Open Beta Patch v1.26o2 (12 may 2025)

[Vic]

Posted new open beta 121e !!

There have been quite a few complaints about Tech 3 being too hard a start over time. I only partially agree with these criticisms. So not all requests will be granted. However some were valid and some I deemed necessary on further analysis & QA. Hence I have made improvements to the Tech 3 start concerning energy, rare metals and low population sizes & private farming. I’ll be monitoring feedback and am interested if there are other huddles at Tech 3 or unforeseen effects or bugs with this new open beta.

Thank you all for continued feedback. It helps a lot !

Best wishes,
Vic

[solops]

Huzzah! for another patch. Don't much care about the level three starting stuff, though.
But, Huzzah! anyway!

[eddieballgame]

Here are the details of the beta patch v1.21e from the Steam post.

Changelist 1.21e (#182)
There have been quite a few complaints about Tech 3 being too hard a start over time. I only partially agree with these criticisms. So not all requests will be granted. However some were valid and some I deemed necessary on further analysis & QA. Hence I have made improvements to the Tech 3 start concerning energy, rare metals and low population sizes & private farming. I’ll be monitoring feedback and am interested if there are other huddles at Tech 3 or unforeseen effects or bugs with this new open beta. Thank you all for continued feedback.

-Private Scavenging Asset now also produces 10 rare metals per round *

-Tech Level 3 start (if regular difficulty or higher) now starts with just a Degraded LE Battery instead of Degraded LE Reactor (30 Energy instead of 100 Energy) *

-Solar Energy Tech now in line with other Tech in same Tech Group (thus now easier to discover and research) *
-Solar Panel Assets now cost 1 construction round more to construct (and thus level 1 construction cost is doubled!) *
-Solar Panel Assets now consume some rare metals during production (not a lot, but simulating some repairs need to be made on a constant basis, gameplay-wise it makes solar panels slightly less attractive, improving the attractiveness of the others) *

-Added “Furnaces” basic Tech available at Tech Level 3 start that allows building Organic and Scavenging Furnaces.

-Organic Furnaces require Forest (level 1 in range 1, level 2 in range 2, etc…) and will have 25% per Asset Level to
deplete a Forest Level. (Note Savannah (75%) and Forested Mountain(50%) provides less, just grass provides 0)*

-Scavenging Furnaces require Scavenge Points to be present in Hex. Will quickly make a dent in Scavenge Points, especially on higher levels as every Energy gained burns 4 Scavenge Points.*

--Mostly invisible to most players, but made the Private Economy simulation a bit more realistic and interacting with actual item prices now. Revisions made to the spending of Credits by Population with the Traders when buying “luxuries” and Assets. Item Market Prices now impact the cost of Asset construction and luxuries buying. Also the Sales Tax now also impacts the cost of Assets and luxuries buying. New semi-hidden values of Private Trade Debt (to Traders) and Private Tax Debt (to Regime) make this possible. Note that Traders will sell at lower prices if market prices are really high as sales are often made to private families and enterprises that are partially controlled or in the same family as traders. (there is a fuzzy boundary between traders and population, traders actually exist somewhere halfway between free folk and population).

-Fixed a glitch in the payment of Private Economy to Traders which was sometimes paying more than necessary for new Private Assets & streamlined-scrapped the arbitrary and bit weird 15% paid to traders for services, all money is converted into items now.

-Added 3 new Private Asset Types : Farmsteads, Xeno Farmsteads and Dome Farmsteads. They each come in 3 Levels and are smaller more improvised versions of the existing Farms. On Level 1 they only require 1000 population to operate. On top of that the Farmsteads can be financed with loans taken from Traders as well (up to a limit though!). This allows a very small Populace to kickstart an economy sooner. All Farmsteads Levels can be build, even in a Level 1 Zone. Once the 2nd Level 3 Farmstead is ordered in Zone that one will downgrade to Farmstead I and the other Farmstead III will upgrade to Farm Community I. *

-Some Asset Types can advanced multiple Levels per City Level now. The following: Airbase *2 , Truck Station *2 , Rail Station *2, High Speed Rail Station *2 , Public Port *2 , Supply Base *2 , Bunker *2. Note that the new Private Farmsteads are *3. *

-Fixed call to succes Stratagem text to be in line with its actual effect
-Fixed very rare issue (tech/culture/admin Level 9) with Faction not having a viable Demand at all and instead of asking the impossible will now ask for more Asset levels.
-Fixed crash at round 200 (Dalibor)
-Fixed crash related to AI airforce usage (bellrock)
-Fix: Savannah Snow , Cloud Forest Snow and Jungle Snow can now also be used for surface Snow Mining
-Fixed Protectorate/Client status in rare cases where you had a Minor Client/Protectorate that would declare war on you through events => the protectorate/client status is now removed.

-AI: Fixed some occasions of very badly considered land follow up attacks after artillery bombardment
-AI: Fixed the overvaluing of some artillery attacks

-Tuned down number of spies lost, especially when huge numbers present

-Increased SAM Launcher ammo cost from 200,300,400 to 250,500,800*

-Heavier artillery + Heavier AT + Heavier Flak guns get a reduction in movement due to a movement penalty for heavy weight & resulting manhandling of equipment (going up to about 75% movement cost penalty for the heaviest of guns)*
-Any equipment (like artillery, at gun) being carried with such a negative movement penalty will retain this penalty when being transported (by like trucks) unless the transporters have a positive movement bonus (due to powerful engines) which will offset the negative penalty of the guns.

-Model Designer Director now uses Inventor, Technician and Improvisation Skill for extra rolls on the rolls for Structural Design (Inventor) for first version and for later versions: Base Design (Technician), Armour Design, Weapon Design and Engine Design (Improvisation). If the roll >200 it gets 3 extra rolls for said design variable, >150 2 extra rolls, >100 1 extra roll. (logged in skill log for leader) *

-Model Discovery Task now uses Inventor Skill instead of Technician *

-Fixed faulty “void of life” message in planet gen*

-Fixed a glitch with deleting decisions upon actually aborting Zone Merge

*=Requires new game start to show up

[Nsf665]

thanks for update vic!

I'm little bit confused with Furnaces

-Added “Furnaces” basic Tech available at Tech Level 3 start that allows building Organic and Scavenging Furnaces.

-Organic Furnaces require Forest (level 1 in range 1, level 2 in range 2, etc…) and will have 25% per Asset Level to
deplete a Forest Level. (Note Savannah (75%) and Forested Mountain(50%) provides less, just grass provides 0)*

in-game it says
They'll provide you with mix of Metal, Rare Metals and Oil
is this maybe a Typo, since its shared between all 3 (furnaces and recycling fac.), but the output shown on the actual Furnace is just 35 Energy

ShadowEmpire_DngY4QYSHX.png (331.52 KiB) Viewed 1305 times

also is there some visible indicator which shows "how much is left" of the forest?

[Vic]

Jep thanks for spotting! Mouse over is wrong. (as well as mining category subtab in construct popup). Will be fixed next subversion.

Only visual indicator for forest left is on map. A level 1 organic furnace will be probably be able to run like 12 rounds on a single Heavy Forest Hex for example. If it is placed in the middle of such a Forest (with 6 heavy forest hexes around) it will be able to run about 72 rounds on them.

[zgrssd]

Here are the details of the beta patch v1.21e from the Steam post.

Changelist 1.21e (#182)
There have been quite a few complaints about Tech 3 being too hard a start over time. I only partially agree with these criticisms. So not all requests will be granted. However some were valid and some I deemed necessary on further analysis & QA. Hence I have made improvements to the Tech 3 start concerning energy, rare metals and low population sizes & private farming. I’ll be monitoring feedback and am interested if there are other huddles at Tech 3 or unforeseen effects or bugs with this new open beta. Thank you all for continued feedback.

-Private Scavenging Asset now also produces 10 rare metals per round *

-Tech Level 3 start (if regular difficulty or higher) now starts with just a Degraded LE Battery instead of Degraded LE Reactor (30 Energy instead of 100 Energy) *

-Solar Energy Tech now in line with other Tech in same Tech Group (thus now easier to discover and research) *
-Solar Panel Assets now cost 1 construction round more to construct (and thus level 1 construction cost is doubled!) *
-Solar Panel Assets now consume some rare metals during production (not a lot, but simulating some repairs need to be made on a constant basis, gameplay-wise it makes solar panels slightly less attractive, improving the attractiveness of the others) *

-Added “Furnaces” basic Tech available at Tech Level 3 start that allows building Organic and Scavenging Furnaces.

-Organic Furnaces require Forest (level 1 in range 1, level 2 in range 2, etc…) and will have 25% per Asset Level to
deplete a Forest Level. (Note Savannah (75%) and Forested Mountain(50%) provides less, just grass provides 0)*

-Scavenging Furnaces require Scavenge Points to be present in Hex. Will quickly make a dent in Scavenge Points, especially on higher levels as every Energy gained burns 4 Scavenge Points.*

--Mostly invisible to most players, but made the Private Economy simulation a bit more realistic and interacting with actual item prices now. Revisions made to the spending of Credits by Population with the Traders when buying “luxuries” and Assets. Item Market Prices now impact the cost of Asset construction and luxuries buying. Also the Sales Tax now also impacts the cost of Assets and luxuries buying. New semi-hidden values of Private Trade Debt (to Traders) and Private Tax Debt (to Regime) make this possible. Note that Traders will sell at lower prices if market prices are really high as sales are often made to private families and enterprises that are partially controlled or in the same family as traders. (there is a fuzzy boundary between traders and population, traders actually exist somewhere halfway between free folk and population).

-Fixed a glitch in the payment of Private Economy to Traders which was sometimes paying more than necessary for new Private Assets & streamlined-scrapped the arbitrary and bit weird 15% paid to traders for services, all money is converted into items now.

-Added 3 new Private Asset Types : Farmsteads, Xeno Farmsteads and Dome Farmsteads. They each come in 3 Levels and are smaller more improvised versions of the existing Farms. On Level 1 they only require 1000 population to operate. On top of that the Farmsteads can be financed with loans taken from Traders as well (up to a limit though!). This allows a very small Populace to kickstart an economy sooner. All Farmsteads Levels can be build, even in a Level 1 Zone. Once the 2nd Level 3 Farmstead is ordered in Zone that one will downgrade to Farmstead I and the other Farmstead III will upgrade to Farm Community I. *

-Some Asset Types can advanced multiple Levels per City Level now. The following: Airbase *2 , Truck Station *2 , Rail Station *2, High Speed Rail Station *2 , Public Port *2 , Supply Base *2 , Bunker *2. Note that the new Private Farmsteads are *3. *

-Fixed call to succes Stratagem text to be in line with its actual effect
-Fixed very rare issue (tech/culture/admin Level 9) with Faction not having a viable Demand at all and instead of asking the impossible will now ask for more Asset levels.
-Fixed crash at round 200 (Dalibor)
-Fixed crash related to AI airforce usage (bellrock)
-Fix: Savannah Snow , Cloud Forest Snow and Jungle Snow can now also be used for surface Snow Mining
-Fixed Protectorate/Client status in rare cases where you had a Minor Client/Protectorate that would declare war on you through events => the protectorate/client status is now removed.

-AI: Fixed some occasions of very badly considered land follow up attacks after artillery bombardment
-AI: Fixed the overvaluing of some artillery attacks

-Tuned down number of spies lost, especially when huge numbers present

-Increased SAM Launcher ammo cost from 200,300,400 to 250,500,800*

-Heavier artillery + Heavier AT + Heavier Flak guns get a reduction in movement due to a movement penalty for heavy weight & resulting manhandling of equipment (going up to about 75% movement cost penalty for the heaviest of guns)*
-Any equipment (like artillery, at gun) being carried with such a negative movement penalty will retain this penalty when being transported (by like trucks) unless the transporters have a positive movement bonus (due to powerful engines) which will offset the negative penalty of the guns.

-Model Designer Director now uses Inventor, Technician and Improvisation Skill for extra rolls on the rolls for Structural Design (Inventor) for first version and for later versions: Base Design (Technician), Armour Design, Weapon Design and Engine Design (Improvisation). If the roll >200 it gets 3 extra rolls for said design variable, >150 2 extra rolls, >100 1 extra roll. (logged in skill log for leader) *

-Model Discovery Task now uses Inventor Skill instead of Technician *

-Fixed faulty “void of life” message in planet gen*

-Fixed a glitch with deleting decisions upon actually aborting Zone Merge

*=Requires new game start to show up

We do have all that stuff listed on Page 1 of this thread.

[KingHalford]

Vic, just a heads up that the current patch notes (#182) in that first post of the thread is still displaying the latest patch as 1.21d.

[Vic]

bump! continued changes! and bug fix

[Vic]

I think we are getting close to having energy balance much improved with subversion F.

[DasTactic]

Awesome additions Vic. Really like the new approaches in this iteration.

One aspect of the game I still struggle with is the die-rolls and the info they provide. Sometimes we get a bit of a formula and sometimes we get just a number. I'm guessing the calculations are more involved than just presenting more of a "dice formula" so it would actually be great to get percentage chances as well for the various outcomes. Crit success, success, failure, and crit failure.

Also, I really think the game needs to keep the results of all combat that occurs for the player as some sort of log rather than just the immediate results for the combat the player initiates. I find it frustrating that you can be attacked and have basically no info on what occurred, or if you do initiate a battle you can't re-open the results after you close them.

One other little point - the Steam Launcher is listing the game as version 1.09.

[eddieballgame]

We do have all that stuff listed on Page 1 of this thread.[/quote]

It does now, but not when I posted it.
It was on the Steam page, so I shared it.

[zgrssd]

We do have all that stuff listed on Page 1 of this thread.

It does now, but not when I posted it.
It was on the Steam page, so I shared it.

Actually, it was.
I read it there long before you posted .

It might have listed the wrong patch version in the text, but it was 100% there.

[eddieballgame]

We do have all that stuff listed on Page 1 of this thread.

It does now, but not when I posted it.
It was on the Steam page, so I shared it.

Actually, it was.
I read it there long before you posted .

It might have listed the wrong patch version in the text, but it was 100% there.[/quote]

Not going to debate this with you, I posted it because I did not see it there when the 1.21e was posted.
Which is why I went to Steam to retrieve it.
Anyways, was just trying to be helpful & thank you for your concerns.

[mroyer]

We do have all that stuff listed on Page 1 of this thread.

It does now, but not when I posted it.
It was on the Steam page, so I shared it.

Actually, it was.
I read it there long before you posted .

It might have listed the wrong patch version in the text, but it was 100% there.

Not going to debate this with you, I posted it because I did not see it there when the 1.21e was posted.
Which is why I went to Steam to retrieve it.
Anyways, was just trying to be helpful & thank you for your concerns.

Just to clarify, you're both sort-of correct - it was there, but for a while was mis-labelled as v1.21d. Later someone (probably Vic) fixed it to show v1.21e.

[eddieballgame]

Actually, it was.
I read it there long before you posted .

It might have listed the wrong patch version in the text, but it was 100% there.

Not going to debate this with you, I posted it because I did not see it there when the 1.21e was posted.
Which is why I went to Steam to retrieve it.
Anyways, was just trying to be helpful & thank you for your concerns.

Just to clarify, you're both sort-of correct - it was there, but for a while was mis-labelled as v1.21d. Later someone (probably Vic) fixed it to show v1.21e.

Apparently I missed it, my bad.

[Vic]

Awesome additions Vic. Really like the new approaches in this iteration.

One aspect of the game I still struggle with is the die-rolls and the info they provide. Sometimes we get a bit of a formula and sometimes we get just a number. I'm guessing the calculations are more involved than just presenting more of a "dice formula" so it would actually be great to get percentage chances as well for the various outcomes. Crit success, success, failure, and crit failure.

Also, I really think the game needs to keep the results of all combat that occurs for the player as some sort of log rather than just the immediate results for the combat the player initiates. I find it frustrating that you can be attacked and have basically no info on what occurred, or if you do initiate a battle you can't re-open the results after you close them.

One other little point - the Steam Launcher is listing the game as version 1.09.

I am going to look at those combat logs again in the future. A less ambitious plan more in the form of a written battle report might actually work really well.

Steam Launcher is listing 1.21.00 when i try on main branch and open beta branch. Which branch are you on?

[Vic]

Bump!
Still further finetuning to Solar Energy. Previous version overdid it a bit. With subversion G I think we reached a really good balance.
Also a lot of bug fixes!

[newageofpower]

-Heavy Industry Asset no longer initially present for Tech Level 5 start (Should be player choice if he wants to build this as machinery can be done by workshopping as well and Heavy Industry uses a whopping 200 Energy) *

Is this actually a good idea? Players can just mothball the Heavy Industry if they don't need it. Removing it reduces player agency & flexibility, while leaving it in has a minimal cost for increasing flexibility.

[Elver]

I'd agree with this point. HI is a lot more affordable than workshopping - not least b/c it doesn't eat Industrial Points - and in addition to mothballing, you can scale down production to make energy consumption more reasonable until you can better afford it.

OTOH, it does seem a bit odd for you to have more power consumption than power production, so I can see some rationale for it. It's like the many starts I've had where I'm consuming far more water than I'm producing; it's jarring and breaks immersion to start with an industrial/agricultural base that is rapidly unsustainable even if I change nothing.

I hesitate to suggest it, but another solution could be to re-scale HI upgrades so Lvl I is 100 energy but only produces 5 machines. That would have a significant impact on high-end production capacity if it was achieved by just adding another level below the current Lvl I and bumping the rest up a level - and this would definitely be an issue late-game as machines become a serious bottleneck - but it would ease you into high energy consumption a bit more gradually.

[DasTactic]

It would be great to have the Model Design Director tool tips added to the character traits - specifically highlighting the aspects that Invention, Technician and Improvisation focus on.