NOTE: If you haven’t read the first blogpost, Neuroforge Update: Forging Items, you might want to check it out before reading this one.

We’re excited to unveil updates for the Gunner and Ranger classes as part of the Neuroforge overhaul. These changes focus on diversifying viable playstyles and refining mechanics to keep things fresh. These changes aim to add flexibility and new dynamics while staying true to the core identities of each class. Let’s break down what you can expect.

Ranger Rework

The Ranger class still retains its long-range stealth playstyle but now offers more flexibility. Compared to Sniper it has less range and tracking, is no longer a glass cannon, and replaced the Sniper Analyzer with a Ranger Scope for faster and chunkier damage buildup.

The core distinction between Sniper and Ranger is that Sniper had much greater stealth, range, and tracking bonuses. Sniper was all about maximizing range, with a high-damage mechanic that benefits from focusing down a target over a 2 minute and longer time scale. But this came with limitations: it was slow to ramp up damage, being near useless in short-duration fights, and depended exclusively on range and stealth for survival. Ranger brings down these extremes, making it less reliant on its fragile glass-cannon nature, allowing for more diverse strategies. The fine tuning we’ve been doing in the closed beta has been aimed towards making sure Ranger can still perform in the old long range stealthy style, while making sure that the playstyle is not the de facto way to play Ranger going forwards. We expect that what we’ve accomplished here is a class that can be played in a greater variety of styles, including the old glass cannon Sniper style. Maybe someone will come up with an offtank Ranger, or a non stealthy duelist focusing on grinding tough enemies down head to head.

Damage Ramping

One of the key new mechanics is the Ranger Scope, which works similarly to the Sniper Analyzer but ramps up much faster, in 25 seconds rather than 2 minutes. Marking a target by landing an Empowered Shot, automatically available every 5 seconds, builds up stacks on the target. These marks echo every other preexisting marks damage each time they are applied, letting you amplify your damage against a target without forcing you to tunnel vision the target.

Unlike the Sniper Analyzer which forces you to focus on a single target, Ranger can spread marks across multiple enemies. Marks decay slowly on a per target basis, allowing you to stack damage across multiple targets without fear of losing your damage bonus. By ramping up the Ranger’s damage on a per target basis, we allow the Ranger to freely choose its targets based on what they consider the highest priority to be. At the same time, Marks are not applied to extra targets via On Hit weapon effects. This means that Splash/Chain/etc will not apply a mark, nor does the extra damage done to the main target from the Marks echoes apply to extra targets damaged via on hit weapon effects either.

As you can see, the new system is really chunky. Your damage ramps up, but it ramps up in a ratcheted way. We have to be really careful to prevent excessive variance. We don’t want too much variance because it will be unsatisfactory to the player if they want a critical hit but don’t get one, and a player on the receiving end will feel really bad if they get hit with a lucky empowered critical hit. When we have such chunky damage already baked into the class, we don’t want the added variance of criticals. Because of this, Empowered Shots get a multiplier from the average critical damage bonus calculated from your Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Strength and are not allowed to critically hit.

Damage Mitigation

Sniper doesn’t have much mitigation on the live server. While they do get shields from Combat Focus and stealth/range from Stalking and Sharpshooting to stay away from damage, they’re not mobile and don’t have much of an ability to react to incoming damage or avoid it. They have to rely on range and stealth to bring their full damage to bear, and in a squad setting they often aren’t allowed to make good use of their range and stealth. We don’t think the class has good mitigation, and we think this gets in the way of the class performing consistently. We’ve addressed this by introducing two key mechanics: a mobility aura and Grit. The mobility aura activates when your speed drops to 0, giving you a brief boost to Thrust and Speed to reposition or retreat when needed. This ensures that even an unagile Ranger has the ability to reposition quickly, without feeling like you’re playing a Recon Focus class.

More significant is the addition of Grit, which stores a portion of incoming damage as a parasite that deals that damage over the next 30 seconds. This gives Rangers more time to mitigate or avoid incoming damage, and killing the enemy that caused the damage instantly removes the stored Grit. With Survivalist, an advanced subskill, you can increase Grit accumulation based on the marks you’ve applied, further enhancing survivability. Grit adds a new mitigation layer for survival. By spreading damage over time, you get more opportunities to eliminate threats before receiving their full damage. This system synergizes well with Shield Regeneration, making Rangers highly durable while offering different combat roles, from stealth sniper to brawler… which is why we’ve also added Shield Regeneration to the skill! However, this effect only works when you’re piloting a heavy fighter.

Heavy Fighter? Light Fighter?

Speaking of Heavy Fighter, when you’re flying one your overloaders are twice as powerful! This gives you additional build flexibility, so if you really want a long range build you can select an overloader that grants range to specialize in it. The same skill that gives the player access to Grit also gives 30% Shield Recharge and Damage in a Heavy Fighter. With Grit being so core to Heavy Fighter, we should see more players preferring to use a hull befitting a Combat Focus. With these changes, some may still opt for a Light Fighter. However, that will be a choice made with some risky defensive drawbacks and a loss of a damage bonus. We’re really excited to see what players do with this, and people will find ways to use it that we haven’t even thought about.

NOTE: We have tuned the numbers so that the stealthy Sniper playstyle can still exist, while also encouraging other playstyles to evolve.

Gunner Enhancements

Gunner is a class that relies heavily on stacking weapon damage to maximize the various Advanced Targeting Computers it has, allowing it to copy its high single target damage and spread it to multiple other targets at very high ranges. You also have access to missiles, but they are difficult to land in chaotic fights. Because of this, Gunner feels like a one-dimensional class. There is one meta way to play it, and that is as a long range multi target artillery piece. Our goal is to diversify its viable builds and emphasize Gunner’s role as a Fleet Focus class, capable of significantly enhancing squad damage output.

Shifting the Meta

Gunner has traditionally been about pushing weapon damage bonuses for massive Deathblossom output, but we’re moving towards a more dynamic set of mechanics with the removal of the Deathblossom and the introduction of the Targeting Computer. This allows Gunners to fire fewer but more consistent shots (with no firing arc limitations if they are projectiles), ensuring that every shot hits something even in chaotic battlefields. This means the Targeting Computer will always fire all of its extra shots, even if there’s only a single target nearby.

With our current numbers, this means that the Targeting computer is doing double damage against a single target. This makes the Targeting Computer better against small numbers of enemies in the Neuroforge update. Each shot can also propagate on-hit weapon effects! And, finally, they can even be equipped on bots for even more mayhem! Gunner’s new Fracture mechanic emphasizes its role as a fleet multiplier. When a Gunner damages an enemy with its weapons, they apply fractures to the target. Allies can then hit those targets to receive a 100% damage boost, effectively doubling squad DPS as long as the Gunner generates enough fractures. For every 100 damage the Gunner deals, allies can benefit from 700 additional fracture damage. This mechanic is crucial for fleet combat, making the Gunner an essential part of maximizing a squad’s firepower.

• Example 1: Lets say the Gunner is doing 100k DPS, and their ally does 200k DPS. The Gunner is injecting 700k fractures per second, and their ally will consume 200k of them to double their DPS. Overall, the Gunner and its ally will not be dealing 300k DPS, but will instead do 500k DPS.

• Example 2: Lets say the Gunner is doing 100k DPS, but it has a bunch of allies and its allies do 1.5mil DPS in total. The Gunner is only generating 700k worth of Fractures per second, and the squad is using all of them and cashing in the full 700k. There aren’t enough around for all of their damage to get doubled, so the squads damage is increased by 700k and the total outgoing DPS is 2.3mil as a result of the Gunner.

As you can see, depending on the Gunner’s weapon DPS, and the total DPS of their allies the fracture mechanic will have a variable multiplier on the squads total DPS but that multiplier will generally be significant and the more the Gunner invests in their weapon DPS the greater their contribution. Even better, the more Gunners you have the more fractures they create!

Expanding Playstyles

Even in solo play, this mechanic still works—fractures boost the damage of your bots, missiles, and fighters. The Mass Destruction skill amplifies this further by significantly increasing the amount of fractures your missiles and fighters can exploit. This system offers more depth for Gunners, as they must now consider balancing their own damage output against their allies’ in order to maximize their influence on the battlefield. Missiles have seen an update in terms of launch patterns, timings, and mechanics. They are more reliable when it comes to their maneuverability, are unaffected by collision code, missiles solely meant to do damage fire in a salvo, missile stats now scale off of quality level, and they benefit from a bonus to missile damage specific to the Gunner class.

We’ve also removed the Multifiring bonus, but have given a significant increase in damage to compensate, since the Gunners bots are also getting the ability to multi-target. We have also reduced Range and Tracking bonuses since Targeting Computers have less restrictions. This streamlines combat while ensuring Gunner still packs a punch in both fleet and solo scenarios.

Summary

These updates to Ranger and Gunner are meant to create room for deeper, more dynamic playstyles. From Ranger’s faster damage ramping and mitigation to Gunner’s fleet-centric fracture system and the Targeting Computer, these changes are designed to keep both solo and squad-based gameplay exciting. We’re eager to see how players adapt to these new mechanics!

Follow along with us

The Neuroforge update will have a lot more going on than just the addition of the Neuroforge. We will be posting follow-up blogs to detail what is being changed with the Neuroforge update. In the meantime, we are opening up access to our test server for players to try out the systems we have designed before they go live. The changes on this server encapsulate all of what the Neuroforge has to offer so far. There are plenty of class changes and other fancy things to explore as well. You will need a totally different client to connect to this server. You will need to connect to “Test Server” using the Delta Client. You can get this client at the follow link: https://www.starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_delta.exe You can find the “Test Server” on the login screen by using the Server Drop down on the login screen end then selecting “Test Server.” For more information on how to use the test server or to provide your feedback, please use the Star Sonata community discord server.

Disclaimer: Anything on test servers are subject to change at any time and may not be representative of what will be seen when the live server is updated. The test server is subject to be shutdown, reset and restarted at any time.

Item modifications have been an integral part of every pilot’s journey for the majority of Star Sonata’s life. The “Bindomite roulette” is something many of you are all too familiar with. We have been hinting at (and even writing full posts about) a new vision for item modifications for a very long time. After a concerted development push and a lot of help from the Paxian Disciples, we’re finally ready to announce the details of this project. Here is a breakdown of what you can expect from the finalized Modifications revamp, which is planned for release next month.

High Level: Neuroforging

The biggest feature of this revamp is the introduction of enhanced modifications via Neuroforging. Neuroforging allows you to take an item that is already neurobound and improve a single modification on that item. This is done by taking an unmodified copy of the same item and spending it to neuroenhance your chosen piece of gear. This opens up the brand new Neuroforging menu.

The Neuroforging menu gives you 3 semi-random options to pick from every time you neuroenhance an item. The first thing that may catch your eye are the pink modifications at the top of each selection, coupled with a +15 in the case of Forceful in the first option. This is an enhanced modification and is one of the key features of the modification revamp. Upon completing your first enhancement on a piece of gear, one of your modifications on that item will be enhanced.

Mid Level: Enhanced modifications

Let’s get a bit more detailed about enhanced modifications.

• Neuroforging is a process that can be done multiple times, but you can only ever have one enhanced modification at a time.

• Enhanced modifications are coupled with an enhancement level. This tracks how much extra power above a basic version of the modification is being provided.

• Some modifications get special benefits for being enhanced. These special benefits do not scale up their bonus with enhancement level.

• Not all modifications are eligible to be enhanced.

• Enhancement level has a cap, it’s not infinite!

• The higher quality the item, the better it can become. Enhancement Cap and Total modification count scale with item quality.

Keep Rolling

So the basic flow of enhancing and modifying your gear is as follows: You neurobind a piece of gear. You grab another copy of that gear, and consume it to start neuroforging. Even though the item’s enhancement level has a cap, you can neuroforging an item an infinite number of times. This can do things like swap your enhanced modification, and add or swap “secondary” modifications in addition to its normal purpose of increasing your enhancement level. However, the middle option will always increase the bonus of your currently enhanced modification and not change anything else about the item. You could call it a “safe” roll.

What do I do with all of these items?

If you were a heavy user of the current modification system, then you likely have storage ships full of Bindomite-bound gear lying around. One aspect of this modification system is that all of those items are eligible to be used for neuroforging. Neurobound items can be used in forging, but the item must first have all modifications stripped from the item. We have implemented a system that allows any Bindomite-bound item to have all modifications stripped by using another Bindomite. You are allowed to either re-roll the item for a new set of modifications or use it as fodder for neuroforging.

Follow along with us

The Neuroforge update will have a lot more going on than just the addition of the Neuroforge. We will be posting follow-up blogs to detail what is being changed with the Neuroforge update. In the meantime, we are opening up access to our test server for players to try out the systems we have designed before they go live. The changes on this server encapsulate all of what the Neuroforge has to offer so far. There are plenty of class changes and other fancy things to explore as well.

You will need a totally different client to connect to this server. You will need to connect to “Test Server” using the Delta Client. You can get this client at the follow link: https://www.starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_delta.exe

You can find the “Test Server” on the login screen by using the Server Drop down on the login screen end then selecting “Test Server.” For more information on how to use the test server or to provide your feedback, please use the Star Sonata community discord server.

Disclaimer: Anything on test servers are subject to change at any time and may not be representative of what will be seen when the live server is updated. The test server is subject to be shutdown, reset and restarted at any time.

[Anatolia Changes]

• During Anatolian contest the leading team will lose influence on player death and a smaller amount on bot or drone death.
• The influence that can be gained is capped during the contest. It starts at 1 million influence and linearly approaches 4 million by the end of the contest. The current cap can be seen on the bulletin board. After the contests standard duration the influence gain is uncapped.
• Adjusted the quality of Imperial Polishing Machine to Exotic.
• Adjusted the quality of Imperial Restoration Forge to Exalted.
• Strategos has a different shout on death and now has a small chance to drop the Imperial Restoration Forge.
• Added Imperial Restoration Forge to drop from Strategos, used to turn Fragmented Imperial Signets into an Imperial Signet. These are used to level Imperial skills past level 5 in the Anatolian Expanse.
• Fragmented Imperial Signets are acquired through participation in the contest for the Imperial Throne in Anatolia or by winning Emperor itself.
• Imperial Restoration Forge can no longer be sold for 100k Anatolian Crests, instead it can be sold for 30k Anatolian Crests.
• Strategos minions now properly spawn in an area around Strategos instead of in the center of the galaxy.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Potential fix for dark screen on login.

[Item Changes]

• Removed No Discount tag from Modules on Schematics.
• Changed Ancient Baby Dragon Hatchery Blueprint to require 2 Perilium, 3 Stabilized Plasma Fusion Core, 5 Dementium.
• Removed Drop on Death and No Fast Travel tags from Astral Silk, Fixed Trobble, The Spice, Storm Crystals, Dragon Egg.
• Removed an unlisted +20 flat speed and changed from -100% thrust to Engines Disabled gremlin effect on Matriarchal Fortification Bypasser super item inbuilt. Also was listed at 2 seconds but did 4 seconds of effect. Now only does 2 seconds as super states.

[Universe Changes]

• Grand Empyreal Eclipse:
  • Boss no longer spawn with augs or mods.
  • Saros in second room of Grand Empyreal Eclipse Rift no longer display on Rift Leaderboard.
  • Added boss to Rift Leaderboard.
  • Fixed Grand Empyreal Eclipse missile phase so it properly targets random targets instead of one single.
  • Greatly increased Inertial Dampening on Boss.
  • Swapped sun in boss room to be a planet.
• Fallen Station can no longer be knocked back.
• Converted Janayitriadhara (Tractoring 22) to be immune to Transference during immunity phases and the Paxian Bombs to now use True Damage.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a division by 0 in colony commodity price that caused negative numbers to display.
• Fixed a bug in Multi Factories that caused a crash.

Howdy Sonatians,

A new threat looms on the horizon. Beyond the fleets of Equinoxes and Ascensions lies the most formidable battleship ever forged by the Empyreals—a vessel of unparalleled power, commanding the very edge of the battlefield.

Proving yourself against Eclipse

Like our last major squad boss, we will be running another contest for those that take down the Empyreal Eclipse within the two weeks of its release! Defeating this boss and completing the requirements of the contest will grant you to access an exclusive skin for the entire line of Empyreal ships. Like last time there are some guidelines to go along this that will make running this go smoothly for all involved.

Contest Guidelines

• A video must be posted of you and your squad completing the fight against Grand Empyreal Eclipse and showing you and your squad mates engage.

• Only one point of view is needed, though more are appreciated.

• The video recording must be from start to finish. Please start the recording before warping into the galaxy with the boss.

• Please show the squad screen before warping into the galaxy with the boss. This allows us to easily verify which characters are a part of the clear.

• Roh will be contacting the poster of the video via Discord direct messages to coordinate the delivery of the reward. Please have your DMs open and be available if you are the one posting the video for your squad.

• The video must be uploaded to YouTube.

• All videos must be posted to the #media channel in the Star Sonata Discord.

• There will be a 14 day period, starting from when the instance is first opened. Any squad that completes the boss kill and submits a video within this time frame will earn the reward.

• Each player account can only be granted the reward once. Being a part of a new squad and submitting a new video does not mean that a previously rewarded account will be given a second reward.

• Every member of a squad that clears the boss and posts a video will be given the unique and exclusive skin created for this contest. This skin can be applied to any ship gotten from the Empyrean zone.

We have made another batch of adjustments to the recurring mid universe contest to take the Imperial Throne. If you want to understand the context of these changes, take a look at the previous Dev Diary. The latest suite of changes are a result of closely monitoring the outcome of our previous set of changes over the past couple of contests. In this blog, we will describe what is different in the new system!

Arena Size

Every galaxy within the expanse has had the size of its arena significantly reduced from 24,000 to 15,000. The asteroid belt encircling every galaxy now forces everything back towards the center using a friction cloud. This allows for plenty of room for large fights, but it also shuts down the tactic of dragging Midas’ champions to the outermost portions of the galaxy.

Strategos

Midas no longer sends Polemarchos or Taxiarhos to maintain order in his domain. Now, he will send 6 Strategos champions as a display of his might. These champions announce their presence globally, and spawn 5 times a day. As players fight them, they will spawn strong minions worth a good deal of Influence who also drop a generous amount of Anatolian Crests. While calling forth their minions, they will hunker down and become immune to damage while simultaneously slowing to a crawl. After 25 minutes, all of his champions will despawn. If they are not killed before they despawn, no Influence will be awarded.

Each Strategos is worth 30,000 Influence, and the minions they spawn are worth more than 30,000 in total. This means that every 24 hours there is more than 1,800,000 Influence available from Strategos alone.

Claiming the Throne

Influence is what is used to determine which team will be crowned Emperor. 30 days after a new universe is formed, killing soldiers inside the Anatolian Expanse provides any teams that took part in killing any given soldier with Influence.

At the start of the contest, there is an Influence cap of 1,000,000. No team is able to gain more influence than the cap, and the cap increases over time to 4,000,000 by the end of the 3 week period. If the 1st place team does not have 1,000,000 or greater Influence than the 2nd place team, the Influence cap is removed and the contest continues until a team has 1,000,000 more Influence than the 2nd place team.

Any team in the #1 spot loses Influence when a Player, Bot or Temporary Drone on their team is killed in Anatolia. Player deaths cause 5000 Influence to be lost, Bot deaths cause 1000 to be lost, and Temporary Drone destruction causes 200 to be lost.

Imperial Signets and Imperial Skills

All three stations in Anatolia now allow players to train the Imperial Seal skills up to level 7, at the cost of 2 Imperial Signets each. Imperial Signets are crafted with an Imperial Restoration Forge, which can be rarely acquired from defeating Strategos. In order to craft an Imperial Signet, teams will need to acquire Fragmented Imperial Signets which are earned through participation in the contest for the Imperial Throne. Once teams have accrued at least 100,000 Influence, they are eligible to earn a portion of the 2000 Imperial Signets available to all. These Imperial Signets are split based on the amount of Influence a team has in relation to the total amount of Influence in the pool.

For example, if a team has 100,000 Influence and the total amount of Influence earned by all teams is 9,000,000 then that team is eligible to earn roughly 22 Fragmented Imperial Signets. The team that claims the Imperial Throne is not guaranteed any Fragmented Imperial Signets, their proportion of Fragmented Imperial Signets is based on the exact same rules as everyone else. This means that their total Influence is the only thing that determines the amount of Fragmented Imperial Signets they earn.

These exact same rules also apply to the 250 Imperial Seals awarded at the end of the contest.

Note

The Anatolian Expanse and associated Emperor Contest is a labor of love by us to support an active PvP event that breaks up the day to day activities in Star Sonata. We appreciate the many rounds of feedback the community has given about this experience. We are committed to continuing to support this activity and monitoring its success and failures. This blog post includes all information on the current system used to ascend to the throne to become Emperor, but like with many things in Star Sonata, it changes often. This system will likely be iterated into the future to bring an experience that promotes competition. You can stay up to date on what is involved in the contest to become Emperor by visiting our wiki page on the topic. https://www.starsonata.com/wiki/index.php/Emperor

[Fractured Galaxies Changes]

• Fractured Galaxies now have Attack Windows. This window is a 90 minute period that happens every 72 hours. Stations are only vulnerable during this window.
  • A given Fractured Galaxy will always be vulnerable at the same time during the day for each attack window.
  • The universe contains an even distribution of attack window start times.
  • Server’s Daylight Savings Time (ET) may shift this by one hour in some cases.
  • When warping into a fractured galaxy, the time until the next attack window will be put in your event chat.
• Ship to ship and ship to permanent drone combat is enabled at all times in fractured galaxies.
• Stations can only be placed once the first attack window for a newly revealed fractured galaxy begins. After that time stations can be deployed at any time in that Fractured Galaxy, but will not participate in or be affected by any PvP actions except during the attack windows.
• Termites can no longer spawn in fractured galaxies.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Fixed a issue with In Flight Use and Station buttons being backwards for remote inventories.
• Changed “Base” button for filtering in inventories to “Station”.

[Item Changes]

• Colony Active ICs:
  • Removed the Goop cost from the five Colony IC factory blueprints.
  • Reduced thematic t3 IC cost to a nominal amount.
  • Reduced Perilium, Dementium, and Stabilized Core costs greatly.
  • Changed Commodity Sale Events — Removed Colony Resources (The Spice) and replaced them with Colony Active ICs (Spice Infused Confits), for sale. These can be sold to the AI base for a significant fraction of the price they could be sold to colonies.
• Reduced the negative augstats on Crescent and Eclipse Augmenters, shifting some of the positive stats down as a result.
• Spelling error fix for the Lunaria Rampage Preserver Blueprint description.
• Fixed an error with “Laconia Sheet Smelting Factory” and “Laconia Sheet Factory” where they were not using the correct number of Metals (10k instead of 100k).

[Mission Changes]

• Added a hint to Paxian Exploration mission for players to find the right station for the Complex Matrix of Solidified Water to Glass Matrix.
• Reduced the amount of sensitive intel needed per mission of the pretender Hermes daily mission chain from 4 to 3, and from 7 to 6.

[Universe Changes]

• Cybernetic Battleship/Cruiser Roamers:
  • Removed Augs and Mods.
  • Reduced various stats.
  • Increased projectile velocity on Battleship.
• Increased Palatial Pax Turning.
• Decreased Lucerne and Cybernetic Dropship Thrust
• Reduced tractor power on Obsidian Freighters.
• Slightly reduced diameter of Selenite and Selenite Avengers so they weren’t the same size as the Lunarian variants.
• Removed self recoil from Forgone’s physical knockback super item. It will still knock back the targets hit.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Anatolian Expanse:
  • Added Imperial Skills to level 7 to Anatolian Expanse using a new item called Imperial Signets.
  • Polemarchos and Taxiarhos no longer spawn.
  • Strategos:
    • Will no longer spawn disguised and will instead spawn multiple instances in multiple galaxies, with 6 spawns in total.
    • They will spawn with a horde of protective soldiers and be worth 30k influence by themselves with their minions being worth around another 30k.
    • Strategos spawns will spawn every 4.8 hours, and despawn after 25 minutes. Each Strategos will take, at a minimum, 10 minutes to kill due to the invulnerability phases. It also has a holoprojector effect to show how long until it despawns, and when it phases into an invulnerability phase it becomes significantly slower.
    • Drastically reduced vis on Anatolian Crests.
    • The mobs guarding Strategos stats are buffed and are now worth more influence and more crests.
  • All galaxies in Anatolian Expanse have had their asteroid fields changed to knock everything back into the center.
  • Increased the weight of Anatolian Crests and their containers.
• Captain Redbeard / Exotic Trackers:
  • Adjusted exotic drop rate and separated Consumables from gear in the Red Rogue Exotic drop lists. So gear should be much more plentiful.
  • Added a mission to unlock an item exchange for Captain Red Beard Trackers
• (Will change with reset) Unstabilized Plasma Fusion Core are now commodities instead of mission item. They will now only drop if player is Premium player instead of requiring the mission to be active. Stabilized Plasma Fusion Core are now unlocked as a Trade Bay Exchange after performing the Scientist of Lyceum mission the first time at Spartan Garrison.
• Module Rework:
  • Created “Schematic” versions of T20 and T21 module blueprints which removes the Gizmo requirement. These modules now need only lower tier Modules + Sensors + Augmenters.
  • Created “Template” versions of T20 module blueprints which removes Gizmo and lower tier Module requirements. These modules now only need Augmenters + Sensors + various Sheets.
  • Created a new station in Platonic Academy (called “Taphos”) to house old blueprints and factories for use by players with leftover Gizmo commodities. Note: this may depreciated in the future.
  • Created various trade-ins to allow players to trade their old Blueprints for Schematic/Templates in Taphos.
  • Created new T20 “Schematic” and “Template” packs for sale in Palaistra.
  • Moved T20 “Tablet” blueprint packs to Taphos.
  • Replaced T21 Blueprints with “Schematic” versions in all the places where the original T21 Blueprints were purchasable.

[Server Changes]

• Can no longer dock limbo ships in a public rift (instance).
• Can no longer remotely toss items from ships docked in public rift / rift (instance) without being in the galaxy.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed fighters sometimes flying away when they should be returning.

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.