FreeOrion, a free, open source, turn-based space empire and galactic conquest (4X) computer game being designed and built by the FreeOrion project.

FreeOrion is inspired by the tradition of the Master of Orion games, but is not a clone or remake of that series or any other game.

This version is for 32-bit Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.


Please note that FreeOrion requires OpenGL 2.0 or later.

With OpenGL support less than 2.0, the program might run and show the introduction / title screen, but crash when starting a game, or might require some rendering options to be disabled, or might crash immediately on startup, depending on your particular graphics hardware and drivers.

The Windows versions of FreeOrion generally runs on Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or later), Windows Vista or Windows 7. Earlier versions of FreeOrion were reported to run on Windows 2000 as well.

Please note that on Windows XP, The Windows XP Service Pack 2 and the .NET Framework 2.0 (or later) are required to run FreeOrion. FreeOrion doesn't use any .NET code or features, but the Visual Studio compiler adds this dependency regardless.

The .NET Framework 2.0 can be installed by by running Windows Update, selecting "Custom", then "Optional, Software", then ".NET Framework 2.0". Alternatively, it may be downloaded from Microsoft directly. More recent .NET Framework versions should also work.


FreeOrion v0.4.1 has been released for Windows and Intel Macs.

Changes since v0.4 include:

New Features / Improvements:

Players can control zero population planets or 'outposts'
Reworked stealth and visibility system. Empires now have a detection rating, and ships/planets have a detection range. Within range, detection strength is determined by the empire's detection ability. Outside range, there is no detection.
Specials now have stealth ratings, and may not be visible to empires with insufficient detection ability.
Removed minerals. Planets now just generate industry that is used for production.
Added an aggression setting for fleets, which can be toggled between passive and agressive. Passive fleets try to hide and don't attack enemies. Aggressive fleets attack any enemy they can, and can block supply propegation.
Added very basic diplomatic system. Empires start at peace, and can declare war, propose, or accept peace with other empires. Battles between empires happen only when at war. Diplomacy is controlled through right-click menu on the players list.
Made unarmed ships unable to block supply propegation.
New 'Game Concepts' section of the 'Pedia to help exlain the game.
Macro support in script files.
Experimental AI process priority management on Windows builds, which will hopefully improve GUI performance at the start of turns in games with multiple AI players.
Many new sitrep messages
Many Tooltips are now more informative.


Balancing:

Reworked how poplation growth works. Food and health no long exist. Instead, planets can be set to "growth" focus to boost population directly. There is no longer any food distribution or starvation.
Rebalanced stealth & detection levels.
Balanced bonuses to population to max at 100
Flattened the distribution curve of star and planet types.
Increased cost of troop pods to make conquest less casual.
Made monsters nests last on average twice as long.
Halved the generation of floaters from forests.
Colony and Outpost bases (for in-system use only) can be built without shipyards.
Greatly weakend the Sentry and Sentinel
Increased the effectiveness of shields and armor by ~ 2x
Removed internal slot from basic small hull, but increased fuel capacity
Switched the premade colony and outpost ships to a medium hull, but increased the cost of the colony and outpost parts to compensate.


Content:

Fixed many spelling errors in various descriptions.
Updated many inaccurate descriptions.
Tweaked ShipDesign encyclopedia entries to show total cost instead of per-turn cost, to be consistent with buildings.
Translation updates, particularly Russian and French.


Species:

All species now have different aptitudes at resource production, ground combat & so on. A few have special stealth and detection abilities.
Sorry, currently very un-balanced.
5 classes of species: Organic, Lithic, Robotic, Phototrophic, and Self-Sustaining. Population in each flourishes for different reasons. More differences planned.
All Homeworlds now provide a population bonus, and for some species, can be set to 'Growth' to provide population bonuses for colonies of the same species
Added Phototrophic species pick, which increases population with brighter suns.
Added Exobots, a constructable robot species.
Changed roster of playable species.
Acirema native colonies now occasionally produce ships, and have better defenses.
Additional minor species.


Monsters:

Greatly increased the strength of monsters.
Added Experimentor outpost which produces dangerous monsters later in the game.
These monsters may be overpowered for the time being.
Destroying/capturing this outpost is a victory condition.
New Asteroid Snail space monster
Added Nova Bomb and biological weaponry


Specials:

Adding 3 new growth Special Resources each for Organic, Lithic, & Robotic species.
Abandoned Colony special now works.
Added three Derelict system specials.
Added new stealthy planet specials, and stealth-making monsters.
Computronium Moons now have empire-wide benefit


Techs:

Removed Farming and Mining oriented Techs.
Reduced the number of different types of shipyards while increasing the cost.


Graphics:

All monster types now have unique icons.
Added unique graphics for each hull.
Unique graphics for more shipyards.
Added overlay for Ancient Ruins.
Added new fleet icon for outpost ships.
Assigned hull thumbnails to show in the sidebar of the design screen.
Improved the logic behind the choice of graphic to display for hulls and ship designs.
Disabled 'shininess' in sidepanel planet rendering, which wasn't working properly.
Hid map detection range circles for objects not visible to the player.
Made all resource indicators just show the available / produced amount, rather than also having a change prediction for some of them.


GUI:

Removed slot type and availability toggles on the design screen part palette. Now only available parts of all slot types are shown.
Renamed the 'Construction' meter to 'Infrastructure'.
Added some diplomatic status, and player type and status information icons to the players list.
Generate fleet arrival sitreps for all visible fleets, not just the player's own fleets.
Added basic combat damage sitreps.
Made top-of-screen toolbar not draggable again.
Rearranged military icons of planets to make troops more prominently displayed.
Adjusted display of numbers like 240 so they are shown as "240" instead of "0.24 k" in some cases.


Bugs:

Fixed bug where new fleets created by the player wouldn't appear in fleets window until the next turn.
Fixed memory leak / massive FPS drop when the sidepanel had a rotating planet control open and the system was repeatedly modified.
Fixed crash when adding new ship designs and ending the turn.
Fixed randomization of starting species in multiplayer lobby.
Fixed crash when enqueuing buildings with very low costs.
Fixed ordering of planets on sidepanel, which was by internal id number instead of orbit number, which lead to numbered planets appearing out of order.
Fixed crash generating cluster galaxies with few stars.
Fixed some crashes with test / temporary code in 3D combat testing.
Fixed issue where last tech on the queue wouldn't disappear when removed by the player.
Fixed broken pre-made ship fleet window icons.