Hey Sonatians,

This is the universe reset patch to prep for the upcoming healing revamp changes. The actual healing revamp changes will be in a few weeks.

The Battle Thatch, Battle Sphere, Massif III and Massif IV will be changing significantly in a few weeks, so take this under advisement when considering these ships as trade bots. Please refer to the Community Testing Event on test to review their stats further.

Base slots for galaxy assault have been changed to reduce the advantage of alt teams in war. When assaulting a galaxy, you now receive +1 BvB slot for every adjacent galaxy that you own. This bonus increases from +1 to +5 for each galaxy that you have owned continuously for the past 24 hours. Also, BvB Amplifiers now only grant their bonus (additional +5 slots) when the galaxy they’re located in has been owned continuously for the past 72 hours..

Skill Changes

• Fixed the Perpetual Motion missions for Astral Injection skill training to properly complete if your skill level was 6, 8, or 9 from the previous skill training system.

• Random AI bases will no longer have skills to train.

• With the streamlining of progression via zones. Removed various skilling locations. (Updated wiki).

• Added Zen of Devices to the Zen Skill Reset Mission and clarified you need at least one of each skill.

• Added a new Zen of Devices Mission as well.

Item Changes

• Fixed Junkyard and a few other station expansions taking 0 workers. They now take one worker like the others.

• Added Ginmill energy to the station in Brigand’s Stronghold needed for the pickpocket drones in perpetual motion.

AI Changes

• Reduced the XP bonus from Invasion AI in subspace.

• Cybernetic Interceptors now drop better loot

• George Ohm spawns no longer give XP.

Universe Changes

• Skins are now saved with universe reset.

• KD will now have subspace links to Perilous Space.

• Increased the respawn rate of Combo and Umbra

• Added a dementium base factory for sale in The Junkyard.

• Moved Space Rat Broodmother from Sol to Shadow and added a Space Cheese moon.

• Visual improvements to Blanco.

• Moved Building Academy Entrance to Lyceum and increased the instance gate size

• Fixed the wormholes in Bedrock Depths, part of the Vulcan zone, to properly lock the instance entrance.

System

• Fixed additional issues with bots unpacking crates.

• Fixed various typos in error messages.

• Changed BvB slot rules:

• You now get +5 BvB slots for each galaxy owned (at least 24hr) adjacent to the beseiged galaxy.

• BvB amps require the gal to be owned for 72 hours before granting their slots.

• Made it so that the “You’re moving too fast to dock” error rounds up your own speed in its output, to avoid issues like “your speed is 10 and your max docking speed is 10″.

• Fixed a bug which prevented doing Adv. Subskill reset when you have Wild Man or Bot Ph. D.

• Fix for “/endwar player playername” not working.

• Paid global xp boosts used on a bot now act as if they were used from their owner.

• Paid global boosts can only be used if the user is current or former subscriber.

• Combat bots “Guard Object” is now only valid in the current galaxy. If the guarded object jumps to another galaxy, the bot will reset to following after 5 minutes if the owner isn’t in the galaxy.

• Removed the ability to place TSL (Storage Tab) on the towing station in Sol or Arena Lobby.

Status of the revamp

Over the past few months, the dev team has been working hard on a revamp that focuses on the Shield Monkey and Engineer classes. While the project’s main goal is to give these classes more interesting and active combat roles, it has also led to broader changes to ship stats as we attempt to produce a more balanced damage mitigation experience in the game.

We held three community testing events over the summer to solicit player feedback on the project. While we did receive a lot of feedback that helped us improve the project, the testing events were plagued by glitches and the overall lack of polish, resulting in much frustration and wasted time for the players who signed on to help us. While our goal was to make our development process more transparent, we lacked the capacity to receive and process the massive amount of community feedback that you all provided. We had aimed to close testing on August 31 and move the project into patch preparation, but we didn’t hit this goal and are currently reassessing to develop a new timeline.

To the players who participated in the testing events or otherwise spent time discussing and theorycrafting this project, we are sorry for the frustration we have caused you. The dev team has lost a few members over the past year and this project is just too big for the current team to finish as quickly as we had hoped. However, it was still my responsibility to make an accurate assessment of the team’s capacity, and I apologize for falling short in this respect.

Player concerns and our reponses

To help show that we’re listening and attempt to repair some of the damage, Jeff and I held an emergency meeting a few days ago to address the concerns brought up by the playerbase. The meeting focused on responding to a list of five concerns that had been circulated by the player Jiraque. We’ve listed those concerns below, along with a summary of the responses we gave during the meeting.

1. Never again use the player base as an ad-hoc QA team. If there is insufficient testing manpower in the development QA team to test changes, extend the duration of your testing events and/or decrease the scope of your projects.

The last few community testing events were too early and disrespectful of your time as players. We won’t open up testing events in the future until they are much more polished and ready for community testing.

2. Be fair to your players. If you are changing augmenters or ships, compensate the player base accordingly with augmenter resets and/or opportunities to ship form (once per affected ship).

We had assumed that five augmenter resets would be enough for players to adjust to the changes in this project. We didn’t realize how large of an impact these changes would have on heavily invested players. Now that we have a better understanding, Jeff has authorized me to grant a free augmenter reset to every ship that logs in before February 6, 2021, plus three additional augmenter reset missions that will also expire on February 6, 2021. We will give more details on how to use your free reset when we are closer to launch. Note that the Community Testing Event galaxy on the Test Server will also stay open until February 6, 2021 to facilitate player theorycrafting and setup testing.

3. Respond to our concerns about the feel of the classes we play. The feel of playing the game is just as important as the numbers are. If there’s a general sentiment that something feels bad, prioritize fixing it.

We’ve taken this to heart and we will be asking focus groups of the classes that are changing for their opinions on the reworks to make sure any changes are considered fun or helpful.

4. If there is an extremely overpowered object of any kind in the game (item, ship, augmenter, equipment, etc.), make it your top priority to correct it. Do not let it linger in game and become the meta, then punish the player base for adopting that meta by nerfing it.

Distorting ships or strategies like the PBF, Battle Sphere, passive mod-stacking, and solar panel stacking all fall into this category. We’re working to address these and others in a way that satisfies the player base in order to open up design space in Tech 23 onwards.

5. If you increase the cost of things in-game (repair costs, AI base items, blueprints, etc.), add or tune active/passive income sources to compensate. Inform people of scrap price changes before patching.

We are dialing back repair costs in the project (see below). More broadly, we are making better communication and documentation a priority as we continue working on this project. This includes a changelog (of which we have started doing on test) and better patch notes.
All Test Changes
Outline of Healing Revamp (but see below for possible changes to Engineer)

Specific changes and initiatives

Here are a few noteworthy changes that we have made to address some major concerns before the next version of testing:

Lastly, we’re currently evaluating an experimental change to Engineer. In the spirit of Concern #3, we acknowledge that our earlier concept for the class wasn’t quite doing what we wanted, resulting in imbalances and lack of enjoyment. Early testing suggests that the following change would move the class in a promising direction:

EMERGENCY NOTICE

Paxian scouts have alerted us of a possible eradication event. Scanners have picked up an SOS by a Selenite Avenger ship. Reports say that their engine was disabled by the janitor tripping over an apparently vital power line that had been taped to the floor. Nobody is quite sure why the ship had their main engine powerline on the ground — or how one crewman could so utterly destroy it…

Further scans and a followup investigation report that the Avenger is opening fire immediately on all rescue attempts and that it contains a large shipment of anti-matter. This is especially disastrous as the ship is currently on a collision course with the event horizon of a black hole. The collision will be catastrophic for the space-time fabric of the current universe, and we urge everyone to prepare for transportation to another dimension. The resulting distortion will cause all credits on trade bots to be wiped, and all existing stations to be destroyed. We urge everyone to pack their stations and remove all credits from their trade bots before the end of the universe.

The universe reset will be held on Saturday, October 3rd.
BST: 18:00
EDT: 13:00
CDT: 12:00
MDT: 11:00
PDT: 10:00

Future Reset Dates
Dates have been updated to properly show the new times
February 13, 2021
June 12, 2021

What’s this about a revamp?

As many of you know, the dev team has been working hard on a revamp centering on the two support classes: Shield Monkey and Engineer. The main goal is to give these classes more interesting and pronounced combat roles. For Engineer, this comes through a redesigned Drone Ops stat that lets the class directly customize their drones, and new energy distribution systems such as the Tesla Coil. For Shield Monkey, we’ve removed the “free shields” granted by Transference Efficiency but replaced it with a new system that allows healers to steal shields from enemies to replenish themselves in a zero-sum way.

As part of the changes to healing, we have made additional changes to ships and shields that make constant healing less necessary. All players receive a substantial bonus to shield bank and regeneration to help them survive longer without heals when they come under fire. Also, higher tech hulls no longer receive higher resistance levels, and resistances are mostly standardized with a few thematic strengths and weaknesses at most. Of course, the shielding and damage output of bosses and adds have also been reviewed to align with these changes (but if you encounter anything that seems off, just let us know!)

When can I test this revamp?

You can test the revamp right now! We’ve just begun Community Testing Event 3, which can be accessed by pointing your client to the Test server (make sure to select Test, not Test 2).

A special galaxy is avialable off of Sol during the testing event. This system, Community Testing Event, will contain a large selection of gear Tech 15 and above along with Hogg’s Map Revealer! All of these items will be obtainable for 1 credit and available only during community testing events.

What exactly is changing?

A full list of the current changes to items can be found here. If you want more of an outline, check here instead.

Tips on testing

This is a big project and it may be hard to know where to start when you first log in. Here are some suggestions.

• Shield Monkey: Don’t forget to equip a second shield! Also check out the Shield Monkey Laboratories in Lyceum for some new class-locked items, and consider picking up a new Advanced Subskill. You may find it helpful to replace one of your augmenters with a damage-oriented augmenter.
• Engineer: Don’t forget to equip a second energy AND an extra augmenter. You may also find it helpful to replace one of your existing augmenters with something the grants Transference Power or Shield Regeneration. Also check out Engineer’s Workshop in Lyceum for some new class-locked items, and consider picking up a new Advanced Subskill.
• Everyone: Diffusers are now limited to one per ship and can’t be swapped during flight. Think about what damage type you’d like extra resistance toward, or try out one of the new omni-resistance options.

We want your feedback!

Any and all feedback you have can be posted to the feedback channels in Discord under the Healing Feedback category. We are committed to collecting and acting on community feedback until the project is fully polished for release on the live server.

This is a small patch including multiple internal changes in attempt to fully fix some issues with bots towing and in preparation for the healing revamp update.

Changes:

• Added some new gear that drops from Drake. Rebalanced some existing Drake gear.

• Removed ability to scoop Koto Research Platform in the Nexus.

• Removed Jelly’s Acidic Remains requirements from the Disintegrator Missile Factory BPs.

• Given Sentinel of adum the sight of adum. Sentinel of adum now has an Adum’s Radar (to see low vis characters)

• Deprecated missions will now auto abandon themselves.

• Applied the swear filter to bulletin board messages

• Disabled the | character from bulletin board messages

• Swear filter now applies to base names and descriptions

• Added swear filter to team name during team creation

Change for next universe:

• Added roaming trade fleets in Earthforce layer

• Added additional new names to Universe generation.

Support Revamp Testing

Testing of the Shield and Healing Revamp will begin on July 1st! Starting on that day, players can experiment with the upcoming release on test.starsonata.com which can be easily accessed by clicking the dropdown on your client and going to Test.

A full list of the current changes for this revamp can be found here.

During the event a new galaxy will be available off of Sol. This system, Community Testing Event, will contain a large selection of gear Tech 15 and above along with Hogg’s Map Revealer! All of these items will be obtainable for 1 credit and available only during community testing events.

Any and all feedback you have can be posted to the feedback channels in Discord under the Healing Feedback category. We are committed to collecting and acting on community feedback until the project is fully polished for release on the live server.

Things are going to get a little self congratulatory here, but I just wanted to start of with a big thank you to the community. We wouldn’t be here without you, and your support has made the past 2 weeks since we launched on Steam a highlight of my 10 years of involvement on the development team! You guys did everything we asked, and we made it to the Popular New Releases section of Steam for most of the last 2 weeks! We’ve had an incredible amount of new players pouring in, and you’ve all been incredible in welcoming them and helping them learn the game.

We’ve been on and off the front page since launch, but here is a screenshot from just a couple days ago when we were:

Star Sonata is a niche game, but all of us here (both developers, and players) have a deep passion for the game which is what has allowed the game to carry on for the over 16 years since the original alpha. It’s been an incredible experience, seeing us listed alongside such heavy hitters.

Now, the numbers

These numbers are constantly going up, and will almost certainly be out of date by the time I hit publish on the post, but this is where we currently stand:

• Just this morning, we broke 20,000 “owners” on Steam (with the game now showing in their library), currently sitting at 20,485
• So far, 9,133 of them have downloaded the game.
• 7,068 new accounts have been created since the Steam launch.
• Average concurrent online player numbers are over 200% of their pre-Steam launch numbers.
• Coupled with the boost from the stay at home pvp server we’re undergoing the largest growth in subscribers since the original launch from alpha. Subscriber numbers are up 92% in the last 2 months!
• The highest current subscriber count of the last 9 years, and over double the lowest point in that time-frame.

It’s impossible to say how many new people we’ll have sticking around, but things are certainly looking good! Hundreds of those accounts already have a substantial time investment in the game (at least 10 in-game hours logged, showing serious interest), and our returning player rate is looking good so more will surely follow. In addition to new players, we’ve also been constantly welcoming back old friends.

We’d like to give an extra special shout out to those of you who have been extra diligent in Help chat. Helping to guide new players in learning the game is incredibly important, and a few of you really went the extra mile in helping out!

There have been constant questions since June 12th of “how did Steam launch go?” and such, so I hope this answers them to everyone’s satisfaction. While the sale on the Starter Pack is over, the rest of our steam launch event is still active. You still receive 10 bonus spacepoints for every purchase of space points through the Steam wallet until July 12 as well as 50% increase XP while playing through Steam. We’ll be retiring the acquisition of the Raging Steam holoprojector at the same time, so be sure to grab it while it’s still available! We look forward to continuing to improve the game, and we’ll have more to share on new additions to the game soon.

This Nexus-specific patch fixes various balance issues and mission bugs concerning the beloved Nexus zone, which recently received a rework.

Spawner changes:

• Target Dummies have received some recoil increases:
  • Target Dummy Mk.II recoil increased from 2s to 2.75s
  • Target Dummy Mk.III recoil increased from 2s to 3.5s.
• Some Rat variants have had shield regen reductions:
  • Huge Rat shield regen reduced from 25/s to 20/s.
  • King Rat shield regen reduced from 35/s to 25/s.
  • Queen Rat shield regen reduced from 45/s to 30/s.
• Reduced knockback on allied Cadet catapults by 50%.
• Volcom Pirates have had some shielding and regen reductions:
  • Low-tier Volcom shield reduced from 650 to 350 shielding and 50/s regen down to 25/s.
  • Mid-tier Volcom shield reduced from 750 to 700 shielding and 50/s regen down to 40/s.
  • High-tier Volcom shield reduced from 1500 to 1000 shielding and 75/s regen down to 55/s.
  • High-tier Volcom Wingship shield reduced from 1125 to 750 shielding.
• Reduced the number of Volcom in Mutara Scrapyard.
• Reduced the number of Volcom Wingships guarding the Delta Fuel Platform in Deep Space from 2 to 1.
• All Flyswatter types have had their shield strength reduced by 25%:
  • Flyswatter Embryo shield reduced from 200 to 150 shielding.
  • Flyswatter Larva shield reduced from 400 to 300 shielding.
  • Flyswatter Maggot shield reduced from 600 to 450 shielding.
  • Flyswatter Flylet shield reduced from 1000 to 750 shielding.

• Koto Research has received tankiness reductions:
  • Koto Micro Zebu shield reduced from 500 to 250 shielding and 40/s regen down to 25/s.
  • Koto Zebucart shield reduced from 800 to 400 shielding and 40/s regen down to 25/s.
  • Koto Research Platform shield reduced from 3500 to 2500.
  • Koto Research Complex shield reduced from 10,000 to 7500 and 50/s regen down to 25/s.
• Space Jelly “Wave” attack recoil increased from 3s to 4s and “Sting” attack recoil increased from 1s to 2s.
• Removed the allied Cadets from Deep Space.
• Reduced the number of Black Hole Brigands in Deep Space.
• Black Hole Brigands have received some strength reductions:
  • Brigand shield reduced from 1500 to 1000 shielding and 50/s regen down to 10/s.
  • Brigand Wingship shield reduced from 1125 to 750 shielding and 50/s regen down to 10/s.
  • Brigand and Brigand Wingship damage reduced by 25% and recoil on all weaponry increased from 2s to 3s (except the Brigand Wingship’s Sebastapol, which went from 0.5s to 0.75s).
• Fixed the Brigands and Brigand Wingships to correctly drop the Black Hole Gravitas tweak.

Mission changes:

• Added new more-powerful versions of the Cadet’s Beam, Old Man Block, Cadet Catapult, and Stapleton’s Acid Shooter to replace the old ones. Existing versions will not be renamed into the new ones, due to behind-the-scenes issues with some of the player gear balance sheets.
• Added the ‘Mission Interface’ mission explaining the mission interface with an indicator pointing to the ‘Combat Practice’ mission.
• Added three new upgrade-focused missions to various Nexus stations, going over Augmenters, Ship Upgrades, and Radars.
• Added two new skill-focused missions to various Nexus stations, reminding players to train skills up.
• Tweaked summary text of ‘Skill Training’ mission and added an indicator pointing to the skills tab and the skills to choose from within that tab.
• Changed the instance missions that auto-began in the instance lobbies (Tunnels and Droppings, Whiskey Approach, and Hangfire) to no longer require exploration of that lobby system, as those versions of the missions are given to players within that lobby.
• Changed the ‘Volcom Raiders’ mission to require a Volcom and Volcom Wingship kill.
• Fixed the ‘Two Steps Back’ mission for Whiskey Outpost not conflicting with the ‘Attack on Whiskey Outpost’ mission.
• Changed the “Oats Captain” mission to only require 3 Space Oats instead of 10.
• Changed the ‘Business Rivals’ mission to only require Luigi Salmano to be eliminated.
• Fixed ‘Twin Pillars Run’ mission to be completed before ‘Twin Pillars Run II’ is available.
• Corrected the ‘Twin Pillars Run II’ mission summary from 150 to 165 seconds.
• Fixed the ‘Hidden Refuge’ mission.

Miscellaneous changes:

• Fixed instance wormholes to state minimum level requirement to enter instead of an error message.
• Updated the Nexus neurotweaks. This includes updated charge times, and altered effects for the Leaking Fuel Cell and Jelly’s Acidic Blood tweaks.
• Added additional “guideplates” (floating text in space) with helpful advice in Cadet Academy and other areas of Nexus.
• Added Janitor’s Special Cleaner to Earth Central in Sol for use in planetary projects.
• Moved Not Too Badly Damaged Positronic Brain drop away from Rattie Moe and to Space Rat Broodmother in Sol.

Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for! Star Sonata 2 is available on Steam!

As we’ve already highlighted in previous posts, it is super crucial for us to get as many of our existing players to play with the Steam version of the game during the Launch Event (June 12-July 12). By playing the game through Steam, and buying any Space Points through Steam, you are directly helping the game increase in visibility and standings which allow us to grow the game and share it with more people!

Don’t forget to check out the details of our Launch Event and the Starter Pack.

If you are a new player to Star Sonata, welcome! We are so excited to have you here. Check out our Quick Start Guide, or pop on over to our Discord server for more information to help you get started in the universe.

If you are an existing player to Star Sonata, you probably have a ton of questions about this Steam launch. Here are some questions we’ve heard that we’d like to answer.

• Will I still be able to download the client through the website?
  Yes! If you don’t want to use Steam at all, you don’t have to!

• Can I use my existing account on Steam?
  Yes! When you launch Star Sonata 2 through Steam and you come to the login screen, there is a button to switch to a non-Steam login, then you can log in with your existing account. Currently, there is no way to actually link your account with Steam, but you can still use your pre-existing account.

• How do I get the bonus of the Launch Event? 
  Launch the game through Steam and log in either with a Steam Account or a pre-existing account. When you log in you will get the bonus Raging Steam holoprojector, and the EXP bonus will activate. You will only get the EXP bonus while you are on the Steam version of the client.

Kilando has put together a video for existing players that shows how to access the game launch the game through Steam. Check it out below!

Greetings Pilots!

Here are the next set of patch notes for the Liberty server!

If you have any concerns or feedback on any of these changes please report them in the #feedback channel on the Star Sonata Discord!

(+changes require a new uni)

[Nexus Rework]

• The Nexus has been reworked, there will be a blog post soon.

[Skill Changes]

• New skill, Zen of Devices, increases the charge rate of certain super items by 3% per level up to level 100. Super items will say in their description if they are affected by this skill.

[Item Changes]

• Removing Attached Drones.
  • Converted All Attached Drone items to their non-attached variants. Attached Warp Beacon will be unchanged.
  • Converted Attached Drone Blueprints to their non-attached versions.
  • Removed Attached Magic Attach requirement from Attached Warp Beacon.
  • Converted Armada Ambrosia Drone to an unattached drone.
  • Player owned attached drones are no longer allowed to exist in Earthforce layer. They will be removed when the server restarts.

• Adjusted the stats on many super items.

• Envelopments will now always attach to the object that used them. Envelopments generally have been strengthened, but their active time reduced. Envelopments can now look like different things, such as a chunk of ice.

• Ice block super items will now have a much lower bonus resistance buff, but create an envelopment around the ship that looks like ice with a fixed hit point pool.

• Increased the tech level of many built in super items that were artificially low.

• Common shield tweaks have had their stats increased.

• Fixed a bug where Enveloping Monkey, Seer Backstab, and Sniper Marksman were affecting super item damage.

• New Roscap Mining Punch Super Item.

• All tweaks used by Super Items will automatically get the NoTweak tag and not use the Neurotweaking skill.

• All the Common tweak super items can charge faster with Zen of Devices skill.

• Changed Krill Fighter device and Alien Krill Fighter device to only launch one Krill fighter, but that fighter will do about 3x the DPS as before.

• Claw Missile Device will now charge much faster, Alien Claw Missile Device will charge a little faster, but do a lot more damage.

• Updated visuals on the Zebucart Mark 2 skin, the Volcom and its variants, the Brigand’s Volcom and its variants, the Phunka.dll, and the Helga.

• Added an unremovable “Tracking Beacon” item to a new player’s starter Zebucart ship.

• Reduced the tech level of the “Cadet Missile Launch Device”, the Cadet and Reconditioned Cadet’s missile generator, to tech 0 to fix issues with it.

[AI Changes]

• Fixed Kalthi Minion Fighter Hull engine mount locations.

• +Forgones will now take 20 seconds between firing their super item instead of 10.

[Universe Changes]

• +Changed “Earthforce Sanctuary: East Wild Space” and “Earthforce Sanctuary: West Wild Space” galaxy names to “Earthforce Sanctuary Alpha” and “Earthforce Sanctuary Beta” respectively.

• +The AC exchange for Primal Zebra / Panther Ship Remains have had their Zaphragi Research Diploma turn-in values normalized to two per.

[System]

• Fixed a bug that allowed selling items to stations without a trade bay.

• Made shops which are not public or trading have their entries removed from market check.

• Fixed bug which only allowed base owners to use items on the base. It now depends on Management permission.

• The ship window will now only show the effects of damage and rof buffs on your most recent fired weapon, and no longer show incorrect numbers for the other weapons.

• Damage tweak / aura is now a DPS tweak / aura. For the percent based ones, this won’t change anything, but the few non-percent ones will be a change in DPS now instead of damage per shot.

• Added separate smaller resets to the skill resets in stations. Can now reset classes, hostility skills, adv subskills, or control skills separately alongside the full skill reset.

• Can now search for “nb” or “neurobound” in inventory or TSL to see all NB items.
• Can now search for “*” in inventory or TSL to see all modded items.
• TSL will now display an asterisk after the names of any modded items inside

• Fixed a bug where drones on the hotbar would sometimes default back to the unequipped version.