns on Fast, 10 to 12 on Normal); note that new speed is still faster than vanilla
  • Added industry cost scaling back to vineships, but at 25% the rate of vanilla (+25/military tier on Fast, +50/tier on Normal)
  • Center of Light and Life from 10 to 30 science per pop type
  • Harmony of the Heart from +5 to +7 approval per pop type
  • Heart's Ward cost reduced from 2 to 1 antimatter
  • Heart's Hammer DPS changed from 19 to 27
• Lumeris
  • Jenes gains Dust Ruins and +1 Science.
  • Population changed to +2 dust and +3 dust on fertile
  • Swapped starting tech from Rare Earth Foams to Xenobiology
• Horatio
  • Attacker defense slot has been converted to a defense/support slot

Reworked Cravers

• Added "Voice of the Queen" faction trait: +10 Influence per CP destroyed
• Added empire trait for +25/Gamespeed influence per turn for each actively decaying system that one has razed
• Changed starting tech "N-Way Fusion" to "Ubiquitous Surveillance"
• Changed Chapter 1 Industrialist path quest 2 (1.2) reward, Cyborg Stomachs. 20% -> +15 food on outposts, +1 depletion point on outpost planets per turn.
• Signal Seeker cost increased to 280 -> 560 industry on Fast, effects reworked to give +10 -> +8 vision range on the system, +0 -> +2 vision range on all fleets, +50 -> +80 industry on the system.
• Reduced the industry cost of Hive Hall from 1560 to 280 industry on Fast. Additional effect added: +50% experience to Governor Hero on the system
• Infinity Shield quest module stats have been reworked according to the fleet combat balance changes.
• Reduced Synchronous Hive strategic cost from 50/50 to 20/20 Titanium/Hyperium and 780 industry on Fast.
• Changed Synchronous Hive effect from +30 approval on the system, +10 influence on the system to +10 Approval on every system and +10 Influence on every system
• Accelerated Ovipositor effect +30% manpower capacity on systems and +150 Defensive manpower deployment limit on systems.
• Changed Chapter 2-Industrialist quest religious path objective requirement from 50/50 to 35/35 Titanium/Hyperium.
• Changed Chapter 3-Industrialist quest religious path objective requirement to, max hero level in the empire.
• Changed Chapter 3-Religious quest religious path objective requirement to, search the curiosity with Reyarn Cious (Quest reward hero for Cravers, Endless).
• Made religious path final quest reward to Artificial Hive Minds, +50 science per CP destroyed on the empire.
• Infinite Factory system is changed to a 4 planet system with guaranteed Titanium, Hyperium and Adamantium spawn.
• Cravers now have a unique "Enslave" option after winning ground battles, replaces Pillage. (captures a low amount of population)

Hero Skill Rebalancing

• Changed Overseer Efficiency Aficionado to +10/+20 industry per planet on system for level 1/2 (vs +10/+20 on Hot and +10/20 flat)
• Applied Explorer bonus to Seeker ships (+100% probe recovery rate)
• Applied Focus Fire bonus to Guardian ships
• Gave Counselors an automatic skill for +1 science/dust per population
• Gave Overseers an automatic skill for +1 food/industry per population
• Increased Counselor Joy Initiative from -20% dust upkeep on system to -30%
• Added incremental bonus to Conscription Genius senator ability of +50/+100 defensive manpower/turn on all systems
• Changed Person of Means to +2 dust per population, +2 dust per population on sterile (vs +5 dust per planet and +5 per sterile)
• Removed influence per trade route senator ability from Public Relations Expert
• Added new Counselor skill, Market Master, on tier 3, which provides +15% trade value on system and senator ability of +10% trade value on all systems
• Converted a Counselor / Overseer ship weapon slot be a weapon/support slot
• Added incremental bonus to Sensitive Systems of +1/+2 movement on fleet
• Changed Vision of the Lost skill bonus to +8 vision
• Buffed Defensive AI Integration add +50/75 shield regeneration per second on fleet (and nerfed to +15%/30% more shield capacity, from 20%/40%)

Law Rebalancing

• Buffed Dirty Hands Act to 15%(20%) industry cost reduction on buildings, from 10%(15%)
• Changed Industrialist starting law's outpost food boost to flat +5(+10) instead of percentage
• Removed political experience requirement from Republic Cram Exam Act

Star System Improvement Rebalancing

• Buffed Drone Networks Food/Industry bonus to +15/+15 (from +10/+10)
• Buffed Sustainable Farms food bonuses to +10 per Planet, +10 per Cold, +10 per Hot (from +5/5/5)
• Changed ITER strategic cost to 15/15 adamantian and antimatter (from 25/25 titanium and hyperium)
• Changed Endless Research Park strategic cost to 15/15 titanium and hyperium (from 10/10) and reduced approval duration from 10 to 5 on Fast speed

Ship Rebalancing

• Core cracker industry cost reduction by 75%
• Made core crackers unable to be cloaked
• Removed the Fleet XP per damage absorbed HP: 0.01 trait from improved Reactive Plating
• Made the flotilla shield's shield capacity scale with module multiplier
• Shield reloaders will generate percentage shield regeneration per second on fleet (1% for antimatter, 2% for quadrinix)
• New module type, Shield Regenerators, provide a flat shield regeneration per second on ship (60 for antimatter, 75 for quadrinix)
• Made economic Behemoths no longer stackable, to prevent the Hissho from assigning a hero to their starting Behemoth for XP
• Reduced Obliterator strategic resource firing cost by 50%

Reworked Luxuries

• Added inherent bonuses to each tier of system modernization upgrade
  • Level 2: +10 FIDSI, +3 bandwidth, +3 vision range
  • Level 3: +1 FIDSI/pop, +3 bandwidth, +3 vision range
  • Level 4: +10% FIDSI, +4 bandwidth, +4 vision range
• Changed values of tier 1 luxuries
  • Jadonyx: From 60 industry to 20
  • Other FIDS: From 60 to 30
  • Eden Incense: From 30 to 15
  • Superspuds: From -15% buyout cost reduction to -20%
  • No change to Dark Glitter or Transvine
• Changed values of tier 2 luxuries
  • Void Stone: From +4 per pop to +2 per pop
  • Other FIDS: From +4 per pop to +3 per pop
  • No change to Giga Lattice, Lost Cities or Amianthoid
  • Gossamer: From 100% of trade value added to influence to +25% trade income
• Changed values of tier 3 luxuries
  • FIDSI: From 15%/lvl to 10%/lvl
  • Benthic Gems: From -50% over-colonization penalty to +10 Happiness/lvl
  • No change to Virtual Artifacts
  • Drift Buds: From +100% star system trade value to +10% trade income/lvl

General Mechanics Changes

• Gave all factions one-time bonus of 10 starting Influence on turn 1 (does not impact influence generation per turn)
• Changed growth formula to scale with pop
  • Normal: (305 + 10 * Population) * GameSpeed
  • Vodyani: (1220 + 40 * Population) * GameSpeed
• Buffed food shipments to outposts to provide the full amount drained from donor system each turn (vs only every other turn, effectively wasting 50%)
• Renamed Toxic to Swamp, added +1 Pop Slot, +3 Approval, +2 Food, and +2 Dust
• Increased civilian ship speed boost from empire tech stages to +1 movement point and +25% distance traveled per movement point per stage
• Greatly reduced inflation scaling to ((12.5(Galaxy Dust Production)+10000)^(1/4) /10] instead of (Global Dust Production * 0.000175))
• Nerfed Plane health to 150 from 200 to make Infantry more useful
• Increased AI intelligence when designing and retrofitting ships (primarily module synergies and countering enemy ships)

Galaxy Generation Changes

• Improved Generation of Academy System to ensure it always has 5 planets (including Harrow, the destroyed planet)
• Reduced chances of 1 and 2 planet systems spawning

Minor Faction Rebalancing

• Gave Galvran population +1 science, +2 on strategic (from flat +2 science)
• Made the objectives of certain minor faction quests not impossible on faster gamespeeds
  • Benedictions In The Church of Dust turn requirement now scales with game speed
  • Flight of the Prototype turn requirement has been halved and no longer scales with game speed
  • Masters of the Arena political threshold lowered from 30% to 15%
  • Happy Days turn requirement lowered to 8 and no longer scales with game speed

Increased cost of trading systems, with Lumeris getting a heavy discount, costs listed below

• Trade Star System in Alliance (150 - 50 * 0.25 * Is In Alliance) * DiplomacyCostReduction * (1 + (SystemCount / 10) * 1.25)
• Trade Star System in Truce (200 - 50 * 0.25 * Is In Alliance) * DiplomacyCostReduction * (1 + (SystemCount / 10) * 1.25)
• Lumeris in Alliance (50 - 50 * 0.25 * Is In Alliance) * DiplomacyCostReduction * (1 + (SystemCount / 10) * 1.25)
• Lumeris in Peace (100 - 50 * 0.25 * Is In Alliance) * DiplomacyCostReduction * (1 + (SystemCount / 10) * 1.25)

Version 1.3.1

Bug Fixes

• Relic of a Terrible War provided a Juggernaut instead of an Obliterator
• FIDSI per System Level (level 4 modernization) didn't work
• Basryxo law didn't show its effect properly
• Duplication of certain definitions
• Spaceport Slots weren't working
• Lost Cities (N-P Artifacts) weren't working
• Population boosts weren't working
• UI bug on Battle Outcome Timer duration
• "X per System Level" custom faction traits were crashing the game upon boosting with luxuries
• Size Terraformation icons were not loading
• Construction of Riftborn population was blocking production queue (as in vanilla) upon completion of quest lowering build cost
• Manifest Destiny custom faction trait was not working (fixed through deletion)
• Corrected order of operations for calculation of anomalies providing negative FIDS and FIDSI. Previously, FIDS and FIDSI effects were floored at 0 (separately from base Food, Industry, Dust, Science and Influence being floored at 0). Now FIDSI and FIDS effects will correctly apply to each subcomponent before testing relative to the floor of 0.

General Mechanics Changes

• Created a trade bonus from luxury (+3 dust per resource tier) and strategic (+10 science per resource tier) resource deposits
• Increased conquest victory threshold to 40% ownership of galaxy, regardless of size
• Reworked curiosity spawn probabilities, including removal of pirate traps
• Reworked consumption formula to increase food demands
  • Vanilla: ([Adjusted Population] * 300 * GameSpeed)^1.28 / (300 * GameSpeed) * 1.1
  • Mod: ([Adjusted Population] * 300 * GameSpeed)^1.28 / (300 * GameSpeed) * 1.545
  • Adjusted Population is base population, excluding non-consuming population (ex: Riftborn) and including double for super-population (ex: Umbral Shadows)
  • Created Ethereal Metabolism trait (-30% consumption) for the UC, to exempt them from this change
• Nerfed fleet immobilization to last for only 1 turn, to avoid being stuck in infinite loop
• Nerfed Craver Endless Consumption hero trait from + 200% Raw FIDSI to +12 FIDSI per pop (Raw FIDSI bonus previously stacked with all other per pop and % bonuses)
• Reverted to vanilla inflation formula
• Switched positions of free movement and wormholes on tech tree
• Reduced ship sale value by 50%
• Increased cost of trading systems, with the Lumeris receiving a significant discount:
  • Base cost of 150 in Alliance, or 200 in Truce
  • Costs increase by 12.5% for each system owned by the faction proposing the trade
  • Lumeris receive discounts of 100, for a base cost of 50 in Alliance or 100 in Peace or Cold War
  • Lumeris receive an additional 12.5 discount on outposts traded
• Buffed certain buildings found in curiosities
  • Analytical Engine: From +1 dust per curiosity to +3
  • Vault of Governance: From +50% hero XP to +100%. Also no longer unique, so can be built multiple times
  • Rejuvenation Maze: From +20% health recovery to +50%
  • Lunar Surveillance Station: From +15 science per moon to +125 per moon
• Adjusted duration of some turn-dependent events
  • Sacred Harvest: 3 turns on all Gamespeeds
  • Hero recovery: 8 turns on Fast, 16 on Normal, etc
  • System ownership: 5 turns on fast, 10 on Normal, etc

Special Node Rebalancing

• All special nodes now provide 4 effects
  • System effect: the benefit provided to the system that owns it (through influence radius, vining, or hacking)
  • Orbit effect: the effect applied to the fleet guarding that system (not when orbiting)
  • Battle effect: the effect applied to all ships in combat on that node
  • UC effect: the benefit given to the UC empire-wide when they have a transmigration beacon on this node
  • The UC have a new trait rendering them immune to all negative special node effects
  • The UC can now hack Rejuvenation Fields
• Solar Nebula:
  • System Effect: +50 Dust
  • Orbit Effect: No Military Upkeep on Non-Hero Ships
  • Battle Effect:
    • +50 Dust per CP still alive at the end of battle
    • +30% Bomber and Missile Damage
    • +25% Bomber and Missile Critical Chance
  • UC Effect: -50% Military Upkeep on Non-Hero Ships
• Asteroid Field:
  • System Effect: +50 Industry
  • Orbit Effect: No Ship Health Regeneration
  • Battle Effect:
    • -75% Accuracy Short Range
    • +2 Titanium and Hyperium per CP Destroyed
  • UC Effect: -20% Ship Retrofit Cost
• Black Hole:
  • System Effect: +50 Science
  • Orbit Effect: No Retreating
  • Battle Effect:
    • +20 Science per CP Destroyed
    • All Weapon Accuracies Forced to 50% at All Ranges
  • UC Effect: +20% Movement Distance on Fleets
• Neutron Star
  • System Effect: +1 science and influence per pop
  • Orbit Effect: +50% Vision Range, but All Ships Automatically Decloaked (including UC ships, but not home system)
  • Battle Effect: Shield Penetration on All Ships Forced to 100%
  • UC Effect: +50% Vision Range on Ships
• Nebular Cloud
  • System Effect: +10 Industry, Dust, Science and Influence
  • Orbit Effect: Innate Level 3 Cloaking, but -50% Vision Range
  • Battle Effect:
    • +20% Evasion
    • -50% Accuracy Long Range
    • -25% Accuracy Medium Range
  • UC Effect: +10% Evasion
• Rejuvenation Field
  • System Effect: +1 titanium and hyperium, +25 dust
  • Orbit Effect: +25% Health Regeneration
  • Battle Effect: +20% Health Regeneration per Phase
  • UC Effect: +5% Health Regeneration on Ships
• Collapsing Star
  • System Effect: +50 influence
  • Orbit Effect: +4 XP per Turn on Non-Hero Ships
  • Battle Effect:
    • Hull Penetration on All Ships Forced to 100%
    • 10% of Manpower Killed per Phase
  • UC Effect: +1 XP per Turn on Non-Hero Ships

Modified Craver Unique Pillage Ground Battle Outcome

• Renamed to Enslave, and enables theft of population in addition to typical resource transfers

Major Faction Rebalancing

• Exempted UC from "food inflation" change in 1.3.0 by providing them with +10 food per pop on Happy in home system
• Buffed Horatio
  • Reduced antimatter cost of Horatio Industrialist main quest (curiosity exploration) from 100 to 20
  • Price of perfection II colony ship cost increase cut in half from +20% to +10% (and adjusted Price of Perfection I corespondingly)
  • Lowered cost of Genetic Alteration Lab to 200 on all Gamespeeds
• Buffed Inferior Major Population Collection Bonuses
  • Unfallen: +50% ownership recovery rate changed to +1% Industry on Systems per Fertile Planet in Empire
  • Horatio: 5% Food to Influence changed to 0.1% FIDSI per Horatio on Empire
  • Vaulters: 0.1 Science per 1 ManpowerCapacity changed to 0.15 Science per 1 ManpowerCapacity
• Buffed Nakalim Relic Collection
  • Added +50 science per relic (for a total of 100)
  • Enabled collection of relics while cloaked
• Rebalanced Riftborn
  • Stasis Singularities now apply -30% Science on Empire
  • Scrap Kings law now increases ship cost by 35% (vs 20% before) and applies flat 40 XP (vs +35% before); same effect in all government types
  • Main population dust bonus reduced from 5 to 2 dust per pop
  • Biophobic trait happiness changed from +10/-2 on Sterile/Fertile to +8/-3 (no change to pop slot effects)
  • Industrialist law 1 reduced from 10/15 industry per outpost to 5/10 in non-republic/republic
  • Reduced final quest reward (Backlash/crush chapter) from +4 industry per pop to +3
  • Reduced final quest reward (Backlash/appease chapter) from +3 strategic resources per deposit to +2
  • Reworked final quest reward (Pacifist chapter) from +4 dust per pop to +3 ship movements speed
  • Number of colonizer support slots reduced from 4 to 3
  • Rebalanced some early quest rewards that previously provided large quantities of tier 2 resources to instead provide either large quantities of tier 1 resources or low quantities of tier resources
  • Quest reward approval buildings (Sensory Deprivation Chambers and Bespoke Architecture) now provide +2 approval per major pop and +3 per minor pop, respectively, instead of a flat +5
  • First pacifist quest requirement increased from 50 to 75 points with a minor civilization
  • Reduced chapter 1.2 (pacifist) requirement from maintaining required approval for 18 turns to 10 (still based on gamespeed)
  • Increased chapter 1.2 (pacifist) approval requirement for X turns from 60 to 85
  • Increased chapter 1.2 (religious) science requirement from "Colonize a new system and raise its science to 60" to 125
  • Reduced chapter 2 (pacifist) requirement from avoiding blockade for 20 turns to 10 (still based on gamespeed)
  • Increased chapter 2 (industrialist) fleet offensive power requirement from 400 to 4000
  • Reduced chapter 2 (ecologist) requirement from 15 more non-major pop to 12
  • Increased chapter 4 (ecologist) minimum number of laws required to be passed to 2 (or N+1, if 2 are already passed)
  • Increased chapter 4 (pacifist) requirement from 1500 dust to 10 each of all 6 strategic resources
• Buffed Sophons
  • Buffed Juggernaut module to provide +15% EMP defense to the flotilla in addition to flotilla shielding
  • Buffed Fast Travelers II to also provide +20% free movement speed (and correspondingly updated Fast Travelers I)
  • Converted explorer attack slot to attack/support slot
  • Buffed ENFER system to always spawn with the following 4 planets:
    • Medium Boreal with abundant titanium deposit and Humeris Insidentes
    • Huge Steppes with Antonov Ring
    • Medium Arctic with average antimatter deposit, Hollow Planet and Long Season
    • Medium Ash with poor adamantian deposit, Aurora Waves and Strong Magnetic Field
  • Propaganda constructible provides +5 happiness
  • Buffed "maintain 1 militarist law" quest from 10 turns to 8
  • Reordered Sophon chapter 2 militarist quests:
    • Vanilla: Enable militarist law for 5 turns, then research X military techs then build 4 military ships
    • Mod: Research X military tech, then build 4 ship, then enable militarist law for 5 turns.
  • Reduced militarist quest from researching 5 military technologies to 4
  • Buffed Sophonic Ramparts (military defensive building quest reward from militarist line)
    • Maximum system manpower increased from 175 to 250
    • Manpower deployment limit increased from 100 to 150
    • Added incremental damage to attacker of 750
  • First quest (Scientist alternative path): From "search 50% of the galaxy" to 25%
  • First quest (Pacifist path): From "Increase relations with a minor civilization to 90" to 75
• Buffed United Empire
  • Traitors Reach system now spawns with 3 planets instead of 2
  • Punisher Drives quest reward now provides +15% Damage on Ships vs +10% before
  • Turned approval bonus of "Journey to the Stars" into an Empire Improvement and buffed per science improvement approval bonus from 3 to 4
  • Added science bonuses to Journey to the Stars building of +5 per pop and +10% on system
  • Zelevas Incarnate unique improvement updated to provide + 0.3 science per influence (in addition to +0.3 industry and dust) and its effect is applied to all systems
  • Daily Slogan food bonus on outposts converted to flat +10 vs +40%
  • Reduced influence buyout costs
    • Vanilla Production: (Production Cost) ^ 1.1 + 100
    • New Production: (Production Cost) ^ 1.1 + 25
    • Vanilla Science: (Science Cost) ^ 1.01 + 150
    • New Science: (Science Cost) ^ 1.01 + 25
  • Imperials Population Collection Bonus 3 changed to 0.2 Influence per Industry Spent vs 0.1 previously
  • Choosing to stay Imperial at Quest 3 provides a bonus of 0.2 Influence per Industry Spent. With collection bonuses, a maximum of 0.5 Influence per Industry spent can be achieved
  • Switching to Sheredyn gives +20% Troop Health and Damage rather than providing 25 Influence per CP killed.
  • Emperor's Module (quest module awarded in Sheredyn path) is buffed to provide 100 projectile and energy defense to each ship in the flotilla in addition to +10% Morale Effect
  • Mount of Zelevas strategic costs are reduced
  • Lena Zelevas represents Pacifist party rather than the Religious
  • First scientist quest requirement lowered from 10 curiosities to 7

Nerfed Overpowered Minor Civilization Traits

• Thinkers and Tinkers I: Nerfed from +1 to +0.5 industry per system per curiosity searched, and no longer applies to Riftborn outposts
• Workspace Oddity: Nerfed from 25 to 20 industry per anomaly on systems
• Mines over matter: Nerfed from 40 to 30 science per strategic deposit on systems
• Profitable Exploitation: Nerfed from 40 to 30 dust per strategic deposit on systems
• Hunting Culture: Nerfed from +20% to +15% damage on weapon modules
• Soil Healers: Nerfed from 25 to 20 food per sterile planet on systems and from +2 to +1 FIDSI per pop on planets with reduced anomalies

Law Rebalancing

• Nerfed Basryxo population collection bonus law from 10% to 1% additional food per sterile planet on Empire
• Buffed Ecologist Law 3 (Power to the People) to +3% (+5% on Republic), from 2% (and 4%) Science per Assimilated (Spliced for Horatio) Population Types on Systems
• Buffed Ecologist Law 4 (All Hands Dictum) to +3% (+5% on Republic) from 2% (and 4%) Industry per Assimilated (Spliced for Horatio) Population Types on Systems

Rebalanced Battle Tactics

• Added the following tactics
  • Crew Defense Protocol (new): -25% defense and damage on fleet, but +50% manpower damage absorption on ships
• Removed the following tactics
  • Smart Survivors: +5 XP per lost CP on Fleet
  • Influential: +3 influence per destroyed CP on Fleet
  • Revive and Rebuild: +15 dust per lost CP on Fleet
  • Anti-Shrapnel Hull: 50% of Hull Plating Absorption added to Crew defense on Ships
  • Diplomatic Immunity: +100% Damage Absorption by unarmed ships
  • Radiation Shield: 50% of Shield Absorption added to Crew defense on Ships
  • By Any Means: -5 influence per CP on Fleet, +30% Damage on weapons modules
  • Shrapnel Munitions: +2 Crew killed per projectile hit on Ships
  • Irradiation: +2 Crew killed per energy hit on Ships
  • Hard Target: +25% Long range defense bonus on ships
  • Shield Wall: +25% Short range defense bonus on ships
  • For the Cause: -50% Defense bonus on Squadrons, +1% Defense bonus per Squadron on Ships
• No change to the following tactics, but clarified description
  • Soft Targets: Inverts the targeting priority of ships
• Adjusted the following tactics
  • Lifepods Away: From 50% to 75% of lost crew returned to empire on Fleet, but added -25% evasion penalty
  • Science from Scrap: From 20 to 10 science per destroyed CP on Fleet
  • Turtle: from +25% to +15% Hull Plating Absorption on Ships
  • Power to Shields: From +75% to +100% Shield Absorption on Ships, and added +10% shield capacity
  • Take Trophies: From +30 Dust & +10 Science per destroyed CP on Fleet to +10 and +5, respectively
  • Gravity Distortion: For both fleets, from +25% to +15% Hull Plating Penetration on weapons modules, and added +10% Hull Plating Penetration on ships
  • Plasma Distortion: For both fleets, from +25% to +15% Shield Penetration on weapons modules, and added +10% Shield Penetration on ships
  • Needs of the Many: From +10% to +15% crew lost per battle phase, and from +50% to +30% crew damage bonus on Ships
  • Temporal Drag: For both fleets, from +30% to +50% cooldown duration on weapons modules, added (for both fleets) -50% shield and health regeneration on ships
  • Collateral Damage: +15% flotilla collateral damage (unchanged), but from -30% to -25% Damage on weapons modules
  • Emergency Battery: From +500 shield reloading per phase to +4% regeneration per second, but -15% damage, accuracy and evasion
  • Prudent Positions: For both fleets, from -50% damage to -35%
  • Evasive Maneuvers: From evasion bonus of +30% at long range and +15% medium to opponent accuracy penalty of -40% at long range and -20% at medium range

Rebalanced Fleet Combat

Overall

• Reworked unlocks of new battle tactic slots to be at T3, T4 and T5 military stage unlocks (totaling 6, including starting 3)
• Every white (non-strategic) weapon type is unlocked at every Military Tech Stage
• Reworked targeting priorities
  • Compressed dispersion of targeting priorities to make contributions from targeting modules (ex: jammers and lensers) more powerful
  • All ships' targeting priorities now treat heroes as Attackers, except for Coordinators, which now treat heroes as Hunters
  • Heroes now target medium hulls, then large hulls, then small hulls
  • Changed targeting priorities of Carriers to:
    • Carriers
    • Hunters/Attackers
    • Protectors/Coordinators
  • Changed targeting priorities of Hunters and Attackers to:
    • Protectors
    • Coordinators
    • Carriers
    • Attackers/Hunters
  • Changed targeting priorities of Coordinators and Protectors to:
    • Attacker
    • Hunter
    • Protector/Coordinator
    • Carrier
• Coordinators and Protectors received +10% and +20%, respectively, to Health, Shield Capacity, Hull Absorption and Shield Absorption
• Ship level up bonus changed to +5% Ship Health, +5% Shield Capacity, +5% Flotilla Shield Capacity from Flotilla Shield modules (vs +25% health in vanilla for Rookie II up to +155% cumulatively for Legendary)
• Morale effect buffed to provide: +5% Damage, +10% Accuracy and +10% Evasion
• Strategic weapons and defenses are reworked
  • Strategic resource cost of every weapon and defense module is reduced to 1 respective strategic resource (still scales with module multiplier)
  • Strategic weapons and defenses unlocked by technologies provide higher core stats (ex: DPS, absorption, health, shield capacity) than white modules of one tier higher, and provide additional effects.
  • Strategic weapons and defenses found by curiosities provide the same additional effect as their counterparts on the tech tree, but their core stats are one tier lower
• Reworked ship starting XP bonuses
  • Tiers 3-5 of military tech quadrant now each provide +1 initial level
  • Ship XP buildings now provide +1/2/3 initial levels

WEAPONS

• OVERALL
  • Weapon accuracy is reworked to 95/50/25 for missiles and swarm missiles, 25/50/95 for slugs, 50/95/50 for lasers and 90/90/90 for beams
• MISSILES
  • White modules' DPS unchanged from vanilla
  • Hull and shield penetration values unchanged from vanilla
  • Salvo health for tier 4 and 5 white modules buffed by 5 so that each tier now adds +15 health (60 at E1 to 120 at E5)
  • Preparation duration increased from 0.5 to 1 and Shooting duration increased from 2 to 3 (both to align timing with swarm missiles)
  • Preparation duration factor min and max range forced to 1x (vs 0.8x to 1.2x), thereby removing randomness in timing so that salvos align with swarm missiles
  • Titanium and Orichalcix missiles have 5% critical chance (vs various slightly higher %'s in vanilla)
  • Titanium missiles have added effect to kill 20 manpower per hit (vs added effect to kill 5 per hit for white missiles)
  • Adamantian missiles have higher DPS than typical for their tier and 20% critical chance, with other added effects removed
  • Orichalcix missiles cause 20% longer cooldowns in targets' weapons (vs 10% in vanilla)
• SWARM MISSILES
  • DPS reworked from 17/28/38 to 15/29/44
  • Missile Health buffed from 20/30/40 to 25/50/75 for tiers 1-3
  • Salvo Shot Count reworked from flat 10 to 5/10/15 for tiers 1-3
  • Cooldown reworked from flat 7.2 to 8/6.9/5.8
• SLUGS
  • White modules' DPS unchanged from vanilla
  • Hull and shield penetration, preparation duration, preparation duration min/max, and shooting duration all unchanged from vanilla
  • All strategic modules have 10% faster cooldown (as in vanilla)
  • Titanium and Orichalcix slugs have 5% critical chance (vs various slightly higher %'s in vanilla)
  • Titanium slugs have added effect to kill 2 manpower per hit (vs added effect to kill 1 per hit for white slugs)
  • Adamantian slugs have higher DPS than typical for their tier and 20% critical chance, with other added effects removed
  • Orichalcix slugs cause 20% longer cooldowns in targets' weapons (vs 10% in vanilla)
• FLAK (attached to Slugs, but calculated separately)
  • Efficiency vs squadrons increased from 2.5% to 6.5%
  • Preparation duration, preparation duration min/max, and shooting duration all unchanged from vanilla
  • Adamantian modules' damage buffed from 150 to 165
  • Orichalcix curiosity module's damage buffed from 150 to 210 (no change to 210 for tech tree module)
• LASERS
  • Initial white modules' DPS buffed from 13 to 16; all other white modules unchanged from vanilla
  • Hull and shield penetration, critical chance, preparation duration, preparation duration min/max, and shooting duration all unchanged from vanilla
  • All modules have added effect to kill 2 manpower per hit
  • All strategic modules have 10% faster cooldown (as in vanilla)
  • Hyperium lasers cause 20% reduction in target's weapon accuracy (same as vanilla)
  • Antimatter lasers have higher DPS than typical for their tier and 15% critical chance (vs 13% and 14% in vanilla), but incremental hull penetration effect is removed
  • Quadrinix lasers are buffed from 10% to 15% splash damage
• BEAMS
  • All modules' DPS all buffed by approximately 10% to compensate for 10% reduction in accuracy at all ranges, except that second white module's DPS is buffed by approximately 20%
  • Hull and shield penetration, critical chance, preparation duration, preparation duration min/max, and shooting duration all unchanged from vanilla
  • All modules have added effect to kill 3 manpower per hit
  • Hyperium beams cause 20% reduction in target's weapon accuracy (same as vanilla), but incremental manpower kill effect is removed
  • Antimatter beams have higher DPS than typical for their tier and 20% critical chance (vs 10% in vanilla), but incremental hull penetration effect is removed
  • Quadrinix beams are buffed from 10% to 15% splash damage
• EMP
  • Moved EMP weapon modules from Tensor Algorithms and Advanced Game Theory to Adamantian Alloys and Structured Antimatter
  • Reduced EMP missiles' effect duration from 10 to 7, but reduced cooldown from 13.5 to 9 (thereby also increasing effective DPS by 33%) to align with regular missiles and therefore swarm missiles
  • No change to EMP beams
• BOARDING PODS
  • DPS, Hull and shield penetration, critical chance, preparation duration, preparation duration min/max, and shooting duration all unchanged from vanilla
  • Pod health no longer scales with module multiplier
  • Pod health reduced from 200/250/350 to 150/200/350 by tier
• Blast Effect Battery
  • Cost reworked from 300 to 250, but added strategic resource cost of 2 antimatter and 2 adamantian
  • Damage buffed from 250 to 300

SQUADRONS

• OVERALL
  • All speeds quadrupled (10 to 40 for bombers, 20 to 80 for fighters)
• BOMBERS
  • Energy: Shield penetration reduced from 50% to 15% (no change to 90% hull penetration)
  • Regular: Hull penetration reduced from 50% to 15% (no change to 90% shield penetration)
  • Variation in damage by target size is reduced from 50%/100%/150% to 70%/90%/125% for S/M/L
  • Fixed bug in vanilla enabling bombers to benefit disproportionately from any damage bonus
• FIGHTERS
  • Energy: Shield penetration buffed from 10% to 25% and hull penetration buffed from 30% to 100%
  • Regular: Hull penetration buffed from 10% to 25% and shield penetration buffed from 30% to 100%
  • For regular fighters only, damage by target size is buffed from 40%/25%/10% to 100%/50%/25% for S/M/L

DEFENSES

• OVERALL
  • Every defense module provides an innate Crew defense against weapons of 5% per module, except adamantian plating, which is 15% (none of these scale with module multiplier)
• HULL PLATING
  • Hull absorption on white modules unchanged vs vanilla, except tier 4 reduced from 130 to 120
  • Health bonus on white modules reduced from 200/310/468/800/950 to 200/310/450/575/680 for tier 1-5
  • Adamantian plating has added effect of 15% protection from boarding pod damage (no change to 15% crew absorption effect)
  • Orichalcix plating nerfed from 50% to 15% repair per damage absorbed by hull plating
• SHIELDING
  • Removed health bonuses from all shield modules except Vodyani unique modules
  • Smoothed progression of shield absorption on white modules from 70/120/240/330/500 to 80/140/210/295/400 for tier 1-5
  • Greatly buffed shield capacity on white modules from 550/700/850/950/1200 to 660/1160/2000/3200/3800 for tier 1-5
  • Hyperium shielding extra effect changed from 50% reduction in critical damage taken to 5% evasion
  • Antimatter shielding extra effect changed from 4% evasion to 25% reduction in critical damage taken
  • Quadrinix shielding extra effect reworked from 300/450 per phase to 200 per second

SUPPORT

• OVERALL
  • Strategic resource costs reduced for almost all support modules
  • Made the following modules Coordinator-specific: Anti-Carrier (Lock-on), Anti-Crew (Shrapnel), Coordinated Flak, EMP Disruption Field, Repair, Shield Reloader (Reshield)
  • Restricted the following support module types to be only 1 per ship: Anti-Carrier (Lock-on), Anti-Crew (Shrapnel), Repair, Shield Reloader (Reshield), Strike Multiplier, and Squadron Shifter
• ACCELERATORS
  • Fleet Accelerators now increase distance traveled per movement point by +10%/20%/30% for tiers 1/2/3 (Ramscoop Effect)
• ANTI-CARRIER
  • Buffed Anti-Carrier (Lock-On) modules from +4%/6% per targeted CP to +6%/10%
• ANTI-CREW
  • Anti-Crew (Shrapnel) modules have added effect of +15%/30% damage on boarding pods, with titanium module buffed from 25% to 30% more crew damage on flotilla
• BOARDING POD DEFENSE
  • Manpower increase is the same as vanilla (150), but now scales with module multiplier
• CLOAKING
  • Ambush Effect of T3 Cloaking is removed (it was broken and caused unintended effects)
• EMP DEFENSE
  • Added new flotilla-wide EMP defense module ("EMP Disruption Field") which is Coordinator-only and provides 25% reduction in EMP deactivation duration
  • Buffed both pre-existing EMP defense modules from 20% to 50% reduction in EMP deactivation duration
• ENGINES
  • Buffed hyperium and antimatter engines from 2% and 5% evasion to 5% and 7.5% (no change to movement points)
• FLAK
  • Added new Flotilla Flak boosting module ("Coordinated Flak") which increases the effective range of the Flak (+5% accuracy at all ranges) and Flak DPS by 15%
• FLOTILLA SHIELDING
  • Mechanic is fundamentally reworked from a single combined pool of shield capacity for the flotilla to now an increase in shield capacity for each separate ship in the flotilla
  • Shield capacity and shield absorption now scale with module multiplier and level
  • Raw Shield capacity reduced from 550/900/1400 to 350/750/1300 due to above change
  • Shield absorption buffed from 30/65/100 to 50/85/120
• JOURNALIST
  • Journalist (influence) modules buffed from +10/20 to +20/40 influence per destroyed CP
• MANPOWER
  • Strategic manpower modules have added effect of 15%/30% protection from boarding pod damage
  • Manpower module health bonus continues to scale to 150 in tier 3 and 200 in tier 4 (vs flat 100 for tiers 2-4 in vanilla)
• RECYCLING
  • Buffed Recycler (Salvager) modules from +10/20 to +30/60 dust per destroyed CP
• REPAIR
  • Buffed health bonus from 50 flat to 150/225/300/400
• SHIELD REGEN/RELOAD
  • Shield regenerators now provide 150/250 shield regenerated per second (scales with module multiplier)
  • Shield reloaders now provide 1%/2% shield regenerated per second, on flotilla (does not scale with module multiplier), replacing shield reload per phase modules
• SIEGE
  • Buffed siege modules from 7/20 to 10/40 defensive manpower killed per turn
• SQUADRON ENHANCERS
  • Buffed Strike Multiplier (antimatter module) from 5% to 10% critical chance (no change to 25% DPS bonus)
  • Buffed Squadron Shifter (adamantian module) from 100 to 125 health bonus and 10% to 15% evasion
• TARGETING
  • Added +3/+5 movement speed effect to jammers
  • Added 20/35 health repair per second effect to lenser modules, replacing 5%/10% repair per phase effect

Version 1.4

Bugfixes

• Fixed UE Pop Boost not applying
• Fixed Petrov Jutka's starting skill tooltip being incorrect
• Fixed some Overseers and Counselors not having their class-specific starting skills
• Fixed Horatio Collection bonus tooltip being outdated
• Fixed UE Search Raia Adamantian Anomaly requiring more Adamantian than it needs
• Fixed Holy Proliferation not providing a whole population unit
• Fixed vanilla bug whereby system manpower is multiplied by # of pop types on system (IE, ALL pops were assumed to have a +100% MP pop collection bonus)
• Fixed vanilla bug with pug hero not having correct skill tree (vanilla lists it as a Guardian but has the overseer skill tree)

General Mechanics Changes

• Pirates
  • Pirates spawn every 8 turn on fast speed, instead of 10
  • Rewards from destroying a pirate lair have been greatly increased
  • Pirate infantry troops now have 75% dmg bonus and 75% health boost
  • Pirate deployment maximum increased to 1250 per turn to both buff pirate combat ability and avoid repeated turns of fighting due to pirate deployment constraint
  • Pirate lair maximum manpower has been increased:
    • From (150 + 150 * Level) to 400/600/800/1100/1500 for levels 1-5
  • Pirate lairs generate more manpower
  • Only for the endless difficulty of pirates, some new ship loadouts have been introduced that the pirates can use from level 4 and 5.
    • These ship loadouts are much much stronger than the usual ones, usually featuring a complete arsenal of weapons alongside damage enhancers and the like to boost their fleets.
    • Starting from level 4, pirates will have more than 3 levels of boosting available. The new ships appear at level 4 only if you have sufficiently invested in pirate bonuses, and will naturally appear at level 5, with the possibility of creating a strong fleet if you choose to invest fully in them, featuring around 18 command points of good ships with tremendous combat ability packed in a single one.
    • The ships themselves can feature weapons that vanilla pirates wouldn't carry, such as bombers, boarding pods, railguns, sieging modules.
    • The ships are not generalists and usually carry few different weapon types as to enhance the fleet effectiveness in a single field.
    • There are 4 possible fleets for the pirates each of which are more tailored to a certain ship, usually boasting 4 medium ships of either Insectoid/Primitive/Pirate/AdvancedPirate alongside some others for a total 18 command points
• Reduced terraforming costs for "normal" terraforming
  • Does not affect Riftborn or UC terraforming, for balance reasons
  • Max terraformation cost is now 560 (vs up to 2000 in vanilla)
  • Cost of terraforming to Monsoon is only 280 (vs 2000 in vanilla), since that step provides an active downgrade in FIDS
  • Also applies to "normal" free terraforming, if that setting is enabled
• Moved 2 key curiosity buildings to technologies
  • Sim Camps: Now on Deep Space Personnel systems
  • Vault of Governance: Now on Perfect Negotiations
• Remains curiosity spawn chances increased and loot rewards are buffed
• Slightly changed curiosity outcome probabilities to distinguish different types of curiosities from one another (not guaranteed to drop them has a higher chance)
  • Ruins: ship modules
  • Signal: minor population
  • Atmospheric: dust/science/influence and battle tactics
• Extra support slot on scouts moved to Machine Bacteria
• Passive T1 scout cloaking empire effect added to Vacuum Protection
• Removed penalties from being in others' influence zones for Friendly systems
• Dark Matter DLC quest rewards now provide the ship hull designs to enable retrofitting and building of those hulls
• Reworked Immigration mechanic
  • Increased food dedicated to immigration from 25% to 50%
  • Vanilla migration score: Approval * (1+ [free pop slots] * 0.15) * (1-0.75 * [# Wars]/[# Playerss]) * (1.02 - [EconomyRanking] x 0.02)
  • ESG migration score: (Approval * 0.4) * (1+ [free pop slots] * 0.05) * (1-0.75 * [# Wars]/[# Playerss])
• Starting explorer and colonizer of every faction has been refitted to fill every module upon initial spawn
• Every faction now starts with 100 Dust, except Lumeris, which starts with 300 dust
• Nerfed technology cost reductions of Behemoth science modules and increased flat science per module to compensate
  • Stellar Analytics behemoth module science on special node increased from 40 to 50 and science cost reduction reduced from 1% to 0
  • Stellar Node Study behemoth module science on special node increased from 80 to 100 and science cost reduction reduced from 2% to 1%
  • Stellar Node Study 2 behemoth module science on special node increased from 160 to 200 and science cost reduction reduced from 3 to 2%
• Buffed Behemoth Advanced Node Analyzer from +1 to +1.5 strategic resource output on special nodes
• Reworked system rebellion due to low approval
  • Reduced by 50% the turns required to trigger system rebellion
  • Greatly increased manpower cost to suppress rebellion from 10 to 200
  • Increased by 67% the strength of the pirates that spawn as a result of rebellion
• Removed minimum of 5 hero XP gain for governors upon completion of a construction
• Reworked stage 2 deeds
  • Increased requirements for certain deeds
    • From 10 to 16 curiosities searched
    • From 100 to 125 dust produced on a system
    • From 8 to 10 planets colonized
    • From 4 to 5 systems colonized on the same constellation
  • Rewards are adjusted to be 2000 dust, 75 Titanium or 75 Hyperium
• Overcolonization penalty to approval increased from -10 to -15 (no change to UC of -20)
• System Development Upgrades now cost industry rather than fixed turn count. Industry cost cannot be displayed on the UI but each luxury added increases the industry cost as follows:
  • Tier 1: 25 each
  • Tier 2: 75 each
  • Tier 3: 150 each
• Industry to Dust and Industry to Science conversions have been substantially buffed.
  • Initial (on tier 3 technology) conversion rates are buffed from 25% to 50% and
  • Upgraded (on tier 5 technology) conversion rates are buffed from 50% to 75%
  • Lumeris and Sophons specific conversion rates are buffed from 75% to 100%

Economy Rework

• Inflation
  • Inflation is cube-rooted when applied to buyouts, market prices, retrofits, and scrapping
  • Inflation when applied to upkeep is increased from an exponent of 0.5 in vanilla to 0.6
• Buyouts
  • Buyout formula is reworked
    • Vanilla: 50 + [Ind Cost]^1.2125 * [Inflation] * [Buyout Cost Reduction]
    • ESG: 25 + [Ind Cost]^1.15 * [Inflation]^0.33 * [Buyout Cost Reduction]
  • Buyout cost reductions are capped at 75% (vs 95% in vanilla)
  • Buyout cost reductions from buildings (Pulvis Production and MXBA) are now removed and made passive empire improvements on the respective technologies
• Upkeep
  • Ship upkeep now scales with level (+10% per level)
  • Squadrons modules now have upkeep, just like all other modules (vs none in vanilla)
• Trade
  • Dust yields reverted to vanilla formula (vs 4x previously in ESG)
  • Penalty for adjacent location of trade buildings (IE HQ and subsidiary) reduced from -60% to -40%
  • Reduced by half the bonus for trade route length
  • Buffed luxury yields by 50% (after accounting for other changes)
  • Reduced scaling of freighter dust cost (below is for dust freighters, but formula is the same for lux with "/2" term on opposite freighter type)
    • Vanilla: (100 * (1 + (DustFreighterCount + LuxuryFreighterCount/2)^1.35) - 50) * FreighterCostReduction * Inflation
    • ESG: (75 * (1 + (DustFreighterCount + LuxuryFreighterCount/2)^1.1 ) - 50) * FreighterCostReduction * Inflation^0.33
• Market
  • Ship selling formula is reworked
    • Vanilla: f(Ship offensive military power)* (1 - [Total Tax Rate]) * [Inflation], where f(x) is an inexplicable pit of madness
    • ESG: (40% * [Hull-only Industry cost] + [Hull-only strat cost] * [30/50/150 for T1-3 strategic resources]) * (1 - [Total Tax Rate]) * [Inflation]^0.33, with minor adjustment (usually +/- <5%) for inexplicable market changes
  • Fixed dysfunctional (0 elasticity of supply) heroes market by doubling prices and spawn rate

Ground Combat and Manpower Rework

• Cap on defensive manpower deployment is removed (IE, defender will always deploy all defensive MP)
• Buffed defensive system improvements and made their effects per population
  • Impervious Bunkers: From +150 to 250 flat max defensive manpower and added +10% troop health bonus
  • Electromagnetic Shield: From +250 flat max defensive manpower to +30 per pop and from -20% to -25% chance to kill pop and improvements
  • Tractable Armaments: From +250 flat max defensive manpower to +30 per pop and from +750 to +1250 damage done to attacker during ground battle
  • Multi-Mind Combat: From +1500 flat max defensive manpower to 150 per pop and from 50% to 40% defending troops health
  • Coordinated Bunkers: From +400 flat max defensive manpower to +40 per pop and added -30% chance to kill pop and improvements
  • Weaponized System: From +1000 flat max defensive manpower to +100 per pop
  • Dark Glitter: From +200 to +400 max defensive manpower
  • Amianthoid: Added effect of +40 max defensive manpower per pop
  • Corresponding changes to faction specific system improvements (Unfallen, Sophons, Hissho)
  • Sonic Disruption Net from +400 flat max defensive manpower to +30 per pop and from +600 to +1250 damage done to attacker during ground battle, plus new effect of +15% defending troop health
• Buffed defensive population traits
  • Gnashat: from +50/50 to +100/100 damage done to attacker unconditionally/on fertile
  • Sheredyn: from +20 to +40 max defensive MP
  • Yuusho: from +20/30 to +40/100 max defensive MP unconditionally/on sterile
• In addition to above changes to manpower luxuries, also buffed their manpower generation effects, to avoid draining manpower into systems and thereby harming fleet combat performance
  • Dark Glitter: From +10 to +15 manpower and added effect of +15 system manpower
  • Amianthoid: Vanilla effect, plus added +3 MP per pop
  • Virtual Artifacts: From +5% per SD to +40% * GameSpeed per SD
• Doubled effectiveness of siege modules from 10 and 40 to 20 and 80 for titanium and orichalcix modules, respectively
• Base ship manpower has been reduced to reduce manpower-related penalties to fleet combat performance
  • Scout/colonizer: From 50 to 30
  • Small: From 100 to 60
  • Medium: From 300 to 150
  • Large: From 900 to 450
• Boarding pods are nerfed based on changes to overall ship manpower capacities
  • Health is reduced from 150/200/350 to 125/150/300
  • Damage is reduced from 5/10/20 to 4/8/16
• Buffed Gnashast battle ground tactic
  • Health bonus to defending troops increased from 30% to 40%
  • Damage dealt to attackers increased to 1000 minimum and 1500 maximum

Major Faction Balancing

• United Empire
  • Nerfed UE Quest reward science building from 5 to 3 science per pop on anomaly
  • First quest curiosity search requirement reduced from 7 to 5
  • Initial scout now starts with missiles
  • Daily Slogan quest reward effect is buffed from +10 to +15 food per turn on outposts
• Vodyani
  • T5 FIDSI Ark modules have had their strategic cost reduced (from base 5 to base 3)
  • Now have +100% law upkeep
  • Essence cost of arks reworked from an incremental 400 per ark to an incremental 300 per ark, but increasing by 100 with each additional ark
  • Initial ark starts with all modules filled (Beams, 2x hull plating, 2x essence and 2x science)
  • Scout now starts with beams
  • New faction trait, Divine Indifference, which provides -25% initial planet FIDS and approval
  • Increased base industry cost of T3 leeching module from 180 to 240
  • Vodyani juggernaut module locked to be only 1 per ship
• Umbral Choir
  • Added +1 industry on Nexus
  • Added bonus of +3 MP per turn per sleeper
  • Added bonus of +6 MP per turn per umbral shadow
  • Reworked Home Cooking faction trait to +3.5% extra food on all systems per pop on home system (vs +10 food per pop on home system previously)
  • Made umbral shadows reinforce scientist opinion instead of pacifist
  • Changed umbral shadow pop collection 2 from +5 to +20 FIDS per umbral shadow
  • Changed umbral shadow pop collection 3 from +2 FIDS per Allocated Bandwidth to +4 FIDS per Bandwidth
  • Changed umbral choir pop collection 2 to + 1 influence per Bandwidth (instead of +1 per Allocated Bandwidth)
  • Added Ghost Crew trait providing -80% max manpower on fleets, but 95% resistance to crew death (including through boarding pods). This reduction does not apply to manpower modules intentionally added to ships
• Vaulters
  • Overcolonization cap reduced by 2
  • Technologies to increase overcolonization cap replaced with FIDS bonuses to systems while under the cap (+10% and +15%)
  • Additional overcolonization penalty of -10% FIDS per system over the cap
  • Golden Age approval bonus changed to +10/10 on system and empire vs 15/10 in vanilla
  • Cooldown until free colonization increased by 50%
  • Filter Barges made no longer unique and now provides +1 value on strategic deposit, plus an additional +1 to each resource tier that is lower than system level (IE, applies to T1 resources at system level 2 and above)
  • Scout hull has 1 support slot converted into a defense slot
  • Argosy given +1 movement speed
  • Argosy now starts with 5 additional vision range (vs 8 in vanilla) and +3 vision range is unlocked with argosy upgrade tech
  • System Science Station strategic cost is reduced to 10 adamantian and 10 antimatter, and is no longer a unique building. Also now provides +3 science per pop vs +2
  • Decreased max golden age duration from 15 to 12
  • Final quest where OPBOT is required to orbit Auriga 2.0 hero level requirement is reduced from 10 to 9 which means OPBOT can be instantly used rather than needing to level up once
  • Second starting political party is changed from Militarist to Religious in accordance with the political opinion of the starting minor (Sisters of Mercy)
  • Bereaved and Foundlings population collection bonus required pop numbers have been reduced from 5/10/20 to 3/5/10 in accordance with the time the pop is acquired
  • Bereaved and Foundlings pop collection effects have been buffed
  • Vaulter pop collection 2 effect now provides +500 damage done to attacker per strategic resource on the system.
  • Sisters of mercy pop collection bonus 2 buffed to 50% fleet regeneration bonus. Pop collection bonus 3 buffed 25 -> 35% ground battle defender troop health.
  • Final quest node Auriga 2.0 strategic resource deposits are reallocated to have 1 deposit per planet
  • Economy quadrant t2 portal effect buffed to provide 50 manpower per turn
  • Science quadrant portal effect which repairs ships increased to 25%
  • Empire quadrant t4 portal effect now also provides 50 influence
  • Added passive science bonuses to portals which can be researched on the tech tree:
    • +1 science per population (requires Advanced Topology Algorithms, unique Vaulter T4 science/exploration tech)
    • +10% science (requires Hyperfolding, unique Vaulter T5 science/exploration tech)
  • Reworked Material Expertise effects of tier 3 strategic resources
    • Orichalcix: +7.5% food and industry per system level (vs 5% FIDS in vanilla)
    • Quadrinix: +7.5% science and dust per system level (vs 1.5x system development effects in vanilla)
  • Unique mandatory laws provide additional bonuses:
    • Industrialist: -25% Retrofit and Repair costs
    • Scientist: +20 science per CP destroyed in Friendly Territory
    • Pacifist: +35 dust per CP destroyed in Friendly Territory
    • Ecologist: +5 approval per Owned Admiral in in Friendly territory
    • Religious: +25 influence per CP destroyed in Friendly Territory
    • Militarist: +20 dust per CP destroyed in Friendly Territory
• Nakalim
  • Relics do not produce Empire Science directly, and instead each provide a baseline of 10 science to all systems.
  • Removed -50% science on systems.
  • Nakalim population changed to be +1 FID and +3 happiness on temple
  • Cathedral of the lost now gives 5% for each temple, and +5 happiness for each temple as well. Reduced cost as well.
  • Temples updated tooltip and now gives an extra 5 influence on cold
  • Sobra gets an extra 5 food
  • 2 new Nakalim only science improvements replacing graviton and evolution foundation, offering science based on your number of relics.
  • Automatically reveal their starting constellation
• Cravers
  • Behemoth Module is buffed. Damage and critical hit chance stats are increased from 5% to 10%, morale effect buff is increased from 5% to 25%. Also clarified in GUI that it buffs Fleet Critical Chance
  • Increased extra manpower on ships from 10% to 25%
  • Scout now starts with 1 slug module and 1 laser
  • To offset change to Militarist T0 law, Craver slaves now apply -5 approval per pop vs -10 in vanilla
• Riftborn
  • Changed base population trait to +4 industry, dust and science vs 5/2/5 in v1.3.1 and 5/5/5 in vanilla
  • Scout now starts with lasers
  • Unique Empire Development tier 4 building (Tower of Temporal Paradox) effect is buffed from +15 to +25 initial dust per turn and +25 dust increment per turn on fast. Industry cost is reduced.
• Sophons
  • Engine health and vision range is nerfed to be align with Vodyani quest engine module. Vision range reduced by one, health reduced to 125 -> 50.
  • Scienceganza greatly buffed
    • Cost is now 25 antimatter and 4240 industry on Normal vs 50 antimatter and 6240, respectively
    • Provides +250/400 and +0/25% science on happy/ecstatic vs +25/50 and +0/15% science on happy/ecstatic
  • Scout now starts with beams
  • Quest buildings Culture Jam Centers and Whapster are no longer unique, with cost and effects adjusted accordingly
• Horatio
  • New trait giving +40% migration Score
  • Added 5% extra food consumption per pop spliced
• Unfallen
  • Population collection bonus III changed from +1% Industry on Systems to +1% science on Empire per Fertile Planet in Empire
• Lumeris
  • Remove Free Market Experts trait (No longer necessary with Inflation Rework)
  • Reworked Lumeris outposts
    • No food shipments to drain from colonies
    • New outpost action instead provides +10 food per turn
    • Influence cost of the new outpost action is 25 + 25 * (System Count - 1)
  • Reworked Lumeris buyouts
    • Begin with access to buyouts and 15% buyout cost reduction
    • 10% buyout cost reduction unlocked with Multi Thread Management
    • Impactless sites provides buyout cost reduction of 15% (20% tied to construction of a star system improvement in vanilla)
    • Xeno NLP remains at 10% buyout cost reduction
• Hissho
  • Hissho Red Blade Assembly provides less ship cost % reduction (unconditional reduction from 50% in vanilla to 5%, with no change to 10% conditional upon Obedience thresholds) but costs only 15 adamantian and antimatter vs 25
  • Wrath of Tonatsi, Hissho quest beam damage buffed from 19 to 25 (no change to 5% critical hit chance)
  • Hissho damage booster module locked to 1 per ship to prevent stacking

Hacking Rework

• Cost of Track reduced from 30 to 15 bandwidth
• Effect of Overload buffed from 10% to 40% more bandwidth consumed by enemy hacking programs on affected system
• Effect of Piggyback buffed from -30% to -50% bandwidth consumed by owned hacking programs on affected system
• Each defensive program prevents 1 specific Level 2 Hacking Outcome when applied to the Home System:
  • Encrypt: Blocks Spawn Rebels
  • Lockdown: Blocks Government Anarchy
  • Interrogate: Blocks Immobilize Ships
  • Track: Blocks See Fleets
  • Firewall: Blocks Steal Technology

Star System Improvement Balancing

• Reworked dust upkeeps
  • Removed from dust buildings
  • Infinite Supermarkets: reduced from 8 to 4, in-line with other T1 buildings
  • Luxuries Lottery: reduced from 16 to 8, in-line with other T2 buildings (same change to unique Horatio version)
  • National Museum: increased from 4 to 16, in-line with other T3 buildings
• Buffed weak star system improvement effects:
  • Tier 1
    • Intensive Cultivation: From +2 to +3 food per original pop (+25 per system level effect unchanged)
  • Tier 2
    • Xenotourism Agencies: From +1/+3 to +3/3 dust per pop/on luxury resource deposit
    • Epigenetic Crop Seeding: From +2 to +3 food per pop and added +10 food per system level (Sophon version now also +3 food per pop on cold)
    • Intergalactic Supermarket: From +25 to +50 dust per system level (no change to +3 dust per pop effect) (same change applied to Riftborn version)
    • Dust Planetary Improvements: From +1/2/3 to +3/6/9 dust per pop for tiers 1-3
  • Tier 3
    • National Museum: From +1/2 influence per pop on happy/ecstatic to +1/2 influence per pop on all/happy
    • Culture Center: From +40 to +50 influence per system level (no change to +15%)
    • Pulvis Production: From +2 to +5 dust per pop (buyout effect removed and moved to passive empire bonus)
  • Tier 4
    • Careful Sweeping: From +25 to +15 dust per system level with added +5% dust per system level
    • Body Language Institute: from +5% influence to +3 influence per pop and +15% influence
    • Dark Matter Institute: From +50 to +150 science per system level and +10 to +25 science per anomaly
    • Punctuated Evolution Foundation: From +4/+2 science per pop on Fertile/Cold to +2/5/5 science per pop on All/Fertile/Cold
  • Tier 5
    • Cloud Seeding Swarms: from +20 to +40 food per gas or moon (+30 --> +60 for Unfallen version)
    • Cultivation Institute: from +20 to +40 food per sterile or hot, and from +15% to +25% food
    • Intergalactic Lectures: from +5%/+10% influence in Peace/Alliance to +3 influence per pop and +10%/+20% influence in Peace/Alliance
    • Dust Bonanza: from +5 dust per pop on negative/reduced anomaly to +8 dust per pop on any anomaly (and enabled to be built anywhere)
    • School of Geniuses: from +5 science per pop on negative/reduced anomaly to +8 science per pop on any anomaly (and enabled to be built anywhere)
    • Pocket Laboratories: From +40% to +100% science on gas planets
    • MXBA: from +10% dust to +25% (buyout effect removed and moved to passive empire bonus)
    • Distributed Energy: From +10% to +20% FIDSI
    • Hazardous Mining Facility: from +5 industry per pop on strategic deposit to +3 industry per pop (unconditional) and +10% industry per strategic deposit
    • Shaft-to-Shelf System: from +100 to +125 industry per system level and from + 10 flat to +15% industry per strategic deposit
    • Dust Anti-Trafficking Center: from +3 dust per pop to +100 dust per system level and +20% dust (no change to trade effect)
    • Phased Cloths: from +1 to +2 FIDS per pop
    • Ministry of Truth: +5 FIDSI and 10 Approval per War on every system
• Reworked strategic resource costs
  • Buildings' strategic costs are generally remapped based on Materials Expertise associations (food/industry with metals, dust/science with fuels), with influence and approval a 1:1 mix of both)
  • No strategic resource costs on tiers 0-2
  • Tier 3
    • 10 hyperium for each science building (Graviton-shielded Labs and Optics Research Labs) vs 5 and 0 in vanilla
    • 10 titanium for each industry building (AI Labor and Predictive Logistics) vs 0 and 5 in vanilla
    • No strategic cost for Pulvis Production or Colonial rights vs 5 titanium and 5 hyperium in vanilla
    • 5 titanium and 5 hyperium for National Museum vs 0 in vanilla
    • 10 titanium and 10 hyperium for Culture Center vs 10 hyperium and 0 titanium in vanilla
  • Tier 4
    • 10 adamantian for Farsighted Crops
    • 15 adamantian for Fabrication License
    • 10 antimatter for each dust building (Smart Tax Collection, Xhiyun Cartel, Careful Sweeping, Interspecies Cooperative)
    • 15 antimatter for F-Reality Institute
    • 25 antimatter for Dark Matter Institute
    • 10 antimatter and 10 adamantian for Wellbeing Foundation and Body Language Institute
  • Tier 5
    • No strategic cost for Cloud Seeding Swarms (or Unfallen equivalent) or MXBA
    • 15 orichalcix for Cultivation Institute and Hazardous Mining Facility
    • 15 quadrinix for Battlefield Archaeology
    • 10 quadrinix and 10 orichalcix for High Serenity Program and Intergalactic Lectures
    • 25 orichalcix for Shaft-to-Shelf System
    • 25 quadrinix for Dust Anti-Trafficking Center
    • 50 orichalcix and quadrinix for Ministry of Truth
    • 30 orichalcix for Adaptive Fleet
    • 30 orichalcix for Multi-Mind Combat
  • Deed Rewards
    • 5 titanium and hyperium for Sonic Disruption Net
    • 10 adamantian for Ultrawealth Sanctuary
    • 10 antimatter for Citizen's Entreprenuerium
• Reworked industry costs (all numbers listed for Normal speed)
  • Tier 2
    • Luxuries Lottery (and Horatio equivalent) reduced from 1120 to 560, in-line with other T2 buildings
    • Intergalactic Supermarket reduced from 1560 to 1120
  • Tier 3
    • Culture Center reduced from 3120 to 2040
  • Tier 4
    • Farsighted Crops reduced from 2240 to 1120
    • Dark Matter Institute reduced from 6360 to 4240
    • Adaptive Taxation Systems reduced from 2240 to 1120
  • Tier 5
    • Several buildings reduced from 4480 to 2240: Cultivation Institute, High Serenity Program, Intergalactic Lectures, Deep Atmosphere Habitats, MXBA, Hazardous Mining Facility, Phased Cloths
    • Lunar Suburbs and Cloud Seeding Swarms (and Unfallen equivalent) reduced from 4480 to 1120
    • Dust Bonanza and School of Geniuses increased from 1120 to 2240
    • Distributed Energy reduced from 12480 to 4480
    • Shaft-to-Shelf System and Dust Anti-Trafficking Center reduced from 12480 to 5040
    • Ministry of Truth reduced to 12240
    • Adaptive Fleet reduced to 6240
  • Deed Rewards
    • Sonic Disruption Net from 560 to 1120
    • Magnate's Council from 2340 to 2240
    • Ultrawealth Sanctuary from 840 to 1120
    • Citizen's Entreprenuerium from 840 to 1120

Law Balancing

• Structural Changes
  • All political parties now have 6 possible laws, with new laws 5 and 6 scaling passage costs and upkeeps accordingly (upkeep of 5 and 6 influence per pop, respectively)
  • Laws unlock at lower levels of political party experience, thereby becoming available more rapidly
  • Initial law passage costs increased from 20% to 30% of empire net influence production per law level (with separate floor of 5 influence per law level unchanged)
  • Law effects are denoted below as [regular number]/[republic number]
• NEUTRAL
  • Major pop growth only effect from T1 religious law (Species Stability) converted into a neutral law with approval penalty (-10 flat and -1 per minor pop)
  • New law that is the inverse is created which enables only minor pop to grow at cost of -10 approval and -1 per major pop
• INDUSTRIALIST
  • 0: 15%/25% of finished constructions converted to dust
  • 1: Approval bonus for creation of new colony reduced from 25/35 to 20/30
  • 2: -10%/-15% per turn system development luxury cost up to -30%
  • 3: Previous T2 law moved to this slot
  • 4: +20/30 industry per system level, 50%/75% boost to T1-2 luxury effects and 17%/25% boost to T3 luxury effects when used in system development upgrades
  • 5: +25%/35% FIDS, but with bonus that reduces by 1% each turn (has significantly higher passage cost than other laws)
  • 6: Previous T3 law moved to this slot and health boost reduced to 20% (vs 30% in vanilla)
• SCIENTIST
  • 0: No change
  • 1: -15%/20% Star System Improvement Cost
  • 2: +50%/100% probe lifetime and vision range on ships and probes, +100%/200% probe regeneration rate
  • 3: +10/15 approval and +0.5/0.75 approval per technology researched
    • Hissho: +30%/50% bonus Kei after completing a quest or deed
  • 4: Previous T2 law moved to this slot
  • 5: +1%/1.5% FIDS per technology tier unlocked
  • 6: Previous T4 law moved to this slot, with damage boost reduced to 20%/30%, and added +20%/30% shield capacity
• PACIFIST
  • 0: In addition to vanilla effect, added +100/150 damage per pop to attacker in ground battles, +15/25 approval if not at war, and ignores blockades during cold war
  • 1: -10%/15% diplomatic cost per turn (vs 3.5% in vanilla), up to -50%
  • 2: Previous T3 law moved to this slot
  • 3: Previous T2 law moved to this slot
  • 4: +100/150 industry on trade HQ, +50/75 industry on trade subsidiary, and +50%/75% trade income
  • 5: Previous T4 law moved to this slot
  • 6: +25%/33% damage in owned/friendly territory
• ECOLOGIST
  • 0: Same as vanilla, but FIDS malus of -50%/25% without correct colonization technology
  • 1: +10/15 and +5%/10% food per anomaly on systems
  • 2: +40%/60% migration score and -10%/15% population luxury boost cost, up to -50%
    • No change to Umbral Choir version
  • 3: +10/15 approval on systems and +5/8 approval per fertile planet on each system
    • Hissho: +30%/50% bonus Kei from ground battles
    • No change to Umbral Choir version
  • 4: Previous T3 and T4 laws combined into this slot
    • No change to Umbral Choir version
  • 5: +75%/125% initial planet FIDS
  • 6: +20%/30% hull plating and shield penetration
• RELIGIOUS
  • 0: In addition to vanilla effect, -15%/25% hero points required to unlock next hero
  • 1: +50/75 dust per non-friendly/owned special node blockaded up to +50/75 dust per hero on empire
    • No change to Vodyani version
    • No change to Umbral Choir version
  • 2: Fixed XP effect buffed from +2/3 to +4/6 and % XP bonus applied to heroes instead of fleets
  • 3: Same +20/30 as vanilla, but +20/30 with governor replaced with +3/5 per hero on empire
  • 4: +75/150 dust per hero, +10/15 dust per combined level of all heroes on empire, and -50%/75% hero upkeep
    • No change to Umbral Choir version
  • 5: +20%/30% FIDS on systems with governors
  • 6: +25%/33% damage on fleets with admirals
• MILITARIST
  • 0: Vanilla effect, but approval effect is now +30/45 binary if at war (not per war) and -10 if not at war
  • 1: No change
  • 2: Same as vanilla, but with upkeep reduction buffed from -15%/20% to -25%/33%
  • 3: Same as vanilla
  • 4: +30% manpower and +40% manpower deployment on fleets
  • 5: +1%/1.5% FIDS per 500 manpower on each system, up to a max of 25% FIDS
  • 6: Previous T4 law moved to this slot, with effects reduced from 33%/50% to 25%/30%
• Faction-Specific Changes
  • Lumeris quest laws no longer require support from Industrialist and Ecologist parties, respectively

Government Balancing

• Shortened Anarchy duration to 2 turns on Normal (1 turn on Fast) vs 5 in vanilla
• Propaganda constructible now available for all government types
  • Unlocked for parties in the senate with HyperPACs
  • Unlocked for all parties on SLC
• Dictatorship
  • Senator effect multiplier is increased from 1.5x to 2x
  • Buffed dictatorship-specific mandatory laws
    • Industrialist: +2 industry per pop
    • Ecologist: +2 food per pop
    • Religious: +2 influence per pop
    • Pacifist: 10% building buyout cost reduction
    • Militarist: +2 system manpower per pop
• Federation
  • Buffed from -20% to -25% luxury cost for system development upgrade
• Democracy
  • Increased law upkeep cost reduction to 1/6 per political party represented among active laws, vs 1/10 in vanilla

Fleet Combat Changes

• Prudent positions weapon damage reduction effect reduced from 35% to 25%
• Prudent Positions removed from tech tree and added to curiosity discovery
• Instead of Prudent Positions, Temporal Drag has been added to the same place in the tech tree and removed from curiosities
• Hopeless battle tactic limit for a single flotilla is increased from 20 to 25 command points
• Buffed Flak efficiency against squadrons from 6.5% to 9%
• Improved Flotilla Shield (Antimatter flotilla shield) module moved to Antimatter Channeling technology and removed from curiosities
• Delayed H Repair Bots module module moved to Science & Exploration Technology Quadrant Stage unlock 3 and removed from curiosities
• Flotilla shield module shield amounts have been increased by 50% across the board
• Annihilator Beam Deed reward weapon module nerfed to remove base critical chance
• Deployable Ramparts Deed reward siege module effect is reworked to be the same as the sieging module and tier 2 crew module combined
• Base protector and hero ship health increased to 3000 and 3500 from 2500 and 3000
• Buffed manpower modules
  • Tier 1: From +50 to +100 max manpower and from +25 to +50 offensive deployment limit
  • Tier 2: From +100 to +125 max manpower
  • Tier 3: From +100 to +150 max manpower
• Tier 3 Cloaking module is now locked to only Hero ships
• Base manpower defense against enemy weapons (% on all defense modules) is increased from 5% to 10%.
  • In accordance with this change adamantian plating manpower defense against enemy weapons is increased from 15% to 20%
• Some defense modules have been adjusted
  • Slight nerf on tier 3 white plating module
  • Titanium plating health bonuses are reduced
  • Tier 4 plating defense module values have been slightly tweaked. Unfallen and United Empire unique versions have been buffed slightly
• Morale effect has been buffed from 10% to 15% additional evasion and accuracy

AI Improvements

• AI will now use niche modules in the correct situation (EMPs, Blast Effect Battery, etc.)
• The AI will now use a greater variety of battle tactics

New Custom Faction Traits

• Added Cheat Trait Category
• Add Map Reveal traits
• Added traits that prevent expansion (Either colonization or conquest)
• Nature-Loving (Faction Trait) [-5]
  • This faction has a great appreciation for natural beauty, increasing Approval but causing land to be more sparsely settled.
  • Effects:
    • +5 Approval on Planets
    • -1 Max Population on Planets
    • -1 Max Population on Fertile
  • (Incompatible with Shipbound and Crowded Planets)
• Exotic Gourmands (Faction Trait) [10]
  • This faction has a fine taste for mineral-based foods, eschewing many organic meals.
  • Effects:
    • +5 Food per Population on Sterile
    • +5 Food per Population on Gas
    • -5 Food per Population on Fertile
  • (Incompatible with Riftborn)
• Deep Space Exploiters II (Faction Trait) [5/10]
  • This faction has an affinity for the oddities found in deep space, greatly increasing yields from Special Nodes.
  • Effects:
    • +100%/+200% FIDSI from Special Nodes
  • (Incompatible with In the Shadows)
• Cheap Behemoths (Faction Trait) [-10]
  • Skimping on quality, Behemoths are produced more quickly but have reduced structural integrity and increased maintenance costs.
  • Effects:
    • -30% Behemoth Industry Production cost
    • -20% Max Health on Behemoths
    • +20% Dust Upkeep on Behemoths
• Control Freaks (Faction Trait) [10]
  • This faction flourishes when in control of a constellation.
  • Effects:
    • +100% Constellation control bonus
  • (Incompatible with In the Shadows)
• Technologically Inept (Faction Trait) [-15]
  • This faction struggles with the technological know-how required for hacking.
  • Effects:
    • -1 Maximum Hacking Operations on Empire
  • (Incompatible with Organic Network)
• Socially Aware (Faction Trait) [5]
  • The people of this faction are capable of more easily detecting the oddities of behavior that can characterize Sleepers.
  • Effects:
    • -50% Sleeper Reintegration Duration
• Covert Smugglers (Faction Trait) [20]
  • This faction employs skilled yet less-than-scrupulous pilots for its internal freighters.
  • Effects:
    • Empire Systems Blockaded still produce Strategic and Luxury Resources.
• Hero Worship (Faction Trait) [20]
  • This faction’s long focus on heroics in its entertainment media serves to entice more Heroes from the Academy.
  • Effects:
    • x0.8 Unlock Points required for next Hero.
• Strategically Inclined II (Faction Trait) [10/20]
  • A history of aggressive yet meticulous mining efforts leads to this faction being skilled in exploiting strategic resource deposits.
  • Effects:
    • +0.5/+1 Deposit Value on Strategic Resource Deposits
• Luxuriously Inclined II (Faction Trait) [10/20]
  • Always in search of increasing comforts, this faction has an affinity for harvesting luxury resources.
  • Effects:
    • +0.5/+1 Deposit Value on Luxury Resource Deposits
• Big Gun Diplomacy III (Faction Trait) [5/10/15]
  • Speak softly, and carry heavy weaponry.
  • Effects:
    • +1/+2/+3 Influence per Heavy Module on Empire
• State Administration (Faction Trait) [-25]
  • As a result of its history of decentralized government, this faction is incapable of enforcing much in the way of empire-wide legislation.
  • Effects:
    • -1 Law Slot on Senate
  • (Incompatible with Core Administration)
• Core Administration (Faction Trait) [25]
  • This faction strives for centralized government and can more easily maintain empire-wide legislation.
  • Effects:
    • +1 Law Slot on Senate
  • (Incompatible with State Administration)
• Sedentary [-25]
  • Despite your factions best "efforts", succesful colony ships are just not possible.
  • Effects:
    • May not build colony ships
• Lands of the Enemy [-15]
  • Sacred tradition demands that you may not occupy enemy territory.
  • Effects:
    • May not occupy territory after winning ground battles
• War Desecration [15]
  • Sending out probes to "recover" enemy soldiers after battle is an effective way to get cheap manpower.
  • Effects:
    • +20 Empire Manpower per CP Destroyed

Other Custom Faction Changes

• AI Traits are now colored Blue
• Two new AI Traits, Vengeful (Doesn't forgive wars) and Impassive (Quickly forgives wars)
• Added Icons to Faction Traits
• Fixed Custom Faction bug when no AI traits were selected
• Hissho and Vaulters innate colonization cap malus was moved to its own trait
• Removed +4 Influence on Cold Population Trait that was causing errors and wasn't intended to be in the game
• Raised cost of Vodyani and Riftborn visual affinity
• Increased cost of Mezari Collection Bonus (5 -> 10)
• Changed costs of faction traits:
  • Involuntary Nomads (10 -> 25)
  • Core Worlds (5 -> 15)
  • Material Expertise (10 -> 20)
  • Corsairs (5 -> 10)
  • Eternal War (-15 -> -20)
  • Ghosts (10 -> 25)
  • Organic Network (5 -> 15)
  • Mining Experts (5 -> 45)
  • Biophobic (10 -> 20)
  • Fledgling Traders 1 (-10 -> -5)
  • Fledgling Traders 2 (-15 -> -10)
  • Ethereal Metabolism (10 -> 20)
  • Food at Home (5 -> 20)
  • Scavenger's Code (5 -> 20)
  • Optimistic 2 (25 -> 20)

Version 1.5

Bugfixes

• Fixed AI not researching / producing military ships
• Fixed minor civilization military ship spawns being stronger in some cases on Normal than on Hard
• Fixed several tooltips with misspellings / no text
• Fixed Papers Please hero skill scaling backwards in Dictatorship (IE, it actually did nothing, instead of twice as much)
• Fixed hero skill that is +10 industry per anomaly only getting a free +10 flat industry in Dictatorship
• Fixed Conscription Genius's system manpower not scaling at all in Dictatorship
• Fixed vanilla bug whereby Optics Research Labs science did not show up in tooltip, despite being correctly included in the total
• Fixed outposts completing in 1 turn with minor-pop-only growth law enabled
• Fixed accidental overwrite of Vodyani T1 industrialist law from ESG 1.3.1
• Fixed vanilla bug in hero skill providing +6 industry per population
• Fixed vanilla bug with Academy system +5 XP only applying to governor of that system
• Fixed Hissho version of Sacrifice Guardian action lasting 10 turns on Normal (vs 3 in ESG)
• Fixed Bhagaba faction trait (diplomacy cost reduction) stacking improperly per peace
• Fixed passive explorer cloaking ability being available without Penumbra DLC
• Fixed GUI bug for variables referring to "Number of anomalies on system", which always (in all contexts) are truly calculating as "number of planets with 1 or more anomalies"
• Fixed AI bug whereby they would build entire fleets of (weaponless) core crackers
• Fixed Eternal War trait enabling peaceful negotiation for any non-Militarist parties (vs only for Pacifists)
• Fixed bug whereby core crackers could be cloaked by merging or retrofitting into cloaked fleets
• Fixed bug whereby En Passant battle tactic had no effect (now refills ship movement)
• Fixed bug whereby certain settings could be toggled mid-game
• Made GUI Elements for all SuperAffinity populations
• Removed unfixable, bugged minor civilization assimilation quest to take control of a planet adjacent to their home
• Fixed 'Occupy' ground battle outcome being selectable for privateered fleets (in vanilla would default to Raze anyway)
• Fixed Magnate's Council effect on Ecstatic not displaying in GUI
• Fixed industry conversion constructibles not converting overflow industry
• Fixed SD4 +10% FIDSI effect not applying to industry
• Fixed Amoeba Groupthink assimilation trait applying influence bonus on outposts in addition to colonies
• Removed unusable squadron slots from minor civilization hunter designs

GUI Improvements

• End-game victory screen changes
  • Population: Total Population + Population Types -> Total Population
  • Heroes: Hero Count + Total Hero Levels -> Hero Count
  • Trade: Trade Science + Trade Dust -> Trade Dust
  • Technology: Total Technologies + Total Science Production -> Total Technologies
• Added note to GUI for ship modules that are locked to one per ship
• Reworked Settings Screen
  • Fixed the naming of many settings to make them consistent with the standard ES2 title case
  • Added more in-depth descriptions to many settings
  • Tied anomaly/curiosity count to galaxy size rather than independent settings
  • Replaced anomaly/curiosity count settings with anomaly additional settings
  • Moved all ESG settings to ESG Settings tab
  • Rescaled and clarified labels for minor civilization setting
  • Rescaled and clarified labels for overcolonization cap setting
  • Added toggle for ability to trade technologies
  • Added toggle for population migration
  • Added toggle for Academy expansion
• Reworked Faction Selection Screen
  • Nakalim will now always be placed before Umbral Choir on Faction Selection
  • Nakalim "Renegade" AI Personality Trait replaced with "Benevolent"
  • Nakalim Player Difficulty Rating changed to Advanced (from Expert)
  • Vaulter Player Difficulty Rating changed to Advanced (from Normal)
  • Unfallen Player Difficulty Rating changed to Normal (from Advanced)
  • Horatio AI Difficulty Rating changed to Expert (from Normal)
  • Unfallen AI Difficulty Rating changed to Advanced (from Normal)
  • Riftborn AI Difficulty Rating changed to Expert (from Advanced)
  • UE AI Difficulty Rating changed to Expert (from Advanced)
  • Lumeris AI Difficulty Rating changed to Advanced (from Normal)
  • Umbral Choir AI Difficulty Rating changed to Normal (from Expert)
  • Bug with Nakalim not having their Population Traits editable has been fixed
  • Fixed Traits that reveal the galaxy from revealing invisible quest nodes (Nakalim)
  • Replaced Colorblind Palette with Saturated Palette
• Clarified build costs of system development upgrades (industry, rather than turn-based)
• Added indicators to special nodes for the strategic resources and technology cost reductions generated with behemoths
• Enabled system-level approval to display values of >100%, but values are still capped at 100% for calculation of empire average
• Clarified GUI for Riftborn singularities blocking production queue but not consuming industry
• Explicated GUI for Vodyani essence (separated effects of Blood from Stones and Alms for Essence in Empire essence breakdown)
• Added new loading tooltips with more helpful and more up to date information
• Made Virtual Artifacts' tooltip scale with gamespeed
• Fixed coloration and icons of several modules to align with their strategic resource costs

General Mechanics Changes

• Re-Reworked Immigration mechanic
  • Increased food dedicated to immigration from 50% to 70% (vs 25% in vanilla)
  • Vanilla migration score: Approval * (1+ [free pop slots] * 0.15) * (1-0.75 * [# Wars]/[# Playerss]) * (1.02 - [EconomyRanking] x 0.02)
  • ESG 1.4 migration score: (Approval * 0.4) * (1+ [free pop slots] * 0.05) * (1-0.75 * [# Wars]/[# Playerss])
  • ESG 1.5 migration score: (Approval * 0.4 + [System Level] * 5 ) * (1+ [free pop slots] * 0.02) * (1-0.75 * [# Wars]/[# Playerss])
• Removed major faction populations from curiosity population droplists
• Removed "explore all curiosities" curiosity
• Prevented vanilla exploit/bug of factions being able to colonize a system that is blockaded by another faction (Lumeris are exempted from this change, as blockade breakers)
• Minor civilizations are now harder to convert, both by force and influence
  • All diplomatic means (praise/bribe, exploring curiosities, hacking) of influencing minors are half as effective as vanilla
  • Minor factions will spawn more and higher-quality ships, particularly on Hard minor civilization difficulty
  • Minor faction assimilation quests and major faction main quests related to minors have also been rebalanced and rescaled accordingly
  • Minor systems will develop more effectively, such that when eventually assimilated they will provide higher-quality systems (IE, more population and star system improvements; no change to their spawns of planets, anomalies or resources)
• Enabled retrofitting on and retreating to pirate systems if in alliance with them
• Capped technology cost and building cost reductions at -75% each (vs -90% and -95% in vanilla)
• Enabled unlock of ship designs when ships are received as quest rewards
• Garrisoned ships now receive -50% dust upkeep and +20% health regeneration
• Fighter AI is adjusted so that all Fighters will attack enemy ships (rather than protecting against enemy bombers)
• Changed starting influence for all factions from 10 to 15 (including Horatio, which previously started with 50), to enable initial passage of T2 laws
• Increased economic (Dust) victory threshold to 1 million (from 700k)
• Modestly buffed industry and food generated from passing trade routes
• Various AI improvements
  • Gave AI Additional Siege Damage per CP (scaling with difficulty)
  • Increased Unfallen vining speed (scaling with difficulty)
  • Made Hissho AI unable to commit FIDS seppuku by building colony ships or outposts if doing so would cause them to go beyond their Overcolonization Cap
• Reduced goal of Dark Matter quest to injure heroes from 3 to 1

Siege Module Changes

• Siege modules all now require "fuels" rather than "metals" (ex: for tier 1, titanium replaced with hyperium)
• New antimatter siege module created which kills 50 defensive manpower per turn, and added to Universal Aerodynamics technology
• Quadrinix (formerly orichalcix) siege module moved to the War as a Hobby technology, instead of being in a curiosity

Fleet Changes

• Fixed evasion mechanic, which does work as intended in vanilla
  • Vanilla GUI suggests that a ship's accuracy is equal to [weapon's accuracy at current range] + [accuracy bonuses] - [target's evasion]
  • Vanilla actual calculations effectively provide only 50% benefit from all evasion effects
  • ESG rework corrects the calculation, such that evasion is now given full credit for the numbers stated in the GUI
• Rebalanced certain weapon modules
  • Buffed efficiency of flak against squadrons by 200% relative to ESG 1.4.1 (cumulative buff of 700% vs vanilla, from 2.5% to 20%)
  • Buffed DPS of railguns by 10%
  • Buffed short-range accuracy of lasers by 10% from 50% to 60%
  • Reduced missile cooldown and damage by 50% (no net impact on DPS) to reduce inefficiency of overkill
  • Buffed swarm missile salvo health by 10%
  • Reduced strategic plasma and kinetic bomber dodge and crit probabilities, respectively from 50% to 25%, but buffed health and damage, respectively, by 50% to offset (minimal change to effective health and damage, but less subject to abuse through stacking of each effect)
• Adjusted "per CP destroyed" scrap modules
  • Halved the effects of all such modules (science, dust and influence)
  • Moved hyperium analyzer module to the tech tree (T3 science stage unlock) from curiosity droplist
  • Moved adamantian recycler from military quadrant to economy quadrant (Impactless Sites)
• Restricted EMP Turret Recovery module to only 1 per ship to avoid stacking of crit chance
• Battle Tactics changes
  • Removed Temporal Drag and Prudent Positions tactics due to their differential impact on squadrons
  • Moved Collateral Damage to tech tree in position previously occupied by Temporal Drag
• Created hard floor for core cracker charge time reductions to 2 turns
• Ship costs no longer scale with military tech stage, but higher tier modules are more expensive
  • Main white weapons unlocked with each tech tier have an industry cost (on Normal speed) of 20/50/80/110/140 for T1-5 modules
  • Defense modules cost 50% of weapons at each tier
  • Strategic weapon and defense modules have industry costs of 1 tier below their respective tier
  • Bomber modules have industry costs of 1 tier above their respective tier
  • No changes to support modules
• Pirate changes
  • Gave pirates the ability to use wormholes and free move
  • Lowered the overall amount of support slots of pirate ships to ~2 (replaced with defense slots)
  • Changed a weapon slot on the Pillager class into a defense slot
  • Made the Stilio-class less flexible (turned most mixed slots into either support OR defense slots)
• Health changes
  • Reduced base health of carriers, coordinators and hunters from 30k, 10.4k and 7.5k to 20k, 9k and 6k, respectively
  • Increased bonus health of defense modules by ~33% to partially compensate and increase the value of defense slots
• Reworked titanium and adamantian colonizers, by adding 3 and 6 movement speed, respectively (no change to vanilla effects)

Reworked Seek the Unique Quest Rewards

• Nerfed OP Scavenged Ramscoop engine to remove +25% movement effect, but increased from 3 to 4 movement points
• Replaced worthless probe regen module (alternative path to Scavenged Ramscoop) with effect providing +5 vision range but disabling decloaking on its fleet
• Replaced +50% science and industry reward with +5 approval on Empire per system with unique planet and governor
• Reworked empire-wide per pop bonuses from +2 to +1 per Original Empire Population (science/industry for one questline, and food/dust for other questline)
• Buffed reward providing +X% dust per assimilation on Empire from 2% to 5%
• Fixed bug whereby quest would skip multiple chapters for certain factions

Citadel Star System Improvement Cost Changes

• All 4 T5 citadel buildings had industry costs reduced from 4480 to 2240, in-line with improvement rework in 1.4
• Advanced System Battery: Upkeep reduced from 96 to 64
• Scientific-Military Complex: From 25 orichalcix to 5 orichalcix and 5 quadrinix
• Weaponized System: From 25 to 5 quadrinix

Deeds Changes

• Rewards
  • Sonic Disruption Net
    • Strategic cost removed
    • Industry cost reduced from 1120 to 560
    • Effect buffed from +30 to +60 defensive manpower per pop and from 1250 to 2500 automatic damage to attacker
  • Dust and influence per science building effects have been buffed from 15 and 15 to 50 and 25, respectively
  • Diplomacy cost reduction reward has added effect of +1 Overcolonization cap
  • -50% terraformation cost reward has added effect of +1 movement on ships
  • Early Economy and Science quadrant rewards have been lowered from 2000 to 1000 dust or 75 to 50 T1 strategic resources
  • Endless Research Park science and dust reduced from +20% and +15% to +10% and +5% on Devoted and Loyal, respectively (no change to approval effect)
• Objectives
  • "Pass a law from all 6 political parties" objective has been lowered to 5
  • "Convert 3 systems via influence conversion" has been replaced with "employ a hero from all 6 political parties"
  • "Research 40 Technologies" requirement has been raised to 50

Government Changes

• Doubled efficacy of propaganda
• Craver Autocracy Buffs
  • Elections will now occur twice as often, thereby enabling more rapid law unlocks
• Dictatorship Buffs
  • Added new T5 and T6 laws to enable later-game scaling in-line with other governments (see laws section)
  • +25% XP on heroes, so that changing parties will be less likely to result in the loss of all senator skills
• Federation Rework
  • Removed effect of +1 overcolonization cap per hero
  • Added +2 flat overcolonization cap, as well as double benefit from both overcolonization technologies
  • Increased system development cost reduction from -25% to -33%
  • Added effect of no disapproval generated by representatives from out-of-power political parties
  • Election Actions now have costs scaling with population (10 per pop) vs with system count (150)
• Republic Election Actions now have costs scaling with population vs with system count
  • Less powerful action is 15 dust per pop
  • More powerful action is 25 dust per pop
  • Effect of inflation is cube-rooted, consistent with other mechanics

Added new Arcological Administration constructible

• Design goal is to provide a "sink" for excess influence that would otherwise be worthless for most factions
• Constructible can be added to the production queue for any system, with a progressively escalating influence cost
• Initial cost is 6k influence (on Normal), with an increase of 6k for each time the constructible has been built empire-wide
• Constructible effect is to provide +10% FIDS on the system in which it is built
  • A few factions (Umbral Choir, Hissho and United Empire) have a less potent version (3% FIDS) for balance reasons
• Constructible can be built multiple times on each system, to ensure that excess influence can always be spent productively

Tech Tree Changes

• Titanium and Hyperium weapons: Ships will receive +1 action point per turn
  • Full Reserves battle tactic will also now provide +2 action points instead of +1
• Adaptive Colonies: +25% initial planet FIDS on all systems
• Pev-Scale Accelerators:
  • "Normal" (Outpost) factions: +10 food per turn on outposts
  • Vodyani, Vaulters, Riftborn and Unfallen: +3 movement speed on Arks, Argosy, Colonizers and Vineships
  • UC: -50% bandwidth cost of transmigration beacons
• HyperPACs:
  • "Normal" (Outpost) factions: +0.5 deposit value on luxury deposits on outposts
  • Other factions: +0.25 deposit value on all luxury deposits
• SLC Systems:
  • Unlocks Arcological Administration Constructible
• Enabled unlock of mercenary (AKA "pirate") ship designs, which can be used for Privateering
  • Attacker hull on Deep Space Personnel System
  • Hunter hull on Deniable Operations
• Anomaly Changes
  • Moved Anomaly Reduction from Ontological Rev-Eng to Climate Engineering
  • Merged Advanced Baryonics into Ontological Rev-Eng
• Moved Settings-tied terraformation changes to more appropriate places in the tech tree

Law Changes

• As in 1.4, notation of X/Y refers to effects in Normal/Republic version of each law
• Initial law passage costs reworked to be triple a turn's upkeep for that law, vs 30% of empire net influence output per law level in ESG (20% in vanilla)
• Both population growth laws (major-only and minor-only) changed to only -10 approval on systems, with no approval penalty per pop
• Independent laws' political experience requirements are rescaled in accordance with the changes to party laws
• Pacifist
  • Tier 1: In addition to current effect (diplomacy cost reduction) added effect of +100/150 damage dealt to attacker in ground battle per pop
  • Tier 3: Effect replaced with +15/25 approval flat, and +1/1.5 per luxury deposit on Empire
  • Tier 4: In addition to current effects, added effect of blockade breakers (removed from Tier 0 law)
  • Tier 5: Effect replaced with +20/30% FIDS on any system along a trade route (including the HQ and subsidiary themselves)
  • Tier 6: In addition to current effect, added effect of +25/33% troop health when defending
• Ecologist
  • Tier 1: From 5/10% to 10/20% food per anomaly (no change to +10/20 flat food per anomaly)
    • Vodyani have alternate version with same % effect, but flat 20/40 flat essence per anomaly
  • Tier 2: Effect replaced with +20/33% population collection II FIDSI effects and (for non-Craver, non-Riftborn populations) +15/25% population bonuses
    • Vodyani have alternate version which preserves population boost cost reduction effect, and adds +100/150% effect of population collection bonus II (IE, +5/7.5% FIDSI)
    • No change to UC alternate version
  • Tier 3: Effect replaced with -50/75% disapproval from planets and +10/15 per fertile
  • Tier 4: No change to version for most factions
    • Rescaled Horatio per splice version with splice costs from 3/6% to 2/3%
    • Vodyani version reworked to +3/5% science and industry per planet on system
  • Tier 6: Reworked from 20% penetration to 20% absorption (both hull plating and shield), and added 100% repair after battle effect
• Religious
  • Tier 4: Effect replaced with 2/2.5x senator skill effects
• Militarist
  • Tier 5: Buffed to 1% FIDS per 250 system manpower vs per 500 in 1.4
• Dictatorship-specific Independent
  • Tier 5 (New): -10 approval, but +1% FIDS per approval over 100, to a max of 20%
    • Hissho alternate version: +50% behemoth upkeep, but +1 behemoth cap
  • Tier 6 (New): +25% fleet upkeep, but -20% cooldown on weapons

Behemoth Changes

• Made general ship cost reductions not apply to behemoths
• Added movement to building cost reduction modules to reduce micro
• Mining Probes
  • Adjusted new level 2 scientist probes law so that it no longer applies to behemoth mining probes
  • Fixed bug/exploit of behemoth probe durations being additive across all probe modules on a behemoth (IE, in vanilla, a behemoth with 5 probe modules with duration of 10 each would have a duration of 50 on all of its probes); now each probe will last as long as its stated value on the module (or an average thereof, in the case of a behemoth which mixes multiple probe module types)
  • Made mining probe duration and regeneration scale with gamespeed
  • To partially offset the above, increased durations of mining probe modules by 50% and 100% for Hissho and all other factions, respectively
• Climatology
  • Generation of strategic resources on special nodes now applies to Rejuvenation Fields, which now generate titanium and hyperium
• Science Modules
  • Basic science module reduced from 50 to 30 flat science
  • Initial analyzer module reworked from flat science, dust and influence of 50, 50 and 20 to 0, 100 and 25, respectively.
  • Intermediate science module reduced from 100 to 50 flat science (no change to -1% tech cost per module)

Luxury Changes

• Added the flat effect of each Tier 1 FIDSI luxury to the respective Tier 2 FIDSI luxuries
• Reduced by 25% (from 20/40/60 to 15/30/45) the amount of each tier 2 luxury required for system development (also applies to Material Expertise)
• Red Sang
  • For Vodyani, replaced food effects with essence, but at reduced numbers of +20 flat instead of +30
• Superspuds:
  • Removed -15% vanilla buyout reduction effect (poor early-game, but overpowered if repeatedly stacked) and
  • Added effects of +25% trade yields and +0.5 deposit value on luxury resources
• Hydromielver
  • Increased base effect from +3 to +4 food
  • For Vodyani, replaced food effects with essence, but at reduced numbers of +20 flat and +2 per pop instead of +30/+4 per pop
• Proto-Orchid
  • Increased base effect from +3 to +4 dust
• Gossamer:
  • Removed worthless vanilla trade-to-influence effect
  • Added effects of +50% trade yields and -25% system upkeep
• N-P Artifacts:
  • Nerfed from +2 to +1 approval per pop
• Endless Foundries
  • Reduced from 10% per system level to 7.5% per system level
• Proto-Spores
  • Reduced from 10% per system level to 7.5% per system level
• Benthic Gems:
  • Buffed from +10 to +15 approval per system level
• Drift Buds:
  • Restored to vanilla effect of +100% trade yields (removed prior ESG effect of buyout reductions)
  • Added effect of -10% market taxes on empire per usage of Drift Buds on a system (maximum reduction of -90% total)

Hacking Changes

• Disabled offensive hacking operations (but not defensive hacking programs) by pirates, minor civilizations, and the Academy
• Hacking speeds rescaled by GameSpeed, with Normal, Slow and Endless hacking speeds reduced by 37.5% (no change to Fast). Therefore, hacking on Fast is now 100% faster than Normal, in-line with other Gamespeed adjustments.
• Immobilize Fleets outcome duration increased from 1 to 4 turns on Normal (2 on Fast), now that defensive programs on the capital can block it

Building Changes

• Buffed Adaptive Colonies food effects from +10% to +15% and +10 to +20 per planet
• Removed antimatter cost (10 in ESG 1.4) from Interspecies Cooperative, Xhiyun Cartel and Smart Tax Collection
• Autonomous Administration influence cost grows linearly with each built on Empire (1k for first, 2k for second, etc)
• Reworked effect of Interspecies Cooperative from +10% dust per friendly major faction to +2 deposit value on luxury deposits

Heroes Rework

• All hero ships now start the game with no empty module slots
• Reworked and rebalanced hero skills. Below are the skills as of ESG 1.4:
• Skills updated in 1.5 are as follows:
• Keywords (for searches): Unfallen, Riftborn, Umbral Choir, Sohpons, Horatio, Vaulter, Vodyani, Lumeris, United Empire, Hissho, Generic, Seeker, Guardian, Overseer, Counselor, Primatives, Technologist, Savenger, Eusocial

Diplomacy and influence rework

• Significantly increased influence cost of Declare War and renamed vanilla version to Surprise Declare War
• Added new option to Declare War for significantly reduced influence cost, but only after providing Warning to the enemy
  • Added 2 related diplomatic options called Warning (costs 30 influence) and Prepare for War (free)
  • Warning lasts 10 turns on Normal and enables Prepare for War action
  • Prepare for War action unlocks lower-cost Declare War, but only upon the expiration of the initial Warning waiting period (for example, a player could initially send a Warning, then also use the Prepare for War action, and then 10 turns later Declare War at greatly reduced cost)
  • Militarist automatic law no longer enables free Declare War; instead, provides a Warning period that is only half as long
• Significantly increased (roughly doubled) influence costs for most peaceful diplomatic options
• Added new constructible, Praise, which reduces peaceful diplomacy costs by 50%, but doubles costs for hostile diplomacy
• Dramatically buffed yields and maximum output from Science Agreements
• Enabled unlock of Alliances with Adaptive Bureaucracies instead of HyperPACs
• Reworked Cooperation Protocols (Faction Pacts)
  • Enabled unlock with HyperPACs instead of Perfect Negotiations
  • Enabled to be used in Peace as well as Alliances
  • Rebalanced yields by faction and added their effects to tooltips for each faction's affinity

Food rework

• Added setting to enable conversion of excess food that would otherwise be entirely wasted
  • Excess food is defined as that which is above what is needed to generate both the current population AND the next population (so that food is still able to overflow into producing the next population)
  • Conversion to dust is unlocked with 25% each on Astrofinance and Dust Micro Loans (50% total if both are unlocked)
  • Conversion to manpower is unlocked with 25% each on High-Energy Magnetics and Deniable Operations (50% total if both are unlocked)
• Setting also contains a third option to fully balance population scaling across Gamespeeds
  • ESG factions are balanced around the Fast Gamespeed, as that is what is used in competitive matches
  • Conceptually, 1 turn on Fast corresponds to the economic activity of 2 turns on Normal, 3 on Slow, and 4 on Endless (Fleet activity is the primary aspect that is not intended to scale)
  • Therefore, the setting (if enabled) ensures that population can only increment every 2 turns on Normal, 3 turns on Slow and 4 on Endless

Minor Faction Changes

• Replaced horrific (actively counterproductive?) Remnant Concentrated Constructors II improvement destruction probability with 5 dust per CP recycling
• Buffed Concentrated Constructors I by adding -25% construction cost on unique buildings in addition to wonders
• Nerfed Galvran technology cost reduction from 10% to 5%
• Made Behemoth Awe influence generation trait not apply to outposts

Major Faction Changes

• Umbral Choir
  • Removed Ambusher T3 Cloaking module for UC only (for whom it did nothing, since the technology already auto-cloaks their ships at T3)
  • Strategic resource generation star system improvements now provide +1 deposit value on sanctuary systems
  • Overcolonization penalties increased from 20 to 30 per system
  • Transmigration beacon charge time no longer scales with GameSpeed, to align timing with ship movement scaling
  • Ghost Crew -80% ship manpower trait now applies to 50% expanded ship manpower from hull upgrades
  • T4 Empire Unique building cost reworked to 4080 production, 10 antimatter, 10 adamantian and effect reworked from +2 influence to +1 approval per Umbral Shadow
  • Special node beacon effects reworked as follows:
    • Nebular Clouds: from 7.5% evasion to 3%
    • Black Hole: No change to move effect
    • Solar nebula: Replaced upkeep reduction with +10% shield capacity
    • Asteroid field: Replaced retrofit cost reduction effect with +10% health
    • Collapsing star: Replaced XP effect with +5% critical hit chance
    • Neutron star: Replaced vision range effect with +7.5% accuracy
    • Rejuvenation field: Increased fleet regeneration effect from 5% to 50%
  • Quest has been reworked as follows
    • All chapter 3 laws converted into empire improvements given the law rework
    • Peacemaker goal adjusted to choose a sleeper system target closer to the player's starting location
    • Chapter 2 Scientist goal adjusted to choose a special node target closer to the player's starting location
    • Keywords (for searches): Self-Surveiller module, Wildlife Unit module, Accelerated Neuronics bonus, No Idle Hands law, Influencer's Paradise law, Screen Doors Bill law, Bandwidth Interferometry bonus, Peacemaker bonus, Burning Metal law
• United Empire
  • Removed circularity (including potential for infinite loop) from influence buyouts also generating influence from completed constructions. Specifically, system industry now generates influence, rather than being tied to completed constructions
  • Given above change (and general balance issues) reduced size of influence bubbles by 40%
  • Locked Emperor flotilla defense module to be only 1 per ship and Coordinator/Protector only
• Hissho
  • Made Roostguard Shield give 1000 Shield Capacity on Flotilla, 60 Absorption, and 5% Morale Bonus (it had no effects previously)
  • Buffed faction-specific siege module from 13 to 30 system MP destroyed per turn, in-line with overall rework of siege modules
• Unfallen
  • Starts with an Amblyr population on capital
  • New trait (Harmonious): +2 approval per Population Collection Bonus tier on Empire
  • New trait (Mutual Understanding): Draft Provides 400 Manpower, +20% Fleet Damage in Friendly Territory
  • Reworked Grove of Meditation passive empire improvement from +10% dust and science per Friendly major faction to +150 Defensive Troop damage and +30 defensive manpower capacity per pop
  • Buffed Hunter by converting 2 defense-only modules into defense/support modules
  • Reduced difficulty of ships that must be killed in quest chapter Fire and Light part 2
  • Buffed quest-provided system to be comparable from those received in other faction quests
  • Reworked quest beams module from 185 to 200 raw damage, from 2 to 4 additional manpower damage per hit, and added opponent accuracy penalty effect (similar to other hyperium weapons), but removed 15% additional critical chance
  • Planet colonization time reduced to 1 turn for all planet types
  • T4 Empire Unique building cost reworked to 4080 production, 10 antimatter, 10 adamantian and effect buffed from influence per peace/alliance to +20 Approval, +30% influence and +100% manpower capacity
• Lumeris
  • Faction-specific version of Pulvis Production building buffed from +5 to +8 dust per population
  • Outpost cost scaling greatly reduced to 50 dust per incremental system (outpost or colony) vs 100 per system with additional nonlinear scaling
  • Quest reward to shorten anarchy duration replaced with 0.1 influence per dust generated
  • Added passive probe regeneration on empire of +1 per explorer ship to better utilize their passive +1 probe stock
  • Enabled re-colonization of razed systems by placing a colonization module on a scout
  • Final hero skill changed to be +500% food and industry generated from passing trade routes
  • Behemoth module reworked to 50 science and dust recycling per CP and +15% trade income on system
  • Technology providing +1 Command Point per hull type will now provide an extra CP, to account for the lack of a colonizer ship
  • Population Collection Bonus III now has added effect of -5% buyout cost (in addition to vanilla influence effect)
  • T4 Empire Unique building cost reworked to 4080 production, 10 antimatter, 10 adamantian and effect doubled from 5% to 10% FIDSI per Peace or alliance
  • Quest has been reworked and significantly buffed as follows
  • Keywords (for searches): Assimilate -> Cordial status, Explore 50% -> +10 systems, Black Tax Authority building, Pay it Forward law, Safer Streets law, Apolitical Population bonus, Peaceful Life bonus, Dust Oracular building, Dust Excursion building, Capitalist Frenzy building
• Vaulters
  • Start tweaked to now spawn a titanium deposit (of 0 value) contained within a Quest curiosity if there is no pre-existing deposit of titanium adjacent to the Rejuvenation Field
  • Free colonization speed reverted to vanilla (vs 30% nerfs in ESG 1.4), but early buyout cost increased by 30%
  • Max Golden Age duration increased to 16 turns on Normal, to avoid punishment for slower colonization
  • Removed GUI element for non-functional tech cost link between Machine Bacteria and Hardship Bonus Incentives/Graviton Research
  • Simplified formula for Golden Age recharge to 2 /[SystemCount] per turn
  • Fixed bug whereby starting scout would be fitted with 2-move engine
  • Cube-rooted inflation as applied to colonization dust cost (in-line with ESG 1.4 econ rework)
  • Standardized cost of colonization across map sizes
  • Fixed vanilla bug in quest so that final chapter will now give 3 Foundling/Bereaved pop vs 1
  • Remapped Auriga 2.0 strategic resource deposits to correct planet types
  • Replaced initial quest reward option of random luxury with hyperium
  • Lowered the initial quest rewards and requirements proportionally, to 2 buildings and 50 resources instead of 3 and 75
  • Replaced terrible quest XP NAL module with 30 antimatter
  • Replaced the other quest module with 30 adamantian
  • Adjusted OPBOT from a Counselor to an Overseer
  • Added 1 manpower per pop effect to militarist questline manpower building (no change to manpower capacity effect)
  • Adjusted quest science building from 15% and 25 flat per strategic deposit to 10% and 30 flat per depsosit
  • Reduced cost of Filter Barges from 1120 to 780 (between Miner's Union and Expanded Mineshafts, in-line with its effect)
  • Adjusted base population bonus to generate manpower on strategic resource deposits instead of capacity
  • Reduced duration of pirate peace quest objective from 12 turns to 9 on Normal (so it can be done with one massive dose of influence instead of 2)
• Cravers
  • No longer have access to the law which enables only minor populations to grow, for balance reasons
  • Quest hero leveled down to begin at 2 (vs 8 in vanilla) due to much improved Endless skill tree
  • Cost required to increment new population increased by 100
  • For each building with a per population effect that was buffed in ESG 1.4, the Cravers have an alternate version of the building, with the buffs reduced roughly in half, to offset the 250% bonus their population (and 200% for slave populations) receives from such buildings
  • Terraforming costs are reverted to approximately vanilla through new faction trait, Consumptive Caretakers
  • Sower depletion reversal nerfed to 0.1 per turn (0.2 if boosted) to enable fixing an accidental mistake while preventing sustainable slavery
  • T4 Empire Unique building cost reworked to 4080 production, 25 antimatter, 25 adamantian
  • Population Collection Bonus III reworked to provide +2 empire approval per depleted planet in Empire, to enable Cravers to expand into additional systems as their older ones deplete
  • Lowered depletion cap on planets by 27% on average, with larger reductions on larger planets to reduce RNG
    • Huge: from 200 to 130
    • Large: from 180 to 120
    • Medium: from 150 to 110
    • Small: from 120 to 100
    • Tiny: from 100 to 90
    • Husk: Exempted from the change, with no change to depletion cap
  • Applied depletion proportionally for non-enslaved foreign populations (vs a binary switch in vanilla)
    • No change for Craver main population or enslaved populations
    • Depletion percent calculated as [Depletion points] / [Planet max depletion]
    • FIDS penalty calculated as 50% (IE, vanilla effect) x [Depletion percent] (Ex: for a planet with 50 depletion points out of 100, depletion percent would be 50%, for a total FIDS penalty of 25%)
    • Basically, everyone that isn't being enslaved or is actively depleting the planet deals with partial depletion
  • Applied 50% depletion penalty to resource deposit value
  • Replaced quest reward of free forced truce refusal with automatic dust recycling bonus on all ships
  • Removed reduced fleet upkeep trait
• Riftborn
  • Strategic resource requirements for tier 1 singularities are reversed (ex: accelerate time now requires hyperium, instead of titanium)
  • Added constructible, which requires a citadel on a system as a pre-requisite, which negates the FIDSI effects of negative singularities (will not prevent Stasis from freezing production queue, however)
• Horatio
  • Added second engine to starting colonizer
  • Splice bonuses increased by ~+1 of respective resource on average to the following values:
  • Price of Perfection II trait reworked from +10% to +20% industry cost for ships, but +0.5 health and shield per industry cost (scaling with Gamespeed)
  • Incremental food consumption per splice increased from 5% to 10%
  • Quest has been reworked and significantly buffed as follows
    • Chapter 1 quest buildings apply empire-wide (vs system-wide previously) and have added cost of 10 titanium and 10 hyperium
    • Awful 1-planet quest system greatly buffed to 3-planet system with multiple strategic resource deposits
    • Keywords (for searches): Crafted Nutrition Plant unique, Artisinal Excellence Museum unique, Cultural Apogee Center unique, Museum of Manual Efforts bonus, Horatio guardian hero, various FIDSI bonii
• Vodyani
  • T4 Empire Unique building cost reworked to 4080 production, 15 antimatter, 15 adamantian and hero XP effects fixed to apply empire-wide (approval bonus still only applies on the system, but accounts for all heroes in empire)
  • Utopian Infrastructure trait reworked to provide -25% planet unhappiness per system level > 1, instead of +1 approval per pop per system level > 1
  • Detached arks approval reworked from 20 flat to 50 plus 15 per ark level above 1 (ex: 65 at level 2)
  • Enabled assimilation of minor factions by force, by enabling Brainwash action to be used on minors that are actively being leeched and which have 0 system manpower
  • Leecher action can now be activated on enemy outposts (note that the resulting essence gains are generally very poor, due to small food stocks in outposts)
  • Quality-of-life changes
    • Essence cap doubled to reduce micromanagement of "storage" using holy proliferation constructible
    • Base +3 movement added to ark-only modules, to avoid micromanagement of retrofitting with engines + leechers when moving
  • Essence recycling effect now scales with module multiplier, consistent with previous ESG coloration of tooltip
  • Enabled stacking of multiple juggernaut modules per ship
  • Applied guardrails to RNG start of home system
    • Planet spawn will always include exactly one of each of the following (all with equal likelihood):
      • Forest/Atoll/Ocean/Terran
      • Snow/Ash/Steppes/Savannah
      • Lava/Arctic/Ice/Desert
    • System will always have 2-3 Anomalies and 2 loot curiosities of randomly generated types and tiers
    • System will never have any luxury deposits, but will offset with above-average strategic resource spawns
  • Quest reworked
    • Chapter 1.1: Made initial quest pirates spawn always on the same constellation as player
    • Chapter 1.2: Replaced effect of Systemic Oratory (+3/4 influence per planet/temperate) with +50% XP on heroes
    • Chapter 2: Reduced volatility of Tabernacle spawn location
    • Chapter 2 (Religious path): Combined both quest manpower-related rewards (modest +20% generation and worthless +300 empire cap) into 1 reward for conquering the Tabernacle, and buffed both effects to +30% generation and +1000 empire cap
    • Chapter 2 (Rebellious path): Fixed vanilla bug whereby Tabernacle curiosity was explorable with level 3 hero (vs level 5 in tooltip)
    • Chapter 2 (Rebellious path): Replaced reward (now merged into Religious reward) with a new hero spawn
    • Chapter 3 (Religious path): Combined both approval-related rewards (-10 approval required for ecstatic/happy and for content/unhappy) into 1 reward for conquering N+2 major and/or minor capital systems (note that vanilla reward is bugged such that Religious side reward already contains all 4 tiers at the system level, so the only change is at empire-level despite vanilla tooltips indicating otherwise)
    • Chapter 3.1 (Rebellious path): Reward of 1000 dust replaced with the player's choice of 50 each of 2 tier 1 luxuries
    • Chapter 3.2 (Rebellious path): Objective of waiting with non-religious laws replaced with raising 4 systems to system level X+1
    • Chapter 3.2 (Rebellious path): Replaced reward (now merged into Religious reward) with -20% system development cost on empire
    • Chapter 4.1 (Religious path): Replaced diplomatic pressure objective with exploration of a specific curiosity requiring 20 adamantian and level 3 probes
    • Chapter 4.1 (Religious path): Replaced poor vanilla influence building with one providing +1 level and +10% ship health and shield capacity to ships constructed and requiring influence cost of 2000
    • Chapter 4.2 (Religious path): Replaced poor empire improvement related to hero cooldowns with a unique ark module (locked 1 per ark) providing +1 deposit value on resources
    • Chapter 4.1 (Rebellious path): Replaced objective of core-cracking hot planets (disables the quest-line if core crackers disabled) with new goal of adding +10 empire population
    • Chapter 4.1 (Rebellious path): Replaced poor vanilla influence building with one (unique building) providing +2 deposit value on resources and requiring influence cost of 2000
    • Chapter 4.2a (Rebellious path): Chapter related to conquering Academy deleted
    • Chapter 4.2b (Rebellious path): Replaced poor empire improvement related to hero healing with a unique ark module (locked 1 per ark) providing +2 FIDS per population
    • Rewrote significant sections of the quest lore based on the above changes, particularly for the Rebellious path

Version 1.6

1.6 was originally implemented continuously, so some of its features may be present in the ESG 1.5 Mod

Bugfixes

• Misc Bugfixes

  • Fixed an issue where the T4 Science Technology “Climate Engineering” made you unable to build the T2 Science Planetary Upgrade “Exoscience Stations”
  • Fixed an issue with the Darkmatter Quest reward Carrier Ship being unbuildable due to a GUI error
  • Fixed an issue with the same ship being granted despite not having the Command Points to fit it in a fleet
  • Fixed an issue where Deployment Capacity was not scaling properly with Garrison Capacity
  • Fixed an issue where the Driftbuds Luxury Resource was not having its intended effect when used with System Development
  • Fixed an issue where the Virtual Artifacts Luxury Resource was not having its intended effect when used with System Development
  • Fixed an issue where Dust Inflation applied to buying heroes, but not to selling heroes
  • Fixed an issue where the Seeker Innate Science Per Anomaly Skill was applying twice
  • Fixed issue where System Development cost for T3 luxuries was 150 industry instead of 125 industry.
  • Fixed an issue where not all Large Weapon Slots had a Module Multiplier of x2
  • Fixed an issue where Dictatorship’s innate doubling of Senator Skills from was not working properly
  • Fixed researching Climate Engineering making you unable to build Exoscience Stations
  • Fixed Dark Matter reward Academy Carrier being unbuildable due to a GUI error
  • Fixed an issue with the Industrialist Law "New Deal" having a lower Influence cost than other laws of its tier
  • Fixed an issue where Governor Heroes were not properly gaining XP when Buildings were completed, and systems were discovered
  • Fixed a GUI issue where the T4 Science Empire Upgrade "Prompt Pioneering" was not displaying as green-colored, like the other food upgrades
  • Fixed an ESG issue where newly built ships would only have 1 Action Point, even if they should have multiple
  • Fixed an ESG issue where the "Consumptive Caretakers" Faction Trait made anomaly reduction/enhancement Free instead of more Expensive
  • Fixed an ESG issue where the Deed to complete 10 Quests was auto-completing upon being unlocked due to various behind the scenes aspects of Balanced Galaxy Generation and related workings.
    • This was done by replacing the Deed with the Military Deed "Level a Hero to level 11", and replacing the Military Deed with "Have a ship with at least 1,000 Offensive Power".
  • Fixed an issue where the Deed requiring you to pass laws from 5 different Political Parties was instead requiring 6.

• Building and Constructible Bugfixes

  • Fixed an issue where “Craft Guilds” would be available for construction on systems with no luxury deposits
  • Fixed an issue where certain Faction Specific buildings prevented OTHER Faction Specific Buildings from being constructed (in the case of invasions/influence conversions)
  • Fixed an exploit with “Arcological Administrations” where queuing up multiple simultaneously would alleviate the escalating Influence price
  • Fixed an issue where “Autonomous Administration” was improperly scaling with Galaxy Size
  • Fixed an issue with “Endless Research Park and EndlessWorld” being constructible before reaching T2 Empire
  • Fixed an issue with various inconsistencies with ship role icons
  • Fixed an issue where the Industry Cost of System Development was not properly scaling with Game Speed
  • Fixed a Vanilla issue where the Dust gained from Trading Companies was not properly displaying in the Empire Dust breakdown
  • Fixed an ESG issue where the T5 Empire Building "Biofuel Factory" was disabling Population Cloning, even if the system did not have full population

• Minor Faction Bugfixes

  • Fixed an issue where Minor Factions would run out of quests to give, rendering them unable to be assimilated
  • Fixed an issue where the “Happy Days” Assimilation Quest would sometimes require reaching over 100 Happiness
  • Fixed an issue where the Basryxo T3 Collection Law would look for sterile planets system wide instead of empire wide
  • Fixed an issue where Minor Civilizations were providing inflated yields (especially manpower)

• Major Faction Bugfixes

  • Hissho
    • Fixed an issue where Hissho’s “Sykagoja Targeting System” would have no effect
    • Fixed an issue where the Hissho T3 Religious and Militarist Laws were using Vanilla values
  • Horatio
    • Fixed an issue where Price of Perfection would not properly scale with Game Speed
    • Fixed an issue where some splices would give conditional bonuses
    • Fixed an issue where the Horatio Quest Curio was searchable with less than the required 10,000 Dust
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue where the Horatio Carrier had a normal weapon slot that could be outfitted with the Heavy Slot Only Module "Blast Effect Battery"
    • Fixed an issue where the previously mentioned bugged module slot could not be outfitted with Boarding Pods
    • Fixed an ESG issue where the GUI for various Ecologist Laws and Quest Rewards were not properly displaying their rewards
  • Lumeris
    • Fixed a GUI issue where the Industry Quest reward was not displaying as a buyout-related Empire Upgrade
    • Fixed an issue where the Inflation-Reducing Constructible was not scaling properly with the re-vamped Inflation scaling, resulting in it being weaker than intended.
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue regarding Lumeris' T3 Collection bonus where the Influence Provided was not displaying properly
    • Fixed an issue where boosting an outpost with dust did not properly add to its growth like it does with other factions
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue where the inflation reduction constructible "Shadow Banking" could be queued up in multiple systems simultaneously
  • Riftborn
    • Fixed various GUI issues regarding their main population not producing Food
    • Fixed an issue where excess food from Minor Populations was not working properly with Riftborn Population's innate inability to produce Food
    • Fixed an issue where the T2 Economy Building "Cube of the Viceroy" was able to be queued up in multiple systems, despite being a unique building
  • Sophons
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue where the ENFER Systems "Illumination" and "Radiance" would start with no ownership, and thus start mutinous
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue with the Final Step of the Scientist Questline where other Empires researching technologies from the Science and Exploration Tree would count for your quest completion
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue where the ENFER System "Illumination" would start without a colony base, and thus start with negative growth and happiness
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue where any ship being docked would progress the quest step to dock ENFER's scout ship in a friendly system.
  • Unfallen
    • Fixed an issue where the Unfallen Hero Capstone was applying Empire Wide instead of Systemwide
    • Fixed an issue where the Quest Reward “Koyasil Kinetics” was considered outdated when compared to “Basic Ultradense Slugs”
    • Fixed a GUI issue where Unfallen could not see the Alliance Empire Improvement
    • Fixed an issue where various steps in the Unfallen Faction Quest would not trigger properly
    • Fixed Unfallen not seeing the alliance empire improvement
    • Fixed an issue with Unfallen’s Balanced Start where the Guardian was not spawning correctly
  • United Empire
    • Fixed an issue where the T4 Military Module “Juggernaut Plating” was listed as an outdated module when compared to T5 plating
    • Fixed an issue where the Sheredyn Quest Population was not using ESG’s population traits
    • Fixed a Vanilla issue with United Empire’s Upgraded Attackers where they would not properly fill their manpower on the turn they were created
  • Umbral Choir
    • Fixed an issue where Umbral Choir using the “Purge” action would permanently enable instant colonization
    • Fixed an issue where the Faction Trait “Ghost Crew” was improperly applying to manpower modules
    • Fixed an issue where the Industry cost of Terraforming was not properly scaling with Game Speed
    • Fixed an issue with the "Stay Ahead Act" where committing suicide (in game of course) before other factions had detected your Home Nexus would prevent anyone from detecting your Home Nexus after that point
  • Vaulters
    • Fixed an issue where the safety-net Titanium Deposit would not spawn on planets with a Titanium Deposit already present
    • Fixed a similar issue where the above would also sometimes spawn on Minor Faction systems
    • Fixed an issue where miscellaneous T4 Empire Techs would have the science cost of a T5 Empire Tech
    • Fixed an issue where the Faction Quest Criteria would scale with Behemoth Defensive power instead of Ship Defensive power
    • Fixed an issue where the T3 Hero Skill involving system manpower was classified as a Fleet Skill
  • Vodyani
    • Fixed an issue where the Fanatical Trait was not working properly
    • Fixed an ESG issue where the Vodyani quest could not be completed if Super Weapons were disabled

• Population Bugfixes

  • Fixed an issue where “On Happy” and “On Anomaly” Population Traits were not granted an additional effect when boosted.
  • Fixed an issue where Militarist Population Traits would sporadically not have their effect

• Fixed an issue where many Major and Minor Populations were not applying their bonuses correctly

• AI Bugfixes

  • Fixed an issue where AI Riftborn would spam Dilation Singularities with no rhyme or reason (they are disabled for AI Riftborn now
  • Fixed an issue where AI Empires would not explore curiosities on higher difficulties
  • Fixed an issue where AI Empires would get stuck in an infinite loop of trying to reduce or improve anomalies

General Balance Changes

• Suicide Law (In Game, of course)
  • Added a Concede/Surrender/Give Up button in the form of a law called the “Stay Ahead Act” that kills your Empire and removes you from the game the turn after it is activated.
• Galaxy Generation
  • Increased the number of T2 Luxuries that will Spawn by 50% to reduce hoarding opportunities
  • Updated Starless Systems planet pool to also include Barren, Ice, Lava, and Ash.
  • Updated Starless Systems planet pool to include 4-5 planet systems.
  • Added Balanced Galaxy Generation Setting that aims to reduce the volatility of constellations, smoothing out the play experience
  • Balanced Galaxy Generation normalizes the distribution of Luxury and Strategic Resources, as well as removing a significant number of 1-2 planet systems
  • Added Balanced Start Setting that standardizes Home Systems, smoothing out the play experience
    • Due to an intrinsic issue, Balanced Start does not work with Custom Factions as of late

• New Food Constructible

  • Added a new constructible that allows you to turn excess food into Major Population to help food factions scale properly, and incentivize other factions to dip into food.
    • Added a Horatio only version of this constructible that works with Minor Populations that are already present in the system.
    • Unfortunately the following factions are excluded from this, for various reasons: Cravers (extreme foremen timing rushes), Umbral Choir (unnecessary), Hissho (too strong with mining), Riftborn (use Industry for Population) and Vodyani (use Essence for Population)

• Game Speed Scaling

  • Updated Deposit Value to now properly scale with Game Speed (On Fast these deposits are doubled)
  • Buffed Anomaly Reduction and Planet Terraformation Industry Costs to scale with Game Speed (approximately halved on Fast)
  • Changed Civilian Ship Movement to scale with Game Speed (Speed doubled on Fast)
  • Updated Probe Regeneration and Stock to scale with Game Speed (Regeneration and Stock doubled on Fast, excluding turn 1)
  • Updated Minor Faction Diplomacy costs to scale with Game Speed
    • Fast unaffected, as the initial rework was designed for Fast Speed, and is now properly being applied for Normal and slower speeds
  • Updated the per-turn scaling of the Industrialist Law "YIMBY" and the Pacifist Law "Trusted Brokers" to properly scale with Game Speed on Normal and slower speeds
  • Updated Minor Faction Scaling to properly scale with Game Speed (approximately doubled on Fast)
  • Updated Trading Company XP to properly scale with Game Speed (approximately doubled on Fast)
  • Updated the cost of freighters for Trading Companies to properly scale with Game Speed (cost reduced on Fast, updated on slower speeds)
  • Updated the Dust threshold to unlock an additional Trading Company to properly scale with Game Speed (Dust required reduced on Fast)
  • Updated Space Port Capacity to properly scale with Game Speed (increased to a minimum of 10 on Fast)
  • Updated various Probe Related Faction Traits to properly scale with Game Speed in accordance with the previous changes, additionally added a +1/+2 Vision Radius increase
  • Updated Law Enactment cost to properly scale with Game Speed (approximately halved initial Influence Cost on Fast)
  • Updated Initial Dust and Influence endowments to properly scale with Game Speed (Fast values the same, other speeds increased by 2x, 3x, 4x on Normal, Slow, Endless Speeds respectively)

• Riftborn Game Speed Scaling

  • Updated Population Constructible to create 2 Riftborn Population on Fast
  • Doubled the Industry cost of the base Population Constructible to match the above change
  • Reduced the Faction Quest Reward "Chassis Optimization" effect to -25% Population Constructible Cost, and the Hybrid effect to -12.5%
  • Updated Manpower Conversion Constructibles to properly scale with Game Speed (approximately twice as efficient on Fast)

• Deeds

  • Reduced the cost of the Military Deed “Annihilator Beam” from 1,000 Industry, 10 Antimatter and Adamantian to 300 industry, 2 Antimatter and Adamantian
  • Reduced the cost of the Military Deed “Impregnable Shielding” from 300 Industry, 5 Antimatter and Adamantian to 80 industry, 2 Antimatter and Adamantian
  • Buffed the values of the above module from 530 Health, 50 Plate Absorption, 600 Shield Absorption, 3,000 Max Shields, and 300 Shield Regeneration per Second to 100 Health, 150 Plate Absorption, 500 Shield Absorption, 4000 Max shields, and 20% Crew Damage Resistance

• Buildings and Constructibles

  • Nerfed T3 Military Building Sim Camps from 0.1 Industry per Garrison Manpower to 0.05 Industry per Garrison Manpower (In accordance with the manpower changes)
  • Added New T4 Military Building “Recursive Militarization” on T4 Military Technology “Universal Aerodynamics” that grants +0.05 Industry per garrison manpower, +40 Garrison Manpower Per Turn, and costs 5 Adamantian
  • Nerfed T4 Economy Building “Smart Tax Collection”from 25% Dust on System to 15% Dust on System
  • Arcological Administration cost formula changed to (1 + Arcological Admins in Empire) * (1 + Arcological Admins on System) * Gamespeed from 2000 * (1 + Arcological Admins in Empire) * Gamespeed
  • Buffed the Weaker variant of Arcological Administration from 3% FIDS to 5% FIDS
  • Buffed T2 Science Building “Magnetic Shield” to also provide +10 Science per Cold Planet on System
  • Buffed Graviton Shield to also grant +2 Science per Population on Cold (+3 Science per Population on Cold for Sophons)
  • Buffed Propaganda to provide a small bonus while anywhere in the build queue
  • Buffed Non-industry conversions (Alms for Essence, Lumeris Dust Conversion, etc.) to work from anywhere in the build queue
  • T2 Empire Building “Academy Embassy” now grants bonus Hero XP on Empire
  • Moved Antimatter Cost from T4 Economy Building “Careful Sweeping” (T4 Economy Tech “Quantized Economics) to T4 Economy Building “Adaptive Taxation” (T4 Economy Tech “Optimized Logistics”
  • Reduced Adamantium Cost of T4 Science Building “Farsighted Crops” from 10 to 5
  • Added Antimatter Cost of 5 to T4 Science Building “Punctuated Evolution Foundation” (much to Kil10naire’s dismay)

• Ships and Modules

  • Increased Max Ship Level to 20 (New max Shields and Health bonus from leveling is now +100%)
  • Capped Science Behemoth’s maximum Tech Cost Reduction to 50%
  • Changed %Shield Regeneration Modules to apply Ship-Wide Only.
  • Changed Flat Shield Regeneration Modules to apply Flotilla-Wide
  • Buffed the Anti-Depletion Point Modules from -2 Depletion Points per Turn to -10 Depletion Points per Turn
  • Buffed T4 Military Module “Blast Effect Battery” by removing the ability for it to be shot down, as that rendered it useless half the time
  • Buffed Energy Fighters’ damage multiplier against Small/Medium/large ships from +40%/25%/10% to +100%/50%/25%
  • Buffed all fighters damage independent of the above change by around 20-30%
  • Nerfed T4 Empire Support Module “Antimatter Lock-On” effect to “8% Damage Bonus per target CP on Flotilla”, and it now only stacks ONCE per Flotilla
  • Buffed the Plating Penetration of Missiles from 10% to 20% so their damage is not as negligible when not completely opted into

• Ground Combat

  • Changed Stampede Ground Battle Tactic from -50% Deployment Limit to -25% Troop Health/Damage, +50% Offensive Bombardment Damage Taken
  • Changed Protect System Ground Battle Tactic and its variants from +30% Troop Health, -25% Improvement/Population Destruction, to +30% Troop Health, x0.5 Improvement/Population Destruction, and -50% Offensive Bombardment Damage taken
  • Changed Guerilla Ground Battle Tactic and its variants from -25% Troop Health, +30% Deployment Limit, 10% Troop Damage, and +25% Improvement/Population Destruction, to +33% Troop Health, -33% Bombardment Damage, -75% Defensive Bombardment Damage, and -50% Civilian Destruction.
  • Changed Blitz Ground Battle Tactic and its variants from -25% Troop Health, +30% Deployment Limit, 10% Troop Damage, and +25% Improvement/Population Destruction, to -25% Troop Health, +30% Deployment Limit, and +25% Civilian Destruction.
  • Added Raid (Offensive) Ground Battle Tactic , intended to deal economic damage: -25% Troop Health and Damage, +2 Maximum Population and Improvements destroyed
  • Added Rally (Defensive) Ground Battle Tactic, allowing you to protect poorly defended systems and deal with small invasions easily: -30% Troop Health, +30% Troop Damage, +1500 Bombardment Damage
  • Changed Preemptive Bombardment Ground Battle Tactic and its variants from 400-800 Damage, to 750 damage (1000 for Nakalim)
  • Added various Military Empire Upgrades that increase Offensive Bombardment Damage to the Military Tech Tree
  • Lowered Per-Troop Civilian Damage in accordance with the manpower changes:
    • Infantry: 0 (No change)
    • Armor: 0.02 -> 0.005
    • Air: 0.03 -> 0.01

• Technologies and Science

  • Removed the T4 Military Tactics Card “Collateral Damage” from the Tech Tree, instead replacing it with T4 Military Tactics Card “Team Spirit”
  • Increased the Maximum Science Stockpile/Rollover by 50 (specifically from Curiosity Rewards)
  • Increased number of T4 Economy and Trade technologies to reach T5, from 3 to 4
  • Moved the +5 movement speed module from T4 Science Technology “N-Dimensional Topology” to the T5 Science Stage Unlock to keep it consistent with all other T3-T5 stage unlocks.
    • For Vodyani, moved the Empire Upgrade “+2 Movement Speed on Ships” to the T4 Science Technology “Adaptive Habitats”
  • Added an Enhanced Chain Gang constructible that sacrifices 600 Food to grant 600 Manpower

• Anti-Carrier Rushing

  • Increased base Carrier Hull Industry Cost to 1,000 Industry
    • Strategic Cost remains unchanged
  • T0 Scientist Law now has a 30% premium to research techs from tiers not currently unlocked
  • Eliminated science cost increase penalty for researching techs within a tier beyond what was needed to unlock the next tier
    • Increased tech costs on average to offset the above change

• Laws and Diplomacy

  • Ownership Recovery
    • Dictatorship is now granted +50% Ownership Recovery Rate (Autocracy unaffected by these changes)
    • Systems under Hostile Influence have -50% Ownership Recovery Rate
  • Buffed Ecologist Law “All Hands Dictum” to now grant -10% (-15% on Republic) Population Boost cost reduction per turn, up to 50% (60% on Republic)
    • This Law was further changed in accordance with the Anomaly Enhancement Updates, gaining -10% Anomaly Reduction Cost per turn (15% per turn on Republic), up to 50% (60% for Republic). This law also gains +10% Industry, Science, Dust on system per Terraformed Hot, Cold, Temperate Planet.
    • In exchange, this Law lost +2% Science and Industry per Population Type.
    • Additionally, the Horatio unique variant was removed, as it is no longer needed.
  • Buffed Ecologist Law “Cool Collections” from +20% Collection Bonus FIDSI and Approval and +15% Population Effects, to +50% Collection Bonus FIDSI and Approval and +33% Population Effects
  • Changed T5 Ecologist Law "Roughing It" to lose the Anomoly Reduction Industry Cost reduction per turn, as it was added to the changed All Hands Dictum
  • Nerfed T2 Scientist Law “Probe Deep” Probe Regeneration Speed from +100% to +50% Probe Regeneration Speed
  • Removed Federation Government Trait “No Penalty from Out-of-Power Representatives" and replaced it with “Approval while within Colonization Threshold”
  • Buffed T1 Pacifist Law “Trusted Broker” from +100 Defensive Bombardment Damage per Population to +500 Defensive Bombardment Damage per Population in accordance with the manpower changes
  • Buffed Religious T0 “Righteous Fury” from “+15% Experience Per Turn on Heroes” to “+15% Experience on Heroes”
  • Changed Religious T1 "Blood from Stones" from granting Dust per blockaded Special Node, increased by Heroes on Empire, to "Gain 5x Ownership Bonus from Special Nodes on Systems". Unfallen and Umbral Choir are granted a reduced version that only grants 2x bonus. Vodyani are granted a special version that also includes their bonus Essence per Turn from the original version.
  • Buffed Dictatorship Innate Government Trait from “+25% Experience Per Turn on Heroes” to “+25% Experience on Heroes”
  • Changed Blockades so they are possible during a Truce
    • Buffed the Food Damage that Blockades deal from 5 per CP to 15 per CP
  • Nerfed the incredible scaling of T1 Ecologist Law "Green Fertility Bill" by changing the Food increase from a percentage to a flat value
    • This includes the Horatio Specific Variant

• Heroes and Skills

  • Changed Scavenger Capstone Skill to generate +2 of all Luxury Resources used in System Development
  • Changed Eusocial Senator skill from x0.5 Positive Treaty Influence Cost (useless) to +0.5 Approval per Population on Empire, +30/50 Influence on Happy/Ecstatic Systems
  • Buffed Generic Hero Capstone from +1 Deposit Value to +2 Deposit Value
  • Buffed “The Joy Initiative” Counselor Capstone Perk from 100% Happiness to 120% Happiness
    • This was done so Dictatorships could make better use of the “We Can Do It Law” (Grants bonus FIDSI for each approval point above 100%)

• Luxury Resources

  • Changed Benthic Gems to grant +2 or +3% FIDSI per System Level on Happy/Ecstatic, with an additional +5 Approval per System Level
  • Changed Superspuds from +25% trade yields to grant +4 FIDSI. Kept the +0.5 Luxury Deposit Value
  • Nerfed Virtual Artifacts from +100% Garrison Capacity to +15% Garrison Capacity per System Level
  • Much to the chagrin of Light who previously wrote various patch notes, Nerfed Hissho Specific Approval Luxuries as follows:
    • Nerfed Transvine from +10/15 FIDS on Loyal/Devoted to +5/10 FIDS on Loyal/Devoted
    • Nerfed Lost Cities from +1.5/2.5 FIDS per Pop on Loyal/Devoted to +0.5/1 FIDS per Pop on Loyal/Devoted
    • Nerfed Benthic Gems from +5/7.5% FIDS per System Level on Loyal/Devoted to +2 or 3% FIDS per System Level on Loyal/Devoted

• Temperate Tag Changes

  • Temperate is now the tag associated primarily with Dust (Cold = Science, Hot = Industry, Temperate = Dust)
    • As a result, many Dust foci are changed to follow this pattern
    • The T2 Economy Planet Upgrade “Dust Specialization”, the hero skill “Person of Means”, and the T4 Economy Building “Borer’s Guild Bourse” now all grant their bonus dust on Temperate instead of Sterile
    • Additionally, the Sophon Pacifist Questline Reward grants 100% Dust on Temperate instead of Sterile
    • Gas Warm Planet now has the Temperate tag instead of being a unique case of an untagged planet
  • Rebalanced Temperate Planet FIDS
    • Toxic 8 Dust, 3 Food, 2 Industry, 2 Science -> 16 Dust, 2 Food, 2 Industry, 2 Science
    • Steppes 5 Dust, 4 Food, 2 Industry, 3 Science -> 12 dust, 4 food, 1 Industry, 3 Science
    • Savannah 5 Dust, 4 Food, 3 Industry, 2 Science -> 12 dust, 4 food, 3 Industry, 1 Science
    • Monsoon 4 Dust, 6 Food, 2 Industry, 2 Science -> 8 dust, 6 food, 2 Industry, 2 Science

• Trade Company changes

  • Luxury yields lowered by 33%
  • Increased base dust by 50
  • Lowered the cost of Subsidiaries and HQs to 280 and 560 respectively (on normal speed)
  • Reduced the base cost of freighters so they scale less exponentially
  • Moved Trading Companies and Subsidiaries from T3 Economy Tech “Commercial Frameworks” to T2 Economy Tech “Astrofinance”
  • Reduced Industry Cost of T3 Economy Building “Solar Security Operations Base” to 560 Industry
  • Added a few additional Empire Improvements on various Economy Technologies
    • T3 Economy Diplomacy “Mutual Agreements” that allows for proposing Science and Trade Agreements, added to T3 Economy Technology “Commercial Frameworks”
    • T4 Economy Technology “Galactic Security Charter” which grants the following:
    • Empire Improvement “Dust Memory Tracing” that grants +50% Trace Speed on Trading Company HQ, and +15% Trace Speed on Subsidiary added to
    • Empire Improvement “Statistical Logistics Improvement” that grants +100% Food and Industry from Trade Routes on system, and -30% cost on Trade Company Improvements (ships and efficiency) added to T4 Economy Technology “Galactic Security Charter”
    • Diplomacy “Strongarm Economics” that grants the ability to enforce Science and Trade Agreements as long as Pacifists are the leading party in the Senate, added to T4 Economy Technology “Galactic Security Charter”

• Trade Company Consistency Changes

  • Increased the base dust yields from Population and System level by 300%
    • In accordance with the above change, reduced the benefit of Trade Route length by 60%
    • This was done so Trading Companies are more useful even with suboptimal galaxy generation
  • Increased the Influence Upkeep of a Trade Agreement from a flat 50 to 50 + 35 x (# Trade Companies) + (Empire Pop)
  • Also updated the Trading Company Formula
  • OLD formula
    • System Trade Value = ([System Level] x [System Pop] x 10% + 5) x [System Trade Income Modifier]
    • Trade Route Value = ([HQ System Trade Value] + [Subsidiary System Trade Value]) x (1 + 10% x [Route Length]) x (1 + 10% x [# Freighters])
    • Trade Co Value = 150 + [SUM of all Trade Route Value] x (0.75 + ([Trade Co Level] / 35) ^ 0.75)
  • NEW formula
    • System Trade Value = ([System Level] x [System Pop] x 30% + 5) x [System Trade Income Modifier]
    • Trade Route Value = ([HQ System Trade Value] + [Subsidiary System Trade Value]) x (1 + 4% x [Route Length]) x (1 + 10% x [# Freighters])
    • Trade Co Value = 150 + [SUM of all Trade Route Value] x (0.75 + ([Trade Co Level] / 35) ^ 0.75)
  • Note that these new formulae do not account for Trading Company Values being adjusted from Luxury and/or Strategic Resource deposits on System(s)

• Curiosity Changes

  • Rebalanced the likelihood of finding various rewards to be better in accordance with relative game time
    • Affected Curiosities are: Various T2 and T3 Luxury Resources, Hero XP (Rebalanced to 0 as it was bugged), Various Battle Tactics Cards (some were outright removed as they were moved to the Military Tech Tree)
  • Added several new unique buildings, mostly military related, as discoverable rewards from Curiosities. Effects only modify ships constructed in the system with the new buildings.
    • Defensive Cultural Architecture [280 Industry, 5 Titanium/Hyperium] (+1,000 Defensive Bombardment Damage, +100 Enrollment Rate, +15% Defending Troops Health)
    • Crew Cannery [420 Industry, 5 Titanium/Hyperium] (+15% Ship Manpower Capacity on Ships, +30% Invasion Manpower on Ships)
    • Endless Observer [420 Industry, 5 Titanium/Hyperium] (+15% Vision Range on Ships)
    • Preemptive Identification [840 Industry, 5 Titanium/Hyperium] (-20% Enemy Invasion Manpower Limit)
    • Material Analysis Yards [840 Industry, 5 Adamantium] (+15% Health on Ships)
    • Physics Remapping Facility [840 Industry, 5 Antimatter] (+1 Movement Speed on Ships)
    • Council of Heroes [1,120 Industry, 5 Titanium/Hyperium/Adamantium/Antimatter] (Allows passage of the first law from every Political Party)
    • Cathedral of Heroism [1,120 Industry, 5 Titanium/Hyperium/Adamantium/Antimatter] (Grants +1% FIDSI per Governor on Systems with Governors, -50% Upkeep on System)
    • Smuggler Militias [1,120 Industry, 5 Titanium/Hyperium] (Renders the System it's built on immune to the Economic Penalties from Blockades)

• Market Changes

  • Rebalanced the various prices for items so they will not crash to zero and obliterate the economy as easily, as long as people are participating in the market
  • Changed Titanium specifically so it does not start with a 1 Dust Sell Price
  • Increased the regularity in which higher tiered Luxuries Spawn, so purchasing them is a more viable strategy

• Additional Mod Integration

  • Automation Overhaul
    • The author of Automation Overhaul, Captain_Brian, has allowed us to merge his mod into ESG (though it has been modified slightly)
    • Automation is now much more intelligent when deciding what building to build next
    • New automation policy to automatically move population
    • Original Mod's Steam Workshop
  • Integrated AI Changes from the “Better AI Empires Mod” (Full Details in the original mod’s description)
    • Original Mod's Steam Workshop

• AI Changes

  • Reduced AI Unfallen's vining speed so they can no longer Entwine systems with 1 Vineship in 1 turn
  • Reduced AI Vaulter's colonization bonuses so the Argosy does not have a 0 turn Colonization Cooldown
  • Increased AI Horatio's flat bonuses somewhat, as the AI often times misuses the Splicing mechanic
  • Removed bonus colonization cap from AI, excluding Endless Difficulty where the bonus has been reduced to +2 Overcolonization Cap
  • Removed bonus Behemoth Cap from AI as they cannot use them properly and end up wasting resources by prioritizing them over more important upgrades
  • Reduced the flat FIDSI bonus AI get on Impossible and Endless to make their progression more reasonable
  • Removed the AI's damage reduction against pirates, as it made Pirates a non-threat against AI

• Miscellaneous

  • Increased the Overpopulation Penalty from 3.5 Approval to 5 Approval
  • Buffed Privateering Fleets to no longer apply standard Approval Penalties for you when Razing Systems
  • Changed many tooltips to be more descriptive and/or not bugged
  • Updated Approval Tooltips to provide Approval Thresholds (Mutinous, Unhappy, Content, Happy, Ecstatic, etc.)
  • Updated Hacking Related Tooltips to be disabled when Penumbra DLC is disabled
  • Updated Gas Giants to be able to spawn with a wider array of anomalies
  • Removed the Empire Score Value from the Diplomatic Pressure Calculation
    • This was done as Empire Score is not truly indicative of relative Empire Power, and a stronger Empire having negative diplomatic pressure against a weaker one due to how the Score was calculated did not make much sense.
  • On Normal Speed, the universal quest “Seek the Unique” was changed from starting on turn 19 to starting on turn 10.
  • While a system is actively under siege, the size of its Influence Radius is greatly reduced
  • Updated the outpost action that costs manpower and steals growth to be relative to boosting outposts, so if both actions are enacted they balance out

• Victory Rushing Balance Changes

  • Capped T5 Economy Wonder “Obelisk of All Space Time” required to win at 3, instead of scaling with Galaxy Size
  • Increased the buyout cost for ALL Wonders by 33% to stop people from rushing them so easily
  • Increased the Economy Victory Threshold from its previous value to 1.5 Million, then doubled it to 3 Million because 1.5 Million was still too low
    • Removed the Galaxy Size Scalar from Economy Victory
  • Reduced the Effectiveness of the Industry to Dust/Science Conversion Infinite System Improvements
  • Reduced “Planet Cracker Laboratory” and “Public 3D Printing” conversion from 50% to 33%
  • Reduced “Urgent AI Research” and “Emergency Labor Policy” conversion from 75% to 66%
  • Faction Specific Industry to Dust/Science Conversion Infinite System Improvements unaffected
  • Upped the T5 Empire Deed's Approval requirement from 85 to 95, as it should be at least some what of a challenge to achieve for awarding a Deed reward

Major Faction Balance Changes

Cravers

• The Craver Behemoth Module that grants Science per Depletion Point on system now scales with gamespeed
• Buffed Cravers by removing the “Dubious Breeders” Faction Trait
• Increased Craver T4 Science Behemoth Module “Craver Terraformation” Science per Depletion Point from 0.5 to 1.0

Hissho

• Buffed Hissho by changing their starting ships from 1 Colonizer and 1 Explorer to 2 Explorers
• Removed the strategic cost from Hissho’s unique version of T4 Economy Building “Xhiyun Cartel” to keep it in line with the versions from other factions
• Removed Strat Cost from T2 Empire Building “Colonial Rights” to keep it in line with the versions from other factions
• Effect Changed to: “+5 Influence per System Level”
• Faction Pact bonus changed to “+1% Garrison Capacity per turn, scaling up to +30%”
• Quest has been reworked and rebalanced as follows:
• Chapter 1.1 Religious Goal changed from “Assimilate a Minor” to “Become Cordial with a minor”
• Chapter 1.2 Religious Reward changed from Gouge of Tonatsi Behemoth Module to the building that grants 40 Influence on system
• Chapter 2 Religious Reward changed from the building that grants 40 Influence on system to a flat 250 Influence reward
• Chapter 3.2 Religious Goal changed from “Have 3 Hot Planets” to “Search a curio with 5k dust”
• Chapter 3.2 Religious Reward changed from 5 Kei to Gouge of Tonatsi Behemoth Module
• Chapter 1.2 Militarist Goal changed from “Conquer 1 system” to “Conquer or Raze 1 system”
• Chapter 1.2 Militarist Reward changed from the T4-ish beams to the 50 mp cap/pop building
• Chapter 2 Militarist Goal changed from “Win 3 Battles with a Behemoth” to “Win 6 Battles”
• Chapter 2 Militarist Reward changed from the 50 MP cap/pop building to a Weapon Module Relative to T4 Beams
• Chapter 3.2 Militarist Reward changed from 5 Keii to Gouge of Tonatsi Behemoth Module

Horatio

• Changed the scout’s starting weapon to an engine
• Horatio has undergone extensive tweaks in both Population and Faction Affinity
  • Nerfed T3 Population Collection Bonus from 0.1% FIDSI per Original Empire Population on System to 0.05% FIDSI per Original Empire Population on System
  • Nerfed Faction unique T4 Ecologist Law "All Hands Dictum" from 2% Industry and Science per Splice to 1.5% Industry and Science per Splice
  • Nerfed Faction unique T2 Ecologist Law "Cool Collections" to +33% FIDSI from Population Collection, and +25% from Population Effect
  • Buffed Splicing by reducing Initial Splice Cost to 2, and capping Maximum Splice Cost at 10
  • Added Faction Specific Curios that are ensured to have a Minor Population within them
    • These Curios require Curiosity Detection of T2, T3, and T4
    • There are in total x2 T2 Curiosities, x3 T3 Curiosities, and x4 T4 Curiosities.
      • The relative power of the Minor Civilization within determines what Tier Curiosity Detection is required to find them.
• The Quest has been changed as follows:
  • Chapter 1 Industrialist Goal changed from "Build 5 ships with at least 100 defense" to "Build 3 ships with at least 100 defense"
  • Chapter 2 Industrialist Goal changed from "Destroy 2 fleets" to "Destroy 1 fleet"
  • Chapter 3.1 Industrialist Goal changed from "get 3 Systems to SD3" to "get 6 Systems to SD2"
  • Chapter 3.1 Religious Goal changed from "get X+50 influence" to "get X+100 influence"
  • Chapter 3.1 Religious reward changed from +40% experience per turn to +40% experience on heroes
  • Chapter 3.2 Ecologist Goal changed from "spend 1k dust on a curio" to "spend 10k dust on a curio"
  • Chapter 3.2 Religious Goal changed from "search a curiosity with a level 9 hero" to "search a curiosity with a level 8 hero"

Lumeris

• Dust Conversion Infinite System Constructible now works anywhere in the Build Queue
• Nerfed Black Tax Act to 20% Dust and 10 Dust Flat
• Reworked White Market from scaling based off of friendly factions, to scaling based off of number of Trading Companies
• Buffed the outpost cost by adding a flat 600 Dust Cost cap, additionally scaled the cost with Game Speed

Nakalim

• Changed so they get the weaker version of Arcological Administration
• Buffed their Home System by ensuring it starts with a “Friendly Locals” anomaly
• Buffed the Garrison Capacity of Kamdir Martial School so it scales with population, to keep it in line with the other manpower changes
• Updated the starting scout’s empty Module Slots with various Modules befitting the game start
• Buffed the starting law “Cram Exam” by deleting it (as it had no effect) and replacing it with a new law that grants +5 (+10 Republic) Science per Temple on System, and -2 Approval on Planets with Temples
• Buffed the Chapter 4.1 Religious Faction Quest Goal by reducing the required converted systems from its previous value to 3, and removed the Map Size Scalar

Riftborn

• Changed the Ash planet in Riftborn’s Balanced Start home system to a Desert planet
• Changed the starting Anomaly of a "Signal" to a "Ruins" Anomaly, as finding an additional Population was too powerful
• Nerfed Faction Pact maximum bonus from 30% Industry to 20% Industry
• Changed the “Scrap Kings” constructible to a System Improvement
• Changed the starting Xeno-Industrial Infrastructure and Public Private Partnerships to a Faction Variant that synergizes more with their intended playstyle
• Buffed the Industry cost to colonize Monsoon planets by lowering it to 160, keeping it in line with other Non-Fertile Planets
• Buffed T4 Economy Building “Tower of Temporal Paradox” by adding a +2.5 Dust per Singularities Built on Empire value
• Significantly Changed the Faction Quest

Sophons

• Nerfed Faction Pact maximum bonus from 30% Science to 25% Science
• Buffed the Sophon Faction Quest by making a few of the Goals and Rewards more reasonable
  • Chapter 2.3 Militarist Goal changed from "Enact 1 Militarist Law for 4 Turns" to "Enact 1 Additional Militarist Law for 2 Turns"
    • If you have 0 Militarist Laws enacted upon receiving this Quest Step, you will still only be required to enact 1.
  • Chapter 2.2 Pacifist Reward changed from "80-150 Influence" to "250-400 Influence"
  • Chapter 2.3 Pacifist Goal Changed from "Generate +15 Additional Influence per turn in 2 Systems" to "Generate 40 Influence per turn in 2 systems"
  • Chapter 3 Pacifist Goal Changed from "Guard Radiance for 8 Turns (16 on Normal)" to "Guard Radiance for 4 Turns (8 on Normal)"
    • Additionally changed the reward from Empire Tree Technology Cost Reduction to Economy Tree Technology Cost Reduction
    • Additionally changed the spawn rate for the quest fleets to be in line with the reduced Guard duration requirement

Unfallen

• Unfallen have received extensive innate changes
• Buffed their Senator Skill from a flat 50/150/300 Health Restored per level and 100 Health Restored to 1/10/20% Health Restored per shot absorbed
• Buffed their Capstone from +33% Racial Population Bonuses to +50% Racial Population Bonuses
• Buffed the same Capstone to apply to Collection Bonuses on the System the hero is assigned to
• Buffed Heart’s Ward by changing the cost from Antimatter to Hyperium
• Changed the starting Political Party from Pacifist to Ecologist
• Changed the starting hero “Lunabarxes” from a Seeker to a Counselor, and from a Pacifist to an Ecologist
• Changed the Population’s Politics from Pacifist, Anti-Industrialist, and Ecologist to Pacifist TO Ecologists, Anti-Industrialist, and Militarist to Scientist
• Buffed the Vineship by reducing its Industry cost from 350 to 300
• Buffed Vined systems for allies by adding a -20% Siege Damage bonus to Vined Systems (also works for Unfallen)
• Buffed Unfallen by Nerfing how annoying vines are by removing the Diplomatic Pressure from having a system vined during Cold War
• Buffed Vines by allowing you to vine Pirate Systems as long as the Pirates aren’t actively hostile towards you
• Changed Vine Destruction to scale with Game Speed (2x as quickly on Fast)
• Changed the Chapter 3.1 Ecologist Faction Quest Reward to an Empire Upgrade of +2 Population Slots on Planets with Anomalies
• Changed the Chapter 3.1 Scientist Faction Quest Reward to an Empire Upgrade that grants +5 and 1% Science per total Collection Bonus Tiers

Umbral Choir

• Can now Un-deplete planets
• Buffed the Faction Variant of T1 Economy Building “Xeno-Industrial Infrastructure” and T1 Science Building “Public-Private Partnerships” to grant +20 Industry and Science, respectively
• Buffed the T1 Empire Building “Sustainable Farms” by adding the +10 Food per Tag that every other variant had

Vaulters

• Nerfed the quest reward “Open Source Defense” from 50 Science per Defensive Building to 30 Science per Defensive Building
• Buffed the Argosy by moving the slot upgrade to T2 Science Technology “Pev-Scale Accelerators”
• Buffed the Argosy Portal Upgrade by also granting it an innate Level 1 Fleet Cloaking
• Buffed Vaulter colonization chaining by reducing the dust required to colonize
• Nerfed the effects of T3 Strategics Quadrinix and Orichalix on System Development from 7.5% to 6% per System Level
• Changed the Bereaved Quest Population’s bonus from its previous value to +60 Garrison Manpower on Strategic and +6 Manpower
• Reduced damage of Vaulter’s Military Quest Reward “Hellraiser Torpedoes” to be more in line with other modules of a similar tier (50% reduction)
• Faction Pact bonus changed to “+1% Garrison Capacity per turn, scaling up to +30%”
• Reduced the dependence of Vaulters on lucking into higher tiered Strategic Resources by changing Filter Barges to grant a small amount (sub 1 across the board) of Titanium/Hyperium at System Development 2, Antimatter/Adamantian at System Development 3, and Orichalix/Quadrinix at System Development 4
• Removed the penalty for Razing or Pillaging Vaulters Systems, as well as Increased the loot gained from Pillaging Vaulters Systems

Vodyani

• Can now Un-deplete Planets
• Alms for Essence Infinite System Constructible now works anywhere in the Build Queue
• Changed the cost of the Population Constructible “Holy Proliferation” to cost 1 Industry instead of 1 Flat Turn (in addition to the escalating Essence Cost)
• Changed the Vodyani Scout’s Weapon Slot to a Weapon/Support slot
• Buffed the T4 Modules “All Must x IV” by reducing the Orichalix/Quadrinix cost from 4 to 2
• Changed the Religious Chapter 1.2 Faction Quest Objective from “reach Cordial with a minor” to “discover 10 new nodes (or 50% of the galaxy)”

Minor Faction Balance Changes

• Independent of the previously mentioned Game Speed Scaling changes, increased the growth of Minor Civilizations, as well as increasing their military growth so their fleets are usable more often
  • Further updated the growth scaling of Minor Civilizations, reducing the speed of their growth somewhat, but increasing their maximum fleet capability
    • Additionally, updated Minor Civilizations so they can field their upgraded fleets immediately, rather than needing to wait
  • Updated the assimilation via quest's availability from 50 Diplomatic Relation to 75 Diplomatic Relation in accordance with their increased power
    • In addition to this, the action to gain a fleet from a Minor Civilization was also raised from 50 Diplomatic Relation and 3 Population, to 75 Diplomatic Relation and 5 Population
• Changed the Minor Faction Diplomacy formula to mimic the precedent of the larger diplomacy rework
• Removed the ability for Minor Factions to migrate to nearby systems
• Updated curios to include ALL Minor Factions instead of a subset of various ones
• Removed the “Increase Militarist Support in Systems” Assimilation Quest because it was too unreasonable to complete
• Added a “Build 4 Defensive Buildings” Assimilation Quest in its stead
• Removed all Garrison Per Turn Manpower Traits as they were generally useless, replacing them with Empire Manpower instead
• Changed Illo’s population bonus from its previous value to +2 Science, and an additional +1 Influence on Hot
• Changed Sowers’ population bonus to +1 Food, +3 Industry on Fertile
• Changed Tikanan’s population bonus to +60 Garrison Capacity, +6 Manpower on Fertile
• Changed Bhagaba’s population bonus to +2 Influence, +2 Influence on Fertile
• Changed Amblyr’s population bonus to +2 Industry on Temperate, +2 Dust
• Changed Amblyr’s population political affinity from (Pacifist -> Industrialist) TO (Anti-Militarist)
• Changed Harmony’s population bonus to +2 Science on Strategic Deposits, +0.2 Strategic Deposit Bonus (The Strategic Deposit Bonus scales with game speed)
• Changed Harmony’s T2 population collection to +55 Science, +25% Strategic Deposit Value on Systems with Harmony
• Changed Gnashast’s population bonus to +100 Defensive Bombardment Damage, +0.2 Luxury Deposit Bonus (The Luxury Deposit Bonus scales with game speed)
• Changed Gnashast’s T2 population collection to +100 Defensive Bombardment, +25% Luxury Deposit Value on Systems with Gnashast
• Changed Kalmut’s population bonus to +2 Industry, +1 Bandwith
• Changed the Assimilation Goal of "Construct x Buildings" to have a cap of 15, instead of being a scaling 3 per system
• Minor Factions are now immune to blockades
• Removed bonus Siege Damage from AI Pirates, they now deal Siege damage equivalent to a player-controlled Major Faction
• Changed many of the Minor Population's T3 bonus to something more useful
  • 

Additional Miscellaneous Changes

• Custom Faction Changes
  • Anti-Depletion population bonus reverted to -1 Depletion per Turn
  • Garrison Manpower per Turn Population Traits removed
  • New Population Traits for extra deposit value (Strategic or Luxury)
  • UE +100% Influence and 0.1 Influence to Industry made into its own trait

Art Changes

• Nakalim and Craver variants of buildings were denoted as variants
• The following modules gained new/recolored icons:
  • Ransacker Module
  • Final Tier Ark FIDSI Modules
  • Heart's Ward
  • Hardened Shield Generators
  • Cloak II
  • EMP Disruption Field
  • Basic Node Analyzer
  • Advanced Node Analyzer
  • Antimatter Regenerator
  • Quadrinix Regenerator
  • Antimatter Re-Shield
  • Quadrinix Re-Shield
• The following empire improvements gained new/recolored icons:
  • 4D Spreadsheets
  • Influential Traders
  • Militarized Social Networks
  • Exploratory Non-Detection Systems
  • Opulent Frontiers
  • Pre-Planned Unpacking
  • Automated Prefabs
  • Mercenary Contracting
  • Letters of Marque
  • Home-Cooked Rations
  • Premium MREs
  • Predictive Groceries
  • Advanced Culinary Tourism
  • Prompt Pioneering
  • Environmental Optimization
  • Applied Happiness Program
  • Vulnerability Assessor
  • Tactical Expertise
  • Battlefield Analysis
  • Agile Command
  • Lethal Squadrons
  • Aurigan Expansion
  • Factory of Faith
  • Cloth of Austerity
  • Insatiable Maw
  • Artificial Hive Minds
  • Black Tax Authority
  • Scavenger Contracting
  • Safer Streets
  • Pay It Forward
  • Greased Wheels Association
  • City Planner
  • Undergoround Comprehension
  • Studies of Those Enhanced by Dust
  • Ecosystem Perfection
  • Economical Adaptation
  • Perfection of the Perfected
  • Patriotic Shipyards
  • Reuse and Recycle
  • Strategic Privacy
  • Sensor Suite
  • Void Familiarity
  • Echo Condensation
  • Happy Nappers
  • Burning Metal
  • Happy Haunting
  • Dispatch Engines
  • Relentless Assault
  • Improved Commercial Drives
  • Chassis Optimization
  • Martial Outlook
  • Integrated Shells

Lore Changes

• Riftborn Xeno-Industrial Infrastructure renamed to Hadeo-Industrial Infrastructure
• Riftborn Public-Private Partnerships renamed to Glacial-Sanitization Laboratories
• Sophon Graviton-shielded Laboratories renamed to Anti-Radiation Campuses
• Craver Xenotourism Agencies renamed to Xenobiological Incentives
• Craver Epigenetic Crop Seeding renamed to Alternative Food Programs
• Craver Pulvis Production renamed to Expendable Dust Expertise
• Craver National Museum renamed to Conquest Announcement Networks
• Craver Body Language Institute renamed to Body Language Programming
• Craver Punctuated Evolution Foundation renamed to Evolutionary Analysis Pens
• Craver Intergalactic Lectures renamed to Integalactic Hostages
• Craver Hazardous Mining Facility renamed to Hazardous Mining Hives
• Craver Pocket Laboratory renamed to Collaborative Research Academies
• Craver Dust Bonanza renamed to Dust-Consuming Collectors
• Craver School of Geniuses renamed to Aerial Drone Deployments
• Generic Skilltree Capstone renamed to Applicable Efficiencies
• Scrap Kings renamed to Theoretical Shipyards Bill