As of the making of Update 1.3, it is December and I am out-of-town celebrating the holidays. Egg nog tastes great but an incomplete mod leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

The original slated release of 1.3 calls for the implementation of Fanatic Pacifists as fallen empires. However, due to the lack of a proper workstation, this update will focus primarily on general bugfixing, improvement to QoL of users, and implementation of features that were on the cutting room floor of Update 1.2.

Update 1.3 will be released on (estimated) December 31st

A new development objective has been set:
• Visual and organizational overhaul of FEE workshop page [Complete]
• No Clustered Start integration with Fallen Empires Expanded [Complete]
• Personality enhancements for Fallen Empires

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

Thanks for reading!

Just a general notice. Update 1.2 was completed on December 22nd, I'm gonna take a break and celebrate Christmas before coming back to the mod.

But rest assured, this mod will be continuously supported.

Expect Update 1.3 during mid January.

Preliminary work for Update 1.3 has begun.

The concept for the upcoming update has been scaled-down, focusing on player convenience and general bugfixing in preparation for Stellaris 1.5 "Banks".

No major in-game feature will be implemented for this update.

A new development objective has been set:
• Visual and organizational overhaul of FEE workshop page

One major point of ire is the presentation of information on the Fallen Empires Expanded workshop page on steam.

While certainly very descriptive, the means of which information shown to new viewers or existing subscribers is often unintuitive and poorly done, far lackluster compared to other mods.

An effort will be made to fully overhaul the workshop page for improved readability and information flow. This will allow new viewers to easily disseminate information regarding Fallen Empires Expanded and reduce general confusion.

A development objective has been complete:
• Visual and organizational overhaul of FEE workshop page

After hours of prototyping and refining, the new mod page layout for Fallen Empires Expanded is complete.

Included in the changes:
• Improved readability of Current Features section
• Reorganization of Header section
• Overhauled image format
• Font replacement of less readable fonts
• Standardization to 1280x720 resolution images
• Rewritten mod compatibility section to be clear and concise

Objective will be implemented on December 27th, 2016

A new development objective has been set:
• No Clustered Start integration with Fallen Empires Expanded

Back in Release 1.0, setup_scenarios were added to allow players to have up to 8+ fallen empires in a galaxy. One of the major issues that wasn't addressed during the time was the lack of non-clustered stars with 8+ fallen empires. This caused serious issues where players were spawned surrounded by FEs, leading to some complaints.

With Update 1.2, setup_scenarios were removed and subscribers were encouraged to utilize No Clustered Start, which was recently updated to accomodate 8+ fallen empires. This move, however, lead to initial confusion as to the removal of the originally present presets.

Update 1.3 will resolve this long-plaguing issue with full No Clustered Start integration with Fallen Empires Expanded.

You will soon be able to play with 8+ fallen empires with a non-clustered start provided by innately mod.

Thanks to the help of Taw, creator of No Clustered Start, initial issues with implementation has been largely resolved.

The framework for No Clustered Start has been largely added into the 1.3 prototype.

Due to the fact that both No Clustered Start and Fallen Empires Expanded will contain largely identical files, additional testing will be required to ensure no compatibility issues with either mods whatsoever.

More updates coming soon!

• No Clustered Start integration with Fallen Empires Expanded

Compatibility testing of Fallen Empires Expanded (+ built-in No Clustered Start) with No Clustered Start mod by Taw was conducted with no issues issues whatsoever.

No error logs were produced, no issues with mod conflict materialized.

In fact, it went better than expected. Thanks to the help and consultation of Taw most if not all potential issue with the integration were unfounded.

Exploratory work is being conducted to see if No Clustered Start could be potentially improved.

More updates to come.

A development objective has been complete:
• No Clustered Start integration with Fallen Empires Expanded

Exploratory work to improve No Clustered Start came up inconclusive.

As of this point, this development objective is considered complete and ready for use in Update 1.3

A new development objective has been set:
• Personality enhancements for Fallen Empires

As implied by the name of Fallen Empires Expanded, enhancement to AI personality has always been an objective while creating new variants of fallen empires.

For Update 1.3, improvements to personality and opinions will be made to existing fallen empires to make them more reactive to players and other AIs.

New info as the details of the enhancements will be available soon.

An example of No Clustered Start with Fallen Empires Expanded on galaxy size medium with 8 fallen empires:

http://i.imgur.com/jH59Nw2.png

• Personality enhancements for Fallen Empires

UPDATE: Additions to opinion_modifiers allows for Fanatical Militarists, stagnant and awakened, to react more realistically to AIs and players.

I'm working on finalizing everything for release.

A development objective has been complete:
• Personality enhancements for Fallen Empires

Quality assurance testing went on with a bit of a hitch. A few glitches caused repeating opinion_modifiers to stack again and again, engulfing the galaxy in a galactic war against the fanatical, and now insane, militarists.

The issues with event coding were immediately rectified. So far, all features implemented, although as small as they are, are 100% functional.

The first stage of personality enhancements specifically targets fanatic militarists. They will now react more realistically to players and AI.

Stagnant Militarists will now feel threatened if your fleet power exceeds a certain threshold, don't worry, the ceiling is pretty high. This will provide an mid-late game issue to contend with.

Awakened Militarists will be the complete opposite, feeling domineering when your fleet power is diminished. They are however, accepting of powerful sovereigns and empires of equivalent power.

Puppet states will now be extremely aggressive and hostile to any and all neighboring countries as to expand their hegemonic idea.

More updates to come.

Finalization of Update 1.3

Expect imminent release.

Development of Update 1.3 is COMPLETE

After one week of continuous progress, Update 1.3 has been released. Progress has, unfortunately, been slow due to the fact that for half the month of December, development has been confined to a small and slow laptop while I'm out of town.

As I return to my workstation, progress will continue as before.

For all those who may or may not be reading these boring ass commentaries, thanks for sticking around. Drop a like on my mod if you appreciate the work!

Enjoy Update 1.3!