#1 Post by Geoff the Medio » Thu Sep 04, 2014 3:55 pm

Download:

Key Changes:

Interface and turn processing time improvements

Extensive AI updates

Combat mechanics reworked

Balance changes including supply mechanics, damage control, ship hulls

New "core" slot type

Configurable Hotkeys

New save / load file dialog

Queued fleet move orders

Python scripted universe generation

Change Log

Links to Debian and Ubuntu packages will be added to our wiki downloads page as they become available, or FO can be built with cmake/make per the instructions here and here FreeOrion v0.4.4 has been released.This is the version of FreeOrion you should choose if just want to play, and don't care about participating in game development or getting the latest development version with new features but potentially more bugs.FreeOrion is still very much in the middle of development. There are still major features to be added, and much work left to be done. However, we think the project has reached the point where most 4X players will get some enjoyment out of it, not only those interested in game development. Follow FreeOrion on Twitter if you want to receive related news, especially announcements of releases.since v0.4.3 August 2013.~ Implemented Python scripted universe generation~ ~ Can be easily modified by editing script files~ ~ Accessible through "Irregular 2" galaxy shape in galaxy setup~ New "core" ship design slot type, added to some hulls and required for some powerful ship parts~ Made all empires' sitreps visible to moderators and observers~ System and ship names moved into stringtable, so they can be translated with the rest of the in-game text~ Added a bombardment mechanic, allowing ships to target and affect planets outside of battle~ Added a UI for configurable hotkey command key bindings~ Galaxy setup data is stored and can be accessed from the pedia during a game~ Graphs display added that allows plotting game history of various statistics about empires~ Made it possible to refresh the stringtable or change stringtables without restarting the program (although not all of the GUI will immediately refresh text when doing this)~ Gifting mechanic allows giving ships to other empires with a presence in the same system~ Improved support for FreeBSD~ Modified system naming to group adjacent systems and give them similar names, distinguished by Greek suffixes, to prevent running out of system names in large galaxies~ Reordered turn processing to improve consistency between server results and client-side estimates of effects processing~ Added tracking and pedia display of various statistics about empires, such as numbers of things destroyed, lost, invaded...~ Combat mechanics reworked:~ ~ 3 rounds, during which objects all fire simultaneously at random targets~ ~ Initially undetected ships that fire become targetable on later combat rounds~ Made low-aggression AIs even less dangerous to help new players~ Added shift-right-clicking to queue fleet move orders~ Set default multiplayer autosave option to true~ Various tech tree adjustments, including removing prerequisite techs and merging of similar techs~ Translation updates~ Added / updated / corrected descriptions of various parts, techs, hulls, buildings...~ Added more star names and ship names, and gave unowned monsters names~ Added sitreps for unlocking buildings, hulls, ship parts, monster growth,~ Reformatted / standardized sitrep text, added information to sitreps~ Replaced the "Weapons" species bonus with piloting skills, which modifies ship damage~ Organic hulls "grow", increasing structure over time~ Core slot type introduced, appearing on some hulls, and with some parts only mountable in core slots~ Changed default galaxy options to 150 stars and 6 AIs~ Added more predefined ship designs~ Ancient Ruins special:~ ~ Modest decrease in spawn rate~ ~ Preventing them from doubling up in a system~ ~ Much rarer now if Monsters Frequency is set to "None" (in part due to lack of guard monsters in this case)~ ~ Explored Ancient Ruins are now marked as excavated~ ~ Made less sparse on Low Planet Density setting~ Added preferred focus to species, to which new colonies will default~ Made all (including non-monster) unowned ship hulls move around on their own~ Head on a Spike specials track the locations of captured empire capitals~ Natives sometimes given advanced tech bonuses, making them more dangerous to attack~ Reworking the Experimentors~ ~ Starlanes removed at the beginning of the game will not be replaced until after turn 200~ ~ Sitreps announce monster release events~ ~ The stealth levels of Black Kraken and Bloated Juggernauts are reduced~ ~ A Victory Sitrep is generated if the Experimentor Outpost building is captured~ ~ Ensuring after capture / destruction, fleets are not trapped in a no-lane system~ Removed some old and uninteresting specials and renamed some existing specials~ Added Robotic Interface Shields, which get bonuses from being located near other ships with the same part~ Added Krill Spawner part as a possible Ancient Ruin unlock~ Added Ramscoop part~ Added Transpatial Drive part~ Removed Interstellar Lighthouse because it was incompatible with current visibility mechanics~ Reworked Psychic Domination to require a focus setting to enable, and to require telepathic species~ Added some restrictions to when buildings can be added to the production queue~ ~ Can't build a second palace~ ~ Prevent quirks where a second something could be added to the queue, but would then become unproducible due to there being too many of it enqueued~ AIs announce their aggression at the start of a game~ New and updated icons for various ship parts, buildings, techs~ Added right-click popup on players list to look up empires~ Fleet management improvements~ ~ New automatically created fleets are set to aggressive if they contain warships, or passive otherwise~ ~ The new fleet aggression toggle can be set to automatically decide aggression for new fleets, as above~ ~ Right-clicking fleets or ships gives management commands: merging, splitting, and splitting by design~ Added changing expression planet happiness icon~ Production queue made to highlight items in the currently selected system~ Added production queue right-click menu commands~ Improved rendering of visibility circles~ Limited copy-cut-paste functionality in some GUI text controls~ Indicated mountable slot types in part descriptions~ Made some multiline text areas scroll multiple lines per single mousewheel tick~ Fixed longstanding missing item drop sound issue on options screen~ Made looking up techs, buildings, ship parts or hulls from the map screen just show the pedia entry, and not open the design, production, or tech screens~ Increased thresholds for displaying wasted PP or RP notifications, to avoid them appearing due to rounding errors~ Sorted system droplist by system name (except for Deep Space, which are scatted through the list)~ Numerous pedia text and GUI control placement layout adjustments~ Tweaked cloud spawning effects~ Design screen disables the confirm button to prevent creating duplicate designs~ ~ Added tooltips for design confirm button to explain why it is sometimes disabled~ Restored system name colouring by owners, including multiple colours when shared between empires~ Added right-click command to rename ship designs~ Fixed / implemented mouseover highlighting in popup menus~ Made clicking on a non-command in a popup menu not cancel the popup~ Fixed a few places where changing text or list contents would annoyingly reset list scroll positions~ Hid fleet/ship names when panels are small to avoid overlapping with destination text~ Added Linux install targets and icons~ Added toggle buttons for info windows: graph, messages, empires~ Modified rendering of GUI windows to show a pointed bottom-right corner when resizable, and a cut off corner when not~ Added buttons to adjust objects list window visibility filters more quickly~ Added tooltips to tech tree tech panels, production queue~ Made production / research queue widths adjustable in options~ Reworked fleet icons to be more complicated and informative~ Added All / None sitrep filter toggles~ Enabled sitrep filters for observers~ Added turn auto-cycle button, which automatically ends turns for players (immediately) or moderators (when all players have finished their turn)~ Made clicking empire PP and RP total indicators open the production or research screens~ Improved disabling of order-giving GUI controls when a player's order giving is disabled between turns~ Redesign of save/load file dialog, now showing information about each game, and sorting by file modification date~ Added automatic generation of repeat keypresses while holding down a key~ ~ Rates and delays for keyboard and mouse repeat have options in the options screen~ Made objects list columns configurable by right-click popup menu~ Enabled (glitchy) sorting of objects by any column by left-clicking the column heading~ Incomplete ship design name changes are now immediately reflected in the pedia description~ Added Available, Unavailable, and Redundant parts filtering on the design screen~ Added right-click popup to enqueue production items and techs on their respective screens~ Hulls and designs can be dragged from the list to the main design panel to load them (and can also be double-clicked, as before)~ Made clicking the design background image show the hull in the pedia instead of the incomplete design~ Added toggle to pin GUI windows in place~ Removed X from top-right of windows that can't be closed~ Changed the default design screen layout~ Extensive ship hull rebalancing~ Made colonization require at least partial visibility of the target planet~ Made stargate construction require at least 1 population, so the required focus can be set~ Added penalties to planet resource meters when changing focus, to discourage doing so frequently~ Tweaked various effects, to ensure intended-bonuses never actually amplify penalties, and penalties never actually give bonuses~ Various supply mechanics changes~ ~ Made supply meter grow 1 per turn up to max supply~ ~ Changed Interstellar Logistics to give a fixed +3 to supply range~ ~ Planet size affects supply: smaller gives more supply than large~ ~ Space Elevator gives any planet equivalent supply to tiny planets~ ~ Species can have good or bad supply traits~ Increased native planet troop levels, making invasions more costly~ Adjusted universe generation special distributions~ Made meters reset to 0 if a planet is conquered, and disabled meter growth on the turn after capture~ Changed Ion Storms to give fixed 40 point penalty to stealth and vision~ Made derelict specials stealthy (40 stealth)~ Adjusted monster spawning rate dependence on galaxy setup setting~ Damage control techs rebalanced~ Made Concentration Camps require a population of 3 to be built~ Fixed production costs at start of queue processing, so that processing the queue doesn't affect the costs of other queue items during the same turn.~ Hopefully fixed issue causing dangling server processes from failed load game attempts, which would prevent starting a new game.~ Fixed issue with having multiple different production block sizes on the queue leading to incorrect production costs~ Fixed Collective Thought Network bonus range~ Fixed bug causing display errors in the production queue, including "never" for items that should complete in one turn~ Fixed xenophobic self script triggering from outposts with negative population, or from use of exobots~ Fixed homeworld growth focus overriding homeworld bonus for the same species elsewhere if it has more than one homeworld~ Fixed crash and memory leaks when filtering the objects list~ Gaia special will no longer trigger for Exobots on an Adequate planet~ Fixed issue on OSX where selecting observer or moderator mode in multiplayer lobby could cause a crash~ Fixed memory leak in tech tree display code~ Fixed memory leaks in AI ship design code~ Removed rename command from other empires' fleets' popup menus~ Fixed issue where failed colonization attempts could leave ships in an inconsistent state~ Fixed issue where hotkeys would be enabled while entering text, preventing certain letters from being typed~ Fixed issue where auto-exploring fleets wouldn't update the GUI to show that they had been told to stop exploring~ Hopefully fixed issue where the system instead of bundled Python framework was being used on OSX~ Fixed issue with a ship moving from a system with the derelict special to another system with the derelict special not receiving both bonuses~ Fixed issue with scrapping multiple ships causing a crash~ Disabled game saving in GUI when doing so could cause problems~ Stopped Asteroid Snails from moving~ Fixed (broken) use of galaxy setup seed in multiplayer games~ Fixed crash with observers enabling multiplayer autosave~ Fixed glitchy window dragging~ Fixed random seeding functions to properly seed more random number generation~ Fixed some crashes when a model dialog was open (such as a droplist) when turn updates arrived and caused a GUI refresh~ Fixed Cosmic Dragon adding Nova Bomb Activator specials to any / all planets when it was not in a system~ Attempted to fix some quirky GUI state issues when alt-tabbing or clicking in/out of the game window~ Stopped setting of galaxy map pedia article when opening the research or production screens~ Adjusted population reduction formula for the Concentration Camps and Evacuation buildings, to correct odd results when target population is substantially below current population~ Adjusted colonization process so colonizing an outpost doesn't cancel scrap orders on buildings on the planet~ Fixed issue with multiplayer chat history display~ Fixed issue with ships with self-repairing hulls starting with 0 structure when produced~ Fixed rare situation where if a floater is the only monster outside a system, it could spawn forests at almost every system~ Removed design window options for moderators in multiplayer to prevent crashes