We are thrilled to announce the upcoming Refined & Reforged patch. This update focuses on enhancing active play and promoting a more dynamic and engaging game, where players must think critically and make strategic choices to succeed. In addition to several new mechanics that are designed to promote active play, we’ve also made a couple changes that should greatly reduce the lag players have experienced in large-scale PvP battles. Our development team has been working hard to bring you new and exciting gameplay opportunities, and we’re confident that these changes will add a new level of depth and excitement to your time spent in the game.

Gunner’s Deathblossom

The Deathblossom has been one of the most powerful effects that any class has access to in Star Sonata. It has allowed one class to deal high amounts of damage to many targets while only paying a modest electricity cost. The role of Gunner is inextricably linked to the feeling of the Deathblossom, so we knew that we needed to keep that feeling alive no matter what changes we made to the mechanic. The most major change we’ve made is that the Gunner will have to pay some amount of energy for each shot it fires. The exact amount of energy depends on the number of valid Deathblossom targets with efficiency rising greatly when several targets are being fired on. Based on our testing, we feel that this positively rewards using the Deathblossom tactically, as opposed to keeping it enabled at all times. Rest assured, Gunner still very much owns the role of indiscriminate destroyer, laying waste to a battlefield around them.

We’ve added a scaling electricity cost to the extra shots on the Deathblossom. This change makes Deathblossom mode much less energy efficient, particularly when firing against only 2 or 3 targets. Additionally, Deathblossom mode now disables your normal “selective firing” mode, meaning you cannot target a planet or moon to get an additional stream of shots on the target. This will encourage players to toggle the Deathblossom on and off based on what they are fighting. We have fixed a longstanding bug preventing Damage mods on Deathblossoms from working and have added these mods to various  Deathblossom items for an added level of complexity. On-hit weapon effects (splash, area of effect, chain, etc.) no longer occur while the Deathblossom is equipped, greatly reducing visual lag and freeing us up to buff weapons with those effects for use by other classes as well. Finally, targets are no longer shot simultaneously, instead they are fired at a fixed rate, which will lead to a significant gain in server and player client performance, especially in larger engagements.

Gunner’s Destruction Debuff and Advanced Sub Skill Changes

The Destruction effect has been decreased from 45% to 15%. This change was made as Gunners were adding substantial amounts of multiplicative DPS to a squad in spite of not being construed as a class with that role. However, the Automated Reloader advanced subskill now grants a 10% destruction bonus, bringing Destruction’s effect up to 25%. The Advanced Targeting Computers advanced subskill now grants +50% tracking and -15% range, instead of adding additional targets to the Deathblossom.

Missiles and Missile Launchers

We’ve made some changes to the missiles and missile launchers as well. Missile launchers are no longer usable on bots and they no longer have a missile queue. The time between missile launches has increased but they now do much greater damage with longer-lasting effects. Missiles no longer fire in a volley in most cases and instead fire in a salvo of a single missile. Players are able to target and engage a singular missile much better than a volley of missiles. The Disintegrator missile effect has been changed to negative damage debuff.

Shield Monkey and Its Tools

Funky Monkey now has new functionality that allows you to put on a stacking healing parasite on whatever you are healing. The best part? This healing parasite doesn’t cost shields from your shield bank, making Shield Monkey considerably more efficient in healing. It does come at the cost of an overall HPS penalty so this should be an interesting choice for players to make.

Next, Monkey Mantle has undergone a few changes. It is no longer usable on capital ships and now requires an increased amount of constant electricity to be equipped. Additionally, we’ve decreased the size of the Monkey Mantles to encourage more tactical and situational use.

We’ve also made changes to Last Defense and Last Stand neurotweaks. Their bonuses have been adjusted to help you heal others and steal more shields, making them more effective in keeping you and your allies alive in the heat of battle.

Weapons Changes

We’ve made some changes to certain weapons. Super long-range weapons have been recategorized into the same category as long-range weapons. This reduces outliers of extreme range weapons that were obtaining such extreme ranges that it wasn’t very fun to fight against them (or even to fight with them as you were so far from visual range of your own target).

All projectile weapons other than Sebastopols now have at least a little bit of tracking. Transferences with low tracking had their tracking and HPE increased.

The ranges of on-hit weapon effects now scale with tech of the weapon. This causes the overall range of the effect on these weapons to be much farther at higher techs, a change that we believe will make these weapons viable for use by a variety of classes (and couldn’t have been done as long as AoE weapon effects were permitted in Deathblossom mode). However, the initial hit damage for on-hit effect weapons has been lowered, and the damage that the effects do has been raised. This means that the single target damage that these weapons do is overall lower but the damage done to additional targets is quite a bit higher. Overall, we view these changes to be a net buff to weapons with on-hit effects and anticipate that a variety of classes will find them situationally useful.

Energy Changes

Energies are being buffed, mostly.  Energies with high regeneration for their tech level will see a significant increase in bank size, while energies that had middling regeneration have had an even bigger increase in bank size. These changes should make Energy Bank bonuses much more useful across the board, and they should increase the amount of time players are able to fire their weapons at full power. Not all energies will retain the exact stats they had previously and could see weight, size, regen and potentially other changes but we attempted to prioritize regeneration numbers above all.

We have also added a fuel indicator to the user interface. When your energy is running low on fuel, the indicator will blink red to alert you to this fact and you can hover over the energy bar to know an estimation of how much fuel is left.

Tractors and Graviton Disruptors

As we were analyzing the overall experience of large-scale PvP, we realized that the enormous range of tractor beams was distorting gameplay and encouraging people to engage their enemies from many screens away. We felt that tractor beams would be more engaging to use if they were restricted to somewhat shorter ranges than currently seen in game. The biggest change to know here is that the Tractor Power stat will no longer grant range along with strength. Also, we’ve shifted most of the power of the tractor subskills onto the baseline stats of tractor beams themselves. Lastly, since it will be a lot easier to avoid tractor beams than before, we’ve increased the cooldown of graviton disruptors so that you can’t use them to achieve near-immunity to tractor beams. As a whole, we hope that these changes lead to a more engaging experience when tractoring or being tractored.

Previously tractors in player conflict were used as long range harassment and to pull bots out of a squad’s position. While you will not be able to use the tractor from nearly as long ranges, those being tractored will not be able to maintain close to 100% uptime of their gravitation disruptors anymore. This creates a new paradigm where you have to actively work around tractors and use the gravitation disruptor when the time is right instead of repeatedly using it on cooldown to negate tractors entirely. As for the tractor beam range reduction, ships without a lot of tractoring bonuses can expect their tractor beams to continue functioning with similar range and strength.

Along with these changes, tractors stats will now scale up more aggressively with tech level. Be sure to check out the stats on any higher tech tractors in your arsenal to see whether they’ve become more competitive..

Drones

We’ve also made some changes to Drone behavior. Automatic cross healing of stationary healing drones has been disabled and temporary drones will no longer automatically heal other temporary drones with transferences. However, they will still automatically heal drones without transferences. You can still make healing drones heal other drones by using RTS. Additionally, we’ve fixed the Drone RTS to make sure that drones properly follow your RTS commands. With RTS fixed, Engineers have a new tool in their arsenal for actively contributing to their squad while inactive Engineers will no longer benefit from automatic cross-healing of drones.

Miscellaneous Changes

Stasis has been adjusted so that you no longer benefit from your shield regeneration while in stasis. You will only heal from Death Stasis healing, making all classes be in stasis for the same amount of time regardless of their shield regeneration and shield bank.

Finally, the Speed Demon Overdrive Device has had its Energy regeneration amount reduced but now grants an extra Electric Tempering bonus. Berserker Class 3’s Damage bonus now requires piloting a heavy fighter to receive its benefits.

Long Term

From the beginning, our work on this patch was focused on lifting up interesting tactical choices and rewarding active gameplay, particularly as informed by the various snags we’ve observed in squad-based PvP since the Anatolian Expanse update. Along the way, we have attempted to follow any nerfs with new opportunities, such as the removal of on-hit weapon effects in Deathblossom mode paired with the overall buff to weapons with such effects.  We’re particularly glad to report that we’ve addressed several sources of lag that have unfortunately weighed down the game in recent months, particularly in large PvP engagements. Overall, it’s our hope that this update helps to inject some fresh and exciting gameplay into Star Sonata. We appreciate the continued support of our players and look forward to hearing your feedback as you explore the new and improved features. Thank you for playing!

Christmas is here, or near enough, with our Christmas event kicking off today. Astro-Ginch better watch out, as those pesky terrans will seek him out for his goodies.

Christmas will run from the December 16th for a bit over three weeks and end on January 5th in the new year.

The event this year will feature the normal festivities, including the return of Astro-Santa, spreading his jolly cheer and giving all the (nice, and definitely not naughty) citizens of the universe their presents.

Missions and related content can be found from the Lapland system, which will appear from a new wormhole in Sol.

[UI/Client Changes]

• Added free skins for Orca, Orca+, Porpoise, and Porpoise+ for the original non-Merchant Navy skins.
• Middle mouse click on the map now links the galaxy name in the chat.
• Opening Notification Boxes such as Subspace, New Wild Space galaxies, and others will now bring that window to the top and in focus when pressed.
• Added some info to the bot orders dialogue text about needing a radar and needing a dock order before each buy and sell order.
• Tooltip will now vanish if the client is not in focus/active (should fix cases of stuck tooltip when alt-tabbing).
• Added Visibility to F10 Ship Window.

[Next Universe]

• Added Trade Bay turn in for Aku’ Qa after completing the mission.
• Strontium-90 redesigned with new ships and stations under the Merchant Navy.

[Server Changes]

• Slightly tweaked the item descriptions on drones (mobility factor is now speed, dist is now distance).
• Bots now reset their orders if they are set to guard a ship that is not owned by team, squad or account.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed bug for sorting prices in trade bay above 2.1 billion credits.
• Fixed bug with guard object bot orders not resetting when owner hasn’t been in same galaxy for 5 minutes.

Note: Some of these changes are already live.

[Anatolian Expanse]

• All influence (both currently held by teams and AI) increased by x1000 to prevent weird rounding error bugs. This includes the threshold to win as well.
• Added a new notification system for when the Polemarchos will spawn and will notify when less then 2.5 days remain before it will spawn.
• Increased phase changes on Starategos to 100 seconds and Polemarchos to 150 seconds.
• Reduced the damage and shields of the non-boss Anatolians.
• Polemarchos and Starategos had spawn times and influence increased proportionally.
• Polemarchos and Starategos keep their dodge-able super items equipped during transform phase.
• Added asteroid belts in all the Anatolian galaxies to show the limit before an aura will cause negative effects to players.
• Buffed Anatolian bosses due to them spawning less often
• Fixed a bug on the Hoplites phase that caused a possible bugged state.
• Fixed a bug that had the bosses docking at AI bases.
• Changed Anatolian Colonial Advisor to a crate of 5 Anatolian Colonial Advisor
• Bosses no longer shout on spawn but shout on transform.

[UI/Client Changes]

• Adjusted number of notifications from maximum of 2 to 6.
• Added a new alert notification on spawn instead of using a All Chat shout.

[Item Changes]

• Changed the Engineer Chain Transfer Mk I, II, and III in the dg drop lists to Engineer Chain Gatling Transfer Mk I, II, and III. So item renamers will no longer drop

[Bug Fixes]

• Fix to stop bio and emp bio mounds from saving resulting in multiple mounds on server restarts.
• Fixed the galaxy reveal notification timer being wrong.
• Fix for factories / hydros longer then 20 minutes (Dem Factory not working).

[Anatolian Expanse]

• Made all of the rewards from the Anatolian Expanse Alternate Currency turn ins size 0.
• Increased phase immortality phase on Starategos to 150 seconds and Polemarchos to 210 seconds.
• Added shouts on engage that reveal what boss type is being engaged by players.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fix for bots not pathing properly when owner is too many jumps away.
• Fixed a bug causing the shared influence gain proportion to be half of what they were supposed to be.
• Fixed a bug that prevented the influence gain message in chat unless it was above 20.
• Fixed an error state that can occur to the Anatolian Expanse bosses.
• Fixed Anatolia Crest trade in cost at one of the bases being incorrect.

[Anatolian Expanse]

• Added an all new PvP Zone for claiming the Emperor of the Universe! Check out details in the following Dev Blogs: Dev Diary – Anatolian Expanse and Dev Diary – Emperor System, Wild Space and Aug Sourcing

[Wild Space]

• All new Termite Siege system. Read the details here: Dev Diary – Termite Sieges
• Command & Control base changes:
  • Command & Control Station Kit no longer can be irradiated and base becomes destroyed from radiation.
  • Command & Control bases must be deployed within 3k distance from the edge of a sun. The universe generation code been updated accordingly so that at least 3 suns are found in every Wild Space galaxy.
  • The Nullification Generator build time has been increased from 2 hours to 3 hours, but a new system has been introduced that can accelerate the build speed back down under 2 hours.
  • We have added a basebound factory called Nullification Generator Construction Support. This factory automatically constructs Ownership Booster Drones as long as it is equipped and supplied with materials. Ownership Booster Drones auto-deploy upon being built and orbit the station at a distance of 8k.
  • Each deployed drone provides a 16.7% build speed increase to the man-hours required to complete the Nullification Generator Blueprint. In theory, a team can reduce the build time for a Nullification Generator to approximately 100 minutes by constantly building these drones.
• Teams now track termite mounds in galaxies which have assets (bases, permanent drones) belonging to that team.
  • A list of galaxies with mounds is sent with the team message on login.
  • A termite mound now announces how long it is until the next attack wave, if there is one, when entering its galaxy.
• Adjusted suitability cap on Colony Enhancement items and the items now introduce a multiplier to the amount the colony is willing to buy per tick.
• Added Autopilot galaxy linking tags to the new galaxy reveal messages.
• When entering a galaxy your team owns, it will now state the time until it unowns if the galaxy is unstable.
• Updated the wording of the Galaxy Reveal notification message and added a new custom notification icon.
• Industrial Station Research: Y and Industrial Station Research: Z no longer are affected by Construction Speed Bonuses but have had their manhours reduced by 50%.
• Expedition Team is now locked to the Wild Space layer. Added a new Starter Expedition Team locked to Earthforce layer. Increased the cost of Expedition Team Blueprint from 100 tokens to 200 tokens.
• Increased the min and max yield of asteroids in random Wild Space galaxies by a factor of x10.
• Reduced Scorpius’s non-Fermium min and max asteroid yields by ~33%.
• Doubled the colony storehouse size for the colony commodities (Astral Silk, Troubles, The Spice, Storm Crystals, and Dragon Eggs).

[UI / Client Changes]

• Pop-up windows will no longer respond to enter/return to prevent accidental selections such as accepting docking ships.
• Added Level, Class and Subscription status to the Team Roster.
• Ship Subtype is now listed in the F10 Ship Information menu.
• Tractors now show rings between user and target.
• Mission locked Alternative Currency trades are no longer hidden, but shown as LOCKED, double clicking to try to buy anyway will list the mission requirement
• Replaced up/down arrow overlays on the galaxy map with icons above the DG and Juxta icons.
• *Installed blueprint’s tooltips will now state if the blueprint does not get Construction Speed Bonuses.
• Added a new button on the colony tab that disables/enables colony trading per base (Example: Can disable ExE bases from trading with colonies. While CA base on same planet can continue).
• Changed Orca, Orca+, Porpoise, and Porpoise+ to the new Merchant Navy textured. Added free skins for the original non-Merchant Navy textures.
• Chat now activates when using “Link Item in Chat”.
• Added Visibility to the squad/possessions small target tool tip.
• Fixed a bug with double clicking a name on the Team tab under Social that prevented opening a whisper private chat.
• Updated beam effects to reflect the dual colors on high+ graphics and not wash out with white glow.

[Skill Changes]

• Renamed the player skill “War Mongering” (not to be confused with the team skill “Warmongering”) to “Wartime Logistics”.
• Removed Class Zen skills from being trained in the Lyceum focus and class bases due to the Class Skills tab handling this.

[Item Changes]

• Bots will no longer automatically use Titanium Plating, Laconia Plating, or Adamantium Plating as they were previous just spamming. Players will need to manually trigger the tweak effect now.
• Increased the +Damage augmod on Kalthi Cuirass, Kalthi Armored Cuirass, and Kalthi Stinger Cuirass to +3%, +5%, and +3% respectively (originally all 1%)
• Added the effect description to Red Photon Doomsday Device, Electrified Defense Matrix, Nightfury Focus & Rage Generator, and Spice Protection
• Changed Red Photon Prototype Remote Weapon Augmentation to Rare.
• Red Photon Doomday Device no longer will no longer scale based off the target’s NT.
• Added effect descriptions to all the Shadow tweak superitems.
• Removed the +recoil on Kalthi Warrior Focus Heart and Body and replaced it with disable main weapons for 5 seconds.
• Fixed the inverted vulnerability buff on Kalthi Warrior Body (supposed to make you tankier for a brief moment, not the other way around).
• Gravity Well Stabilizer on the Voulge no longer applies to enemies and no longer has a negative range effect.
• Fixed some wrongly labeled descriptions on a few Diffusers.
• Increased Solarian Fighter Bay drop rate.
• Fixed a typo in a Blue Outpost mission item.
• Removed Boson Blower from being in a container.
• Changed Healing/Damage to Total Healing/Damage on superitem descriptions.
• Reduced Range debuff on Celestial Destabilizing Beam from -25% to -15%.
• Fixed Celestial Protection Beam’s effect so it doesn’t flicker.
• Marked several negative stat capacitors from early game as AI Only.
• Changed Fighter Over Drive Blitz to 150% damage and -50% recoil and increase effects duration to 10 seconds.
• Added Poseidon+ Drone Controller to Perpetual Motion.

[AI Changes]

• Reduced the damage of the UrQa attackers in Arctia.
• Bouquet Augmenter no longer drops from DG Basil and Balilus AI. They now drop from Roamer versions of the AI.
• Stede Bonnet now drops Bouquet Augmenters.
• Subspace Sas Outposts are capped at one spawn per galaxy.
• Adjusted Infernal Darkness drops.
• Removed several of Infernal Darkness negative auras from being Tweakable.
• Reduced Dark Doom’s aura from -50% Shield Max to -25% for 5000 range and reduced from -80% to -40% for 500 range.
• Reduced Doom’s aura from -50% Shield Max to -25% for 2000 range.
• Adjusted balance of various DG mobs and bosses. Some notable wild bots may have been affected.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Double the number random dungeon galaxies in both Earthforce and Perilous Space.
• Random DG bosses now have dedicated drop for augmenters. Read more here: Dev Diary – Emperor System, Wild Space and Aug Sourcing
  
• Added two more random Warp Beacons to Earthforce layer around Danger Factor 140/150.
• Adjusted various galaxies to no longer have point of interest and added various others.
• Adjusted the spawning Danger Factor of various galaxies.
• Removed the Building Academy Instance and Missions until they are reworked. Building Academy Entrance changed to be unable to place user bases within it.
• LACS 1894 renamed to Jungle’s Edge. Moved from Lyceum to Early Warp 2.
• Lyceum Research Concourse moved to late Warp 1.
• Added new drones and drone blueprints to Olympus, Infernal Darkness and Red Photon.

[Mission Changes]

• Added subscription requirement in the goal text for premium only missions.
• ‘A Fair Trade’ mission turned into a crate trade-in instead.
• Fixed an issue with several missions looking for Jujuso’qi for the kill.
• Fixed some missing spaces in Jungle mission texts

[Server]

• Accounts are now given a 24 hour grace period before going unsubbed. This means accounts that are auto renewed no longer should spam team message with expiring warnings.
• Energies, Station Extensions and Shields won’t unequip or shut off when a player station goes into Starving mode.
• Increased the number of ship slots from 25 to 50 and increase the Subscription bonus from 10 to 25.
  • Deployed bots now count as ship slots (excluding wild bots).
  • Number of slots available checked when docking wild bots (if possible), when transferring bots, purchasing ships, or opening an item form ship.
• Players can now transwarp from Instances (Still can’t transwarp TO Instance though).
• Warping from one layer to another will reveal any “Point of Interest” galaxies in the new layer.
• Added a True Damage type that bypasses resists for certain boss content.
• Added item linking to the event and squad chat for scooping items.
• Prospecting nodes now use a new system of terms to describe the size of the node based on the commodity: Trace, Hint, Vein, Haul, Wealth, and Bounty.
• Switching to a ship when docked now automatically adds any missing inbuilt items.
• Mission Icon indicators now vanish if you cannot “see” the station or select it.
• Fixed missing space before ‘(tweakable)’ in aura descriptions.
• Item type “Cloaking Device” is simplified to “Cloak”.
• Added EPS to weapons stats.
• Added base acceleration and turning speed to engines (based on the engine weight) for easier direct comparison.
• Cannot create Character names that match chat channel names now.
• No longer can enter an instance if your PvP Timer is active (much like entering a no PvP gal).
• Reformulated the size of asteroids and ore debris to scale less drastically.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed issue that prevented Parasites on beams from getting extra damage from a critical hit.
• Fixed issue with DNA Extraction beams that immediately extracted all 4 DNAs instead of turning off per extraction.
• Fixed issue with basebound items not being added with you preform a station upgrade with a new kit.
• Fixed an exploit with bots and squad’s bots transwarping with items marked with No Transwarping and Prevents leaving galaxy. These items are now lost and decayed on jump.
•  Fixed a bug where base kits which could not be upgraded could be upgraded via the base tech upgrade items.
• The Artifact Station Tech Upgrades will properly no longer spawn in ruins.
• Fix for a bug preventing repair of a station in owned gal if the original owner was in a different team.
• Fixed a bug that allowed for taking over multiple Command & Control ownership bases within the same galaxy on the same team.
• Fix for a bug causing galaxy ownership to always say “stable” when entering a gal, even when its about to lose ownership.
• Fixed bug in the combat bot swarm limit which set the minimum limit to 1 instead of 2.
• Ujqii Ishi fighter no longer does ~4x as much damage as it should.
• Fix for noScaling.txt override preventing windows dpi scaling not working on windows 11.
• Fixed a bug to not invite an AI with the same name as a player if it exists.
• Fixed Mobile Drone Desync.

Welcome to another Star Sonata Dev Diary! Today we’re going back into the Emperor system, talking about new Wild Space improvements and the new ways to target farm for augmenters.

How to become Emperor?

Let’s dive into the mechanical details of the new Emperor system. To be crowned emperor you need points called Influence.

These points are gained from 3 types of Anatolian bosses that spawn within the Anatolian Expanse:

• Polemarchos gives 900,000 Influence

• Starategos gives 60,000 Influence

• Taxiarhos gives 3000 Influence

The harder the boss and the more influence it gives, the longer it takes to respawn. Influence is awarded on a teamwide basis and any team that participates in killing an Anatolian boss gets some Influence from the total pool. Because Influence is apportioned for different things, any time spent dealing damage to a boss will make you eligible for points; however, getting the finishing blow is also worth a heavy portion of the bosses Influence pool. Influence is awarded instantly upon kill via an event chat notification of your team’s share and does not require scooping anything or having to turn anything in.

Once a team has greater than 9 million Influence and a sufficient lead in Influence over any other contenders, they will automatically be awarded the Imperial Throne and the contest will be over. After crowning an Emperor there is a cooldown period of three weeks during their reign where no Influence can be earned. After the cooldown period all teams have their influence points set to zero and the cycle starts again. However the incumbent Emperor remains in position and still gets the perks of being Emperor until a new one succeeds them.

Fighting for Emperor up until the very end is still worth it, even if there are only a few weeks left in the universe. This is because the majority of the rewards for becoming Emperor are granted immediately upon claiming the throne.

After being crowned Emperor

Once crowned Emperor, the Director of the winning team will take ownership of the Imperial Palace, which is invulnerable and takes up no base slots. Only members of the reigning team can dock at the palace and management access is set to Councillors. A Splendid Imperial Trove, a crate with the following unbound items will be placed in the palace awaiting the Emperor’s team once crowned:

• 150 Imperial Chests

• 3 Imperial Augmenter Resets

• 3 Imperial Ship Dry-Dock Modules

Additionally, members of the ruling team will receive win points: three for directors, two for councillors, and one for everyone else. The director also gets Leadership 3 if they do not already have it, granting access to the exclusive Emperor’s Club in Sol. Lastly, a universal 5% tithe on colony profits and scooped credits accrues in the reigning team’s funds until the next Emperor is named.

PvP Items

See: Dev Diary – Anatolian Expanse

There is a new item tag on the Anatolian Crest that drops from Midas’ Fleet within the Anatolian Expanse, with the following unique properties:

• Drops on death.

• Drops on layer change (tow or jump).

• Drops on ship evaporation (1 minute after logoff).

• Decays on new uni.

• Prevents Transwarp.

• Bots cannot scoop.

• Debris has high visibility.

• Gives high visibility if you scoop.

• Debris is persistent for 48 hours via any action other than tossing.

• Once docked, it cannot be transferred to another ship or tossed; it must be used or destroyed (scrapped) before undocking is possible.

Wild Space Changes

We have heard loud and clear from the community that obtaining a foothold in Wild Space at the beginning of the universe was frustrating due to the relatively small number of galaxies revealed at the start. We have recalibrated the reveal process in two important ways: it is now front loaded with substantially more galaxies appearing on Day 1, and the rate of new reveals is much higher early on in the universe as well.

We have also touched up the resource distribution code to make galaxies that reveal later considerably more desirable.

Ownership Process

We also made a number of changes to the Command & Control Station Kit which should provide more depth to Wild Space territory control, especially between teams looking to snag the same galaxy. No longer will your only recourse be to kill the opposing teams Command & Control base.

1. Command & Control (C&C) bases cannot be irradiated. This means that you are unable to capture an enemy’s C&C base without the owner of the base intentionally abandoning it.

2. Command & Control bases must be deployed within 3k distance from the edge of a sun. The universe generation code been updated accordingly so that at least 3 suns are found in every Wild Space galaxy.

3. The Nullification Generator build time has been increased from 2 hours to 3 hours, but a new system has been introduced that can accelerate the build speed back down under 2 hours (see #4 below).

4. We have added a basebound factory called Nullification Generator Construction Support. This factory automatically constructs Ownership Booster Drones as long as it is equipped and supplied with materials. Ownership Booster Drones auto-deploy upon being built and orbit the station at a distance of 8k.

   1. Each deployed drone provides a 16.7% build speed increase to the man-hours required to complete the Nullification Generator Blueprint. In theory, a team can reduce the build time for a Nullification Generator to approximately 100 minutes by constantly building these drones.

Colony Changes

We’ve implemented a few new features and expansions to existing Colony content. We’ve buffed the colony enhancement items (Mobile Mani-Pedi SolonBot Housing, Optimo-Life (TM) Curation Station, Atmospheric Robotic Vacuum Dock) to increase the storehouse of the colony which will increase the number of items it will buy and sell every interval.

We have also added a new toggle within the Colony tab to disable specific bases from trading with that colony. For example, if you have 3 Extraction Expert bases and one Colonial Administration base attached to a planet, you can disable colony trading from the Extraction Expert bases to help maximize profits. You can only toggle this on bases you own.

Common Augmenter Sourcing

Common augmenters (Minor, Basic, Std, etc.) are some of the most iconic items in Star Sonata. They are used extensively throughout the game: countless builds, ship improvements, and outfitting bases for combat are all reliant on these items. Dungeons have always been a great way to gather augmenters, but the variety of augmenters was always inconsistent (looking at you, Good Electric Augmenter). This led to scarcity of certain augs that weren’t commonly found equipped on AI, not to mention a variety of unintuitive farming locations.

To alleviate this disparity and refocus gameplay on DGing, we are taking a new approach to the sourcing of common augmenters. Starting at universe reset, you will be able to “target farm” the augmenters of your choice to a much greater extent than ever before. Dungeon bosses will gain extra loot rolls that are dedicated to Common augmenters, and will often drop several augmenters at once. Each boss is capable of dropping four “flavors” of Common augmenter and the tech level of the augmenters dropped is determined (along with some RNG) by the subjective strength of the dungeon boss. For example a Green Battleship boss might drop from a pool of Damage, Speed, Targeting and Docking Augmenters. Whatever specific augmenters you’re looking for, you will be able to find many different DG bosses that can provide them. To make doubly sure of this, we are also greatly increasing the number of DGs in the game. One final note: ordinary AI ships will continue to spawn with random augmenters but they will no longer carry dedicated augmenters as in the past.

Welcome to another Star Sonata Dev Diary! Today we’re diving into the new Emperor System within the brand new Anatolian Expanse layer: a PvP oriented experience to claw to the top.

Overview

Killing Midas’ Military leaders grants the slayer influence over Anatolia. They have three different ranks, of varying strength, defending their civilians as they gather and transport resources to maintain their domination over the universe. By defeating these military commanders, you prove your strength to the universe and limit Midas’ power.

The Layer: Where it is and what it’s like there

The Anatolian Expanse can be easily accessed in Anatolia off of Earthforce Perilous Outpost. From Anatolia there are 3 paths that take you into the neighboring provinces owned by Midas. Upon entering the expanse, you can either go deeper into the province (to confront powerful Anatolians), or you can travel to the other entrances of the expanse. Make sure you bring some friends and firepower as you attempt to go deeper, because large Anatolian structures block the way to keep their more valuable space and illustrious prestigious generals safe.

There are also stations owned by disgruntled Anatolian citizens in each of the entrance galaxies. They are tired of his rule and applaud your actions, and are even willing to offer you some rewards for putting a stop to his reign.

The Anatolians

The Anatolians are split up into 3 major groups. The first of them is the civilians. These are the laborers and craftsmen, the backbone of Anatolia. However, they don’t have much means to defend themselves. That’s where the soldier’s job comes into play. They form a never ending army of diehard Midas followers who have no concern for their own lives… mostly because they are protected by Midas’ immortal soul! They patrol the expanse and quickly come to defend any leader who is attacked. The leaders are the third group found here. These captains and generals are extremely powerful: killing them is an incredibly heroic act and those who can accomplish this feat will be recognized by the universe for their influence. Killing enough of these leaders will allow your team to claim the Imperial Throne. The stronger the leader, the more influence your team will accrue!

Being Crowned Emperor of the Universe

Being crowned Emperor is a simple process. You merely enter the Anatolian expanse and take on some of the most powerful and well equipped forces in the universe! Kill enough of their leaders, and none can deny your worthiness. The keys to the palace are awarded directly to the leadership of the team that proved themselves worthy, and there they may claim their reward.

It is possible that one group will have shown themselves worthy through their influence, but another group is not far behind. If it is too close to tell, the people of the universe will not be convinced that either is worthy! Continue dominating in the Anatolian Expanse to truly prove that you belong as the Emperor of this universe.

After a team has been crowned, the universe will no longer be worried about Anatolia for a time (a cooling off period of a few weeks). Midas will brood, frustrated with the failure of his people. But, before long, Midas’ influence will begin affecting the universe anew. And, once more, the throne will be open to those who can prove themselves worthy! Some other team will take the throne … if the previous regime doesn’t step back up to repel Midas’ forces again!

Anatolian Crests

Defeating any of Midas’ loyal subjects will award you Anatolian Crests, which are recognized by the Detractors of Midas. Bring these trophies to one of the stations near the entrances to the expanse, and they will handsomely reward you for your actions against Midas with a variety of treasures. However, once you dock at the station you may not leave with these Crests! They will not recognize them once you leave, so you must exchange them before you are allowed to depart.

The detractors do not care who brings the Crests to them, and will recognize any who bring them evidence of an Anatolian defeat… no matter how it was gained! This means that Anatolian Crests drop on death if another player kills you, so be careful! Also you may not leave the Anatolian Expanse, or log off, with these Crests!

May adum always be in your favor! Good luck, Sonatians!

Opening his eyes to the amber glow of the sun, the king wakes from his stasis slumber. Looking out from the palace into the endless space, a universe he claimed as his own. Yet each time he declared himself Emperor, the King of Anatolia would be crushed, camped, and usurped by a universe that was fractured by pirates, traders, farmers and other imperial dreamers.

His ship, the Golden Midas, powerless against foes, slowly rebuilt within the undefended palace as it is corrupted again and again by the fury of unjustified claimants. His spirit splintered as he was assassinated again and again for his gold and prestige.

“No longer,” the king declared.

Using his extensive spy network, King Midas claims to have infiltrated Lyceum’s deepest research vaults and stolen a power to change a small but critical portion of the universe. Midas declares that once the universe has collapsed and reset: his demesne will be worthy of his status as Emperor, he will have a fleet of unimaginable power, and will become truly immortal against all.

Whether these claims are actually true is yet to be seen but the universe has become destabilized. It will collapse and reform on October 22nd, 2022.

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user bases, AI bases 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.

PDT: 10:00
MDT: 11:00
CDT: 12:00
EDT: 13:00
UTC: 17:00
BST: 18:00

Welcome to another Star Sonata Dev Diary! Today we’re talking about termite sieges within Wild Space! There are three main changes that are coming with Universe Reset with Termites.

1. Termite mounds are considerably stronger now and are likely unkillable by player ships alone.
2. Players will be alerted when and where they are going to be attacked so that players can prepare their defenses via a new team chat and galaxy notifications.
3. Termite mounds spawn a harasser termite that can kill lower tech bases. The Danger Factor of the galaxy determines the strength of the harasser termites, so lower tech bases are somewhat less vulnerable in galaxies with lower Danger Factor.

Clearing Mounds

We wanted to ensure players had to actually prepare base related defenses and tried to move away from the chore of constantly scouting and killing mounds before they even became a threat. Termite mounds are now far more hardy and will not easily die to player weapons now. Termite mounds will appear in any galaxy that has a player asset inside of it, owned or not. However, only one mound per galaxy can appear at a time.

Siege Notification

Upon logging in, a new alert in the team login message will notify any team members of every galaxy that has an active mound within them. You can also see exactly when the mound is going to start its full siege on the galaxy by checking event chat when you warp into the galaxy. A mound will lay siege exactly seven days after it appears in a galaxy.

Termite Waves

Termites will attack in waves instead of coming in one at a time. This will make them a bit more formidable, but there’s also a cap on the size of each wave to prevent a Termite Deathball™  from appearing (no more 50+ termites). Termite range has been reduced by over 50% to ensure they don’t kite excessively or hang out beyond the range of player bases. Mounds will only spawn up to a maximum value of termites to prevent issues. Sieges will last for 3 hours after which the mound and all its termites will despawn.

Survive the Siege

The ultimate goals are to ensure players are committing the proper resources to galaxy defense, providing advance warning for players to plan and reducing the chore of scouting galaxies constantly. Good luck on withstanding these Termites!