Hello everyone! It's been a week since we [url=https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/984680/view/3199256688971880409]released the Evolving Empires expansion and the free 1.4 update[/url]. In the meantime, we released[url=https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/984680?emclan=103582791463539933&emgid=3328735652602008245] version 1.4.1[/url]. We hope you are enjoying the new expansion and the new free update with all the new features and improvements. In the meantime, we've been listening to your feedback, so here's a patch that fixes some issues found since the release and also makes some changes to the new 'Minor Civilizations' feature of the Evolving Empires expansion. We received a lot of great feedback on the new expansion, and more concretely on the new 'Minor Civilizations' feature, which helped us understand that some tweaks and balance changes were in order to improve it to its full potential. We became aware some people reported not finding enough minor civs, or when they did these sometimes appeared a bit too late in the game. We also became aware the unintentional destruction of minor civs with blind colonization (not having full scan over a system) was an issue for some people. We acknowledged the situation was not ideal, so 1.4.2 Beta addresses that. Please note that 1.4.2 Beta is an optional update, and only available on Steam's unstable branch for the time being. If you want to help test it alongside us you have to manually opt in to get access. In your Steam library, right click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Properties -> Betas tab -> Select the "unstable - Unstable Beta Branch for Testing" branch. The game will update and you'll be able to start playing with the new additions and improvements. We will be monitoring your reports for bugs and generalized feedback in the next few days. Please report them in our [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/984680/discussions/1/]Steam forums[/url], [url=https://interstellarspacegame.com/forums/index.php?forums/bug-reports-tech-support.11/]official forums[/url], on our [url=https://discord.gg/w5XeaJ9C]Discord server[/url], or if you prefer just send an email to contact@praxis-games.com (or contact form [url=https://www.interstellarspacegame.com/contact-us/]here[/url]) with a save and the Player and Player-prev log files you can find in this folder: C:\Users\\AppData\LocalLow\Praxis Games\ISG [u]Compatibility note[/u]: Saves from previous versions [u]are not[/u] compatible with 1.4.2 Beta. So, you will need to start new games to enjoy this new update. That's it for now. Hope you enjoy the new beta update. Let us know if you find any issues. Thanks everyone for reading and for the support! The Dev Team Praxis Games [b]\UPDATE #1 (June 2, 2022)[/b]: Fixed a bug that would cause a blocking issue with remote exploration when playing with the Palacean affinity when a monster offspring would join the empire on a system (Natural Allies evolution perk) without a fleet being present. This was only an issue to Evolving Empires owners. [b]\UPDATE #2 (June 2, 2022)[/b]: Fixed an issue that was causing some lag in the planetary view for 4K resolutions, especially noticeable on the Terran terrain, but also others. The images of buildings, planet specials and ships displayed on tooltips was increased a bit. Note: This update may be a bit big in terms of download size. That's mostly due to the images size settings. [h2]Version 1.4.2 Beta[/h2] [h3]GAMEPLAY[/h3] [list] [*] New 'Detected' state for 'Minor Civilizations' allows minors to be revealed with 'Basic' scan level (e.g. normal ship visit or basic remote exploration level), where before 'Full' scan was required to reveal the minor. This new state doesn't reveal the minors' type nor allows access to its relationship bonuses. For that, 'Full' scan is still required. In the 'Detect' state, you only know a minor is there (intelligent life signals detected) but you do not know who they are nor what bonuses they may provide. This resolves the unintentional destruction of minor civs with blind colonization issue, and will allow for more minors to be revealed early, although with no detailed information yet. [Evolving Empires expansion] [/list] [h3]BALANCE[/h3] [list] [*] The game offers a bit more minor civilizations at the start now. The minor civs slider tooltip now states that 5 to 12% of star systems will contain a minor, depending on the minors abundance set (none, few, average, many). [Evolving Empires expansion] [*] The Cerixx race now has the '+1 BC per POP' racial modifier bonus. This race needed this money bonus to be more inline with its strengths as a race and to stay competitive. [Natural Law expansion] [*] The Cerixx race now has the 'Easily Seen' special ability. They are small, but they ride big mechs after all :) This compensates the added money of the item above and it makes sense for them to be more spied on, due to their love for shiny new tech and somewhat careless behavior. They do have the 'Investigation' unique ability though, which catches spies currently undertaking espionage, so it's a gamble for who decides to spy on them. [Natural Law expansion] [*] The Cerixx affinity's evolution perk 'Technophiles', which allows buying techs with cash, now only requires 0.75 BC for each remaining RP a tech requires to be researched, where before the conversion was 1 BC to 1 RP. This balance change was also done to make them more competitive and to ease the buying of techs with money, which is a lot of fun by the way. [Evolving Empires expansion] [/list] [h3]UI / GRAPHICS[/h3] [list] [*] Cerixx ships' Frigate A and Cruiser A now have a bigger engine trail effect to make these ships easier to tell which part is the front and the back. [Natural Law expansion] [*] The images of buildings, planet specials and ships displayed on tooltips were increased a bit. [Hotfix] [/list] [h3]BUG FIXES[/h3] [list] [*] Fixed a bug that would cause duplicate leaders to appear and accept working for different empires, which could lead to additional issues when influencing those leaders when a "copy" of the leader already present in the influencing empire. This was caused when all leaders were dismissed when the Kaek empire chose their 'Hub and Spoke' evolution perk, which was accounting for all leaders the Kaek knew about, and not just the ones that were actually working for them at that time. [Evolving Empires expansion] [*] Fixed a bug that was causing upgradeable buildings (e.g. Airspace Support Facility, Marine Garrison) to not automatically upgrade upon conquering a colony. Now these upgrade to the newest available technology. [*] Fixed a bug that would cause the Cerixx's 'Containment' unique ability to become permanently in effect, and blocking fleets in a system forever, after the Cerixx were vanquished, as the containment field would never be lifted after that point. Now it is lifted when the Cerixx empire is eliminated from the game. [Natural Law expansion] [*] Fixed a bug that was allowing all empires to receive the benefit of the 'Neutronium Armor Coating' tech (bonus to armor) with available sources of the 'Neutronium' strategic resource, even without having researched the tech. [*] Fixed a bug that would cause the 'Delicate Delicacies' event action notification to disappear upon resetting or reordering the tech queue. [*] Fixed an issue that was not allowing for new scanner technology to take effect immediately when bought with money using the Cerixx affinity 'Technophiles' evolution. [Evolving Empires expansion] [*] Fixed an issue that was not allowing the access state of known 'Minor Civilizations' to update upon picking the 'Empire Patrols' evolution perk of the Cerixx affinity evolution. Now minors' access state (e.g. exclusive access), updates immediate and not just in the next turn. [Evolving Empires expansion] Fixed a bug that would cause a blocking issue with remote exploration when playing with the Palacean affinity when a monster offspring would join the empire on a system (Natural Allies evolution perk) without a fleet being present. (Evolving Empires expansion) [Hotfix] [*] Fixed an issue that was causing some lag in the planetary view for 4K resolutions, especially noticeable on the Terran terrain, but also others. [Hotfix] [/list]