This is the First Major Patch since the Mod's release and focuses on balance and features based on feedback. Thank you to everyone who has tested and provided feedback for this mod, it has been wonderful working with all of you. If you have any additional feedback, feel free to hit up a discussion!

New Features:

• This mod is now compatible with the Universal Resource Patch by Narvindar. Install this mod to make the Solar Storm resources appear in the top resource bar in mod-packs!
  
• There is now some special interaction for psionic or chosen-one empires during the crisis, allowing them to commit to a pact earlier on.
  
• There is now some degree of enforced separation of the portals during the crisis.
  
• When 'The Eye' opens, it now blocks sensor vision into the system, sends fleets MIA and destroys starbases/stations.
  
• Thanks go to Cyberforte for these suggestions.

• Common Goals: Bonus reduced from +6% per empire with more than neutral relations and egalitarian ethics to +3% which is boosted to +5% if you have sent an envoy to improve relations.
  
• Celebration of Diversity: REWORKED. Now provides +1 Culture Worker and Entertainer on each planet. Culture Workers get +0.2 base unity production per unique species on the planet and Entertainers +0.4 trade value per unique species. Unique species do not include gene-modded variants
  
• Strength in Allies: The bonus now caps at 5.
  
• Political Game: Bonus diplomatic power per envoy reduced from 25% to 10%. Envoys sent to improve relations now increase your trade value by +4%.
  
• Militarised Civilian Fleet: free ships now don't disengage from battle and have a -20% penalty to armour and shield points and a -10 penalty to accuracy.
  
• Future Seekers: REWORKED. Renamed to 'Explorers of the Frontier'. Now longer get free head research jobs, instead all planets get +1 cosmologist job. All researchers have max happiness, each minor artifact your own gives you +1 of each science category.
  
• Imperium: Bonus capped at 5, now provides +6% fire rate and +3% worker output per loyal subject instead.
  
• Vision: REWORKED: renamed to Imposition. Still grants to old edicts (some are nerfed), empires you are spying on now receive penalties to research and resource output based on your infiltration. At 30 infiltration, -7.5% reduced research and resource output, doubling at 60 infiltration.
  
• Uniformity: Reduced bonus to 1.75x stability bonuses.
  
• Hatred: Alloys bonus decreased to +5%
  
• Citizen Supremacy: pop growth bonus reduced to +25%
  
• Peace in Soul: REWORKED. Renamed to Pacifist Diplomacy. Empires waging war on your have their sublight speed reduced by -75%. Empires claiming your territory now receive a -25% penalty to influence and diplomatic weight while they have claims on you. Non-aggression pacts are free.
  
• Peace in Body: REWORKED. During peacetime, your leaders gain a level every 10 years. Increases max leader levels by 2.
  
• Peace with Mind: REWORKED. Renamed to Enlightenment. During peacetime, gain +10% unity and research speed. -20% pop upkeep, -10% housing and amenities usage.
  
• Free Market: reduced trade value bonus to +5%. Reduced district sale rewards by 25%. Reduced likelihood of high sale prices. Added time component to sale rewards. Sales at the beginning of the game are 1% of full sale value, scaling up to 100% at the end game year. Less likely to get Service districts on arcologies.
  
• Cosmic Forgery: RETIRED. The special techs can now be research normally. Game saves already with the ascension perk instead have their income of Muonic Hydrogen and Hypernuclear Matter doubled.
  
• Trade Winds: REWORKED. Now you can build up to 1 Bazaar building on each planet, which grants +1 merchant and +2 spice traders and increases trade value by +10%. Each commercial pact now provides you with +5% trade value and +3% consumer goods. The recipient of the commercial pact gains this bonus as well.
  
• The Crisis ending project is now displaced from The Eye, to prevent constructions ships dying immediately from respawn waves.
  
• Increased numbers of ships killed form 300 to 375 before the option to end the crisis is granted.
  
• Improved wording clarity of modifiers generated by ascension perks.
  
• Changed some dialogue in the crisis.
  
• General bug, localisation and inconsistency fixes.
  
• Special thanks to Lord Naton for his incredible input into these changes.

• Some remaining reworks/balances for some materialist and authoritarian ascension perks.
  
• More content for the Crisis, particularly once it has ended in the aftermath and interactions with specific empires.
  
• Considerations into another major feature; maybe another player-initiated crisis?

FEATURES:

• There now exists a compatibility patch with Extra Ship Components 3.0, adding new ship component tiers and Mars Project Flagship levels. Install it here.
  
• Changed the Artillery ship component icons to something a bit more refined.
  
• Addressed The Next Decade's suggestion; the fallen empire will now half-congratulate you on your victory and give you a little bit of lore if you are interested.

• Fixed Hydra's report; the Free Market Ascension Perk should now work with Planetary Diversity arcologies (and Arcologies in general)
  
• Your engineers will no longer mysteriously steal your Mars Project flagship to upgrade it (you won't get the mysterious disappearance event while it is being upgraded).
  
• Fixed some ship component tech icons being slightly incorrectly sized.
  
• Many small localisation and inconsistency fixes

BUGS:

• Fixed Abyssal Weapons showing up at the beginning of the game (I hope!)
  
• At the beginning of each year, if you are missing the Mar Project capital ship and didn't get offered the option to rebuild it (which may happen if the ship is destroyed through events), you will get the option to rebuilt it.

BUGS:
As per The Next Decade's report, if you leave the planetary blockade event for too long (due to a bug or otherwise...) it will automatically end after at maximum 2 years.

BUGS:
As reported by [LM]Sleepless, fixed abyssal event weapons unlocking from the start of the game.

FEATURES:

• Added Ascension Perk Hatred: a Xenophobe only Ascension Perk that grants bonus energy, mineral and alloy production per rival. Also if a neighbour with less than neutral relations has overwhelming fleet power, then you get a massive reduction to ship cost and upkeep and a large bonus to ship build speed.
  
• Added Ascension Perk Networked Nodes: a Machine Intelligence only Ascension Perk that grants a flat boost to admin cap, energy and research per Machine Nexus (max upgraded capital building) and for each empire with more than 60 infiltration. Also grants a boost to codebreaking.
  
• Blocked gestalts from getting some Ascension Perks that don't make thematic sense; namely the Galactic Secrets II and Ethnos-Centrism perks. Keep in mind that Gestalts were never able to activate the mid-game crisis anyway.
  
• Escorts and Attack Destroyers are now slightly cheaper, in the range of 20-60 alloys.

• Fixed the issue surrounding Them8's report, now the Free Market Ascension Perk only requires one other Ascension Perk to be selected first.
  
• Some general localisation improvements

FEATURES:
Replaced the ascension perk flagship ship model (which was originally the Dreadnought leviathan) with a custom ship model, something that can accommodate all of its guns.

BUGS:
Renamed 'Strange Matter' to 'Hypernuclear Matter' as per Inny's suggestion.
Fixed script errors relating to the crisis
General localisation fixes

FEATURES:
reduced quantanium scientist output from +8 all to +6 all research categories.

BUGS:
fixed localisation string errors.
fixed script errors in abyssal secrets mid-game crisis.

Initial Release