Update 39 Changelog

Quality Of Life

• Daring Statistics: The amount of Daring that is earned or spent in specific timelines, as well as that which is earned across all timelines, is now tracked in statistics. The amount earned in specific timelines is not back-calculated, but the amount that was earned across timelines is.
• Angry Invasion Messages: Previously, once you contacted an ExoCorp via the wastelanders, they would start invading but there was no message about it. Now you get a message from Vorsiber upper management, which differs between the two doom sets.
• Forces Filtering: Added new "Forces Collections" for the forces lens. Initially, this meant categorizing 576 reasons that a unit can spawn into 83 collections. This then expanded to 88 collections, with 221 unit stances put into categories (a lot of them don't matter, as they only are used if they're not part of a managed spawn). If you wind up noticing anything that's miscategorized a bit, or is in the Unknown category during gameplay, then please do let me know and provide a savegame so that I can improve those over time. That said, things should be pretty close.
• 8 New Achievements: This isn't really a quality of life item, but eh.

Additional Intelligence Class 7 Unlocks

• Wurtzite Armor, VS-101 Skyfall, and Skystreak Armor-Piercing Missiles: These could previously only be unlocked conditionally in a given timeline, but become available instead in all timelines, all the time.
• Infrasonic Loudspeaker, K6 Disruption Revolver, AG-30 Flex, 35mm Halfplate, Active Graphene Mesh, Zinnia Gel Refinery, Hormone Factory, and Furniture Factory: These previously were unlockable by Exploration Sites, but now you just get them in all timelines, all the time, once you pass this threshold.
• About Ziggurats: Previously, all you got for getting to intelligence class 7 was access to build on Ziggurats if you weren't already having that ability from being at chapter 4 (you pretty much always would have that first, though, so that was a huge disappointment). How the access to Ziggurats works is completely different now.

Ziggurat Rebalance

• Tooltip Updates: In the End Of Time, hovering over a rock outcrop or a ziggurat now shows the full list of crossovers that are present on that location (for any new timelines that would be created there).
• Super Ultra Crossovers: Crossovers that don't have any downside are now automatically applied to every Ziggurat in the End Of Time, giving them an immediate benefit compared to normal rock outcrops.
• Chapter 5 Requirement: Previously, you could build on Ziggurats once you reached intelligence class 7 or chapter 4, whichever came first. Now you can't build on them until you reach chapter 5. Any existing timelines on ziggurats are unaffected, of course! If you've ever built on a Ziggurat in the past in your profile, the game now grandfathers you in to being able to keep doing that even if you're not to chapter 5 yet (which nobody is yet, of course).

Command Menu Additions

• Stances Tab: The existing "Lostigics" tab of the command menu has been renamed to Stances, since that's what it actually is.
• Other Logistics Tab: A new "Other Logistics" tab, in the 9th slot, has been added to the command menu.
• Delete Mode: The first item in the Other Logistics tab is a new Delete Mode that allows players to go around and delete any units or structures that belong to them, all quickly.

VR Screen Updates

• Resource Bar: Different resources of relevance are now shown in each of the categories of the VR window, and the normal resources that show no longer clutter up the resource bar in that screen. This helps to make it a lot clearer what you have in order to spend from in each place.
• VR Day-Use Seats: VR Day Use seat usage and availability is now tracked in the Lifeforms resource tab, as all the other types of VR users are tracked.
• Inspiration Order: The inspiration entries in the VR screen are now sorted alphabetically, rather than the quasi-logical order that they previously were in.

Auto-Explore Via Daring

• Auto Explore Category Of The VR Screen: Spend Daring to immediately unlock the rewards from Exploration Sites you have completed in prior timelines.
• 10 New Auto-Explore Options: This covers every kind of Exploration Site that exists, except for those that automatically become obsolete as you reach higher intelligence classes.
• Times Before Available For Free On Ziggurats: For all of these items, there is some maximum number of times you have to unlock them (ranging from 3-9) before they become free to unlock on Ziggurat timelines in the future. This makes it so that your Daring expenditures here are not just something you "throw away," but rather are something you're investing for the future. This is meant to avoid the "Final Fantasy players hoard Elixers even past the final boss" sort of problem.

Shortcuts Via Daring

• Shortcuts Category Of The VR Screen: Spend Daring to immediately skip past certain contemplations or projects you have completed in prior timelines. In a few cases, it's possible to do things that would normally be mutually-exclusive in a timeline.
• 16 New Shortcut Options: This covers a large number of early-timeline scenarios that are highly desirable to do in some fashion in each timeline you are in.
• Times Before Available For Free On Ziggurats: This works the same as the Auto-Explore section, and for the same reason.
• Those With Lots Of Customization: Options like Gadolinium Mesosilicate and Wastelander Mythology, among others, normally involve you doing actions on the map and customizing an outcome from doing so. The Shortcut version gives you a condensed list of reasonable outcomes to choose from, in some cases with a slight buff to what is possible, rather than every possible outcome.
• VR Shortcuts: The shortcuts for the VR types (regular and torment) are particularly powerful because (if you've done them before) it allows you to skip the engineering requirements, skip past some early busywork, and have them from the start of a timeline. As well as having both kinds at once, which was never possible before. Some elements of this can be thought of as being a bit like NewGame+, although it's not strictly NewGame+.

Daring Shop

• Daring Shop Category Of The VR Screen: Spend Daring to directly buy powerful upgrades or items that you can't get anywhere else. Auto-Explore and Shortcuts both expend daring to get something that you could get another way, but which is more convenient to get from the VR screen, if you've done it once before.
• Mind Annex Upgrades: Ludicrously high value. More mental energy or more troops. Can be purchased up to 4 times per timeline. Costs are 2, 5, 11, and 17 Daring, respectively. This is no longer in the Computing Upgrades research Inspiration category mostly to keep players from being at the mercy of RNG.
• Stealth Compact Aerospace Hangar: New military structure, which can be purchased from the daring shop for 3 Daring in any timeline. It's free on ziggurats after you unlock it 10 times. Hidden in fairly large human buildings and requiring only half of the usual internal robotics. Produces and stores only 75% as much morphologic lattice, but you can place twice as many of them.
• Food Forest: Meats and vegetables are produced in much higher quantities, as are TPN and Nutrition Blend. Can be combined with other upgrades to these resources. This is a series of 100x multipliers, which cost 2, 4, 5, 6, and then 7 daring.
• Super Filtration: Water filters are far more effective. Can be combined with other sources of better filtration. This is a series of 100x multipliers, which cost 2, 4, 5, 6, and then 7 daring.
• Well And Filter: New structure, which can be purchased from the daring shop for 4 Daring in any timeline. It's free on ziggurats after you unlock it 10 times. Pulls up groundwater and immediately filters it for use. Compared to using separate wells and filters, uses roughly half the internal robotics. Fun math in an example scenario: Originally had 8 well and 11 large water filtration towers, taking up a bunch of physical space and using 123 Cultivators, and producing 550k filtered water (due to various upgrades). Destroyed all those and built 14 well and filters, taking up much less physical space but using 125 Cultivators, and production with the same upgrades shifted to 1.4 million filtered water.
• Better Mind Farms: More neural expansion is generated per occupant. The upgrades go up by 50% increases each time, up to a maximum of 500%. This takes the neural expansion per occupant from 8 to 40 if you upgrade it fully. These upgrades cost 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, and then 4 daring.
• Better Torment Vessels: More neural expansion is generated per occupant. The upgrades go up by 25% increases each time, up to a maximum of 300%. This takes the neural expansion per occupant from 35 to 105 if you upgrade it fully. These upgrades cost 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, and then 4 daring.
• Better BrainPals: The upgrades go up by 7.5 per BrainPal per upgrade, starting from the initial value of 25 and able to go up to 85. These upgrades cost 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, and then 4 daring.
• Universal Mech Armor Piercing: Added armor piercing for all mechs that you control. Can be purchased up to 8 times per timeline. Costs are 4, 5, 8, 12, 17, 24, 26, and 28 daring.

Pressuring The City

• New Side Goal: The Pressuring The City side goal provides you with Daring for reaching 10, 20, or 30 pressure points exploited in a given timeline. Three of the new achievements are related to these.
• Quick Daring For New Players: The main purpose of this is to provide a fairly simple source of daring for new players in their first timeline, which also encourages exploration.

Setup Phase

• Initial Construction Is Out: When you are in the setup phase at the start of a new timeline (aka the dooms have not yet started), it no longer shows the Initial Construction project (which can accidentally be completed rather easily), but instead shows a Setup Phase task that is larger and more visible, and only ends when you click it.
• Instant Construction: During the new setup phase, buildings are all constructed instantly.
• No Counter-Attacks: During the new setup phase, no counter-attacks are triggered by buildings (this pretty much just means the skimmers).
• Abundant Resources: During the new setup phase, the following resources are kept at full at all times: Drone Frame, Morphologic Lattice, Neuroweave, Robotic Motivator. The following resources are kept to certain minimum values at all times: 30k Microbuilders, 100k Elemental Slurry, 2k Scandium, 2k Alumina, 2k Neodymium.
• Zero-Energy Deployments: During the new setup phase, deploying units of any sort costs zero mental energy.

Bugfixes

• Vehicle Exception Fix: Made some code adjustments to protect against uncaught errors in background vehicle movement and animation, and to also try to make nullrefs impossible in that context.
• Maximum Traffic Density: The maximum traffic density has been dropped from 30 to 15 in settings. Above that is more crowded than makes any sense. This is purely a background visual thing.
• Particle Raycast Budget: The particle raycast budget is now universally 64, and there is no longer a visible setting for choosing this option. This setting has absolutely no effect on the visual quality of the game, but could dramatically reduce performance. There's a concern that on some very new machines this could actually be responsible for a crash to the desktop.
• Exceptions On Emergency Network: Fixed a regression introduced in Update 38 that made it so that if you hovered over an emergency network source in the build menu, an exception would be thrown.