Update # 1.17.1.6335 (25th June, 2024) Dear all,

Before we finally get down to finishing the long-awaited Galaxies DLC, we're serving you one last polish update today. And it's definitely the last tidy-up before we can manage entire galaxies. You wouldn't believe how happy we are about it ( as they say in German ). But as you can see, some important and fundamental things are being straightened out here.

As always, please let us know what you think of all this and don't spare us your ideas and suggestions. It's great that you've all stuck with us and Imagine Earth for so long. Oh, and as a small indie studio, it can't be said often enough. If you haven't written a review yet, you should definitely do it, it helps our game tremendously.

But now have fun with Update 1.17!, Jens & Martin
Switch off voice output

Finally you can choose between voice output, radio noises or complete silence. I personally can forgive the professor for speaking so strangely slowly, especially since the dubbing was so expensive ;D. But voice acting is basically a matter of taste and many people prefer to read and listen to music, especially if they don't understand English.
Game speed

We have built a tutorial into the game that allows you to freely set the time faster and slower, because we have noticed that many people get bored in the game before they realize what extensive control they have over the game speed.
Reset campaign

You can now reset the campaign completely. Of course, you will lose all your progress and savegames, but it's worth the chance to start from scratch!
Security Complex

We have improved the abilities of the security district because some of you found it too superfluous. It no longer creates a negative atmosphere and protects surrounding warehouses from pirate looting. Martin also felt the need to formulate the description of the building in a more positive way ;D
Quick start button

There is now such a button in the competitive and endless game, so that you can quickly colonize a planet without a lot of configuration work.
Building production

We have limited the basic supply of item-generating buildings to a maximum of 5, because we have noticed that sometimes a lot of superfluous items are generated, which players are annoyed to have to sell. Although this is an okay extra income, it somehow doesn't make sense for the game experience.
Music enhancement

When the mission is completed, the enthusiastic success music no longer comes too late, but in time with the dialog and the fireworks. We have optimized the transition of the background music, previously when a threat occurred, the atmosphere seemed to be interrupted and always started again when the danger was over. We've also made sure that the music in the campaign menu is continuous and doesn't constantly restart between planets and galaxies.
Diplomacy

Mood for gifts now improves immediately, sometimes the context was not clear.
Warnings

When you are informed about disasters in the message panel, you can now click directly on the message to jump to the event.
User interface

It has never bothered us, but we have received a lot of feedback about it: When you click on buildings, the information no longer hangs out of the screen. A few modifications make it possible and the camera also pans a little when you click on a building too close to the edge.
Mission corrections Planet Edora

Fixed: When taking rare resources from a supply capsule on planet EDORA, the number of rare resources available for sale decreases and can go negative.
Planet Bora

Fixed: The landing sequences of the other factions are also skipped on this planet Fixed: The goal "Make fire with the pyramid" stops too many mission hints if you don't fulfill it.
Planet Rounos

Fixed: With 2 new building types, the tech panel opens automatically, but the buildings are not highlighted. Fixed: Leen gives us the financial district, builds it next to him, but you never realize that, he has to get a mission icon.
Bugfixes

Workshop animation when crafting works again If you go to the stock screen with a tool on the cursor, for example, the sell option is not available Item Trader never has room to buy anything City Energy Shield disappears when leveling up and is not centered Fixed rare error in Rounos mission, where Leen could not land on the planet Fixed exception related to parallel access to sounds Fixed exception related to movement of units
Update # 1.16 Alien Signals (26th March 2024)

Dear colony managers, we have continued to improve the global management system, but have also found and ironed out a few bugs.
Radio Noises

When characters speak, the voice output is sometimes missing because we have added new content to the game since the dubbing. The replacement sounds no longer sound like talking backwards, which irritated many people. Instead, they sound like real radio interference.
Holographic Projection

We've also added a fancy holographic projection effect. When characters radio in and out.
Building Debris

Damaged and destroyed buildings now emit a rain of components that have been loosened by the explosion. I don't know if anyone noticed, but they were rocks ;D
Cancel actions for items

You can now only cancel item processes with a quick right-click, so that you don't accidentally deactivate them when moving the camera.
Bookmark Panel

Descriptions of buildings are now displayed in the bookmark panel. A planet icon is now displayed outside the construction area.
More Improvements

Warehouse Auto-Harvest remains off when you move a building or build new ones.

Visualizing pause play time more clearly

A guide to user interface, controls and handling. Big thanks to MB for writing a detailed explanation of the interface and all its elements!
Bug Fixes

Merchant pays more for landing permit than he takes

Satellite Hub: Positioning of the satellite

Upgrades are shown in tool ring of foreign cities

Multi-talent achievement does not work

Generated planets have slums

Fish trawlers "being flooded"

Wrong text for explanation of "Indoctrination"

Typo: "Idea bomb" instead of "Ideon bomb"

Tuto landing cutscene broken

Bangka Island cannot be taken over

Explosions from last game no longer stay on the planet after loading a savegame

Mission briefing in pause screen when message is locked

Game rarely hangs in the challenge menu

Error in temperature calculation

Fixed Nootila faction not having audio voices in the faction selection for a new game

Fixed trade panel speakers moving their mouth without actually speaking
Update # 1.12.0.5860 (June 5th, 2023)

Welcome to our latest update, with which we deliver nothing less than the long-awaited native Linux version. We hope for a good start on this new platform and serve you some more crisp features with update 1.12, but read for yourself. Summer greetings, Jens & Martin
New Challenge - Saving Planet B

We have a special challenge for you this week, a new planet to basically explore the idea for a new game mode in Imagine Earth. Would be happy if you feel like thinking with us about how we can make this more interesting.

The basic idea is that the players don't have to build up a civilization first, but find a relatively heavily built-up planet with cities. So you become directly the rebuilder and improver of the world, which is an exciting challengel. The emissions balance is also already tipping into the negative, so climate change is imminent. So you have to consider with all expansion steps to compensate the additional emissions of the new buildings and additional supply buildings with reforestation and other methods. In return, you'll find plenty of infrastructure and technology on the planet that you can take over and optimize through strategic realignment. As I said, we're testing this out and seeing that we need to balance planets in this game mode to make it fun and challenging.
New construction ring

An amazingly simple, yet effective change. The build ring just got bigger and now includes all the available build options plus the tools, functions and inventory. We studied other simulation games and their gamepad controls to come to this conclusion. As a result, the building ring is now also much more distinct from the building options and the individual building categories.
Hitech building in technology panel

This move was only logical since we put the Hitech special buildings for terraforming and geoengineering into one category in the build menu, making them so much more available, look in the technology panel for better what a wide variety of build options, Imagine Earth offers.
The Takeover Panel

We have also redesigned this to make the acquisition of competing cities clearer. With the necessary majority of shares in a corporation, you can directly take over individual cities and bring them under your control.
Population free areas on the planet

When we built the above planet B, we wanted to enable the scenario of finding more cities or soon maybe slums on the planet that could be taken over and transformed in an efficiency and environmentally friendly way. To do this, we first had to create the condition that even in areas not controlled by factions, people live in the cities and are supplied by farms and power plants in the surrounding area.
Gamepad - Major changes

We have once again intensively rethought and optimized the gamepad controls for Imagine Earth. It should be almost more dynamic to control than with the mouse, give it a try.

Digitalpad controls the main UI elements: Tree menu, resources, building list, trader menu.

Left shoulder: research, tech, stocks

Right shoulder: city navigation

Select & Start: Navigation, game menu, journal, statistics

Therefore no more additional menüring

Significantly more overlays directly in the UI
More optimizations and fixes

Dialogs no longer overlay pause screens and other panels that pause the game.

Improved Storytelling - First entry in planetary journal reports that no story has yet taken place on untouched planets.

Bora Mission - Added direct rebuild target for city centers.

Unintended city placement basically disabled.

Jump to cities - buildings no longer appear with delay

Midras merchant, permanent icon is out of the game
Please vote for us in the Player's Choice Award

The Green Game Jam has started! Many game studios have launched Green Activations to save the planet's most important habitats, and so have we. If you click the following link, you will be taken to Imagine Earth's contest page and you can support our project in this jam:

https://greengamejam.playing4theplanet.org/participants/imagine-earth
Update 1.11.5 (April 24th, 2023)

Improved AI behaviour in serious mode, by relying less on resource harvesting and trade

Fixed re-sell pricing of landing permits and tech licenses

Doubled self-cleaning time of Xrathul pollution

Fixed Magni Xrathul pest clean-up goal not working anymore when all pollution is gone

Display remaining time for Xrathul pollution

Fixed campaign completion not considering Omicron Persei 9 and thus showing more than 100% completion

Fixed UI overlap bug in highscore

Fixed research queue endless loop related to construct licenses

Fixed some links to external websites not properly opening when clicked

Fixed game asking for review again

Fixed target values for competition achievements in Steam UI

Fixed remaining graphic issues of frontier buoy

Fixed great illumati pyramid being plunderable and destructable at the same time
Update 1.11.4.5788 (April 13th, 2023)

Greetings space colony managers. The next technological update is ready to optimize your world building workflow. As promised, we are now releasing the new Hi-Tech buildings to shorten your wait for the DLC. As always, we look forward to your feedback and hope you enjoy the latest features and changes!

Cheers, Martin & Jens
Relay Station for Orbital Satellites

The satellite is a mobile space unit in a lower orbit, which has the following functions integrated. Watch your brand new satellite launch into space straight from its hub.
Ion Cannon

It can be used to defend against invaders or to blast mountains to expose raw materials.
Espionage

Allows to copy and use the researched building upgrades of other factions. This is achieved by scanning an upgraded building.
Scanner

Scans an area for rare resources that may be contained in rocks.
Drones follow the construction queue

Previously, the construction drones liked to take care of the construction site closest to them, and in the process it could also happen that they overlooked some construction orders and left them unfinished.
Gaia Powers are renamed as Functions

We have also renamed the Inventory to Items and the Multi tools are now simply called Tools. This makes a lot of things easier and more understandable.
UI hiding for Trade Panel

To leave you more visual space to think about the trades you are making we hide the surrounding user interface while you're in this panel.
Hi-Tech Constructs in Buildmenu

In this new category you will find more buildings in the future as well as the gaian constructs which we also wanted to rebrand as high tech buildings with strategic functions. We also adjusted the building descriptions to make them sound less mythical.
Examination of ruins

Now you can also unlock ruins by exploring them. This will allow you to build these special technological buildings as soon as you have enough artifacts.
Fixes

Build menu with gamepad Updates to Korean translation since the release version retranslated Icons for all languages fixed Speaker less chopped off in menus Maximum influences from fields not in construct description Point at research in technology panel Only Gaia temple should still give quality of life Xrathul temple have a negative impact on life quality water-building and coast-building kept their production when water is removed from them via terraforming Rare error in Joma and Rounos: DefineField/DefineArea 'LeenHome'/'PlaceA' was not yet executed Fixed translation error in Japanese version and UI problems Only display error for damaged profile file once Fixed shortcuts of functions and items no longer working Fixed error related to updating deco meshes on planet Fixed clickable areas of Technology panel still being usable in main menu Fixed random complete crash of game Rounos: Leen does no longer leave before idean goal is finished Fixed rare error loading old savegame Fixed rare crash previewing screenshot of old savegame Fixed ocean terraforming not correctly blocked for city centers Difficulty panel no longer clickable before it’s even visible Victory point related goals on bonus planets are correctly closed when then mission is finished Fixed frontier buoy graphics bug Prevent saving logic from corrupting savegames
Update 1.10.5.5697 (March 8th, 2023) Dear Civilization Manager Guild,

finally we have the update announced for February in the box. Due to the long waiting time, the blog post has become quite a few pages long, stuffed with optimizations of game mechanics and interfaces, plus a performance turbo of up to 100%, which we had to bring forward for the implementation of the game on consoles. That's why this time there are only a few small goodies that make Imagine Earth more interesting from a gameplay point of view. Please keep in mind that there are still only two of us working on our complex world simulator, but rest assured that we won't give up until it is complete in our eyes. There is still a big add-on on the horizon that will be accompanied by some great new features for the main game, so stay tuned.
Fusion Power Plants

Power plants of this class no longer consume lithium constantly. Only a certain amount is now needed to build them. Thus, we have ended the absurd special status of this building. It was the only one ever that required a rare resource in operation. In exchange, we reduced the overall power of this unit a bit and gave it a special bonus when placed next to lithium deposits. Looking forward to see how you think this power plant is used best.
Forests are Back in the Build Menu

For a game that is not least about climate change, we have to note that the function for planting forests and reforestation was surprisingly difficult to find. Although we had built a very convenient control option that automatically plants the best fitting forests, this was unfortunately hidden in the sub menu Tools. Quite occasionally the feedback came "why this function is so strangely difficult to use". All forests are pretty crucial buildings in the game and we have now combined the forest menu with the automatic forestation tool so that you can automatically see which appropriate forest is placed and what individual values the tree species has.
Upgrade for Thermo-Generator

The thermal generator plays a central role in colonizing and terraforming inhospitable planets. Therefore, this has now received a range upgrade that you can unlock via research.
Sounds and Ambience

We've worked through an age-old feature list and added 14 new sounds to the game to make the game world more vibrant and atmospheric, such as when you're upgrading towers, having incidents, or clicking on a ship and a foghorn sounds. When there are riots in your districts, you will now hear an angry protesting crowd and when the probe comes to pacify the riot, a siren.
Title Screen

We always wanted to show you a beautiful sunrise on the start screen of the game, but this meant that the whole planet was in front of the shadows at first. Now the game starts with a beautiful day and shadows are allowed behind the mountains.
Performance optimization

If any of you were wondering why the latest update took so long, it's partly because of how labor-intensive the game's performance optimization has been specifically for the Switch console. It was worth it though - resulting optimization of processes and graphics provides a big performance increase on older systems without dedicated graphics card it can be to 100%. On current systems it feels a lot more smooth now. This improvement is accompanied by a few new graphic options that allow you to adjust the quality of shadows, lights, clouds, meshes and the planet shader.
Achievements

We have decided to significantly lower the requirements for the competitive achievements down to 50, 100 and 200 victory points achieved in competitions and the weekly challenge. As a result, you may simply have already completed certain objectives the next time you restart the game.

The "multitalent" achievement is working again.
Research Filters and Bonus

We have included an additional visualization for meta-research. To highlight the overarching benefits of having a fully completed research lane. With an improved filter in the research area, you can now see even better which researchable upgrades have certain positive effects.
Shop and Trade

Merchants that are in the approach are now directly cancelable outside the ring. Especially useful if you didn't call them at all or just misclicked.

Merchants now always bring 20 items instead of just 12 when they come over.

To adapt to systems with smaller resolutions, we have made the icons of items in the trade panel more concise and recognizable.

Traders now have more storage space to buy your goods.

Resource usage info is now on the side outside the panel instead of underneath where they liked to overlay the controls.

Merchants now have a spaceship preview graphic that makes it a bit easier to distinguish them.
Crafting Optimization

Auto Crafting is now possible with gamepad and you can see by default which items are available for selection.

In the Victory Panel we also cleaned up a bit - line breaks when describing the essential victory points are reduced to the minimum.

Crafting Panel no longer remembers which build category was previously selected, so you always see all options when you open it.
AI Learnings

Working with AI is a challenge in itself, it's a lot about balancing and finetuning there. Feel free to let us know how you perceive their behavior and how it could be made more plausible and authentic. We've felt for some time that your competitors go broke too quickly and could pay a little more attention to money earning and spending to make for more interesting competitions.

Also, the regularity and frankness with which they carelessly squandered their entire share packages seemed to us uneconomically unwise.

AI factions have so far been too fixated on capturing large temples, neglecting other goals and duty to do so.

In one of the last updates, we introduced whales as living creatures into the ecosystems. The AI considered them threatening and, as it does against pirates or insects, built noisy towers when they swam by.

The AI corporations are now exploiting the ruins of temples to get the valuable artifacts.
Serious vs Sci-Fi Mode

Sci-Fi Game Mode, which includes all game features, is always default from now on.

Whether Serious Mode is enabled, which restricts the game to city building and climate change, is displayed in the top right corner of each game from now on.

If you change the difficulty level in the game, you no longer have to reselect the game mode as well.

In addition, in the campaign, instead of the serious mode, it will be displayed whether you have activated the additional help dialogs.
Interface improvements

Display and alignment factions in game setup has become fancier.

When looting temples now you also get a warning if the warehouse is full or not, namely why looting artifacts was sometimes prevented in an unexplained way.

On-screen keyboard optimized for PC with gamepad.

Optimized tutorial and story on Planet Tuto.

Delete mode for game and save states made nicer.

Laser and pulse animations optimized.

How to store goods was not explained so comprehensibly in the 1st mission and was completely unclear with the gamepad.
World improvements

Space Pirates, Natives, Illumati, Xrathul, Midras Burrowers, and Assimilators now have one thing in common. They will talk to you again in endless and competitive games. We've written them an extensive set of greetings, some of which respond to diplomatic mood and your actions.

In the World Congress, the factions now vote in a jumbled fashion with sound, making it much livelier.

Extraterrestrial threats no longer work when the planetary shield is activated. Because then you would just waste asteroids and pirates.

We have reduced the basic ground pollution of nuclear power plants.

The NPC tribes on Rounos can now be relocated after mission completion.

Leen flies away on Rounos and Bora as soon as the planetary shield disappears.

On Omicron Persei in the Bonus Galaxy, there were mission objectives that could fail due to other circumstances. These now don't count towards the overall score, so no one gets annoyed because they have to replay the mission.
Bug Hunt

In the building list, you clicked through to the planet behind it.

The radius of the energy shield of cities was displayed too large.

The shield helps against tornado again, basically it reduces the destruction by disasters, sabotages and invaders to 5%.

Fixed incorrect voice output when explaining research in the tutorial.

After completing Mission or Weekly Challenges, opponents will rave about their successes again.

Sometimes mission objectives hung out of the bottom right of the screen.

Editor crashed when removing all buildings on a planet.

Display of effects on buildings made whole again.

Licensing button with gamepad is above the other buttons again.

On-screen keyboard display with gamepad in PC version is no longer buggy.
Players of the month

Our very special thanks in this update go to our ultimate players of the month Matts and Phoenix Flag for their enthusiastic and merciless bug hunting, which enabled us to find and weed out the most bizarre detail bugs. Also, feel free to [https://discord.gg/7eFpB4SmjN](to our Discord) to learn and discuss the latest developments first.

Thanks for your interest & support! Jens & Martin
Update 1.10.1

Fixed Spaceport interaction causing errors on some systems

Fixed Omicron Persei mission start no longer working

Fixed “Steamworks is not initialized” crash that appeared on a few systems

Fixed error during generation of new planets

Fixed error related to loading old savegames with rare mountain constellations

Fixed error in mission script logic

Fixed errors related to updating graphics while placing buildings
Update 1.10.2

Fixed denial not correctly working when trying to harvest resources

Fixed error caused by multiple drones trying to automatically work on the same field

Fixed an error that occured when hovering the preview for the ice amount on a generated planet

Fixed rare error in highscore UI

Fixed bonus UI in detailed research panel
Update 1.10.3

Drones sometimes didn't fly to a construct that was supposed to be built

Mining drones could be redirected - the previous rare resource would still be mined at the same time

Welcome voice in start screen was missing

Fixed a few texts related to Gaian forces

Fixed random script bug in Joma

Fixed random error in planet graphics update

Fixed concurrency error in auto harvest logic

Fixed concurrency error in assimilator logic

Fixed concurrency error in drone logic

Planet info panel sometimes had one overlapping row

Animations of traders and some buildings sometimes stuck

Spaceport: Draw icon of current trader when hovering
Update 1.10.4

Fixed research panel showing scrollbar

Fixed denial highlights in research showing unclear icons

Fixed production bonus from fossil fields not correctly updating while the resource decreases

Fixed error when navigating between traders in the tool ring using the gamepad

Fixed rare error in tech panel

Fixed error that lead to the game completely crashing

Fixed a few concurrency errors
Update 1.10.5

Fixed game freezing when changing landmass for new planet
Update 1.9.6 (November 8th, 2022)

Fixed laser cannons not destroying asteroids with one shot (e.g. on Lorian)

Improved visibility of tooltip for traded items and resources
Update 1.9.5 (November 6th, 2022)

Added 4 new ocean species

Increased font sizes to improve read-ability on low resolution screens, like hand-held devices

Button and control layout for Steam Deck integrated

Buttons on popups enlarged so that font fits again

Improved placement of mountains in editor mode

Victory Points in the faction panel are now clickable

Dialogs to controls no longer play twice

Trade menu overlap removed

Fixed gamepad menu showing options that are not available
Update 1.9.1.5341 (September 27th, 2022) Xrathul Planet

A new Planet has been discovered in the Udoxia Galaxy and a brand new mission awaits on Omicron Persei 9. To quote the briefing “Strange building complexes have been spotted here. Apparently they can release powerful forces. This could become even more dangerous for us if they fall into the wrong hands.
Xrathul Palace

This palace was built to worship the Xrathul. The built-in technology can summon their giant locust spaceships and lure them to a specific destination reckless opponents for example. The following forces are available in this giant building.

Xrathul bait - This device spreads Xrathul pheromones and is therefore an irresistible target for Xrathul and lures all ships on the planet. It also doubles the probability of new Xrathul coming to the planet.

Meteor shower - The Illumati developed the technology to tear down some meteors from their orbit around the planet and let them rain down purposefully.

Indoctrination - Indoctrination of the guards in towers and buoys allows you to take control of the building and radius.
Two New Gaming Modes

You can now choose between the following two game modes when starting endless and competition game rounds. This can be changed whenever you start a new game.

Sci-Fi Mode - Experience all the adventures that a future colonization of space could hold in store for us and technology we can only dream of today. Use Gaian force fields or intergalactic space trade and get ready for space pirates and alien invasions.

Serious Mode - Experience a more realistic gameplay that corresponds to the technological level of development on Earth in the 21st century. The focus is on solving the problems of economic growth and resource consumption and coping with the related environmental and climate impacts.
New Animal - Manta Ray

Another fish species has been sighted. Now the manta ray enriches the biodiversity on our planet. Once we have cultivated even more animals on our planets we will make biodiversity an important thing in the environmental climate simulation of the game.
Improvements

The Xrathul Palace and the Great Pyramid are now destructible giant buildings

Entering the bonus galaxy will now always provide two planets, to give you a choice

Meteor shower and Xrathul bait have become more powerful

City building is now cancel-able until the capsule lands

Supply capsules now come more often and are shown in the bookmark panel

Items are now cancel-able until the drone is on site and has activated them

You can now get up to 50 new city permits through population growth
Interface Improvements

We gave the main character Alia an eye surgery because some people felt she gave them an uncomfortable look

Only resource deposits of relevant size are now displayed

Gaia constructs: Active conversion is also shown in the waiting bar

New speech of Eko at the invitation to the world congress

New cursor when closing the ring

8 great interface improvements that are way too hard to describe

Country specific subtitles in the main menu

Popup renamed: "Mission successful" instead of "Campaign successful"

Added a notification for game beginners to try the tutorial first
Fixes

Fixed buildings not showing up immediately when jumping between cities

Fixed galaxy screen layout for 4:3 resolutions

Fixed planet being briefly lit differently on exit

Joma: Fixed completion logic of "use power" goal before

No longer show Whales in navigation view

Fixed sandbox planets not working

Don't show trade options for natives that are not close to your territory

Move tool-tips closer to ring

Colony value chart limit for quality of life

Spell-checking EN

Decrease audio range of ocean animals

Fixed bookmark buttons not correctly opening tool ring for units

Fixed ruins collapsing every time a generated planet is restarted.

Fixed navigation icons overlapping message panel
Update 1.9.1

Optional minimized mode for build panel on left side

Added visual hint for new serious game mode

Added missing translations

Added option to disable automatic progression to next message

Fixed manual bug reports no longer being reported

Fixed on screen keyboard not opening the second time on steam big picture mode

Fix: Changing difficulty when restarting mission from campaign screen does not work

Fix: Pirate warning shown even when no pirate is available

Fix: Pirates should still go on a rampage, even when a city is protected by a shield

Fix: Gamepad control jumps over checkboxes in options

Fix: Illuminati Temple Ruin caption too long for info panel

Fix: Two reported crashes
Update 1.8.1 (30/06/2022)

Fixed game and campaign intros not working

Updated Czech localization

Ruins of fossil/nuclear power plants should not upset volcanoes

Frontier towers with shield should not protect mountains from bombs

Seed bombs give wrong "can only use on unoccupied tiles" message when used at border fields

Can't get last research of physics when traders turned off
Update 1.8.0.5112 (23/05/2022) Whale Watching

Whales are the giants of the seas and from now on you will also find them on the worlds in Imagine Earth. This is in line with our desire to bring more life to the worlds of Imagine Earth. However, the population is decreasing due to water pollution, oil spills and fishing. Animals resp. biodiversity are of great importance to the biosphere. In the future this will also be the case in our environmental simulation and more species will follow to populate the seas.
Best Expert Game at the German Game Awards

Geoff Keighley himself presented us with the German Computer Game Award. It was with great pleasure that we received the official award for "The Best Expert Game" of Germany 2022 a month ago. This award was presented by none other than Geoff Keighley, the internationally known host and producer "The Game Awards" And the "Opening Night Live" show of Gamescom.
New rule for space traders

Space traders can now be turned off in competitive and endless games. This change is to allow games that have a more realistic scenario. Without Gaia forces and Space Invaders, we have a constellation that largely dispenses with science fiction elements and is technologically comparable to the post-industrial age on Earth. This makes the plot framework and the confrontation with climate change more plausible and authentic. At least as an option, we felt it was important to offer this gameplay experience to focus on Imagine Earth's core theme.
The Forester Achievement

There is a new achievement in Imagine Earth that you unlock when you plant more than 20 forests on a planet. We track how many players earn this achievement and plant a tree for each one. This activation is part of an initiative called Green Game Jam, which seeks to have an impact on the world through actions in games.
The strategic view

The victory points panel in competitive mode revealed a lot of interesting information about the status of the other corporations and especially about your own. This view is now available without victory points in endless play.
Bookmarks

The display of which merchants just landed in which of your cities is back, some of you have sorely missed it. In addition to this the functionality to define your own bookmarks by keeping a number key pressed is back.
Improvements & fixes

The system voice now also warns you when there is a low supply of food, goods or energy.

Intact asteroids are not automatically harvested.

Cannons and shield upgrades are not available if you have disabled asteroids and comets

Trade panel no longer closes accidentally

Biome brush - You can also delete biomes when pressing Ctrl.

We made the light around the cursor brighter so you can see more on the downside of the planet.

In the tutorial, we are now making sure you don't miss control instructions

Improved mouse control in the resource panel, you can no longer accidentally hover over the panel to click on the planet.
Update 1.7.7 (01/05/2022)

Fixed settings no longer being saved

Display merchant and other currently landed traders in the cities panel

Fixed gamepad dpad controls sometimes not being responsive

Improved gamepad navigation in build panel and tool ring
Update 1.7.4 (29/04/2022)

Show landing permission info only if you don't have one anymore

Fixed inconsistent description of weekly challenge

Allow planet rotation also in construction menu

Inventory on the side menu does not directly select an item

D-Pad often selects the wrong item when released

For neutral faction, open sell panel instead of donate panel

"Immediate tool" does not work with LB (gamepad)

Terraforming: Coastal graphics are not updated

Do not overwrite file until save is successful
Update 1.7.2 (26/04/2022) Control optimization

Fast and universal switching between temples, workshops, cities, factions and merchants is finally possible and revolutionizes the navigation in our game.

You can now trade and do diplomacy with all sorts of partners through the interface without having to jump to you with the camera. This way, you are not always pulled out of the local action on the planet because of crafting or item acquisition, and you always keep track of what's going on.
Takeover through stock trading

A separate stock panel right at the frasction panel, where you can see all the information about a company's cities and directly buy shares and take over cities. A big button that flashes visibly and visualizes the takeover process.

We built a large popup that solemnly announces that you have successfully taken over a city. And also indicates if you have captured equipment in the process, which means you have taken certain items from the enemy.

We also restructured the stock trading panel so that the player always automatically starts at himself and can more quickly throw some shares on the market to get new capital.
Setup optimizations

The difficulty button has been redesigned to look the same in the setup for new rounds of competitive and endless play as the other options or tabs in the setup menu. The start button has been enlarged.

Also, you can now turn off Gaia Forces and Asteroids in the game for a more realistic gameplay experience that is mainly about global warming and environmental issues rather than futuristic sci-fi elements.
Fossil buildings

Fossil power plants can now drill and exploit deposits in adjacent fields. This keeps them productive longer and means they need to be moved less often.

In exchange, fossil production buildings have again received a malus. It no longer looks in the game as if there would be no problem at all if a certain resource is not available.

This is especially important in the context of the core message of the game. Fossil buildings that just keep on working, that too is unrealistic.
The new taskbar

The taskbar has been made narrower. Options like Research and Technology, which are already positioned in the top left of the interface, are no longer duplicated there.
Supply capsules

Had literally disappeared from the game. On medium setting, such a vehicle now lands again every 5-10 minutes.
Optimizations

In the field ring, the updates of houses, are now displayed on the right and thus it is no longer too long on the left, so that information sometimes hangs pointlessly out of the screen.

The buttons for diplomacy no longer show all the time, all the details that play a role there. This makes the user interface much narrower.

Auto-harvesting now also works for temple ruins from which artifacts are harvested.

When a building ring has a panel open on the left, the building info is displayed on the right.

In the colony rating screen you can now select the different factions.

Citys Panel - Merchants, Workshops and Temples now only displayed at cities when hovering.
Navigation

We cleaned up the navigation so that too many enemy cities are no longer displayed around the globe at once.
Miscellaneous bugs

Factions often built too many towers next to each other and also liked to place City Centers in clusters or in a pile.

The controls in the build menu were a bit disjointed.

The build menu can now stay open with the gamepad, so you can always see your list of strategic items.

In the Weekly Challenge, the gamepad cursor disappeared until you pressed something.

"Show Influences" in the Technology panel was not selectable with gamepad.

Handled a few crashes reports that came in

Fixed crash when trying to open the research in the campaign galaxy

Fixed crash when opening a supply capsule

Fixed crash related to the new inter-building navigation in the UI
Update 1.6.14 (15/04/2022)

Looks like a problem related to an easter egg in Imagine Earth made the game crash on startup. Luckily the problem is solved now and the game should be working fine again for all of you.
Update 1.6.9 (08/03/2022)

Competition: Low ground pollution and colony shares are no longer default victory point conditions

Victory points for Pollution, emissions and productivity already count after 5 minutes.

Competitors of editor planets do nothing

Improved controls of build menu with gamepad d-pad

Fixed rounding error for production and consumption

Fixed exception related to propaganda item

Fixed exception related to crafting

Fixed exception related to laser cannon
Update 1.6.2 (15/02/2022)

Fixed missing mip maps for planet textures
Update 1.6.1 (15/02/2022)

Fixed visible planet texture tiling line

Asteroids destroying huge mountains now also leave small mountains and rocks

Fixed auto save not being properly deactivated for sandbox editor, leading to exceptions

Fixed error related to continuing very old savegame

Fixed extremely rare error when selecting an entry in the build panel

Fixed error when switching to a bigger planet in Sandbox
Update 1.6 (07/02/2022) Deferred Rendering & Motion Blur

Switching to Deferred Rendering has made our Imagine Earth 10% faster right off the bat while at the same time allowing us to show more individual light sources on the planet.

Motion Blur makes the planet's rotation look smoother, especially when running a system with fewer frames.
Items & Crafting

We have built a new crafting panel, that automatically buys the needed resources as soon as not all components to create items are available. While working on this we have also balanced which resources are needed for crafting and reduced what is needed for most of the items. Honey Pots, which can be used to attract Xrathul, have been optimized in their operation, especially in the probability with which they lead to Xrathul spaceships arriving on your planet.
Planet Generator Balancing

To get better and play worthy planets we had to diligently tweak the generator. In making adjustments, we tried to achieve as even a distribution of field types and rare resources as possible, while also providing local hotspots that make good starting places for your colony. Also we increased the number of mountains and rocks on the planets and placed more Gaian ruins so that there are more artifacts in the game. Under these circumstances it also made sense to regenerate the Weekly Challenge planets. They are still based on the same planet, but the distribution of resources is a bit different now.
Bugs & Fixes

Dropped Dynamic Resolution

Removed graphics setting for anti aliasing, because only marginal differences can be seen here based on the rendering techniques of the Unity engine we are using

Fixed configuration display of polar ice

Fixed blurred intro

Workshop Planets File System Windows 7 bug

Fixed the description of the frontier station

Navigation: Show only one city of each other faction

World congress is no longer happening during game over

When productivity is low because of plague, show the corresponding plague icon
Update 1.5.2 (17/01/2022)

This update fixes a few errors that have been reported:

Error related to navigation in tool ring

Error related to multi-threading

IOException related to loading the player profiles on the local system

The last problem seems to be related to Windows 7 systems. We have implemented a workaround that works for us and hope that it resolves the problem for all of you as-well.
Update 1.5.1 (15/01/2022)

This update fixes a few errors that have been reported:

Error related to navigation in constructs ring

Fixed translations of new challenge seasons feature

Error related to research

Error related to diplomacy

Malfunctioning of new lens flares in screenshots

Besides that we have received an error "IOException: The parameter is incorrect" related to the settings path on the local system of a few users. We are having trouble to identify the reason for this. It would be great if someone how is affected by this could get in contact with us via support@imagineearth.info
Update 1.4.3 (06/12/2021)

Editor - Planets that are opened in the editor will now start with the correct amount of tech licenses.

Editor - Forests that get under water when terraforming, i.e. lowering terrain, finally die completely and disappear. Previously, tree stumps were still visible, and removing them from entire continents is simply annoying.

Editor - The saved but not loaded settings for selected factions and more.

UI - The exchange of upgrades is no longer done via the building list, this functionally clashed with the option to activate all upgrades at once.

UI - New subtitles in all menu screens, so you always know which game mode you are in.

[UI - The order of the factions in the score panel in the bottom right corner of the screen changes on the fly during the game.

Sound - Too many repeated warnings when attacked by Xrathul and pirates, for example.

[UI - The highscore screen has been extensively reworked.

Graphics - The normal textures of the fossil fields is corrected, never looked nicer.

Graphics - The main menu now fades in from black when flying towards the planet at the beginning.

Graphic - In the meantime all planets had rings like Saturn.

Graphics - In cutscenes the camera perspective is no longer distorted.

UI - The slider for how much fossil resources are distributed on a planet is functional again.

UI - The buttons in the game error dialog now work reliably again.

UI - Game over message and completion screen still made it possible to interact with some ingame menus even though the game was over and lost.

Bugs - So far there was a phenomenon of unordered factions appearing on the planet, more than you defined at the beginning of the game round.

UI - 4 display bugs fixed.

UI - The population counter in the planet info panel works again.

Error fixed - NodeInstance.FindNode ArrayTypeMismatchException

Error fixed - PlanetGraphics.UpdateUnitIcons NullReferenceException

Gamepad: Bookmark entry is not shown in menu ring

Moved trade item tool tips to the left/right of the item

Fixed space ships starting directly when loading savegame

Fixed multiple exceptions that lead to crashes
Update 1.3 (12/10/2021) Honored guild of planet managers,

Our monthly update is out, this time mainly fine tunings and fixes. But at the end we're announcing the next big feature: The Daily Missions game mode. We are always amazed ourselves what can go wrong in a global simulation and where the devil hides in the details. Anyway, the bugs are also getting more and more bizarre and today's cleanup post is an amusing collection of such occurrences.
Czech translation

First of all, we would like to announce that Imagine Earth is now also translated into Czech! We wish all Czech players a lot of fun with the new version that was created by Jan Balek of Balek Localization.
The World Congress

Unfortunately, the central diplomatic instance for all global factions was no longer accessible to players after successfully completing missions and competitions. The NPCs then blithely discussed tax increases and funding measures among themselves, while the humanoid player was left out in the cold and faced with a fait accompli. And on top of that, the World Congress featured the wrong representatives of their own faction, apparently the characters from past games. All history now, of course.
AI advanced training in cleverness

The AI in Imagine Earth once again behaves a bit more logically in this update. NPC factions now actively use research licenses. Also, AIs now only mine rocks when there are no other valuable resources, which previously slowed them down mightily. In addition, small changes to priorities have resulted in AI corporations no longer planting trees, and as soon as reforestation became necessary due to climate change, they planted exactly the most inappropriate type of tree in each of the eight different biomes on the planets. This seemingly tiny inconsistency may have led to the fact that in the case of an impending climate collapse, exactly nothing was done to counteract the catastrophe. Which let the economic strategy of the companies turn out rather kamikaze moderately.
Apply All Tool

If you hold down the Alt key during the game you can now install all upgrades of one type on all applicable buildings at the same time again. This is exactly how it works with tools, all fields that could use a cleanup will be cleaned in one go, or all buildings that need a repair will be repaired.
The building list

A must-have management feature for several updates once the colony reaches a global scale. This menu has now received a functional update, the header display has finally been polished in layout and the button that allows you to repair, clean or mine all affected buildings resources deactivates when no such operations are needed or all have been activated. Also, we disabled replaceable upgrades from showing as active in this panel. Because it was easy to accidentally swap when you thought there was still something to optimize there.
Optimization for world editor

A particularly perfidious bug had crept into the editor. Although the editor saved the values for victory points and player factions properly, it did not load them itself. So that one then accidentally saved changed conditions. And because of this, the player faction was often left undefined, whereupon the game system simply picked one at random and simply let another unwanted faction land on the planet.
Taking over towers with the hacker kit

Lately, sometimes enemy towers wouldn't let me take them over with hacking tools. This strange bug in the game was also hard to identify, as it only occurred if you had previously loaded a game. It was similar with the planetary shield of the Great Pyramids, until today.
System voice warnings

These helpful announcements have piled up to 3-4 times announcing pirates, storms, Xrathul and other disasters. What was actually important, strategic information thus became outright scare tactics.
Crash Fixes

Finding the remaining occasions for crashes in the game is getting more and more difficult and tricky, all the more heartfelt thanks to all of you who report them to us so diligently. The following rare error messages are now a thing of the past: "NullReference in UpdateValue", "NullReference in UpdateTerritories" and "NullReferenceException in DroneManager.Update".
Outlook into the next update: Daily Missions

Many of you have asked for the game to offer more long-lasting challenges. That's why we will work on a new game mode next, which I would name with the working title "Daily Missions". Players will then be able to colonize a new procedurally generated planet every day where they will have to compete against other corporations. This planetary conquest mission can then only be played for one day to create a high leaderboard ranking. For this, an online league is created in which one can gain the high score lead on a weekly, monthly or even yearly basis.
Hotfix 1.2.1 (13/08/2021)

Fixed ArgumentNullException that appeared during missions Re-activated mass-mode for tool ring (alt key) and added it for the gamepad Moved "clear/repair/... all" buttons to top of building list columns and also introduced them for upgrades and city leveling Fixed position of "open hypergate" button Added missing alert for fires on non-colony buildings (e.g. gaian constructs) in your territory Gamepad: Added context info for fast ring selection Fixed chemical planet getting bonus from forests
Update 1.2 (13/08/2021)

Dear all, we have been working on improvements, fine tuning and bug fixes for quite a while now. This is the basis for us to offer innovative features for Imagine Earth again from now on! We are very excited about this and hope you are too. If you scroll down to the bottom of the post, you will have the opportunity to name your own planet name in the game.

We are always looking to lower the barriers to entry into the game and gather your feedback. The most common criticism is the chattiness of characters, especially that they seem to explain too many details about buildings and tools to players, interrupting the flow of the game. This is also addressed in this update. The player can consciously choose his difficulty level at the beginning of the campaign and also determine the story mode.
Minimalist Story Mode

Now you can choose which difficulty level you want to play at the beginning of the campaign, and we've included a reduced story mode that allows you to experience the campaign exclusively with the dialogs relevant to the story.
Building Shader

We have added more contrast to the rendering of buildings and forests. This should make them look more vivid, stand out better against the terrain, and give them more intense color depth and shadows. To do this, we turned up the Ambient Occlusion and made it dependent on the time of day and added an exception for metallic surfaces. Sunlight was made a bit stronger overall and more Exposure was added to the night side. Well, you never think what a well-rounded look causes for work.
New vegetation

There is a new, third vegetation in two of the planet themes. Along with the terran forest and the mushroom forest, it is something between deciduous and flower forest. It is rather slightly alien and exotic. There is not much more to say about it, you just have to see it up close.
Balance of energy production

To some players it seemed as if Imagine Earth was virtually trying to coerce them into using renewable energy sources, yet our goal is to represent global warming authentically and keep all avenues open to the player. In fact, the fossil sources in the game were disproportionately unproductive. Now they produce more, but also the deposits in the earth last longer and allow full productivity until the failure of the unit. After all, the main problem in today's world situation on Planet Earth is not that coal and gas are all going, but that we can't burn any more of them without driving global warming to dangerous levels.
Your opinion counts

At this point I'd like to weave in a personal note from the development department. Myself and Martin have been working on this game passionately and dedicated for many years, but currently every update has the stale aftertaste that with every improvement we somehow only create new demands. Some people don't seem to realize that Imagine Earth is an indie game and already has a lot of features under the hood. If you like it, help us with your feedback and write a review, there is nothing that helps the project more.
Rouno's optimizations

There is now a lower start and end goal for population growth in this mission so the challenge is not too demotivating. You can now no longer form an alliance with Joe Dectow, and he no longer builds department stores almost exclusively. The landing permit you get after the challenge can now only be used to build up the destroyed colony, which prevents a potential dismantling of the whole colony. All alien NPCs now have greetings out again when you visit their camps, cities or ships. Natives respond more directly to donations.
Uprisings and pandemics limited

We have introduced a limit on negative events, while the emergence of riots in the colony illustrates a dangerous undersupply of the population or the spread of diseases makes too high pollution noticeable, these and similar events should not dominate the gameplay and make it annoying.
Frozen worlds

There is no longer snow on active colony buildings. This doesn't look quite as great as a completely snow-covered cities, but it's worth its weight in gold for building recognizability.
Modding preview

The briefing is the first step. Soon you will be able to add your own mission objectives, events and dialogs to this script, use characters from the game as voice actors and possibly create your own characters as well as make buildings. And ultimately combine the planets into a campaign galaxy. This will be great, we just have to ask for some patience for this feature....
AI optimization

We also fixed a funny bug: if the planet creator didn't specify their own faction, the game would assign them an AI faction, which would then blithely mess with players. We've also fixed some of the AI's biggest quirks.

AI was prevented from actively defending against attackers with items through repairs.

AI now builds fewer special districts and more normal ones.

AI now builds its City Centers not so often next to each other.
Improved controls

We made small many control improvements and user interface optimizations, as many newbies were still having trouble getting to grips with managing entire planets.
Improvements

You can finally blast away giant mountains, just needs lots of ideon bombs and explosives.

Laser cannons now let asteroids with precious metals through, if no house is damaged by them.

We have been able to reduce the memory requirements per frame by at least half. Some out of memory problems should be history.

We optimized the design of the faction and trade menus and threw out unnecessary buttons. Especially important for gamepad control. [We have reduced the size of the fossil fields so that you can see more of the landscape. [When you log in the Achievements will be reassigned.

The icon selector was lost for a short time and is now back so you can better distinguish whether you are activating a building's option ring or a recommended quick action.

Various improvements to the Tuto mission.

Mining drones were too high over forests

Supply pods are closed when they have been emptied.

Midras speaker has been widened so it is no longer cut off.

The calculation of deep ocean fields has been corrected.

Reduced repair speed on uplink and similar units.

Increased probability that a volcano erupted by Gaia force field will hit its target.

Removed the player's faction indicator in the faction panel from Campaign and Endless because it is only interesting for competitions. [Hacking Tools - the radius in which you can use them has been increased and is now visualized.

When too many small lights were in view due to drone processes, light irritation occurred. Hopefully we have solved this satisfactorily now.

Empty models are no longer incorporated.
Fixes

Forest: Powers overlapped with deletion

Intro was not played

Field markers overlapped buildings

Jungle Planet sometimes had bald spots

Forest power did not show Gaia particle effect on target field

Building menu: Selector was out of place

Faction Speaker and Trader sometimes had truncated statements

City shows radius incorrectly

Sometimes placing did not work

SaveEditorPlanet Illegal characters in path

ArgumentException TradingOffer

ArrayTypeMismatchException UpdateFactionAndLiftMeshInstance

NullReferenceException Producer.GetInfluence

CityCenter.Main: Could not find node 'Ufo' ".. does not exist in ..." - Unity/Xbox IL2CPP strange problem with string constants

Crash: NullReferenceException CombinedString.Append ToolActionButtonRenderer.GetCaption [Crash: NullReferenceException Producer.GetInfluence

Crash; at string_concat

Crash in ResxFileResourceManager_GetString

Workshop: Leaderboard not found == no score yet
Convenience Update 1.1 - Hotfix 1 (09/07/2021)

Replaced phone ring sound with a more decent one

Added refresh button to highscore list

Jump to trader hotkey now also includes empty spaceports

Give drone the red laser when it de-escalates riot

Fixed gamepad problem in world congress

Fixed boundary transparency when HBAO is disabled
Convenience Update 1.01 (05/07/2021) New Features

Added: Uncover rare resources with scan even when paused

Added: Highlight new Goals with animation

Added: Bonus missions: End Competition after completion. Other competitors will leave the planet to you

Added: Interactive context infos for gamepad controls

Added: Gaia forces to the ring whenever there’s place

Improved: Make shallow ocean look better

Improved: Difficulty "Hard" - Reduce Colony Payout (AIs go bankrupt)
New Fixes

Fixed: On Bora you could pre-activate the great pyramid

Fixed: Terraform item sometimes did not work

Fixed: Harvesting of rare resources is cancelled when loading a savegame

Fixed: Magni unable to complete as can't decontaminate

Fixed: Undiscovered rocks show their resource type in the description

Fixed: Colony rating layout

Fixed: Wrong gamepad description dialogs taken out to reduce messages

Fixed: Gamepad controls: If renaming cities the game menu was opened

Fixed: Bora: Mission script error if player takes over other city ruins

Replaced phone ring sound with a more decent one

Added refresh button to highscore list

Jump to trader hotkey now also includes empty spaceports

Give drone the red laser when it de-escalates riot

Fixed gamepad problem in world congress

Fixed boundary transparency when HBAO is disabled

Hotfix 2 (14/06/2021)

Fixed buildings & ruins sometimes not being listed in buildings list

Moved active quest notifications into icon panel at bottom center of screen

Alt+tabbing out of the game no longer sends phantom "alt" signals

Ctrl+S is no longer also trigger S (rotation & selection)

Changed threading logic to address not reproducible crashes

Removed old tech license animation

Introduced proper button for licensing buildings

Fixed description for plundering temple ruins

Removed money & resources from highscore colony rating

Display difficulty influence on colony rating

Improved share market descriptions

Changed share or colony package form 5% to 4%

Limited value decrease for polluted fields to the value of the field

Fixed clickable area of no longer active goals

Re-enable autosave when mission is played again and finished

Fixed victory point messages being displayed in free play mode

When player surrenders, all his shares from other colonies must be surrendered

Introduced info icon for rocket at space port

Fixed pseudo-randomization which made asteroids target the same field again

Show victory points of profile

Fixed volcanoes not damaging a targeted field - especially for Assimilators

Allow selling offensive weapons to other factions without need for alliance

Fixed assimilator drone health not being correctly display

Magni: Introduced a few dropped quest icons instead of directly jumping to events

Magni: Improved ordering and dependencies for missions elements

Bora: Introduced a few dropped quest icons instead of directly jumping to events

Bora: Improved ordering and dependencies for missions elements

Fixed bookmarks panel counting native camps multiple times

Fixed wrong icons being randomly shown for resources and buildings

Fixed a few more technical errors
Hotfix 1 (02/06/2021) Improvements

Reduced building speed of AI on Rounos a bit

Dropped free frontier tower hack on Rounos

Updated Russian translation for Tuto

Added ruins to status list in buildings list

Changed quicksave/-load shortcuts to Ctrl+S / Ctrl+L

Hovering a message dialog no longer cancels the placement of a new building

Ruins of native camps can now be destructed
Additional fixes

Relocating wind turbines with offshort-upgrade is working now

Videos should also work on Windows N systems now

Fixed wrong pollution icon being used in building and upgrade descriptions

Fixed warning messages being mixed up in translation to simplified Chinese

Fixed multiple errors reported by users

Fixed "player" faction appearing on Bekano workshop planet