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Hi everybody  ...  Good news!  Aven Colony build 0.1.14014 is now posted.  We apologize for the delayed update; we'd wanted to post an update several weeks ago but were stalled by a critical bug fix from one our our middleware providers.

Installation instructions are available here.

Since it's been a month since our last update, we have a lot more changes than usual!  Besides a ton of bug fixes, we've added a ton of new features to the game, most notably:

• Plague Spores.  These deadly biological spores slowly float toward the colony and get sucked into the coloy through Intake Fans (or Geothermal Generators or any other building type).  They then split into numerous smaller "microbes" that rapidly spread through the colony's tunnel system, infecting any colonists they see!  You will need Hospitals to stop the spread of the plague if this happens.
• Plasma Turrets.  Plasma turrets can shoot down Creep Spores, Plague Spores, and even shards from Shard Storms!
• Lightning Towers.  A Lightning Tower can fully defend part of your colony from the lightning strikes ("thundersnow") that frequently strike during Aven Prime's winter season, and will channel the electricity into any Energy Batteries connected to the same power zone.

You can see animated GIFs of all three of these features on GIPHY here: Plague Spores, Plasma Turrets, Lightning Towers.

Additionally, please note that our forums have been down for a few weeks due to spam.  We apologize for the inconvenience and expect to have them back online within a few days.

Here are the full update notes:

New Features:

• Added a Plague Spore that can enter the colony, split into tiny microbes, and infect colonists with the plague!
• Added a new Plasma Turret that can shoot down Creep Spores and Plague Spores, and even shoot down Shard Storm shards!
• Added a new defensive Lightning Tower!  This protects the surrounding area from lightning strikes in winter and also feeds the electricity back into any Energy Batteries in the colony
• Lots of new, more specialized voice-overs from the 5 main characters; also changed the assignments of who gives some of the various quests during the missions
• Tons of additional ambient colonist voice-overs
• Replaced voice-overs for the male colonist who sounded like a redneck and the female who sounded like Kalandra
• A new alien dragonfly now wanders around Vanaar and Hyla's Crescent during non-winter seasons
• Added a new SHIPE call from Commissioner Veronika near the start of Vanaar to remind you that following the mission objectives is optional
• The "Consumable" row on the inventory dialog now shows up in red if no food types are marked as consumable
• Big improvements to line-drawing in the Stats panel; also made the panel much taller
• Rewards from Veronika now grey out you don't have room for them
• There's also an 'X' button in the upper-right of this dialog to close it if all options are greyed (this is available for the mission objectives, too)
• Added new data types to the Statistics dialog: immigrants accepted and food/water/storage/electricity per colonist
• Added flashing lights that light up the surrounding area for landing and descending immigration and trade vessels
• Added an urgent notification when there's a high crime level in part of the colony
• You can now use Ctrl-Alt-X to temporarily disable the UI (for taking screenshots -- use PrtScrn if playing via itch.io or F12 if playing via the Steam closed beta)
• The Mini-Storage building now animates as it was always intended to

Bug fixes:

• Tunnels under construction (and other buildings!) are now FAR more visible against the snowy background on arctic maps
• Fixed bug where Police Drone Stations that lost power would remove their positive effects much too quickly, which make "death spirals" happen much too quickly under certain circumstances
• Azara Falls & Tenari Glacier sandbox: fixed a few Zorium deposits not being clickable
• "Citizen dying" and "citizens starving" notifications now eventually expire
• Citizens will no longer initiate death if they're saved from starvation at the last moment
• Vastly improved line-drawing in the Stats dialog -- much cleaner lines
• Fixed bug with the inventory panel progress bar pausing before refreshing when you opened the panel
• Fixed a bug with colonists getting traffic-jammed at the entrances to buildings in some cases
• Fixed screwiness with the mouse cursor in certain maps, especially Tenari Glacier
• Fixed inaccurate text for winter cultivation for Greenhouses
• Zooming in and out with PageUp and PageDown no longer pans left/right/up/down due to the mouse position; only mouse wheel zooming does this
• Notifications no longer auto-open during an end-of-game SHIPE call
• Simplified & shortened Veronika's intro speech in the main menu and added audio ducking to make it audible over the music
• Fixed issue with VCR buttons getting "stuck" if you toggled them too quickly at low frame rates
• Construction drones should now enter drone stations and dock much more smoothly
• Fixed bug where the stats pane isn't visible if you load a save where the game has already been won or lost
• Improved the effect when upgrading buildings, most noticeable with the Solar Panel
• Vanaar: fixed a bug where the "mine zorium" quest would not count zorium already mined
• Sandy Gulch: fixed a bug where one of the trade objectives could not be completed at "insane" difficulty due to insufficient gold in the cargo pod
• Azara Falls no longer mentions an "object", since it's now about analyzing the alien structures
• Fixed a bug with having a selected building get stuck as ghosted when exiting an overlay mode
• Fixed bug where food wouldn't decompose if the storage building lost power if it was in a storage module or mini-storage
• Fixed a bug with saving & loading certain quest types, such as getting food production or water production to certain levels
• SHIPE calls now properly queue up instead of simply stomping calls in progress; this fixes an issue where important SHIPE calls could get missed under certain circumstances
• Creep spores can no longer attach to buildings that have just been placed and are 0% completed
• Fixed a bug where the morale effects of multiple retail, health, and entertainment structures would not stack properly but would instead just pick one arbitrarily
• Social policies are no longer gated on referendum victories in Sandbox missions
• Reduced the morale impact of VR Centers and Retail Centers by 20%
• Reduced the morale impact of a Bar & Grill in 'Lounge' mode by 25%
• Reduced the morale impact of an Earth History Center by 55% (though it's still extremely high!)
• Improvements to mission objectives in Sandy Gulch
• Lots of little tutorial text fixes
• Landscape optimizations (enabled triangle culling)
• Fixed a few random crash bugs
• All tutorial arrows now animate properly
• Upgraded to Unreal Engine 4.13, including lots of little bug fixes
• Lots of additional tweaks and bug fixes

Art Improvements:

• Vastly improved the rivers and waterfalls in arctic maps
• New Plasma Turret and Lightning Tower
• Revised and improved Stats dialog
• Immigration Center changed from yellow to blue

Thank you for being part of the Aven Colony community!