Development News, News & Announcements

Alpha 1b available on ‘unstable’ branch

Hello everyone,

Alpha 1b is currently on Steam’s “unstable” branch for testing. It’s also available on Humble’s “unstable” branch. This update fixes some important bugs and has a considerable amount of balance changes, for a better experience, especially on late game.

I invite everyone to opt for the unstable branch and test it out, if you don’t mind to find a few bugs and imbalances in the way. There shouldn’t be many bugs and the experience should be better, but still you’re warned.

You can find the instructions on how to play this new “unstable” build here. On Steam you need to go to the Betas tab and set the unstable branch. To unlock the unstable branch just insert the password interstellarsg in the field: “Enter beta access code to unlock private betas”. On Humble, you have two branches to choose to download the game from. Just choose the download from the “Unstable” branch.

Save compatibility: Savegames from Alpha 1a may work on Alpha 1b, however you will need to start new games to benefit from all the fixes and improvements of this new build. Therefore, we strongly advise that you start new games to play this build.

Once Alpha 1b is confirmed stable, we will release it to all users in the main branch. Hopefully within a day or two.

You can find the list of changes below.

Thanks a lot to everyone who has been providing feedback. Now please enjoy the new build and let us know what you think!

Adam Solo & MalRey
Praxis Games

Interstellar Space: Genesis is a new turn-based space 4X strategy game currently under development by Praxis Games. The game is currently at Alpha. Feel welcome to open threads and discuss any topic you’d like in the game forums.

We’re making the most complete and comprehensive Turn Based Space 4X ever developed, and we count with your support to make it happen! So, please tell your friends about ISG, people who loved Master of Orion but also space 4X games or strategy games in general and soon you will Discover the Unknown. Thanks!


Alpha 1b (Release Note)

NEW

  • New “Overcrowding” modifier affects colony morale: -2% Morale per POP above 15 in colony.
  • New race customization special ability: Small homeworld (player starts with a small homeworld planet instead of a medium-sized default one).

BALANCE

  • United Federation space culture perk now grants +10% bonus to morale (was +15%).
  • “Protector of System” leader desire met bonus reduced from +10% morale to +5%.
  • Garrisons with Dictatorship government now provide +10% morale bonus instead of +15%.
  • Wan Ironshard leader is now an advanced Spiritual leader, instead of expert (provides +10% morale instead of +15% at the start).
  • Deep Core Mine facility now costs +50% production to build and its maintenance was increased from -7 to -10.
  • Subterranean race trait now costs 6 picks instead of 5.
  • Low-G special ability now costs -7 picks instead of -6.
  • Civil and Aerospace engineering infrastructure perks now provide +20/40/60% bonus to buildings and starships construction, respectively (previously was +25/50/100%)
  • Prevalence of Asteroid belts reduced slightly (10% less than before); and less large and medium asteroid belts now.
  • Lower level Planetary Shields power increased: Planetary Defense Shield bomb drop deflection chance increased from 10% to 20%. Planetary Deflector Shield from 25% to 35%.
  • Airspace support facilities more powerful now: Airspace Support Facility ground combat strength (GCS) increased from 1 to 3 and Ship Defense bonus of friends in orbit increased from +10% to +20%, Airspace Combat Telemetry from 2 to 5 GCS, +35% Ship Defense instead of +25% and Ship Attack from +10% to +25%; Airspace Defense Nexus from 3 to 10 GCS, Ship Defense from +50 to +75% and Ship Attack from +40% to +50%.
  • Ouroboros legendary leader now appears later in the game.
  • Greedy and Trusting leader traits now appear less often.
  • Meeting a leader’s “Building request” desire now provides only +1 to Labor (was +2 before).
  • Corporate and Administration bonuses from “Colonization request” leader desire changed from +3 to +2.
  • Adamantium Armor, and the other unique super techs found in ruins now cost more in “An offer you can refuse” event. Also, Adamantium Armor appears a bit later in the game.
  • Minor tweak on the amount of XP leaders gain when completing certain projects, nothing too serious.
  • Cruisers and battleships unique ships found in ruins now appear a bit later in the game. In the early game only destroyers and frigates will be found in ruins.

GAMEPLAY

  • Asteroid production exploitations now give +20/40/60 flat production to colonies from small/medium/large asteroid belts instead of previous +0.5/1.0/1.5 production per pop on colony.

GRAPHICS

  • N/A

PERFORMANCE

  • N/A

AI

  • N/A

UI

  • When creating a custom race, the description there does not crop the original race description now. Also, 1250 chars max for the custom race description (was 750 previously). Note: Scrollbar not available there yet.
  • The Options title (events on/off, random tech trees on/off) in the “New Game” UI screen now has a bigger font and the same color as the other titles in that screen.


AUDIO

  • N/A

BUGS

  • Fixed a major bug that was allowing the AI to equip more than one spinal mount modification on their Titan class ships. Only one spinal mount is allowed to be equipped in a Titan (note that only the Draguul and Moltar, or same affinity custom races, can equip a spinal mount on their Titans, for kinetic and beam weapons respectively. Soon, the other races will also have exclusive Titan powers.
  • Fixed a major bug that was causing “ghost” outposts to be left behind after the player razed an outpost belonging to the AI.
  • Fixed a bug that was not allowing a rogue planet to be colonized. A colony ship was present with the right tech but an issue in the way the rogue planet was being presented prevented it from being colonized.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing battles involving only AIs with assault ships to be witnessed by the player (battle encounter was appearing involving only AIs).
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the Race customization UI screen to not scale according to the monitor resolution, causing it to become tiny in 4K resolutions.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing the “special systems” ship design screen to be tiny in 4K resolutions (that screen was not scaling with monitor resolution size).
  • Fixed a typo on the Culture tooltip on the Race customization UI screen. Was “socieaty” now “society”.
  • Fixed an issue where the original race names were being displayed in all upper case in the “New Game” UI screen while only having the first character in upper case elsewhere.
  • Fixed an issue where the overall damage in the ship design sometimes showed a decimal at the end. Now it shows the full numbers.
  • Fixed an issue where pressing the ESC key in the main menu was causing the game menu to appear on top of the “New Game” UI screen.
  • Fixed an issue where the “New Game” UI Options tooltips had a gap (stopped being shown) between the text and the checkbox.


Instructions on how to download the latest build can be found here.