Rather than make a great leap forward and implement a huge mod update by January, I thought to take a different approach and make small but committed steps with a more regular interval of mod update.

The original slated release of 1.2 calls for a full FE ethos overhaul with additional FE personalities within a month, rather an unrealistic timetable.

Update 1.2 will be released on December 22nd, one week from now.

A new development objective has been set:
• One additional unique fallen empire
• One additional fallen empire homeworld
• Fanatic Militarist ethos and personality for fallen empires
• Inclusion of Beacon of Stability as player starting homeworld
• One additional fallen empire star system type
• New naming conventions for existing fallen empires
• New vassal type for fanatical militarists
• Remove galaxy presets for more fallen empires
• Change layout of large solar systems to fix reported issues

This thread will allow for subscribers, you, to have an insight to what the next patch will bring.

I hope you'll appreciate this!

One additional fallen empire star system type

The new star system will be a trinary star system. This will be the homeworld of the new unique fallen empire.

Additionally, a trinary star colony and auxiliary will be created from the template as well for other fallen empires.

• Fanatic Collectivist ethos and personality for fallen empires

A slight change of plans. I'm switching this objective to Fanatical Militarism.

This change of plans is based on the fact that Collectivism vs Individualism is changing to Authoritarianism and Egalitarian.

I want to wait and see how a new Authoritarianism or Egalitarian fallen emprie will be like before making a fallen empire based on it.

Instead, we're gonna make space North Korea!

• Fanatic Militarist ethos and personality for fallen empires

http://i.imgur.com/AaEmB6w.png

Military Supremacists
This Fallen Empire dedicates itself to the preservation of its military superiority over other empires. Substantial expansion of fleet power may evoke their ire.

Currently work-in-progress.

Need to place in name templates, ship-name templates, and compatibility with other fallen empires.

A new development objective has been set:
• New naming conventions for fallen empires.

While exploring into the implementation of empire names for fallen empires, I've come across the naming framework for exisiting fallen empires.

As a relatively easy side-objective, some fallen empires will have new naming conventions in the upcoming Update 1.2

Prototype naming framework:
http://i.imgur.com/xg7Jxp2.png

As you've probably noticed, some of the fallen empires have TEST in their name, indiciating the working function of the new naming framework. It is now a matter of creativity to push through new naming conventions.

Final note, the new Fanatic Militarist fallen empire will also adopt the new naming conventions; this new feature was a unexpected branch-off while trying to figure out how to name fallen empires.

• Fanatic Militarist ethos and personality for fallen empires

UPDATE: Full Fanatic Militarist integration is currently underway.

A replenishment event for Fanatic Militarist military fleet is complete. If fanatic militarist FE has lost their entire fleet in a war, they will now automatically recieve a new fleet once the war is concluded.

Progress on full integration of the new ethos is about half way done. I still need to figure out integration with War in Heavens and subjects/vassals.

• Fanatic Militarist ethos and personality for fallen empires

UPDATE: Fanatical Militarist integration test with FE awakening and War in Heavens complete.

In the test, 4 fallen empires were present with the new fanatical militarist FE. Console commands were used to accelerate the process, a fleet power of 100,000 was achieved, two out of the four fallen empires were annexed leaving only two FEs remaining to activate War in Heavens.

At year 2351 one of the fallen empires awakened. After ~20 years, the fanatical militarist FE also activated as the ancient rival.

Although the test was preliminary, it proves the new overhauled framework to accomodate fallen empires of OTHER ethos works.

More bugtesting will be conducted down the road for the weeks to come.

In the meantime, this development objective is nearly complete. I'm shifting priority to making a new vassal type for fanatical militarists.

• Fanatic Militarist ethos and personality for fallen empires

UPDATE: An issue was discovered with the militarist integration test with awakening and WiH as mentioned above.

Although it doesn't compromise the test, custom ethos will work with awakening and WiH, it presents a new set of issues.

While testing, a generic homeworld system was used for the militarist ethos fallen empire since no custom homeworld was developed for it just yet.

When War in Heavens activated, the event automatically created new fleets for the militarist FE which completely destroyed their economy, their homeworld wasn't enough to handle three ~30,000pt fleets.

The militarist FE then began to cannibalize every military station and fleet in order to regain a balanced economy which then it was left with nothing. The awakened militarist then sat idle until its rival FE came over and slaughtered everyone and everything.

So much for militarist.

This is a slight hiccup as the current priority is being shifted to creating a homeworld and its satellite systems to upkeep an awakened fallen empire for additional testing.

• Fanatic Militarist ethos and personality for fallen empires

I'm currently prototyping game-start vassal states of fanatic militarists know as "puppets".

These new puppet states will serve as the offensive branch of this particular type of fallen empire.

Stay tuned for updates.

A new development objective has been set:
• New vassal type for fanatical militarists

A new vassal type, known as "puppets", have been created for fanatical militarist fallen empires. These puppet states act as the independent expansionist arm of their overlord, capable of colonizing and expanding.

The concept of puppet states is based around military imperialism, backing smaller subsidiary states with the military might of a fallen empire. While fallen empires are forbidden to expand and colonize, their subsidiary puppets act as normal empires with normal starting technologies, expanding on behalf of their overlord.

At the expense of 25% of their energy and mineral income, puppets are given full diplomatic automony and can wage wars with other empires independently; in times of a defensive war, their overlords will assist giving them a significant military edge over other empires at the cost of freedom.

These puppet states will be automatically spawned at the beginning of each game when a fanatical militarist fallen empire has spawned. each fanatic militarist FE will have two puppet states around their territory.

It has been by popular request to make fallen empires more interesting and alive than stagnating in their capitals. The inclusion of puppet state is to add a more dynamic element of fallen empires: a semi-expanding fallen empire, increasing in power only through their puppets.

A development objective has been complete:
• One additional fallen empire star system type

While multitasking between the implementation of puppet states and the integration of fanatical militarist FEs, I took a time off to make a new star system type for fallen empires in Update 1.2.

http://i.imgur.com/yVqZtW9.png

Based on a variation of existing binary stars, this three-star system will have far more energy resource deposits available than other star systems. This system will be used to boost energy production of fallen empires where their monthly energy income is lackluster.

Stay tuned for updates.

• One additional unique fallen empire
• Fanatic Militarist ethos and personality for fallen empires
• New vassal type for fanatical militarists

UPDATE: Most features for Update 1.2 are relatively complete, they only require fine tuning and bug-testing to ensure the final product is good enough for you, the subscriber.

Current issues:
• Only one out of the two AIs for puppet states seems to be functioning, additional testing will be required to see if that is the case.
• Additional tests to ensure fanatical militarists can awaken and participate in War in Heavens.
• Test needed to see if player can be vassalized into a puppet state, this should NOT happen.
• Introductory texts for fanatical militarists needs to be implemented.
• General mod compatibility testing required.

I will be conducting these tests and bugfixing for the days to come.

If you are reading the development updates and wish to contribute by playtesting, add me, Surfacerunner, directly.

Every bit of help will make this a better mod for everyone.

An update on Update 1.2

I am working out of town for the time being, meaning I won't have all the resources to mod at my disposal.

Fortunately, 80% of the work has already been done prior to departure meaning it should be slated to be on schedule.

Expect less commentary on Update 1.2 for the time being.

A new development objective has been set:
• Remove galaxy presets for more fallen empires

Thanks to the Taw, developer for No Clustered Start, the galaxy presets, part of Fallen Empires Expanded, with increased max # of fallen empires is now redundant and will be removed.

No Clustered Start now includes galaxy presets with increased # of fallen empires with the mod.

The removal of FEE-included galaxy presets will accompany with Update 1.2

Stay tuned for updates!

A new development objective has been set:
• Change layout of large solar systems to fix reported issues

Since the inclusion of new homeworlds for new fallen empires in release, a number of subscribers have reported issues of fleet combat ranges in three systems with extremely large sizes.

• Empyrean System
• Sol
• Terran Wasteland

After continuous testing, I've narrowed down the reported issue to the large nature of the aforementioned systems.

Stellaris allows for varying system sizes; however, there seems to be a hard-coded upper limit of fleet movement range and fleet engagement ranges. Beyond a certain unit (~500 unit radius), fleets will experience issues with engagement ranges and target fleets and/or stations far beyond what is possible.

A solution is underway to rectify this issue. The three systems, mentioned above, will have their solar system size reduced. This will mean that planets will be closer and time necessary to traverse the system will be shortened.

This fix will be implemented in Update 1.2