Patch 2.1

Version history

  Astral Planes

 3.10 • 3.10.1 • 3.10.2

  Galactic Paragons

 3.9 • 3.9.2 • 3.9.3

 3.8 • 3.8.2 • 3.8.3 • 3.8.4

  First Contact

 3.7 • 3.7.3 • 3.7.4

  Overlord

 3.6 • 3.6.1

 3.5 • 3.5.2 • 3.5.3

 3.4 • 3.4.3 • 3.4.4 • 3.4.5

  Nemesis

 3.3 • 3.3.2 • 3.3.3 • 3.3.4

 3.2 • 3.2.1 • 3.2.2

 3.1 • 3.1.2

 3.0 • 3.0.1 • 3.0.2 • 3.0.3 • 3.0.4

  Federations

 2.8 • 2.8.1

 2.7 • 2.7.2

 2.6 • 2.6.1 • 2.6.2 • 2.6.3

  Ancient Relics

 2.5 • 2.5.1

 2.4 • 2.4.1

 2.3 • 2.3.1 • 2.3.2 • 2.3.3

  MegaCorp

 2.2.4 • 2.2.5 • 2.2.6 • 2.2.7

 2.2 • 2.2.1 • 2.2.2 • 2.2.3

  Distant Stars

 **2.1** • 2.1.1 • 2.1.2 • 2.1.3

  Apocalypse

 2.0 • 2.0.1 • 2.0.2 • 2.0.4 • 2.0.5

  Synthetic Dawn

 1.9 • 1.9.1

 1.8 • 1.8.2 • 1.8.3

  Utopia

 1.6 • 1.6.1 • 1.6.2

 1.5 • 1.5.1

  Leviathans

 1.4 • 1.4.1

 1.3 • 1.3.1 • 1.3.2

  Base version

 1.2 • 1.2.1 • 1.2.2 • 1.2.3 • 1.2.4 • 1.2.5

 1.1

 1.0 • 1.0.1 • 1.0.2 • 1.0.3

**Patch 2.1**, aka “Niven”, was released on 2018-05-22 with the checksum *01a9*. The patch was released alongside the Distant Stars story pack.

## Story Pack Features

* Added many new Anomalies, increasing the total amount by almost 50%
* Added new Leviathan: Voidspawn
* Added new Leviathan: Tiyanki Matriarch
* Added new Leviathan: Scavenger Bot
* Curator Enclaves will now also spawn for Distant Stars owners, to help with the new Leviathans
* Added new unique systems to explore
* Added L-Gates and the mysterious L-Cluster outside the known galaxy, which you will have to investigate and research to access

## Free Features

### New Features

* Galaxy generation has been reworked for more interesting hyperlane terrain: stars are now grouped in highly connected 'constellations' separated by thin 'highways', making for more strategic placement of natural chokepoints
* All hyperlanes are no longer immediately visible when starting a new game, but will be revealed through exploration. Hyperlane visibility extends roughly twice as far as your sensor range
* Added binary star systems
* Added trinary star systems
* Added new star classes
* Added new Tomb World tileset and city backdrop art
* Anomaly levels have been reworked to span levels 1-10 instead of 1-5
* Anomalies can no longer fail, but instead the time to research an anomaly will depend on the difference between scientist level and anomaly level, with high level anomalies potentially taking a very long time to research for a low skill scientist
* Some older Anomalies have been reworked and fixed to function properly
* Strategic Resources have been reworked so that similar materials have the same types of effects - crystals for ship damage, ores for ship defenses, gas for empire effects, etc.
* All Strategic Resources are now always visible, but most require specific Technologies to be mined
* Strategic Resource deposits are no longer distributed according to galaxy clusters
* Added new Aldar Crystals Strategic Resource
* Added Aldar Crystals tech
* Added Experimental Subspace Nagivation which allows science ships to go missing-in-action and travel to a selected system. This will allow them to bypass (but not enter) closed borders
* Added a new Alert for when establishing communications reveals a new Strategic Resource within another Empire's borders
* Establishing communications with another Empire that has a Bypass (Gateway, Wormhole, L-Gate) within its borders now counts as discovering that Bypass Type
* Added a new Mammalian portrait

### Balance

* Survey speed increase per Scientist level increased from 5% per level to 10% per level
* Most scientist level requirements for Special Projects have been removed, as they tend to be gated by anomalies anyway
* Decreased outer boundary distance for Fallen Empires (was preventing more Fallen Empires from spawning in large galaxies)
* Zro Distillation is now a Tier 3 tech (down from 4)
* Rebalanced Strategic Resource tech tiers to better fit their effects

### UI

* Situation Log has been reworked and will now also list anomalies
* Science ships now have a "Research Anomalies in System" right-click command on systems
* Renamed tile science modifiers from e.g. "Physics Output" to "Tile Physics Output" to better reflect what the modifiers actually do
* Scientist level is now shown in the outliner

### AI

* AI will retreat its Colossus if it is alone in combat, as even a planet destroying giant laser is cold comfort in the lonely depths of space
* Fixed an issue where the AI would incorrectly allocate too much budget to navies when it could not support any more ships, resulting in underdeveloped empires

### Modding

* Scripted variables rework: centralized all @values in \common\scripted\_variables folder
* Scripted variables rework: centralized @values can be overridden by @values defined in individual files
* Anomaly rework: combined \_anomaly\_categories and \_anomalies files into one file
* Anomaly rework: added "anomaly\_event" effect with expected scopes for use in anomaly categories
* Anomaly rework: added a number of new features and updated syntax
* Added "exclusive\_trigger" functionality to event descriptions
* Added "last\_changed\_species\_rights\_type" trigger
* Added "fleet\_action\_research\_special\_project" effect
* Added "remove\_orbital\_deposit" effect that removes the orbital deposit on planet
* Added picture parameter for set\_planet\_entity effect
* Added support for multiple asteroid belt types
* Added "create\_saved\_leader" effect
* Hyperlane Discovery Range is now separate from Sensor Range, and can be modded for ships, planets, megastructure, etc.
* Added "is\_bottleneck\_system" trigger
* Added scriptable bypass connections
* Added "delete\_megastructure" effect
* Added HIDE\_HYPERLANES\_OUTSIDE\_TERRA\_INCOGNITA define to hide hyperlanes outside TI
* Added "add\_tradition" effect
* Added support for sealed\_wormholes as a bypass type for wormholes
* Added the ability to specify colonizer pop species when spawning a colony ship via create\_ship
* Added a batch optimization effect for spawn\_system

### Bugfixes

* Fixed issues with the pulsar Marauder system initializer
* Fixed edge case where Marauders would sometimes demand more tribute than they should
* Fixed a number of minor syntax issues (shoutouts to Dayshine)
* Pop production modifier no longer affect strategic resources
* Fixed more potential out-of-sync issues in multiplayer
* Fixed stability issue when a selected situation log entry is removed
* Fixed aborted special projects not disappearing from the situation log and blocking others from completion
* Fixing game text descriptions for planet classes
* Fixed the OOS when you ctrl-shift-click an enemy fleet
* Fixing the set location effect having a wrong angle for fleet position
* Withdrawal symptoms are no longer reset when changing species rights
* Bugfix for when deleted bypasses were not removed
* Fixed issue where the Strategic Resource tutorial mission could trigger for resources located inside other empires, because envy is the darkest emotion
* Fixed an effect attempting to link up already-linked wormholes (which would crash the game)
* Fixed issue where tutorial missions could sometimes trigger for Gestalt Consciousness empires, who really should know all this instinctively already
* Fixed issue where Remove Orbital Debris special project did not require a Science Ship
* Fixed Occupation tooltip always displaying 0 planets being occupied
* Planet picture override should now apply correctly
* Fixing the issue when context effect used in hidden effect caused assert
* Fixed more potential text overflows in Federation view
* Habitats no longer double dip on orbital deposits
* First Contact tutorial mission will no longer trigger when encountering primitives
* Fixed anomaly tooltips sometimes displaying incorrect value types
* Fixed issue where gateways were sometimes weirdly initialized, causing first gate activation to not activate a second gate
* Made it impossible to start building pops that cannot grow and will be removed next monthly tick anyway
* Starbase occupation now counted even if there are no occupiable planets in the system
* Fixed OOS on hot join due to fleet auto-moving
* Fixed CTD for survey console command in case of player is invalid
* Fixed erroneous tooltip in "Leviathan Down" anomaly
* Disabled the upgrade button of starbase defense stations when you can't afford to upgrade them
* Defense armies are no longer so morally affronted by cybernetic enhancements that they mass disband upon completing Synthetic Ascension
* Fallen empires will now avoid spawning at the edges of the galaxy
* In case a starbase is lost in a save game it will be restored
* Fixed the bug when jump drive didn't call the notification for entering the system
* Blocked the ability to pick a non-mergeable fleet for deploying newly built ships to prevent an exploit with fleets lacking a size limit
* Fixing the bug when it was possible to load save game in an ironman game, and the attendant confusion
* Planet having sapient pops during colonization no longer messes up interface and other things
* Fixed ironman UI being broken in setup GUI
* Made debris try to pick earlier tech available for research rather than having latest one
* Event ships can now be removed from fleet designs when they have been destroyed

## References

1. ↑ Forum: Niven update (2.1.0) Released [checksum 01a9]