[UI/Client Changes]

• Missile launcher charge time is now listed on its own line, instead of on the same line as the last bonus.
• Extra linebreak added to Deathblossom item description so all text can be seen instead of going out of view.
• Crate descriptions now separates what they break into as one line per item
• Aura projectors now state if they work on bots, specifying All/Combat/Trade Bots on the item.
• Items now indicate if they decay on leaving Instance, Layer, or Galaxy.
• Added far more additional details about what aura generators affect to the item window.
• Improved information on missile descriptions, now includes damage, damage type, and weapon tweak/splash effects.
• Added a new visual for Mars War Chariot.
• Added a new test skin concept on the NCC Bulk: Tinted Skins.
• Added Radioactive skin for the Adamantium Delquadrikamdon.
• Added Ghost skin for the Faded Delquadrikamdon.
• Squad leader can now right click and transfer leadership to another squad member.
• Can now ‘Use some’ on limited use blueprints, to install more than one.
• Fixed and optimized an issue with loading textures that cause lag near the end of the load.
• Fixed an issue with the SP Balance on the Avatar screen changed numbers / stopped working.

[Skill Changes]

• Combat bots now get up to 60% of owners Lagrange control skills, transferred accordingly to player’s Combat bot tweaking level and Bot PhD. Bases and Permanent drones no longer get owners control skills.
• Buffed Engineer’s Beam Mastery to give 33% non transference damage on temporary drones per level (changed from 25%).

[Item Changes]

• Hull extensions can now remove the space requirements for the biggest cargo items in players’ ships. How much cargo storage they have is scaled by tech and listed at the top of the item description. To accommodate this change, items that can drop as cargo, always will, even if it doesn’t reduce their space requirements (previously, items size 5 and lower did not drop with a cargo tag).
• Many DG and AI base weapons at the lower tech levels that were MicroMicro/Micro/Small classifications have now been made Small/Normal. These are classifications used in the balance sheets and you may see several items increase in size and power.
• Items that were classified as MicroMicro/Micro/Small have less of a power penalty for their size, and have more of a range penalty instead.
• Mulligan’s Zebu Titan had it’s hull, weight and size reduced but got increased speed.
• Aura Generators are now defaulted to no longer work on bots. Self-affecting only inbuilt auras, only apply when deployed as a combat bot now. (e.g. Panther, Assault Behemoth, ect).The following ships inbuilt auras work on combat and trade bots: Super Phunka, Subspace Enforcer, Sergeant’s Enforcer, Vicar, Santa’s Special Sleigh.
• Fixed an issue with Emperor’s Crown having armor instead of resists.
• Beams with a single chain now do 10% less damage, but the extra jump now does 70% of the new base damage instead of 50% of the old base damage. (This was done as they had same base stats as weapons without chain).
• Updated Super Massacre Overloader Beta overloader’s description to correctly reflect the damage percent on it.
• Anise Energy Rocket is no longer unequipable and thus no longer modable. Players who modded the weapon will be reimbursed the bindomite on their ship.
• Fixed issue on the Shield Redistribution Devices that still allowed healing.
• Fixed incorrect description on Shield Redistribution Devices that it lowers resistance when it actually increases resistance.
• Kalthi player ships inbuilt items have been completely redone.
• Unstabilized Plasma Fusion Core’s now have the quality tier of Rare instead of Common.
• Made Zebu Master Fighter Generator, Assault Dropship Generator and Greenish Fighter Generator only produce one fighter at a time instead of a max of 10.
• The Scoop and Electro Scoop are now capable of scooping drones. The Drone Scoop has been converted into a trophy item.
• Changed Solarian Blueprints use to use Venusian Gear instead of Mercurian. Mercurian is now a T20 side grade.
• Changed Tech Level of all Tech 5 class Supers to Tech 3.
• A Key to the Prophet’s Chamber is now neurobound.
• Caracara Talons and UrQa Qa’Uka Juju have been made competitive in comparison to the items they’re inspired by. Their sizes have been increased as well.
• Removed Kalthi Orbital Habitats Blueprint from the KD Common drop list.
• Cara Amzuchid/Cara Amzuchidara, and Rajanicaragupta Amzuchid have had their stats distributed in such a way that they are different from each other.
• Kalthi Wrathful and Armored blueprints now have Kalthi War Core requirement. They are dropped from Wrathful Commanders, Armored Commanders, Destroyers, and Terminators.
• Kalthi Depths Exotic quality gear and Blueprints have been moved to an exotic drop list on Wrathful Commanders, Armored Commanders, Terminator and Destroyers.
• Transference weapon changes from: Dev Diary – Shield Monkey/Shield Transference Adjustments.

[AI Changes]

• Migrated Easter Bunny and Zombie Easter Bunny to the fixed lockout system.
• Drastically reduced the shield bank of Ancient Asteroid Being and added some regen.
• Dramatically reduced the damage of Doktor Kobaldstein’s guards (Infernal Tempest).
• Increased the shields of Copper Blob dramatically.
• Added Demented Delquad and Ancalagon the Black to the Instance Scores page.
• Twisted Nikola (the boss) no longer spawns with random augmenters.
• Lord Bagheera (Primal Leopard Boss) will now auto attack players on entering to prevent wandering off cloaked and player unable to find them.
• Cleft Thorns can no longer be captured under Radiation Expert.
• Sahvitrabalin Sahistha (Antu Saahistha’s cocoon) now heals to heat to prevent build up of fires by bots while in cocoon form.
• Reduced the damage Zebu Masuta’s can do.
• Reduced the shields of Zebu Mastuas and Shadow Turtles.
• Demented Delquadrakimdan has the following changes:
  • Faded Fragment now spawns in the first wave of spawns instead of the start of the fight
  • Unstable Fragments have been nerfed significantly. They now are short range combatants that do much less damage and are much slower.
  • Demented Delquadrakimdan cannot die until its stations die.
  • Most super weapons used by Demented Delquadrakimdan or its spawn do more damage.
  • Massive Station, Torpedo Station, Unstable Fragments, and Faded Fragment are harder to burst down.
  • Beam resists on most AI in Demented Delquadrakimdan’s fight have been lowered.

[Universe Changes]

• Added new armor drops to the Serengeti bosses.
• Removed Lunarian shards from Lunarian wreckage in Akuq’ba.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Added two new zones for T23.
• Kalthi Depths has been completely redone with with an emphasis on AI intelligence with the Kalthi Armada. Split Lunarian and Selenites into 6 total teams.
• All of the Bonnet bosses are now instanced.
• Completely reworked random DGs drop tables to allow for target farming of specific item types. Example: some bosses may drop only radar and shields.
• Added Stellations to Perilous DGs.
• Roaming Stellas in Perilous Space are now Stellations and increased the number of roaming boss spawns.
• Wild Space now has 4 Entrances and they follow NATO Alphabet instead of Greek. Connections between Wild Space and Perilous Space have been removed.
• New and revamped celestial rings added to universe generation.
• Removed the now redundant (as they were turned into AC trade ins) augmenter based module pack missions from Platonic Academy.
• Disabled both roaming TFOD and roaming Banu King.

[Mission Changes]

• Set the expected level on the Infernal Tempest mission “Constructautomaton 4000″ from level 0 to level 250. Players should now get the appropriate XP reward for it’s difficulty.
• Added a note to the mission “The Aftermath”, on the Serengeti Research Labs, that it unlocks the Zaphragi Trade-In Items in the Trade Bay.
• Removed Mako Skin and Stingray Skin requirements from the Pretender Research mission in Olympus.
• Changed the Bonnet mission “End of Tyranny” to explore Coronet due to the bosses being in instances.

[System]

• AIs now get OOC regardless if a sun is present for them.
• Can now buy at most 10000 of Base category items, instead of 1000.
• Combat Bots will remember their ‘Attack My Target’ on/off selection through server restarts.
• Microwarpers are no longer blocked by your own envelopment.
• Most microwarpers no longer have a fail rate.
• Drone Laying is no longer blocked by your own envelopment.
• Drones list information about their weapons at the bottom of their showstatsources window now.
• Renamed Laser Vulnerability to Beam Vulnerability. (e.g. Unt Faranji Gatling X properly display that it adds a Beam Vulnerability).
• Already installed blueprint no longer blocks installing the rest of a blueprint pack.
• Capped Diffuser durability damage at max shields.
• Capped diffuser durability damage for healing at missing shields.
• Overloaders no longer do weapon damage in arena galaxies like The Colosseum.
• Diffusers no longer take damage in arena galaxies like The Colosseum.
• Dead Fighters return non-destroyed in arena galaxies like The Colosseum.
•  Limited personal/bot hate generated in arena galaxies like The Colosseum, such that it will decay within around 5 minutes.

[Bugs]

• Fixed bug with surgical damage being able to do more item damage than intended.
• Transference Resist no longer causes diffuser damage on healing. Transference Vulnerability no longer causes diffuser damage on stealing.
• Fixed mining bots not loading their dump station on a server restart.
• Fixed Bots and ai not being able to cloak again after a server restart.
• Bots can now use cloaks even if equipped with one after launch.
• AI no longer sometimes falsely decide to use only DPH weapon believing they will one-shot the target due to unable to factor in resists.
• Fixed charged tweak going into cooldown even if shields/energy checks fail.
• Weapons will correctly display if their effects are tweakable or not.
• Drones will no longer try to shoot at Large Warp Beacons or other invulnerable objects.
• Methods of splash damage that re-killed spirits or damaged pods will no longer do so.
• Fixed desync for all online teammates when a team galaxy is protected.
• Bots will no longer attempt to kill a fresh capture or other bot of the player when “Attack My Target” is on.
• Fixed a rare bug where bots would ignore “Attack My Target”.
• Fixed error message for being at max permanent drones in a gal displaying ‘maximum of 1′ when attempting to deploy another drone.
• Fixed display of extraction per day on extractors where the range of 10-100 per day would become scientific notation. (e.g. Psion Icicles Extractor).
• Fixed missing space in log when preforming a base transfer.
• Fixed base missiles being used without launching if failing range check.
• Can no longer equip more than one overloader as a stack.
• Fixed display of non-percentage speed on weapon effects. (e.g. Anti-Transmographic Decombulator displayed +0.04 speed, now properly shows +40).
• Repaired functionality of stay close for bots, now includes max range selection.
• Fixed squad leader change not updating group members of the leadership change.
• Fixed bug with trying to equip more drones than you had slots for, will now actually equip the amount you had free slots for instead of just saying that.
• Bots guarding a squad member can now also be transwarped, instead of always being left behind.
• Fixed a bug where some missions would delete their progress on server restart. (e.g. Subspace Monthlies).
• Fixed an issue with Emphatic Mother that prevented Unstabilized Plasma Fusion Core from dropping.

Welcome to another installment of our Dev Diary series! Today we’re diving into the refreshed Kalthi Depths zone that will accompany the upcoming Moonfighter Rebellion movement on June 26th’s reset.

One of two new Kalthi, special Armored Deployers lay an impressive array of drones in combat.

The original concept of Kalthi Depths offered an exciting but chaotic experience that conveyed the militant nature of the Kalthi faction but ultimately frustrated players with its over-the-top design. With the help of some powerful new development tools, we have been able to push the boundaries of AI teamwork and tactics and we’re debuting these advances with a refreshed Kalthi Depths zone that hues more closely to the original militant theme.

The other of the two new Kalthi, a few unique Wrathful Stingers will haunt their foes with a revealing laser.

Along with the new and improved Kalthi AI, you can expect to see changes to the notorious Selenite and Lunarian swarms that had a tendency to crush everyone in sight. Each Moonfighter faction has been split into 3 teams and some of them have been made not to roam. We expect these adjustments will still allow for some swarming while dialing down the “death ball” effect.

The domineering Fleet Commander of the Kalthi, engaging with a new pulse gun formation and fighters.

Another big change to Kalthi Depths is that fewer AI will roam between galaxies. We made this change to reward players for actively seeking out enemies in new areas.

Lastly, this new design direction synchronizes and is expanded upon by the Tech 23 Update. Intrepid explorers will find the Empyreal Concord roaming the deepest depths. Think twice before engaging on sight!

Welcome to a new Dev Diary on the upcoming Tech 23 update that’s hitting the live server in time for the Universe Reset on June 26th! We have an ambitious plan to be released in several phases or “movements.” In this post, we’re proud to announce the opening movement of our next Sonata: The Moonfighter Rebellion.

A massive station powered by an artificial sun within the Empyrean zone.

Players will explore a whole new zone and join up with a mysterious order known as the Celestial Hand. Players will help suppress the Empyreal Concord, a rebellion of Lunarians and Selenites that have stolen precious relics and holy items. The bulk of their forces have been trapped by the CHS Primordial Light flagship behind the Celestial Encampment deep within Kalthi Depths, and so this is where you must venture.

An Empyreal Celeste flanked by Equinoxes.

Players will bring their squads and face off against the rebellious Empyreal fleets and six new instanced bosses within Empyrean space.

An Empyreal Ascension using a powerful beam.

As a bonus, we will also release new Delquadrakimdan teaser content from the upcoming second movement: three solo instance bosses hidden within another new zone within Kalthi Depths.

A Fallen in wait..

Note: + means a new universe (reset) is required for the change to come into effect.

[Client]

• Now displays trade skills on the Character select screen.
• Added subscription status and number of space points message to top of the character selection screen.
• F10 (Ship Details) now factors Electric Tempering into DPE display.
• Copy button added to copy blackbox/showstatsources/showsquaddamage/mc to clipboard.
• Deleting a bot order no longer jumps back to the beginning of the order list, moves up one position instead.
• Moved bot tow option to the bottom of the target options list.
• Distance for RTS clicking yourself is increased 1.5-4x scaled with ship size.
• Fixed ‘View Team Web Page’ button in target menu.
• Right clicking an instance wormhole will no longer AP to somewhere else.
• Fixed issue with holes in the Indestructible Deployer skin.
• New Tortoise, Astodust and Goblin model and texture.
• Updated EarthForce Capital ship textures and models.
• Added Neon Red Skins to their Hybrid versions for Zebra, Lion, Panther, Rhino and Mastodon.
• Fixed issue with preventing new Red Neon skin on Mastodon.
• Avatar tab was rearranged under Character menu and added SP/SPEX to it.
• Bot order list now shows current and max orders.
• New Mark and Mark Team key bindings created.
• Squad leader can now right click and transfer leadership to another squad member. (Note: Requires another patch to work but button is listed)
• Fixed issue with not being able to resize the chat window properly when RTS-able assets were present.
• New texture and glow map for the UrQa’qa Qu’ishi Qa.

[Skill Changes]

• Discovered a hidden 3% rate of fire bonus per level was hidden in the Speed Demon class skill, Speedy Firing. Speed Firing has been adjusted from 20% to 25% to factor this in. Resulting in 0.344% more RoF.
• Adjusted Shield Stealing on Shield Monkey (See: Dev Diary – Shield Monkey/Shield Transference Adjustments)

[Item Changes]

• Split “Ship Scanner” tag into “Ship Item Scanner” and “Ship Hull Scanner” for better searching.
• Bots can no longer use Seer Nanite Devices.

[AI Changes]

• Added Jelly Skin and Swordfish Skin to Kraken and Poseidon’s drop tables.
• Reduced the shield bank and regen of Swordfish ships in Kraken and Poseidon.
• Reduced spawn of Swordfish in Poseidon.
• Reduced spawn rate of Swordfish and Jelly in Kraken.

[Universe Changes]

• Removed Jelly’s Acidic Remains and Jelly’s Blood from Grog missions in Handels’ Cove. Reduced Requirements for Heated Metals from 10 to 3 in the respective Grog mission.
• Changed mission “What happened here?” Hyperion mission requirement from “Urqa’Qii” to “Fused UrQa Energy Modulator”.
• +Fixed issue with some of the Leopards in Undergrowth using Rhino/Elephant names.

[System]

• Optimized universe save and improved other systems to reduce lag issues.
• Show bot stats correctly displays “Bot Research” now.
• Marketcheck (/mc) will no longer display scrap price for items which can not be scrapped.
• Made it so you can’t deploy a temporary, non-superitem, scoopable drone without having a drone-capable scoop equipped.
• Change radiation critical hit effect to -75% tracking for 2 seconds.
• Transwarping and being kicked out of dungeons causes ships to stop firing.
• The Serengeti Mini Bosses are no longer tracked on the Instance Scores board.

[Bugs]

• Fix percentage speed aura display being off by a factor of 1000 in the F10 (ship details) window.
• Fixed a bug where the F10 (ship details) window didn’t correctly calculate your critical hit DPS (was still taking the base chance as 2%, not 5%).
• Made the Twisted “station” drones non-scoopable.
• Fixed missing space in ‘report back to’ text for all missions.
• Fixed tracking auras not applying to beam weapons.
• Tracking auras are now actually multiplicative like other aura effects.

Welcome Sonatians. The upcoming patch contains a considerable adjustment to shield-stealing. Here’s what you need to know.

Stealing vs. Healing

Something we’ve struggled with since we released the new Shield Monkey class is the balance between stealing shields and healing. We envisioned shield-stealing as something that healers would do to supplement their regeneration, but this hasn’t proven to be very popular. On the flip side, “draintank” Shield Monkeys who use stealing as an all-in-one tank-healer-DPS mode proved to be much more powerful than we had envisioned. Eventually, we realized that it all comes down to resource use. Healing an ally or stealing shields with the main focus of healing yourself are just not as valuable as “draintanking,” which allows the player to deal substantial damage while tanking and healing themselves all at once. This realization led us to the following two concrete positions:

1. Shield-stealing should cost more energy than healing with the same weapon.

2. Shield-stealing should heal the user considerably, even if they aren’t specialized for DPS.

After playtesting with a few helpful Paxian Disciples, we arrived at the following implementation. Shield Monkeys now receive 3 units of healing for every 1 unit of shield-stealing damage they deal. Shield stealing now costs 2.75x the firing energy of healing.

This change may end up buffing or nerfing your Shield Monkey setup, depending on how you play. Here’s the breakdown on that:

• If you play a Shield Monkey who focuses on shield regeneration, this change won’t affect your setup at all. You may even find it useful to steal shields now and then.

• If you play a Shield Monkey who sometimes steals shields to stay alive, this change is a buff to your setup. You may be able to re-gear toward more HPS since you’ll receive more healing whenever you steal shields.

• If you play a Shield Monkey who focuses on dealing damage with shield-stealing, this change is a nerf to your setup. You will probably experience lower uptime on stealing since it costs a lot more energy to do so. Moreover, you will receive more healing when you do steal, making it harder to keep some empty space in your shield bank.

If you’re anything like me, you are probably curious to know a few more details behind this change to mechanics. Here’s how we’ve implemented the increased firing energy.

• Transference weapons now operate at around 36% DPE when used for stealing shields.

• The extra energy cost is extracted in a single chunk whenever you steal shields.

• If your shield bank is near full or if your target is near death, the server automatically adjusts the amount of stealing damage and extracted energy to keep DPE constant, giving you a smooth gameplay experience.

• If your energy bank is near empty, the server automatically reduces your stealing damage and extracted energy to keep DPE constant. Your rate of fire on an empty energy bank will be the same as it always was.

Weapon Stat Tweaks

There’s one other adjustment we want to make to healing, but it didn’t make the cutoff for this patch. Here’s what you can expect with the next patch (which will still hit before Universe Reset on June 26).

When it comes to transference weapons, we have tried our best to create a sandbox scenario with lots of interesting options. However, players have helped us realize that some of the options we’ve offered are a bit too wild and niche to provide competitive alternatives to the current meta. We believe the following stat tweaks should address the majority of these issues.

• Low-tracking transference weapons have had their tracking increased (20º to 30º) and firing energy reduced in exchange for some weapon range.

• Transference weapons with 45º tracking have also received reduced firing energy in exchange for weapon range.

• All transference weapons have gained a little range (100-150) and reduced recoil time (3 seconds per shot at most).

• Many Tech 22 transference weapons have been adjusted to offer more competitive alternatives to the Vaidaya Bhisajamzu.

We thank the players who have offered feedback on the balance of transference weapons and hope to hear your opinions on these changes!

Lyceum Bulletin:

We have just received word of a major disruption within the fabric of the Universe.  Reports are coming in from wild space that an interdimensional traveler has phased in and out of our universe creating vast distortions of our reality.  It is said that this traveler has impressed upon our reality a cataclysm of change due to a contract he has made with the Trans-Dimensional Bean Counters. Our top researchers have discovered a haiku communique left behind in the wake of the traveler:

“New I shall create

A hat I shall never eat

Please save my stomach”

 After carefully examining this haiku we expect a tremendous upheaval within our universe leaving behind a resonance of something new. Top scientists predict the collapse of the universe to be on June 26th, 2021. Citizens are asked to ensure all personal assets and fleets are properly stored.

Dev Note:  Credits on active bots and bases will be lost as well as permanent drones. Player ships will not be affected.

[AI Changes]

• Reduced the random augmenter slots on Twisted Fate of Death boss from 2 to 0.
• Reduced DPS of Pressure Beams the Twisted bosses use.
• Increased Demented Delquad’s supers damage and charge time slightly.
• Reduced Demented Delquad’s Beam resists slightly.

[AI Changes]

• UrQa’qa Vazuk Vo’kii boss encounter has had the following changes made to it:
  • No longer has full tracking beams during the final stage.
  • Vacuum lowers thrust for .2 seconds instead of 2 seconds.
  • Changed the speed of the fire wave projectiles from 230 to 75.
  • Urqa Vacuum Device fires off once instead of 4 times.
  • There is now a 4 second delay on the UrQa Clusterbomb Device.
  • Reduced the range of the UrQa Clusterbomb projectiles.
  • Weakened the second speed aura of BK to match the first aura for the speed effect.

Welcome to a new developer diary series that will be running over the next several weeks in anticipation for the next major release of Star Sonata!

Today, however, we wanted to share some updates to a mundane yet striking visual element that will be part of the next universe reset – celestial rings!

The previous ring system for celestial bodies was originally designed for Saturn during the conversion from C1 to C2, and was later expanded to be added to random celestial bodies during universe generation. They were essentially a textured plane bisecting the planet, with the texture depicting the full ring. It worked well for smaller objects, but any larger bodies stretched the limits of the system, as seen in the image below. Additionally, they looked pixelated and objectively horrible on lower graphics settings because of the severely reduced texture resolution (more than any other game object.)

The old style of rings scaled up to mega rings poorly, even on high settings.

Ryan and Zynoa have devised a new way to render these rings, with a focus on making them both more consistent across graphics settings as well as scaling better to larger sizes. Instead of a full ring texture slapped on a plane with a ton of dead space used for transparent bits (like the hole for the planet), the new method utilizes some special made models for the rings and the entire texture is dedicated to just the ring itself. Because this increases the effective resolution of the rings (without increasing the technical resolution), the new rings maintain their appearance well across graphics settings and sizes.

Additionally, we’ve departed from some of the more organic and earthly palettes and went for a more vibrant color pattern that we feel strikes a balance between grounded and cartoony visuals for the Star Sonata world.

We hope this and other upcoming graphical changes will make for a more vibrant and engaging universe.

*Note: rings are shown on every celestial body in images for demonstration purposes. In the actual universe, rings will still appear at the same rates they currently do.

[AI Changes]

• UrQa’qa Vazuk Vo’kii boss encounter has had the following changes made to it:
  • Reduced the number of Qi’ukas (drone envelopments) by one. Made the two Qi’ukas in the finale behave a bit differently.
  • Adjusted the trans resist effect to be a shorter duration.
  • Fixed issue with super laser not causing boss to stop turning correctly.
  • Enrage will now properly wipe players and reset afterwards.
  • Fixed an issue with enrage timer starting early.

[Universe Changes]

• Twisted bosses, Demented Delquad and UrQa’qa Vazuk Vo’kii boss rooms will now prevent players from leaving the room via wormholes while the boss is alive.
• Re-added wormhole blocking stations in Akuq’ba DG rooms that must be killed to proceed.
• Reduced Baniq Qokuji’bakoqi’Qa from 6 to 3 and added other spawn in the room before boss in the Akuq’ba dungeon.

[Bugs]

• Fixed issue with Parasites/Fires server idle time. They no longer do more DPS then expected.