No need! Found it! Screen resolution is 1680x1050, but I play at 1280x800 (for reasons).

Edit: I fixed it by switching to my native resolution. 

We have just released a preview build! If you want to give it a try, please follow these instructions:

• Right click on the game in your Steam Library
• Select Properties
• Select the Betas tab
• Select the 1.0.36 build in the drop down list

EDIT: formatting improved, and a couple of corrections made. Thanks to Kynar for their help!

[IMPROVEMENTS]

• Added a scroll bar to the company list on the left banner of the economy screen
• Disabled and greyed out trade route lines between turns in the economy screen
• Polished Chat messages (rename, join)
• Players can now force their fleet to take a direct path by using the Ctrl key
• Added info about spaceport and population transit in the Star System List
• Planetary destruction cinematics can now be disabled
• Added the possibility to rename Vodyani arks
• Added starting skills in the skill tree panel, now visible as two skill circles on the right of the hero skill tree screen under "Starting Skills"
• Fleets can no longer escape a player when the player is selecting a target
• The player is now aware that he can activate population growth using luxuries when reaching the required amount of said luxury
• Ground battles now start automatically when the ending turn button is pressed
• Added Guardians information in Guardian curiosity tooltip; the player knows what they get before exploring the curiosity
• Ground battles on a mothership now have a specific ground texture
• Added Unique planet lore in Planet screen
• Global improvements of the performances in game

[QUESTS]

General

• Secret Quest Reward: All "?" are now replaced by "Random Technology"
• Hidden tooltips "?" have been replaced by "Random [icon] Technology" in order to be clearer
• “Good Life” Exploration Quest is now validated even if the player orbits around an outpost which is turned into a Colony, if the population slots are sufficient
• "The living plague - Part 2" quest is no longer completed after a logistics ship reaches the system
• Minor Faction quest which requires to pass 3 laws no longer can be started if there are already 3 active laws
• Fixed an issue where the custom factions lose all gameplay affinities after becoming Sheredyn or Mezari by completing UE Chapter 3: "No turning back"

Horatio

• If the player already possesses a System level 4 in “There Can Only be One Trillion” (Chapter 3 - Choice Industrialist), this system will now count for the objective completion
• Horatio Chapter 3 part 2 is now triggered properly

Lumeris

• Third choice of the main quest Chapter 4’s alternative objective no longer uses only the first four strategic resources
• The Lumeris quest "A matter of influence" can no longer be completed by Ship Bound custom factions without meeting the requirements

Riftborn 

• Rewards on the first chapter of the Riftborn main quest are more balanced
• Quest Chapter 1 Step 2 Religious Objective is now doable if the player has the Vodyani Affinity
• Chapter 3, two of the rewards display a bonus which wasn't correctly applied. Now, it is functional
• The Riftborn quest can no longer be resolved if another Empire attaches a Mothership to a system

Sophons 

• Reward Seduxury on the Chapter 1 of the Sophons quest is now less costly
• Main Quest Chapter 1: third choice now has a complete different reward, which decreases the Minor Faction Action Praise’s costs (or Bribe) by -30%
• Main Quest Chapter 2 Military Version: Reward has been balanced to be more interesting
• Chapter 4 Reward effects are clearer now

United Empire

• Curiosities explored by spending industry in colonized systems now count for the completion of the first UE chapter
• Main Quest Chapter 1: Increased the Traitor's Reach Reward. Now this outpost is a Terran planet with a positive anomaly on it, and there is a secondary planet on this system
• The Daily Slogan reward of the United Empire Chapter 1 was underwhelming comparing to another reward of the same chapter. It now increases the basic food output of an outpost by 50%
• Planets and systems involved in Chapter 4 of United Empire now have a compass and a quest marker
• Lord of War United Empire population quest now has 2 new rewards, chosen among Technologies instead of Prestige points

Vodyani

• The counter of the Quest "Hope in Heresy" (Chapter 4, step 1) displayed false info. Now, the counter displays the same information as the objective description
• In the event of failure, the Vodyani Population quest now explains why the quest has failed
• Hope in Heresy part 2 can no longer be achieved by another empire than the Vodyani

[MODDING]

• Added warning message when exporting resources is supposed to overwrite files
• Resource export screen is disabled while an export is in progress
• Fixed empire improvements not being editable by mods
• Added compatibility between saves with and without non-gameplay mods

[MAC]

• Fixed the planet scan view which was not displayed properly
• Fixed ship path feedback
• Fixed game remaining stuck when using the Exit to desktop feature

[DESYNCS]

• Fixed DustInflation desyncs
• Fixed desync on hero experience
• Fixed desync on retrofit

[AI]

Generally improved AI performances including:

• The AI is now aware of victory conditions and pursues them according to faction personality
• Added a mission to help an ally in defense
• Fixed an issue where a fleet spawned by a quest did not move and the quest cannot be complete
• Fixed an issue where Unfallen fleets were asking for rooting at each decision resulting in a lot of warning and performance issues
• Vodyani AI now uses support modules on motherships in a better way
• Fixed an issue where AI was unable to retrieve a destroyed Singularity resulting in an error message
• Fixed an issue where Vodyani AI was trying to use the spaceport resulting in a lot of warnings
• Fixed an issue where the AI was trying to buy a Hero during the metaplot
• Fixed an issue in CostsSnapshot merge resulting in invalid cost and wrong decisions being taken by the AI

Multiplayer

• Fixed AI taking control of player actions if a multiplayer session is reloaded and player slots are changed
• Optimized game session release. Launching several games in one session should not be a cause of crashes anymore

Military and fleet behavior

• The AI now computes ship design for heroes
• The AI now changes its fleet composition depending on the situation
• The AI now chooses better support modules
• The AI now uses advanced hulls better, and uses a wider variety of ship design modules
• The AI is now able to understand flotilla ranges better in order to select an ideal play and create better decks
• The AI is now able to use complementary weapons and handle module levels in a better way
• The AI is now able to use militarist laws 'lower fleet costs' and 'spoils of war'
• The AI now handles ground battle strategy better
• Fixed an issue where AI was not able to wake up to answer battles
• The pacifist and benevolent AIs now don't like to use planet destroyers
• Simple encounter (AI on AI battles) now properly handles fleets with multiple heroes
• Improved merge fleet behavior

Minor factions and diplomacy

• The AI now uses all the minor faction actions
• Improved the declaration of war against minor factions’ heuristic
• Fixed AI being able to interact with minors it doesn't know
• Created the sandbox mode in the diplomacy behavior
• The AI now takes truce breaking and diplomatic demand abuse in consideration in term evaluations
• There are now negative consequences for declaring war after a diplomatic demand has been accepted
• The AI now takes already invested resources into consideration for contract cost computation
• Unfallen AIs are now able to root their allies
• Diplomacy AI now reacts in a better way to the use of core cracker
• Fixed an issue where the Unfallen were sending a trespass mood message when you moved on a system you own they have rooted
• Fixed an issue where an AI declined an Alliance despite requesting it
• Fixed an issue where AI would infinitely try to propose a contract
• Fixed an issue where diplomatic behavior cycles were not detected correctly resulting in behavior issues
• Fixed AI trust being significantly lowered because they treated trespassing with exploration vessels as 'military trespass'
• Fixed an issue where AI sends diplomatic messages to the users stating that they have sent gifts even though they have not

[FIXES]

Tooltips and other visual features

• Fixed tooltip positions on New Game Screen
• Fixed tooltip of faction droplist in new game screen for custom factions
• Improved system buyout tooltip
• Added explicit failure description in construction tooltips when you cannot buyout a construction because it is turn based
• Added failure tooltip when the player tries to move a hangar
• Added tooltips on Faction cost/Population cost/Trait count in Custom faction panel
• Improved the Wonder Constructible feedback in tooltips
• Destroyed planets are now properly displayed as destroyed with the correct tooltip information in the galaxy view
• Tooltip of systems under the entwine process no longer overlap the bottom of the screen
• Tooltips are no longer displayed during the loading screen if they're visible while performing quick load
• If a hero is a Senator, the “next level” part of his senator skill is hidden in the Senate screen (on tooltip)
• Fixed words bleeding through the tooltip for several modules
• Made Bhagaba assimilation trait "Culturally Resistant" description more explicit
• The turn transition indicator is displayed when performing quick load
• The "Sacred Harvest", "Feeding Pits" and "Endless Research Park and EndlessWorld" (Wonder1) duration value is now modified inside its tooltip based on the chosen game speed
• Changed migration minor action error "system is full" to "no valid system available"
• Fixed the Relation bar not updating when the player used the Declare War and Cease Fire actions on a Minor Faction on the same turn
• The last quest viewed is not selected when reopening the "quests and events" screen
• Removed the Colonize button from appearing on a Destroyed planet label
• Fixed Anomaly reduction information showing false information for AffinityGameplayVampirilis
• Moved the FIDSI values for Huge and Large planets inside the FIDSI sectors in Star system management scan view
• Made the In-game timer option modification more obvious (tooltip and label)
• Other empires' hangar information is now properly hidden in all circumstances
• Player no longer receive a false "Abduction Complete" notification if a Leecher is destroyed while leeching a system
• Fixed an issue where the "Destroy Planet" action displayed the same duration regardless of game speed
• The loading save menu, the competitors panel and the loading screen image now properly reflect the faction chosen when picking randomly
• Fixed Technology Unlocked notification layout sometimes appearing broken the first time the notification was opened
• Capped the remaining turn until new population feedback to 99 (will display 99+). Improved the feedback of losing population in the side panel system population
• Portraits are now so they look okay in 4:3 faction selection
• Removed Politics Unlocked notification from Auto-popup menu
• Fixed the G2G feed in main screen so that the text will always be fully visible when the mouse is over the banner
• Reduced the size of the net value in the Control banner and removed the decimal in some other cases.
• Fixed the population sectors being hidden in a 5 planets configuration
• Fixed an issue where the Negotiation screen continued to be displayed after a multiplayer session ends
• Fixed the feedback when trying to reach an unreachable node with a fleet (advice for Free Move instead of Wormhole technology)
• Fixed an issue where false information was displayed in guardian curiosity tooltips inside the star system management screen
• Added Total Upkeep label for selected law on Laws Management Modal Window
• Made Neighbors count clearer in Star System Management Scan View
• Removed a graphical corruption on the system level disk in the system view
• Fixed outpost migration not saying why it is halted
• Added info on spaceport and population transit in the Star System List (No Empire Demographic screen is available)
• Fixed the hero ship design statistics according to hero skills
• Fixed attached arks not showing up properly
• Prevented the StarSystem tooltip to be shown while hovering the Constellation label
• Text is now properly displayed in the marketplace news feed
• Luxuries are now shown in the economy screen when they have been seen on a system
• Added assignment information in the Skill Tree Panel
• Hero ships / ship design upgrades: the ship upgrade cost is now hidden until anything has been modified in the ship
• A warning message is now displayed when a hero assignment will replace an already assigned hero.
• Probe placement mode / time singularity mode are now canceled if the user opens a screen on the control banner or the scan view or clicks the end of turn
• Fixed an issue where the ground battle notification "ready" button could bleed out of the window in some languages
• Fixed outpost counter and tooltip when playing Riftborn
• Added specific description in tooltip of ground battle action when invading an ark
• The Home System icon no longer overlaps with the "colonizable planets" icons when the home system tab has more than 4 lines
• Boosted populations now display their effect properly in population modal window and tooltips
• Added feedback on besiege & blockade effect so it says it removes all resource production
• Added cut off (word wrap) when there is a '-' (hyphen) to prevent weird word wrap with fleet names, particularly in German
• Fixed the Show quest markers button's behaviour; the view now cycles through all the quest nodes if there are several
• Added info on reinforcement man power on the ground battle notifications (Users are now informed about the maximum manpower deployment limit for invasions)
• Fixed the inspect button in the marketplace
• Elements from the Empire (Target) Selection (when several empires can be fought in a system) are now properly displayed on higher resolutions
• Fixed Hero assignation to fleet when double clicking an invalid line; the invalid lines are now disabled
• Fixed diplomatic scan view showing center of empires that aren't known
• Destroyed arks tooltip now displ

I am having a little bit of light/texture flickering with an Intel 630 igpu (Intel Kaby Lake gpu, newest driver available).

It's not major, it's only on certain parts od the ships, but it's there

DxDiag.txt

Diagnostics - 2017'08'11 @1213'16''.html

I am unable to upload video files here, so here is to a couple of videos  I recorded showing flickering

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1udPC1S6iNSM2hZZmZtT3N4ZW8

Other than that, the preview seems solid

I played up to turn 81 as Horatio with the new changes. This was vs the 3rd hardest AI difficulty on a random galaxy, I think it turned into a circle-shaped galaxy. Otherwise normal stuff and obviously economic victory disabled. 

First bug I noticed: Since you now know what luxuries are needed to boost population growth, the game will tell you, you discovered that luxury ressource which is not the case. For example I remember Niris needed Endless artifacts to boost their growth but I didn't discover those and still the game told me that I did. 

At turn 81 I am at 8 or 9 systems, about 1 or 2 above the maximum threshhold. To compensate this, my Horatio population give me pretty good approval bonuses. If I remember correctly I get +3 on hot as standart, plus 2 from zvali and plus 3 kalgeros spliced. Still on some systems which are not full with Horatio, I find myself getting very low approval, one even has a rebellion going on. This is due to the planets being barren which gives a huge approval penalty, about 8 per pop. In my opinion this is way too much. I don't see how other factions could compensate for such huge approval penalties. 

The game feels dragged out way too much. Normally I would atleast be at 14 or 16 systems at turn 80. I would probably produce 4k to 5k science instead of a petty 2500. 

Just now I got system improvement to level 3 on 2 systems which cost me 120 for both luxury ressources (the mushroom and the leaf that gives bonus food). So the lv 4 system im provement will probably take way too long to achieve. 

I have yet to aquire the 2nd tier of strategic ressources antimatter and the other red stuff because I don't have the technology yet. Futhermore I don't even have access to antimatter in any of my systems. 

I have about 80 Horatio population and 25 other minor population. I am currently not splicing them even though I could. The problem is that both of those add plus 3 food on my Horatio but on most of my systems I am way above the 300 mark already so I dont gain any benefit from boosting my food production. I am still super far away from the technology that turns food into production. Even if I had it, it wouldn't do a lot for me since I keep sending population around to my lower populated systems. I feel like a huge problem is the inability to grow more than 2 population per turn. 

I am currenctly at war with the other Horatio and the vodyani. The other Horatio only have 2 systems throughout the whole game because I am right next to them and I kept blockading their only outpost for about 20 turns while it was growing. They keep conscripting in their capital which stops me from taking it over. This is probably a good thing because if I would take it over, the overcolonizaztion penalty would probably be too severe for my lesser populated places that have fewer approval bonuses from fewer Horatio. It destroyed 2 Arks so far from the vodyani. I am very lucky to be at war with them because if they were any other faction my empire couldn't take the overcolonization penalties.

Tl;dr: On standart galaxy settings, the colonization threshhold is too low. You basically have to get extremely lucky with luxury and strategic ressources. Being at War also seems impossible because of the low amount of colonization options. The game seems to favour a tall population instead of a wide population now, which is refreshing but also drags out the game way too much. I have noticed that the approval penalty on planets is now per population instead of a flat penalty. On barren for example this is minus 8 per population, which even for my plus 5 approval Horatio is too much to handle. 

Kornstalx wrote:

sheredynplayer wrote:

On standart galaxy settings, the colonization threshhold is too low. You basically have to get extremely lucky with luxury and strategic ressources. 

I've said it a dozen times but it's worth mentioning again: Amplitude please don't tinker with increasing the threshold. 

If you're having luxury problems, play on higher luxury settings. The thresholds are fine and honestly a welcome change from the typical map-painting practices of most 4x's.

Maybe I was a bit unclear. I did not want to increase colonization threshholds for the sole purpose of luxury ressources. In fact I have a very adequate amount. The cost of 40 luxury ressources for Rank 2 and 120 luxury ressources times 2 for Rank 3 seems a lot at first, but over time you will aquire enough, especially with trade routes. The way it works now makes you consider adding something other than tier 1 luxury ressources for your system improvement, which is a welcome change. I played until turn 100 I think and I eventually switched from dictatorship to democracy for the approval bonus. This allowed me to overcolonize more. I think I am at 10/8 or 11/8 systems right now and about 99% approval. Soon I am going to terraform all my planets to fertile to increase approval more. On my systems I have titanium, hyperium, antimatter damantium and ochialrix. I was only able to aquire antimatter because I took over the other Horatio's home system, being Horatio myself. I have yet to find the green endgame strategic ressource. But I must say I got extremely lucky with my systems. most of them have 4 or even 5 planets, tons of luxury ressources and good anomalies. I can see having to settle fewer planet systems just to be able to optain crucial strategic ressources. 

So to recap my thoughts: 

The low colonization threshhold makes luxury ressources and strategic ressources more valuable because you have less options to get them. This means you have to choose more carefully which systems you settle. The increased cost for system developements means that you are more often going to add something other than Tier 1 luxury ressources (Jaedonix and stuff) This is a great change! 

I am however very concerned about militaristic factions. While the nerf to pacifists FIDS bonuses is great, I don't see how you are going take over many other systems without endling in rebellion in all your systems. Yes you can eventually increase your threshhold with Rank 4 systems, but as I said those come on super late, like at turn 100 I am probably still 20 turns away.

With the cravers you usually ended up with 4 or 5 Systems by turn 30-40. So that would mean you are basically capped. If you were to try to take out another major faction, you would have to take over probably another 4 systems which might be too big of an approval penalty. 

Then again Cravers are a special factor since you can do all kinds of tricks with approval from minor factions and technically they don't care about 0 approval. But what about factions like the UE or Lumeris?

It would be nice to have some of you try this out, taking over a couple major factions and see if you can balance your approval. Keep in Mind that I am playing Horatio right now, which at the moment have +4 approval and +3 on hot, +10 approval per luxury ressource instead of +5 and about 160-180 total population which grant me another +1 each for being a democracy. Also I have 3 special unique planets in my systems: Auriga, the Savanna one and Skygoja which give me huge FIDSI bonuses. So this is why I am concerned with the approval for other factions.

Hi there,

here are my 2 cents about this new build:

turn 180 (playing in progress)

the good:

+ A.I. has finally learned how to make better ship designs

+ the in-battle performance has improved by a lot (now it's as smooth as silk)

+ the game has become more challenging (empire management) even for expert players

the bad (or bugs):

- each 2 turns A.I. asks me for alliance...

- in one of my sytems I have to buy buildings (with dust) because they are not buildable anymore for no reason

I love what i see here... :-) guess why?