Interstellar Space: Genesis – Free 1.6 Update Released!

Hello everyone!

We are excited to announce that the new major and free! 1.6 update for Interstellar Space: Genesis is now available to all players!

This update has been on Steam’s unstable branch for beta testing to make sure there were no major unforeseen issues for the smoothest official release possible. We’re happy to report that testing went very well, so we believe we’re in very good shape. Thanks to everyone who played the unstable build and provided feedback!

1.6 Update – Features and Improvements

New Victory Conditions

This was a highly popular feature request by the community, and something we really wanted to offer at some point, and it finally makes it in for 1.6!

In addition to the existing Election and Alliance victory conditions, and the traditional winner conquers all way to win (now called Conquest Victory), you now have the following new ways to win: Wonder, Domination, Science, and Score victory conditions! Here’s a brief breakdown.

To win a Wonder victory, you need to control a certain number of Galactic Wonders, which are super projects you can build in your colonies.

To win via Domination, you must control a defined number of the original homeworlds of the playing races.

To win a Science victory, your empire has to reach a combined ultra tech level, by researching the most advanced technologies in each research field, a certain amount of times.

A Score victory is achieved by whoever has the highest score in the last turn of the game game. This is the overall score reported in the ‘Empire Overview’ screen.

The new victory conditions can be configured by clicking in the “Advanced Options” button, as can be seen below.

On top of the new victory conditions, you can also configure the new ones but also the pre-existing Election and Conquest victory conditions. You can choose the number of wonders required to build, the percentage of colonized systems that need to be controlled, the frequency in which the Galactic Council will reconvene to try and elect the galactic ruler, and more.

Below, on how to access the new victory conditions screen during the game.

Also, if you wish, you can continue playing after winning or losing due to any victory condition being triggered, and win (or lose) again through other means.

Balance tweaks, and QoL improvements

Along with the new victory conditions, the 1.6 update also offers other new features, many tweaks and improvements, and bug fixes, many in reply to your suggestions.

Included in the new features and improvements is a revamped ‘Deep Space Initiative’ knowledge culture perk, that now provides free remote exploration on adjacent sectors to the ones just explored. The ‘Powerful Creatures’ planet special now also provides an empire-wide ground combat bonus. And, the Hall of Fame can now be reset.

There’s also the ability to adjust the wormhole lines’ brightness (including disabling them); the ability to move weapon slots up and down in the ship design screen; the possibility of listing leaders by their status (unassigned or assigned first). Also, hovering over torpedoes and missiles will now highlight the ships’ they’re targeting, just to name a few changes.

You can see the full list of changes below.

Version 1.6 – Full Release Note

Compatibility and finishing an ongoing game

Due to the extension of the changes, saves from previous versions may not be compatible with the 1.6 update. For a better experience, it is advisable that you start new games to enjoy the new features and improvements fully, and to not have bugs.

To everyone who helped beta test this update, please revert to the main branch by choosing ‘None’ in Steam’s Betas tab. You can then resume playing with the official version now.

If you want to finish your current game with the previous version (1.5.3), please go to the Steam client -> Games -> View Games Library -> Right-Click on Interstellar Space: Genesis -> Choose Betas tab -> Select the “old_version” branch.

On GOG Galaxy choose the previous 1.5.3 version by choosing Options -> Manage Installation -> Set “Automatically update to newest version” to off and choose the 1.5.3 version. On Humble and Itchio please download the “Previous version” build.

Thanks

We want to thank everyone who has helped test this update. Big thanks to everyone who has bought the game, and the expansions, so far. Thank you.

We hope you enjoy the new free 1.6 update! If you haven’t bought the Natural Law expansion yet, please consider buying as it adds 2 very nice playable races to the game, that will have their own Evolution tree with the Evolving Empires expansion, among other features and music tracks. The Evolving Empires expansion adds two major new features: Evolutions and Minor Civilizations. It also includes 7 new leaders and 2 new music tracks. If you have a few minutes to spare, and have been enjoying what we do, please leave us a review on Steam or GOG! ❤️

Have fun!

Adam Solo
Praxis Games