There's a large number of changes associated with this update, and I’m not going to attempt to list them all here. But, feel free to ask questions about any obscure details that may catch your attention
At a high level, the big news is that farms, mines, and (with appropriate tech) markets are now in the game. In most cases, I'm hoping that their interactions will be fairly intuitive. The in-game docs have also been updated, and clicking on your planet's resource production icons should explain the whys and hows behind the new numbers.
Note that the "City Planning" activity is now available on all worlds from the start of the game. It should boost your population growth significantly, but, it also increases food consumption.
Note also that planet’s metal productivity varies from planet to planet. Right now, a planet’s mineral rating can be hard to find (it shows up along side the other “fluff” stats in a planet’s description). We’re working on some overlay icons for mineral ratings that should make unusually high or low mineral planets easy to spot.
Similarly, farm productivity will vary by world type. There’s one rather interesting special rule here -- Iceball worlds are typically terrible farming sites, unless you happen to have Orthin colonists, in which case, your farms suddenly become far more productive.
Theory-crafters may notice that the rules around “staffing” improvements have changed. You can read up on the current system by clicking around in the docs. In the near future, hovering over an improvement type in the choose production dialog will give you a preview of the effects of building that improvement on the current planet.
The current build on ‘dev’ should be pretty stable. Just be aware that I’ve still got some tech mechanics to plug in. And, of course, there’s lots of additional balance work to be done. Hull metal costs, in particular, really need some adjustments.
That said, from the bit of playing I have done with the new system, the new mechanics are feeling like a promising change. You can reap real advantages by cultivating a collection of “feeder” worlds to supply one or two big industrial hubs, and there are some potentially interesting choices to be made in terms of just where you put your focus in the early game.
