Lowered opinion hit for using doomsday weapons. Changed chance to destroy planet to tick monthly. Overall chance should remain roughly the same as before.

Neutronium Kinetic Bombardment now also kills 1 army every month. Chance of destroying planet changed to 2% monthly.

Evolutionary Virus now also kills 2 armies every month. Chance of destroying planet changed to 5% monthly.

Minor bug fixes for latest update.

Full change notes for this mod starts on page 3

v1.1 - Introducing the Titan and Doomsday Weapons

This update adds two major features. First is the Titan, a massive super capital ship designed as a force multiplier, providing fleetwide support in addition to bringing in the big guns. Second is the introduction of Doomsday Weapons - planet killing weapons designed to destroy entire colonies. The two were designed to complement, with Titan's main role being that of a doomsday weapon platform, hence it comes with an extremely hefty build and maintenance cost.

Doomsday weapons can only be "equipped" on super capital class ships (currently only the Titan). In order to access the Titan design, you have to complete a research chain of 7 technologies. In order to start the research chain, you need to have researched Hyper Shields, Doctrine: Armada Battle Formation and Level 6 Spaceport (Battleships). The technologies should start showing up after around 70 years at the earliest.

Once the Titan has been researched, you will unlock another set of technologies - specialised modules for the Titan. Researching this will unlock up to 4 modules providing various fleetwide bonuses. It will also unlock the Doomsday Weapons technology. The tech tree will be listed below in more detail.

The doomsday weapons work as follows : Once a specific weapon (there are currently only two, but more will be added) has been researched, it will appear in the policies screen. You have to set your Doomsday weapon policy to a specific weapon to authorise its use. Once the policy is in place, the selected weapon is activated. Listed below are the weapon effects.

Neutronium Kinetic Bombardment : Every month, any planet being bombarded with less than 10% hp and a Titan size ship in system will have 4 tiles converted to radioactive wastelands and kill 1 army. This will continue until bombardment stops or all populations are dead. 2% chance per month of turning the planet molten.

Evolutionary Virus : Every month, any planet being bombarded with less than 10% hp and a Titan size ship in system will lose 3 populations and 2 armies. This will continue until bombardment stops or all populations are dead. 5% chance per month of turning the planet barren.

Destroyed colonies/planets will not count towards your warscore. However, they will adversely affect your relations with certain races. Using the virus will kill off the population but leave the buildings. It currently takes anywhere from 4 - 8 months to destroy a colony. Their speed, effects and opinion damage will likely be tweaked.

New technologies

Titan Research Chain

[Physics]
Hyper Shields -> Theory : Mass Manipulation -> Theory : Inertia Dampeners

[Society]
Doctrine: Armada Battle Formation -> Theory : Massive Weapons Platforms -> Theory : Super Capital Ships

[Engineering]
Level 6 Spaceport (Battleships) -> Framework : Massive Scale Building -> Framework : Construction Drone Swarm

Finishing all the above unlocks the Titan technology.

Titan modules research tree

[Eng] Titan -> [Phy] Theory : Titan Modules

[Phy] Theory : Titan Modules unlocks the following:

• [Phy] Projected Defenses
  
• [Phy] Centralised Fleet Operations
  
• [Phy] Networked Targeting
  
• [Phy] AI Warfare

[Phy] Theory : Titan Modules -> [Soc] Theory : Doomsday Weapons -> [Eng] Doomsday Weapon : Neutronium Kinetic Bombardment and [Soc] Doomsday Weapon : Evolutionary Virus.

Oh and the maximum trait points/picks has been increased to 3/6 as per the reddit suggestion thread.

WEAPONS

The range on most weapons has been increased significantly. Weapons roles are now more clearly defined. Energy based weapons tend to consume more power, but deal increased damage to either armour or shields. Kinetics consume reduced power and deal increased damage to shields, but have shorter range. Explosives have long range and will punish fleets with no point defences (PD).

• Lasers : Anti-capital ship weapon, useful against ships with weak shielding. Long cooldown (11.25) but high damage per hit. Medium (55) - Long range (75). -25% damage to shields, +50% armour penetration. Average accuracy (75% - 82%)
  
  
• Energy Lances : Anti-capital ship siege weapon, useful against ships with weak shielding. Long cooldown (17.70) but high damage per hit. Long range (90). -25% damage to shields, +50% armour penetration. Average accuracy (85%)
  
  
• Plasma Weapons : General purpose weapon. Medium range (40 - 60). +40% armour penetration. Average accuracy (75% - 82%). Increased power consumption.
  
  
• Arc Emitters : General purpose weapon, useful against smaller ships with balanced hull/shielding. Long range (70). +50% damage to shields, +50% armour penetration, 50% of damage penetrates shields. Good accuracy (100%).
  
  
• Disruptors : Anti-shield weapon, useful in disabling enemy shields quickly. Short (30) to Medium range (50). +150% damage to shields. Average accuracy (75% - 82%).
  
  
• Matter Disintegrator : General purpose weapon. Medium range (45 - 65). +25% damage to shields, +60% armour penetration. Average accuracy (82%). Increased power consumption.
  
  
• Missiles - Long range weapon, useful against ships with no PD. Long range (66 - 86). 25% increased damage from vanilla. Good accuracy (100%).
  
  
• Energy Torpedoes - Long range siege weapon, useful against heavily shielded ships. Long range (95). Cannot be targetted by PD. Ignores shields to damage hull directly. Good accuracy (95%).
  
  
• Torpedoes - Long range siege weapon, useful against heavily shielded ships. Long range (100). Ignores shields to damage hull directly. Good accuracy (100%).
  
  
• Mass Drivers - General purpose weapon with reduced power consumption. Medium range (45 - 65). +50% damage to shields. Average accuracy (67% - 76%). Reduced power consumption.
  
  
• Kinetic Artillery - Long range siege weapon with reduced power consumption. Long range (80). +100% damage to shields. Average accuracy (75%). Reduced power consumption.
  
  
• Autocannons - Short range rapidfire weapon with reduced power consumption, useful against smaller ships. Short (25) to Medium Range (50). Good accuracy (100%). Reduced power consumption.

SHIPS

One of the original intentions behind this mod was to balance the strength of evasion corvette spam in the vanilla version. The ship changes are designed to emphasize the power of capital-class ships (cruisers, battleships) as the backbone of a fleet while still providing niches that smaller craft can fill (basically cannon fodder). Capital ships are now strictly (much) better than smaller ships, and serve as a more varied weapons platform for designing fleets.

Due to the inability to control fleets that are in combat, the speed of smaller craft has been reduced while the speed of capital ships was increased. Corvettes travel at roughly twice the speed of a battleship. This allows the fleet to remain mostly together, and encourages the use of smaller craft.

• Corvettes : +15 base evasion to balance the thruster nerfs. The maximum evasion for a stacked corvette should now be around 80% (I think!). This evasion emphasizes the role corvettes play as an agile strike craft designed to get close quickly and draw enemy fire. 8 corvettes lose to a properly equipped battleship without doing much hull damage even at 80% evasion.
  
  
• Destroyers : +15 base evasion to balance the thruster nerfs. Possibly the weakest ship class, no specific role to fill other than a stopgap between corvettes and cruisers.
  
  
• Cruisers : +20% base HP (1200 -> 1500). Capital ship modifier adds another +20% HP and +20% shields (eg. Large hyper shields would give +600 instead of +500). Section costs reduced to keep build and maintenance costs of cruisers roughly equal to vanilla.
  
  • Bow section - 1 medium weapon slot, 1 medium and 1 small utility slot added.
    
  • Mid section - 1 large weapon slot, 1 large and 1 small utility slot added.
  
  
• Battleships : +25% base HP (2400 -> 3000). Capital ship modifier adds another +50% HP and +50% shields (eg. Large hyper shields would give +750 instead of +500). All battleships now comes with two hanger bays (think Battlestar Galactica). Section costs reduced to keep build and maintenance costs of battleships roughly equal to vanilla.
  
  • Bow section - 1 large and 2 medium weapon slots, 2 large and 3 medium utility slots added.
    
  • Mid section - 2 strike craft slots, 1 large and 2 medium utility slots added.
    
  • Stern section - 1 large weapon slot, 1 large, 2 medium and 1 small utility slot added.

FTL

The FTL in vanilla felt too much like a game of cat and mouse, where the enemy is able to invade deep into your territory and escape at will with little to no way of preparing proper defenses. Consequently, wars end up encouraging aggression and blind invasion of enemy territory. To balance the advantages of aggression, the following changes have been made to improve the tools and information available to players and allow for more strategic planning.

• The range of all FTL drives has been reduced. In terms of speed over long distances, jump drives are still fastest by far, and hyperdrives / warpdrives are largely equal depending on hyperlanes. Wormholes don't really count because generators have to be built.
  
  
• Warp base range remains unchanged to not adversely affect early game, but upgraded warp drives have had their range increase reduced. A fully upgraded warp drive range is reduced by 25% (90 -> 67.5). To offset this change, warp drive upgrades provide higher speed and cooldown reductions. Travelling to the same destination will require more jumps but should be faster.
  
  
• Wormhole base ranged reduced slightly (65 -> 55). Maximum range reduced from 130 -> 110.
  
  
• Jumpdrive base range reduced from 100 -> 70. Psi jump drive bonus reduced to +20% range (84).
  
  
• Hyperdrive windup reduced from 15 -> 10 days.

STATIONS

Military stations will now play a large role in both planning an invasion and responding to invaders. However, because this mod is all about space(ship) battles, costs have been adjusted to not adversely affect standing fleet size. Many of the changes below will not apply to stations that have already been built in a previous save.

• Military station maintenance cost reduced by 66%. Build more of them!
  
  
• The FTL inihibitor aura range was increased 5x, and now basically covers the entire system. FTL penalty increased by 30x. It now takes anywhere from 2 to 8 months to FTL out of an inhibitor system, to encourage you to enter the system and destroy the inhibitor station instead of ignoring it. This means more response time for your fleets when an enemy invades. Wormhole drives are unaffected because they cannot move too far past the border without another wormhole station (find the wormhole station(s) and destroy them). The movement snare has been reduced to -25% (down from -50%).
  
  
• The FTL inhibitor aura no longer acts as a magnet that drags ships onto the station. This means hostile fleets are forced to spend time moving into the system to destroy the inhibitor
  
  
• Military station sensor range increase by 4x. Placing these near borders will allow you to better observe enemy fleet movement (and find their wormhole stations).

MORE CHANGES BELOW

Full list of changes starts above

FLEET

• Docked fleets now receive 50% reduction in upkeep (up from 25%), to encourage having some defensive craft in frontier systems. This also means you can essentialy have a much larger fleet than can be supported by income that only gets activated during wars.
  
  
• AI empires get a flat -25% reduction in fleet upkeep because they like making multiple small fleets and moving them all around their empire.
  
  
• Maximum fleet capacity increased to 1500.
  
  
• Fleet capacity bonuses from population doubled. Spaceport contribution to fleet capacity also increased.
  
  
• Fleet upgrade speed increased 10x. Upgrade cost increased from 1.75x to 3x

LATE GAME

These are the end game "bosses" that players should plan on beating once they've stopped expanding, probably before they conquer the galaxy.

• Fallen empires have had their fleets upgraded to match the increased power of capital ships.
  
  
• Multiple crises can occur in one playthrough (though AI will currently not revolt if the galaxy has already been invaded by the swarm or extradimensional fleets)
  
  
• Prethoryn swarm is now A LOT more swarmy. Count on them invading the galaxy after 150 - 250 years. Bring PD.
  
  
• Extradimensional ships received massive upgrades to match the increased capital ship power. Increased base evasion chance along with other bonuses. The initial fleet size has also increased to prevent players from bum rushing the portal.

GENERAL

• Base maximum energy storage increased to 7500, base maximum mineral storage increased to 10,000. This applies to all empires (Player and AI) and allows for a larger war fund to support large fleets during prolonged (or multiple) wars.
  
  
• Core sector planet cap increased to 10
  
  
• Leader cap base size increased to 15 to allow creation of more sectors (Make multiple small sectors in mid/late game to reduce stuttering)
  
  
• Leaders only stay in the recruitment pool for 5 years (down from 10).
  
  
• Sector planet removal cost reduced to 5 influence. Sector deletion cost reduced to 10 influence.
  
  
• Mining station maintenance reduced to 0.5 energy (down from 1.0) to speed up the early game.
  
  
• All empires start with 250 energy and 600 minerals as a base to speed up the early game. AI advanced start will still receive additional bonuses.
  
  
• Having a trade deal active gives +50 opinion for that empire.