v3 Continuity - Hex Worlds + Game Release

The Hex Worlds Update is now live!

The biggest update introduces fully playable Hex Worlds with three world sizes, alongside major AI improvements, quality-of-life upgrades, balance tweaks, and a wide range of fixes. Galactic politics are now more dynamic, colonies are clearer to manage, and overall competition between empires is stronger than ever.

Hex Worlds

Explore and colonize procedurally generated Hex Worlds available in Small, Medium, and Large sizes. Each world can generate across 52 unique biomes and 7 distinct world types, allowing for more varied colony layouts, strategic planning, and visual diversity across the galaxy.

Mechanics

• Every 2 adjacent buildings gives a bonus resource.

• Some tiles have random yields (especially on void worlds).

• Businesses get 4 build slots to build anywhere available on the colony.

Changelog

Note: Saves from previous updates will not work with this version.

Added

• Hex Worlds (Small, Medium, and Large)

• Official cross‑platform multiplayer support

• Fleet Panel → Added a “Go To” button

• Tips → Added previous/next buttons and sieging/military hints

Improved

• AI Empires:

  • Are far less likely to declare war when agendas were satisfied

  • Unite against the player through their own galactic unions

  • Move more strategically during wars

  • Stop prioritising human players over other AI empires

• Colony Panel:

  • Stats are now more descriptive

  • Owner and business slots are now displayed clearly

• Subjects → “Suzerain” status renamed to “Tributary”

• Fleets → Any type of fleet now explores hyperlanes when moving to star systems

• New Game → Galaxy generation now spawns empires more evenly in distance

Changed

• AI Opinion → Now based on shared ethics instead of government type

• Fleet Capacity → Renamed to “Max Fleet Size”

• Game Events → Costs and rewards are now consistent across all game durations

• Music → Restored several music tracks from 2022

• Multiplayer → Disabled medium‑to‑impractical galaxy sizes to prevent packet issues (for now)

• Toggles → Off/on states are now much clearer (red and blue)

• Battle → Combat now triggers whenever enemies are within the same system, instead of using a limited combat range

Fixed

• Camera → Rotating the camera while the fleet panel was open caused control issues

• Clans → Sometimes clans converted into normal empires, when spawning

• Combat

  • Enemy fleets waited unnecessarily before engaging allied fleets

  • Battles loaded from saves sometimes didn't resume correctly

  • Sometimes starbases joined the same battle twice.

  • Sometimes enemy fleet reinforced battle on the incorrect sides

  • Laser fire visuals were oversized

• Colony Panel

  • “Go To” button didn't function correctly

  • Upgrade orders were previously displayed the same as build orders

  • Players were able to remove build orders for buildings not yet constructed but already queued for upgrade

  • Double‑upgrading the same building was possible

• Exploration → Planet events sometimes didn't display when exploring new systems

• Galaxy Map → Build animation continued after the order finished

• Leaderboard → Sometimes didn't rank players by score correctly

• Linux → some text had issues displaying on Linux

• Main Menu

  • Player profile info was wiped after exiting the game from the pause menu

  • Sometimes “Reveal All” and “Meet All Players” toggles didn't apply in-game

  • Map toggles often required double‑clicking to actuate

• Map & Empire Settings → Settings often didn't randomise properly on load

• Multiplayer → Numerous multiplayer issues were resolved

• New Game

  • Players sometimes spawned on broken worlds

  • “Meet Player” dialog appeared when starting a second game with tutorial tips enabled

• Notifications

  • Sometimes became unresponsive after adjusting music settings

  • “Liberated colony” ping sometimes triggered repeatedly after making peace

• Saving → After loading a save, sometimes game settings were randomly changed during load.

• Ship Builder

  • Preset list sometimes appeared empty and didn't update correctly

  • Combat mode caused excessive console logs that caused lag

  • Deleting a preset used by a ship caused simulation errors

  • Ships sometimes spawned without turrets or with incorrect default presets

• Star Systems

  • Fleet orders sometimes didn't update visually as intended

  • Ships remained stationary in edge cases

• Star System Panel → “Go To” button didn't trigger properly

• Starbase Panel → Ships added to the build queue didn't update immediately

• Unions

  • Sometimes players weren't shown as allied when joining a union

  • Subjects no longer remained allied after joining a union

Tweaked

• Leaderboard → Now reveals player names even if previously unmet

• Hyperlane Density (>2) → Reduced the number of hyperlanes generated

• Save Files → Adopt a more consistent naming convention

• Camera → Reduced accidental edge‑scrolling

• Visuals → Reduced city light intensity of colony worlds

• Colony

  • Occupation now damages 10% of buildings (previously 20%)

  • Siege difficulty from soldiers halved

  • Reduced siege difficulty from buildings and halved population contribution

  • Build Cost

    • Reduced from 90 to 75 minerals on standard speed

    • Final upgrade reduced from 360 to 120 minerals

    • Slightly increased power cost of capital upgrades (+15 power on standard speed)

• Other Tweaks

  • Space squids now spawn as a single squid, attempt peaceful contact, but die trying

  • Base tech costs reduced on the lowest durations

  • Jump‑drive distortion time halved

  • Wormhole travel technology unlocked earlier and appears more frequently

Removed

• Colony context menu

• Game wiki (backend server ceased to exist under mysterious circumstances)

• Wiki button

Note: Not all changes have been listed.

Full Release

New Stars has officially launched out of Early Access.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2231270/New_Stars/