This release represents a significant set of updates from v1.3x and **explicitly breaks backwards compatibility**. Forwards compatibility in terms of JSON scripts and cached products is not broken, but certain default values have changed and so unexpected behavior may occur when using old inputs/cached products.
The number of cached products has increased in this release, with the addition of cached keepout maps and zodiacal light fluxes. This allows for simulations to execute more rapidly than before, but also means that the initial setup time has increased.
To reduce versioning confusion, the v1.4 releases will adopt the convention of v1.4.x version numbers. All releases under v1.4.x are guaranteed to be fully compatible. Only bugfixes and new feature additions will be released under these version numbers.
The next planned release to EXOSIMS is version 2.0.0, which will add Python 3 support. If a critical interface error is found before that release, there will be a v1.5 intermediate release.
This release represents significant contributions by Dean Keithly, Gabriel Soto, Daniel Garrett and Walker Dula. Many thanks to them and all other contributors.