After more feedback from you guys, we’ve made several critical changes to how our suggestions system operates! We now allow for player submitted suggestions!

On the first of every month we will review the top three suggestions and give responses. We’ll either approve the suggestion and assign it to a developer, make tweaks and assign it to a developer, or reject the suggestion and give our reasons for the rejection.

To create a suggestion visit the suggestions page and select the new “Create” button. In order to create a suggestion you need to either have one character above level 100, or subscribed. The restriction is in place to prevent spam from cluttering the suggestions board. Creating a suggestion costs three votes.

We will award 30 votes every month to subscribed players or players with characters above level 100. For now we still will restrict the amount of votes you will get on a monthly basis until we settle into the new user submitted system. Likewise we may also tweak restrictions on voting and submitting suggestions based on player feedback.

To kickstart the system we are zeroing out all existing votes and granting 50 votes to all eligible accounts.

The suggestions forum will still be open for you to brainstorm ideas with other players, but we will no longer be curating that forum (we honestly weren’t culling it too too much, but would read it and discuss ideas).

This week’s update is going to again continue discussing changes to the Nexus. It’s also going to discuss a few new features for the new Ally AI type announced last week as well a some more changes to mission pop-up dialogs.

As I announced last week, I’ve been working on a new AI type known as Ally. From the base concept, I’ve expanded Allies quite a bit. One of the biggest changes was the addition of Faction Allies. Faction Allies are like regular allied AI but with a few special exceptions. Firstly, they’re aligned with either the Earthforce Cadets or Volcom Pirates (for those of you who don’t remember, the faction you choose from when you create a new character). Secondly, a faction ally will still attack players of the opposing faction but will never attack players of the same faction. Thirdly, a faction ally will only assist players of the same faction. Finally, a non-attackable faction ally can still be attacked by players with the opposing faction.

This leads to some really interesting stuff we can do in the Nexus now. For example, we are adding a roaming Cadet and a roaming Volcom that are both faction allies to the Nexus. These allies will automatically help players out! They’ll no only help you kill mission AI, but maybe even more useful, take care of those pesky flies outside Janitor’s Outpost. It also let me rework Whiskey Outpost so that you can never shoot ships on the players ‘side’ — but still allows players from either faction to participate in the missions at the same time! This fixes what was perhaps the single biggest issue with trying to do an epic space battle mission — so you can be sure that you will see some more of them in the future.

I’ve also quite a few other changes to improve mission flow through the Nexus; the biggest of which right now is the removal of Cadet Academy. During testing it was noticed that nothing really happens in Cadet Academy at all. There are some drone training missions, which are kind of lame by the time you get to them but really, all it served as was a mission hub and an extra jump to get places. So it’s been removed. We’ve renamed the initial galaxy on the Cadet side to Cadet Academy, and Earthforce Trading Outpost to just Earthforce Outpost now. This enables us to have a very nice mission flow where players get guided from their starting galaxy into the Nexus with no backtracking.

As for the pop-up dialogs that I am sure everyone hates at this point (due to the bug this week)! I’ve made a few more changes to the way they work. Firstly, the annoying space at the top that used to only read ‘MISSION AGENT’ has been revamped. Instead of the static image, that area now contains the title of the mission. This has let me move that title out of the text box on the dialog. I’ve also changed the animator that ‘types out’ text for the pop ups. You can now click on it to instantly finish the mission text. This will be extremely useful for those who don’t feel like waiting. The typing text animator also now autoscrolls if the text is too long for the text box to make it easier to read.

That’s it for this week’s update! Progress on the Nexus has been great so far and I’ll be back again next week with another look at what’s going on with the revamp! As always, questions, comments and other feedback are appreciated!

Well, the time is here. Astro-Bunny has finalized preparing all his Easter goodies and has entered our universe. As usual, Astro-Bunny has set up shop in Easter Warren, located off Earthforce Celestial Garden Outpost and his Egg Boxes and Resurrected Rats roam the universe.

This year includes a new chain of missions like the 12 Days of Christmas missions, which start on the 15th and a few other bits and pieces.

The winners of the competition (link) will be announced later.

Lastly, Happy Easter from the Star Sonata Development Team!

I’ve just received the all clear from Jey regarding the infamous Heartbleed exploit! The live server was somewhat affected by heartbleed, and the website was never affected by Heartbleed. We definitely suggest that you change your password to be on the safe side. Due to the nature of the exploit, It is also recommended that you wait to change ANY passwords until you get a notification that the website or service has updated to fix the exploit. You may now change your Star Sonata password safely,  but please check other websites you use before you change those passwords!

For more information about heartbleed check out these links. (note that Star Sonata is not responsible for content you may find on other websites)

http://heartbleed.com/

https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/

We’re very pleased to announce that we’re removing the level cap restriction on Free to play players! We’ve been doing a lot of research into Free to play games recently and what works, and what doesn’t. We felt the level cap was an unneeded restriction that ultimately served no real purpose. Since Star Sonata is very skill based and many P2P’s never even hit 2000 the idea of a level restriction seemed very silly.

With that we also wanted to congratulate the existing F2P characters that actually made it to 2000: Stereotyp1, MDK, Sk1rm1sh. Thanks guys for playing!

So to all our free to plays out there, have fun without the level cap!

Client
* Increased delay before tooltips show up (from 0.7 to 1 sec) and the deadzone allowed for the mouse to be considered paused (from 15 to 40 pixels).
* Gremlin now interrupt autopilot (was not a problem in c1 because the autopilot was too stupid to adapt to a grem, but since the c2 autopilot is quite a bit more aggressive it tend to completely counter gremlins and as such, gremlins will disable it.
* Made it so that you can unequip permanent holoprojectors from the action bar
* New “Abandon Drone” option for drones in right click possessions context menus.
* Multiple client performance optimizations (up to 1000% on logic fps and 30% on fps depending on the situation)
* New fps and logic fps calculation / display code for higher precision and reliability (especially with high value, the previous code could not display logic fps higher than 1000, and logic fps higher than 70 was extremely unreliable due to the timer resolution on many cpu).
* Multiple client crash fixes.
* Relabeled the “TSL” tab as “Storage”

Server
* Ricochet weapon effect now ricochets using PHYSICS.
* Fixes to Chain Bullet Effect.
* Chain Bullet Effect will now bounce in a random direction if no acceptable target is present.
* Prospecting nodes can no longer spawn in subspace instance entrance galaxies.
* A mission that is the requirement for multiple missions will no longer auto open a ‘next’ mission.

* Critical hit changes:
** Critical hit side effect can now happen only once per 10 seconds (you can still do the extra damage during that time, just not the tweak)
** Physical: Random turn gremlin for 2 seconds
** Energy: -100% thrust for 2 seconds
** Laser: -50% shield recharge for 3 seconds
** Heat: -90% radar for 3 seconds
** Mining: -60% energy regeneration for 3 seconds
** Surgical: +60% recoil for 3 seconds
** Radiation: Warp interdiction for 6 seconds
* Sniper Stalking no longer increases critical hit time

* Fix so slaves / AI with low bank, high regen energies will fire.
* Fix for undoing an AI base sale ending with a neurobound item.

* Fixed a typo in the 1 minute timer repair message
* Holoprojectors now evaporate when you log off.
* Fixed a bug with tractors when multiple strong tractors were on a single target.
* New “Abandon” option for drones in X-Key menu.
* Using the Abandon Drone command on scoopable temporary drones will give them the prefix “Abandoned”. They can scooped by any player.
* Using the Abandon Drone command on non-scoopable or permanent drones will cause them to disappear.
* Fix so Abandoned Drones don’t fire on targets that have already hit them.
* Fixes to disable error messags appearing for automatically assigned missions that the player is ineligable for.
* Chain Transference weapons now take shields from the healer for each target hit.
* Fixed update messages so a drone properly displays an updated name when it gets destroyed, abandoned or goes inactive
* Fix for mobile drones desynching when going inactive.
* Added functionality for asteroid belt spawners to spawn different types based on what they have (fixing belts not spawning wreckages when they should).
* Fix for “INVALID” displaying for characters with no class on the login screen.
* Fixed a server crash relating to auto completing missions.
* Splash effect will impart side effects from the main weapon.
* Fixed a bug with Computer Engineer advance subskill.

Content
* Fix for T21 Drone Ops Aug missions requiring Drone Mastery 21.
* Stede’s Basil is no longer capturable.
* Replaced “Satanic” energy tweaks with “Sacrificial” energy tweaks in the drop lists
* Fixed name on the base in Serengeti Blockade
* Alien Siege Mode rebalanced. Cooldown reduced from 180s to 90s. Duration reduced to 10s. Recoil bonus reduced.
* Subhatta Charge speed increased.
* Using Alien Cocoon will no longer unequip class super items or reset the time on Alien Siege Mode.
* AI in The Crucible no longer give Experience, mission XP rewards increased.
* Crucible and lobby galaxy marked as dungeon galaxies and unmappable
* Fixed a spelling mistake if you try to enter an instance with a squad larger than the max size
* Outposts in Subspace will no longer gain invincibility from fighters or missiles.
* Reduced the bonus damage granted to Engines 22 boss.
* Fixed bogus item requirement for the Apollo Drone build
* Slaves can now use Berserker Shield Redistribution Device.
* Updated the cost on Seer and Fleet Commander Transwarp devices.
* Marked all Serengeti, Anaconda, Iq’Bana, Olympus, Mausoleum, Red Photon, Enigmatic Sector, Lunacy, Mumble & it’s instance, Bonnet, Captain Kidd, Emphatic Mother, Kumari and Blue Photon Processing as premium only.
* Marked xyz and empathy field as semi premium
* You can no longer use ship upgrades while undocked.
* Blue Photon Stock Missile Changes.
* Fixes for Dropship Generator.
* Fixed a bad drop tag in colour empire gal for Asteroid Being
* Paxian Final Frontier mission typo fixes
* Fixed a typo in the stat string of the Bauble holoprojector
+ Readded the Zailaguru Ksatracara to Perilous Space.
+ Changed Iq’Bana to use the automatic gate lock system
+ Changed Anaconda to use the automatic gate lock system
+ Moved DG Ohms to Perilous Space for next universe
* Fixed quantity typo in the mission ‘Capital Punishment’ from Blue Photon Subspace chain
* Rajanicar’ayu got a new super item and adjusted resistances.
* Vacohar’ayu got a new super item and adjusted resistances.
* Shield Redistribution device laser no longer is affected by NT
* Added two new asteroid belt spawners to Forrest Run to mitigate wreckages not spawning
* Added ability for missions to have hidden rewards
* New Transwarp Subskills (Transwarp Turbocharging, Advanced Transwarp Navigation)
* Fix so multiple levels of Automated Reloading subskill won’t grant addition bonuses.
* Made it so King Midas is bound to his layer of space
* Gave Nightfury Focus tweak crit immunity for 3seconds and increased damage to 10% and tracking to 50%.
* Increased charge time and elect on both Nightfury Focus and Nightfury Rage to 180s and 30k
* Fixed the man hours for the Adonis Protector Z
* Fixed name on the base in Serengeti Blockade
* Fix so Kinetic, AP, Incendiary and Surgical Strike missile factories are the same tech as their blueprints.
* Pods no longer start with velocity.
* Rovery Nanorobotics Facility BP now properly has 1 max use.
* Changed drone death message from ‘was blown up’ to ‘was destroyed’
* Destroyed and Inactive drones will properly evaporate when their owner logs off.
* Fix for Funky Monkey Advanced subskill.
* Nila Rakta no longer does damage. It instead adds +10% weight to your ship.

Hello everyone! As promised on the forums I have been doing some QA work on high end missile launcher and fighter bay balance. The tech levels that might see some small changes are tech 18-22

This blogpost is a suggestion proposal, which means that everything in this blogpost is proposed suggested stats, and I would like to hear your opinion Any suggestions and ideas are welcomed!

A player pointed out that tech 22 launchers weren’t properly balanced, so the more rare alien launchers had worse stats than the entry tech 22 launchers. The same player also earlier pointed out that there were no freighter fighter bays between tech 16 and 22, so I am also adressing that issue! Thank you for the reports Johnston, I hope my suggestions can close this gap Keep reading to see the exact suggestions.

There will be four overall restructures, which are as following:

• All tech 20-22 capital fighter bays and missile launchers will gain some increased weight, at a maximum of 100,000 (previously weight was a decreasing trend instead of a stable condition)
• There will be 2 new tech 21 fighter bays, as there previously were none apart from the Zeus Throne built-in
• New tech 18, 20 and 21 freighter fighter bays
• Small revamp to fighter/missile launch amount

Let’s start with the list of tweaks to current in game launchers and missile bays :)

Old stats:

New suggested stats:

New fighter bays:

So as you can see, only one fighter bay had a decrease in launch amount, and that was the tech 22 freighter fighter bay. Ideally we want to keep these at a maximum of 2 fighters We also want to keep heavy fighter and freighter launchers at lower weight and size to encourage the use of missiles and fighters across other hull classes as well.

All fighter bays and missile bays are balanced around the tech level, launch amount, launch speed (fighter bays only), size and weight. If you want to suggest any other changes than what I have proposed, then head over to the forum and I will gladly discuss it with you!

This was all for now, my next combined development/QA work might take a look at fighter and drone size across all levels, so keep an eye out for that in the near future

This week’s update is going to further discuss changes to the Nexus. It’s also going to detail a few new features for auto-started missions and a new type of AI!

One of the big things I’ve done this past week is adding a new AI type known as ‘Ally’. An Ally has a few unique features that make it extremely different to any other AI types we currently have. First, Allies will never attack a player or player owned property. This means even if you shoot them, they’ll not fire back. Secondly, Allies will prioritize attacking other AI that have been attacking players. Finally, Allies can be set as non-attackable by players. All three of these features make this new AI type extremely friendly for low level players and it’s seeing a fair bit of use in the new Nexus changes.

For examples, consider Whiskey Outpost. I’ve changed the spawners there so the AI that help the player fight the opposing faction are now Allies. This means you no longer have an accidental shooting of the players ‘team’ leading to all the AI turning on them. It also means the the AI that help the player better prioritize attacking the enemy instead of docking or being otherwise useless. For a second example, I’ve added an ally spawner to Ur Ziq Bana. I know many players have complained about the difficulty of the missions in that galaxy. Now, when you enter, if you have the mission Zobitan himself spawns to assist you! Not only does it greatly reduce the difficulty but it feels appropriately epic! This new AI type is extremely useful and  will definitely be seen in other mission content or boss fights.

Since I am talking about Ur Ziq Bana, it might be obvious that I have completed streamlining the Cadet side of the Nexus. Less than half the mission require docking to complete them now, and the ones that do are mainly focused on training skills or receiving and equipping items. Overall, the entire Cadet side of the Nexus flows a lot more smoothly and guides players galaxy to galaxy instead of always forcing them to go back to base between missions. I think when we have it available for play testing everyone will agree it’s a much quicker and overall more friendly experience.

Other than that, I’ve put a bit of work on making the pop-up dialogs for missions a bit more exciting. Missions that automatically start now have a customized dialog with a few new features! The mission agent portrait will ‘flick on’ similar to an old television. The text for the mission will ‘type out’ as if you are receiving a text transmission and we now display the mission agent’s name! These new additions might not seem like that big a deal, but the help with the immersion quite a bit.

In addition to this change, I’ve pared down a lot of the mission text in the Nexus so it’s more succinct and readable. As much as I love the story aspect of doing missions, having to read a daunting wall of text every few minutes is kind of annoying and definitely detracts from the new-player experience. Instead we’ve placed an increased emphasis on the summary text to make sure new players know what they need to be doing and how to do it!

So that’s it for this week’s update. Expect to see me again next week with another update detailing some more Nexus changes as I’m ready to start work on the Pirate side! As always, questions, comments and suggestions can be directed to the forums!

The winter blues have passed us by, and now is a warmer time coming, with plants flowering, eggs to decorate and find. Astro-Bunny will be visiting us soon with lots of chocolaty goodies and Easter joy.

But before that can happen, we need some eggs, every size, shape(?) and colour. That’s why the Easter Bunny wants you to decorate, or make an egg and send it to him. Your egg can be a drawing, a hard boiled one or any other egg-tastic idea for eggyness you can come up with. Five winners will be picked from the submissions based on creativity and design, with bonuses for Star Sonata themed entries. They will receive a collection of Easter items and a special permanent holoprojector.

You have until 00:00 Server Time, Sunday 13th April to submit your entries, all submissions are to go to the forum topic. This gives you about a week and a half to get them done. Winners will be announced later that day and prizes handed to them.

* fix for the newly introduced beta client bugs (invisible particles) and small target icon not showing for squadmate
* Relabeled the “TSL” tab as “Storage”
* Moved ship upgrade items to the ships tab of the trade bay.

If you do not have the beta client and wish to install it. It can be downloaded from http://www.starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_beta.exe. The installation is separated from the live client, and it is recommended you keep the live client at hand reach, in case beta client update break it for you.