Patch Notes for V1.0.0.1 (Build ID 2462838)

Patch Notes for V1.0.0.1 (Build ID 2462838):

This is the first bugfixing and iteration update since the recent V1.0 update when we officially started the Beta phase. It fixes a number of serious crashes players reported via the crash report tool in-game and several major bugs reported in the bug reporting thread in the forum. While fixing some bugs in the resource deposiy distribution algorithm, we also took the opportunity to iterate on that part of the game. I'd like to quickly apologise for not getting this update out sooner and not catching up on all the forum posts and emails right now, unfortunately my dad has just passed away and I won't be back to work until next week at the earliest. Until then, please keep sending in your bug reports and suggestions on the forum and know that I will get around to all of them as soon as possible. Remember that all feedback is useful at this point ad we are going back to iterate on old gameplay we may not have changed in a while.

Major Bugs & Crashes Resolved:

• Solved an out of memory crash during the "Initialising Planet Generator" step. Turns out that MonoGame may be handling disposing of textures differently, so now we do it explicitly in this code. - Modified the PlanetGenerator to pre-load all of the continent, mountain, crater, and terraform data at the start of the game. This uses about 100mb extra memory, but reduces video memory usage and significantly reduces planet generation times. It solves a video memory crash that was being reported by a few players. - Added forced texture memory cleanup after unloading ship textures. Combined with the asynchronous texture loader, this should improve video memory usage a bit in most of the game and may fix a few crashes reported by players. - Solved a problem where the graphics generated for a planet could change after the first time they're generated.

Resource Iteration:

• AdjustedResource BordersThe resource deposit generation algorithm has been significantly improved. There is now always at least a 1-hex border between resources that can't be farmed together (e.g. there's not necessarily a border between Fertile Soil and Land Animals, but there will be one between Ore and Fertile Soil). This ensures they are more usable and should prevent deposits such as Coffee or Uranium from generating inside an existing deposit seam where they can't be reached. - Tighter Seams: Seams of deposits such as Fertile Soil or Ore will now slightly prefer tiles that are next to two or more of the same resource. This means they now generate in bigger blobs with less empty space, allowing you to get more 4, 5, and 6-hex filled ore refineries and farms. - Improved Distribution: To help stop resource seams of the same kind from sticking together (which happened sometimes under the old distribution but more with the new distribution), the game now preferrentially selects starting hexes a distance of at least 3 from existing deposits. The seams can still grow toward each other and merge, but it's less likely to happen now. - Cactus Resource: Added a new Cactus Plot resource, restricted to Desert environment hexes. It provides a +100 food bonus just like Fertile Soil. - Cactus Farm: Reptilian races now start with the Cactus Farm infrastructure, which provides 200 food per Desert hex / 100 per non-desert hex, +100 per Cactus Plot, +100 per Fertile Soil, and can harvest Coffee Beans. It can't harvest Land Animals (appears on Terran planets) or Fish (appears on Ocean planets). - Algae Farm: Aquatic races can now researvh the Algae Farm infrastructure. This compact but very inefficient single-hex infrastructure provides a flat 1000 food/turn and can be built on Ice, Terran, and Desert hexes. It can harvest Fertile Soil and Cactus for a small +100 bonus and can harvest the rare Coffee Bean strategic resource for a global research bonus. This gives Aquatic races a way to finally harvest Coffee Beans, and to colonise Desert planets prior to terraforming. - AutoFarm: The Humanoid's Farm infrastructure is now called the AutoFarm. It still provides 200 food per terran hex / 100 per non-terran hex, +100 per Fertile Soil deposit, and can harvest Coffee Beans. It can't harvest Cactus (appears on Desert planets) or Fish (appears on Ocean planets). - Fishery Infrastructure: Humanoid and Reptilian races can now research the new Fishery infrastructure, which can only be built in the ocean. This provides 200 food per hex and gets a bonus of +50 from any Fish deposits that are in range for a minimum of 1400 and a maximum of 1750. This makes it more efficient than a Cactus Farm or AutoFarm on planets with very few Desert or Terran hexes or few Fertile Soil / Cactus Deposits but lots of fish. - Fertile Soil: Fertile Soil hexes are now restricted to Terran environment hexes. We've also rebalanced how many Fertile Soil deposits appear on non-Terran worlds (e.g. Ocean planet food resources are about 75% fish and 25% fertile soil). - Fishing Coral Reefs: Increased base food output from Fishing Coral Reefs from 50 per ocean hex to 60. This gives them 1140 food/turn if completely empty building up to 2090/turn if filled with Fish. - Growing Deposits: Deposits grown in Coral Reefs etc are no longer deleted when the infrastructure is destroyed. This allows you to demolish and rebuild new infrastructure to switch priorities if needed without having to wait for new deposits to spawn.

Other Improvements:

• Starbases now always cost 5,000 metal to build regardless of what is attached to the design. This ensures that all planets can build a starbase even with only a nominal amount of metal storage such as 1 or 2 industrial cities. It's also important on tiny planets as they can only get one city. - To compensate for the removed metal cost and make upgrading simpler, all weapons and modules fitted to Starbases cost double BC. - Made the loading screen display progress for loading each race's ship models individually rather than just displaying one message for all of them. - When you click the "Open Planet" button on a notification about finding a rare resource, the game now rotates the planet around to that resource upon opening the planet. - The Build a New City buttons are now correctly grayed out when you have reached the planetary maximum. - When the mouse is over both a Fleet in space and Star at the same time, clicking will now open the Fleet window or System window depending on which is closest to the mouse pointer on the screen. Previously it was difficult to click on. - Improved memory management code and activated compaction of the Large Object Heap in several places in the saving and loading code.

Other Bugfixes:

• Fixed slow-down when the Planets >> Exploration panel is open with a large number of planets available. The game was not correctly culling off-screen text, and rendering that much text caused some slowdown. - Fixed the size of the fleet container boxes on the Fleet >> Manage Fleets menu when you had a lot of ships in one fleet. It wasn't taking into account the tiny gap between each ship image. - Fixed a bug in the Diplomacy >> Galactic Council panel where the scrollable list wasn't restricted to within the bottom part of the screen. - Fixed a bug in the Diplomacy >> Galactic Council panel where you could click on council resolutions outside the viewable area. - Fixed bug where the revenants could destroy your homeworld early in the game. Homeworlds are now off-limits to Revenant attacks. - Fixed the Spying tab tooltip saying "SPYING NOT IMPLEMENTED" when it actually is. - Fixed an odd visual bug and crash that could happen when clicking the "Open Planet" button on a notification about finding a rare resource. The new planet would open but the map would be using data from the previous planet you visited, and you could end up with big white hexes and an index bounds error at Predestination.PlanetScreen.HandleRadialMenu. - Fixed a bug where explosions on the planet screen were appearing 2-4 times for each explosion. - Fixed incorrect delays on some explosion graphics. - Fixed a ship designer bug where it would say "1 planet using this design" etc if you create a new design and haven't even saved it yet. It was mistakenly checking how many of the default Starbase you had in your empire. - Fixed a crash in the ship designer when updating a starbase design you've just created. - Fixed a number of bugs in the ship designer that could happen if you had the Fleets >> Ship Design tab open while in the Shipyard Screen and selected different tabs on each of the two Ship Design windows. Now all ship data and tab selection data is shared between these two tabs automatically so if you change to the Starbase tab on one, the other will also switch to the same tab. - Fixed a bug that could happen in the ship designer if you seleted a ship design while it was open in the editor. The fix for this was simply to disable clicking on the Fleets >> Ship Design tab while you're editing a ship. - Fixed a big where the planet graphics could change if the AI explored a planet. - Fixed several bugs that could cause the roads to flash and the AI to not colonise if you create and then load a game in a specific order. - Fixed a bug causing the Reptilian Hatchery selector highlight and building model to be drawn over the UI when the UI is scrolled down. Also fixed the buttons being off-centre. - Fixed a bug causing part of the Infrastructure Info panel to be drawn over the UI when the UI is scrolled down. - Fixed visual bug with the Metallic Coral icon - Fixed a bug on the Infrastructure Info panel when viewing farms etc that don't use any power. There was a weird red line next to the Power reading. - Fixed a bug where the Planet AI would demolish an Artifact Excavation or Farm or Power Plant in order to build a Starbase. This resulted in sub-optimal starts if you selected the Space Exploration era start, and made the AI sometimes accidentally harm its tiny planets. - Fixed a bug causing the highlighted technologies in the Trade panel on the Diplomacy screen to be drawn over the UI when they are outside the window. - Fixed a bug with terraforming where the planet would suddenly disappear. Like what? How? What? - Fixed various bugs with resources like Land Animals spawning in the sea or Fish on land. Cheers, -- Brendan, Lead Developer