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Release Notes for Imagine Earth

Update # 1.12.0.5860 (June 5th, 2023)

Welcome to our latest update, with which we deliver nothing less than the long-awaited native Linux version. We hope for a good start on this new platform and serve you some more crisp features with update 1.12, but read for yourself. Summer greetings, Jens & Martin

New Challenge - Saving Planet B

We have a special challenge for you this week, a new planet to basically explore the idea for a new game mode in Imagine Earth. Would be happy if you feel like thinking with us about how we can make this more interesting.

The basic idea is that the players don't have to build up a civilization first, but find a relatively heavily built-up planet with cities. So you become directly the rebuilder and improver of the world, which is an exciting challengel. The emissions balance is also already tipping into the negative, so climate change is imminent. So you have to consider with all expansion steps to compensate the additional emissions of the new buildings and additional supply buildings with reforestation and other methods. In return, you'll find plenty of infrastructure and technology on the planet that you can take over and optimize through strategic realignment. As I said, we're testing this out and seeing that we need to balance planets in this game mode to make it fun and challenging.

New construction ring

An amazingly simple, yet effective change. The build ring just got bigger and now includes all the available build options plus the tools, functions and inventory. We studied other simulation games and their gamepad controls to come to this conclusion. As a result, the building ring is now also much more distinct from the building options and the individual building categories.

Hitech building in technology panel

This move was only logical since we put the Hitech special buildings for terraforming and geoengineering into one category in the build menu, making them so much more available, look in the technology panel for better what a wide variety of build options, Imagine Earth offers.

The Takeover Panel

We have also redesigned this to make the acquisition of competing cities clearer. With the necessary majority of shares in a corporation, you can directly take over individual cities and bring them under your control.

Population free areas on the planet

When we built the above planet B, we wanted to enable the scenario of finding more cities or soon maybe slums on the planet that could be taken over and transformed in an efficiency and environmentally friendly way. To do this, we first had to create the condition that even in areas not controlled by factions, people live in the cities and are supplied by farms and power plants in the surrounding area.

Gamepad - Major changes

We have once again intensively rethought and optimized the gamepad controls for Imagine Earth. It should be almost more dynamic to control than with the mouse, give it a try.

More optimizations and fixes
Please vote for us in the Player's Choice Award

The Green Game Jam has started! Many game studios have launched Green Activations to save the planet's most important habitats, and so have we. If you click the following link, you will be taken to Imagine Earth's contest page and you can support our project in this jam:

https://greengamejam.playing4theplanet.org/participants/imagine-earth

Update 1.11.5 (April 24th, 2023)

Update 1.11.4.5788 (April 13th, 2023)

Greetings space colony managers. The next technological update is ready to optimize your world building workflow. As promised, we are now releasing the new Hi-Tech buildings to shorten your wait for the DLC. As always, we look forward to your feedback and hope you enjoy the latest features and changes!

Cheers, Martin & Jens

Relay Station for Orbital Satellites

The satellite is a mobile space unit in a lower orbit, which has the following functions integrated. Watch your brand new satellite launch into space straight from its hub.

Ion Cannon

It can be used to defend against invaders or to blast mountains to expose raw materials.

Espionage

Allows to copy and use the researched building upgrades of other factions. This is achieved by scanning an upgraded building.

Scanner

Scans an area for rare resources that may be contained in rocks.

Drones follow the construction queue

Previously, the construction drones liked to take care of the construction site closest to them, and in the process it could also happen that they overlooked some construction orders and left them unfinished.

Gaia Powers are renamed as Functions

We have also renamed the Inventory to Items and the Multi tools are now simply called Tools. This makes a lot of things easier and more understandable.

UI hiding for Trade Panel

To leave you more visual space to think about the trades you are making we hide the surrounding user interface while you're in this panel.

Hi-Tech Constructs in Buildmenu

In this new category you will find more buildings in the future as well as the gaian constructs which we also wanted to rebrand as high tech buildings with strategic functions. We also adjusted the building descriptions to make them sound less mythical.

Examination of ruins

Now you can also unlock ruins by exploring them. This will allow you to build these special technological buildings as soon as you have enough artifacts.

Fixes

Build menu with gamepad Updates to Korean translation since the release version retranslated Icons for all languages fixed Speaker less chopped off in menus Maximum influences from fields not in construct description Point at research in technology panel Only Gaia temple should still give quality of life Xrathul temple have a negative impact on life quality water-building and coast-building kept their production when water is removed from them via terraforming Rare error in Joma and Rounos: DefineField/DefineArea 'LeenHome'/'PlaceA' was not yet executed Fixed translation error in Japanese version and UI problems Only display error for damaged profile file once Fixed shortcuts of functions and items no longer working Fixed error related to updating deco meshes on planet Fixed clickable areas of Technology panel still being usable in main menu Fixed random complete crash of game Rounos: Leen does no longer leave before idean goal is finished Fixed rare error loading old savegame Fixed rare crash previewing screenshot of old savegame Fixed ocean terraforming not correctly blocked for city centers Difficulty panel no longer clickable before it’s even visible Victory point related goals on bonus planets are correctly closed when then mission is finished Fixed frontier buoy graphics bug Prevent saving logic from corrupting savegames

Update 1.10.5.5697 (March 8th, 2023)

Dear Civilization Manager Guild,

finally we have the update announced for February in the box. Due to the long waiting time, the blog post has become quite a few pages long, stuffed with optimizations of game mechanics and interfaces, plus a performance turbo of up to 100%, which we had to bring forward for the implementation of the game on consoles. That's why this time there are only a few small goodies that make Imagine Earth more interesting from a gameplay point of view. Please keep in mind that there are still only two of us working on our complex world simulator, but rest assured that we won't give up until it is complete in our eyes. There is still a big add-on on the horizon that will be accompanied by some great new features for the main game, so stay tuned.

Fusion Power Plants
Forests are Back in the Build Menu
Upgrade for Thermo-Generator
Sounds and Ambience
Title Screen
Performance optimization
Achievements
Research Filters and Bonus
Shop and Trade
Crafting Optimization
AI Learnings
Serious vs Sci-Fi Mode
Interface improvements
World improvements
Bug Hunt
Players of the month

Thanks for your interest & support! Jens & Martin

Update 1.10.1
Update 1.10.2
Update 1.10.3
Update 1.10.4
Update 1.10.5

Update 1.9.6 (November 8th, 2022)

Update 1.9.5 (November 6th, 2022)

Update 1.9.1.5341 (September 27th, 2022)

Xrathul Planet

A new Planet has been discovered in the Udoxia Galaxy and a brand new mission awaits on Omicron Persei 9. To quote the briefing “Strange building complexes have been spotted here. Apparently they can release powerful forces. This could become even more dangerous for us if they fall into the wrong hands.

Xrathul Palace
Two New Gaming Modes
New Animal - Manta Ray
Improvements
Interface Improvements
Fixes
Update 1.9.1

Update 1.8.1 (30/06/2022)

Update 1.8.0.5112 (23/05/2022)

Whale Watching
Best Expert Game at the German Game Awards
New rule for space traders
The Forester Achievement
The strategic view
Bookmarks
Improvements & fixes

Update 1.7.7 (01/05/2022)

Update 1.7.4 (29/04/2022)

Update 1.7.2 (26/04/2022)

Control optimization
Takeover through stock trading
Setup optimizations
Fossil buildings
The new taskbar
Supply capsules
Optimizations
Navigation
Miscellaneous bugs

Update 1.6.14 (15/04/2022)

Update 1.6.9 (08/03/2022)

Update 1.6.2 (15/02/2022)

Update 1.6.1 (15/02/2022)

Update 1.6 (07/02/2022)

Deferred Rendering & Motion Blur
Items & Crafting
Planet Generator Balancing
Bugs & Fixes

Update 1.5.2 (17/01/2022)

This update fixes a few errors that have been reported:

The last problem seems to be related to Windows 7 systems. We have implemented a workaround that works for us and hope that it resolves the problem for all of you as-well.

Update 1.5.1 (15/01/2022)

This update fixes a few errors that have been reported:

Besides that we have received an error "IOException: The parameter is incorrect" related to the settings path on the local system of a few users. We are having trouble to identify the reason for this. It would be great if someone how is affected by this could get in contact with us via support@imagineearth.info

Update 1.4.3 (06/12/2021)

Update 1.3 (12/10/2021)

Honored guild of planet managers,

Our monthly update is out, this time mainly fine tunings and fixes. But at the end we're announcing the next big feature: The Daily Missions game mode. We are always amazed ourselves what can go wrong in a global simulation and where the devil hides in the details. Anyway, the bugs are also getting more and more bizarre and today's cleanup post is an amusing collection of such occurrences.

Czech translation

First of all, we would like to announce that Imagine Earth is now also translated into Czech! We wish all Czech players a lot of fun with the new version that was created by Jan Balek of Balek Localization.

The World Congress

Unfortunately, the central diplomatic instance for all global factions was no longer accessible to players after successfully completing missions and competitions. The NPCs then blithely discussed tax increases and funding measures among themselves, while the humanoid player was left out in the cold and faced with a fait accompli. And on top of that, the World Congress featured the wrong representatives of their own faction, apparently the characters from past games. All history now, of course.

AI advanced training in cleverness

The AI in Imagine Earth once again behaves a bit more logically in this update. NPC factions now actively use research licenses. Also, AIs now only mine rocks when there are no other valuable resources, which previously slowed them down mightily. In addition, small changes to priorities have resulted in AI corporations no longer planting trees, and as soon as reforestation became necessary due to climate change, they planted exactly the most inappropriate type of tree in each of the eight different biomes on the planets. This seemingly tiny inconsistency may have led to the fact that in the case of an impending climate collapse, exactly nothing was done to counteract the catastrophe. Which let the economic strategy of the companies turn out rather kamikaze moderately.

Apply All Tool

If you hold down the Alt key during the game you can now install all upgrades of one type on all applicable buildings at the same time again. This is exactly how it works with tools, all fields that could use a cleanup will be cleaned in one go, or all buildings that need a repair will be repaired.

The building list

A must-have management feature for several updates once the colony reaches a global scale. This menu has now received a functional update, the header display has finally been polished in layout and the button that allows you to repair, clean or mine all affected buildings resources deactivates when no such operations are needed or all have been activated. Also, we disabled replaceable upgrades from showing as active in this panel. Because it was easy to accidentally swap when you thought there was still something to optimize there.

Optimization for world editor

A particularly perfidious bug had crept into the editor. Although the editor saved the values for victory points and player factions properly, it did not load them itself. So that one then accidentally saved changed conditions. And because of this, the player faction was often left undefined, whereupon the game system simply picked one at random and simply let another unwanted faction land on the planet.

Taking over towers with the hacker kit

Lately, sometimes enemy towers wouldn't let me take them over with hacking tools. This strange bug in the game was also hard to identify, as it only occurred if you had previously loaded a game. It was similar with the planetary shield of the Great Pyramids, until today.

System voice warnings

These helpful announcements have piled up to 3-4 times announcing pirates, storms, Xrathul and other disasters. What was actually important, strategic information thus became outright scare tactics.

Crash Fixes

Finding the remaining occasions for crashes in the game is getting more and more difficult and tricky, all the more heartfelt thanks to all of you who report them to us so diligently. The following rare error messages are now a thing of the past: "NullReference in UpdateValue", "NullReference in UpdateTerritories" and "NullReferenceException in DroneManager.Update".

Outlook into the next update: Daily Missions

Many of you have asked for the game to offer more long-lasting challenges. That's why we will work on a new game mode next, which I would name with the working title "Daily Missions". Players will then be able to colonize a new procedurally generated planet every day where they will have to compete against other corporations. This planetary conquest mission can then only be played for one day to create a high leaderboard ranking. For this, an online league is created in which one can gain the high score lead on a weekly, monthly or even yearly basis.

Hotfix 1.2.1 (13/08/2021)

Fixed ArgumentNullException that appeared during missions Re-activated mass-mode for tool ring (alt key) and added it for the gamepad Moved "clear/repair/... all" buttons to top of building list columns and also introduced them for upgrades and city leveling Fixed position of "open hypergate" button Added missing alert for fires on non-colony buildings (e.g. gaian constructs) in your territory Gamepad: Added context info for fast ring selection Fixed chemical planet getting bonus from forests

Update 1.2 (13/08/2021)

Dear all, we have been working on improvements, fine tuning and bug fixes for quite a while now. This is the basis for us to offer innovative features for Imagine Earth again from now on! We are very excited about this and hope you are too. If you scroll down to the bottom of the post, you will have the opportunity to name your own planet name in the game.

We are always looking to lower the barriers to entry into the game and gather your feedback. The most common criticism is the chattiness of characters, especially that they seem to explain too many details about buildings and tools to players, interrupting the flow of the game. This is also addressed in this update. The player can consciously choose his difficulty level at the beginning of the campaign and also determine the story mode.

Minimalist Story Mode

Now you can choose which difficulty level you want to play at the beginning of the campaign, and we've included a reduced story mode that allows you to experience the campaign exclusively with the dialogs relevant to the story.

Building Shader

We have added more contrast to the rendering of buildings and forests. This should make them look more vivid, stand out better against the terrain, and give them more intense color depth and shadows. To do this, we turned up the Ambient Occlusion and made it dependent on the time of day and added an exception for metallic surfaces. Sunlight was made a bit stronger overall and more Exposure was added to the night side. Well, you never think what a well-rounded look causes for work.

New vegetation

There is a new, third vegetation in two of the planet themes. Along with the terran forest and the mushroom forest, it is something between deciduous and flower forest. It is rather slightly alien and exotic. There is not much more to say about it, you just have to see it up close.

Balance of energy production

To some players it seemed as if Imagine Earth was virtually trying to coerce them into using renewable energy sources, yet our goal is to represent global warming authentically and keep all avenues open to the player. In fact, the fossil sources in the game were disproportionately unproductive. Now they produce more, but also the deposits in the earth last longer and allow full productivity until the failure of the unit. After all, the main problem in today's world situation on Planet Earth is not that coal and gas are all going, but that we can't burn any more of them without driving global warming to dangerous levels.

Your opinion counts

At this point I'd like to weave in a personal note from the development department. Myself and Martin have been working on this game passionately and dedicated for many years, but currently every update has the stale aftertaste that with every improvement we somehow only create new demands. Some people don't seem to realize that Imagine Earth is an indie game and already has a lot of features under the hood. If you like it, help us with your feedback and write a review, there is nothing that helps the project more.

Rouno's optimizations

There is now a lower start and end goal for population growth in this mission so the challenge is not too demotivating. You can now no longer form an alliance with Joe Dectow, and he no longer builds department stores almost exclusively. The landing permit you get after the challenge can now only be used to build up the destroyed colony, which prevents a potential dismantling of the whole colony. All alien NPCs now have greetings out again when you visit their camps, cities or ships. Natives respond more directly to donations.

Uprisings and pandemics limited

We have introduced a limit on negative events, while the emergence of riots in the colony illustrates a dangerous undersupply of the population or the spread of diseases makes too high pollution noticeable, these and similar events should not dominate the gameplay and make it annoying.

Frozen worlds

There is no longer snow on active colony buildings. This doesn't look quite as great as a completely snow-covered cities, but it's worth its weight in gold for building recognizability.

Modding preview

The briefing is the first step. Soon you will be able to add your own mission objectives, events and dialogs to this script, use characters from the game as voice actors and possibly create your own characters as well as make buildings. And ultimately combine the planets into a campaign galaxy. This will be great, we just have to ask for some patience for this feature....

AI optimization

We also fixed a funny bug: if the planet creator didn't specify their own faction, the game would assign them an AI faction, which would then blithely mess with players. We've also fixed some of the AI's biggest quirks.

Improved controls

We made small many control improvements and user interface optimizations, as many newbies were still having trouble getting to grips with managing entire planets.

Improvements
Fixes

Convenience Update 1.1 - Hotfix 1 (09/07/2021)

Convenience Update 1.01 (05/07/2021)

New Features
New Fixes

Hotfix 2 (14/06/2021)

Hotfix 1 (02/06/2021)

Improvements
Additional fixes