Welcome to the Reforged Eden 2 guide for Reforged Eden 1 players!
In this guide I will explain the main changes in RE2 compared with RE1.
This guide assumes you are already familiar with RE1 or have played it before.
If you are coming from vanilla and wanting to know what RE2 is, please see the Reforged Eden 2 Workshop for a basic description of the scenario.

First things first, as of the time of writing this guide Reforged Eden 2 is preparing for the first beta launch. As such everything is still subject to change and depending on when you're reading this guide certain things may be out of date.

Reforged Eden 2 is nearly a complete rewrite of the original scenario.
Some of the new values may be shocking at first, but please remember not to directly compare a value in RE2 to the same value in RE1 as so much has changed you just can't compare like that.

The ultimate vision of RE2 is the same as RE1: an open ended, exploration focused scenario with slower progression and a wider variety of activities and challenges. Currently there is still a lot of work to do to get there. A lot of POIs are missing or placeholder. A lot of missions and playfields need to be remade. A lot of content still needs to be added in.

This guide will hopefully answer some frequent questions about the differences between RE2 and RE1.

For RE2 I am now using GitHub to track bug reports for the scenario. I will no longer be responding to reports made outside of GitHub. I am doing this because GitHub allows for searching for issues, cutting down on the number of duplicate reports I have to respond to.
Also there are many game bugs that affect the scenario and this gives an easy way to let others know if this is the case.

Please continue to leave feedback, questions, etc on the Workshop page, but if you encounter a problem you think is a scenario bug please report it on GitHub.

You can find instructions on how to report issues here: TROUBLESHOOTING & BUG REPORTS.

Ships and bases will need to be updated for RE2 due to all the changes.
This may involve slight updates, major reworks, or making completely new designs from scratch depending on what blueprint you are trying to update.
Some blocks have been removed and some new ones added, so check your blueprints for missing blocks.

In particular, Capital Vessel solar panels have been removed and replaced by the new plasma turbines.
Some CPU extenders have had their size, name, and max count changed, so they will need to be added back to blueprints.

Each size of thruster now comes in 3 tiers, allowing you to upgrade a thruster in-place instead of replacing it with a larger version.

Power requirements have been overhauled. Now things like lights use less power relative to larger devices like thrusters and weapons.

Always check the CPU, power usage, and thrust of your ships and keep in mind these numbers may change throughout beta and even into release.

The CPU system works fundamentally the same as it did in RE1.
You have multiple tiers of CPU extenders, with each individual extender increasing your maximum CPU limit.
In RE2 the limit for most CPU extenders is 2, except for auxiliary CPU extenders which now have a limit of 4.

The CPU limits have overall been lowered, but likewise many blocks now have lower CPU requirements.

There is new specialized crew to further increase CPU while adding additional bonuses.
Standard crew no longer provide any CPU bonuses.

There are now 3 tiers of weapons, each with a shared hard limit. This shared limit includes both fixed manual weapons and turrets.
Currently HV/SV can have 8 small, 4 medium, and 2 heavy weapons while CV/BA can have 24 light, 12 medium, and 6 heavy weapons.
So for example a CV could have 6 manual heavy weapons, 6 manual medium weapons, 6 medium turrets, and 24 light turrets.

The average damage per minute (DPM) and CPU cost of all weapons within a tier is normalized, with the main differences being how each weapon actually applies its damage and what bonuses and penalties it gets versus different targets. So any two SV light weapons or turrets will deal the same average DPM as any other SV light weapon or turret.
There are some exceptions to this for more unique weapons.

Weapon tooltips have been improved, now showing their damage bonuses and penalties, shield DPM, and any unique traits.

Several newly discovered game limitations or bugs that were affecting turrets have been worked around in RE2, greatly improving weapon balance.

Some weapons now have shield penetration, dealing a percentage of their damage through the shield. This goes for both player and POI turrets.

Higher tier shield upgrades are now more CPU efficient than lower tier ones.

Armor blocks now give extra shields.

CV weapons now deal half damage to most planetary POI shields, and most planetary POIs now deal double damage to CV shields.
Planetary POIs have been equipped with externally mounted shield generators. They will recharge if not destroyed.

There have been many improvements made to on foot combat.

The class system from RE1 has been removed.
Weapon mods have been added that you can use to customize your hand weapons using the new weapon locker.

NPCs have had their damage adjusted down to take into account that players with 0 armor actually take 100% more damage from NPC weapons. In RE1 "easy" difficulty was actually medium and medium was actually hard. In RE2 it is balanced so that medium difficulty is actually medium difficulty. This allows you to select easy and actually have it be easy.

Light. medium, and heavy armor are no longer upgrades over each other. Instead each one is better for different situations, and the standard version of each can now be crafted.
There are now 3 tiers of quality for each armor type, with 2, 3, or 4 booster slots respectively.
Armor boosters no longer have any negative stats, now always giving only positive bonuses. No more losing all your armor because you're wearing an EVA booster.

The medical system has been simplified, with less status effect types, less chance for NPCs to inflict a status effect, and less medications needed.

POI loot has been improved to be more rewarding overall.

New Zirax sentinel NPCs are added with better AI. These NPCs won't face a wall or bunch up in a corner making the experience feel better and be more challenging.
Abandoned POIs are now admin cored to prevent defeating them with a ship or burrowing through the wall and now have better loot including quantum processors that can be used to craft quantum CPU extenders.

NPC level only affects the health and damage of an NPC, with a level 10 NPC having 2.5x as much as a level 1 NPC. Since level has no effect on loot or on the POI itself, all it did was make running through a POI harder for no extra reward.
In RE1, the level of a POI was dependent on the level of a planet, which was dependent on its position in the galaxy relative to a faction's territory center. Thus planets near the center of a territory were level 10, while those on the edge or outside of a territory were level 1.
Some planets also had a specific level given, such as plasma planets always being a high level.

In RE2 this has changed. Now, with few exceptions, all playfields are between level 1 and 3.
This means that when you run a POI, you will get a more consistent experience no matter where in the galaxy you are. Instead of up to a 2.5x NPC health and damage difference, the most will usually be up to a 1.48x modifier on level 4 NPCs that can sometimes spawn in a level 3 playfield.

Level also affects the strength of a space defense reinforcement, so these are also being set on a per-POI basis instead of being based on the playfield level.

The ultimate goal of RE2 is to fully replace all old vanilla and RE1 POIs with new RE2 versions.
Most vanilla POIs and many RE1 POIs have already been removed from the playfield files, though a few do still remain pending new POIs to replace them with.

Both vanilla and RE1 have some POIs that date back to alpha 6! New POIs are just of such a higher quality and are better balanced.

During the beta, a lot of POIs may be placeholders or missing as it will take time to update old ones or add new ones to the scenario.

Most planets, moons, and space sectors have had their POI setups completely redone to add new RE2 POIs and remove old RE1 and vanilla POIs.

This is also an ongoing process that will take months, if not years, to really finish.