Hello everyone! In this post, I will fill you in on the work the dev team has been doing to make galaxy assault more enjoyable. I would like to emphasize that we are more than open to discussing the particulars and making changes to the proposal. Let’s view this as a first official communication between the dev team and the community and build from there.

Introduction

In the current galaxy assault mechanics, most of the action takes place between two lines of bases, while players are relegated to tractor ship battles, blocking pulses, and spectating as spirits.  None of these behaviors is aligned with what players actually enjoy doing in the game, i.e. using their ships to deal and mitigate damage.  This represents a gap between the types of game activity that are rewarded in PvE and PvP environments, and the types of gameplay that are necessitated during BvB.  It should come as no surprise, therefore, that many players feel powerless and out of the loop during BvB, which is not how we want the game to feel!

However, there are certain positive aspects of the current galaxy assault system which should not be abandoned without cause.  The conditions on deploying BvB kits (active war, 24 hours owned adjacency, presence of amps if more than five kits) are in place to prevent large-scale surprise attacks, instead giving players some time to anticipate an assault on their space.  The flattening of the power progression of base gear both in terms of tech and tier, and the introduction of inbuilt X gear, have also created opportunities for players (especially newer players) to build respectable defenses without incurring unreasonably high sunk costs.  Lastly, while the preeminence of bases in galaxy assault pushes players to the margins, it does also gesture toward an important consideration of limiting the effect of player activity on the outcome of war.  The reason for this objective is that the game cannot effectively cater to casual players if galaxy assault depends strongly on the ability to play the game at all hours of the day and night.  While we do want to reward player activity, it cannot be allowed to be the single most important factor in galaxy assault.  It’s important to note, however, that this objective is not currently being achieved in the first place: use of ships to block pulses, tractor bases behind obstacles, and create excessive server lag have proven to be decisive strategies even in the face of numerically superior enemies.

Summary of changes

Details

Mining damage

The following changes are being made to match base resistance profiles better with player ships. This is a necessary measure before player blocking of base pulses can be addressed. The changes are also helping to create a greater variety of effective base weapons for galaxy assault, instead of limiting players to Achilles Pulse Gun.

• Base mining vulnerability will be removed. On a typical base kit, all resistances will be the same.

• Base weapons will have their damage adjusted to reflect the change to base resistances. All damage types will be comparably effective against bases after this change.

Base damage and tanking

The following changes are being made to prevent players from blocking shots that are intended for a base. They are also helping to disrupt the current defensive meta that relies mostly on healing-oriented bases.

• Base projectile weapons will do a lot more damage, especially those with short range. It will no longer be feasible to block pulses with player ships or drones.

• Base resistances will be increased to compensate for the increased damage of base weapons.  Base healing will be reduced.  The upshot is that bases will individually be a lot tankier versus bases than before, but base healing will be less useful.

Target prioritization and player cover

The following changes are being made to help players stay alive during galaxy assault. They will effectively be able to hide under the cover of their bases and permanent drones.

• Base target prioritization will be changed in the following way. If enemy bases are in range, shoot one of them.  If no enemy bases are in range, look for an enemy permanent drone and shoot that if possible.  If no enemy bases or permanent drones are in range, shoot an enemy player (or player asset).

• Permanent drone target prioritization will be changed in the following way. If enemy players are in range, shoot one of them. If no enemy players are in range, look for an enemy permanent drone and shoot that if possible. If no enemy players or permanent drones are in range, shoot an enemy base (if any).

• Players will be afforded a small number of “assault slots” for permanent drones, and new mobile permanent drones will be made available that are designed with a view toward this use.

Player debuffing of bases

The following changes are being made to give players the ability to actively undermine the bases of their opponents.

• Nanite-injecting weapons that affect base shield regen, energy regen, damage, and rate of fire will be introduced and current weapons of this type will be revised for balance.

• Base exterminators will be revised for balance.

Design principles

In this section, I set forth a few general principles that we are aiming for in this project. Some of these aren’t possible to achieve precisely, but they will still be helpful in guiding our work.

• Current popular configurations have ⅔ to ¾ HPS bases. After the change, it will be better to have around ⅓ HPS bases. We will approach this goal by increasing base effective shield regeneration and reducing base healing output.

• With no players in support, and no sun tanking or other unintended mitigation, it currently takes the attackers 1-1.5x more bases than the defenders to prevail.  After the change, this figure should be somewhere around 3-5x (assuming comparable levels of tech and tier).  Player support should be able to reduce this figure to 1-1.5x, if the defending players and permanent drones are overwhelmed.  In short, an overwhelming player force makes bases 2-3x as powerful.

• The marginal benefit of additional supporting players drops off substantially, so that a small group of active players is only somewhat less effective than a large group, assuming both are unhindered.

• BvB amplifier mechanics are revised. Instead of building multiple amplifiers in a single galaxy, players will upgrade a single built amplifier to higher and higher tiers.  Each successive tier is rather more expensive than the previous one, and the expense hinges not only on credits but also substantially on ICs such as Sub-Shield Buffers and Reactors.