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An ancient evil returns to the galaxy—will you be ready? The producer and co-designer Erik Rutins will be doing a preview stream of the new upcoming DLC Return of The Shakturi at 15:00 CEST. Don’t miss it—watch it here: https://t.co/jYiVTFWdIQ

If you missed it, there's a recording here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2234442117

Thank you, looking forward to the expansion.

Just watched the video. Thanks for the stream! Here are the key points and some other takeaways, for those who can't watch the vid:

Release Date: There will be an announcement later this week, along with the official product page, where the release date will be revealed (but should be later this year)

New general features covered in the stream (some are in the expansion, some with free update):
1) Outposts: You can now build an outpost on worlds that are not suitable for colonies. This not only provides a foothold to expand your territory and protect claims on systems, but it also allows you to take advantage of colony discoveries and place facilities like terraformers to eventually speed up the colonization of those worlds

2) Alliances (thank you!!!): Not a lot shared yet, but official alliances are coming with the expansion. They provide a "very binding" structure for deals and treaties, and commit members to things like shared wars (no separate peace treaties) and so on.

3) No-Planet Start: You will have the ability to begin as a space-faring people with no home planet, but a mobile colony looking for a place to tap roots. This is not a pirate empire (though that may be coming eventually with later expansions), but it does provide a fun nomadic alternative to the early game.

4) War missions: You will now be offered war missions, with things like "Destroy a specific base", "Capture a specific character" etc. If you do these, you'll receive rewards and boosts to your war score, giving you a little more "quest-y" flavor to wars and explicit objectives. They are time-sensitive and can expire even after accepted, so they do take some commitment.
4A) There has been a wonderful overhaul of the fleet targeting system, allowing you to queue up specific target objectives (raid, bombard, attack, invade, etc) with a single click, massively streamlining some of the micromanagement of war operations.

5) Planet Destroyers and/or Mega Ships for ALL factions: Gain the ability to create massive ships that can destroy worlds or other faction-specific major offensive abilities. Each faction has a unique design.

6) Message system overhaul: While not in a previewable state, we can expect a massive overhaul of the message system with better grouping and other features to streamline message spam throughout the game, especially the late game.

7) New intelligence missions for triggering character defection from foreign empires and for starting plague outbreaks on foreign worlds (see notes on new research below)

8) The Hive: It has received some updates in light of its connection to the Shakturi, though little is yet revealed.

9) Better sensor coverage: +100% scanner range on monitoring stations and (possibly) other sensor coverage improvements.


The Shakturi
They have been integrated into the game in a much deeper and more story-driven manner. They slowly emerge as an ominous anomaly, and through a series of research and discovery (via projects hidden until key triggers), the story - and the threat - emerges. Some key things previewed:
- New space creature: Rift Striders, who move about with a coordinated purpose previously unimagined in space creatures. They spread a terrible psychic plague and are the source of some important new resources. In addition, the psychic capabilities of the Shakturi are also used to compel existing space creatures (Gravilex, Ardilous, Vordikor) to behave as weapons as well.
- New research trees: Focus now on paranormal studies, xenobiology, and genetic engineering. This enables such features such as protecting against and (possibly) harnessing space creatures, augmenting your leaders/troops/populations with enhanced biology, a deep system for curing plagues but also a full system for weaponizing them with biological warfare, psychic combat/defense, and more.
- A (hinted but not yet revealed) new type of war between the Shaktur Axis and the Galactic Alliance. While little was shared, once the Shakturi emerge into the galaxy and establish a certain foothold, they transform from a refugee fleet into a proper empire, and if war is declared upon it, a new galaxy-wide war happens that apparently "temporarily suspends" normal victory conditions for each faction and a new Axis vs Alliance system is tracked, with its own objectives. Again, little to share, but potentially very exciting!

Other little drops/hints/reveals:
- The Atuuk (coming in the first post-expansion faction DLC) are somewhat unique in their near-immunity to psychic influence/attack

And some stuff I noticed that went entirely uncommented. During the stream, I noticed the following faction-specific events happening throughout the galaxy. None of these were items I've recognized, but while some of these may just be existing events I've never discovered, I know at least a few of them seem like potentially new things that might be tied to upcoming Faction Updates not yet spoiled on the main branch:
- Inspired Conniving
- Predictive History
- Cooperative Energy
- Great Hunt
- War Spawning (occurred in the Boskaran empire)
- Harmonious Benefits
- Building the Future

We didn't hover over any of these to see what they do and I could rarely tell which empire/faction was producing the result. But there were Boskarans and Zenox in the game (the next in line for an official Update), as well as Teekan, Haakonish, and (non-player) Ackdarians, all of whom are also waiting for an update. So, maybe some tasty speculation?

Anyway, that's what I noticed. Feel free to add, discuss, and speculate. Good times.

Thanks for the summary thegreybetween.

Hi everyone, an update on the Return of the Shakturi product page and release date announcement. I just heard from our Marketing folks that it will happen next week rather than this week. I stated in the livestream that it would be this week, but coordination with the various platforms has pushed that back a few days. Please keep watch next week for that big announcement!