Hello everyone, just a quick update to let you know what we're currently working on and when you can expect the next update to be released. Quick preview on what you can expect from the 1.0.5 patch: New production and research speed options (can be set individually for all players) Improved map paths/lines (new visual animations and option to show only important fleet destinations) Significant AI improvements in the higher difficulty levels (AI is expected to research better military technology, especially in times of war, refit their ships more often, build more and better equipped ships, send bigger and better balanced fleets for raids and invasions and their tactics will be improved in combat) Battle Pods special system will offer more space to ship designs Several balance changes Performance improvements Bug fixes And more! If all goes well we should be looking into releasing 1.0.5 in the next few weeks, so somewhere between early and mid October. What's Next After 1.0.5? The team is working hard on new content for the game. While it's still a bit too early to share any specifics, there is one announcement we're just too excited not to share with our fans... Work has begun to perform a significant overhaul of the game's graphics. You can look forward to improvements like: completely new ship 3D models for all races, a UI revamp, a revamped colony 3D view, and improvements to the galaxy map, diplomacy, system view, and space combat. All of these graphical updates will be provided for free as part of a future content update. Thanks for buying the game, for playing and please keep the feedback going! The Dev Team Praxis Games
As I said over on Steam, I really don't like the sound of a UI revamp. While it has some quirks, overall it works well. The improvements made will likely pale in having to relearn the new UI. (Not unlike QWERTY keyboards...it might not be the most efficient layout, but most people are used to it, so switching is counterproductive)
Don't worry DiscoJer, the idea behind the UI revamp is to make it more appealing from a graphical standpoint, more responsive (e.g. better feedback when processing turns) and to make it even more intuitive where needed. We don't expect to change the layouts, where things are, much. So, it is mostly a cosmetic overhaul in that sense, and not really a functional one.
Will 1.0.5 include any improvement in the time it takes to build colony ships? A comment on steam requested bringing back the old MOO2 Colony Base for systems you already own, but a short term fix would be requiring less infrastructure/build time for colony ships.
Hi Grubod, welcome to the forums! Regarding colony ship build times, the latest patch (1.0.4) has changed the Space Fervor space culture perk to provide +100 production when building colony ships on the Homeworld, which effectively doubles the speed of constructing your first colony ship in the beginning. If you wish to build colony ships faster you can also look into diverting production from asteroid exploitations, to build a support ship, specialize your colonies with better Ship Craftsmen infrastructure, build a Space Elevator, build a Robotic Factory, Deep Core Mine, etc. With that combo you will see that colony ship times will reduce substantially. You can also invest in population growth as more POP will also give you more production, and there are many ways to do that. Colony Bases would make colonization in the same system much cheaper and that's tricky for balance reasons. However, could be an idea worth exploring.
