Endless Space free update adds Christmas wonder, optional pirates, new hero

Slick 4X strategy game Endless Space received a free update yesterday adding a mysterious Christmas wonder called The Polaris Factory.

Slick 4X strategy game Endless Space received a free update yesterday adding a mysterious Christmas wonder called The Polaris Factory. Wonders were added in an earlier free update, they're hidden facilities and phenomenon that can grant great boons to an expanding empire. This one is an ancient machine couched in the deep arctic ices of a frozen planet, but what does it do?

"Raw materials are collected, goods are produced and packaged, and an endless stream of boxes disappear into ships, portals, and sleds for distribution," reads the official description. "What is this unceasing travail? What is the purpose of these strange, colorful, impractical objects that they build?"

Sounds like an intergalactic santa's grotto. We'll have to find it to discover its purpose, but hopefully it's some sort of "ho ho ho" happiness bonus for your beleaguered citizens. The update also adds a new "Oros Gec Faction Hero" and slips in a few community-requested features like "enhanced battle action AI," new Steam achievements and a "No Pirates” Option.

Here's the full update list from Steam.

LIGHTS OF POLARIS (1.0.45)

CHANGES AND ADDITIONS

New balance of Factions traits (first pass). Added abilities tree pictures for each hero class in "inspect" panel. Added Steam cloud management system for saves. New game introduction panel. Added a new hero from minor faction. Added a new natural Wonder with associated FX on planet. Some additional texts translated in RUS/POL/ITA/GER.

STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS

Added new Steam achievements including [G2G] Votes: Marco Polo with Tentacles / Have a Trade Route with every other system in the galaxy [Nosferatiel] Alien and Eve / Colonize a Garden of Eden [groovytadpole] Cake² / Clone Galdos AI [Adder] There's no Place like Home / Terraform a planet to your home planet type [EvilTactician] There can only be One / Be the only remaining empire in a game with 8 starting empires [Monthar] Cultural Assimilation / Envelop another empire's system in your Influence Area [FreeMarket]

EVENTS

Added exploration events flag option to remove the visual feedback in the galaxy view. Removed exploration and random events making spawn pirates when the "no pirates" options is enabled.

BATTLES

New pre-battle cards selection system with adapted GUI and report panel [G2G vote] AI can use retreat cards now (not allowed to pirates however). New weight-balance of battle cards for AI use. Added a new option in game options to enable or not the manual battles.

MULTIPLAYER

Players (including host) now forward orders to themselves instead of treating these locally. Fixed wrong construction gets canceled/bought out leading to desync. Fixed construction UID mismatch leading to desync. Fixed fleet's orbit assert. Fixed an issue where AI tries to buy out infinite improvements. Fixed loading issue to MP session when pressing cancel after "Connecting to server" message appeared. Fixed an issue when a client quits a session in progress then he will not be able to rejoin from the server list, since the session will no longer be displayed.

FIXES

Fixed an issue where Dust miser and co-opetition corporate hero abilities effects were mixed-up. Fixed an issue where debug could be noticed on the battle notification. Fixed an issue where the selfish dust bonus of the dust rain event was not displayed in the dust income summary tooltip. Fixed an issue where the effects from exploration and random events were not properly applied after reloading a save. Fixed some issues of GUI and localization.