Software Changes Announced at PlanetsCon 2017

For those of you who might have missed it, PlanetsCon 2017 took place this past weekend in Finland. I would like to thank and congratulate all those who helped organize and participated for an awesome and successful event. If you haven't already, you should check out the PlanetsCon 2017 website, and take the time to watch some of the great presentations given by your fellow players.

https://planetscon2017.net/

During the event, we announced several code changes, and as they have all now been implemented we would like to share a summary of them

Player created scenarios are now available as private multi-player games

Look under Levels > User Created Story Lines and use the 'Host' option to create a multi-player game. Some scenarios will likely be set up better for this than others.

Cloak and Intercept is now a standard advantage for the Birdmen

Campaign resources have been refunded to players that had purchased the advantage previously. The advantage is now included in all system created games except for Classic and Academy games, and is available as a setting for custom games. All players have access to it in campaign games as well.

Costs for Broods and Jackers increased

To continue to balance out the Horwasp the costs are now as follows:

Brood

• 35 Duranium
• 125 Tritanium
• 155 Molybdenum
• 729 Clans

Jacker

• 105 Duranium
• 45 Tritanium
• 90 Molybdenum
• 2187 Clans

New combat random number generator and additional combat simulation tools

We have added an option to use an alternate random number generator for combat, which we call the Expanded RNG. This RNG will avoid the cyclical issues that were mainly seen as fighters not launching or beams not firing. Note that results from the RNG will vary from the Classic implementation, sometimes substantially so. The option is currently only available in custom games, while we continue to evaluate its performance.

There are also some additional tools available in the in-game combat simulator that should assist with exploring the results of this RNG, as well as being useful for quick combat odds in Classic RNG games.

Emork's Legacy Artifacts

Rather than create another campaign ship to celebrate his victory in the Aquarius championship game, Emperor Emork decided to create a set of five indestructible artifacts that appear in games throughout the Nuniverse (on the game's info page it will be clearly designated if a game contains these).

The knowledge about the effects of these artifacts is lost and rumors are that these effects are powerful, but also partly situational. It might take a long time until full knowledge about Emork's legacy is restored...

Here's what little we do know:

• These artifacts are buried on 5 unknown planets. Mining for minerals on such a planet can discover an artifact.
• Artifacts can be loaded on starships, transported and transferred between ships and planets.
• On a planet all artifacts have the same beneficial effect.
• On board a starship each artifact has a unique effect.
• If a ship holds 2 artifacts they interact and create an additional effect which is also unique for this combination.
  
  

Improved mine sweep preview

Mine sweep preview is now more accurate, particularly when very near the edge of a minefield.

Documentation from the 'How to Play' section added to the in-game assistant

The documentation from our team of volunteer editors long surpassed our own documentation in terms of depth and quality. To make this information more accessible, particularly for new player, this info is now available directly from the in-game assistant.