Just when you thought you were safe, a Star Ruler 2 update arrives from inside the house! As always, read about some of the highlights below, or scroll down for a full detailed changelog.
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The Flying Dutchman
In the spirit of Halloween the skies are now roamed by a ghastly pirate ship with a craving for booty. The flying dutchman will hunt civilian trade ships in systems with weak defenses, taking the cargo it stole back to its hoard stations, hidden in deep space.
After halloween, the flying dutchman will revert to just being the plundering Dread Pirate. The pirate mechanic can be turned off from the game options menu.
The Revenant & Artifacts
Spread across the universe are 4 new unique artifacts. Each of the four parts of The Revenant, an ancient forbidden warship, give a permanent bonus to your ships when activated. Have all 4 activated at the same time and gain control over The Revenant as a whole, the most powerful ship in the universe!
In addition, this update has various new artifacts and improvements to old artifacts, ranging from equippable Ion Cannon disabler beams to artifacts with the power to generate entire new planets and star systems.
Thankfully, the addition of the Tractor Beam subsystem lets you pull those shiny new artifacts away from the greedy hands of other empires.
Random Design Generation
The design editor now includes a randomizer! You can set up some simple parameters and let the game generate random designs for you until you find one you like - for use or to further edit into your own design.
The AI also makes use of the new random designer, and will now make completely unique ship designs in every game.
Full Changelog
Added:
- Add automatic design generator. Simply press a button in the design editor, and receive a randomly generated design.
- Ship icons are now based on the design.
- Add "Rush" and "Call Out" influence cards.
- Add art for the fusion and antimatter reactors.
- Added a tractor beam capable of pulling ships, asteroids, artifacts and orbitals.
- Added unique artifact parts of The Revenant. Activating each gives a passive bonus and having all parts active allows you to control the most powerful warship in the universe. (Can be turned off from game options)
- Add two planetary weapons.
- Added and overhauled a number of Artifacts for better gameplay.
- Add some hint messages when players crash their economy, explaining what is happening.
- Add Dread Pirate mechanic. The dread pirate roams the galaxy killing civilian ships and storing its loot in deep space stations. Killing it or its stations gives you the money.
Changed:
- Votes show the time remaining before it passes/fails, based on how the vote is currently going.
- Rebalanced many influence cards to provide varying incentives for their use.
- Unusable resources explain why they are unusabled.
Fixed:
- Fix situations where flagships could drop supports while in FTL.
- Activating hyperdrives for multiple fleets via the action bar works correctly.
- The AI could attempt to order billions of supports into a damaged flagship's fleet, destroying its economy.
Balanced:
- Capitalism can't start with more than one leverage against a given empire.
- Damage reduced by armor can't be reduced to lower than 20% (up from 12.5%)
- Repair requires and consumes supply.
- FTL Interdiction applies to fling destinations.
AI:
- The AI designs new ships over time.