Hey Sonatians,

We thought we would work up a helpful guide to highlight several new and old features that help make universe resets more of a breeze!

Limboing Tow Service

Every universe players get one /limbo to redock all of your ships if you’ve placed them in a location and need to change your mind. If you’ve used up your free one and require another you can purchase Limboing Tow Service for 5 billion credits at Friedman AI station in Free Market. This will “limbo” all your ships and let you choose a new AI station for them all to be placed at. This can be extremely helpful for moving large storage ships like Thatch that lack an engine.

Item Teleporters

Item Teleporters are station builder’s best friend when packing or unpacking. Located at the Friedman AI station in Free Market for various times and prices. Or if you want a less stressful experience, a 3 day length teleporter is also available in the in-game Store via the Gold Icon at the bottom for Space Points. These useful tools allow for teleportation of items within team space between ships and/or stations (if you’re docked at the station) provided those possessions are also in team-owned space. The item teleporter timer starts immediately after purchase so be prepared to equip it and utilize immediately!

Packing

Buy and equip the Item Teleporter then head to the location of your stations in a galaxy your team has ownership of. Open the Character window and then select the Possessions tab. Find the ship you wish to “store” your stuff in and right click and select Open Inventory. This will open a remote inventory window of the ship. Go ahead, leave that window open and then dock at the station you wish to pack up. Then highlight and drag and drop the items from the station inventory onto the remote ship inventory. This will make the items instantly transfer. Dock to another station and repeat.

Alternately, you can right click on a Station and select Open Inventory in the Possessions tab. It won’t display anything in the window but you can drag and drop the items onto that window to transfer them to that station (again restricted to an owned team galaxy).

Unpacking

Once you have ownership of a galaxy and laid the Stations in the locations you want for the galaxy, you can purchase and equip the Item Teleporter. Open the Character window and then select the Possessions tab. Find the ship you have your station items in and right click on it and then select Open Inventory. Dock at an appropriate station and drag and drop from the remote inventory window of the ship with your station items onto the station.

Again alternately you can do the same with a a station you deploy strictly to unload your stuff onto for sorting. Unpack the goods onto that station and then you can right click on another Station and select Open Inventory in the Possessions tab. It won’t display anything in the window but you can drag and drop the items onto that window to transfer them to that station.

Trade Bay Import/Export

Trade Bays can be exported or imported during the packing/unpacking process.

To Export, dock at your Station. Go to the Control tab. Press Trade Goods. Then press Export. This will open a window that allows you to copy paste the text for later importing. Follow the same process but press Import on the Add Trade Goods page when importing your template you’ve previously exported. This can be extremely useful for include things like your shop or a main production station, but also any trade bay that is worth re-using such as a colony or extraction setup.

Transferring Stations and Bots to Characters on the Same Account

One of the major changes of the last few universes has been the ability to transfer Stations and Bots within the same account! This helps streamline the ability of a player to centralize most of their Station construction builds and supplies onto a single character. To utilize this new feature – select your bot/station and press “X” if the menu below the targeting box is not visible. For stations, Transfer Ownership will be on “X” menu. For bots, you must press More Bot Options and then press Transfer Ownership. You must have a character, on the same account, that you wish to transfer to, offline within the same galaxy for it to be a valid choice, provided the receiving character has sufficient skills and/or slots for the transfer.

Bot Orders

A new search window has been added to help players better sort through the huge commodity lists. This should help players more quickly set buy and sell orders. We also have further improvements regarding orders coming in the near future!

We hope you take full advantage of these tools and enjoy a more efficient and less stressful universe reset experience. Happy packing and good luck in the next universe!

[Grand Empyreal Eclipse]

• Added a new galaxy and a 5-player limit instance boss to the empyrean layer next universe. Locked until 2 weeks into the new universe.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Updated Store icon to be Gold to better stand out against the rest of the icons.
• Updated Options Menu icons.
• Added a new “switch” button to options menu to go straight to the character select menu.
• Increased the minimum horizontal size of the ship inventory window so the cargo button is always visible.
• Fixed a client crash due to a tint texture corruption.
• Fixed a bug where the galaxy map used for bot jump orders would not display the correct galaxy if the player re-opened the map after disconnecting and reconnecting while the map was open.
• Fixed a bug with the bot order window that caused it to not hide when a player lost connection.
• Shield bar above ships no longer flickers when affected by a +max shield aura or tweak effects.
• Fixed an issue where colony suitability bonuses were improperly displayed as rounded down by one.
• Fixed an issue where 0 quantity item would display in the inventory window.
• When a context menu submenu opens and it hits a border of the screen – it will now open to the left instead of just float on top and be right most aligned.
• /ignore should now also ignore floating message from galaxy chat.
• Docking/Construction/Management Privileges can no longer be changed by scrolling the mouse wheel.
• Added “Link Item in Chat” to trade bay context menu.
• Made Base Cost, Average Buy, and Average Sell sort properly by numerical value in the Add Trade Good dialog.
• Sorting alphabetically in tables will now ignore whether or not the first letter is capital. (Previously did A-Z and then a-z).

[Item Changes]

• Shop sale on Station Skins for 1 SP.
• Non-physical Pulseguns, Magcannons, and Sebastopols now cause less knockback on impact with their target. Radiation weapons have increased knockback recoil on firing.
• Station Tech upgrades will now decay on reset.
• On Hit effects have been adjusted
  • On Hit Effect range no longer scales inversely with weapon range.
  • AoE ranges have been brought closer together.
  • Chain now has more jumps, and jumps do not do extra damage. The DPE of the longer jump chain weapons is lower.
  • Bounce ranges have been brought closer together, and have been given more bounces as well. The bounces no longer do extra damage, and their DPS and DPE have been adjusted accordingly.
  • Splash ranges have been increased significantly.
  • AoE ranges have been reduced.
• Corrected the periodic silicon cost of the Tycoon Shield Poltice Blueprint from 1 to 16200 to match the other periodic commodities.
• Changed descriptions for Team HQs and Team Outposts to remove outdated information on galaxy ownership.
• All Admixium blueprints now require 75% less ingredients. Rudimentary Admixium now takes Space Oats instead of Rations.
• Portable Ship Factories now state they can be used on space ships on item description.
• Multi factories now properly display as factories and will sort as such.
• Removed most sources of Trans Efficiency from tweaks and supers from game for now.
• Added the following note to Ship Tech Upgrade item tooltip: “Does not increase augmenter slots”.
• Fixed Masala Blend Tweak to correctly state 35% instead of 50% damage. This isn’t a stat change just fixing the description to reflect what’s actually occurring.
• Changed the maximum workforce of small warp beacons from 100 to 1000.
• Lustrous Cybernetic Nullifier Shrike and Luminous Cybernetic Nullifier Magpie damage were increased.
• Luminous Iterative Excavation Platform has had its surgical weapon changed into a pulse gun. It will do less damage but will shoot far more often.
• Redid visuals for Empyreal Transference, Celestial Surge Transference, and Celestial Astrarium Wand.
• Reduced spread angle of Molten Metal Sprayer.

[Universe Changes]

• Medium Fallen Station (Torpedo Station) now does a colliding chain effect (aka asteroids can block it) and has a drastically reduced chain range.
• Significantly reduced the knockback on Mother’s projectile weapon.
• Removed -Turning and -Thrust and added Engine Disabled debuff to Mother, T20 tractor boss. The debuff prevents any thrust but allows turning.
• Increased diameter of Psionic Glare.
• Reduced chain damage on Cybernetic Destroyer’s beams and increased projectile speed on its pulse.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Drastically reduced comet orbit time.
• Reduced the number of mobs that spawn in the Boreal Cliffs.
• Added the tech 5 Prototype Capital Fighter bay to East Vindia AI station trade bay.
• DG Mini Kasper mobs will no longer use their inbuilts.
• Reduced T1-T3 commodity drops by 25%-35% within Kalthi Depths.
• Added another fuel station to Deep Space.
• Changed the DG version of Nathaniel Courthope to have a respawn time of 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes to match the other DG lockouts.

[Server]

• Unqiuewidth items now behave similarly to other item with equip restriction, if another item is equipped it will first try to unequip it and “swap” the item instead of giving an error unless there is other requirements that are not met. (IE Equipping a Perilous Burst when Perilous Strength’s is equipped will now swap them instead of just error).
• Improved reaction time for Shields to start / stop charging.
• Trackers now store their information on the character and target can’t be changed by attempting to use another tracker of the same type. Trackers can now stack.
• Missiles now check for Collision Radius instead of center of an object when detonating.
• PVP timer will no longer get reapplied on impact while a player is in pod or spirit. This should make it less likely to be trapped in a gal because of damage over time on enemy ships.
• If /limbo fail due to bound item, a player can now do /limbo again within 30secs to execute a partial limbo. Ships that were causing the error will remain and it will limbo everything that it can.
• Added Remote Control 19 and 20 to content guide.
• Fixed engines and drone deployment issues on content guide.
• Updated the /help message for /limbo to clarify it works the whole universe not just first 72 hours.
• Item repairs are now capped to non-Item Exchange AI Station prices (when buy and sell).

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a bug in Twisted Honey that prevented getting kill for mission.
• Fixed a bug where Boss AI that regen to full for their phases also reset their hate when full.
• Fixed an issue with shield not charging when energy bank is bellow 10% even if that 10% would be more than enough to keep charging for a long time.
• Fixed bug with various degrading-over-time blockers Bosses used in endgame content.
• Radar range circles now update when range stats change.
• Projectile velocity augmenters and drone controllers will now properly increase projectile velocity of drones.
• Torpedos now properly handle projectile velocity augmod (for both ships and drones, neither worked before).
• Fixed a bug introduced in a previous patch where cloaks constantly applied their bonus instead of only when activated.
• Fix for some item exchange listing not showing up in /mc.
• Fixed a bug with the new /mc was not properly handling items that were removed from trade bay.
• Fix for a bug where a destroyed base could end up not updating its workers being used count.
• Active ship no longer attempts to switch when selling a non-active ship.
• Fixed bug with Nanobot repair drone where ‘repair field’ appeared to be on the repaired ship instead of the repaired item durability updating.
• Fixed Operative’s Desolator super item on the Pax Spatha, it will now impart Desolation.
• Fixed Operative’s Nook super item on the Pax Pugio, it will now impart 15 seconds of increased recoil after the reduced recoil effect wears off.
• Fixed display of flat thrust on neurotweak tooltip to display properly.
• Fixed issues where both Roaming Hermes were not spawning mobs correctly in Perilous Space.
• Fixed a bug with mining bots sometime getting stuck when commodities decay entirely.
• Fixed an issue with common and uncommon fighters that had their repair costs set too low.
• Fixed a bug that prevented disabling weapons when outside of Aurora’s bubble.

The Empyreal Concord’s rebellion against the Celestial Hand has been a tumultuous saga of conflict and strategy, with both sides suffering significant losses. So far, the Celestial Hand has managed to contain the fleets of the Empyreal Concord, using their vast resources and the help of numerous mercenaries. However, recent developments indicate that the Empyreal Concord is far from defeated.

In a bold and unprecedented move, one of the Empyreal Concord’s primary flagships has been detected, the Grand Empyreal Eclipse. Reports suggest that the Empyreal Concord has utilized a temporal attack, an advanced form of warfare designed to reset the progress made by the Celestial Hand and their allies.

The temporal attack signifies a desperate yet ingenious attempt by the Empyreal Concord to level the playing field and perhaps even turn the tide in their favor.

As the Celestial Hand scrambles to understand and mitigate the effects of this temporal weapon, the galaxy watches in anticipation. Will the Empyreal Concord’s gamble pay off, plunging the universe into further chaos and uncertainty?

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user stations, AI stations will no longer decay goods 7 days before end of the universe. Will be a reminder post.
• Bases, permanent drones, and the credits on active bots will be lost.
  • Player ships will not be affected.
• If you’re docked during the reset, you will spawn into the new universe using your docked active ship.
  • Careful not to spawn into the new universe in an immobile ship!
• Wild Space will be scrambled and receive a new map shape.
• All other layers will have the systems scrambled but contain the same shape.
• After a universe reset, all of your docked ships will be in a state of limbo allowing you to dock them all at any non-player station.  You can use the /limbo chat command only once to bring all of your docked ships back into limbo to dock them elsewhere. There is no longer a time limit.
  • You can purchase additional limbos via Limboing Tow Service at Friedman station in Free Market for 5 billion credits each.

PST: 10:00
MST: 11:00
CST: 12:00
EST: 13:00
UTC: 17:00
BST: 18:00

[Fractured Galaxies]

• Added Goop Colony blueprint to Building Academy that gives 100 mil population and rations.
• Change the cost of Goop Juice to be only Baobab ICs to only be half the baobab ICs and 6 sub shield buffers per run.
• Factories (basically everything but those on C&C station) will now be boosted by the goop fuel additive.

[Active IC System]

• Aveksakan Trophies changed from 1000000 weight to 10000000 weight, in alignment with Xenological Research Samples.
• Increased Brocades value by 50%.
• Changed cost of Colony Commodities, added Prevents Fast Travel (TSL, Transwarp, Item Teleporter) and Drop on Death.
• Adjusted T0-T1 Colony IC costs:
  • Spice Infused Confits: Fragrant Arrangements from 15 to 40, Intense Appetizers from 15 to 40.
  • Shimmering Astral Brocades: Pretty Decor from 8 to 40, Posh Virtual Butlers from 17 to 20.
  • Genetically Modified Trobbles: Pretty Decor from 9 to 40, Posh Virtual Butlers from 18 to 20.
  • Stimulating Crystalline Resonators: Fragrant Arrangements from 11 to 40, Milliways(tm) Bundles from 11 to 20.
  • Luminescent Dragon Scales: Pretty Decor from 6 to 40, Milliways(tm) Bundles from 9 to 20.
• Active ICs will have some randomization to their prices during events.
• Added colony commodities to the random events.
• Increased the number of items bases are willing to purchase from 1 to 3 during an event.
• Reduced commodity costs of Active Colony IC factories by 50%.
• Adjusted distribution of colony commodities in Wild Space.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Added a 2 seconds cooldown for “r”/dock key to undock you after docking, so spamming dock key to dock will not instantly undock you.
• Temporary Bonus window now orders from lowest time remaining to highest to better highlight the ones at the top are the ones that need to be re-activated/worried about.
• Changed Thrust gremlin effect from “Engine Disabled” to “Thrust Disabled”.
• Crash fix related to chat linking an item.
• Fix for inventory multiselecting not resetting when you click in it.
• Fix for drag and drop from inventory to ships in the docked ship list in station.
• Added “/SelfMsg message” to the game client, this simply write a message in a “self” tab. can be combined with /savecommands to have a custom chat tab with notes, /ap galaxy links and stuff like that.

[Item Changes]

• The following Field Generators electricity per second were changed:
  • Adonis Radiation Field increased to 10,000.
  • Argonaut Radiation Field increased to 12,400.
  • Ambrosia Radiation Field increased to 13,600.
  • Andaman Radiation Field increased to 15,200.
  • Adamantiumized Projection Field increased to 21,500.
• Replaced IC augmenters in Building Academy Entrance with new named augmenters that no longer decay on universe reset. The previous ones will still decay.
• Changed item description from “production” to “construction” on Base Construction speed items like Roverts, to be more clear.
• Changed Twisted Station, Bellarmine’s Mini Cathedral Rubicite Station Kit VI and the various Depot Station diameters to match their tech equivalent (Loaded,Lac,Dem,Ada) diameter size.
• Nemesis Pulse Cannon, Excise Pulse Cannon and Irradiating Pulse Blueprints from Bonnet now take a Venusian Pulse Gun instead of Mercurian Pulse Gun.
• Changed Electrical Tempering in super item descriptions to Electric Tempering to be consistent.
• All Hands on Deck super aura now only affects the users’ Personal Drones, instead of affecting all Allied Drones.
• Changed the Redbeard’s Temporal Tricks and Redbeard’s Temporal Translocator super items on Redbeard’s Rogue.
• Due to rounding error – some weapons recoil might change by roughly 100 ms but DPS and DPE should be unaffected.

[AI Changes]

• Updated Kalthi, Stellation, Cyborg and Zaphragi AI empire kits Transference Resistance from 40% to 75% to match player Adamantium Stations.
• Updated Demented Delquad’s Railgun to have a more visible projectile.
• Reduced -thrust tweak effect on Demented Delquadrakamdan significantly.
• Added new AI names.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Added Inferno Monitoring Outpost to Lavanite.
  • Moved mission chain for Infernal Tempest and Infernal Darkness to new station in Lavanite. Players will still start the chain in Sol, however the mission “Infernal Collection” will end in Lavanite instead of Earthforce Headquarters in Sol, and the rest of the chain will continue from there.
  • Altered Infernal Darkness chain to autostart the mission to kill Dark Diablo immediately after killing Dark Maelstrom to help prevent players getting locked out of Dark Diablo before starting his elimination mission.
  • Cleaned up some mission text in Infernal Tempest chain.
• Reworked Protoplasmic into a Goblin zone and made an instance (known bug with missions that gives error that’ll be hotfixed later).
• Converted the repeatable t22 skill commodity harvesting missions to 1 time only mission Item Exchange in the trade bay
• Added missing Perilous Burst single tweak to KD drop list.
• Reduced Tractor Power of Merchant Navy Seal Commanders.
• Added the following factories to “The Junkyard” for Station Gear Tokens: Gigantic Space Still, Gigantic Grav Testing Facility, Gigantic Lavatory Factory, Gigantic Dall Computers Assembly Plant, Gigantic Cybernetic Construction Facility, Gigantic Fembot Assembly Plant, Gigantic Iquea Workshop

[Server]

• Marketcheck should now be a lot more reliable when displaying prices / availability of items. Prices and quantity should update up to once per minute reliably.
• Marketcheck now include a short list of blueprint and factory using the item.
• Marketcheck now will list Item Exchanges (Alternative Currency) locations and items traded for.
• Added Warp Navigation 3 to Neural Boost.
• Drone show stat sources now indicate which bonuses are coming from the ship
• Base Scanning now checks for safety lock.
• Added ability to destroy Colony Enhancements and Station Skins with same requirements as augmenters.
• Paid Space Blue skins now apply to Red Rogue ships.

[Bug Fixes]

• Adjusted all the uptimes for the buff station field gens so they show as blank on the tweak manager like most other Field Gens.
• Fixed a bug where you would instantly enter stasis instead of receiving an error message when attempting to tow within 30sec of having towed.
• Added a same account exception to when transferring a station when not on the same squad or team.
• Fixed a bug that listed “yourself” from the list when doing station or bot transfer.
• Fixed for a few mines still not being 0 size.
• Added potential fix for on hit effect weapon sometime hitting a friendly.
• Fixed a bug that prevented station selling item from listing.

The Paxian Operatives have been monitoring the nefarious Red Rogues and their efforts to pillage our universe for what resources they can steal. Amidst the charred remains from many of their pirate ships were notes for an upcoming invasion of our universe. No doubt in a bid to expand their pocket dimension, they’ve drawn up extensive plans to steal our universe’s entire fabric of reality in one fell swoop.

The technological prowess needed, as well as the infrastructure, is far beyond what the Paxian Operatives believed the pirates were capable of. During an ensuing fight to protect our universe from the invaders, the intense weapons fire from both sides destroyed our universe’s fabric of reality in its entirety.

In an effort to make up for their unusually brash actions, the Operatives had assigned a fleet dedicated to creating a new layer of fabric, one beautiful Pax-style quilt at a time. Unfortunately, the Red Rogues returned and stole their entire prized patchwork. Without the supplies needed to make another, Lyceum predicts an unstoppable collapse of our universe.

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user stations, AI stations will no longer decay goods 7 days before end of the universe. Will be a reminder post.
• Bases, permanent drones, and the credits on active bots will be lost.
  • Player ships will not be affected.
• If you’re docked during the reset, you will spawn into the new universe using your docked active ship.
  • Careful not to spawn into the new universe in an immobile ship!
• Wild Space will be scrambled and receive a new map shape.
• All other layers will have the systems scrambled but contain the same shape.
• After a universe reset, all of your docked ships will be in a state of limbo allowing you to dock them all at any non-player station.  You can use the /limbo chat command only once to bring all of your docked ships back into limbo to dock them elsewhere. There is no longer a time limit.
  • You can purchase additional limbos via Limboing Tow Service at Friedman station in Free Market for 5 billion credits each.

PST: 10:00
MST: 11:00
CST: 12:00
EST: 13:00
UTC: 17:00
BST: 18:00

[Active IC Changes]

• Click here to read more details.

[V Formation Changes]

• Ships in V formation will no longer “snap” / “lock” to your side while in combat or going faster then 20 speed. Outside of this they will need to use their own turning, thrust to get into position.
• Bot will now shoot if possible while trying to get back into formation.
• Added the ability for bots to use braking when trying to get into position.
• Players can now control the distance bots prioritize shooting before trying to get back into formation via Leash Distance while in V Formation.
• Adjusted the logic for Mag Canons, Pulse Guns, and Torpedo weapon types for AI/Bots/Drones when expecting to hit to be more accurate.
• Free Combat Bot reset will be added to Shadow.

[Client/UI Changes]

• New Store with items such as but not limited to:
  • Additional Character slots.
  • Neural Boost to T20 for most skills.
  • Augmenter Reset (plus a cheaper NB version).
  • Station Skins items (you cannot change/remove after applying item to a station similar to an augmenter).

• Added new Temporary Bonus window that can be toggled via the F10 menu. It displays tweaks, their amounts and the time left they have.
• Fixed a bug that caused item linked tool tips to crash the client when clicked.
• Floaties no longer vanish if the object is targeted and object type is check marked under section of “Display Float Icons” under Display Options.
•  Alt+Click no longer unequips items when clicking hotbar. This was removed due to limitations with how windows works with alt+tab causing alt to get stuck on and unequip items while players trying to use their hotbar.
• Fixed a bug that would cause inventory window to constantly close on undock after completing a mission that would grant items. Inventory window will now only force close if it was previously not opened prior to completing the mission.
• Added various tooltips, adjusted search boxes for consistency, added a exit button to the bot jump order map and various other little UI adjustments.
• Added support for Search in Buy, Sell and Dock commands within the Edit Orders bot menu.
• Fixed various bugs with tweaks not updating (not clearing on switching character, displaying player owned drone/station auras, etc.).
• Improved generic dialog (/mc, blackbox) to be resizable, and auto-sizing when opened to be applicable to more types of text display.
  • Hull scanning now uses this type of message.
• Scanning a planet now does popup text of the scan if within 1k distance.
• Fix for Ruby Wingship skin’s glow causing the ships to white out.
• Updated various references from Base to Station.
• Chat Timestamps are defaulted on.
• ESC key no longer undocks the player from stations. The “R” keybind now correctly undocks additionally to docking.
• Fixed issue where minimized clients would continue to use large amounts of CPU as if they weren’t minimized.
• [Beta Client Only] Added ability for most of the client now to scale with font size but significant parts of UI is not currently designed for such and may result in clipped or cutoff text. Feel free to use at your own risk while we update the interface to handle.

[Item Changes]

• Push type tractors are now using a different physics formula for how they push and are generally stronger when up close and weaker when farther away. Their stats have changed.
• Removed Particles from the Eyezer of Light and Zauron’s Floating Eyezer.
• All mines are now zero size. Any ships that have mines that cannot be removed will now no longer lose hull from having mines in their inventory.
• Made item multi-factories stack and added the interval to their description.
• Removed NCC-Bulk from requirements from NCC-Special Blueprint and made it produce a NCC-Special Upgrade ship item instead.
• Heavy Bloodstained Ares Sapper Drone incorrectly had Heavy Bloodstained Mars Shield and Energy instead of Ares. Item now displays correctly as a rare quality
• Updated the following items Qualities: Particle Brake to Uncommon, Sing Brake to Rare and Quantum Brake to Exotic.
• Made the T22 Boss Skill commodities decay at the same length as the T20 commodities.

[Missions]

•  Added Trade bay exchange for NCC-Bulk at East Vindia for 20 Trader Insignia after completing the “NCC-Bulk” mission (Will need to be live edited).

[Universe Changes]

• The boss copies spawned by Infernus now use additional prefixes in their names to better distinguish them as copies from the original bosses.
• Adjusted Lunarian gear drop rates to be more aligned with Selenite gear drops.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Reduced the number of asteroids in Blanco from 1,000 to 300.
• Pirate Maboule will only roam in Warp 1 instead of infinitely across EarthForce Space layer.
• Updated the first three rift wormholes in Vulcan to be closer to the centers. Locked the wormhole to Bedrock Depths until the mission to kill Infernus is available.
• Re-added roaming Zebucarts to EarthForce Space, Perilous Space, Kalthi Depths and Wild Space.
• Reduced the Resistance to Damage of Lunarian Avengers spawn with.

[Server]

• Added the ability to transfer bots and player stations to offline characters on the same account so long as you are in the same galaxy. When an item is both Neurobound and Unable to be Put in Storage – it will prevent transfer.
• Bot/AI now factor in scoop range/ship size when using their scoop. Should improve the reaction, speed and feeling of using a bot to scoop loot.
  • Hint: hold shift and right click while a combat bot is highlighted to send multiple scoop commands.
• The server now auto displays in the construction tab if a blueprint builds multiple and what the qty is.
• Missions that reward both skill and item will no longer be hidden from player if they already have the skill.
• Muted player can now invite non team members / mutual friends , every 2 minute. Inviting teammates or mutual friends do not affect the cooldown.
• Fixed Event notifications not having a duration for the initial announcement when an event starts. Removed IC active announcement when an event ends, since we have the duration on login now.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a bug where toggling auto repair would cause Pop-Up Messsage options such as Damage Inflicted, Damage Recieved, etc to disable.
• Transferring a bot will now restore its skin to default if the new owner doesn’t own that skin.
• Adding a space before listing item as there was a lack of a space previously in the error string for transferring a Neurobound item.
• Fixed a bug that caused Imperial Tweaking and Station Tweaking to apply to Station Kit inbuilt augmods.
• Fixed a bug with Out of Combat that caused it to turn on if you didn’t fire.
• Fix for a short duration bug with Rate of Fire when electrical tempering changed.
• Fix bug where teammates attacking bots could make teammates personal enemies.

The Economic Assault update has been live for about six weeks and it’s already made a big impact on the Star Sonata economy. We’ve seen high levels of participation in the Active IC events (including a fair bit of good natured PvP) and a lot of productive experimentation with the Colony IC system as well. We have been loving all the engagement on the community Discord server when it comes to questions and comments about the new system. Let’s dig into some of the key feedback we’ve received and a few updates we are planning for the near future.

Key Feedback and Upcoming Changes

One significant piece of feedback was regarding the location of sale events for the lowest tier of Active ICs. Players rightly pointed out that holding these events in the Earthforce Layer could lead to trade bot automation, circumventing the “active” in Active IC. To address this, we have moved these events to Perilous Space.

Feedback from early entrepreneurs in the Colony IC space led to another big discovery. There was an unnecessarily complicated interaction between colony population and an internal “maximum storage” custom value that could be set on each commodity. The upshot was that four of the five Colony IC’s were achieving maximum sale volume at around 1 billion colony population, while the fifth Colony IC (Genetically Modified Trobbles) was never reaching its intended sale volume. This is also the reason why the Storehouse bonuses on colony enhancement items were absurdly large, yet didn’t seem to have much effect. We have torn up this old code in favor of a simpler version, while still keeping much of the well studied theory of colonies intact.

1. The trade volume of a colony now depends only on its population and its Storehouse bonus (if a colony enhancement is present). It no longer depends directly on your level of Colonial Administrator since higher suitability means more population anyway. This is a substantial buff to any colonies that are not owned by Colonial Administrator characters.
2. Storehouse bonuses now do exactly what they sound like: a colony with +80% Storehouse will buy 80% more of every commodity than it otherwise would, increasing your revenue by 80%.
3. As part of simplifying the formula for colony sales, we have made a few numerical adjustments so that the net impact on traditional commodities (e.g. Nuclear Waste, Entertainers) is neutral or a slight buff for mature colonies. Since the Storehouse bonuses on colony enhancement items are now a lot more impactful than before, we’ve adjusted the size of those bonuses on some of the items to keep their overall impact on colony revenue roughly constant.
4. As was always intended, the five Colony IC’s will now only trade in large volumes when the colony is mature. We have run fresh tests on the new system to make sure that the optimal credit sourcing of these commodities is aligned with our design. The tests confirmed that Colony IC nodes are tremendously valuable if occupied by a mature colony and traded with in an optimal fashion. As part of these adjustments, we have also modestly increased the peak sales volume of Colony IC’s so that you can not only get back to the bugged rate but even exceed it by 9% with a really good colony.

These changes will be in the next patch, expected by the end of March.

Future Plans and Adjustments

We’ve also identified some aspects that we’d like to adjust, but we need to wait until the end of the current universe. The biggest change relates to the distribution of the original five colony commodities in Wild Space (e.g. Dragon Eggs, Astral Silk). We have roughly twice as many sources of these commodities compared to last universe, meaning that there is way more supply of these commodities than mature Colony IC nodes are willing to consume. I am working with Bobbo to adjust the universe generation code so that in the next universe we will have more control over how many sources of these commodities appear. In the meantime, it’s unfortunately the case that there will not be as much demand for these commodities as projected, since the supply is about twice as high as we had forecast. To any players who aggressively claimed colony commodity sources in anticipation of liquidating these commodities via Colony IC nodes, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and assure you that the relative abundance of colony commodities to Colony IC nodes will be much more dialed in starting next universe.

When it comes to the Active IC sale events, we feel that they have been the standout success of the system and certainly don’t want to derail that success. We just want to inject a little bit more randomness to help keep traders and pirates on their toes. Our plan is to randomize the event locations so that you can’t predict where each Active IC will be sold next time, and also introduce some random variations in the price that the server will pay during each event. Our idea is that these measures will help keep the events fresh and also add a bit more nuance to the strategies around shop pricing.

Lastly, toward the end of the current universe we will take stock of the consumption rate of Active IC’s, colony commodities, and Colony IC’s. Depending on our findings, we may make some adjustments to the volume of ingredients that go into making Colony IC’s. We have high hopes for this new economy and are committed to doing things carefully and methodically. We understand that it takes a lot of time and effort on the part of the players to learn and begin to profit from a new system like this, so whenever we make adjustments we’ll endeavor to keep things simple and conservative in scope to avoid invalidating the knowledge you have gained about the system.

Conclusion

It’s been a real pleasure to see players from all corners of the game trying out the new economic systems and sharing their thoughts in the chats. We believe that the release of the Active IC economy marks the beginning of a very positive new direction for Star Sonata. We are committed to closely monitoring the economy’s evolution and methodically adjusting its various components when necessary. Our aim is to promote a healthy amount of collaboration and competition in the economy of the game, while ensuring that every individual player has multiple paths to profit from their time online.

Stay tuned for more updates and developments in the Star Sonata universe!

[Active IC System]

• Click here to read more.

[Wild Space]

• Front loaded more galaxies for reveals and removed two of the later galaxy reveal stages.
• Lowered the quantity of common galaxies and boosted the presence of other qualities.
• Termite Siege penalty conditions are now additive instead of multiplicative and capped. This should tune down the extreme cases when not perfectly defending multiple times in a row.
• Added new Dismantle & Disrupt kit to Base Academy Entrance at the “Advanced Station Research Facility” AI station that can be deployed in any unowned wild space galaxy.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Created a new skin called “Orchid Fears” for Earthforce, Trepidation Frigate, and Red Photon Ships.
• Added Trepidation Frigate and Red Photon Ships to Earthforce Teal Edition.
• Added a new skin called Pesto Masala for the Masala.
• Added two new skins for the Crystalline Shard and Crystalline Chelonia called: Schwartze Quartz and Howlite Spite.
• Added Demented Dreams skin for Fallen ships.
• Added Koto Zebucart and Ferrite Zebucart skins.
• Bug fix for moving the radar dialog.

[Item Changes]

• Adjusted the following inbuilt super items:
  • Matriarchal Overwhelming Fury: Damage +75%, Recoil -20 to Damage +50%, Recoil -40%.
  • Fallen Shelling Focus: Damage +70% to Damage +50%, Recoil -20%.
  • Forerunner’s Shelling Focus: Damage +70% to Damage +50%, Recoil -20%. Only applies to your own drones now instead of allies drones. Still applies to self as well.
  • Masala Blend: Recoil -50% to Recoil -33%, Damage +50%.
  • Bisarme Bombard: Damage +75% to Damage +50%, Recoil -20%.
  • Operative’s Nook: Recoil -60% to Recoil -40%, Damage +50%.
• Removed station lasers from the following drones: Highway drone, Advanced Highway Drone, Motorway Drone, Autobahn Drone.
• Updating Space Blue Prototype to use its own model instead of using the Hunter’s model.
• Changed Olympus Drone Blueprints to 3 uses and replaced the weapon with the uncommon drone version.
• Renamed duplicate misspelled “Hannukkah Candles” to “Hanukkah Candles”.
• Converted item cookbooks (multi-factories) into base class items instead of equipment.

[Skills]

• Added (66% efficiency) to the shield stealing line in shield monkey skill description.

[Missions]

• Updated Infernal Pirate Augmenters mission to split Goblins and Infernos lore wise as they are no longer related.
• *Fixed text errors in Augmenter Tweaking mission “Art of Class Augmenters” to clearly state “four” augmenters are required instead of saying two in some places.
• Updated “Beat ‘em to it!” mission in Wolf 359 to clarify the wreck location is to the northwest to spawn the AI to kill.
• Fixed “Kendalite Harvesting” to properly state 15 Kendalite needed instead of 25 in the mission text.
• Fixing a bug with “Ultimate Art of Destruction Augmenter Token” mission that had it set to 12,000 level minimum instead of 2,000 like the rest of the Ultimate Art missions.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Increased the range that Hidden Lyceum Observation Platform can be detected in Olympus Entrance.
• Fixed issue with lack of new energy drops in KD DGs and adjusted drop distribution.
• AI spawned by Red Rouge trackers now grant XP.
• Fixed Kumari to Lyceum Research Wormhole connection.
• Updated the Paxian Defensive Order and Paxian Offensive Order missions, part of the Paxian Dispatch Orders daily in Subspace, to have forcefield visuals to indicate target immunity states and shouts to assist the player. The hatchery fight for the Paxian Offensive Order mission now spawns Sahvitra eggs over time until the target is killed, and the target will gain/lose immunity depending on the number of its fighters and allies remaining.
• Reduced the drop rate of Apprentice’s Ward.
• Made Polaris Wreck and Icy Rubble untargetable in Arctia as new players were trying to shoot it.
• Expanded the Arctia’s sun illumination from 3k to 10k so low tech players can see the roids.
• Reduced Trade Bay Exchange Metals cost for Vulcan Mining Blaster from 50 to 25 in Vulcan.

[Server]

• AI Station Selling/Undo:
  • Players can now only sell items on ships (including via remote interface) that your main ship is docked at.
  • Undo now covers remote selling items being sold to AI stations while you are docked. (Reminder: undocking clears the undo list.)
• ‘Show Stats’ is now enabled for Stations.
• Bots guarding an object in teamed owned galaxies will no longer persist after the character logs off.
• Updated kick message if the character has stations to clearly state their stations will be destroyed.
• Blueprints that produce ship upgrades will now have their quality tier match that of the ship
• Deployed Temporary drones now count as part of your equipped limit.
• Extended Mod now states Reservoir, Protection or Space depending on item type instead of just “Max”.
• Amplified Mod now states 20% Reservoir or Protection instead of Max Bank to clarify it is not an augmod and is only modifying the item itself.
• Dynamic, Overclocked, Forceful, Reinforced and Buffered Mods clarified for situations where it isn’t an augmod.

[Bug Fixes]

• Applied a fix for a bug with AI station trade bay economy producing/consuming slower than they should when galaxy is in idle state.
• Fixed bug with Transfer All and Transfer Type with not removing cargo tag.
• Fixed issue when transferring items with a cargo tag creating new stacks instead merging into an existing stack.
• Fix display issue of buffs when affected by multiple values (was only displaying first entered rather than the best one that was actually applying).
• Fixed for a bug that caused damage tracking to not properly reset when not ai was not in combat.

Hello Sonatians! We have two exciting new projects that will go live with the upcoming Universe Reset on February 3. While these two projects are very different in the specifics, they stem from one core vision that we have for Star Sonata: we want to give players fresh and exciting ways to collaborate and compete with each other as they progress through the game. So let’s dive right in!

Active Industrial Commodities

Industrial Commodities have been in the game for ages and were originally envisioned as a way for players to liquidate extracted resources for credits, providing a simpler passive income process to the somewhat arcane art of colonial administration. Over time, the Industrial Commodity economy has become increasingly automated and saturated to the point that it’s not living up to the vision that originally created it. We’ve decided to graft an active-play component onto the existing Industrial Commodity system that, while entirely optional, may yield a lucrative credits-per-hour rate for players who choose to pursue it.

Vision

We’ve known for quite some time now that we need to do a better job of rewarding players for going out into the universe and playing the game with each other. Our previous changes to Dungeons and Instanced Content are an example of our commitment to this. This project focuses on augmenting the Wild Space economy to promote these goals, relying on two main principles:

1. New sources of passive income should have a connection to active gameplay.

2. Players should be substantially rewarded for participating in the player-driven market as opposed to running their industries entirely solo.

A huge difference between the existing Industrial Commodity economy and the new system we’ve created is the reduction* of demand-side scarcity. When players are limited in the amount of commodities they can sell, this encourages them to keep everything in-house and discourages player markets. If a credit source can dry up when too many players are selling, the best thing to do is to max it out on your own and not share it with anyone. As you read the details of the Active IC project below, note that we’ve reduced* demand bottlenecks to encourage a player market to develop.

Per our core vision for this project, the raw goods that feed into the Active IC system have to be gathered via a substantial active play component. This ensures a linkage between credit generation and player activity, which in turn means that everyone has something profitable to do the minute they log into the game.

Three-Sector Model

Taken together, these goals drive us toward establishing a three-sector game economy (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_model for more on this). In the first sector, Gatherers collect raw materials while playing the game. In the second sector, these raw materials are refined by Manufacturers. In the third sector, the refined goods are sold to AI bases (or colonies) by Traders for credits.

Note that Gathering requires active play, while Manufacturing requires bases and trade bots (passive play). Trading will require active play for some commodities, and passive play for others. This means that players with holdings in Wild Space are free to Gather and Trade as well. However, it will be impractical for any one player to specialize into Gathering, Manufacturing, and Trading. This means that avoiding participating in the broader market is disincentivized and players should instead find it more profitable to do business with each other.

Wild Space Resource Flow

There are two types of commodities that will be added in this upcoming universe.

The first are actively-sourced Industrial Commodities (Active ICs). These take a single commodity that can be gathered in the game (such as a Blue Dust or Rosemary Sprig) and combine it with basic materials to produce an Active IC (a Fragrant Arrangement in this case). Each new Active IC can then be sold to special AI bases that will only buy it when an event is active and indicating it can be sold. The factories that make these commodities can be purchased in Capella. So, if you’re looking for a new way to build wealth in the game, you can spend some time farming commodities and converting them into Active ICs, which you can then hold and sell during the new events or else sell them to other players who will have their own uses for them (read on…)

The other new kind of commodity are the Colony Industrial Commodities (Colony ICs). These commodities require ordinary colony commodities (such as Astral Silk or Dragon Eggs) to be purchased from colonies and then combined with a variety of Active ICs and regular ICs. The resulting Colony ICs (​​Shimmering Astral Brocades or Luminescent Dragon Scales, in this case) can be sold to certain special colonies that are on planets capable of purchasing Colony ICs. There are only a limited number of these special planets in Wild Space, and they are only found in galaxies whose quality is Rare or higher. The factories that make Colony ICs are constructed with a blueprint that can only be acquired as a drop from Perilous Space. These factories require Goop to build, so you will need to secure some Goop from a Fractured Galaxy if you are lucky enough to claim a colony that can purchase Colony ICs.

While Colony ICs require colonies in order to passively liquidate assets for credits, these colonies can’t earn anything for their owners unless they also obtain Active ICs as well. Similarly, while Active IC factories and the raw materials from Wild Space are the only way to manufacture higher quality Active ICs, they can only do so if they connect with Gatherers. And in all cases, we have set up these new economies with limited* demand-side scarcity. Suppose you’re a player who is lucky enough to own a colony that purchases Shimmering Astral Brocades; since your fully mature colony will purchase a very large number of these items*, you have every incentive to buy Astral Silk from everyone in the universe who can provide it… at the right price, of course! You’ll also buy the Active ICs that go into making Shimmering Astral Brocades, creating multiple market relationships between yourself and Gatherers and Manufacturers.

What’s the role of the Gatherer?

The Gatherer wants to figure out what they can farm the easiest for the highest profit per hour. So they’re going to search the Market Check to see which station is buying the commodities they can gather with the least amount of effort. Then, they’re going to gather as much of these commodities as they can and sell them to the highest bidder before they end their session. Additionally, highly active Gatherers may also keep a keen eye out for the new kind of server-wide event in which a randomly selected Active IC will be purchased by an AI base at a generous price.

What’s the role of the Manufacturer?

The Manufacturer puts money and capital up on a base, buys the materials from other players, and subsequently sells them at a markup to players who bring them to the relevant AI bases during the sale event. Otherwise, the Manufacturer can hoard them and try to sell the materials themselves. Manufacturers who control colonies with commodities such as Astral Silk and Dragon Eggs will likely find that these items are now demanded by other players!

What’s the role of the Trader?

The Trader spends time looking to get good deals on various Active ICs, so they’ll be checking the prices to see how things look. They’ll also watch for cheap farmed commodities that can be sold to Manufacturers. If a surge in demand happens, they will take whatever they have stockpiled and haul them to the station with the demand surge. If they are selling one of the three Common Active ICs, they can safely offload them in Earthforce Space. However, if they want to sell the higher quality Active ICs, they will need to venture into Perilous Space. Because of this, they may need to enlist the help of other players to defend them while they bring the commodities to the base in question so that they can safely sell their goods.

What are Surges in Demand?

Intermittently, throughout the week, certain Active IC’s will be infinitely demanded by specific AI bases in Earthforce or Perilous Space, at a generous price. The Active IC will be specifically indicated in an event notification. During this time, players can sell as much of these commodities as they can move at a time to these AI bases.

Conclusion

By implementing a three-sector economy in Star Sonata, we’re creating new ways to generate credits through active play, deeper manufacturing paths to wealth, and most importantly, the potential for greatly increased interaction in the player-driven market. The Active IC and Colony IC system should create many new opportunities to collaborate with others in the economy, and just as many opportunities for healthy competition as well!

*Edit from Enk (2024-02-13): I helped Hober write the section on Active IC’s but I must have had a bit too much of Doctor L’s Cure-All Life Tonic at the time because I mistakenly wrote that there is absolutely no demand-side scarcity of Colony IC’s. I have edited the offending lines in this post to be more representative of the system. If you happen to control a colony that purchases Colony IC’s, what you need to know is that you definitely should grow that colony’s population up to mature levels in order to see large sales volumes, but if you do so you will find that it buys a TON of the relevant Colony IC, most likely far greater than you and a few friends could source on your own.

Fractured Galaxies

Fractured Galaxies are special galaxies in Wild Space that can’t be owned by any team. Consequently, they are pretty risky to occupy since you can be attacked by any player at any time. We envision Fractured Galaxies as a way for advanced players to flex their strength and potentially work off some ancient grudges against their opponents. As our first universe with Fractured Galaxies draws to a close, we’ve reflected on the  feedback we’ve received and have some adjustments queued up that should greatly improve how they work. Players generally found that Goop, the special commodity you obtain in Fractured Galaxies, wasn’t useful enough to warrant the risk of obtaining it. We are addressing this concern by making Goop essential in the Colony IC system (detailed above) and will continue to iterate until its value is in the right spot. We also received feedback that assaulting a Fractured Galaxy was nigh on impossible when the defender was heavily fortified. To allow for more contest over these Goop sources, a new station kit is going to be added in the coming universe.

Given that we’ve had some enjoyable battles over Command and Control stations, this new station is going to follow a similar gameplay loop. If you would like to disrupt someone’s stations in an unowned galaxy to make attacking them easier, you would place a Disrupt and Dismantle Station station in their galaxy. You would then have to construct one of two Station Disruption Field Generators on that station to begin disrupting all stations in the galaxy. This includes all friendly, neutral and enemy stations except for the station generating the disruption field.

These auras debuff damage, rate of fire, and shield regeneration of all other stations in the galaxy but differ in build time and strength of the debuff. The stronger aura generator takes about as long to build as a Nullification Generator. This is where we see an experience similar to a Command and Control station. If you get a notification that a Disruption station is placed in your galaxy, you’d better get in there and destroy the attackers’ station or pretty soon they’ll make your stations in the galaxy much more vulnerable to siege!

If you are looking to lay siege to someone else’s Fractured Galaxy, be aware that these Station Disruption Field Generators are not cheap. Fortunately their build costs are primarily periodic materials and are aligned with materials generally used for building strong stations. If you get a third of the way into building one and defending the disruption station isn’t going well, it may be wise to abandon ship and cut your losses on that build!

Additional Changes

To help make the process of getting colonies established, and to promote their broader use, the Colony Booster base items (e.g. Mobile Mani-Pedi SalonBot Housing) will no longer decay on reset. Instead they will be sticky, meaning once equipped they cannot be unequipped. Now you can store as many of these boosters as you’d like!

Lyceum has been partying hard over the holidays, having drunken enough spiced eggnog that not even Dr. L’s Cure-All has helped them fully recover. In their hungover state, they were too late to discover the Red Rogue’s latest scheme: the illegal harvesting of our universe’s very fabric of reality!

Although Lyceum has yet to reach a breakthrough in understanding the motive of the Red Rogues, a spokesperson for the pirates had this to say: “We only take small amounts of these exotic woven fibers for the purposes of creating warm blankets for the endangered space cats of Universe-8472. For more information about our ethical harvesting practices please schedule an appointment and one of our Redbeards will be with you shortly.”

Despite this, Lyceum field researchers found that over 70% of the fabric was being ripped apart and left behind, with intense harvesting often dangerously concentrated to only a handful of regions. When confronted about these tears in reality, the Red Rogues “called us nerds and dunked our ships into those tears in reality.” With the damage already done, Lyceum predicts an unstoppable collapse of our universe.

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user stations, AI stations will no longer decay goods 7 days before end of the universe. Will be a reminder post.
• Bases, permanent drones, and the credits on active bots will be lost.
  • Player ships will not be affected.
• If you’re docked during the reset, you will spawn into the new universe using your docked active ship.
  • Careful not to spawn into the new universe in an immobile ship!
• Wild Space will be scrambled and receive a new map shape.
• All other layers will have the systems scrambled but contain the same shape.
• After a universe reset, all of your docked ships will be in a state of limbo allowing you to dock them all at any non-player station.  You can use the /limbo chat command only once to bring all of your docked ships back into limbo to dock them elsewhere. There is no longer a time limit.
  • You can purchase additional limbos via Limboing Tow Service at Friedman station in Free Market for 5 billion credits each.

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