Happy New Year! I took a few days off from development enjoying winter in the mountains and still managed to work on a few long overdue improvements. I just pushed build 0.6.0 to Steam that includes the following updates:

• [AI] AI players learned how to upgrade structures around their locations.
• [AI] AI players became aware of asteroid fields and research stations and can build tunnels and attack them.
• [AI] AI players learned how to transport populations and minerals between their locations. This is huge! Now AI can actually execute more meaningful strategies and adapt to changes on the battlefield.
• [GAMEPLAY] Event probability now depends on when the last event occurred: first turn after an event has the probability of a new event happening at 0% and seventh turn at 100%. Turns in between have a linearly increasing probability.
• [GAMEPLAY] Players can now set the initial proximity to other players in the battle settings panel.
• [GAMEPLAY] Stars go supernovae faster that before.
• [GAMEPLAY] Maximum mass of blue giants was increased, which affects incoming action costs.
• [UI] Location details panel now includes the combat strength value.

Next Week

• Adding more actions like fortifying and bombing locations without involving populations.
• More gameplay balancing and general improvements.

Epic Turn-Based Star Battles

FEATURES

• Build your star empire: take control of an advanced civilization and build mega-structures like hyperspace tunnels, energy spheres, and ring worlds. Develop your economy by collecting star energy, mining asteroids, and growing your population.
  
• Experience the cycle of stellar evolution: new stars are born and ancient ones turn into black holes, white dwarves, or dust over tens of millions of years—all within a single battle!
  
• Explore star systems: create a system of hyperspace tunnels to nearby stars to conquer them.
  
• Research new technologies: capture mysterious space stations to make strategic decisions about your civilization's research.
  
• Unique stellar mechanics: learn how to thrive in an evolving battlefield with stars going supernova, asteroid fields depleting, and new hyperspace tunnels being built by you and your opponents. All stars are procedurally generated based on real physics. Luminosity, mass, and energy output change in accordance with star properties.
  
• Single-player campaign: follow a procedurally generated story of an advanced civilization spanning millions of years and dozens of stars.
  
• Hotseat multiplayer: play on the same computer with up to four friends.

• Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 640 @ 3.0 Ghz or Intel Core 2 Quad 9400 @ 2.66 GhzMemory: 1 GB RAM
• Memory: 1 GB RAM
• Graphics: AMD HD 5770 or Nvidia GTX 460 with 1024MB VRAM
• Storage: 1 GB available space

• Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 850 @ 3.3 Ghz or Intel i3 2100 @ 3.1 Ghz
• Graphics: AMD HD 6850 or Nvidia GTX 560TI with 1024MB VRAM
• Storage: 1 GB available space