These notes are no longer relevant following the July 31st Developer update.
They are saved for historic reasons only!

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The Fleet server is currently offline.
All other servers are online and most gameplay elements should work fine, more details below.
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These are upcoming changes, they are not yet in the game.
There is currently no date set for this upcoming patch.
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Coming in the next patch
GAMEPLAY

• Balance changes:
  • Resource Cache Loot now has better distribution of resource types
• New features:
  • Ecumenopolis stage can now be reached
    • A planet is automatically converted to a planet-spanning city Ecumenopolis if every building slot is Housing, the Space Elevator project is completed, and there are at least 1'000'000 population
    • Ecumenopolis can not be undone and once triggered change the planet in multiple ways
    • All existing buildings, except Space Elevators, are destroyed upon conversion
    • Ecumenopolis have their own set of buildings and mechanics
    • Ecumenopolis provide several powerful bonuses and have much higher max population than a planet
    • Ecumenopolis rely on other planets to feed them resources as they are unable to produce most raw materials
    • Artifacts must be converted in a Temple before they can be used in Ecumenopolis tier buildings
  • Several new buildings
  • Several new resources and goods
  • Planet Bonus is now Planet Fragment
    • Fragment resources provide unique benefits when consumed by a building
    • The effect of a Fragment depend on which building it is consumed in
    • Different Fragments have different effects
    • Fragment resource is very rare and it is not possible to sustain more than one building at a time without importing additional Fragments from other planets
    • Fragments must be consumed by a building to have an effect, thus taking up a production slot and only trigger on production cycles
    • Fragments are very difficult to stockpile and decay over time if not used. Larger quantities decay faster
  • Rare single use Urns can now be found in Treasures
    • Urns are destroyed on use
    • Effects from Urns are permanent
    • Multiple Urns can be used on the same target
    • Using an Urn has a small chance to fail, removing all existing Urn effects from the target
    • Urns can target Planets, Buildings, and Artifacts
  • Hauler ships can now be used to transfer goods between your planets
    • Import/Export limits can be set from the Planet Stockpile window by clicking a Goods
    • A Goods can only be set to either Import or Export, not both
    • Each Hauler can transfer up to 1 Goods/minute
    • Haulers automatically handle both Import and Export; transfer capacity is distributed evenly between the two
    • Haulers require Fuel for optimal performance. Without Fuel transfer capacity drops to 0.05
    • Haulers are now considered an Empire resource, they are shared between all planets regardless of where they were assembled
    • Haulers work on all your planets; Import/Export can be set and will work on any planet you own
  • Electricity has received a complete overhaul
    • Powerplants affect buildings within a radius improving the efficiency of those specific buildings
  • Artifact Vault now has limited space
    • Creator, Primal, and Nephilic Artifacts do not count towards the limit (Yet)
    • Temples can be used to increase the limit
    • If your vault is full you can not collect any new Artifacts
    • Existing Artifacts that go beyond the limit of your Vault will not be removed but you will be unable to collect new ones until you clear some space out
    • Design philosophy: Along with the reduction in Artifact drop rates from Patch 4.24.668 and the expanded Artifact Crafting options in this patch my hope is that this will encourage having few but valuable/special Artifacts instead of hundreds of mostly useless ones. As always your feedback is important so feel free to post your thoughts on the forums.
  • Temple mechanics:
    • Convert Shards from one tier to another
    • Transmute new Shards from resources
    • Sacrifice Artifacts to receive a different Artifact of the same tier, with a chance for higher tier
    • Increase Vault space
• Artifact changes:
  • Modifying an Artifact now adds a random amount of Desire to it
    • Once an Artifact reaches 100% Desire it can no longer be modified and gains a Sin
    • Sins randomly alter an unsinned modifier to grant powerful new effects or improve the values of the modifier
    • As long as Desire is less than 100% doing a complete Reforge on the Artifact removes all Desire
    • Urns can be used to lower Desire without fully reforging
    • Urns can be used to add additional Sins as long as there are unsinned modifiers on the Artifact
    • Adding a Sin to an Artifact has a small chance of destroying the Artifact depending on how many Sins it already has
  • Timed Artifacts are now Bound Artifacts
    • Existing Timed Artifacts have been converted to Bound Artifacts
    • Bound Artifacts do not expire
    • Bound Artifacts can not be unsocketed, only destroyed
  • Infinite Artifacts are now Unbound Artifacts
    • Existing Infinite Artifacts have been converted to Unbound Artifacts
    • Unbound Artifacts do not expire
    • Unbound Artifacts can be unsocketed and moved
  • A new type of Timed Artifacts now exist
    • Timed Artifacts are now very rare
    • Timed Artifacts spawn with much higher modifier values
    • Timed Artifacts can have unique modifiers not normally available
    • Timed Artifacts can have multiple unique modifiers
    • Timed Artifacts have less strict rules regarding modifier conflicts, allowing a much greated variety and interplay between possible modifiers
    • Timed Artifacts can not be unsocketed, only destroyed
  • 33 new regular Artifact modifiers
  • 11 new Unique Artifact modifiers
  • Eight new Creator tier Artifacts
  • Four new Primal tier Artifacts
  • Six new Nephilic tier Artifacts

VISUALS

• There is now an effect when collecting Items

BUGS

• Fixed +X Planet stat not working properly in all cases
• Fixed S.I.E.Ve's not providing Ore consistently

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Coming in a future patch
GAMEPLAY

• Artifact slot changes:
  • If Congregation points is negative any Artifact slots beyond the limit will be clearly marked as inactive in the client instead of random ones being ignored server-side. Inactive slots will not be removed, and Artifacts socketed into them can be unsocketed (Or destroyed), but no new Artifact can be put into them until population grow back. Slots will be disabled in the order they were unlocked. Because the unlock-order-data is missing for existing slots they may not become marked as inactive in the order you expect, only slots unlocked after this patch will contain the proper unlock-order-data.

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Fleet server details
Because the Fleet server is offline the following features will not work:

• Raids
• Launching fleets

Some temporary mechanics have been added to make ships useful until the Fleet server comes back online:

• Scouts increase the chance to get Artifacts in Treasures
• S.I.E.Ves generate Ore
• Pioneers can be ordered to colonize a planet simply by clicking a button

The Fleet server will undergo an almost complete rewrite to bring it up to date and fix some ''personality issues'' it has accumulated. There is no estimate for how long this will take.