The Master of Orion remake has been a pleasant surprise and a nice trip down memory lane since Wargaming launched the game out of Steam Early Access in late August. But one thing had always been missing: mod support. The developers have heard the cries of the masses, adding the much requested feature in the latest patch.

Update v51.2 lets players mess with such things as starting points, planetary biomes and even racial perks and biases. The official site has the massive list of things that can be adjusted, along with a guide on just how to do it. Mods can be uploaded to the Steam Workshop via the mod uploader tool in the options menu. The GOG version of the game also supports mods, but they must be uploaded and downloaded form a third-party site.

The update also changes pollution and gravity mechanics, upgrades the AI, and adds a new interface for tactical battles. Just in case you want the full list of modifications and fixes, here are the patch notes:

• Mods can now be used in the game to enrich the experience even more.

• New Gravity mechanics: 
  
  • Races with Low-G tolerance have a -25% penalty in Normal-G worlds and -50% penalty in High-G worlds. 
  • Races with High-G tolerance have a -25% penalty in Normal-G worlds and -50% penalty in Low-G worlds. 
  • Races with Normal-G tolerance have a -25% penalty in Low-G worlds and -50% penalty in High-G worlds.

• New Pollution mechanics: 
  
  • Pollution is now generated by Population and Production output. 
  • New ongoing effect: If pollution in a colony goes up, it pollutes the soil and reduces cells’ food output. 
  • Pollution Cleanup project is no longer available. 
  • Biome tolerance and Pollution cleaning from buildings are now flat values.

• Pollution Processor moved to Molecular Compression Technode. Core Waste dump cleaning value increased.

• “Planetary density” added to match options. 
• Tiny planets added (Updated size chances and Gravity table). 
• Galaxy generation improved to support the new gravity mechanics. 
• Monster quantity by galaxy size increased. 
• New Gravity Tolerance perk influences the player’s Home Planet’s gravity. 
• Tweaks to better support low gravity planets.

• Races with Low-Gravity tolerance now have the "Low Gravity Homeworld" perk. 
• Races with High-Gravity tolerance now have a "High Gravity Homeworld" perk. 
• Creative perk research bonus increased to +50%.

• Polished animations and blending of emperors and advisors

• Cinematics now play when defeated instead of the old pop-up 
• Removed the narrator and subtitles from Custom Race’s cutscenes. 
• Cinematic cameras, now uses real mesh distances in tactical battles.

• Improved selection of defense points. 
• Improved evaluation of Declare War On. 
• Improved how the AI manages space pirates while being at war with other races. 
• The AI is now better at building bombers. 
• The AI is better at considering transports for other targets. 
• Expansionism trait improvements. 
• Improved invasion by allowing multiple invasion targets at once. 
• Improved invasion by building troop transports in advance. 
• Improved invasion by making troop transports move together with all military fleets. 
• New Planet Rating heuristic for civilizations, now uses estimated outputs. 
• Racial Grudge is now used in strategic analysis. 
• Re-balanced pacifist trait in General Strategy to make it more noticeable. 
• Refactored Racial Grudge so it has degrees and is not binary. 
• The AI now plays smarter in Cluster Galaxies. 
• The AI now plays smarter in Huge Galaxies.

• Improved opening moves for the AI. 
• Automatic toggle on a weapon/s when receiving general/weapon focus order. 
• Tactical Weapons can now be fired manually. 
• Changed how the AI chooses and changes squadron formation. 
• New Auto-Pause option on screen. 
• Reduced cinematic "Missile Cam” occurrence. 
• Reduced time compression smoothness. 
• Back end now use the new system for focus fire. 
• Formations have been rebalanced to make them more meaningful. 
• New Plasma Web FX. 
• Clicking on a ship now selects only that ship, double-click selects the whole squadron.

• Re-balanced Fighters: 
  
  • Fighter Bay size reduced (40 -> 30). 
  • Bomber Bay size reduced (50 -> 35). 
  • Heavy Fighter Bay size reduced (60 -> 40).

• Tweaked Tactical Battles Pacing: 
  
  • Tweaked Hull Visual Scales 
  • Increased Max Speed for Most Hulls 
  • Reduced Rotation Speed for Most Hulls 
  • Reduced tactical health scale 
  • Increased CDs on all weapons to keep DPS and Battle Length similar to previous iteration. 
  • Phasors Damage Nerfed 35 -> 30 
  • Gauss Cannon Damaged Buffed 35 -> 40 
  • Pulson Missile Damage Nerfed 50 -> 40 
  • Zeon Missile Damage Nerfed 70 -> 60 
  • Energy Absorber CD increased 15 -> 25 
  • Shield Capacitor CD increased 20 -> 30 
  • Removed a Redundant Instance of Cooldown on the Pulsar Entry.

• Added Automatic Formation Icon. 
• Added pulsing animation to "Victory Is Nigh" notification. 
• Citizen transports can now be built in bulk. 
• New fully configurable ship mass production picker. 
• Limited bulk building to 5 ships max. 
• Added a “below max recommended player” count in the galaxy generation menu, to use as initial value of each galaxy size. 
• Disable Intro Video Option. 
• Set the recommended player count instead of the max count when a new galaxy size is selected. 
• Added Scroll and Close functionality to notifications. 
• Added new feedback for new pollution mechanics. 
• Added missing tooltips that add necessary information in the ship design menu. 
• Improved feedback for Blocking and Guarding commands. 
• The Guard order can now be issued anywhere. 
• Added new formations functionality, weapons and specials functionality in the tactical combat interface. 
• Added status effect icons in the tactical combat interface. 
• Added tooltip Auto-Pause for tactical battles. 
• Added Status Effects to the tactical combat HUD. 
• Numerous tooltips improvements. 
• Added cost, command points, attack rating, defense rating, armor penetration, and drones system tooltips in the Ship Design menu. 
• Added new feedback to Economic victory.

• Cursor stays on planets when camera is shifting on extended view. 
• Improved gamepad warp by adding cursor clone. 
• Look at a planet and push left stick to see tooltip.

• Added intro animations for GNN 
• Added New Economic Victory GNN trigger