Wild Space is the foundation of Star Sonata’s version of territory control. We’ve drastically shifted the paradigm when it comes to establishing your team’s domain.
Note: This map isn’t used for this Universe’s Wild Space.
The development team has pursued to capture essence and rush of universe resets via reoccurring potential encounters to make claims for new galaxies that slowly reveal and expand from visible proto-wormholes already within existing galaxies.
Those proto-wormholes, that you may or may not have seen, will open up to reveal brand new galaxies for you to explore, and claim for your team. Some of them will be even more resource rich then the currently available galaxies as well! They will be revealed with the server up and will require no downtime.
Keep in mind that these are available to players of any team to claim and contest. You do not need to have an adjacent gal, HQ, outpost or even own a single gal anywhere else in wild space, but even if you miss this chance there will be more reveals later in the universe.
Remember that Command & Control Station Kits can be purchased at the Advanced Station Research Facility AI base within Building Academy Entrance. Located right off Lyceum and two jumps from Sol!
In a future patch, we aim to have the galaxy reveal timers built directly into the client much like Subspace invasions to better communicate. This will make it so players can more accurately plan in advance.
A timer with date and ETA of the new wormholes opening will be placed in the #dev-posts channel on the Star Sonata Discord.
The Star Sonata Moderation Team is recruiting! Moderation in Star Sonata exists to make sure that all of the chats provide a welcoming place and positive experience. If you are passionate about the game and want to give back to the community, please consider joining the Moderation Team!
If you’re thinking about becoming a Moderator, here are some more details about the mission and goals of the team.
To ensure that we keep community support for moderation, we must:
For more moderation information please contact Kilando#9002 or Demi#0609 on Discord!
If you’re interested in the design and development process of Star Sonata, there is another community role that you can apply for. The *Paxian Disciples* are community members who are invited to attend weekly dev meetings and provide a player perspective on the ongoing work. If you’re interested to learn more about becoming a Paxian Disciple, here is what is expected of the role:
Worried about not having anything to add during the meetings? That is perfectly OK. We’re happy to just have you in attendance!
For more information on becoming a Paxian Disciple contact enk#3571 over Discord!
Greetings! I’m excited to share some more details on the Wild Space Conflict project that will go live along with the 2-week temporary universe on April 30. A working version of this project is available on the Test server for those who are curious to get an early look–just be advised that we’re still putting the finishing touches on a few minor components. Fair warning: this is a long post that dives into some really detailed design and stats. For a lighter overview of the project, you can check out this post from February.
Back in February, I shared the following details about controlling Wild Space territory in the new system.
Instead of merely controlling a galaxy for ten minutes, you must deploy a new type of base and complete a resource-intensive construction project in order to establish ownership. This process may take a couple hours.
Once ownership is established, a steady stream of resources will be consumed to maintain it.
Figure 1: The equipment you’ll use to own galaxies.
I’d like to follow up on this with some details so you know what to expect well in advance of Universe Reset.
You need a Command and Control Station Kit. It’s a tech 16 base that cannot be attached to planets and moons. You’ll be able to purchase this base kit in Building Academy.
Your team can deploy just one single Command and Control Station in each galaxy. Once it’s deployed, you can start the Nullification Generator construction project. This takes two hours at standard build speed and carries a periodic cost of 10,000 Steel Girders and 10,000 Sentient Chatbots. For reference, this resource cost roughly equates to seven ideal tech 9 Extraction Expert bases for Metals, and half that for Silicon. Of course, it’s also possible to build the Nullification Generator over a longer period of time if your resources are spread thin at the start of the universe. Just make sure to actively monitor your space and rebuff any hostile players who try to steal your territory!
The Nullification Generator is the device that actually establishes and maintains your team’s ownership of the galaxy. It is a base-bound factory that consumes 100 Fusion Cells every ten minutes. This cost roughly equates to one ideal tech 9 Extraction Expert base for Nuclear Waste. Every time the Nullification Generator consumes a batch of Fusion Cells, it establishes or re-establishes your team’s ownership of the galaxy. If the Nullification Generator fails to re-establish ownership for any reason (e.g. if the Command and Control Station is destroyed or abandoned), there is a grace period of up to 24 hours before ownership is lost (the grace period is shorter for galaxies that have been owned for less than a day). During the grace period, the owning team’s chat channel receives warning messages. To resolve the problem, simply feed the Nullification Generator enough Fusion Cells to catch up with the deficit (it will consume however much it’s owed).
Once a galaxy is owned, no one is allowed to take any PvP actions there. This includes hostile actions by the team that owns the galaxy! It’s no longer possible to manually toggle ownership status, so there is no practical way for the owning team to temporarily cede ownership status in order to PvP. From now on, ownership essentially means that the territory has been successfully claimed and fighting can move on to another theater.
This change means that fighting in Wild Space is much more straightforward with very few hidden or counterintuitive mechanics to get in the way of gameplay. If you want to contest another team’s ownership attempt, you need to stop them from building and activating a Nullification Generator before you. Here are some strategies you can try:
Interrupt enemy shipments of Steel Girders and Sentient Chatbots to their Command and Control Station.
Find and destroy the enemy’s extraction bases that are sourcing these Industrial Commodities.
Destroy the enemy’s Command and Control Station outright (but these are pretty tanky!)
Don’t forget that you’ll also need to complete a Nullification Generator on your own Command and Control Station while you’re busy slowing down your enemy’s attempts to do the same! As soon as any Nullification Generator activates, all unaffiliated bases and permanent drones are immediately destroyed and any such bases that were attached to planets or moons become unattached as well. This puts an end to the contest and awards the galaxy to the winning side.
Figure 2: Three enemy bases enter destroyed state as a different team establishes ownership. Note: the bases also detach from the planet but our tester needed an updated client to show this.
The only non-intuitive rule in the system is that unattached bases are not allowed until the galaxy is owned (with the exception of the Command and Control Station, of course). Allowing unattached bases in territory contest instantly necessitates a huge number of hidden rules and mechanics, as anyone with experience in BvB knows all too well. It’s best if we avoid the problem entirely by ruling out their use in PvP.
AI Empires will continue to exist in the new system, but the method for contesting their territory is slightly different. Since you can’t deploy bases directly in their galaxies anymore, we’ve introduced the following behaviors:
A galaxy owned by an AI Empire will automatically lose ownership if a different team owns an adjacent galaxy.
Deploying a base in the presence of an AI Empire will turn the AI hostile toward you.
Simply put, if you want to take territory away from an AI Empire, you must first own a neighboring galaxy (disabling the AI Empire’s ownership next door), then take over the freshly unowned galaxy by whatever means you choose. Remember that you won’t be able to use unattached bases for this task, though.
Figure 3: A player team establishes ownership in Tuscany Verge, causing the neighboring AI Empire galaxy Tyro to lose ownership.
Aside from the restriction on the use of unattached bases, we’ve made some other changes that will greatly affect the mechanics of base combat.
Bases no longer use healing weapons and any base augmenters the used to grant healing-related stats have been repurposed (check out Spirit of the Rhino!).
Figure 4: Spirit of the Rhino has been repurposed.
We realized that the main purpose of base healing has always been to keep your galaxy safe–particularly from enemy players–while you’re away. With the new ownership mechanic, this insurance is no longer necessary. To keep your galaxy safe from players, you only need to be on high alert during the few hours it takes to establish ownership. Granted, base healing was also helpful to protect against termites; more on this below.
Bases have a lot less range than before. When I announced this back in February, some people assumed we were reducing the base weapon range cap from 10k down to 3k. This is not correct. Instead, we’ve compressed the range stat spread on base weapons, reduced the magnitude of the Range augmod on base augmenters, removed the range bonus from Station Mastery, and reduced the strength of the Volatile Projectile Overcharger. Putting everything together, your pulse gun bases will probably hit between 1,500 and 3,000 range, while some specialized long-range magcannon bases can probably reach around 6,000 range. As with the removal of base healing, we make this change with the idea that you no longer need 10,000-range bases to keep your galaxy safe from players since ownership will do that job for you. And yes, this change impacts termite defense too. So let’s talk about termites.
Termites are being made to spawn a lot more frequently and pose a bigger threat than before. Also, it’s no longer possible to enable a protected galaxy state and thereby keep the termites out. Coupling this with the removal of base healing and the reduction in practical base weapon range, how exactly are you expected to keep your bases safe from termites? Here are some key points to know:
In our testing, three tech 20 non-Station-Mastery bases were narrowly defeated by the strongest possible swarm of termites. We used competitive setups for the bases but I’m sure our expert community theorycrafters can do better than we did.
In lowish danger factors, the termites have their damage reduced by half. With resources being more equitably distributed across danger factor (more on this below), this is a pretty valuable consideration.
One new termite infestation spawns every hour, meaning that the average galaxy can expect to experience around six infestations over the course of four months. Some will get unlucky, though!
Termite nests mature over a period of 24 hours and can be destroyed by handful of properly equipped bases (and maybe also by a player squad).
Figure 5: A maximum-strength wave of Termites assaults three tech 20 Adamantium industry bases.
One thing I’m confident about is that it will no longer be safe to use low tech industry bases on outlying planets and moons. Even if chaperoned by a “fully operational” Station Mastery base, low tech bases will probably die before the termites get cleaned up. This means that to fully exploit the resources of a galaxy, you will most likely need to use more industry base slots than you’re used to. Here is what we’re doing to make that more palatable. Just as powerful, high tech extractors make high tech bases viable for extracting tier-0 commodities, we’re introducing new content that will make high tech bases advantageous in other aspects of industry as well:
Every tier 1-3 commodity extractor is getting a new higher-tech upgraded version that grants a substantial extraction power boost. The tech and power of each new version depends on the tier of the commodity. Tier-1 commodities get a tech 9 extractor with 50% more power; for tier 2 it’s a tech 12 extractor with 100% more power; and for tier 3 it’s a tech 16 extractor with 150% more power. You can pick up the new extractors in exchange for a regular one plus some credits.
Higher-tech Colonial Administrator bases can now grant extra benefits to suitability in the following way. We are introducing new base-specific items that increase suitability and max suitability when equipped, as long as the base owner has the Colonial Administrator skill. For example, a tech 20 Colonial Administrator base can build and equip an item that grants +10% suitability and raises the maximum suitability of the colony to 140%. Be warned: the first iteration of this new item type will decay upon universe reset! If it’s well received, we may release reusable alternatives down the road.
These buffs to industry bases certainly improve the value proposition of using higher tech bases (possibly with augmenters) for your outlying industry. We want you to experiment and decide for yourself how to build optimally in the new system. One thing to remember: it is fully possible that some planets are just not worth industrializing. For example, a low-gravity planet with no moons that orbits 15,000 away from your main operations would be difficult to defend due to the lack of base slots. Depending on its industrial value, you will have to decide whether it’s worth spending the resources to exploit that planet and keep your operations safe. This is intentional design. We want the game to pose complex problems and we don’t want the designers to solve them all in advance.
Another point about base combat: base weapons have been made a lot more interesting. Beams have been redesigned for medium-damage AoE with the same range stat spread as pulse guns. Magcannons keep their long range profile but have received a variety of impactful on-hit effects. I’m really looking forward to seeing what cool new strategies emerge from the greatly increased base weapon diversity.
Lastly, we’re making some changes to the “IC” base content that’s currently obtained through Industrial Commodities.
During the 2-week temporary universe, “IC” base kits and augmenters will be available for purchase at the cost of 1 credit. Remember that these items will decay at the end of the temporary universe.
After the temporary universe, “IC” base kits will no longer be obtainable, while “IC” base augmenters will have a new cost and acquisition method: the Z-tier versions will be available for direct purchase in exchange for 4 theme-and-tech appropriate augmenters and a credit cost comparable to the price of a normal Z base augmenter. Be mindful that these augmenters will still decay on reset for the time being.
“IC” permanent drones will continue to exist in their current form.
In February, I explained the basics of mid-universe galaxy reveals. To recap:
Every 9 days and 17 hours, a fresh batch of galaxies will appear in Wild Space, connected in some way to the existing map.
These galaxies will have higher average resource abundance to make up for lost time.
Since ownership is a time- and resource-intensive process, it no longer requires a connection to your team’s HQ. Anyone with spare base slots will be able to compete for the newly revealed galaxies no matter where they appear on the map.
Figure 6: Time lapse of galaxy reveals.
For convenience, Jeff has coded it so that whenever a new galaxy appears, it automatically appears on the map for anyone who’s online at the time.
I also want to tell you about some changes we’ve made to the code that distributes resources across the universe. In the current system, we have a drastic resource imbalance between the lowest and highest danger factors. I’ve worked closely with our code dev Bobbo to design a completely new process for distributing resources. The new process uses principles from probability to apply various distribution rules, ensuring that the correct amount of each resource is apportioned and that the resource value of galaxies in the highest danger factor should only be 2-3x that of galaxies in the lowest danger factor. There is still a fair bit of variance in the process, but the upshot is that it won’t feel as bad if you get stuck with suboptimal territory for a universe. Keep in mind that termites in the lower danger factors have their damage reduced by half, meaning that you might be able to find some real sweet spots to maximize your income per defense budget.
Shield and energy bank augmod bonuses on some Capital Ships are being significantly reduced. Here is a sampling of commonly used Capital Ships so you can see the effect this will have on you.
Capital Ship Shield and Energy Bank Adjustments – April 2, 2022
Note: the % difference may be different depending on the amount of shield or energy bank augmods you have from augmenters and Items. The values in the table assume no augmod bonuses.
Due to the significant nature of the changes, we will be giving augmenter resets to every Capital Ship significantly affected by the changes. In order to receive your augmenter reset, all you have to do is open the ship while docked and use the /FreeAugReset command in the chat.
One of the main ways we give “flavor” to a ship is to assign some modest negative stats that are then counterbalanced with extra bonuses in other areas. The Kalthi Wrathful Warrior is an example of this.
If I assign a tradeoff of -20% capacity for +50% energy bank to a Light Fighter, Heavy Fighter, and Support Freighter then these ships will end up with -20% capacity, 50% energy bank.
However, if I assign that same trade off to a Capital Ship then the Capital Ship would receive -20% capacity and +200% energy bank.
Note: This also affects the Thrust augmod bonuses on a few Industrial Freighters, since they were given scaling thrust based on their tech level.
This was not what we had in mind when coming up with the tradeoff, and these tradeoffs can stack in ways that quickly become distorting.
This all happened because of a single Excel formula that has a * instead of a +. Capital Ships that had more bank than others will still have more bank, but it won’t be as drastic. For example, instead of the Vaziayu having 2.1x more Shield augmods than the UrQa’qa Qu’ishi Qa it will have 1.26x more.
While this resulted in very “flavorful” capital ships, the magnification of the stat spread is so high compared to other ships that it makes it very hard for us to balance around. We made this change because the native bank bonuses on Capital Ships were synergizing with the bonuses from the tradeoff which led to extreme stat spreads that were further compounded by gear, skill, and consumable choices.
We have been discussing the best way of handling this interaction for a very long time (more than a year) before deciding to pull the trigger. We’ve wanted to address this from the moment we realized what was going on, but it didn’t seem appropriate to make changes to them due to a variety of dependencies (For example, Fighters were a significant consumer of energy for both Players and Bots). We wanted to wait until some of those dependencies were addressed before making these changes, and since we’ve already taken significant steps towards addressing them in the previous patch we are taking the opportunity to get this fixed.
Some players will choose to stick with a bank setup on the ships that have a larger shield or energy bank bonus than others. Other players may choose to move to a more regenerative based setup. We are open to both setups, and are not doing this to drive players away from bank setups. We want them to be appropriate based on the content you’re doing, with clear upsides and downsides.