(Re)Awakening Update Beta Branch - Academy Overhaul

Hey everyone!

Thanks to all of you that has been around playing the beta version and giving feedback.

If it is the first time you heard about this Patch. Here you have the first blog that contains a general idea about it.

Today we have an update to the build that brings a lot of changes.

Changes 

• Ruins can no longer spawn on Minor Faction systems, their spawn ranges have been tweaked to be more fair.
• Slightly increased infantry health and damage
• Xirmisala assimilation traits and law have been reworked
• Relics can now be collected while a fleet is cloaked
• Diplomacy relic effect has been entirely replaced due to community feedback. Now provides a constant amount of minor faction relation and increased influence radius
• Added new Nakalim minor faction interaction, Align
• Nakalim politics have been adjusted
• Nakalim now start with a colonizer
• Unfallen now start with an additional vineship
• Cathedrals now damage enemies within their system's influence radius
• Each major faction now has its own preferred Academy roles
• Added an "Academy Expansion" slider
• Added Endless difficulty for the "Academy Difficulty" slider
• Ships loaned from the Academy are now prohibited from invading
• Influence conversion unlock tech has been moved to T2 Empire Development
• Explorer hull upgrade tech has been moved to T2 Science and Exploration
• Academy ship equipment and fleet strength have been entirely reworked
• Increased the rate at which the Academy levels up to more match player progression
• The "Master of Dust" role has been replaced with the "Legate", which has the primary benefit of choosing a faction to declare a Crusade against, which allows any other empire to attack their fleets regardless of their diplomatic relation.

New

• Academy now has its own diplomacy screen, accessible by clicking on the icon above their systems or by the Academy button in the diplomacy menu.
• Factions who participate in the Academy auction will receive an amount of relation points, which can be redeemed for a selection of favors from the Academy.
• The Nakalim may donate systems to the Academy for a large amount of academy relation. They also have a new faction trait with grants a variety of Academy-related bonuses
• Each faction has a unique favor they may ask the Academy for.

Modding

• Adding new modifier operations, Minimum & Maximum
• Vastly increased the ability of modders to change Academy diplomacy, AI, ship spawns, etc.
• Multiple new formulas exposed in the registry, along with the ability to revert the academy back to using "stress" instead of relying on academy levels

Combat Rework

On the combat and game balance side of the changes, ChaosWillRise provides the following breakdown of goals & changes.

“The most prominent combat-related problems known in ES2 can be summarized as:

1. The discrepancy between the effective defensive capabilities provided by Shields & Plating modules, and the resulting unilateral play style.
2. The lack of fleet composition variety in terms of ship types, their amounts, and the individual builds of the ships.
3. The lack of countermeasures against specialized fleets (EMP, Critical Strike, Squadron, Carrier)

The patch aims to address these major issues, and by doing so, hopes to revitalize the untapped parts of the combat system and enable the experimentation of different play styles. It balances existing modules, ships, battle tactics, and many other combat-related components, enabling even deeper gameplay. It also fixes some of the faulty mechanics and makes the UI more descriptive. Thus, players who desire to dive deeper, can understand the meaning behind the numbers and better strategize. On top of that, it adds new battle tactics, new modules, new unlocks, curiosity discoveries, and rearranges combat-related technologies. Have fun exploring!”

Weapon/Defense/Support Module related changes:

1. Defense module stats are rebalanced, and Shield Capacities are substantially buffed.
2. Weapon DPS values, fire rates, effective ranges, Weapon Hull & Shield penetration values are tweaked.
3. Strategic modules, EMP Weapons, Railguns, Swarm Missiles, Blast Effect Batteries, and Squadrons are adjusted in terms of their stats, effects, and use cases.
4. Support modules are balanced, some are reworked, and new ones are added. Flotilla-wide effects are expanded.
   
   

Ship Hull changes:

1. Ship Health, Hull weakness, and manpower capacities are adjusted. Carriers are significantly nerfed.
2. Coordinator and Protector ship bonuses are significantly buffed, and new effects are added.
3. Ship targeting priorities are changed and made visible in the ship design view under the ship “Role” UI.
4. New Attacker and Protector Ship Hull Upgrades are added to the tech tree, increasing their module multiplier to x1.25
   
   

Battle Tactics changes:

• Battle Tactic effects, ranges, and tech stage placements are changed. Their UI is made to be more descriptive.
• New situational but powerful battle tactics and upgraded versions of existing tactics are added to the curiosity rewards.
  
  

Squadron changes:

• Squadron movement speeds are substantially buffed.
• Squadron stats are adjusted in line with new squadron roles: Light & Heavy Bombers, Interceptor & Strike Fighters.
  
  

Mechanics & Other Changes:

1. Flak damage, Flak fire rate, and projectile health values are adjusted. Flak targeting orders are adjusted. Swarm missile, BEB, EMP missile, and normal missile fire rates are aligned. UI is updated to provide more information.
2. Evasion used to provide only half of the intended effect, now works correctly.
3. Ship level-up effects are adjusted. Ship experience on construction now works correctly.
4. New tags for modules are added: “Only once per ship” “Only once per flotilla” “Can only be used on Medium Support Ships”
5. Curiosity rewards and drop rates are reworked.

Bugfixes

- Fixed Influence Radius flickering and huge influence border growth projects
- Fixed building a Cathedral putting you over the production limit
- Fixed many slots on Academy ships not functioning properly
- Fixed Behemoth Mining not properly transferring its FIDSI to your planets
- Fixed some new content missing their images
- Fixed some icons some icons appearing as much lower resolution than they should
- Fixed Nakalim planet FIDS malus not applying
- Fixed malus for missing colonization tech not showing up in planet FIDSI breakdowns
- Fixed some empire relic effects not toggling correctly
- Fix miscellaneous tooltips from not showing up properly / being duplicated
- Fixed some new tooltips having variables that do not resolve
- Fixed starting Behemoth modules not unlocking when you research the Behemoth hull technology

Hotfix Beta

Additional Changes

• Reduced the military support requirement of the Sophons Quest "Chapter 2. Seeding the Cloud - Part 1" and the "Masters of the Arena" quests so that they were reasonably achievable
• Re-added removed technology "Vacuum Protection", moved the following items onto it:
  • Advanced Explosive Drones (Empire Improvement)
    Increased bombardment damage from ground battle strategies
  • Extreme Swarm Missile (module)
  • EMP Disruption Field (module)
  • Repulsive Plates (module)
• Moved "Weapon Interference Beam" to Advanced Game Theory
• Made "Shield Interference Slugs" exclusive to Tensor Algorithms
• Moved several technologies around in T3 &T4 Military (This has no effect on gameplay)
• Clarified some confusing tooltips
• Dust Bonanza no longer has an upkeep cost
• Denarque University industry cost reduced by 2/3
• Decreased speed at which the Academy ranks up
• Cleaver module has had its damage and manpower damage increased to match its tier
• Improved AI from using some incorrect module combinations

Additional Bug fixes

• Fixed the game crashing if you don't have Awakening enabled
• Fixed Bait / Jammer modules not correctly applying movement effect
• Fixed Nakalim Ground Strategy variants missing images
• Fixed Nakalim Relic Boost missing image
• Added missing EmpireAttitude localization strings
• Adding missing warning strings
• Fixed many typos
• Fixed Hero Skill GUI showing an incorrect amount of available relics
• Fixed building a Cathedral not always unlocking the appropriate slot
• Fixed only the first two relic slots being able to be unlocked
• Academy Expansion: None setting now functions properly
• Fixed temples not showing the correct turn count in the construction queue
• Increased scroll speed in Academy Diplomacy
• Toggling the Empire Relic now updates the Empire UI Screen
• Fixed Unfallen not having the Influence Conversion technology
• FIDSI per Population bonuses on Planets no longer appear as though they are giving you a large percentage
• Fixed Aligning a minor faction not failing any assimilation quests associated with it
• Fixing colonization module tooltip appearing in the incorrect category
• Fixed some modules appearing as though they require a different strategic resource in the tech tree
• Minor factions can no longer run out of quests to give
• Fixed brainwashed faction still allowing their boosts to be used
• Fixed terraformation not showing delta between planet FIDSI

We are testing the effects of allowing every faction to grow multiple population each turn, feedback and bug reports are appreciated. 

You can access this beta version by going to to the Betas tab of the game properties on Steam and choosing the patchpreview branch. If you try the beta, please make sure you have disabled all mods. (If you previously used a mod that adds additional options to the new game settings, make sure to return to settings available in the base game before turning off the mod.)

Thanks to @CaptainCobbs, @CyRob and the rest of the team for the amazing work they are doing on this patch!

Do not hesitate to share any additional feedback you have!