Hi everyone,

The first patch of 2020 is here and it contains a round of fixes for Play with Friends, some new player protection, and the invisible fleet icon bug has been fixed. Apologies that we couldn’t get this patch to you any sooner!

Play with Friends Fixes

Since Play with Friends was released in patch v104 there’s been an ongoing discussion on what to do to prevent the feature from being exploited. We proposed some options in a blog and have since made refinements to those options following the feedback we received. The following changes were the ones players agreed with and that we were able to do in time for this patch:

Home planet defenses can’t be stood down (for the first 28 days)

Ground defenses on home planets can’t be stood down during a player’s first 28 days. This was to prevent a home planet being instantly transferred to another player in perfect condition. We could remove the 28 day limitation entirely if players prefer?

Home planet T3 ODS can’t be dismantled (for the first 28 days)

This change was because we define a ‘home planet’ as a planet with a T3 ODS. So without this change, it would be possible to bypass the above limitation on standing down defenses because the planet wouldn’t then be considered a home planet. Like the change above, we could remove the 28 day limitation entirely if players prefer?

New player home planet protection for 28 days

This change serves two purposes: 1) it gives new players some much needed protection by preventing another player from invading their home planet for the new player’s first 28 days, 2) it prevents an intact home planet being handed over to another player by leaving a tiny, easily conquered population.

When viewing a planet from its orbit, you can see when invasion protection is active because a new icon has been added to the left of the planet’s name. Hovering it will reveal when it will expire. This info is also visible from the planet’s label.

An icon has been added to the left of the planet’s name to indicate invasion protection is active

Spawn code usage limited

A player can’t rejoin a galaxy with a spawn code if they previously joined that galaxy with a spawn code within the last 7 days. While this limit does help to some degree with limiting the feature being exploited, it mainly adds some balance.

More to do

We proposed a couple of other changes we haven’t made yet that target the scenarios of a home planet being abandoned. Deliberately abandoning a home planet by removing the last colonists doesn’t leave population or structures behind, but it does leave resources and resource deposits. We proposed to remove resources from a planet if this happens within the first 28 days. As things stand we’ll probably include that with the next patch.

If you want to find out more about this topic check out this thread on the forum. We’re open to suggestions on what else we can do to prevent the play with friends feature from being exploited.

More Info for Invasions

The notification you receive after launching an invasion includes the number of troops successfully deployed to the surface (if troops are destroyed by the ODS that’s handled with a separate notification for now).

When a planet is being invaded its tooltip now includes the size and civ of the invading force. There’s room for improvement still with the info that’s displayed: we could include the actual power and not just the size, maybe include the power of the defense, as well as fixing/improving the notifications for when the invasion has finished.

Invisible Fleets

We found and fixed an issue that caused a fleet’s icon to become invisible while moving. The trajectory lines for your fleets were still displayed as was the direction and speed indicator arrows for fleets that didn’t belong to you.

All visible fleets should be listed on galaxy overview and be visible on the map. So please let us know if after this patch you are still having issues with invisible fleets (not the cloaked, sneaky variety).

In the future we’ll avoid releasing patches on Fridays to ensure we have the full team on hand in case anything goes wrong. But the invisible fleet bug is affecting and frustrating so many players we didn’t want to delay pushing it out and the devs will be actively monitoring things afterwards.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you again next week.

– The Outscape dev team

Full patch notes

Features and changes

Reducing play with friends exploits:

Ground defenses on home planets can’t be stood down during a player’s first 28 days (we could increase this indefinitely if players want)



T3 ODS on home planet can’t be dismantled during a player’s first 28 days (we could increase this indefinitely if players want)



Invasions can’t be launched against a new home planet for the first 28 days. When this is active for a planet it can be seen after entering the planet’s orbit: an icon has been added next to the planet’s name on planet management with a tooltip that includes the countdown – as does the planet’s label. This prevents an intact home planet being handed over by leaving a tiny, easily conquered population. And doubles as a degree of new player protection.



A player can’t rejoin a galaxy with a spawn code if they previously joined that galaxy with a spawn code within the last 7 days



More changes are still needed – see here for details

More info on invasions:

The notification you receive after launching an invasion includes the number of troops successfully deployed to the surface (if troops are destroyed by the ODS that’s handled with a separate notification for now)



When a planet is being invaded its tooltip now includes the size and civ of the invading force



There’s room for improvement still with the info that’s displayed: we could include the actual power and not just the size, maybe include the power of the defense, as well as fixing/improving the notifications for when the invasion has finished

Bugs fixed

Moving fleets were sometimes invisible after leaving a star system

Exploration history from one galaxy is partially visible on the star map of another galaxy after switching games from the lobby and then restarting the client. We’ve prevented this from happening for players joining a galaxy after this patch, but will need to wait until the next patch until we can revert it for players that are already seeing it (so if you’re seeing this already, you will still see it until the next patch).

The notification that a spawn code had been generated for a planet was wrongly displayed after either colonizing it with defenses stood down or capturing it via an invasion

Spawn codes that had expired (7 days had passed) and couldn’t be redeemed continued to be displayed as active on the planet

Updating the game client: the game should be automatically updated via Steam. Please check here if the download doesn’t automatically start when you launch Steam.