31 October

Alpha 38 "Mushroom Worlds"

Dear Space Colonists, our monthly update of Imagine Earth this time adds a background story frame to the campaign and a new additional vegetation set.

• Mushroom Vegetation
• Epic background story
• Resource Storage
• No More Fake AI on Rounos
• New Flashy Quest Icons
• Other improvements

Maybe you where one of those who perceived our planets as a bit too normal and not very alien-like. We had the same feeling for some time and saw chance to try something new in terms of vegetation. The whole set of forests (8 bioms + 1 underwater) is now being replaced on two of the six campaign planets to make their themes more diversified. It also triggered us to do another set of vegetation besides trees and mushrooms. Could be giant ferns or totally alienated, glowing crystal plants. Any ideas?



We heard it from time to time and felt the same way. The campaign was lacking a bigger context for the story. We have added this now in the form of cut scenes told in the campaign screen. This links all the missions to a big picture and a real goal that is followed by you and the other companies.



A minimum of 10% goods will always be put into storage if you prioritize a certain resource. That keeps you from waiting for a resource package you wanted to store when the production value of the resource is low.



On the Rounos mission we had a scripted enemy which could finally be replaced by our AI. In addition we have polished the mission on planet Rounos. There were serious balancing issues that are hopefully working out much better now.

Important note: All old savegames on Rounos wont work anymore. Sorry, but this was necessary.



You can recognize much easier when there are important events somewhere on the planet. Quest icons have pulsing markers around themselves. In addition these quests are arranged in an own line in the bookmark panel. You can jump to these Events simply by pressing TAB.

• New resource warning icons
• Achieved goals will be shown and highlighted in cut scenes
• AI cares about food & goods diversity
• Traders will trade craftable Icons only occasionally
• Fires won't spread so fast anymore

• Forest had plus on themselves
• pollution effects were to high
• Improved pest and epidemic particle effects
• AI relied too much on oil platforms
• No AI enemies where spawning in competition mode
• Natives mood and goods usage
• Native camp model had reflected surfaces
• Fishery reduced its own productivity
• Game crashes with access denied folders

22 September

Alpha 37 "Fusion Reaction"

Dear Space Colonists, our monthly update of Imagine Earth this time focuses on improving the visualization of building productivity and quality of life for cities.

• Joma Extended & "Healing" for Temples
• Fusion Reactor
• Fire Station
• Money and Tax Balancing
• New UI for Details on Productivity and Quality of Life
• Other improvements

It's now possible to donate items and resources to other colonies. For now this has only relevance for the missions, but in the near future we will be working on a diplomacy system.

We have extended the Joma mission to make use of this feature with respect to the epidemics and Birons. This gives you the chance to take a decision at one point that will have influence to a later part of the mission.



The cure spell that is now available in temples neutralizes pathogens that can pose a threat to more complex forms of life on site - in other words, you can use it to heal epidemics.

This new building is introduced in the Rounos mission.



The fusion reactor generates thermonuclear energy of nuclear fusion. Lithium is needed as a raw material, which can be extracted from asteroids on most planets. There is only relatively little radioactive waste and the reaction can be aborted safely at any time.

The "divertors" upgrade improves binding of impurities from the plasma and reduce maintenance and disposal costs. The "reactor extension" upgrade expands the reactor so that additional energy can be produced.

This building most likely will need some additional balancing, since it's the first time a building consumed rare resources.



The fire station is an upgrade for city districts and the logistics center. It ensures that fires in the vicinity are automatically extinguished by a drone. In addition, the probability of forest and building fires is halved.

Currently you always have loads of money in the long term. We are trying to improve the balancing of this a bit. In the first step we have increased the start budget and decreased tax income. At the same time we have increased the tax bonus you receive when your people have a high quality of life.



Over the course of the last years Imagine Earth has become a quite complex game. A part of this complexity is how productivity is influenced by nearby buildings and local factors like ground fertility.

With this update we are introducing a new info panel that is shown when a building is clicked. It sums up the productivity and lists all the influencing factors and their strength. This will make it a lot easier for you to understand what is going on and how to increase the production output of your colony.



The second part of this is how the quality of life in cities is influenced. A high quality of life will give you a tax bonus and a low quality will decrease your income.

Buildings like the park district, health district and campus district increase the quality of life in surrounding districts. Other factors will decrease it. The new info panel lists the details on this, so you always know what's going on.



Finally the former building info panel in the bottom left of the UI is replaced with a minimal version that shows the building's / object's name for the selected field and its production value / remaining resources.

• You can open the build ring by right-clicking on any field now
• Added explanations for epidemics
• Bookmark panel no longer "clicks through"
• Research and development panels no longer change the planet zoom level
• Visualization for items received during the mission
• Changed influence area visualization for cannons, shield, fire stations and more
• Fixed city car animation problems