Hey folks, here's a little holiday surprise from us to you! We have just released a preview build for Update 1.1.15. To redeem the add-on content, link your Steam account in your profile on the Games2Gether (see the pop-up pug in the top left of the Games2Gether!).

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 preview(1.1.15) build in the drop down list
• Click OK
• Give us your feedback after playing!

IMPORTANT NOTE: YOU WILL NEED TO CREATE A NEW SAVE FOR THIS PREVIEW. PRE-EXISTING SAVES SHOULD NOT BE PLAYED WITH THE PREVIEW

(this will not be a problem once the update releases in full)

FREE WEEK-END ADDON CONTENT ADDED

• Mezari Fleet skin 
• New galaxy shape (Spiral 6)
• 1 event
• Anomaly
• 3 modules
• 1 hero

[BALANCE]

• Tied the Force Truce tribute amount to game turn and dust inflation
• Prevented contextual terms to be sent by the AI if it hasn't met the player
• Now, if all players are in the same team and if the AI wins on the other side, player can see the Metaplot ending
• Flaks have been modified, with their damage nerfed and range reviewed
• Hero experience gain during battles is now shown in the Battle Report
• Added priorities to diplomatic terms so they're displayed in a more intuitive order
• "Authoritarian Leadership" when used as a starting skill now has a siege power bonus
• Second part of the Metaplot quest do trigger if the quest fleets win the first part of "Isyander's Gambit"
• Isyander's Gambit can now be completed if the quest fleets orbit around and then leave the majority of systems
• Lowered default pirate difficulty
• Slowed down Pirate spawn on a global scale
• Slightly reduced Pirate Lairs' manpower on a global scale
• [Spoilers UE quest] Added missing Co-operative protocols for Sheredyn and Mezari
• Increased Dust gained by scrapping ships and improvements and linked gained values to Dust inflation
• Reworked war momentum formula to be more progressive (wars are not heavily influenced by early battles anymore)
• Conquest Victory thresholds increased slightly on the 4 biggest map sizes based on Community feedback
• Fixed Xenolinguistics being unavailable as a Starting Technology trait in Custom Factions with Sophon Visual affinity
• Improved Pirate Lair Manpower distribution

[IMPROVEMENTS]

• Once controlled, the name of a constellation changes color to match that of its owner
• Changed the “Marine Blue” empire color to improve visibility
• Added safety check notification when the user deletes an entry from the Journal 
• Added Notification for the end of the metaplot
• Added notification to inform your ally that they will lose the effects of Co-operative protocol when it is cancelled
• Updated the character limit for renaming fleets 
• Updated “New contextual diplomatic term available” feedback
• Updated text in battle report notification when war trend is maxed
• Added a feedback in battle notifications when the war momentum trend is maxed out
• Removed the notification that discovering a constellation was a prerequisite to take control of it
• Clarified pressure sources values in their tooltip in diplomacy screen (added the numerical values)
• User is now informed that a system with less than 100% ownership cannot be evacuated 
• User is now informed why they cannot place singularities on an enemy system when the "Remove Singularities" contextual term is in effect 
• Added feedback for effects happening after the metaplot has ended 
• Added a cap for the pressure trend feedback
• Added the number of available probes in the exploration ship tooltip / Added the expedition power value in the fleet tooltip
• Added tooltip explaining why a Singularity can't be placed somewhere
• Added icon to tooltips of damage gauges in the advanced battle report screen
• Coordination Tool pings no longer remain on screen permanently if the user is zooming in or out in Galaxy View while a ping is placed
• Changed the industry icon to a militarist icon for the first choice of the political Generation Gamma event
• If the text exceeds the requests width, the player can hover the request to see the rest of the text
• Swapped the Pirate and Minor Faction difficulty sliders in the New Game menu

[FIXES]

• Lobby bug has been fixed: sometimes players couldn’t see friends’ multiplayer games
• The Photobomber quest no longer fails if the player merges the Photobomber’s ship with another fleet
• Fixed case of AI repairing ship right after selling it which caused an error
• Fixed being able to send the "generate pressure" term in succession in some cases
• Fixed being able to trade systems at war without signing a truce
• Influence and Dust tooltips no longer display "missingGuiElement" debug text after "Stop Pacific conversion" contextual term is refused 
• Effect of the Co-operative protocol is now properly displayed in the "signed treaty" notification
• Ship's stats no longer overlap the ship's tooltip box when the game is set to "Window" mode and 1920x1080 resolution 
• The Wonder notification no longer displays false information after you are refunded a wonder
• Fixed an issue where changing the government did not apply the feedbacked costs
• Upkeep now correctly increases when turning a fleet into privateers
• Fixed an issue where, sometimes, the amount of CP and the number of ships used to unlock flotillas did not take into account all the ships involved in the battle
• Ship modules can now be located inside the technology screen by searching for their titles 
• Fixed systems with only guardians sending free guardians to neighbours with "natural" migration
• The research turn duration displayed in the empire panel is now properly updated based on the available science surplus
• Description text in the planet scan view is no longer overlapping
• Made star lanes highlight & usage more consistent when the selected fleet is in movement
• Ship action panel can no longer be displayed in the Star system management screen
• Fixed "natural" migration causing errors when system has no population
• A fleet in "sleep" mode will now wake up if it can destroy a planet
• Contextual terms that are cancelled (eg. context no longer valid or war declared) no longer have a cooldown
• Fixed labels of planets/systems lost to Unfallen invasion displaying erroneous information
• Fixed 2 issues on Contextual Diplomatic Exchange Cancellation:
• "Done" button on the "Diplomatic Exchange Cancelled" notification now has correct behaviour 
• Both empires are now informed that a diplomatic exchange is canceled when the conditions of a contextual term are no longer met
• Arks can no longer detach from the system when it is frozen with a Riftborn singularity
• Fixed fleets created on a system that's being blockaded not being able to move, but still showing more than 0 movement points
• Fixed retreat not working after a fleet has been intercepted
• "Preserve the Academy" quest markers are now correctly placed
• "Remove outposts" colonization restriction range now depends on influence radius of each neighbouring system, instead of the same value for every system
• Fixed minor faction trait not being removed after it has been granted through a "Development grants" action
• Fleet actions are now properly updated in real time when a Stasis Singularity is canceled 
• Fixed the fact that the resources icon could go under the populations icons in the star system management view
• The enemy is no longer incorrectly shown as destroyed after retreating 
• Fixed Probe launch interface not being closed when the fleet launching the probe is teleported out of an empire's influence via diplomacy
• Fixed some contextual diplomatic terms being shown in GUI although they cannot be sent.
• The "Destroy Planet" and "Colonize" buttons are now updated properly if the fleet is attacked while orbiting the system
• Fixed sorting order of diplomatic terms in negotiation modal window
• Narrative events with only political effects are now displayed correctly in the narrative screen
• Functionality of the Coordination Tool visibility button is no longer inverted if the user performs any action that disables the Coordination Tool button while it is active
• Coordination Tool no longer overlaps with the player bar buttons
• The ping button is no longer highlighted if the players click another button like the Scan view button for example
• The players can no longer place coordination requests if pings have been disabled
• You cannot offer peace and alliance in the same contract anymore
• The experience gained by admirals is no longer inconsistent with the value displayed in the combat notification
• The fleet module effects are now only shown when hovering a ship in a fleet (not in the ship design edition panel)
• Fixed and issue where The Confirmation message displayed when disabling all mods displays false information, informing the players that they are activating a mod 
• Fixed unfallen vines not decaying when captured by someone else
• The tooltips are now shown correctly when hovering over dust and influence in the Change Government screen
• Fixed Horatio splice bonuses being cumulated on systems & planets every time a system is captured
• Fixed final Academy quest’s support fleets being able to spawn on lodestone systems 
• Fixed outposts being taken into account for constellation control in some cases
• “Home planet” tooltip from Faction Selection now displays the correct effects
• Fixed “Suggest Terms” button when evaluated terms are invalid (you can no longer spam it) and fixed “make offer” button being enabled even without enough influence 
• Fixed an issue where Retrofit button remains inactive if the user changes a ship design by double clicking it in the fleet panel
• The Journal no longer display a score of 100 million for sessions which have disabled score victory 
• Multiple Constellation Control notifications should no longer be displayed if the user enters an Alliance after they establishes Constellation Control
• Fixed issues with contextual diplomacy and Singularity  placement.
• It’s no longer possible to open the Tech Screen by Ctrl+ Clicking on a Tech Hint if the Tech Screen is not accessible
• Fixed an issue where the replay of space battles generated errors in MP and could lead to inconsistencies even when playing in single player
• It is no longer possible to click on the button "Accept" in a negotiation which is not valid
• Fixed projectile of "Basic Entropy Torpedoes" being smaller than "Basic Decay Torpedoes"
• Fixed Reavers and Minor Factions not having their damage logged correctly in the Advanced Battle Report
• "Authoritarian Leadership" now takes into account Manpower given by Ship Modules when applying its Manpower bonus
• Game speed modifiers will now be properly applied to Hero related variables

[AI]

• Fixed: The AI no longer targets civilian ships first
• Fixed: Refined colonization heuristic
• Fixed: Raised offensive Military Power required for the AI to consider a fleet as dangerous
• Fixed: Refined war and truce declaration heuristics
• Fixed: Refactored fleet influence
• Fixed an error when releasing AI too soon when the player is quitting
• Corrected diplomatic demands evaluation
• Corrected faction pact evaluation

[LOCALIZATION]

• Multiple fixes and improvements based on community feedback

About pirates:

Pirates on "hard" (game on normal) were really easy after numerous hours of playing, I guess mostly because theres less pirate lairs spawning now.

The ai is ok with them now, but i suspect thats due to the lesser amounts of them.

Ive bumped my pirates up to endless and the game onto hard now to try and see if they become a challenge.

Essentially, i was able to completely contain pirates at "hard pirate" difficulty using a 6/7 command points rag tag fleet i put together from gaining 2 minor factions. ('shuttle' ships iirc). They were not hard, more like occasional weak little bugs floating around the enourmous galaxy, whereas before when there was lots of them they were like a bug swarm that would attack by attrition which was quite a fun challenge.

so,

Im going into a game now with endless pirates and thats what i expect to see.

Dont let me down amplitude ;)    <3

Alternately, you can manually redeem it if you go to your badges on your profile, then click on the Profiler badge, then on Connected to Steam, and then under the "DLC" tab you have two "Redeem" buttons you can click to make sure the Add-On is unlocked on your account. Hope this helps!