ZEPHON News

## General
* Improved AI usage of player actions / operations.

## Bug Fixes
* Fixed operation upkeep values.
* Fixed Chieftess, Anchorite and Zephon not being set to regrouping when they start with no cities.

## Balance
* Operations now have upkeep. They can be dismantled, one charge at a time, by right-clicking on them.
* Reduced Product Recall influence cost from 20 to 10 per experience point of target unit.
* Native Amoetia's Devourers no longer unleash themselves due to Decaying.

## Bug Fixes
* It is no longer possible to praise or condemn unless you stayed independent in the The Last Days of Earth.
* Fixed Bandit King (Mutated) Paradox Theriac.
* Fixed Elusive hint.

## Modding
* Operation upkeeps are now specified in `ActionTypeManager.xml`, including the reductions of upkeep from upgrades.

## General
* Improved Caelem Cete die sound.

## Balance
* Tactical Insertion can now only be used on forest, ruins or smoke screen with no enemy city.
* Undersupplied now goes away at 1 rank per turn.
* Increased the returns of The Sure Thing to 10, 20, 30 minerals gained (and 20, 40, 60 with both upgrades).

## Bug Fixes
* Fixed The Sure Thing giving extra minerals based on the total minerals instead of the invested minerals.
* Fixed being able to queue buildings into tiles that will be full once current production finishes.
* Fixed Hovering not mentioning not being affected by tiles on fire.
* Fixed Elusive being scored incorrectly for research by the AI.
* Adjusted particle system rendering to still show particles and impacts even at high animation speed and/or low frame rate.
* Fixed region name typo.

## General
* Improved Acrin Spawnrider sound effects.
* Added deploy Storm of Storms sound effect.
* New The Deep options now always appear on top.
* Pasting world seed and world string is now trimmed of leading and trailing whitespace.
* Accept praise now plays the leader's praise audio response instead of the accept.
* Accept condemn now plays the leader's condemn audio response instead of the accept.

## Balance
* Anashim Enforcers' Functions now require (but do not consume) movement and action points.
* Increased The Sure Thing minerals cost from 40/60/80 to 40/80/120 and minerals gain from 50/75/100 to 45/90/135.
* Reduced Ore Tycoon and Market, Cornered minerals returned from +20% to +2.2%. This correctly increases the base interest by the intended +20%.
* Increased Dark Caress hitpoints gain from 1 to 2.
* Dark Caress now affects non-Biological units.
* Hobbling no longer affects Large units.
* Increased Clone Wave cost by 50%.
* Increased Tactical Insertion cost by 50%.
* Reduced Safety Disjunction energy from 4 to 3.
* Reduced Quantum Economics singularity cores from 0.2 to 0.1.

## Bug Fixes
* Removed response sounds from quest units that should not have them.

[p]Hi everyone,[/p][p]As you know, we released The Platinum & The Infinite last week. We’re glad to see you enjoying the new content and we are now thinking of what to build for ZEPHON in 2026.[/p][p]Our base case is to continue with the same DLC structure we’ve done so far (since it’s been received so well), but are looking for your input on what else we should focus on (a couple of ideas listed below).[/p][p]Note that this may change at any point, including as a consequence of your feedback or sales performance.[/p][p][/p][h3]Q2 DLC[/h3]

• [p]2 new leaders[/p]
• [p]6 new units (tier 5 and 6)[/p]
• [p]1 new advanced zephon unit[/p]
• [p]3 new operations[/p]
• [p]3 new rare items[/p]
• [p]2 new outposts[/p]
• [p]5 new quests[/p]
• [p]4 new mutators[/p]
• [p]4 new music tracks[/p]

[h3]Q4 DLC[/h3]

• [p]2 new leaders[/p]
• [p]6 new units (tier 7 and 8)[/p]
• [p]1 new advanced chieftess unit[/p]
• [p]3 new operations[/p]
• [p]3 new
• legendary items[/p]
• [p]2 new outposts[/p]
• [p]5 new quests[/p]
• [p]4 new mutators[/p]
• [p]4 new music tracks[/p]

[p]*Legendary items: A new tier of items with its own research requirement—even more powerful than rare.[/p][p][/p][h3]Free Features Ideas[/h3]

• [p]The Last Days of Earth replayability: Add side-effects or side-objectives that are randomly triggered either at the start of the final battle or some turns in. These could range from Acrin ships crashing and spawning cities or other points of interest to the re-emergence of the Chieftess with an arsenal of super-weapons, perhaps temporarily uniting everyone else against her. Would love to hear ideas here, to make the final event more varied.[/p]
• [p]Unique headquarters weapons per affinity: Instead of player-controlled headquarters always being armed with assault rifles and missile launchers, have the headquarters' weapons based on the leader's affinity (e.g. laser for Cyber).[/p]
• [p]Resource veins: Generate advanced resource veins at the start of the game. These hotpots would require an Engineer to construct an extractor on it and would provide one type of advanced resource and a bonus when fighting against units built with that resource. Alternatively, these would be non-resource veins, that would only provide specific buffs.[/p]
• [p]NPC regrouping world effects: Change the world dynamics when NPCs are defeated and start regrouping. E.g. defeating Anchorite means neutral Dreameaters start spawning around the world, because he was the only one keeping them at bay. [/p]
• [p]Synergy technologies: Research options that boost the viability of multi-affinity builds. Or even options that boost single-affinity builds.[/p]
• [p]Transport AI: Teach the AI how to use transports.[/p]
• [p]City caches: City destruction currently spawns advanced branched caches; instead spawn unique city caches that offer larger rewards.[/p]
• [p]?[/p]

[p]Please let us know if this makes sense to you, and if you have any suggestions for leaders, units, items, operations or any other features.[/p]