Today we plan to release Beta 3 (v0.95) of Sins of a Solar Empire - Diplomacy to pre-order customers. During the changeover to the new beta, the ICO server will be taken offline while the files are updated.

Beta 3 adds a number of refinements to Diplomacy based on feedback, along with bug fixes and some new features. Details are below.

As always, if you don't want to deal with bugs, balance issues or providing feedback to improve the game please wait for the final release.

Gameplay Changes:

• Pirate Missions have been added.  After the proper research, players may now offer the Pirate faction missions to attack specific gravity wells. This is accessed via the Pirate tab in the Criminal Underground screen. There is a 5 minute cooldown between Pirate missions and they will become progressively more expensive as the game plays out.
• Added new Bomb Planet mission type.
• Added new Advent envoy ability - Quell Unrest.
• The Vasari Phase Drive Pact has been slightly buffed.
• The Vasari Armament Pact has been buffed.
• AI players will now declare war at a much lower relationship level.
• Positive military actions no longer give as large of a relationship bonus.
• Giving metal/crystal to a faction will now result in a higher relationship gain.
• Fleet Strength relationship factors will now be -1, 0 or 1.
• Added several new maps (Nemesis, Secrets, Triad, Whirlwind, Domination).
• The Humanity relationship bonus is now known as the AI bonus, it only applies to relations between humans and AI players.
• Relationship bonuses granted by research should now work.
• Changed most of the Pacts to make them more substantial.
• Pact requirements (relationship level) have been lowered.
• Shifted diplomacy techs across each race's tree to make early game diplomacy more accessible.
• You can no longer target your own allies for attack missions in Locked Team games.
• Several price adjustments to various research subjects.
• The extraction rate on Mutual Threat has been lowered (Vasari).
• AI players will now more reliably research Pacts.
• Hotfix - The AI is now more intelligent about choosing which planets to target for missions.
• Hotfix - Modifiers on the two hardest AI settings have been increased.
• Hotfix - Envoys now have more realistic shield and HP regen rates.
• Hotfix - Worthy Cause can now only be used around enemy or allied planets.
• Hotfix - Relationship bonus techs are now split accross three stages in all research trees.
• Hotfix - Modified the AI gangup behavior slightly.
• Hotfix - Cultural Relations techs should now reward their relationship bonuses at the proper time.
• Hotfix - There is now a new research tech to remove racial relationship penalties.

Interface:

• The game should no longer tell the player they're under attack by an ally.
• InfoCards have been added for the Create Mission screen buttons.
• Flavor text has been added to the relationship levels to better describe status at a glance.
• Military Strength is now called Fleet Strength.
• The Manage Pacts button will no longer be enabled after a player has lost.
• Relationship is now displayed as regular values ranging from 0 to 20, with 10 being the "normal" limit, and 11 to 20 being available via envoy bonuses.
• Tweaked the Manage Pacts screen to be less confusing (hopefully).
• When a player rejects your Mission, the proper message should now be displayed.
• The Create Mission screen should now display how much relationship is required.
• Abilities that generate income should now be displayed in the Income InfoCard.
• Hotfix - Fixed a bug related to the rendering of credit from envoy abilities on infocards.

Graphics:

• Made a few texture adjustments to the Advent and TEC envoys.
• Fixed bug with Voruntak envoy where it was using TEC particle fx for its exhaust trail.
• TEC Module Constructor should now display the correct unit picture.
• Voice of the Unity now has a unique icon.
• Fixed an issue with mipmaps on textures related to envoys.

Misc.:

• Fixed small bug with the Phase Drive Pact.
• Fixed small bug in the Pirate base upgrade system.
• Fixed bug in how bonus relationship is formed in regards to Fleet Strength.
• Envoys using Diplomatic Immunity should no longer trigger mines.
• Fixed bug with Vasari envoy's Mutual Threat ability.
• Fixed bug with Arbitrate Tariff so it now gives a positive income boost.
• Fixed bug where positive boosts to trade income where show as negatives on the InfoCards.
• Fixed Sacrifice ability on Advent envoys.
• Hotfix - Fixed a crash related to AI players research envoy abilities.