ZEPHON News

## 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]

## General
* Changed Ranger icon to be more distinct from Sharpshooter.
* Improved Horde Mandate AI usage.
* Improved Caelum Cete idle visual effect.

## Bug Fixes
* Fixed Perfect Forever not working on own Caitiffs that have Infinite active.
* Fixed In Death, Life giving production based on the headquarters unit instead of the dying unit.
* Fixed duplicate type cost and duplicate type cost limit attributes appearing with the wrong color.
* Fixed Road negating Gravity Field and Black Hole movement penalty.
* Fixed Stormheart Facility being able to be Hijacked causing crashes.

## Modding
* Added `tilesInRange` tile condition.
* Added `inTileAcquisitionRange` tile condition.
* Added `pathToCityInTileAcquisitionRange` tile condition.
* `acquireTile` conditions are now specified in xml.
* Default `rangeMax` for `target` is now -1 instead of 1.

## General
* Improved Reaver Depot lights.
* Improved Galgalim Orb Laser Array sound.

## Bug Fixes
* Fixed Perfect Forever not creating Caitiffs if a unit that can Hijack is adjacent to the target.
* Fixed Perfect Logistics technology description.
* Fixed being able to build roads on volcanoes.
* Fixed Gourmand's Fate icon appearing as a question mark in the quest screen.
* Fixed Furtive Tribunal praise text name reference.
* Fixed minor typo.

## Modding
* Added `removeBuilding type=""` tile effect.
* Added `noBuilding` condition to tile conditions.

## Balance
* Crush Sequence is now usable against Titans.

## Bug Fixes
* Fixed issues when killing a unit with both Hijack and Perfect Forever.
* Fixed two wrong language strings for the Practical Romantic.
* Fixed Ruins spawning on Ruins when a city is destroyed.
* Fixed "Machines are the next step" and "Machines are alive" options text being swapped around in the Are Machines Alive? quest.
* Fixed Phenaris Epicurean's Paradox Theriac showing on the model even without the upgrade.