Hi everyone,

Alpha patch 0.85 has just been released via Steam to all Alpha players – along with the launch of the awesome new ‘Alpha 3‘ galaxy! If you didn’t catch yesterday’s announcement post we recommend you take a quick look as it also explains why the game is still in Alpha.

And if you got an email yesterday about your Steam Key arriving today – they’ve been emailed out today already so should be in your inboxes by now (or spam folders).

Updating the game client: the game should be automatically updated via Steam. Please check here if the download doesn’t automatically start when you launch Steam.

Joining the new galaxy: after logging in, players will be able to join the ‘Alpha 3’ galaxy. Players that had previously joined the ‘Alpha 2‘ galaxy will also be able to continue their game there, but it’s been closed to new players.

A New Game Galaxy – ‘Alpha 3’

A lot of what the devs have been working on lately hasn’t been seen in the game galaxy until now. Many of the new features and changes would have caused too much disruption to the existing galaxy, so we had to launch them together in this new ‘Alpha 3’ galaxy…

There are waaaaaaay too many changes to go in to in detail in this post, and most changes were covered in detail already in the dev diary posts. So we’ll take a quick recap below and link to where you can read more details on something.

More interesting and varied star systems

Star systems are a lot more different from each other now. Before they were fairly predictable, whereas now you never know what you mind find…

How many planets will there be? What resources are abundant? The strategic value of one star system compared to another will vary significantly!

Asteroid fields which can be mined for resources

Asteroid fields not only look great, but if your fleet is equipped with asteroid mining equipment and has spare cargo space, resources can be mined directly from an asteroid field. [read more]

Better early game and more to do

As well as being able to mine asteroid fields, other changes have been made so that early game is more fun:

• Ships travel faster within star systems
• More ‘prime real estate’ in a home star system
• Players start with more resources
• Players start with a colonization vessel ready to use

Minor factions: native populations

When exploring a new planet you might find it’s already home to one of the new minor civs that have been added (or another player of course). They’re a work in progress at the moment – but longer term we have big plans for minor factions! [read more]

Bigger tech tree

The new tech tree is huge compared to the previous one (the screenshot above is only a part of it). It should take players a little longer to work their way through it 😉

The tree has been made as wide as possible, with deeper branches that each focus on a specific discipline. Players have the freedom to make their own decisions, good and bad. [read more]

New weapons, parts and hulls

Expanding the tech tree meant lots of new content was needed in the form of weapons, parts, and hulls:

• Weapons
• New orbital strike models [read more]
• New armor bane weapon class: damage done is relative to the target’s hull (percentage based damage) [read more]
• Improved visual effects of weapons
• Rebalancing of existing weapons + classes to increase importance of strategic planning [read more]/li>
• Ships
• Dreadnought class added [read more]
• Corvette class replaces Clipper and introduces changes to gameplay mechanics [read more]
• The Ripchee’s superior Corvette class ‘Saber’ has been added [read more]
• People’s Realm cruiser + Freighter [read more]

New expansion gameplay mechanics + buildings

A few weeks ago we did a whole post devoted to this topic which you can read here. TLDR:

• The composition of a planet’s surface has a greater effect on the colonizing civ (you can research and build a new type of climate station to compensate)
• A City Center building has been added and is responsible for determining growth rate (farms will now only determine the maximum population size a colony can support)
• Fleet control centers need to be constructed to manage additional fleets
• Civs are affected by corruption as they grow (which slows down growth and needs to be managed – Syntis aren’t affected by corruption)

That’s all for now folks. We’ll be back real soon 🙂

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Full patch notes

New gameplay mechanics

• New expansion related features
• Corruption (Dev Diary #9)
• Fleet control centers (Dev Diary #9)
• Planet surfaces affect a colony differently depending on the civ (Dev Diary #9)
• Stealing of resources from other players (Dev Diary #13)
• Changes to how cloaking works (Dev Diary #11)
• Olzine powered special modules (Dev Diary #11)

Content

Ships

• Dreadnought hull class (Dev Diary #2)
• Corvette hull class – replaces Clipper class and changes to how they work with special modules (Dev Diary #11)
• Ripchee’s superior Saber corvette class hull added (Dev Diary #11)
• New People’s Realm cruiser and freighter hulls (Dev Diary #12)
• Improved Ripchee ship designs (Dev Diary #10)

Buildings

• Additional upgrade levels for shipyard and other buildings
• New type of climate station which adjusts planet’s water composition (Dev Diary #9)
• City centers added and taken on some function previously belonging to farms (Dev Diary #9)
• Fleet control centers – build more to add more fleets (Dev Diary #9)

Weapons

• Rebalancing of weapons and new upgrade options added (Dev Diary #2)
• New orbital strike options (Dev Diary #12)
• Armor Bane energy weapons added – damage done is relative to the target’s hull (Dev Diary #12)
• Visual changes of weapons and effects

Other Features

• New Minor factions as native populations (Dev Diary #3)
• Expanded technology tree (Dev Diary #5)
• Asteroid fields can be mined for resources (Dev Diary #1)
• Star systems are much more distinctive from each other (Dev Diary #6)
• New leaderboard categories and leaderboards accessible from the web
• Engines have been rebalanced e.g. cost and fuel consumption (Dev Diary #12)