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.

[AI Changes]

• UrQa’qa Vazuk Vo’kii boss encounter has had the following changes made to it:
  • Damage done by the primary heat beams has been greatly increased.
  • Fighters launched by the boss no longer have splashing lasers.
  • The purple clusterbombs (the ones that zap nearby targets with lightning) have had their total damage greatly reduced, the range of the zap has been reduced, and the projectiles themselves now move significantly slower.
  • The missiles launched by the boss do significantly less damage and have a smaller splash range. They also have a weaker negative shield regeneration tweak (The damage players were taking from the missiles was often mistakenly attributed to fires, it was actually from a degenerative shield effect), and their shields have been greatly reduced.
  • The primary laser barrage fired by the boss now takes twice as long to ramp up to full damage, giving players more time to get out of the way before dying.
  • Added an out of combat only Fire Extinguisher to the boss.
  • The boss should no longer run out of electricity.
  • The final phase now utilizes mechanics from earlier in the fight more frequently.
  • Added 15 minute Enrage timer much like the current Prejudice bosses. Gives timer warnings via Galaxy chat.

[AI Changes]

• Drastically reduced Qokujiii Qa’ik shields.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fix for radiation death not recording in Instance Scores list.
• Fixed error in the drop list that prevented some items from dropping from Mad Scientist.
• Fixed weekly mission no longer “locking down” for a week and instead just instant resetting. (Ex. Subspace Weekly Kill Missions)

[AI Changes]

• Reduced the damage of Hermes.
• Increased the damage of beam type weapons the Twisted bosses use.
• UrQa’qa Vazuk Vo’kii boss encounter has had most of its area of effect, avoidable damage weapons and purple bouncing projectiles have had their damage drastically reduced.

[Bugs]

• Fixed exploit with auras and rate of fire with switching weapons.

Dear Pilots,

There have been a lot of changes in the Universe of Star Sonata and the finalization of the Healing Revamp is here! The development team has been hard at work updating damage mitigation, adding a new cargo system, and a plethora of other changes to improve balance and game dynamics.

We have also overhauled the endgame bosses in Prejudice, Dragon’s Lair, and Akuq’ba for a more dynamic and challenging experience!

Star Sonata understands the importance of progression and our duty to ensure players get a head start on these redesigned bosses, so we are having a Boss Lockout Event! These bosses will be available every 24 hours to challenge as well as the weekly missions that complement Prejudice, Dragon’s Lair, and Akuq’ba.

Just to throw a bit more juice in your flux capacitor, every boss and mission that falls within a weekly lockout cycle will also be reset every 24 hours during this event!

The event will run April 23rd – 25th and April 30th – May 2nd.  That is two weekends jam-packed with bosses and missions so don’t miss out! Reclaim your place in the Universe and get ready for the Boss Lockout Event!

Star Sonata Dev Team

[Bugs]

• Fixed issue with the delay on tweaks not working in some situations.

[Item Changes]

• Twisted Panel Blueprint now correctly takes Twisted Broken Panel instead of itself to build.
• Added Twisted Panel Blueprint back to Twisted Agent Hideout base in Prejudice.

[AI Changes]

• Adjusted Twisted Nikola and Twisted Dragon Eye’s spawn to destroy themselves at low health.
• Changed color of Dragon Eye Pieces.
• Altered the attack pattern of Honey Strikers in Twisted Nikola and reduced their numbers per spawn.
• Increased Twisted Nikola boss’s dps.
• Gave Twisted Nikola’s Mech Hounds two more lasers.
• Gave Twisted Nikola’s Blaster Drones two more lasers.
• Twisted Critters now have infinite radar.

[Bugs]

• Fixed Twisted Fate of Death’s regen during phase transformations.
• Fixed issue with Kraken spawn.
• Fixed issue with Corrupted Guardian’s Volcano spawn.
• Fixed a bug with invulnerability conditions on the Twisted bosses.
• Fixed various backend spawner issues.

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

Known Issue: Repair cost preview is currently undervalued / not factoring in Nanotech Plating. Our team is working on a hot fix for this issue.

[Client]

• Bot UI Changes:
  • Removed the diffuser and solar panel options from bot’s target options menu.
  • Added option to enable/disable fighters or missiles on bots. Also controls superitems they have which launch fighters or missiles.
  • Moved the Leave Stasis and Tow options to the top of the bot target options menu.
  • Moved Transfer Ownership and Show Stats to the More Bot Options list.

• Added a new server status window to the login screen to check the status of each server. Green for up and working. Yellow for pending maintenance restart. Red for down. And Grey for unknown. Will list reason of maintenance, if applicable.
• Added a login notification for subscriptions expiring in 24 hours, or for subscriptions expired in the last 7 days.
• Added a warning to team chat when an account with bases on the team is about to (or has recently) expired.
• Updated New Class Skill Point Available icon in lower-right corner with a new high quality image.
• Adjusted textures and glow maps for Earthforce police, NCC-Bulk and Goblin ships.
• Fixed the model definition with the Unholy Venaticora.
• Renamed Neon Panther to Glowing Panther so not to be confused with Red Neon Panther skin.
• Fixed issue with Neon Red Lion not displaying the texture or glowmap.
• Fixed issue with UrQa’qa Qu’ishi Qa not showing any skins.
• Added chat timestamps, toggled in the Social tab of settings.

[Skill Changes]

• Bots now receive 100% of the effect of Mining Power and Mining Efficiency skills.
• Changed Enveloping Monkey skill to be “Use your shields to overload your non-transference weapons and envelop target.  Do up to 2x bonus damage, scaled with your shield percent, by consuming 1.5x shields for bonus damage dealt.”

[Item Changes]

• Sizes of almost every ship have been adjusted to be less drastically out of line against each other.
• No longer able to scrap Hephaestus Drones and Chid Adiz Mardana Var.
• Art of Augmenters and Ultimate Art of Augmenters have had their stat distributions shifted a bit.
• Zen of Devices no longer applies to Flit Device, Aveksaka Subjugator, Alien Healing Burst, Red Photon Doomsday Device, and Spearhead inbuilt.
• Dhatri Bhisaj and Dhatri Bhisajdeva had their healing parasite removed.
• Fixed the Silent Night’s Night Stalker super to -80% vis instead of -20% vis.
• Removed Bule Eradicator’s cloak from the game.
• Increased the base augs on the Cruiser and Astrodust from 2 to 3. This has reduced its other base stats.
• Removed the BPC’s old cloak from the game. (was missed when it was removed from its inbuilts.)
• Unforge ship blueprint now has a 1 million initial and 1 million periodic credit cost
• Removed and deleted the inbuilt Assault Scoop from Assault Behemoths.
• Added additional searchable tags to faction specific weapons.
• Adjusted some extreme augmod variables for Aveksaka.
• Converted the berserker travel fields to trophy items.
• Fixed Nightfury Focus Generator and Nightfury Rage Generator effect descriptions to properly show what the superitems do. Also changed to allow bots to use them in combat.
• Reduced Hydra Awesomeness from 10% Rate of Fire to 4% Rate of Fire.
• Added to the description of the Armada Fighter Factory Plans, and Armada WMD Factory Plans, that they make the factory to make Panther Kitten Fighters and the Ammo Crate – Zaphragi Cheetah Missile respectively.
• Prevented Nanobot Repair from repairing items on non-ships (bases, drones) or fighters.
• Prevented Nanobot Repair from repairing destroyed drones/fighters in ship’s hulls (since they can’t be partially repaired).
• Prevented Nanobot Repair from repairing unequipped items.
• Updated the drop table to the new Chain Gatlings instead of old items.
• Increased the tech of the inbuilt Gamma Fighter Bay (on Space Blue Gamma) from T13 to T15.
• Removed Dev subtype from Enforcer Scout Charger.
• Removed augmods off Ada, Lac and Titanium Laser Dampeners (trade-in in Building Academy for other dampeners).
• Updated the Corrupted Backstab Device to be unequippable.
• Adjusted Reaver + stats to match the Reaver properly.
• Fixed size issue with the Ayudhinayu Sas Fighter from the Aveksaka Xenobiology Platform.
• Fixed Specialized Gigantic Transference Inhibitor to use new diffuser damage system instead of failure chance.
• Adjusted Solarian Beam and Solarian Fighter Bay from rare to uncommon.
• Removed the Marshal Defense Generator and made the item inbuilt into the ship.
• Properly removed the Egrosphere thrusters on the Merchant Navy Contriver.
• Reduced the shield effect of Rebirth Devices on the Phoenix/Glaucopennia from 500k over 5 seconds to 100k over 5 seconds and removed the energy regen completely.
• Fixed some rounding issues with base gear. May result in extremely small changes.
• Bhisaj Kavaca will no longer drop in a crate.
• Reduced knockback on Pulse Guns, MagCannons and Sebastapols by 50%.
• Changed Monkey Mantles to require Tank Monkey Adv Skill.
• Added Twisted Honey Remains as a drop to Twisted Nikola.
• Adjusted Captain Bling Drone, Hephaestus Drone, Double Agent Drone, and Triple Agent Drone to use the proper gear for their quality level.
• Reduced damage augmod on the Tiger Protection from 4% to 2%.
• Reduced the size of several dropped mission items to 5 space or lower.
• Removed Critical Strength and Critical Chance from Ship Mastery Augmenters.
• Adjusted the weight of Multifiring on ships. Twisted Fate of Death, Battle Thatch and Battle Sphere have had their stats adjusted.
• Adjusted various roaming and DG AI in Earthforce and Perilous Space layers.
• Crawl Wyrm and Faranji Stinger stats shifted around to distinguish them better.
• All solar panels are now hybrid (both normal and dark suns). This does not affect base panels.
• Reduced Aug Slots on the Mako, Warrior, Baby Cyclops, Hermes Lamb, and Hermes Ram back to their pre-rework values.

[AI Changes]

• The High Prophet is now on the weekly lockout system. Reduced Holy Fires from High Prophet from -90% Tracking to -60% Tracking.
• Reduced the shields and range on the Vulcan and Mira bosses.
• Fixed beam weapons causing healing damage on a pair of Aveksaka Bosses.
• Changed Corrupted Guardian and Kraken to only spawn enemies when it is alive. (Does not affect GSA)
• Granted more Inertial Dampening to the Ares boss and the mini-bosses to prevent flying out of the arena constantly.
• Fixed Vaidyaagni and Vaidyachid alien hulls in Vihara Vaidya (Shielding 22) to have the energy resist they’re supposed to have.
• Reduced W4 Amoetroidzodal’s mining resists.
• Increased Olympus bosses’ dps and tank slightly.
• Increased Lion, Zebra and Panther bosses’ DPS.
• Increased Iq’ Bana boss DPS, reduced DPS of adds.
• Increased Kidd boss DPS, slightly reduced DPS of adds.
• Increased DPS and Shields of  Mad Scientist. Readjusted drops to reflect current quality drop rates.
• Reduced the tank of Subspace Bosses
• Redesigned the Prejudice, BNF/RNF and Akuq’ba bosses and reopened their instances.
• Removed the Super on Aveksaka heavy fighters that reverted them to an egg when low health.
• Made Pax Astronomica’s immune to everything but Surgical again with a diffuser.
• Fixed Cloaking 22 Subspace boss hide and seek mechanics. The boss will no longer target non-ships as targets to seek.
• Fixed the swarm of Luigi Salmanos in Deep Space.
• Increased Demented Delquad’s Beam Resists. Increased shield regen of Demented Delquad and the adds.

[Universe Changes]

• Due to IP Conflicts, all the Serengeti Bosses were renamed to the following:
  • Knight Noragh Khalad
  • Prince Ar’hath Rhak’kai
  • Baron Cah’ra Rhak’kai
  • Princess Takhagha Rhak’kai
  • Sir Gar Kirasra
  • High Vizir Rakhnis Grahad’rhi
  • Grand Advisor Thir’ras Rhak’kai
  • King Rathos Rhak’kai
  • Emperor Sharahn Rhak’kai IV
• Sir Gar Kirasra now has an aura mechanic.
• +Renamed “Sandhikotta Ekam” in Pajca arm to “Alliance Fleet Beachhead”.
• +Jungle requires Warp Navigation 2 to enter.
• +Serengeti Blockade now requires Warp Navigation 3 to enter.
• +Connected Deep Space to Lyceum to Sol.
• Added suns to gals without a visible sun for OOC regen or modified existing hidden suns to be visible.

[System]

• Reintroduced Nanotech Plating
  • Bots now take 50% less item damage across the board with or without Nanotech Plating.
  • Nanotech Plating purely increases your longevity. Reduces item damage by 50% at level 25 (also affects all bots, stacking with the above, 25% damage taken for for NTP 25).
  • Increases the repair cost by 100% at level 25 (so training the skill is cost neutral for repairs).
  • Nanotech Plating now applies to sources of item damage that aren’t stasis or towing (e.g., overloaders failing).
  • Bots can now be repaired without penalty while undocked as long as you are docked (in this instance, they also don’t need to be stationary).
  • Prevented the tossing of damaged items.
  • Bots must be fully repaired before being transferred to a new owner.
• Stasis rework:
  • After 20 seconds of stasis, a regen of 0.5% max shield / sec is now added.
  • Ships will now enter yellow stasis at 50% max shield instead of 100%.
  • ooc no longer apply during stasis.

• Every ship gets another /freeaugreset.
• Mining damage has had its base DPS reduced. This should make it so that Mining damage is good to use against Capital Ships and Heavy Fighters without being the go-to damage type for most situations.
• Any percentwise AugMod bonuses that come from ship class (Heavy Fighter, Light Fighter, Support Freighter, Industrial Freighter, Capital Ship) now scale with tech level. This makes Capital Ships have less Shield and Energy bank bonuses at lower tech levels.
• Bots will no longer try to use prospector beam as a tractor (which resulted in a spam of “you can only use prospector on solarbodies” error in event chat for the owner.
• Prevented muted players from posting to the bulletin board.
• Set base critical hit chance to 5% (from 1%), still gain 5% chance for an ambush (10% total).
• When inviting someone to a team it no longer matters if you have destroyed bases in non-team space.
• Bots that are using a ship with a pending forced augmenter reset, will no longer fight properly and will complain about needing maintenance in a station whenever you try to enable fight enemy or attack target.
• Updated the non-bankable Healing Revamp mission aug resets to expire date of October 9, 2021.
• Improved the universe back-up save to reduce lag spikes from it.
• Removed the unholy noises generated by electron clouds and envelopments.
• Made -trans resist and Resistance to Damage tweaks reduce healing again.
• Removed the option for expanders to get the miniaturized mod.
• Removed text about clicking button in your inventory to do the aug reset as there is no button.
• Bots now report the neurobound item name when failing to transfer ownership due to a neurobound item being on board.
• AI Only items on non-wild bots will now disintegrate properly.

[Bugs]

• All Parasites/Fires (DoTs) have at least a 2 second damage interval now, because having less than that caused incorrect results due to often parasites are currently idling on server. This will result in most dots getting an increase of DPS.
• Fix for ship upgrade saying you have too many augmenters. If you tried to upgrade to a ship with the same number of augs and you have a skill that increase aug slots it prevented it.
• Fixed an exploit regarding The High Prophet.
• Corrected “Get them all to 20!” mission to state Beta Antares instead of Blue Photon Processing.
• Fixed Annihilator Overloader Blueprint being missing from the Annihilator Gear Blueprint pack.
• Small Blue Photon Stock Fighter MK II Generator was incorrectly renamed and did nothing. Correctly renamed to Blue Photon Stock Fighter MK II Crate.
• Fixed a bug where nuclear waste would extract at the incorrect speed on some planets.
• Fixed Tractoring 22: it now will take damage from the Paxian Bombs.
• Changed the The Deflector Solution mission in sol to need Titan Drones V2s instead of Titan Drones. As Titan Drones are now unavailable to players.
• Fixed a bug where OOC wouldn’t apply after server start until a combat action had occurred.
• Fixed a bug where termite nests would do radiation death and end up in an undefined state instead of just being destroyed.
• Fixed issue with Condenser Packs not reflecting their tech. Updated the packs to the tech level of the augs they produce. Also checks if blueprints can be installed before applying.
• Fixed to not prevent warping into AI-owned territory due to PvP mechanics.
• Fix for warhead not actually hitting their target if the target is larger than twice their range.
• Fixed issue with infinite crates being created on Queen Wasp. Deleted all the previous free fighters due to this generation. Will now need to build new fighters.
• Fixed missing fighter generator on Honeycomb.

We have edited the instance within Red Photon Research to be unlocked to everyone while the Red Photon Turret is dead. The key is no longer required to enter the instance as long as the turret is inoperable.

Enjoy.