Ever since Disharmony was released, we have continued working on the game, specifically on some optimizations and bug fixes. Optimization is a complex and tedious task, but we have however spent a long time trying to improve the computation of our Artificial Intelligence. One of the biggest changes is that the AI computing has been broken down by empire. This means each computer-controlled empire will make its decisions one at a time, during the human player’s turn. The benefit for this is that the game will not be lagging as it used to, during the beginning of turns for large games, as the computing and therefore framerate will be streamlined. However, this is such a drastic change that it took quite some time verifying that we had not broken the rest of the game and the multiplayer. On top of that, we have applied plenty of other improvements on the performance, even though some AI tasks still remain complex due to the nature of the game scope.
We received a lot of input from the VIPs: they participated in early tests on those fixes, optimizations and also improvements. For instance, we have modified the ship design screen so that it properly handles the case of automatically upgraded modules which resources requirements are not owned by the empire. We still need a bit of time to guarantee there are no regressions, but I guess you are all eager to try out these changes and fixes.
This is why we are going to release a “Beta” patch later today. This is still work in progress, but we need to collect more feedback from you, before we release the mother of all patches. You will be able to play the game in a special beta branch (details, password and release notes below), where the optimizations and improvements are available.
While you experiment this, the company will be closed for one week starting this Friday evening, to enjoy a well-deserved rest. In the meantime, I hope our beloved VIP can hold the fort on the forums, and help out people in need of answers. No doubt some of us will still read the forum while in vacation, but we will be less present.
I hope this vacation will bring us back in top shape to complete the final release of this patch, but also to announce a few surprises at Gamescom!
Thank you for your time,
AmpliMath
RELEASE NOTES
1.1.14
To access the 1.1.14 version, you will have to select in the Steam properties of Endless Space, the 'Betas' tab. Enter the password: BetaPatchOptim, then select the 'Beta patch - Optim' option in the droplist.
CHANGES AND ADDITIONS (both versions)
Optimizations:
- All the AIs can share the same frames for parts of their update process. That reduces the overall time needed to compute all the AIs
- The order of AIs processing is randomly defined for each turn
- Added a feedback in galaxy view banner to show the AIs that have finished their required process and are ready to end the turn (like in MP)
- Orders processors are delayed
- The update of the frontiers in the galaxy view is spread
- Improved refresh score computation
- Improved trade routes computation
- Spread battle resolution on many frames
- Replaced useless simulation refreshing of the whole empire by local refreshing
- Improved the synchronizations of game states in MP
- Modified probability for the different Planet Per System to be relevant regarding the localization.
- Number of traits for a custom faction has been limited to 10
CHANGES AND ADDITIONS (vanilla version)
- Increased cost of the different HeadHunter to match with cost in Xpack:
- Administrator & Corporate: 1 => 5 pts
- Adventurer, Commander & Pilot: 1 => 3 pts
CHANGES AND ADDITIONS (xpack version)
Galaxy settings:
- New shape available: Galaxy Ring
Revamp of the ship design screen:
- Each level accessible
- Added a level for Bomb Module and Civilian Module
- Ship design:
- Increased weight of the Civilian Module to force player to use the Colonization Hull
- Weight has been moved from 11 Weight to 3% Weight
- Small 1 & Small 2: Hull Weakness increased from 100 to 300
- Medium 1 & Medium 2: Hull Weakness increased from 100 to 200
- Modified ShipClassMedium1Harmony Bonus: now affect DefenseModule instead of PointDefense
- Increased ShipClassColonizationSophon on Civilian Module from 25% to 30%
- Modified some defence side effects:
- Deflectors now respectively gives
- Level 1: -3% Accuracy instead of -1%
- Level 2: -6% Accuracy instead of -2%
- Level 3: -9% Accuracy instead of -3%
- Flak now respectively gives
- Level 1: -3% Evade instead of -1% AND -1% Hull Weakness instead of -2%
- Level 2: -6% Evade instead of -2% AND -2% Hull Weakness instead of -4%
- Level 3: -9% Evade instead of -3% AND -4% Hull Weakness instead of -8%
- Deflectors now respectively gives
- Range affects Accuracy instead of Damage now
- Long Range:
- 66% Accuracy on Medium Range Weapons
- 75% Accuracy on Short Range Weapons
- Medium Range:
- 75% Accuracy on Long Range Weapons
- 25% Accuracy on Short Range Weapons
- Long Range:
- Removed collateral damage against improvement from Troops
- Lowered Land Invasion for Fighters
- Doubled Land Invasion for Bombers
- Modified Armor Value: every module uses a percent now
- Modified the Invasion6: its bonus is applied on ship instead of fleet now
Balancing:
- Added Interception to Flak in order to reactivate FX
- Level 1: 10
- Level 2: 17
- Level 3: 34
- Added Absorption to Shield in order to reactivate FX
- Level 1: 10
- Level 2: 50
- Level 3: 150
- Added Deflection to Deflector in order to reactivate FX
- Level 1: 3
- Level 2: 5
- Level 3: 10
- Increased damage values to match with the update of the defences
- Modified Weight of the different module:
- Flak: from 3% to a Flat value: 4
- Shield: from 3% to a Flat value: 6
- Deflector: from 3% to a Flat value: 8
- Reduced UniqueHarmony cost from 1000 to 500
- Modified weight cost of all Armor module: 5% to 15%
- Increased efficiency of all Armor:
- increased life from +75% (Armor1) to +200% (for Armor6terran)
- added a side effect which increase defences efficiency from +10% (Armor1) to +35% (for Armor6terran)
- Modified Armor Value: every module uses a percent now
- Removed WeightPercent and replaced them by Flat on Bomb and Scout Module
- Modified the Invasion6: its bonus is applied on ship instead of fleet now
- Increase EvasionDisorientation from 0.05 to 0.15 (it's a malus on Evade for each Successful Evade)
- Increased Control Loss from 10 to 13: invasion can now be done in 8 turns instead of 10 in Normal Speed
- Modified some data (cf Google doc https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AugwwpqYDMipdDlPamxYZHpFaWtkUTJjTkM3VmVlR0E#gid=0)
Factions/traits:
- Changed Sheredyn Affinity: -50% Buyout Bonus become -33% Buyout Bonus
- Every affinity now has a base of 65 points for custom faction
- Master of Illusion is more expensive:
- Level 1: 5 -> 10
- Level 2: 10 -> 20
- Added a better tooltip feedback for Lethal Modder (HeroAbilityPilot05)
- Moved Harmonize Planet from 7th circle to the 3rd
AI:
- Amoebas will research sooner technologies for invasion
- In Easy mode AI took decisions only 1 time during 2 turns in order to be less efficient
- During deal, resources are not valued anymore when it is compared to system ownership.
Other:
- Polish language has been added
- A hero assigned to a system under blockade cannot be moved until blockade has ended
- Golden Age can only occur one time on a same system
- Improve the way resources bonuses are updated when a blockade is activated
FIXES
- Fixed a bug reported by community on Door to Infinity
- Fixed: The Amoeba specific "Resources Platform" star system improvement does not update the trade route bonuses
- Fixed: Client receives an Assert after selecting Raze on approximately half of the systems
- Fixed: Selecting end turn after all the systems in the game have been razed, will result in an assert for all the players in the session
- Fixed Lethal Modder: now give + 100 damage per salvo (divided up the number of shots)
- Moved Waiting Period of Cold War to 0 to fix a bug regarding cease fire
- Fixed an issue: some design add level 2 kinetic at start
- Fixed an issue on Kinetic2SRHissho
- Fixed: The game application uses the default mouse cursor graphic
- Fixed: Importing planets from mod was not working
- Fixed: Playing Harmony at Slow game speed you lose 2 populations after 1st turn even with enough food
- Fixed: Some modules icons were level 4 instead of level 1
- Fixed: Sheredyn Integrity: contracts were considered as broken by the faction when War is declared
- Fixed: A deal is broken if any of the two players involved losses the access to the resource proposed as term
- Fixed an issue where the approval status of the empire (and the owned systems) were not refreshed after the colonization of a new system
- Fixed an issue where approval status for the empire and the systems were not properly refreshed after removing the effects of random events
- Fixed: Constructing colony ships does not consume population upon completion
- Fixed: Game remains stuck on end turn if the user selects to continue after winning the game
- Fixed a bug on the module thumbnails in the ship design view (weight and MP were not multiplied by quantity)
- Fixed: A Colony ship that cannot be built is not greyed-out
- Fixed a bug on Adaptative Strategy
- Fixed: During a blockade the construction queue is not refreshed
- Fixed a bug on the Small2Terran
- Fixed: The user remains stuck after selecting manual combat for two battles in the same time.
- Fixed: Selecting the survey all moons or remove all anomalies action, the game will generate a erroneous scrap message
- Fixed: Ships deal damage when retreating from combat
- Fixed an issue where, when the 2 players involved in a battle played a retreat during the same phase, they attacked each other
- Fixed: Cannot attack - Misleading tooltip due to Cold war status + inside Influence
- Fixed a bug on EmpireImprovementUniqueResistance2: the Temple were counted 1 per planet in the Star System
- Fixed: in MP one of the fleets involved in a battle may not have a valid orbit