Task Force Command has a new Simple view, and Grand Campaigns are now a tab there that opens after eight years and two task forces.
New task force orders: Conquer and Chart march through several sectors, and Halt stops a task force where it stands.
Press Shift+G to form a task force from your selection. One fleet of a task force can now take its own order from the map.
A new Budget tab on the Forges screen sets your military budget limit (now 50% to 95%), what automation buys first, and what it keeps for your own orders. Automation never takes your income below zero.
A fleet set to Invade now takes an enemy faction's lifeless worlds after holding their system for 30 days with no enemy ships there.
A new Commerce Direction lets a world focus on credits.
Naval battles now show a panel for each side with its strength and ships. In 2D, escorts now line up in front and capital ships at the rear.
Standing Construction has two new switches on Macro Build's Orders tab, Build Orbitals and Build Unique Buildings. Turn them off to place these yourself. When on, automation now puts them only on worlds where they benefit.
Orbitals and unique buildings can now be demolished or replaced from their building panel. Demolishing refunds half the cost of the first tier.
Standing Construction has a new Custom profile with your own weights and resource targets. Automated building now also follows each world's Direction.
The music player has a new panel with a seek bar, previous track, shuffle, repeat and volume.
Changes & Balance
Picking a posture now sets all of a task force's rules.
Task forces now raise fleets and legions in step, chase the enemy fleets they are sent after, and split up so each fleet works its own system. After an invasion, legions board the fleet that landed them.
The build menu now marks a recommended building with a star, groups the rest by purpose, and folds away buildings you have not researched.
Show the Way now points at the button to press with a guide cursor, instead of opening panels for you. Take me there still does it for you.
The tutorial now has a step that explains the left toolbar, and each toolbar button's hover says what its screen is for.
The world filters now have an on/off chip for each world type, so you can hide some types or show several at once.
The Black Market now opens from the left toolbar (J).
A new Galaxy | System switch on the map moves between the two views.
Hovering a fleet or legion doctrine now shows what it is good and bad at, how it compares with the one in use, and its upkeep. The fleet panel now shows a fleet's strength when fully built.
Hovering a locked or unaffordable event choice now shows what it would do. Many event cards have been rewritten to say plainly what they cost and do, and choices between two Houses now name them.
Saves on the desktop are now about seven times smaller.
Saves now keep your Outliner and world list filters. Turn this off with Save Filters in Settings.
When an enemy faction absorbs a free House, you now get an alert under Rival Advances instead of a popup that stops the game.
A Void Thrall whose Devotion falls too low no longer breaks away. It surfaces instead, and you can drown it again or unmake it before its worlds wake.
Many menus and hover notes have been reworded to be clearer.
Fixes
Esc could close two things at once or the wrong one, and some panels never closed with it. It now closes the topmost window or panel, one per press, and opens the menu only when nothing is left.
Task forces could keep invading under Decree, land their legions on a world on the way to their target, or fill a fleet with twice its escorts.
A task force could stop attacking when the only worlds left were in unexplored systems. It now explores them first.
A fleet raised from a doctrine was built with the stock ship designs instead of the doctrine's own. Auto-fit in the ship designer now agrees with Best For.
Loyalty, population and other numbers on worlds you had not selected stayed at their loaded values until you reloaded.
Pressing a key could open a window by mistake, for example while the menu or the Compendium was open, or after you had clicked a button.
The game could stay silent after the computer woke from sleep or the sound device changed.
Each fullscreen toggle could add a stray window to the Windows alt-tab list.
Enemy faction fleets moving through unexplored space showed their strength through the fog.
The resource hover card showed raw code for some penalties instead of their names.