Summary of new standard features

Here is a summary of the new features announced at PlanetsCon Live 2020 and being put into standard games starting in January 2021. These will also be used for the 2020 Emperor and Grand Marshall matches.

• Chained Intercept and Planetary Production Queue (features released last year, and used in the past year's league games) are being included.
• Bird Cloak and Intercept mission and Fascist Double Speed Beams will only work on hulls buildable by that race.
• Birds gain the Enlighten Research Vessel.
• Rebel Sage Class Frigate replaced With Sage Class Repair Ship.
• Super Star Cruiser gains Intercept Interference ability. Ships of the same owner that start the turn in the same location as the Super Star Cruiser will be immune to Cloak and Intercept (interceptor will not move) and Priority Intercept (interceptor will attack in normal order).
• Sapphire Class Space Ship no longer grants immunity to web mines for ships travelling with it.
• Allies are no longer immune to hitting web mines or being drained by them.
• Web minefields no longer have friendly codes.
• Web minefields can not be layed in another player's identity.
• Crystals are not immune to web minefields layed by other players.
• Horwasp pods can be detected at a slightly higher range by ships using Sensor Sweep mission (30ly for non-combat pods, and 60ly for combat pods).
• Horwasp Hives will detect life at planets within 100ly (they are notified that the planet is owned, but not who owns it or any other information).
• Shooting down Horwasp fighters in combat will result in clans on the ship being killed. Each fighter lost will kill 2 clans, or 20 clans on a hive.
• Loss of your homeworld will result in a happiness decrease of 70 for colonists and 20 for natives at all planets you own. Does not apply to Wandering Tribe games.

Here is the list of related game settings that enact these changes. They will be made available for custom games as well in the near future. Site-created games will mention they use these new rules in the description once they become active.

            ChainedIntercept = true;

            PlanetaryProductionQueue = true;

            PPQMinBuilds = 10;

            FCodesRBX = true;

            NoChunnelHives = true;

            RaceHullsOnlyFascistDoubleBeams = true;

            RaceHullsOnlyCloakAndIntercept = true;

            RepairShipReplacesSageFrigate = true;

            BirdsHaveEnlighten = true;

            SSCruiserInterceptInterference = true;

            SapphireNoWebImmunity = true;

            NoWebFriendlyCodes = true;

            WebDiplomacyLevel = 100;

            NoWebsInOtherIds = true;

            CrystalWebImmunity = 2;

            SensorSweepCombatPodScanRange = 60;

            SensorSweepNonCombatPodScanRange = 30;

            HivesDetectLife = true;

            HorwaspFighterLossClanKill = 2;

            HwLostHappinessLossColonists = 70;

            HwLostHappinessLossNatives = 20;