New Features, improvements and changes

AI and gameplay
* AI improvements made to fleet management allowing them to rally to the defence of colonies when a threat is detected
* AI improvements with expansion (digging, colonization and surveying) of planets in a more efficient manner
* AI diplomacy improvements - will now consider cancelling treaties, making demands or declaring war when there are controversies with another race
* Racial tolerance system improved and effects adjusted, shifts for some actions will now also occur over -time instead of immediately, slowing down relation changes

* Economy balance changes - income generated has been reduced but bonuses from buildings have been made more linear and straightforward, ship maintenance costs have been reduced to align with these changes
* Reduced the research points required for tech refinements
* Gold Deposits and Gem Deposits will now require the colony to be a mining colony (industry based colony) as per the description to receive the added bonuses

* On First Contact not all colony locations will be shared between races and still require further exploration of the map to discover them. This also affects intelligence sharing treaty, only known colony and territory information is shared

* Travel between Stargates now takes 1 turn in hyperspace instead of 2. The time to reach the Stargate if any is in addition to this
* Travelling through anomalies and nebulae will now apply harsher penalties

* Diplomacy demand ‘Surrender a system’ is now available with friendly relations
* Diplomacy threat ‘Stop expansion’ is no longer available between allies

* Reduced the amount of population killed on colonies during attacks to destroy its defences, this is to prevent the accidental destruction of colonies. Once the defenses are down, continuing to bombard will eventually destroy the colony
* Ships with troop pods will now refill soldiers to full in one turn during refits as long as there are enough soldiers at the colony


Ships and technology
* You can now fully retrofit existing ships and starbases by applying a new design from the taskforce orders panel. Shipyards or a Starbase (slower) is required to refit ships.

* Scanners range now increases based on the technology level, allowing the detection of ships farther out on the galaxy map
* Deep space scanner technology added - this tech is available for ship design and by default is outfitted on starbases
* Logistics technology added - this tech will affect a fleet’s supply range from their nearest colony. Ships are no longer able to travel beyond supply range. Task force ships can still be fitted with Supply Bays to extend their normal range
* Auxiliary pods technology added, this tech is available for ship design and allows for additional space for components at an increased ship build cost
* Survey Instruments technology added, this tech is available for ship design and allows faster surveying of planetary systems
* Armor resistance and vulnerabilities have been added

* Engines technologies have been made more distinct with updated descriptions, we’ve also added a maneuverability factor that affects a ship’s initiative and rotation costs, power generators coupled with the right engines now provide a set bonus

* Detection of cloaked ships added to Scanners technology at high level. This allows the chance to detect ships beyond weapon firing range
* Bio-Energy armor can no longer be coupled with Shields technology
* Neutron Streamer burn effect ability damage significantly increased
* Increased ship related tech build costs and power costs for weapons
* Energy condensator technology bonus increased
* Xenobiology diplomacy favor bonus reduced
* Base critical hit rate for weapons is now adjusted further by ship crew experience level
* Race template customization – Terraforming is no longer available as a pick. Race specific techs such as Engines/Power generators/Armor/Beam weapons are now locked to their respective races

UI and other options
* Planetary reports, resources, quest item locations, population and ground troops icons with tooltips have been added on the planet panel on the galaxy map for easier viewing
* Diplomacy tooltips have been added explaining treaties and pacts
* Colony view - Orbitals tooltips updated to provide more details

* Galaxy map task force vectors are now drawn from the task force instead of the center, also other races task forces vectors will now display if hovered on or if they are hostile and coming to your system as long as in detection range
* ETA is now displayed on task force movement vectors
* Movement range has been reduced when travelling vertically to match the correct map perspective
* Starbases are now displayed in the taskforce panel on the galaxy map
* Galaxy map drawing has been significantly optimized to improve frame rates by 5 to 10x with very high number of stars and many ships on the map

* Turn messages regarding discoveries now link to the sector on the galaxy map, rather than going to the planet view, so an order dig be selected if desired
* Random events and some mission related Turn messages (e.g.: Don Barsillio) are now set as low priority

* Orbital maintenance cost, ship supply range are now shown during Ship Design
* If a ship carries Fighters, it will now display below weapons in tactical combat

* Added an auto-end turn option – multiple turns are processed until a message or event occurs
* Auto 'idle' ship selection preference option now only includes Idle ships without orders

Graphics / Languages / Credits
* Added race specific government buildings animations
* French language support now available, Polish and others updated
* Credits with early supporters who registered their names are now available to view in-game

Other Fixes
* Fixed an issue where encroaching on another race’s territory would cause the wrong race to be blamed
* Fixed a display issue with Random Events where the reported amount of bonuses was different than the actual bonuses provided
* Fixed a display issue with a few instances where Journal entries details did not reflect the new mission info
* Story missions rewards – ‘Kuntari officers’ and ‘How to fight legends’ should now provide relevant bonuses
* In classic mode the ‘Lezgoon race’ will no longer start in a weakened state
* Warrior abilities – Soldier growth rate, barracks size, +1 crew level will now apply correctly
* Task force ships can no longer be split up when entering/exiting Stargates
* Fixed right-click to remove ships from a task force after scrolling
* Begging for mercy through Diplomacy (if accepted) now enforces an armistice pact on both parties
* Low Power will now display when a weapon can’t fire due to lack of available power
* Diplomacy requests to attack/defend colonies should now work better
* Fixed an issue where the shield piercing weapon ability would work even before unlocking it at level 5

Thursday April 24, 2014
v 1.0.0.92

* Fixed an issue where a hostile planet could not be targeted in manual combat if you had colonies in the same system in inner orbit

Monday April 21, 2014
v 1.0.0.91

* Fixed a bug with Eremai Weapon s/fx which could cause a crash in combat

-----

Saturday April 19, 2014
v 1.0.0.90

* Fixed a logistics issue where a ships supply range would not immediately get updated after colonizing a new colony

-----

Wednesday April 16, 2014
v 1.0.0.89

Some minor fixes:

* Fixed an issue where some function keys (shortcuts) would not work on the galaxy map directly after race customization.
* Colonization of planets with zero habitable area will once again work with the Terraforming technology. (excludes gas giants)
* Terraforming details updated to reflect the actual effect of refinement which increases the rate of terraforming.

Thursday Aug 7, 2014
v1.0.1.108

Improvements:
* Hovering the cursor over a planet's center will now allow the player to fire weapons without requiring to press the attack button first (pressing attack remains helpful if there are ships overlapping). As an added benefit to this attacks will no longer automatically set the attack button, remaining context sensitive.

Fixes:
* Fixed a scenario where during instanced combat the player could not act if the enemy was invisible (cloaked)
* Fixed a couple of Turn events messages (task force solders resupplied, task force fighters resupplied that were not displaying their location at times

----

Thursday July 31, 2014
v1.0.1.107

* Added the ability to rename colonized star systems at any time by going to Colony View
* Research progression adjusted so it is slower to level beyond level 6
* The Auto EndTurn game option will no longer advance turns if there is a mission dialogue prompt
* Mission combat encounters now always wait for the player to close any dialogue prompts and make the first move

----

Monday July 21, 2014
v1.0.1.106

* Fix to address a rare crash with the combat prompt while multiple sectors are selected
* Improved combat animation timing to stay consistent at high fps with vsync off

----

Monday July 14, 2014
v1.0.1.105

Today's minor update is preparation for Modding support and a couple of fixes. Also game font now supports Russian characters.

Minor bug fixes
* Fixed an issue with the Barbeck quest line where the location of Star Trillium would not display
* Fixed a combat prompt issue where the player would be prompted to assist an ally with immobile ships or colonies

Monday July 7, 2014
v1.0.1.104

Instanced Combat mode related
* Significantly improved performance between turns in Instanced Combat mode
* Fixed invasion troops count sometimes showing the incorrect amount on end-of-combat prompt
* Fixed an issue where pressing enter repeatedly on the galaxy map could switch to the loading screen
* Turn progress bar will no longer display during cut-scenes and other screens

Other Improvements
* “Survey system” order will now set a movement vector on the map to indicate it’s destination
* Turn events messaging for refits/upgrades will now more accurately reflect changes
* German localization text improvements (contributed by Xyquas)


Friday June 27, 2014
v1.0.1.103

New additions and improvements:
* Added an outcome prediction bar to the combat prompt, race relations are also shown
* Added a ‘Destroy Colony’ option to the combat prompt for colonies, removed from orders list
* Invasion troop levels are now displayed on the after-battle Invade prompt

* Added Orbitals and Missions icons on the Galaxy Map (and to the Legend filters).
* Reduced by a factor of 2.5 the amount of soldiers that barracks can produce each turn
* Universal translator check will now work the same for player and AI races. As long as one side has it both sides can understand each other and make deals

* Space requirements for Survey Instruments and Supply Bays have been reduced. The former can now be fitted on small sized ships
* Hit Points for small sized ships were doubled (actually changed with the major update but not noted)

* Game difficulty settings “easy” and “very easy” now further reduce starting race levels in scenario mode

Fixes
* Fixed an uncommon crash bug related to the combat prompt system
* Fixed a combat prompt scenario where it would include the same colony twice
* Research buildings will once again receive the base amount of research. This was removed by error during the major update causing slow tech progress.


Sunday June 22, 2014
v1.0.0.102

Fixes
* Switch ship selection on mouse click will no longer cause a crash in instanced combat

-----

Friday June 20, 2014
v1.0.0.101

Fixes
* Fixed an issue with the advanced Refit window behaving abnormally and go off screen

Improvements
* Adjusted the distance between attacker/defender fleets when pulled into combat and their position after it ends
* Adjusted some text for German localized version


The update introduces a new combat management system, allowing players to better manage each and every battle. Battle engagements are now individually presented on the galaxy map for players to make quick and informed decisions to engage, retreat or auto-resolve. An after battle report summary is also displayed with the results. The system also enhances the participation of allies which can join the battle on either side

Horizon receives new major add-on/update v1.0.1.100
Thursday June 19, 2014

Combat Management System / Instanced Combat
* A new instancing mode, allows the player to control every combat synchronously one at a time. If the player is involved in a battle - a prompt is shown with choices to engage/flee/auto-resolve or do nothing
* Engage sector can now be set to multiple sectors, it is necessary for attacking non-hostiles and quest/missions related monsters/ships. In all other cases the prompt will appear automatically at the end of movement if sector has not been engaged at the start of Turn.
* Allied ships can participate in instanced combat on either side
* When the battle begins ships in combat are already in close range of each other to allow for quicker engagements with less ship movements to manage
* The Galaxy map pinpoints every battle location before combat. While an after report summary is displayed after combat has ended. Orders such as Invade are now available immediately before combat ends to facilitate things.
* AI Ships have gained a new instinct mode that is used to assess when to retreat from battles. A new ship retreat and a group mass-retreat button has been added for the player’s benefit as well
* Retreating ships are given a move order to their nearest base/colony if the battle is lost
* The number of combat rounds has been increased to 50 and ships are automatically resupplied after combat

Boarding Combat
* AI boarding now uses the new instinct system making boarding more common when ships are vulnerable
* We have added to and improved boarding combat messages to provide better progress info
* Ship scans will now reveal on-board marines (their own, as well as from allies and hostiles)

Other Combat Related:
* Stealth, cloaked and weapon de-buff effect icons are now shown with tooltip info in tactical view
* Ship status panel info will now persist during attacks if player or an ally is involved during tactical combat showing their status during attacks
* Life-forms (such as monster) attacks now have appropriate names. Their attack types have also been improved and are much more powerful
* A Fast-resolve mode has been added for invasions, clicking on the screen during the combat phase will speed things up for quick results
* Relations are now shown for non-player ships and task forces when scanned or on the galaxy task force panel to identify more easily friend from foe
* Cloaked ship thrusters will now correctly fade along with the ship
* Fixed an issue where combat animation speed would not match the speed button setting due to accumulated frames buffering
* Fighters will no longer launch from carriers during attacks vs. planets


Ship Design and Technology
* Ship design limits for weapon refills and emplacements have been increased to allow for more configuration options
* Auto-repair bots technology has been buffed up - repairing ships to full after combat and to a lesser extent during combat
* Advanced refit will now set the colonizer role for ships that gain colonizer pods, fixing an issue where they could not execute colonize orders

Diplomacy related
* Race Report on Diplomacy now clears extinct races from each race's ally/enemy lists
* The “reckless expansion” controversy threshold is now dependent on the game difficulty setting
* Reduced the Diplomacy AI advisor’s chance to offer systems to other races
* An armistice treaty will now work better with other checks like blockades etc. being suspended while the treaty remains active
* Cancel armistice will now work correctly by immediately cancelling the treaty effect
* Galactic council (classic mode) will now convene with a minimum of 3 races. The first council vote will also happen immediately once the player has discovered all races and at least 100 turns has been played

UI and Journal
* The colony “civilian buildings” cap is now shown on planet view details before colonization
* The tutorial journal entries have been improved to make it easier to follow
* Several quest journal entries, clues and hints have been improved to provide better info

Fixes and other changes
* Fixed the scroll-bar not showing correctly sometimes with multi-line text on Last Turn Summary
* Fixed dig completion messages sometimes being repeated in the same turn
* Fixed an issue with Unload troops order that could cause a crash if the colony didn’t have barracks or any soldiers
* Fixed an issue where decimals were sometimes showing for whole units

* Split task forces will no longer get stuck waiting if any ships are stranded in hyperspace during Stargate travel
* Improved ETA precision for hyperspace / Stargate travel
* ISN news will no longer cull normal priority messages even when there are higher priority messages. Low priority messages will still be culled. This is further adjustable through Game Options
* Added ISN news graphics for relation changes and toxic planet reports


Tuesday May 20, 2014
v1.0.0.95

Improvements
* The journal will now open and display the pertinent goals/hint for each step as the player advances through the Tutorial and Probe missions
* The journal entries sort order will remain consistent when new entries are added

Fixes
* Fixed a memory issue with French localization due to long text
* The Max Population icon tooltip will now display correctly in all instances on the planets list
* Some minor cosmetic UI adjustments

----

Saturday May 10, 2014
v1.0.0.94

Changes:
* The base chance for regular and heavy mount weapons has been increased to the same level as light mounted weapons
* Targeting Systems tech base hit chance slightly increased
* Added a minimum chance to hit for all weapons based on the level of the weapon
* Improved hover over selection on colony/fleet/planet lists

Fixes
* Fixed a bug when a race is eliminated that could cause unintended behavior to other races in rare circumstances
* Fixed an issue with random events sometimes not displaying the planet name during reports or turn messages
* ISN reports about top expansionists list will now show the colony count instead of the score as does the graph
* ISN reports about highest economy (gross income of an empire) will now show the correct unit
* Fix for refit screen not remembering the original design slot and defaulting to the first one
* Communications range check on Diplomacy relations view will now match the galaxy map (even in extreme edge cases)

Localization
* Number formatting, decimal symbol and digit grouping symbol is now based on the PC's Windows region setting
* German localization text improvements, many thanks to Xyquas


----

Friday May 2, 2014
v1.0.0.93

* Projectile weapons will now always hit when fired on planets
* Race tolerance will no longer be reset on treaties that affect relations, if the existing relation was the same as the target relation
* Weapon burn effect / bleed damage (e.g.: Neutron Streamer ability) will now display the damage on consequent rounds until it expires
* Added a visual FX to display more clearly the weapon hit location on target
* Fixed an issue where the turn message relating to player being attacked would not link to the correct sector on the map
* Some performance improvements when loading games

Monday November 17, 2014

We are excited to announce that Horizon's 3rd major post-launch update is now available! Many thanks goes to our community for providing so much great feedback and your continued support. We have implemented as many of your suggestions as we could fit in this update and we hope you will enjoy the game with these new changes and additions!

This update introduces Command Points (a game option enabled by default for new games, existing games can be continued but won't have this feature enabled). We have also added more random events to spice things up and opened the game to Modding. There are also many optimizations for speedier turns and various other improvements noted below in the changelog.

- Raf / Horizon Team

New Features
* A Command Points system has been added to the game which affects fleet sizes based on empire logistical capability. The option is enabled by default for new games, old games will have it turned off.
* Full modding support has been added including the ability to create quests via script. Documentation and more info is available on the Horizon wiki/forums
* 8 new random events have been added from the original contest selections
* A configurable Governor system has been added to easily manage the development of planets (automation) for late stages of a game
* A sample mod has been added which enables playing the 3 ancient races in the game previously locked
* A convenient user interface has been added for mass refitting ships and Starbases to a new design
* Players now have the ability to continue playing the game (as an option) even after winning the game

Enhancements
* Many optimizations for super-fast turns in late games on very large galaxies

* Management Lists (colonies/fleet/planets) have been reworked for performance and should be a lot more convenient to use, sorting has been improved. Usability improvements such as keyboard shortcuts for scrolling, list size and colonize buttons. The colony list will now highlight the selected colony in colony view

* Added a button to cycle through Idle ships on galaxy view and a button to open the planets management list directly
* Added a next colony button in colony view to cycle through colonies quickly
* The Journal will now distinguish unread entries in a different color and the button will blink until all entries have been viewed
* Added a random events icon and a tooltip on the planets panel and screen
* Added a treasury warning icon on planet view when expenses are greater than the empire treasury

* Tactical combat Camera zoom level increased by popular request
* The camera can now be moved during auto mode and during other ships turn with mouse dragging

* The Council view will now visibly cycle through the candidates to better distinguish each voting option to the player (including nominating themselves)

* Task forces that have completed their Invade orders will now display 'awaiting orders' on their info panel
* Task force Patrol orders will now display a movement vector and their destination when ordered to patrol other systems

* Additional Autosaves are now available from the load menu by toggling the autosave button
* Many other improvements to various parts of the game including the AI and nice-to-haves requested by players

Balance and other changes
* Torpedoes and Missiles space use has been adjusted to bring it more in line with other types of weapons
* Missiles fuel range will now last for an extra turn before expiring
* Races now start with one or more scouts and colonizers based on galaxy size settings
* Ships with no combat capabilities are considered non-combatant and won't use command points
* Homeworld planets now have a much higher civilian buildings cap and start with higher building levels and a Starbase
* Terraforming planets now have a cost/turn based on the planet size, also the bonus per level of the tech has been reduced*
* Planet special bonuses will now apply once the appropriate building (shown on tooltip) has been built regardless of workforce distribution
* Tribute effect on refusal or cancellation will now incur a much higher tolerance penalty
* Diplomatic threats now have a hit on race tolerance

Fixes
* Several improvements to how the AI manages it's fleets for attacks and defense

* The shortcut key 'A' for the optional Attack button during combat has been restored
* Fixed a loophole where during instanced combat mode the player could attack other colonies in the system
* The Fleet score will now exclude stationary defenses (planetary defenses and orbitals)

* Fixed a bug that occasionally could cause a diplomacy event dialogue which happened many turns ago to repeat after saving/loading a game
* Techfield ratio/research distribution is now transferred to the other techfields when all techs in that category have reached their maximum level
* Barsig Junkyards bonus will now provide a larger boost for research breakthrough chance
* Creative race trait will now work correctly and apply the displayed bonus

* Civilian Buildings cap is now affected by condition of building
* Independent faction and mission mobs will now regenerate health between turns
* Fixed a bug where AI races colonies would have no pollution

* Fixed orbitals displaying the wrong estimate for completion once shipyards were built
* Industry capacity (cap) will no longer show shipyards bonus (which only apply to ship building)
* Fixed galaxy background not updating when loading or creating a game after the first time it's loaded

* Gold and Gem deposit bonuses will no longer be affected by other factors and will always provide the stated bonus
* Intelligent life forms bonus will now require the world to be a research colony

Achievements
* Tech research related achievements are now active on Steam and can be achieved

Wednesday Nov 19, 2014
v1.0.2.117

* A small fix to improve the precision of rotating ships (when right-clicking toward a direction) in tactical combat when zoomed-out.

-

Tuesday Nov 18, 2014

1.0.2.116

* Saved games prior to the major update will no longer have command points re-enabled after saving/re-loading with the current version
* Fixed a minor UI issue with the Governor menu staying visible when returning to the galaxy map using the locate button
* Fixed a rounding issue that could cause the economy/production of a colony to spike up temporarily when finding ruins with damaged buildings

-

v1.0.2.115

* The random crashes some players have been experiencing after the new update while giving task force orders on the galaxy map (such as Survey system) should now be resolved with this patch. Our apologies for this bug slipping through.

To receive the update a restart of your Steam software may be required.