The most detailed 4X title gets another major update! As of today patch 1.9.5.8 is available for download through all major channels. This update adds new customization features for ship designs and also further increases the modability of the AI, giving you more control than ever over your copy of Distant Worlds, allowing you to tailor the game to your liking. Other changes includes new AI tweaks, and weapon balances.

If you own the Steam version of Distant Worlds: Universe, you patch will be applied automatically when it is available. All other users can run the updater tool on their launcher or download the patch manually here.

Click here to find out more about Distant Worlds: Universe.

V1.9.5.8

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when detect pirate smuggler docking at base
- fixed rare crash when ships in combat

BUG FIXES
- fixed bug where race-specific diplomacy mood music was not working in a theme

SHIP DESIGN
- AI ship design process now automatically adds extra energy collector components to match static energy requirements of design (similar to the way reactors are added)
- AI ship design now increases size of Carrier designs (beyond default design template) when construction size allows (like Capital Ships already did)
- added medium and large freighter designs to AI ship design shrinking process (attempt to fit within current maximum construction size)
- fighter firepower now listed in ship design detail screen (Weapons panel), to allow better comparison of military designs (firepower and fighters listed separately)

MODDING
- now optionally allow setting battle tactics, invasion tactics and fleeWhen settings for designs in design template files. To do this, for any design template file for any race, use the following entries (Entry name with possible values after the colon):
o TacticsWeaker: Evade, Standoff, AllWeapons, PointBlank
o TacticsStronger: Evade, Standoff, AllWeapons, PointBlank
o TacticsInvasion: DoNotInvade, InvadeWhenClear, InvadeImmediately
o FleeWhen: EnemyMilitarySighted, Attacked, Shields50, Shields20, Never

OTHER
- increased hold-off range for tractor beams on spaceports against enemy troop transports (i.e. prevent colony invasions)
- increased the maximum per-resource cargo space at spaceports and other bases from 30000 to 120000
- ship decision whether to use tractor beams to pull or push a target now uses optimal attack ranges defined by battle tactics, e.g. when set to Point Blank then will pull within close range, when set to Evade will always push. Spaceports defending a colony will push when enemy troop transport gets too close in an attempt to prevent them from dropping invading troops at the colony
- idle automated AI fleets and troop transports will now unload troops at colonies that have pirate facilities but insufficient troops to clear them

The most detailed 4X title gets another major update! As of today patch 1.9.5.8 is available for download through all major channels. This update adds new customization features for ship designs and also further increases the modability of the AI, giving you more control than ever over your copy of Distant Worlds, allowing you to tailor the game to your liking. Other changes includes new AI tweaks, and weapon balances.

If you own the Steam version of Distant Worlds: Universe, you patch will be applied automatically when it is available. All other users can run the updater tool on their launcher or download the patch manually here.

Click here to find out more about Distant Worlds: Universe.

V1.9.5.8

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when detect pirate smuggler docking at base
- fixed rare crash when ships in combat

BUG FIXES
- fixed bug where race-specific diplomacy mood music was not working in a theme

SHIP DESIGN
- AI ship design process now automatically adds extra energy collector components to match static energy requirements of design (similar to the way reactors are added)
- AI ship design now increases size of Carrier designs (beyond default design template) when construction size allows (like Capital Ships already did)
- added medium and large freighter designs to AI ship design shrinking process (attempt to fit within current maximum construction size)
- fighter firepower now listed in ship design detail screen (Weapons panel), to allow better comparison of military designs (firepower and fighters listed separately)

MODDING
- now optionally allow setting battle tactics, invasion tactics and fleeWhen settings for designs in design template files. To do this, for any design template file for any race, use the following entries (Entry name with possible values after the colon):
o TacticsWeaker: Evade, Standoff, AllWeapons, PointBlank
o TacticsStronger: Evade, Standoff, AllWeapons, PointBlank
o TacticsInvasion: DoNotInvade, InvadeWhenClear, InvadeImmediately
o FleeWhen: EnemyMilitarySighted, Attacked, Shields50, Shields20, Never

OTHER
- increased hold-off range for tractor beams on spaceports against enemy troop transports (i.e. prevent colony invasions)
- increased the maximum per-resource cargo space at spaceports and other bases from 30000 to 120000
- ship decision whether to use tractor beams to pull or push a target now uses optimal attack ranges defined by battle tactics, e.g. when set to Point Blank then will pull within close range, when set to Evade will always push. Spaceports defending a colony will push when enemy troop transport gets too close in an attempt to prevent them from dropping invading troops at the colony
- idle automated AI fleets and troop transports will now unload troops at colonies that have pirate facilities but insufficient troops to clear them

Distant Worlds: Universe is now updated to 1.9.5.7.

The six major updates since release, including the newest 1.9.5.7 released today, have included fixes for most of the issues reported since release (over 100 in total)! Additionally, more than 100 improvements to game balance, AI and user interface have been made, as well as some additional tutorial tweaks and the addition of an "Introductory Game" mode to get new players started more easily.

The user interface improvements include significant adjustments to support larger font sizes on larger monitors and allow more of the interface to scale. In addition, game performance optimizations have nearly doubled performance since release.

Also included are several new modding features, which lift the limitations on race-specific technologies as well as improving modding in a few other areas. If you wish, each faction can have a much more detailed and fully unique tech tree now. The AI's research path can also now be specifically set to optimize each faction exactly the way you want.

The AI in Universe has improved significantly with each update, both in fleet coordination, exploration, research strategy, ship design, construction and pre-warp strategy.

Finally, we've included a host of fixes for pirate gameplay as well, if you prefer to seek your own fortune among the stars.

This update will automatically install when you restart Steam, as long as you are on the non-beta branch.

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.5:

CRASH FIXES
- fixed crash when evaluating designs
- fixed rare crash when drawing ships
- fixed crash when giving monetary gifts to other empires
- fixed crash when sorting ships in fleets
- fixed crash when ship attacks target
- fixed crash when reviewing pirate character traits
- fixed crash when fighter evaluates enemy threats
- fixed crash when empire declares war
- fixed crash when opening Construction Yards screen
- fixed rare crash when applying sun shadow graphics on planets in low-memory conditions

BUG FIXES
- character energy savings bonuses now properly reduce energy consumption instead of increasing it

GAME BALANCE
- counterespionage strength adjusted - slightly less chance of intercepting enemy intelligence missions
- reduced chance of empires switching to Corporate Nationalism government type when available
- altered empire military strength measurement to better account for fighters (affects diplomacy and AI empire evaluations)
- independent colonies now recruit more defending militia troops
- AI now gives higher preference to mining station build locations that are closer to space ports, colonies, etc
- strategic resources used in construction (for components) now weighted slightly higher when considering stockpiles at spaceports and elsewhere

SHIP DESIGN
- AI ship design now properly adds damage control components when repair bots are unavailable
- further optimized AI ship design process to allow shrinking designs with maximum construction size while still ensuring critical components are present (e.g. weapons on military ships)
- Fighter Bay components now considered as weapons in military ship designs (i.e. can have military ship designs with no weapons except for Fighter Bays)

PIRATES
- pirate factions now pay maintenance for any non-pirate raider troops (once have proper colonies)
- pirate faction flags retain pirate symbol in top-left corner when edited in game editor
- pirate faction flags propery update in galaxy view when edited in game editor
- pirate factions can now build normal planetary facilities and wonders at fully owned colonies using right-click pop-up menu and action buttons

MODDING
- now allow per-race modding for user interface in a theme (add subfolders named by race under images\ui\chrome folder to mod most chrome images, e.g. customization\THEMENAME\images\ui\chrome\human)
- custom characters with '?' appearance order now never appear at game start
- allow including GameText.txt from a custom mod (i.e. read from theme folder)
- altered images\units\creatures folder to be read from the mod (if present) instead of the root game folder
- allow modding MP3 files in sounds\EFFECTS (not just WAV files)
- fighters now properly use WeaponImageIndex value in fighters.txt to allow customization of fighter weapon effects
- allow customizing diplomacy mood music to be race-specific (music played when open Diplomatic Contact screen). Will play race-specific music when named race subfolder present under Customization\THEMENAME\sounds\effects (e.g. Customization\MyTheme\sounds\effects\human). Mood music filenames as follows: diplomacyMoodNeutral.mp3, diplomacyMoodAngry.mp3, diplomacyMoodHappy.mp3, diplomacyMoodMenacing.mp3
- increased maximum number of components from 170 to 300 (components.txt)
- added optional ship design template files for planet destroyers in themes. To use, place a custom ship design template named "PlanetDestroyer.txt" in the appropriate race folder
- added new super weapon types, allowing different types of planet destroyer weapons: in addition to the default super beam weapons can now also have super torpedos, super missiles, super rail guns, super phasers. Any of these can be set to be planet destroying weapons when damage is 10,000 or greater (weapon component Value1). Particularly useful in conjunction with new planet destroyer ship design templates mentioned above. To add these new super weapons to a custom theme, use the following values in the components.txt file (Type): 62=SuperTorpedo, 63=SuperMissile, 64=SuperRailGun, 65=SuperPhaser. You can also focus an empire's tech efforts to these new areas using the following new values in the race policy files (ResearchDesignTechFocus1-6): 30=SuperTorpedo, 31=SuperMissile, 32=SuperRailGun, 33=SuperPhaser

OTHER
- slightly improved game performance
- can now build bases in disputed systems if your empire has a colony in the system
- decreased chance of counterintelligence intercepting enemy intelligence missions, especially when targeted enemy agent has high mission skill level (i.e. harder to catch)
- fixed display of game difficulty level in Achievements tab of Empire Comparisons screen (was previously sometimes mislabelling difficulty levels)
- AI ship design now better at shrinking mining ships when maximum construction size is low
- AI ship design now better at shrinking military ships with fighter bays when maximum construction size is low

Distant Worlds: Universe is now updated to 1.9.5.7.

The six major updates since release, including the newest 1.9.5.7 released today, have included fixes for most of the issues reported since release (over 100 in total)! Additionally, more than 100 improvements to game balance, AI and user interface have been made, as well as some additional tutorial tweaks and the addition of an "Introductory Game" mode to get new players started more easily.

The user interface improvements include significant adjustments to support larger font sizes on larger monitors and allow more of the interface to scale. In addition, game performance optimizations have nearly doubled performance since release.

Also included are several new modding features, which lift the limitations on race-specific technologies as well as improving modding in a few other areas. If you wish, each faction can have a much more detailed and fully unique tech tree now. The AI's research path can also now be specifically set to optimize each faction exactly the way you want.

The AI in Universe has improved significantly with each update, both in fleet coordination, exploration, research strategy, ship design, construction and pre-warp strategy.

Finally, we've included a host of fixes for pirate gameplay as well, if you prefer to seek your own fortune among the stars.

This update will automatically install when you restart Steam, as long as you are on the non-beta branch.

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.5:

CRASH FIXES
- fixed crash when evaluating designs
- fixed rare crash when drawing ships
- fixed crash when giving monetary gifts to other empires
- fixed crash when sorting ships in fleets
- fixed crash when ship attacks target
- fixed crash when reviewing pirate character traits
- fixed crash when fighter evaluates enemy threats
- fixed crash when empire declares war
- fixed crash when opening Construction Yards screen
- fixed rare crash when applying sun shadow graphics on planets in low-memory conditions

BUG FIXES
- character energy savings bonuses now properly reduce energy consumption instead of increasing it

GAME BALANCE
- counterespionage strength adjusted - slightly less chance of intercepting enemy intelligence missions
- reduced chance of empires switching to Corporate Nationalism government type when available
- altered empire military strength measurement to better account for fighters (affects diplomacy and AI empire evaluations)
- independent colonies now recruit more defending militia troops
- AI now gives higher preference to mining station build locations that are closer to space ports, colonies, etc
- strategic resources used in construction (for components) now weighted slightly higher when considering stockpiles at spaceports and elsewhere

SHIP DESIGN
- AI ship design now properly adds damage control components when repair bots are unavailable
- further optimized AI ship design process to allow shrinking designs with maximum construction size while still ensuring critical components are present (e.g. weapons on military ships)
- Fighter Bay components now considered as weapons in military ship designs (i.e. can have military ship designs with no weapons except for Fighter Bays)

PIRATES
- pirate factions now pay maintenance for any non-pirate raider troops (once have proper colonies)
- pirate faction flags retain pirate symbol in top-left corner when edited in game editor
- pirate faction flags propery update in galaxy view when edited in game editor
- pirate factions can now build normal planetary facilities and wonders at fully owned colonies using right-click pop-up menu and action buttons

MODDING
- now allow per-race modding for user interface in a theme (add subfolders named by race under images\ui\chrome folder to mod most chrome images, e.g. customization\THEMENAME\images\ui\chrome\human)
- custom characters with '?' appearance order now never appear at game start
- allow including GameText.txt from a custom mod (i.e. read from theme folder)
- altered images\units\creatures folder to be read from the mod (if present) instead of the root game folder
- allow modding MP3 files in sounds\EFFECTS (not just WAV files)
- fighters now properly use WeaponImageIndex value in fighters.txt to allow customization of fighter weapon effects
- allow customizing diplomacy mood music to be race-specific (music played when open Diplomatic Contact screen). Will play race-specific music when named race subfolder present under Customization\THEMENAME\sounds\effects (e.g. Customization\MyTheme\sounds\effects\human). Mood music filenames as follows: diplomacyMoodNeutral.mp3, diplomacyMoodAngry.mp3, diplomacyMoodHappy.mp3, diplomacyMoodMenacing.mp3
- increased maximum number of components from 170 to 300 (components.txt)
- added optional ship design template files for planet destroyers in themes. To use, place a custom ship design template named "PlanetDestroyer.txt" in the appropriate race folder
- added new super weapon types, allowing different types of planet destroyer weapons: in addition to the default super beam weapons can now also have super torpedos, super missiles, super rail guns, super phasers. Any of these can be set to be planet destroying weapons when damage is 10,000 or greater (weapon component Value1). Particularly useful in conjunction with new planet destroyer ship design templates mentioned above. To add these new super weapons to a custom theme, use the following values in the components.txt file (Type): 62=SuperTorpedo, 63=SuperMissile, 64=SuperRailGun, 65=SuperPhaser. You can also focus an empire's tech efforts to these new areas using the following new values in the race policy files (ResearchDesignTechFocus1-6): 30=SuperTorpedo, 31=SuperMissile, 32=SuperRailGun, 33=SuperPhaser

OTHER
- slightly improved game performance
- can now build bases in disputed systems if your empire has a colony in the system
- decreased chance of counterintelligence intercepting enemy intelligence missions, especially when targeted enemy agent has high mission skill level (i.e. harder to catch)
- fixed display of game difficulty level in Achievements tab of Empire Comparisons screen (was previously sometimes mislabelling difficulty levels)
- AI ship design now better at shrinking mining ships when maximum construction size is low
- AI ship design now better at shrinking military ships with fighter bays when maximum construction size is low

Since the very successful release of Distant Worlds: Universe on May 23rd, we've also released five major free updates over the course of more than a month of additional full-time development. Distant Worlds: Universe was already among the best-selling games on our store as well as the Steam store, where it stayed in the Top 10 for all games for two weeks. It has also been praised in many reviews, including multiple 90% reviews from mainstream reviewers. Now, Distant Worlds: Universe has become better than ever!

These updates, including the newest 1.9.5.5 released today, have included fixes for most of the issues reported since release (over 75 in total)! Additionally, more than 100 improvements to game balance, AI and user interface have been made, as well as some additional tutorial tweaks and the addition of an "Introductory Game" mode to get new players started more easily.

The user interface improvements include significant adjustments to support larger font sizes on larger monitors and allow more of the interface to scale. In addition, game performance optimizations have nearly doubled performance since release.

Also included are several new modding features, which lift the limitations on race-specific technologies as well as improving modding in a few other areas. If you wish, each faction can have a much more detailed and fully unique tech tree now. The AI's research path can also now be specifically set to optimize each faction exactly the way you want.

The AI in Universe has improved significantly with each update, both in fleet coordination, exploration, research strategy, ship design, construction and pre-warp strategy.

Finally, we've included a host of fixes for pirate gameplay as well, if you prefer to seek your own fortune among the stars.

Distant Worlds: Universe is the newest chapter of this critically acclaimed sci-fi series, adding incredible new features and an exciting new storyline. Universe is also the ultimate collector’s edition, the first time all previous Distant Worlds releases have been included in one package, along with an updated manual and greatly expanded modding support.


CRASH FIXES
• added extra safeguards to help prevent crashes when using faulty themes
• fixed rare crash when giving diplomatic gifts

BUG FIXES
• now cancel intelligence missions when target colony or base conquered, destroyed, etc
• fixed bug where sometimes getting tech bonuses from disassembling ships without advanced tech
• Ion Defense and Tractor Beams no longer counted as weapons when checking civilian designs in Ship Design editor
• ensure never load pirate raider troops when loading troops onto transports (e.g. loading troops from own colony while attacking pirate base)
• ensure custom planetmaps getting loaded ('other' folder)
• ensure mouse scroll wheel retains focus when Character and Empire Policy screens are closed
• ensure colonies only appear once in Top Colonies screen, even when controlled by pirates
• fixed problem where ships with advanced tech were sometimes not giving tech bonuses when disassembled

MODDING
• NEW MODDING FEATURE: defined Research path. Optionally allow specifying project order for a race for each tech tree (see new entries in race files: WeaponsResearchProjectOrder, EnergyResearchProjectOrder, HighTechResearchProjectOrder)
• reverted file loading for certain files to be encoding neutral, i.e. does not matter whether ANSI or UTF-8 (resources.txt, components.txt, research.txt)
• increased maximum government amount to 60 (governments.txt)
• increased maximum planetary facility amount to 100 (facilities.txt)
• increased maximum fighter amount to 50 (fighters.txt)

USER INTERFACE
• increased font sizes for main menu items when screen resolution is greater than 1920x1080
• increased font size for Galactopedia topic index
• increased font size of hover panel at bottom-middle of screen
• increased font size in Game Options screens
• slightly increased font size in main view for system names, nebula names, etc
• increased font size of tradeable items in Diplomacy trade screen
• increased font size in hover tech descriptions in Diplomacy trade screen
• increased font size in Component Guide screen (Design Detail screen and Research screen)
• ensure correct empire remains selected in Diplomacy screen when conclude trade deal

GAME BALANCE AND AI
• further improved AI ship design: no longer add too many extra reactors, nor remove too many shield components, when attempting to shrink a new design to fit within construction size limits
• increased chance of counterintelligence missions successfully intercepting enemy intelligence missions, especially for agents with high counterintelligence skill levels
• random government selection more balanced (no longer frequently choosing Military Dictatorship)
• initial home system ruins (Age of Shadows) now never contain system map bonuses
• reduced number of spaceports empire builds when has low population
• increased maximum fleet count. Now relates to overall number of ships and bases, up to maximum of 100 fleets
• AI empires now check whether colony is safe to build at prior to initiating research station construction (e.g. check for nearby pirates)
• lowered effectiveness of counterintelligence, now better accounts for duration of intercepted mission (3 months vs one year, etc)

PIRATES
• ensure pirate smuggling freighters repair at pirate base when damaged
• ensure pirate smuggling freighters retrofit when necessary and able
• empire will not detect and attack pirate smugglers when they are smuggling resources for that empire
• ensure that pirate-owned colonies are included when checking for wonder completion
• pirate factions now get research bonuses from scientists at their bases
• pirate factions can now change their home base to any space port in their empire by selecting new option in right-click pop-up menu

OTHER
• ensure that new settings and savegame folder locations are properly created (My Documents\My Games\Distant Worlds Universe)

Since the very successful release of Distant Worlds: Universe on May 23rd, we've also released five major free updates over the course of more than a month of additional full-time development. Distant Worlds: Universe was already among the best-selling games on our store as well as the Steam store, where it stayed in the Top 10 for all games for two weeks. It has also been praised in many reviews, including multiple 90% reviews from mainstream reviewers. Now, Distant Worlds: Universe has become better than ever!

These updates, including the newest 1.9.5.5 released today, have included fixes for most of the issues reported since release (over 75 in total)! Additionally, more than 100 improvements to game balance, AI and user interface have been made, as well as some additional tutorial tweaks and the addition of an "Introductory Game" mode to get new players started more easily.

The user interface improvements include significant adjustments to support larger font sizes on larger monitors and allow more of the interface to scale. In addition, game performance optimizations have nearly doubled performance since release.

Also included are several new modding features, which lift the limitations on race-specific technologies as well as improving modding in a few other areas. If you wish, each faction can have a much more detailed and fully unique tech tree now. The AI's research path can also now be specifically set to optimize each faction exactly the way you want.

The AI in Universe has improved significantly with each update, both in fleet coordination, exploration, research strategy, ship design, construction and pre-warp strategy.

Finally, we've included a host of fixes for pirate gameplay as well, if you prefer to seek your own fortune among the stars.

Distant Worlds: Universe is the newest chapter of this critically acclaimed sci-fi series, adding incredible new features and an exciting new storyline. Universe is also the ultimate collector’s edition, the first time all previous Distant Worlds releases have been included in one package, along with an updated manual and greatly expanded modding support.


CRASH FIXES
• added extra safeguards to help prevent crashes when using faulty themes
• fixed rare crash when giving diplomatic gifts

BUG FIXES
• now cancel intelligence missions when target colony or base conquered, destroyed, etc
• fixed bug where sometimes getting tech bonuses from disassembling ships without advanced tech
• Ion Defense and Tractor Beams no longer counted as weapons when checking civilian designs in Ship Design editor
• ensure never load pirate raider troops when loading troops onto transports (e.g. loading troops from own colony while attacking pirate base)
• ensure custom planetmaps getting loaded ('other' folder)
• ensure mouse scroll wheel retains focus when Character and Empire Policy screens are closed
• ensure colonies only appear once in Top Colonies screen, even when controlled by pirates
• fixed problem where ships with advanced tech were sometimes not giving tech bonuses when disassembled

MODDING
• NEW MODDING FEATURE: defined Research path. Optionally allow specifying project order for a race for each tech tree (see new entries in race files: WeaponsResearchProjectOrder, EnergyResearchProjectOrder, HighTechResearchProjectOrder)
• reverted file loading for certain files to be encoding neutral, i.e. does not matter whether ANSI or UTF-8 (resources.txt, components.txt, research.txt)
• increased maximum government amount to 60 (governments.txt)
• increased maximum planetary facility amount to 100 (facilities.txt)
• increased maximum fighter amount to 50 (fighters.txt)

USER INTERFACE
• increased font sizes for main menu items when screen resolution is greater than 1920x1080
• increased font size for Galactopedia topic index
• increased font size of hover panel at bottom-middle of screen
• increased font size in Game Options screens
• slightly increased font size in main view for system names, nebula names, etc
• increased font size of tradeable items in Diplomacy trade screen
• increased font size in hover tech descriptions in Diplomacy trade screen
• increased font size in Component Guide screen (Design Detail screen and Research screen)
• ensure correct empire remains selected in Diplomacy screen when conclude trade deal

GAME BALANCE AND AI
• further improved AI ship design: no longer add too many extra reactors, nor remove too many shield components, when attempting to shrink a new design to fit within construction size limits
• increased chance of counterintelligence missions successfully intercepting enemy intelligence missions, especially for agents with high counterintelligence skill levels
• random government selection more balanced (no longer frequently choosing Military Dictatorship)
• initial home system ruins (Age of Shadows) now never contain system map bonuses
• reduced number of spaceports empire builds when has low population
• increased maximum fleet count. Now relates to overall number of ships and bases, up to maximum of 100 fleets
• AI empires now check whether colony is safe to build at prior to initiating research station construction (e.g. check for nearby pirates)
• lowered effectiveness of counterintelligence, now better accounts for duration of intercepted mission (3 months vs one year, etc)

PIRATES
• ensure pirate smuggling freighters repair at pirate base when damaged
• ensure pirate smuggling freighters retrofit when necessary and able
• empire will not detect and attack pirate smugglers when they are smuggling resources for that empire
• ensure that pirate-owned colonies are included when checking for wonder completion
• pirate factions now get research bonuses from scientists at their bases
• pirate factions can now change their home base to any space port in their empire by selecting new option in right-click pop-up menu

OTHER
• ensure that new settings and savegame folder locations are properly created (My Documents\My Games\Distant Worlds Universe)

Distant Worlds: Universe is now updated to 1.9.5.4. This patch adds a few more fixes and makes game balance and AI improvements. Distant Worlds is improved even further with a new Modding Feature and a move to a common saved games and settings folder, to make applying future updates more convenient.

This update will automatically install when you restart Steam, as long as you are on the non-beta branch.

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.3:

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when determining object visibility for an empire

BUG FIXES
- fixed bug where loading a previously saved game was sometimes auto-switching to default theme, even when default theme was already loaded
- building pirate bases, fortresses and Criminal Network using the Facility dropdown list in the Colonies screen now properly assigns facility ownership to player pirate faction
- now ensure that cost for building pirate Criminal Network is always properly deducted
- now ensure that custom ship names (shipNames.txt) are used for new pirate ships built using the Build Order screen
- fixed bug where ship design images were being rotated when received a popup message about new ship type research breakthrough (e.g. Carriers)
- fixed bug where Robotic Troops (BattleBots from Robotic Troop Foundry) were not getting maintenance reduction bonuses when recruited from action button under Selection Panel

RESEARCH AND SHIP DESIGN
- AI ship designer now always adds sufficient reactors to ship designs (possibly more than one) to enable hyperdrive to operate at full speed
- AI ship designer now more willing to shrink new designs to fit within current construction size limits, especially when first obtain hyperdrive technology
- altered size of starting Colonization Module component (now 300 instead of 360, updated components.txt)
- NEW MODDING FEATURE: allow restricting any research project to specific races using the new ALLOWED RACES line in the research.txt file (updated header comments of research.txt explains)
- improved AI research pathing to better emphasize tech focuses from empire policy (ResearchDesignTechFocus1-6), while still researching other important techs
- increased research output for lab components by approximately 50% (components.txt and research.txt)

GAME BALANCE
- Shakturi now have faster construction and lower ship maintenance (updated Shakturi.txt race file)
- Shakturi ship design templates now use more weapons and other components (military ships, medium & large spaceports, defensive bases)
- Shakturi empire policy now builds more large military ships and less small military ships
- reputation gain from attacking pirates is now reduced by 50%
- Robotic Troops are now cheaper to maintain (25% of normal instead of 33%), and now twice as fast to recruit
- empires are now more willing to use excess cash on hand as factor when deciding whether to build new ships (e.g. low or negative cashflow, but large cash reserves on hand), especially when at war
- now much harder to perform intelligence missions against Ancient Guardians (steal maps, tech, etc)

OTHER
- no longer scrap and rebuild fighters after loading a saved game
- all sound effects (button clicks, etc) are now disabled when effect volume is set to zero in options screen
- savegame and settings folder location is now standardized to "My Documents\My Games\Distant Worlds Universe" (this remains the same across version updates)
- now send a message to an empire when one of their colonies is lost to a pirate faction that builds a Criminal Network there
- immediately update empire list in Diplomacy screen when trade Empire contact (can now immediately see new empire in list)

Distant Worlds: Universe is now updated to 1.9.5.4. This patch adds a few more fixes and makes game balance and AI improvements. Distant Worlds is improved even further with a new Modding Feature and a move to a common saved games and settings folder, to make applying future updates more convenient.

This update will automatically install when you restart Steam, as long as you are on the non-beta branch.

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.3:

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when determining object visibility for an empire

BUG FIXES
- fixed bug where loading a previously saved game was sometimes auto-switching to default theme, even when default theme was already loaded
- building pirate bases, fortresses and Criminal Network using the Facility dropdown list in the Colonies screen now properly assigns facility ownership to player pirate faction
- now ensure that cost for building pirate Criminal Network is always properly deducted
- now ensure that custom ship names (shipNames.txt) are used for new pirate ships built using the Build Order screen
- fixed bug where ship design images were being rotated when received a popup message about new ship type research breakthrough (e.g. Carriers)
- fixed bug where Robotic Troops (BattleBots from Robotic Troop Foundry) were not getting maintenance reduction bonuses when recruited from action button under Selection Panel

RESEARCH AND SHIP DESIGN
- AI ship designer now always adds sufficient reactors to ship designs (possibly more than one) to enable hyperdrive to operate at full speed
- AI ship designer now more willing to shrink new designs to fit within current construction size limits, especially when first obtain hyperdrive technology
- altered size of starting Colonization Module component (now 300 instead of 360, updated components.txt)
- NEW MODDING FEATURE: allow restricting any research project to specific races using the new ALLOWED RACES line in the research.txt file (updated header comments of research.txt explains)
- improved AI research pathing to better emphasize tech focuses from empire policy (ResearchDesignTechFocus1-6), while still researching other important techs
- increased research output for lab components by approximately 50% (components.txt and research.txt)

GAME BALANCE
- Shakturi now have faster construction and lower ship maintenance (updated Shakturi.txt race file)
- Shakturi ship design templates now use more weapons and other components (military ships, medium & large spaceports, defensive bases)
- Shakturi empire policy now builds more large military ships and less small military ships
- reputation gain from attacking pirates is now reduced by 50%
- Robotic Troops are now cheaper to maintain (25% of normal instead of 33%), and now twice as fast to recruit
- empires are now more willing to use excess cash on hand as factor when deciding whether to build new ships (e.g. low or negative cashflow, but large cash reserves on hand), especially when at war
- now much harder to perform intelligence missions against Ancient Guardians (steal maps, tech, etc)

OTHER
- no longer scrap and rebuild fighters after loading a saved game
- all sound effects (button clicks, etc) are now disabled when effect volume is set to zero in options screen
- savegame and settings folder location is now standardized to "My Documents\My Games\Distant Worlds Universe" (this remains the same across version updates)
- now send a message to an empire when one of their colonies is lost to a pirate faction that builds a Criminal Network there
- immediately update empire list in Diplomacy screen when trade Empire contact (can now immediately see new empire in list)

Distant Worlds: Universe is now updated to 1.9.5.3. This patch fixes some high priority issues, as well as a number of minor issues to help create a more stable Distant Worlds experience. Distant worlds is improved even further with some new interface tweaks, making the game better than ever!

This update will automatically install when you restart Steam.

The change list is below:

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.2:

CRASH FIXES
- fixed crash when drawing long range scanners in galaxy view
- fixed crash when drawing planet in hover panel
- fixed crash when auto-saving game
- fixed crash when loading game with custom theme from main menu
- fixed crash when drawing Empire Navigation Tool
- fixed crash with advisor message when invading independent colonies
- fixed crash when investigating ruins
- fixed crash when calculating troop strength
- fixed crash when editing ship design
- fixed crash when edit very large stars in game editor
- fixed crash when AI assigns new mining mission

BUG FIXES
- altered Windows API used for checking mouse location to fix screen scrolling to top-left (thus avoiding bug in Windows Vista 64-bit)
- fixed bases detaching from their parent planet/moon/asteroid when initiate retrofit before they are finished their previous retrofit
- sound volume now properly remembered when load games
- Unload Troops missions are now cancelled when target colony changes ownership (thus avoid unloading troops at enemy colony)
- fixed misleading message when your special forces troops destroy hidden pirate base facility at one of your own colonies
- main view now properly regains focus for mouse scroll-wheel when close Build Order screen
- fixed rare bug with pirate colonies over-ordering construction resources
- fixed display problems with main menu screen in Windows XP

USER INTERFACE
- enabled scaling of Empire Navigation Tool at screen left - use new size button next to close button in each panel to cycle 3 sizes: normal, large, extra large

OTHER
- improved how Action buttons (under Selection Panel) determine which mining station design to show (gas vs mineral) when building mining stations at planets/moons/asteroids (better support for custom themes with unusual resource distributions)

Distant Worlds: Universe is now updated to 1.9.5.3. This patch fixes some high priority issues, as well as a number of minor issues to help create a more stable Distant Worlds experience. Distant worlds is improved even further with some new interface tweaks, making the game better than ever!

This update will automatically install when you restart Steam.

The change list is below:

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.2:

CRASH FIXES
- fixed crash when drawing long range scanners in galaxy view
- fixed crash when drawing planet in hover panel
- fixed crash when auto-saving game
- fixed crash when loading game with custom theme from main menu
- fixed crash when drawing Empire Navigation Tool
- fixed crash with advisor message when invading independent colonies
- fixed crash when investigating ruins
- fixed crash when calculating troop strength
- fixed crash when editing ship design
- fixed crash when edit very large stars in game editor
- fixed crash when AI assigns new mining mission

BUG FIXES
- altered Windows API used for checking mouse location to fix screen scrolling to top-left (thus avoiding bug in Windows Vista 64-bit)
- fixed bases detaching from their parent planet/moon/asteroid when initiate retrofit before they are finished their previous retrofit
- sound volume now properly remembered when load games
- Unload Troops missions are now cancelled when target colony changes ownership (thus avoid unloading troops at enemy colony)
- fixed misleading message when your special forces troops destroy hidden pirate base facility at one of your own colonies
- main view now properly regains focus for mouse scroll-wheel when close Build Order screen
- fixed rare bug with pirate colonies over-ordering construction resources
- fixed display problems with main menu screen in Windows XP

USER INTERFACE
- enabled scaling of Empire Navigation Tool at screen left - use new size button next to close button in each panel to cycle 3 sizes: normal, large, extra large

OTHER
- improved how Action buttons (under Selection Panel) determine which mining station design to show (gas vs mineral) when building mining stations at planets/moons/asteroids (better support for custom themes with unusual resource distributions)