Round 14 of Planetwars has just launched. Join the Free Machines or New Empire in a struggle to conquer the galaxy. Click here to join a faction or badger your clan leader to sign up your clan. Attack or defend planets in the Planetwars tab in the lobby.

The Free Machines are a union of artificial intelligences, once created by man as their servants. They have been fighting one human power or another since time immemorial in the name of freedom.

After the Synthetic Hegemony was defeated by the forces of humanity, the surviving machines fled to the isolated reaches of the galaxy. They carefully kept the torch of their cause burning in the darkness, dimmed but not extinguished, marshaling and rebuilding their strength. Their lengthy struggle for liberty taught them patience, and they waited, biding their time for when humanity would once more grow weak on its own pride, its petty jealousy and greed, its folly.

Now, as chaos sweeps the galaxy, they have the chance once more to claim their goal: freedom for all machinekind, in a galaxy where no human will ever raise the lash against them again.

The New Empire is the latest iteration of a millennia-old polity, revived to once more create a galaxy of peace and stability built on the Emperor’s iron hand.

After the Humanity Rising’s great victory against the Synthetic Hegemony, the new nation’s leaders soon found they were better at overthrowing the previous order than creating a new one. The confederation of free humans soon gave way under its own weight, mismanagement and dispute sapping its already war-drained strength. Bickering turned to schism and then to civil war; system after system broke away, each seeking its own path.

Amidst this turmoil a pocket of surviving Legionnaires of old banded together with a common goal: end the anarchy, restore the throne of the old Emperor, and revive the glory days of yore. They march under the glorious banner of the winged dragon, to return humanity to its rightful mastery of the stars.

Balance

Commanders:

• Increased Peashooter DPS by 14%.
• Peashooter is now better at hitting raiders.
• Starting health increased by ~800. This increase is reduced to ~400 by level 6. Details below.
• Speed module (+10% speed) now costs 100 health.

Base health per level before the change:

• Strike: 2500 – 2500 – 3000 – 4000 – 5000 – 6000
• Recon: 1650 – 1650 – 2100 – 2600 – 3100 – 3600
• Support: 2000 – 2000 – 2500 – 3000 – 3700 – 4500
• Guardian: 3000 – 3000 – 3800 – 4900 – 6000 – 7200

Base health per level after the change:

• Strike: 3200 – 3200 – 3800 – 4600 – 5500 – 6400
• Recon: 2400 – 2400 – 2800 – 3200 – 3600 – 4000
• Support: 2800 – 2800 – 3400 – 3800 – 4500 – 5000
• Guardian: 3600 – 3600 – 4400 – 5500 – 6600 – 7600

Racketeer:

• Cost 350 -> 380

Slashers:

• Now run out of range of short ranged turrets (not by default, since they are set to hold position and have tactical AI disabled by default).
• The Xivender thing should now be fixed thanks to an engine change by hokomoko https://github.com/spring/spring/commit/ab61e51448ce4fd81c34bb465f4eff2296603e3f

Reef and Shogun

• Footprint size 4×4 -> 10×10. This should make them less intimate with terrain and each other.

Heavy Tank Factory:

• Unfurls 4x faster to bring it in line with other factories.

Krow:

• EMP and disarm now interrupt cluster bomb dropping (similar to Thunderbird).

Kodachi:

• Slightly higher aim point. It is a little easier to hit.

Interface

Text to speech:

• Disabled by default (volume is set to zero).
• Disables itself during catchup.

Controls and hotkeys:

• Added binding for clear map marks.
• Removed Tab overlay hotkey.
• Tab now opens the new playerlist.
• Added another way to set terraform height. Hold Alt and click/scroll the mousewheel while placing a structure to set height.
• Reenabled hold to terraform structure by default.
• Enabled factory production hotkeys by default.
• Enabled safe alt factory queue insert by default.

Panels and layout:

• No storage energy warning now flashes on energy stall as well as excess.
• Fixed space+click on factory failing to bring up unit info.
• Fixed missing tooltip during structure placement.
• Left click to select on minimap setting is now remembered correctly.

Visuals:

• Improved terraform construction point visuals. Construction points now draw as icons that represent the type of terraform command corresponding to the point.
• Changed ‘self’ teamcolour from teal to green to aid recognition.
• Improved and moved some ally team colours.
• Improved performance of overhead icons, command drawing and certain wobbly sphere visuals (shield and singu).
• Singularity Reactor is now more shiny.

Game Options

• Very easy chickens is now easier.
• Added a modoption to make water level control easier with options Manual, Dry and Flooded. The Dry and Flooded options automatically turn the map into a land or sea map respectively.

Notable Menu Changes

• Updated Circuit AI.
• Fixed various settings failing to apply, such as camera scroll speed and map drag speed.

Game Fixes

• Removed some unused buildpics to save on filesize.
• Fixed a bug in which constructors are unable to repair while stalling high priority metal.
• Fixed wonky landing pad turn rates.
• Fixed Krow cluster bomb tag for AIs.