Alpha 2 now available in the unstable branch!

Hello everyone!

We’re now releasing Alpha 2 to all of our backers! And, we’re pleased to announce that the game is now feature complete. This means that all the gameplay and AI are in now.

For instructions on how to play the latest build go here. On Steam you need to go to the Betas tab and set to the “unstable – Unstable Beta branch for Testing” branch. To unlock the unstable branch just insert the password interstellarsg in the field: “Enter beta access code to unlock private betas”. If you pre-ordered the game you can check how to get your Steam key here. On Humble, you have two branches to choose to download the game from. Just choose the download from the “Unstable” branch.

Since the last release in December of 2018, we resolved many issues and implemented many changes according to your numerous suggestions for improvement and bug reports. Then, we proceeded to finish the AI and all the gameplay, which included adding the new playable races, events, leaders, ship modules and the many other features you can see below.

We’re now in the “polish phase” in our road to Beta and the full release. We’re currently finalizing the in-game tutorial and we’re working on the final 2D and 3D assets, including cutscenes. The plan is to enter Beta after all the assets are in and we finish playtesting Alpha 2.

We want to thank all of our backers for their support. Now please enjoy the new build and let us know what you think!

Compatibility note: Previous save games from older versions are not compatible with this new version. Also, custom races created with older versions are not compatible with this version. If you have trouble launching the game, please delete all custom race XML files in C:\Users\<your_user_name>\AppData\LocalLow\Praxis Games\ISG\Races\

Thanks!
Adam Solo & MalRey
Praxis Games

In the meantime, please wishlist the game on Steam!

Interstellar Space: Genesis is a new turn-based space 4X strategy game currently under development by Praxis Games. The game is currently in Alpha. Feel welcome to open threads and discuss any topic you’d like in the game forums.

We’re making the most complete and comprehensive Turn Based Space 4X ever developed, and we count with your support to make it happen! So, please tell your friends about ISG, people who loved Master of Orion but also space 4X games or strategy games in general and soon you will Discover the Unknown. Thanks!

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Alpha 2 (Release Note)

NEW

• 2 new playable races: Kaek and Nova.

• 2 new ship model sets (for the Kaek and Nova).

• 4 new unique abilities: Obsessed Builders and Collective Transcendence for the Kaek, and Clairvoyance and Enlightenment for the Nova.

• 19 new events, plus 6 new follow-up events (like event chains).

• Events frequency option added to game setup screen (few, normal – default, and many).

• Galactic council disabled option added to the game setup screen.

• Space culture perks randomization option added to game setup screen. If set, produces a differently arranged space culture advancement perks tree in each game.

• 6 Titan-class ships special powers! (Spinal Mount Beam, Spinal Mount Kinetic, Group Shield, Hull Transfer, Mind Control and Group Maneuverability for the Moltar, Draguul, Human, Nova, Kaek and Sulak Titans, respectively).

• 10 new leaders!
  • Ship officers: Simone Blackwood, Veruca Shrike, Ozkarr Threlbad, Epocholon and Rak-kax.
  • Colony governors: Sarla-Skak, Isaac Hansen, Morzworth, Yani Nai, Khalago.

• 2 new leader skills: “Squadron Commander” (boost to fighters and bombers); “Star Guide” provides bonus to tourism income.

• 1 new leader trait: Infamous (reputation hit in diplomacy to who hires the leader).

• Production now overflows in colonies. Any extra production not used by a current construction project moves to the next. Overflow from construction and infrastructure development goes to construction (ship or building). Terraforming and ecoengineering projects overflow to any next planetary engineering project.

• New “Per player difficulty level” feature allows setting different difficulty levels for every player in the game.

• New Player difficulty levels: Cadet, Governor, Emperor and Grand Emperor (this is the difficulty level for the player).

• Now possible to specify which races play in a given game.

• New ship modules (aka special systems) added:
  • Tractor Beam
  • Combat Jump Displacer
  • Holodeck
  • Heatsink
  • Shield capacitor
  • EMP Defenses
  • Automated Repair Bots
  • Battle Sensors
  • Marine Pods
  • ECM Jammer
  • Illusion Materializer
  • Subspace Distortion
  • Nano Swarm
  • Battle Pods
  • Fighter Bays (improved)
  • Bomber Bays (improved)

• Now possible to colonize and build an outpost directly from inside the system view.

• Ships now have default names and not just “Frigate”, at the beginning for all races. These names can then be renamed, as usual.

• New freighter panel in the main screen shows how many freighters the empire has and how many are in use. Previously, this information was buried in the asteroids overview panel.

• Leaders now shown in the system view they govern.

• If the player changes the star name, all the planet names in the solar system now change in unison with the star name.

• New “Galactic Council Defiance Option” added. If the player loses on the galactic council it can still use this option “say no” and wage a final war against all the other players.

• New information revealed by further system exploration is now highlighted in the system view (before it was not so evident what you discovered with further exploration levels).

• Now possible to zoom in and out on the remote exploration grid.

• New option to reset game settings added.

• New “Galaxy view” option when a combat encounter happens allows players to review the galaxy map before committing to an attack or declining.

• New race special ability: Master Architects provides +2 infrastructure capacity in all colonies.

• Supply range now delimited by a line instead of a solid filled circle.

• Now possible to see intelligence information on all of your allies. Previously you had to have an agent in a “Deep cover” mission to know that, even for allies.

• New “clear” and “copy” buttons added to the ship design screen.

• New “Representative Solar System” option when playing the Humans allows playing with the “real” humans on Earth in a representative solar system.

GAMEPLAY

• Allowed automated declining of attack when sitting in same system for a long time with another empire. The player can click “Engage” in the fleet panel to re-engage an enemy fleet present in the same system.
• AI difficulty levels renamed to Very Weak, Weak, Average, Powerful, Very Powerful and All-Powerful (was Tutor, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Impossible, before).
• Boarding and Salvage space combat mechanics completed.
• Combat now only ends when the entire round has ended, which includes the full player’s and AI’s moves in that turn. Before the combat was ending as soon as one side had no ships.
• Point Defense weapons implementation revised. Now PDs don’t exhaust ammo when shooting at targets (e.g. fighters and missiles). They save ammo to shoot at other targets if any ammo is left.
• Scan action now takes 2 operations instead of only 1 (a ship has 2 available operations at each combat turn).
• Details kept for race leader name, empire name, homeworld name and color when designing a custom race.
• Weapons overload in combat now causes missiles to do double damage instead of firing faster missiles, since there’s already a weapon modification for that.
• Leaders now ask to get a raise less often but they ask for more each time, depending on if they have or not the Greedy or Philanthropic trait.
• Leaders now get a small salary increment each time they level up.
• “Easily Seen” special ability now makes counter-intelligence harder.
• When no leaders are available, one colony leader and one ship leader will learn or improve a skill when the “Prestige” unique ability is used.
• Constructed planets now tend to reflect the size of the original objects a bit more.
• Orbital stations (star bases, battle stations and star fortresses) are now tougher and more well equipped.

BALANCE

• Research exploitations in asteroid belts now give +5/10/15 RP instead of previous +3/6/9 in small/medium/large belts. Trade exploitations now give +4/8/12 BC instead of previous +2/4/6.
• Fusion Production now grants +0.25 production per pop per source of Helium-3, instead of previous +0.5.
• Antimatter Power Planets now grant +0.5 production per pop per source of Antimatter, instead of previous +1.
• Penalty from overcrowding increased from -2% morale per pop above 14 to -4%.
• Infrastructure development now a bit more expensive in the beginning (the first 2 levels).
• Planets can now hold more infrastructure than before. Now it’s 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 max in Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge worlds (before was 2, 4, 6, 8, 10).
• Number of rich planets and types of gravity was normalized to reduce occurrences of “only rich” and “only low-G” worlds, for example.
• Occurrence of “all large”, “all medium”, “all small” asteroid belts in a given system was reduced.
• Tiny worlds now fewer.
• Planets with very bad planet specials now fewer, and planets with better planet specials a bit more abundant than before.
• High-end buildings now have higher maintenance costs.
• Space culture advancements a bit more costly in the beginning.
• Tourism bonus from accretion disks could be too low sometimes (e.g. +0.05BC per POP). Tourism bonus is now +0, +0.25, +0.5, +0.75 or +1BC per POP in the empire (and half of that per POP in allied empires).
• Warlord special ability now grants +2 Ship Support Points “per colony” instead of per “orbital station”.
• The “Uncreative” special ability now has a -20% penalty to early-breakthrough instead of previous -10%.
• “Repulsive” special ability now takes -2 perks instead of -4 when designing a custom race.
• “Uncreative” special ability now costs -1 perk instead of -2.
• “Low-G” special ability now -6 perks instead of -7.
• “Ground combat” race modifier +10% bonus now costs 1 perk instead of previous 2; -10% penalty now costs -1 instead of -2.
• “Production” race modifier +1 bonus now costs 4 picks instead of 3; and +2 bonus production now costs 7 picks instead of 6.
• Adamantium Armor now tends to appear later in the game, since it’s very powerful.
• Domes and Micro-gravity Generators now cover 3 POPs instead of only 1.
• Planet Construction tech now comes earlier in the tech tree (now level 5, was 7). Also costs less the build planet construction projects than before.
• Space culture perks re-arrangement: Megacorporations now Tier 3/Wealth, was Tier 4/Wealth); Space Socialites now provides bonus to tourism instead of +2 BC per colony, as before; Astro-Mining Guild & Space Privateers (now Tier 2/Wealth, were Tier 3/Wealth); Interstellar Geology & Planetary Prospectors now Tier 4/Wealth instead of Tier 2/Wealth;
• Leader labor skill now provides +0.25 production per pop instead of previous +0.5
• Support ships now have a bonus production cap of 150 per support ship.
• Wonders more expensive now (between +50 to +100% cost than before).
• Several mid to late game buildings now a bit more expensive (e.g. battle station, warp interdictor, space mirror array)

AI

• The AI was completed. The list of AI features added by this build include:
  • AI now uses diplomacy fully (does all types of diplomatic requests).
  • AI now plays the espionage game.
  • AI now makes choices in events.
  • AI now uses support ships.
  • AI now finally plays the planetary engineering game (previously it didn’t).
  • AIs now have better shaped personalities. Some are more arrogant, benevolent, proud or war-like.
  • AI now builds planetary gravity and anti-gravity buildings.
  • AI now seeks strategic resources, especially in the context of what it needs.
  • AI now creates all kinds of exploitations in asteroid belts.
  • AI now goes after and fights space monsters.
  • AI now better at invasions. Also seeks more combat-oriented technologies when doing so.
  • AI now takes crew experience into account for invasions.
  • AI now deals with uprisings.
  • AI handles Ship Support Points better (doesn’t go negative so easily).
  • AI now uses hurry construction in colonies.
  • AI now uses race unique abilities.
  • AI now deals with all leader desires.
  • AI now handles leaders more efficiently (fires and hires better, makes best assignments possible, etc).
  • AI now defends better, and in a different way than before.
  • AI colonization algorithm improved (now tends to settle planets with even better conditions (gravity, biome, eco, etc).
  • AI now develops their colonies more and better.
  • AI now builds and uses survey ships.
  • AI constructs planets and builds wormhole stabilizing projects.
  • AI more sensitive to opportunities on improving population growth.
  • AI now refits ships more efficiently (chooses best star bases according to distance and production).
  • AI now equips their ships’ weapons with all types of modifications.
  • AI now uses all energy overload actions available during combat.
  • AI now uses boarding do capture or raid ships.
  • AI now conducts salvage operations during space combat.
  • AI now equips and uses all implemented ship modules (aka special systems).
  • AI now designs their war ships more efficiently.
• Big optimizations made to AI run-time performance.
• AI now more willing to accept gifts, especially when it makes more sense (e.g. AI was not accepting offers for Titan ships when they should).
• The AI players now tend to fire leaders with very low opinion that happen to be unassigned.

UI / Graphics:

• The “you can colonize” notification now appears after the right colonization tech is discovered when a colony ship is in a system.
• Imported / exported strategic resources now describe from/to whom they are being traded with/from.
• The technologies that were discovered or acquired by any means in the current turn now show in a different color.
• New legend in the Research screen describes which techs can be researched next, which are currently being researched, which were already researched and which cannot be researched at this time.
• All techs that need strategic resources now show an icon in the tech, and not just on the techs that are unlocked by strategic resource reveal decisions.
• Starmap nebulas are now more dynamic. Each game now has a specific and randomly generated starfield and nebula configuration.
• Added missing tooltips for “next”, “done” and “center” functions in the space combat UI.
• Star size now reflected in the system view.
• Tourism bonus in accretion disks around dead stars now show exactly how much money would be produced would an outpost be built there.
• Sectors now show information on wormholes when doing remote exploration. Also, Advanced and Full scan tooltips now mention wormhole info in the system view.
• Leader presence now shown in the overview panel, for both colonies and ships.
• Leaders panel now shows 5 leaders of each category (ship officer or colony governor) with no need to scroll to see more, instead of previous 4.
• Leader assignment now has a tooltip that describes where the ship leader is at the moment (the place in the map).
• Leaders’ bios now accessible via an “info icon” in the leader card, instead of a tooltip that appeared when hovering the leaders faces.
• The leader panel in combat now shows information on the leader skills, including which side has the initiative at the beginning of the combat.
• Now possible to assign leaders to a new assignment without having to unassign the leader first.
• Combat encounter screen now describes which side will play first, who has the most initiative.
• When there are multiple missiles, fighters or bombers in the same grid space, a pop up shows information on all of them and allows the player to choose and fire at a particular object from that list.
• Now possible to assign exploitations directly from the system view without having to close the system view, go to the starmap view and click a colony in the colony overview panel.
• Right-clicking from the ship design screen now goes to “hangar” (where all ship designs are listed) and not straight out to the galaxy.
• Space monster tooltips in both the starmap and system views now say which type of monster is present, and the corresponding monster icon is shown.
• Weapon tooltips in space combat now show the update damage values consistent with the weapons overload option when that is active.
• Trade treaty and Research treaty tooltips now describe what both parties receive from the deal. Also, the Empire Status panel now also describes how much is currently being obtained from the deal in that turn.
• Leader experience now displayed in ships when assigning a leader to a ship via a “stars” ranking graphic. The same information was added to the military ships overview panel.
• Refit button appearance in the colony screen improved. Now looks more like a button, and it appears between the “slots” and “construction icon” icones.
• The crew tooltip now describes when the ship’s crew is stunned.
• When a ship is disabled, its status tooltips now describe the reason of the disabling.
• The weapons cooldown tooltip now shows the amount of turns remaining until a weapon is being operational again (e.g. Positron Torpedo).
• Ships displayed in the combat encounter screen are now sorted by class size in descending order.
• Improved feedback in UI when a ship is in status “disabled” in combat.
• A new notification now informs when there are currently unassigned exploitations in the empire.
• Explanation added to the “Contact was made” notification tooltip to explain how contact is made.
• “DONE” and “NEXT SHIP” actions in combat are now “grey” (disabled) when only one ship exists in our side.
• Leader pic in the ship row in the “Combat Encounter” panel now has a tooltip with the leader details.
• The “production” and “volatiles” exploitation notifications now say who is receiving the exploitation goods and not just where they are coming from.
• The ship class is now displayed in the ships overview panel.
• Wormholes colors in system view now more vivid and with better constrast than before.
• Reason added in the space combat UI when it’s not possible to fire.
• Damage potential (minimum and maximum) fixed for missiles and kinetics since it doesn’t make sense to list the same number again (because kinetics and missiles damage is fixed).
• Space monster tooltip in starmap and system view now say which kind of monster is present, and an icon is displayed according to the space monster in question.
• Feedback now provided via notifications when Micro-gravity Generators and Domes are no longer needed since the gravity or biome are already optimal due to terraforming or the construction of a Planetary Gravity Generator.
• Leader tooltips in several places now describe the leader’s primary skills and their effects.
• New tooltip for the weapon shows the weapon description in the ship design screen (when hovering the weapon icon).
• New “clear” button resets the ship design (all weapons, shields, special systems).
• Shields now ordered correctly in ship design screen (Class III appears before class IV, etc.
• Doing pan in the starmap with WASD keys a bit slower now (was too fast).
• More zoom allowed on ships models in the ship design screen now.
• Feedback improved on when the “Resilient Settlers” ability was going to be used when a planet was colonized.
• Asteroid belts can now appear between planets. Before, all planets were in the inside orbits, then the asteroid belts and then and only then the Gas Giants.
• Marine garrison tech tooltip now says it provides a morale bonus to Dictatorship government.
• Mass destruction bombardment option in planetary assault window now has a tooltip explaining what it provides and the implications of using it.
• New “blockade/siege” icons in the colony overview panel, when the colonies are being blockaded or sieged.
• Many references to “Planet” bonuses and penalties were replaced with the word “Colony” since it made more sense to be applied to the colony.
• Weapon tooltip in ship design now shows base damage and strategic resource modifier, including the grand total damage.
• Brown dwarfs no more pinky-ish. Were too yellow before.
• New animations for the neutron stars. The previous ones were a bit distracting and consumed a lot of CPU.
• When targeting an enemy ship the UI highlights the ships’ shields side that is going to be hit.
• Sectors in the remote exploration grid are now displayed in pairs of letter/number instead of number/number as before.
• Default race (first race) in the new game setup screen are now the Human.
• Tech exchange options in diplomacy now have tooltips for the player to know the details of techs being traded.
• Now possible to zoom in/out via a new icon in the starmap.
• The icon for infrastructure on the colonies overview panel is now yellow, just like in the colony view (it was blue in the overview panel before).
• When available and clicked, the “Armistice” unique ability now takes the player to the diplomacy screen directly.
• Made more obvious that it is possible to use the “Armistice” unique ability in diplomacy (an Armistice icon now shows in the diplomacy option).
• Now possible to see the systems a leader can be assigned to, as their states, just by clicking on the system the leader is currently assigned to.
• Space combat now keeps the same active filters from battle to battle.
• “Building slots” are now called “Construction slots”.
• When constructing a planet all possible locations are now highlighted in the system view.
• Ship models in combat now have a “stripe” of the color of their empire.
• Confirmation screen now presented when issuing the command to build an outpost (before was just asking confirmation for colonies).

AUDIO

• New starmap/strategy layer music tracks!
• New diplomacy melodies for all races!
• New combat music tracks!
• “Invasion successful” tunes replaced from a “Yey!” crowd response to a more proper victory melody.
• Font improved in the POP and GCS values in the system view (was too small and blury before).
• Changed the shields hit buzzing sound.
• Music can now be disabled during space combat.

BUGS

• Fixed a crash when closing a windowed game when we were in the colony view.
• Fixed an issue that was allowing a ship with broken engines to rotate or flee.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the ship design UI to become slow when more than 3 weapons were equipped in a ship.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing all weapons to be presented in the space combat weapons console when they were more than 7. And now 8 are displayed at once.
• Fixed an issue where the refit tooltips could cover information on the refit window in the colony screen. The tooltips don’t cover information now.
• Fixed an issue where the “floating damage”, the damage numbers and appear after doing damage to shields, armor and hull were not appearing in the right order.
• Fixed a bug where a colony ship would be destroyed by a space monster but the colonization notification would still say it was possible to colonize in the system.
• Fixed a bug that was not allowing the Shield Piercer weapon modification to pass through the shields blocking points. Previously it was only passing through the shield strength but not blocking points (the blocking points is the damaged negated by the ship class).
• Kinetic weapon shots while in overload (extra shot) now shows the two shots and not just one.
• Fixed an issue where a ship in the ship design screen was not showing the full name.
• Fixed an issue where “passing through another ship” (hovering the mouse over a ship) in space combat would clear the scanning info of a previously scanned ship.
• Colony related notifications now show the correct colony name after renaming the colony in that turn.
• Fixed a bug that was causing Fusion, Antimatter and Tachyon drives to not be immediately installed when we secured access to the needed strategic resources from diplomacy deals.
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to see nearby stars in one star’s system view.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing orbital stations to be seen in acid worlds.
• Fixed an issue that was causing ships to not be allowed to move near debris (enemy ship destruction drops) in space combat.
• Fixed an issue that was causing combat to happen before leaders were being updated in the turn processing (example: a leader was 1 turn away of being effective on a ship, but then combat happened and the leader was not there yet).
• Fixed an issue that was causing panning the combat grid to lag a bit.
• Fixed a glitch that was causing the starmap music to keep playing when doing diplomacy with another race very rapidly after being in the diplomacy screen with another race.
• The “Prestige” unique ability now unlocked immediately after fulfilling a leader desire (before was only unlocking in the next turn).
• Fixed a bug that was causing a rival player to declare war on another race before they had even made contact.
• Fixed a glitch that was allowing a ship to move before the weapon would finish.
• Fixed an issue that was allowing hidden systems to be “catched” by the overlap tool (when a system and a fleet or when two fleets are very near each other).
• Fixed an issue that was allowing to see where a ship was headed (the system’s name) via the “leader ship assignment” function when we did not know about that location yet.
• Fixed a bug that was allowing a spy to frame an empire that we hadn’t met yet.
• Fixed an issue that was causing zoom in the starmap when using the mouse wheel scroll in the fleet panel.
• After bombing and the complete colony destruction there’s no need to ask if you’re done with ground combat.
• Fixed an issue that was causing graphs to only show for players currently in the game. The graphs now display data from all players, including the ones already dead/removed from the game.
• Fixed a bug that was causing the Crystal Entity space monster to show different numbers in the UI panel and the tooltip.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the game to not launch in the native resolution sometimes.
• Survey ships now immediately scan the systems where they are built on.
• “Confirm that you do not wish to attack?” now reads “Confirm that you wish to stand down (no attack will be done).” to be more clear.
• Fixed an issue that was causing lag in the ship design when adding many weapons to a design.
• Fixed an issue that was causing some numbers in the main screen to don’t fit and wrap in empire UI and colony screen.
• Fixed a glitch that was causing the very top of the race description to be a bit clipped in the new game screen.
• Fixed an issue that was preventing zoom to be done when the mouse pointer was outside the starmap limits.
• Fixed a bug that was allowing the Fire-arc modification to be used in 360º without additional cost.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes we could see the borders “on the other side of the screen” when these were too big.
• Fixed an issue that was causing some buildings to be completely hidden behind larger buildings.
• When exiting to the main menu from a game, the values shown in the custom screen for special abilities reflected the game state from the game you had just exited. This is now fixed.
• Renamed “This planet cannot be colonized because a colony is already present” to “This planet is already colonized by empire X”.
• Seas now move towards the coast instead from it.
• Fixed a glitch where we could sometimes see lines and other starmap objects inside the system view.

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Instructions on how to download the latest build can be found here.