Hello everyone! We're thrilled to announce that the new and free! 1.6 major update is now available and ready for public testing on Steam's unstable Beta branch! Let's explore some of the major changes of 1.6 Beta, and later on you can check out the details of the update and on how you can try it for your self and offer your feedback to the Devs! New Victory Conditions This was a highly popular feature request by the community, and something we really wanted to offer at some point, and it finally makes it in for 1.6! In addition to the existing Election and Alliance victory conditions, and the traditional winner conquers all way to win (now called Conquest Victory), you now have the following new ways to win: Wonder, Domination, Science, and Score victory conditions! Here's a brief breakdown. To win a Wonder victory, you need to control a certain number of Galactic Wonders, which are super projects you can build in your colonies. To win via Domination, you must control a defined number of the original homeworlds of the playing races. To win a Science victory, your empire has to reach a combined ultra tech level, by researching the most advanced technologies in each research field, a certain amount of times. A Score victory is achieved by whoever has the highest score in the last turn of the game game. This is the overall score reported in the 'Empire Overview' screen. The new victory conditions can be configured by clicking in the "Advanced Options" button, as can be seen below. On top of the new victory conditions, you can also configure the new ones but also the pre-existing Election and Conquest victory conditions. You can choose the number of wonders required to build, the percentage of colonized systems that need to be controlled, the frequency in which the Galactic Council will reconvene to try and elect the galactic ruler, and more. Below, on how to access the new victory conditions screen during the game. Also, if you wish, you can continue playing after winning or losing due to any victory condition being triggered, and win (or lose) again through other means. Balance tweaks, and QoL improvements Along with the new victory conditions, the 1.6 Beta update also offers other new features, many tweaks and improvements, and bug fixes, many in reply to your suggestions. Included in the new features and improvements is a revamped 'Deep Space Initiative' culture perk, that now also provides free remote exploration on adjacent sectors to the ones just explored. This should provide a more balanced remote exploration experience in bigger maps. The 'Powerful Creatures' planet special now also provides an empire-wide ground combat bonus. There's also the ability to adjust the wormhole lines' brightness (including disabling them); the ability to move weapon components up and down in the ship design screen; the possibility of listing leaders by their status (unassigned or assigned first). Also, hovering over torpedoes and missiles will now highlight the ships' they're targeting, just to name a few changes. You can see the full list of changes below. I Want To Try It and Provide Feedback! Excellent! We're looking forward to it! As of posting of this dev diary, the 1.6 Beta update should be live on Steam. Please note that the 1.6 Beta is an optional beta update. You have to manually opt in to access it. 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. Version 1.6 Beta - Full Release Note Spoiler: Show Details NEW 4 New Victory Conditions! Wonder, Domination, Science, and Score victories. Also, revamped Conquest Victory now allows setting the percentage of colonized systems that are required to win. Possible also to configure the new victory conditions and the frequency of Galactic Council sessions for the Election victory. It is now possible to adjust the wormhole lines' brightness in the galaxy map, including disabling them. 'Deep Space Initiative' culture perk revamped, now provides free remote exploration on adjacent sectors to the ones explored. This shall provide for a faster and more balanced remote exploration experience in bigger maps. It is now possible to move weapon components up and down on a ship in the ship design screen. New Hall of Fame reset option added! Resetting the hall of fame reverts it to the default entries. The 'Powerful Creatures' planet special now also provides an empire-wide ground combat bonus. Added information on what each colony is currently producing to the system tooltip in the galaxy map. Hovering over each system now lists the current colony construction projects in each colony. AI IMPROVEMENTS The AI now scraps planetary domes and micro gravity generators when they are no longer needed. BALANCE 'Deep Space Initiative' culture perked moved from the 1st to the 3rd level on the 'Knowledge' culture branch. The 'Theory of Everything' culture perk, that provides two free technologies, now has competition on the 3rd level. And, the 'Astronomy Culture' perk, that provides a second remote exploration target is now a single choice in the 1st level. 'Quantum Singularity' technology now provides +100 flat research points per exploited black hole, instead of previous +200% RP on accretion disk, making it a far more interesting tech now. Exchanging techs with other empires via 'Research Treaty' now a bit harder and not as easy as before. Space requirements for some unique super technologies found in ruins were revised to be a bit smaller and even more attractive to equip. Chaos Chain space reduced from 150 to 125. Positron Torpedo from 150 to 135, and Ion Discharger space reduced from 150 to 140. Leader desires for building galactic wonders in their colonies were reduced significantly, especially for the wonders that would be hard to unlock with the current culture choices. The more powerful ships and unique technologies found in ruins now tend to be found a bit later in the game when going with lower production and research efficiency picked at game start. The less research efficiency/speed of the game, the later these powerful items will tend to be found, so that these do not come into play too early for the current research status of the galaxy. Evolving Empires Subject empires will now refrain from destroying minor civilizations their overlord has access to. PERFORMANCE Loading a saved game is now much faster. This is especially noticeable in big late-game saves. UI / GRAPHICS Espionage assignments screen tweaked to show spy missions by category, resulting in a better presentation of available missions. New notification now informs the player that cloning centers may no longer be needed when a colony reaches maximum population capacity. The leaders management screen now offers the possibility of listing the leaders by their status: unassigned or assigned leaders shown first. Sorting by 'unassigned first' can help speed up finding leaders that may be ready for new spy operations. The 'Fusion Beam' effect has been replaced by the correct effect. It was using the same effect of the 'Laser Beam'. Hovering over torpedoes and missiles in combat will now highlight the ships' they're targeting. The colony invasion notification now takes you directly to the planet instead of the system view. Now possible to center the galaxy map on overview panel's objects by holding the 'ctrl' key and left clicking on that item. This worked for ships and fleets before, and now works for all items: colonies, planets, asteroid belts, gas giants, accretion disks, fleets and ships. This allows the player to find these items better in the overview panel. The 'Disable All' button in the 'New Game Setup' screen now has a tooltip to explain the behavior, what players are disabled, and that only two are left enabled. The 'Threat to Leave' leader notification now blocks the 'Accept' option if the player does not have enough funds to pay the leader's request. The tooltip explains what options are available to the player to obtain enough funds. The 'Natural Wonders' and 'Exceptional Fossils' planet specials now list "+100% from Space Socialites" in the colony BC tooltip, to clarify where the extra credits are coming from. A warning is now raised when trying to assign a colony leader to a spy mission if a leader desire would become unfulfilled by relocating the leader to other duty. The tooltip for the 'Just One More Turn' button in the victory screen now clarifies that, in light of the new victory conditions' changes, you can continue playing after winning or losing due to a particular victory condition, and win (or lose) again through other means. Now possible to scroll the tech tree left and right using the 'A' and 'D' keys. The tech tree horizontal scroll bar was also slightly thickened to improve usability. Now easier to click on fighters and bombers to target them in combat. The Raid UI, the panel shown after raiding a colony with an assault ship, was revamped to be inline with the same theme of the other screens. It was using an older version of the UI. Hovering over a leader desire notification will now highlight the system, or fleet, in the galaxy map where the leader is stationed. The fleets overview panel now shows which fleets have leaders, and the number of them. Also possible to sort the fleets in the overview panel by amount of leaders present in the fleet. A bit more transparency was added to the 'Colony Structures' list panel in the colony screen. Now it looks better, as more buildings and terrain can be seen behind that panel. The 'Planet Construction' tooltip now clarifies that the system must have a colony to support a planet construction project in that system. The 'Master Geologists' wealth culture perk now clarifies that the uplifted worlds that are allowed to be terraformed with that perk are the ones that have ecological level 3, which cannot be terraformed otherwise. SOUND & MUSIC Added sound when assigning a leader to a spy mission. BUG FIXES Base-Game Fixed a major bug that could cause a game freeze when two or more 'Chaos Chain' weapon slots were fired at the same time at a target. Fixed a major bug that could cause significant slowdown and sometimes a crash in the system view when displaying too many Human frigate and destroyer ships. This could also happen with Moltar ships. Fixed a major bug in space combat that could cause a hang when using a unique ship found in ruins with bomber bays in combat without having researched any missile technology. Fixed a bug that was causing early research breakthroughs to only happen at turn ETA 3 to tech breakthrough. The correct behavior is at ETA 3 and 2. The wording on the early breakthrough was revised to clarify it's 3 or 2 turns for breakthrough. Fixed a bug that was allowing the “You can build an Outpost” notification to be displayed when the Outpost ship had already been destroyed. Fixed an issue that was causing the population growth rate displayed on the 'Population Details' panel in the colony screen to not update when changing production allocated to planetary engineering and towards 'Habitat Control'. Fixed a rare bug that was causing o known system to be displayed as 'Unknown destination', when the system was in fact known. Fixed a rare issue that was causing an empire name to be displayed and revealed in the fleet panel, without contact had been made with that empire before, in special circumstances. Fixed a bug that was allowing the 'Collective Transcendence' unique ability to unlock only after one Economics tech had been researched. At least two techs need to be researched in all fields. Fixed a rare bug that could cause a duplicate unique tech found in ruins to be obtained by the enemy even after the player had paid exclusivity access on the 'An offer you can refuse' galactic event. Fixed a bug that could allow leaders to obtain more than 5 secondary skills in special game event combinations. Fixed a bug that was causing a lone frigate to not be able to board a target immediately after casting a tractor beam. Fixed a rare bug that could lead to a combat lockup when a ship was mind-controlled in the same turn it was instructed to flee. Fixed a glitch that was allowing the horizontal scrollbar of the research screen to be set on the last viewed position in a previous game. It now resets the position on a new game. Fixed a glitch in the Human default fleet. The alternate cruiser design had misaligned light effects. Fixed a bug in the empire rankings shown in the diplomacy screen where sometimes the rankings could be different in the first time this screen was opened with respect to following openings. Also, the ranking could sometimes be shown incorrectly in the AI diplomacy status screen. It was taking into account all empires, including the ones the player didn't have contact with yet. It now shows the correct rankings in both instances. Fixed a rare sabotage bug where a notification that a leader and crew were recalled from a sabotage mission would be raised even though the sabotage already happened the turn before. This special case happened when a leader was previously assigned to a ship before being assigned to a sabotage mission. Fixed a glitch in space combat when hovering over a ship's special system and then pressing the tab key (without moving the mouse off the special system) and then selecting another ship without a special system. The pop up info on the special system would remain on the screen and wouldn't go away until another ship was selected with a special system. Fixed a typo on the message when you click on an unexplored white star, "while not has bad" now "while not as bad". Fixed a typo on the 'Balanced' option tooltip under 'Automate Remote Exploration' had a second period after "pattern". Fixed a typo on the 'Battle Graveyard' galactic event, which had a bad paragraph break. The sentence "You will not know the secret." is now part of the same paragraph as "The gift shall not be yours. Stay away, or prepare to suffer." Fixed a typo on the 'Raid' report after raiding a planet such as "...X BC of strange artifacts," had two spaces between "of" and "strange". Fixed a typo on the 'Transporter Room' special system, a space was missing in "...be captured during combat.The Transporter Room has..". Fixed a typo where "Polution" should be "Pollution" in both the planetary engineering tooltip and eco-engineering button tooltip in the colony screen. Fixed a rare bug that could still cause a duplicate spy skill choice (same skill offered in both options) when leveling up a spy leader. This should now be fixed for good. Fixed an issue in the Alliance victory displayed in the 'Galactic Council' screen during voting. It would display "Defeat" to the player when voting for an Ally and accepting the results. Now it displays "You win an alliance victory!" when voting for an ally and the ally wins, when both accepting or refusing the AI ruling. Fixed a bug that was allowing an empire to offer both a peace treaty and a surrender request in the same turn. Fixed an issue when scrapping a project for a galactic wonder, a notification would explain that credits "could be salvaged" from cancelling the project, which could make it unclear if some further action was necessary to obtain the credits. The notification was revised to clarify that the salvaged credits "were added" to your treasury. Fixed an issue that was not allowing the fleet panel to close when hitting the 'Esc' key when the 'Fleet Assign Right Click' option was selected in the 'Game Settings'. It only worked in the default assigning mode. Now it works in both modes. Fixed an issue in the 'Overview' panel which was causing the 'Ships Overview' to not be instantly refreshed when assigning a ship to a system. Evolving Empires Fixed a rare bug that could create game corruption when revealing a minor civilization that had been already assimilated, using the 'Sacrifical Lambs' evolution perk. This special case could manifest when the minor had been assimilated in the exact turn before it was revealed by another player. Fixed a bug that could lead to "infinite infrastructure upgrades" in a colony after picking the 'Telepathic Command' evolution perk before doing the colony infrastructure upgrade. Fixed a bug in the 'Extreme Transformation' evolution perk which would cancel all ongoing wars upon being selected, when it shouldn't. Only treaties shall be canceled. Fixed another bug in the 'Extreme Transformation' evolution perk in combination with the 'Resilient Settlers' unique ability, where the latter was not consuming its charge when colonizing planets of types for which the colonization tech was not researched. It now also consumes the ability with the Extreme Transformation perk, even if all biomes are ideal. Fixed a bug in the 'Spiritual Awakening' evolution perk, which was allowing bombing to occur even though the perk denies it. This is now corrected. Fixed a typo on the 'Minor Civilizations' tooltip on the Galaxy Setup panel of the 'New Game' setup screen. Changed "of the planet their inhabit" to "of the planet they inhabit". Fixed an issue in the 'Spiritual Awakening' evolution perk where it could be unclear what strategic resource technologies did the perk offered. The perk's tooltip now explains that the technologies offered are the ones associated with research choices, which are unlocked after gaining access to the strategic resource for the first time. Compatibility note: Saves from previous versions may be compatible with 1.6 beta. However, it is advisable to start fresh new games to benefit from this update's changes fully. We will be monitoring your reports for bugs in the next few days and fixing them. Please report them in our Steam forums, official forums, on our Discord server, or if you prefer just send an email to contact@praxis-games.com (or contact form here) with a save and the Player and Player-prev log files you can find in this folder: C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\LocalLow\Praxis Games\ISG Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the new 1.6 Beta update! Let us know if you find any issues. The Dev Team Praxis Games
