Dear Fermi Paradox Community,

This update has been cooking for a while, and we are happy to present you with a ton of new features. The Ganymede update, fittingly named after the biggest moon in our solar system, will introduce a completely new type of species — synthetic civilizations. They will emerge and can potentially rebel against their biological creators. This will introduce a new challenge in the late game — since with more advanced technology, the chances of a machine revolution will also increase. 

We made two major changes to the gameplay of The Fermi Paradox. 

First we streamlined our Flare system so that players can choose between 3-4 types of flares for every star system; since we noticed that searching through all planets in the galaxy to choose the optimal flares was not very interesting. Flares can also now be picked up with the keyboard and the controller, and we added a system to automatically pick up all the flares of a specific type in a row. Additionally, we added a lot of flare texts that detail more thoroughly  the status and development of the current society.

The second big change is that we removed the random chance in the final technology event that usually ends the game. It was just way too frustrating when a 90% Utopia society got unlucky and triggered a negative ending. Now a fixed threshold is needed to reach a positive ending. Since the contrast between utopian paradise and dystopian hell is quite extreme, we also introduced a neutral, more ambiguous ending for the societies that are stuck somewhere between dystopia and utopia.

We added a lot of new variables and flare texts which can be combined in many ways. Some of these combinations may be a bit strange. If you encounter something out of place, feel free to post a screenshot here in the forums or on our Discord.

Here are the complete patch notes with all new features, bug fixes and balancing changes.

Early Access Build - 0.70.V.2 ( Ganymede Update )

• 7 new Synthetic Species These new synthetic species can be build by any organic species if their technology is high enough. One model is always the primary type of a synthetic species. Specific events can change the robot model of the current civilization.

• Synthetic Species "Humanoid Model" - the default synthetic species of humanoid lifeforms or from generic events
• Synthetic Species "Toy Robot Model" - the default synthetic species of quadruped lifeforms or from Cyber Age events
• Synthetic Species "Multipurpose Drone Model" - the default synthetic species of jellyfish-like lifeforms or from Solar Age events
• Synthetic Species "Replicant Model" - the default synthetic species of anthropomorphic lifeforms of from Lightspeed Age events
• Synthetic Species "Spider Swarm Model" - the default synthetic species of insect lifeforms of from Singularity Age events
• Synthetic Species "Sphere Model" - the default synthetic species of aquatic lifeforms and from FTL Age events
• Synthetic Species "Battlemech Model" - the default synthetic species of large lifeforms and from negative events

• New Music Track "Robotic Society"
• New Music Track "The End"

• New Background Art “Synthetic Civilization”
• New Background Art “Broken Parts”
• New Background Art “Machine Revolution”
• New Background Art “Maximized Galaxy”
• New Background Art “Wormhole Jungle”
• New Background Art “Uncertainty Principle”
• New Background Art “The Road to Paradise”

• New Sol System Event "The Ganymede Incident"
• New Sol System Event "Prisoners of Ganymede"

• New Ending "Galactic Syntheticity"

• New Machine Uprising Event "AI Takeover"
• New Machine Uprising Event "Rapid Replication"
• New Machine Uprising Event "Ethics Malfunction"
• New Machine Uprising Event "Unknowable AI"
• New Machine Uprising Event "Rise of the Robots"
• New Machine Uprising Event "AI Dependence"
• New Machine Uprising Event "Robot Replication"
• New Machine Uprising Event "The Hate Protocol"
• New Machine Uprising Event "Glitch in the Colony"
• New Machine Uprising Event "Rage of the Machines"

• New Machine Tech Level "Autonomous Age"
• New Machine Tech Level "Biosynthetic Age"
• New Machine Tech Level "Acceleration Age"
• New Machine Tech Level "Quantum Age"
• New Machine Tech Level "Convergent Age"

• New Machine Dependence Event "Luddite Rebellion"
• New Machine Dependence Event "Defense Systems: Offline"
• New Rapid Replication Event "Robot Trespassing"
• New Rapid Replication Event "Robot Overpopulation"
• New Unethical Machines Event "Robot Pacification"
• New Unethical Machines Event "Psychotic Feedback Loop"
• New Weird Machines Event "Computer Replacement"
• New Weird Machines Event "Legacy Military Computers"
• New Repressed Machines Event "Robot Militias"
• New Repressed Machines Event "Robot Distress Call"

• New Synthetic Species Event "Synthetic Dawn"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Interstellar Machines"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Pattern Shift"
• New Synthetic Species Event "They Are Us"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Distant Machines"
• New Synthetic Species Event "System: Assimilated"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Interstellar Data"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Resources Depleted"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Manufacturing Crisis"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Signs of Life"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Expansion Vector"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Processing Noise"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Galactic Electromagnetic Pulse"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Corrupted Data"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Myths of the Machines"
• New Synthetic Species Event "The Torture Paradigm"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Complete Reboot"
• New Synthetic Species Event "The Emergent Network"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Combat Specialization"
• New Synthetic Species Event "Irreplaceable Components"

• New Stone Age Event "Ritual Dance Battles"
• New Stone Age Event "Thieving Monkeys!"
• New Bronze Age Event "The Rider's Plague"
• New Bronze Age Event "Bacchanalia"
• New Iron Age Event "Itinerant Monks"
• New Iron Age Event "The Free Cities"
• New Nautical Age Event "Desertion Into Exile"
• New Nautical Age Event "Timber Worms"
• New Industrial Age Event "Strike for Peace" 
• New Industrial Age Event "The Winter Truce" event by WREN_PL
• New Industrial Age Event "Occult Warfare"
• New Nuclear Age Event "Killer Satellites"
• New Nuclear Age Event "The United Nations" event by Fivealive007 
• New Nuclear Age Event "The Military Industrial Complex"
• New Nuclear Age Event "Anti-Establishment Culture"
• New Cyber Age Event "The Battlehound Program"
• New Cyber Age Event "RoboPuppy; Inc."
• New Cyber Age Event "HypnoPets"
• New Solar Age Event "Autonomous Constructors"
• New Solar Age Event "Automated Freelance Peacekeepers"
• New Solar Age Event "Machine Learning Drift"
• New Solar Age Event "Robotic Parenting"
• New Lightspeed Age Event "Runaway Replicants"
• New Lightspeed Age Event "Humanoid Organ Banks"
• New Lightspeed Age Event "Xenogenetic Modeling"
• New Lightspeed Age Event "Portable Plasma Blasters"
• New Singularity Age Event "The War Swarm"
• New Singularity Age Event "Techno-Pests"
• New Singularity Age Event "A.I. Building Plans"
• New FTL Age Event "Collectors of the Depths"
• New FTL Age Event "Eyes of the Beholders"

• New Population Crisis Event "The Lost Engineers"
• New Resource Crisis Event "Automated Resource Distribution"
• New Resource Crisis Event "Technological Collapse"
• New Resource Crisis Event "Better a good AI than a bad Leader!"
• New Resource Crisis Event "The Ones Left Behind"
• New Resource Crisis Event "The Machine Lords"
• New Resource Crisis Event "Energy Triage"
• New Resource Crisis Event "Robot Rivalry"
• New Contact Event "Robotic Assault"
• New Contact Event "The Day the Robots Came …"
• New Contact Event "Xeno Ambush"
• New Contact Event "CONTACT_0000"
• New Contact Event "Planet of the Machines"
• New Contact Event "Synthetic Siblings"
• New Contact Event "Digital Diplomacy"
• New Contact Event "Xeno Termination Initiated"
• New Contact Event "Synthetic Visitors"
• New Fallen Society Event "The Robot Hunts"
• New Fallen Society Event "Ancient Technology"
• New Fallen Society Event "Blame the Robots"
• New Alien Ruins Event "The Machines of the Xenos"
• New Final Technology Event "Coordinating the Project"
• New Final Technology Event "Project Construction"

• New Colony Event "Burying the Hatchet"
• New Colony Event "No Time to Fight"
• New Colony Event "WMD Mining"
• New Colony Event "The Spider Colony"
• New Colony Event "Colonial Orbs"
• New Starship Event "Retraining the Crew"
• New Starship Event "Swords to Plowshares"
• New Starship Event "WMD Target Practice"
• New Default Event "Government Unification"
• New Default Event "Anti-War Artwork"
• New Default Event "The Philosopher Army"

• New Status Effects for Robot Uprising Requirements. 5 new Status Effects are introduced. They can be added and removed by events with the focus on robotic or AI technology. Machine Dependence - Added when a society gives too much control to machines

Machine Self Replication - Added when machines can build other machines very fast

Unethical Machines - Added when a society builds cruel and immoral machines

Weird Machines - Added when the technological foundation of a society is very buggy

Machine Repression - Added when sentient artificial beings are actively oppressed.

• Machine Uprising Gameplay

Each of the Status Effects above can lead to a machine uprising event. Machine Revolts are available from the Cyber Age but happen not very often.

The frequency rises in the Solar Age  and is even higher when a society reaches the Singularity age.

During a robot uprising machines fight against their creators. To defeat the machines the biological civilization needs to have either a high Harm Potential or a lot of population numbers; ideally both. Each robot uprising status brings a different machine opponent Machine Dependence - High Harm Potential 

Machine Self Replication - Higher Robot Population

Unethical Machines - Higher Casualties and Very High Dystopia

Weird Machines - Random Values

Machine Repression - Lower Harm but also starts with 0% Utopia

• Passive Species Gameplay Our synthetic civilizations fall into a different category then the biological civilizations. They are what we call a passive species; since machines operate on a very different timescale than organics. They fulfill more the role of NPCs and since many of them start with high dystopia they are often antagonistic. A passive species does not trigger random development events and they can be in three states. Idle - They ignore everything until someone actually lands on their planet.

Observing - They stay put in their system but will react to signals that reach their planet

Expanding - Periodically this civilizations build starships to send to other planets. These starships do not count towards the limit of the biological starships.

• Synthetic Species Gameplay

Robots behave a bit differently as a species. They only consume resources when they are building more robots. They are far more flexible and are able to mobilize their entire civilization on starships if they run out of resources or they want to examine the source of a signal. Robots ( if they are not in Idle behavior ) can immediately send starships back to the sender.

The morales of Robots are completely binary. If they have any utopia they are peaceful and help other civilizations out; if they have any dystopia they always attack other biological lifeforms they encounter.

Robots can merge their civilization with other robots even from a different model.

If only Robots are left in the galaxy the Galactic Syntheticity ending is triggered. Here the ethics of the most advanced or most populous robots decide over the fate of the galaxy.

• Final Technology Rework

The random chance roll in the final technology event that ends the game was removed.

Instead there is a fixed threshold that a society has to reach: usually high Utopia and low Harm to reach the Positive Ending.

We also added a more neutral and gray outcome called the Ambivalent Ending; this is triggered when the requirements for the Positive Ending are not met but Dystopia or Harm are not very high.

For the Ansible Network the Ambivalent Ending is called "Asynchronous Uncertainty"

For the Wormhole Grid the Ambivalent Ending is called "The Wormhole Jungle"

Mouseover Popups and clearer text description explain what will be the result if you choose an option in the final technology event.

• Flare System Rework The categories of flares are now changed. Every civilization spawns now positive, neutral and negative flares. Positive Flares choose one of these random effects

Increase Research Increase Ethics Increase Population Decrease Harm Potential Decrease Resource Consumption Neutral Flares generate 1 Synthesis Negative Flares generate 2 Synthesis and choose one of these random effects

Decrease Research Decrease Ethics Decrease Population Increase Harm Potential Increase Resource Consumption

In the Galaxy Overview Screen the flares are not spawned next to stars anymore but in the lower half of the screen. The flares always correspond to the current active starsystem (the active star system has an underline under its name and is automatically switched when hovering with the mouse over it).

• Empty Planet Rework On empty planets different categories of flares are now displayed. Empty planets now show evolution, neutral and resource flares. 

Evolution Flares increase the chance of an evolution event and slightly increase the initial population number. Evolution flares are not spawned in a star system that can not evolve sapient life. Neutral Flares generate 1 Synthesis Resource Flares increase the overall resource pool of a star system. This increases the amount of resources a civilization is rewarded on each tech level or when a colony is built here.

• Passive Flares Passive civilizations, like the robot species, show activity, neutral and development flares. 

Activity Flares increase the chance of a Reconfiguration event for this civilization Neutral Flares generate 1 Synthesis

Development Flares increase the chance of a Development event for this civilization

• Flare Text Iteration Old flare texts are reworked and new variations of the texts are added.

Around 120 new text categories are added to the flare system that are triggered by various conditions like low population, low research, final technology available, etc.

• After reaching a new Tech Level no free Synthesis flares are generated anymore. Instead the feedback text window opens immediately with an updated text.

• Some very drastic events (like a Nuclear Holocaust) change the status of a planet into a Tomb World. Solar age starships (or lower) will find it hard to build a colony there; also the Second Chance Evolution event can not happen on Tomb Worlds.

• The "Eden" music track is only played now when you reach a positive ending otherwise the "The End" is played.

• New Texts -  More variety for terms of scientists, weapons, artists, robots and media through the ages. ( A big thanks to Carey Neal Dunn and LoneGoat for brainstorming a lot of ideas in our Discord )  
• New Texts -  For each Planet unique terms for planet specific variables like oceans, storms, plants and animals were added.
• New Texts - For each Species unique terms for species specific variables like hands, tentacles or nerve knots are added.
• New Texts - New Terms for Leaders, Governments, Settlements etc for all Hedonistic Society events were added
• New Texts - Most "Build Colony" events and "Build Spaceship" events have unique terms that are used as a description for a society when a colony gains independence so you will not see so many "Traveler" and "Settler" civilizations anymore.
• New Texts - If a society merges via a "Same Species Contact" event their prefix and main name gets mixed. If "Meta-Humans" and "Cyber Travellers" meet they could merge into "Cyber Humans" or "Meta Travellers" 

• Balancing - We did a "Consistency Pass" on most events to finetune the conditions when they are triggered, considering the state of the society. For example utopian societies can not trigger the "Prison Expedition" starship event anymore while a civilization low on resources can not build the "Great Siege Engines" etc,

• Balancing - In the calculation of Contact Events the Talk and Observe Options increase their Score now by +2 instead by +1 if societies/ships have lower harm potential than the society they are interacting with. Also the -1 Score for higher harm is counted only by a difference of 30 harm points.
• Balancing - Positive Population flares give a much smaller boost then Negative Population flares but Positive Resource flares give a much bigger boost then Negative Resource flares.

• Interface Rework - Flares can now be collected with pressing the keyboard keys ( Y, X , C, V ) or with a game controller. 
• Interface Rework - Flares can now be collected automatically until the next event starts by holding shift with the keyboard or the right controller trigger. 
• Interface Rework - The Mouse Over Text from the planet names now shows the evolution chance and the resource pool multiplier.
• Interface Rework - Each Flare type has now its unique Mouse Over Text.
• Interface Rework - To clean up the menus the little history text under the civilization statistics was removed and is shown in the same feedback window as the Flares.
• Interface Rework - The Statistic Window shows now a more descriptive text than just 50% Utopia or 77% Dystopia
• Interface Rework - Up to 5 overlapping Flare Texts Windows are now shown if flares are collected in a row. 
• Interface Rework - The Flare Text Windows are now hidden when switching to another system
• Interface Rework - All flares pop up a little bit faster and their animations are a bit smoother.
• Interface Rework - Planets are not placed in the lower middle part of the galaxy map anymore to make room for the Flares.
• Interface Rework - Mouseover Text on the right side of planets is moved to a different spot if the planet is too far on the right side of the screen.

• Tutorial - The new Flare system is explained in the tutorial
• Tutorial - The marker that highlights which button to press is more detailed now
• Tutorial - New Tutorial Popups added explaining the Robot Species.
• Tutorial - New Tutorial Popups added explaining the Final Technology, which is triggered when reaching Singularity Age.

• Bugfix - Advanced Starships from very economic societies are not sent out with too few resources anymore so that they do not experience a Scarcity Crisis immediately after they start their journey.
• Bugfix - The "Sirens of Planet X" event is not triggered anymore for ocean colonies of species with a desert planet or lava planet origin.  
• Bugfix - The "Longest Night" event is not triggered anymore in the Sol System
• Bugfix - The middle and lower option of the  "Natural Desertification", "Atmospheric Ignition" and "Three Degrees" events turns the planet now into a desert planet.
• Bugfix - The middle and lower option of the "The Great Deluge" and "Blitz Heatwave" events turns the planet now into a water planet.
• Bugfix - The middle and lower option of the "The Geocomputer" event turns the planet now into a lava planet.
• Bugfix - Ancient technology ships will not trigger the colony events "Magmatic Bases", "Oasis Colony" or "Floating Base" any more.
• Bugfix - The events "The Xeno Tragedy", "Where are the Xenos?", "The Quest for the Xenos", "The Impurity of Planet X"  are disabled for Colonies created via Interstellar Invasion; to stop invading species to wonder who might have destroyed the civilization from the alien ruins. 
• Bugfix - The Colony Paradigm Shift events "The Wild Colony", "The Circles of Hellfire", "Xenobiological Incursion", "Xeno Adaption" and "Xeno Cults" did not change the name of the Society after transforming the colony into a full civilization. This is fixed now.
• Bugfix - The "Public Shame" event is not triggered anymore for Hedonistic Societies.
• Bugfix - The "Mysterious Infertility" event is only triggered for mammalian Species and can create a Hedonistic Society status.
• Bugfix - After a savegame was loaded the counter how often a specific event played was reset; which can lead to duplicate events to be triggered in short succession. This issue is fixed now; but only works with new savegames from this version.
• Bugfix - A texture of one type of futuristic Dolphin without the VR glasses was not loaded correctly
• Bugfix - A texture of one type of futuristic Quasis without the helmet was not loaded correctly
• Bugfix - The variables of a newly built spaceship were also transferred to the system that built it. That resulted in a situation where a "Fanatic Crew" or similar was also inhabiting every spaceship that was built by the same civilization.
• Bugfix -  The events "Photovoltaic Power", "Green Politics", "Freedom to Maintain",  "Garbage Eaters", "Moon Concrete",  "Photon Sails",  "Marine Energy Network", "Robotic Replacement" , "Pararobotic Relationships" and "The Laws of Robotics" were never triggered; now they are regularly available.
• Bugfix - Sometimes extremely large amounts of resources were displayed with a negative value. They are now displayed as "Unlimited Resources"
• Bugfix - When loading a save game the "Second Species Evolved" Tutorial popups will not be triggered again when a new species evolves.
• Bugfix - In rare occasions a colony specific event was triggered on a spaceship; leading to a crash when the spaceship tries to send their own signals or build their own spaceships. This is fixed now.
• Bugfix - The Wormhole Jump Fleet from the FTL Final Technology endings sometimes, when moving instantly after attacking their target system, moved to the same system. Bugfix - Resources on Spaceships and Colonies were not shown correctly

• Save Game Compatibility Issues with older Savegames - When loading a save game from an older version some flare texts and the first displayed event might sometimes show text like "VEHICLE_UNIT" instead of the correct name for a military unit or similar. Also sometimes a flare will not display any text.

See you up in the stars, voyager.

Jörg from Anomaly Games

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