Hello everyone! We've just released Alpha 2a, which is an update to Alpha 2 released last week. This update adds a few new and important features, improved the diplomatic AI in some aspects and resolved a few major issues that were raised while playing Alpha 2. See all the changes in the release note below. The update is available in the main branch of both Steam and Humble! For instructions on how to play the latest build please go here. On Steam you need to OPT out from the Beta branch and set to the "NONE - Opt out of all Beta programs" (if you did not opt in for the Beta unstable branch before you just need to open Steam, wait for ISG to be updated and off you go!). If you pre-ordered the game you can check how to get your Steam key here. On Humble, you have two branches to choose to download the game from. Just choose the download from the "Main" branch. Compatibility note: Saves from Alpha 2 are not compatible with Alpha 2a, so you'll need to start new games to play this version. Also, custom races created with older versions are not compatible with this new version (either you play with them or the AI, it doesn't matter, they are not supported anymore). Please delete all custom race XML files in C:\Users\<your_user_name>\AppData\LocalLow\Praxis Games\ISG\Races\ or just delete them one by one in the New Game screen. Then you can create new ones with no problem. Thanks a lot to everyone who has been playing and providing feedback! Cheers, Adam Solo & MalRey Praxis Games Please wishlist the game on Steam! Interstellar Space: Genesis is a new turn-based space 4X strategy game currently under development by Praxis Games. The game is currently in 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 2a (Release Note) NEW 21:9 resolution monitors now supported (example: 3440x1440)! FX volume now separate from Music volume. Initial game settings now kept between sessions (includes galaxy size, difficulty, number of players, leader name, empire name, color and all the game options). Tech brokering option added. When enabled the players can exchange all the techs they have. If disabled, only the techs actually researched by the player can be exchanged. Autosave frequency option added to the game settings, including the possibility to disable autosaves. Not recommended to disable autosaves during playtesting! GAMEPLAY Ship rotating in combat now up to a maximum of 45º per action, for a max total of 90º rotation in a given round. Capturing ships in combat autoresolve now less frequent. The Automated Governor AI feature in the colony view will probably not make it for release, so we removed that from the colony view for the time being. PERFORMANCE Saves were too big. They now occupy only half the space. Run-time performance increased during turn resolution (due to saves being smaller now, since the game autosaves every turn by default). BALANCE Smuggler leader skill bonuses changed to +2/+4/+6 BC per strategic resource owned (was +1/+5/+10 before). Number of Powerful Creatures planet specials reduced a bit in Red Stars and White Dwarfs. AI The AI tribute requests frequency was tweaked. Previously, the AIs were asking for tribute very often. Also, tribute requests made by the AIs now much less frequent when at war. Combat AI tweaked to make it a bit more aggressive. It was too passive before. AI ships kept the distance but should have moved forward and be more aggressive and it would have won. AI no longer accepts many tech exchange proposals by the human player in one go. Reputation hits on breaking treaties increased. Ambassador leaving cooldown after declaring war increased a bit. Ambassadors now leave (diplomacy between the two empires isn't possible for a while) when treaties are broken. UI / GRAPHICS Replaced the "ship" and "fleet" icons everywhere in the game. Many icons in the game were polished. Tooltip added for the map size in the new game screen. Tooltip added for "PD all targets" option in the space combat weapons console. The selected ship, and the enemy ships in space combat are now displayed showing the actual ship graphics and not the previous placeholder graphic in the UI panel. Now possible to select the color for the Nova in the new game screen. Now possible to scroll with the mouse wheel in the ship modules panel in the ship design. Crew XP now also shown in the combat alert panel (just before a combat). The "location" and "messages" panels were removed from their top position in the space combat. The "location" info is now shown every round and the "messages" info is shown slightly above the main combat UI panel. The infrastructure specialization window now closes when the population details window opens and vice versa. AUDIO N/A BUGS Fixed a major bug when using the Clairvoyance unique ability where sometimes it was not possible to proceed with the turn. Fixed a major bug that was causing game sessions to freeze. This was being caused when bomber ships were being captured and the new owner didn't have the bomb rack special. Fixed a major bug when the AI was offering gifts. Turn could not proceed due to unresolved action decision. Fixed a bug where the gravity tooltip in a colony would sometimes show information on the wrong colony when there were other colonies in the same system. Fixed a bug that was allowing the same leader to appear twice from ruins. Fixed a bug where fighters could not be launched in subsequent combat sessions (were only launchable in the first combat run of a given session). Fixed a bug that was allowing fighters to be launched by the AI when no fighters were installed in their ships. Fixed a bug that was allowing the AIs to do all kinds of diplomatic interactions even when the ambassadors for the given empires were not available. Fixed a bug that was allowing ammo to be designated for torpedoes. Energy torpedoes have unlimited ammo. Fixed a bug that was allowing AI empires to frame others (including the human player) without first having made contact with them. Minor corrections made to ruins searching text. Fixed an issue that was not showing the "little dots" over the system labels with rival settlements (the little circles in a given system just above the system label indicating the number of system objects there). Fixed a bug that was allowing the AI to sometimes create too many survey ships. Fixed an issue that was causing the colony view to be a bit slow to open in the first 2 times the screen was shown. Fixed an issue in the colony assignment screen (when assigning a colony for a governor leader) where the list of colonies would wrap incorrectly at the end. Fixed a few issues in the lateral fleet panels in space combat. The overload icon was not being displayed correctly for when energy overload was possible or was used. The "already fired" icon was also not showing correctly. Fixed an issue that was causing the 6th planet in a system to now show correctly in 4:3 resolutions (e.g. 1280x1024). Fixed an issue involving the exploitations panel, which when open from the overview panel would close the overview panel; and the exploitation panel would not appear in the correct position. Fixed a glitch where the rogue planet was not being displayed correctly in the system view. Fixed a bug where Positron torpedoes were being displayed as having 0 HP. Fixed an issue where the Ion Discharger weapon cooldown was not changing to green in the weapons console when the cooldown ended. The shield tooltip colors in space combat now match the correct color scheme for the shields. Fixed a glitch that was canceling the "crosshair" icon when issuing a rotation action hover a targeted enemy ship. Fixed a bug that was not allowing the shields overload action to be used after firing and moving the ship. Fixed an issue that was causing the remote exploration panel to show beneath the UI notifications. Fixed an issue where 0% tax rate could sometimes be displayed as -1.490000E-17 or similar (round issue). Fixed typo on leader opinion tooltip. Said "othwerwise", now "otherwise". Fixed a glitch where sometimes the system view tooltips and the planetary assault tooltips could be left hanging after leaving the colony view or the invasion cutscene has ended, respectively. Fixed a bug where our ship was being displayed in the enemy ship console sometimes when the AI had the initiative and moved first. Fixed a glitch where sometimes the enemy AI was being displayed in the human player console after the AI ended its combat round. Fixed a glitch that was not allowing the "round panel" to be shown in space combat in the first round. Fixed an issue that was causing the number of missiles in a given pack of missiles to be shown incorrectly when the missiles had the heavily armored modification. Fixed a typo in strategic resources trade screen (now Dark Matter, was Darm Matter). Fixed a glitch that was causing 2 beep sounds when clicking in the "New Game" button in the main menu, and sometimes one would hear 1 beep, while other times no beep at all. Fixed an issue that was causing the ISG logo to rotate badly in both the main menu and in-game menu. --- Instructions on how to download the latest build can be found here.
