Hey everyone!

The Victory Update is here and with it it bring a bunch of new features to the game including the long requested AI opponents ("Bots")! So lets go:

NEW AI opponents:

AI opponents are called "Bots" ingame and act very similar to a normal player:

• Up to three can be added to a game
  
• If a normal player leaves (in multiplayer) then that player will be replaced by a bot
  
• Bots DO NOT cheat so they have the same money and resources available to them like any other normal player
  
• They will build and supply their own colonies
  
• They will attack you if you are unfriendly towards
  

Note:
There are a couple of things that we still want to add to the Bots logic in the next few patches. Currently Bots can't win via the new science victory and they also don't interact with the colony shares system for example. We also want to add a difficulty option for each bot added. But the most important stuff like diplomacy, war and research are all already present!

NEW Victory conditions:

A victory will now properly be detected and displayed to all players.
There are two ways to win the game: Through science or with bruteforce using military stuff.
A military victory can therefore be achieved by defeating all other players and bots.
To achieve a science victory you need to research, build, prepare and escort an Exo spaceship out of the solar system. This path is only available through the science tech tree.

NEW Exo spaceship:

The Exo spaceship is a special purpose build spaceship that can't be controlled by the player.
It will spawn above the large shipyard it was build in and it will then allow you to start the preparation process and after that the expedition itself.

• The ship can't be manually controlled / moved around
  
• It will always be marked with a trophy icon on the minimap
  
• Preparations take about 2 minutes
  
• Every player will be notified as soon as you start the expedition and very player will se the route that the ship will take
  
• Its the largest and most tanky but also the most expensive ship in the game
  
• If the expedition reaches the world border then the owner of the ship will win!
  

NEW Colony shares:

• With this every colony will have 4 shares that are initially owned by the owner of the planet.
  
• Every share has a certain price that is based on the size, population and economy of the colony.
  
• Every player can buy a share every 5 minutes.
  
• Owning a share gives you access to a proportional cut of the revenue of that colony. For example: If you own 2 shares so 50% you get 50% of the revenue that the colony generates. Revenue excludes any upkeep so the owner will always pay the entire upkeep but not receive all the revenue if the owner doesn't own all shares.
  
• Buying all 4 shares of a colony will allow you to purchase the ownership of the entire colony which will be treated as a takeover so all building will be ruined!
  
• This system is optional and can be disabled during world creation but its enabled by default.
  

NEW Pirates:

• A new option to add pirate raids to a game during world creation.
  
• Three difficulty settings which will influence how often and how "aggressive" the pirates are
  
• They will stop by from time to time with a fleet and attack selected cargo spaceships with high value.
  
• There are a couple of suprises in their behaviour so just experience it for yourself ;)
  

NEW Terraforming:

• Added the "Terraformer" as a new building
  
• Added a new technology to unlock the Terraformer in T4
  
• Can be placed on regular ground and will allow you to place up to 6 "Terraforming sites"
  
• In each Terraforming site you can select the target ground type you want to have
  
• A Terraforming site will deconstruct itself upon completion
  

NEW Flags:

• Added an option to customize your factions flag during world creation
  
• The base layer will always be in the color of your faction
  
• Your flag will be displayed on a variety of buildings (Spaceport, Orbital flak, City center and many more)
  
• You can use your own icon PNG files by dropping them in a dedicated folder in the install directory of the game. This will automatically work in multiplayer aswell, other players don't need to have the same icons files. There is one icon as an example in there. Folder: "(installDir)/customFlagIcons/textures/flagIcons"
  

Trade routes:

+ NEW You can now add other players colonies as a destination to automatically trade with. You will have to sign a trade treaty first though.

Chat:

+ NEW You can now whisper to other players

Achievements:

+ Added a couple of new achievements corresponding to the new features

Balancing:

Small nerf to the small cargo spaceship:
~ Small cargo spaceship: Upkeep: 75 -> 100

Fighters are too strong right now so they needed to be nerfed aswell:
~ Fighter: Upkeep: 150 -> 300, Steel: 25 -> 30, HP: 1300 -> 1200

Quality of life:

+ Added a tooltip to the colonize button in spaceships to indicate why its not possible to colonize an uncolonized planet (unlock conditions + building materials)
+ Added a hotkey to automatically select the warehouse building (to quickly build a warehouse)
~ Changed the layout of the save menu ingame slightly to make the "New savegame" button easier to find and reach

Bug fixes:

* Fixed a rare crash when loading a savegame with an invalid drone active
* Fixed an issue that caused there to be multiple game over notifications
* Fixed an issue that could cause the camera to be stuck

We are looking forward to what you all think and we hope you enjoy it!

Enjoy!

TeamJA