We’re back! Since last week, there was an argument over whether Poseidon’s tsunami was too overpowered or balanced. After a developer run of Poseidon on live, and then on test with tech 20 ships, we’ve come to an agreement that Poseidon’s tsunami is… balanced!

Pixel

Pixel has been working on adding visual differences between regular AI and multifiring / upgraded AI:

Additionally, if you’re an aspiring new base builder you may want to look into getting a Singularity Brake for your new Singularity Sphere or similar transport ship. Luckily for you, Pixel’s added the new Particle Brake and Quantum Brake:

Pixel’s also added new DNA beams you’ll be able to get next universe:

Bobbo

More emperor notification changes. The 24 hour waiting period after claiming the Palace has been scrapped and instead the claiming team will progress to the crowning stage once construction of the crown has been completed. Destruction of the crown during a run will push the progress back to the declared stage (and the claiming team will have to produce another crown ship).

Yclepticon

Reducing the consumption rate of tier 1-3 industrial commodities and nerfing Enriched Nuclear Material value in the Buffer line to 5k instead of 20k.

Jey

New beta client coming in today, you should see a performance improvement all around. It is a test for the new version of the compiler alongside the use of some of c++11 features. Be sure to send in your dmpfile to dmpfile@starsonata.com if you do crash. There’s a lot of low level changes in the code so new crashes and old crashes have a good chances of providing data to fix them.

SunDog60

I’ve paused my work on Iq’ Bana for a few days to create a tech 22 guide.

Hober Mallow

Been working on T22 drones, and some T21 drones. They should be updated on the test server for you to test (Hephaestus Drone, Samgrahaka Akramavar, Indrakoza Akramavar and Indrakoza Amzuchidvar, Solarian Drone). Buffed up a bunch of lower tech content from Infernal Tempest, still working on improving it. Updated the stats on the Pirates Mark Augmenter, it should be a rather interesting augmenter now.

The free Zebucart skin applies to all the low tech variants of the Zebucart! Hooray!

I finally finished implementing the Lyceum Combination Augmenters, from Tech 1 to Tech 22. The blueprints will be acquired in a variety of different ways (The Tech 22 augmenter blueprints will require the player to turn in Allied Commendations, for example) there may be other ways to acquire them as well… you’ll have to find out!

Jeff

Been working on AI formations some more, adding new options to allow for cooler formations.

Pixel

Added in new drone controllers for engineers to use as well as the Twisted Harbour, a station aura generator giving all ships, including enemies, -5% Weight and +100% Docking Speed (affected by Neurotweaking, with a lower range of 4000), all of this will be available next universe in the Twisted Zone. Here’s a quick preview of them:

Additionally Pixel has also added new missions to The Junkyard (not currently available), which will allow you to exchange 50 Junkyard Scrapnotes for 32 Minor augmenters.

Jey

Been working on a queue system for the steam launch, there will be more on that once the system is fully functional. I have also been working on updating our client code to c++11 which brings a rather large potential of performance improvements. It’s still too early in the process to see what kind of improvement we’ll get since right now its pretty unstable so it is difficult to tell if the performance gain is real or just a side effect. I am hoping for a 25-50% fps increase from it but it’s still subject to change.

Hober Mallow

I’ve added the Zebucart Mark 2 as a free skin for the Zebucart. There are also versions for the ZebuMaster and ZebuTitan. They should come in with the next patch. I’ve done anywhere between light touches to drastic changes to some more low level areas (The Jungle, Blue Outpost, Tortuga) and I plan to move on to East Vindia/Infernal Tempest/Bonnet/Protoplasmica. Let me know if I’m missing anything. Tortuga got a lot of its content changed, the gear should definitely be worth a new player’s time now.

I did a few things to the other end of the player spectrum too. Hybridization Blueprints are taken out of the Aveksaka drop tables, they will now be in the Lyceum Research Concourse AI base, it never made sense for the aliens to drop blueprints about how to Hybridize non Aveksaka ships… (There’s actually a perfectly good reason, but I guess your way makes life easier – SunDog) Anyway, you can also get Honorary Diplomas by turning in Aveksakan Tech 22 Skill Commods. Lyceum needs more research specimens, provide them. Expect this change for next universe.

I adjusted a few more things, Strontium Cannons been buffed. Kalthi Stronghold should be in DF 400. All 4 Admixium Blueprints have had their requirements tweaked, they build out of the Industrial Commodities that their previous requirements go into.

Last but not least, I’m working on a way for Gunners and Fleet Commanders to act as Tanks/Off Tanks. Many of you may not know this, but Fleet Focus gives 40% more hostility (at max level) when you’re piloting a capital ship. My thinking is, why not let the players make use of it somehow? I’ll keep you updated on this front. The augmenters I posted about in the previous developer blog have been looked over by the development team, we’ll be making changes to some of the proposed augmenter stats, thank you for your feedback!

SunDog

Finally, it is time to inform you all of what I’ve been working on. I’ve been working on redoing Iq’ Bana, and will be doing the same for other tech 20 skill zones after. The zones will have their overall difficulty raised, but there will be daily missions available which allow you to weaken the strength of the AI and/or boss if you’re trying to obtain the relevant tech 20 skill. If you would rather simply kill the boss and get the skill however, you’ll still be able to do this! These dailies will only be an option, if you are unable to find a group willing to run you through the zone.

Jeff

Over the years, many have complained that AI never do anything interesting, they simply fly at you with the hope that whoever designed them gave them good enough weaponry to take you down. Recently, Lucien Slimebottle discovered some flies in The Nexus that will circle players and coordinate a burst attack together. This is the first in a decade, where AI will work together to take players down. Unfortunately, the flies were quickly hunted to extinction in an attempt to stop more of these coordinated AI from appearing. Fortunately, this new mechanic is spreading to other AI, but will only appear next universe!

Jeff’s been working on adding attack patterns to AI, such as a group of enemies circling around you and all firing at you at the same time for a quick kill. Check out the videos below for a preview!

Bursting Video – Circling Video (shown under this)

Hober Mallow

Hober’s been busy making new augmenters with the help of players on Discord (link to discord here). The new augmenters would work similar to currently existing combined augmenters (such as the Marksman and Rage augmenter lines), giving the player more choices in how they augment their ship. If you would like to see the current work on these new augmenters, check out the design document he’s written up. If you have any suggestions for new augmenters, or changes to some augmenters he’s already written up, you can add comments to the document or talk to him on discord.

Pixel

This section is probably the reason you’re here, Pixel’s been working on a huge list of various things:

• Pixel’s recently buffed up termites to once again threaten the universe, and a chance to find a legendary termite mound. These new legendary mounds will, once nearly fully evolved, begin spawning giant termites. You can find more information in the forum thread he’s made, link to it here.
• He’s also added a new Expedition Team Blueprint terraforming project, allowing you to send a team down to a planet/moon’s surface to discover various things, such as a cavern filled with gems, or floating islands in the sky (that you somehow didn’t see), or the Garden of Eden in the middle of a blistering desert planet. You’ll also find hostile creatures and pirates, who will make living on the colony much less safe, and may even lower the amount of resources on the planet or moon!
• He’s also made a BvB colosseum for players to fight in, with special kits and permanent drones available for purchase. Now you’ll be able to test out unique station setups and practice base vs base combat, maybe even recreate a historical base battle?
• He’s added some new capacitors for the Twisted Zone, which will be available next universe.

SunDog

Sun’s been continuing his work on the UrQa race, with a new and final message to translate:

- Uj’qi urQ’oj iiuqok -
Okara qiiQa, ur qua quu’oj, ur kii iq, kii iq’ bakoqaa… kusoQa uka ur quu’iq’.
Ur vo’ba urk’uu. Iq’uu ur’bakoqaa uku jiq’q'uka, kusoQa kii’oq qok akukoiii vo’koquii.
qiiQa qua qokuji’qii, iq urko qokuji’qii. Sunqa iq’ba, iq zurk ur sunqa iq’ba, urk’nik kur.
Ib qa’ik, kak vazuk nik iq’uu, kak jiq’qi koquii urk’qii ur. Iq UrQa.
- UrQ’oj iiuqok nik -

Some information on my work will be shown on discord in english, because none of you seem to understand anything I’m trying to tell you when I say it in UrQa.

MicroCapacitor

• Making repair kits not work until after 30 minute from the death of the base.
• Planning on a t19 Support Freighter based off of Lyceum.
• Adding calculations for terraforming of BonusShields and BonusRadar. This is for Pixel’s new terraforming blueprints, allowing you to create planet-side shield generators and radar sensors to buff your bases in orbit!
• Gonna work on having bots stop shooting below 1% of their energy so they will regen their shields instead of just only shooting. (This will prevent wild bots from somehow not regening shields if they are in constant battle).

Hello, everyone! I am pleased to announce some upcoming changes to bases that should really improve the game experience, especially for newer players. These changes are on track to go live with the next universe reset.

New Base Kits

Loaded with a full complement of X gear (which now includes a Radar as well), these kits build off of the success of Junkyard bases but don’t come with augmenters installed.  You can purchase them at any AI base for an appropriate cost (2.5m at Tech 9, up to 500m at Tech 20).  The older types of base kit that do not come with gear are being phased out and will no longer be available for purchase.  Upgraded kits (i.e. Fortified, Adamantium, etc.) will now also deploy with full X gear (but still no augmenters). Also, Y and Z Upgrade projects have had their durations adjusted to 1 week and 2 weeks, respectively.

Miscellaneous Improvements

Bases have had their hull space increased substantially (100k at Tech 9, up to 500k at Tech 20). You should no longer need extensors for basic industrial activity.  Bases now deploy with a Trading Bay, 25 Rations, 25 Workers, and a sticky item that generates enough Rations to sustain those Workers.  This should eliminate most starvation-related accidents when setting up a new base.

Construction Mechanic

When deployed, Loaded base kits will be in “under construction” status for the first 10 minutes.  During this time, they will not be able to fire their weapons.  A construction animation that indicates the time remaining will play around the base.  This mechanic has been put into place to balance out the fact that bases now deploy with full gear, including a Laser.

Galaxy Assault Mechanic

Bases laid in galaxy assault (BvB) will no longer take up standard base slots. Instead, every player now has a whole new pool of slots for these bases.  Kits that are deployed into the new slots will automatically convert into standard base slots if room becomes available.  Otherwise, they will become abandoned 12 hours after deployment.  The player will receive periodic notifications about the abandonment timer.  This mechanic will help players who have fewer developed characters to compete, since they will still be able to assault galaxies even if they’ve already used most of their base slots for industry.

SunDog

For those working on translating the UrQa SunDog gave us last week, here’s another passage to translate:

“Okara QokujiQa Ooooqi! Kasa iiuqok qui ishi UrQ’oj, ishii urko…”
“P.S.S. Dawn’s Retribution urku Qi’uka, KoQuii banuii qua! KoQuii banuii kii suqqa sunqa qua ba.”
“Ishii niq, ib Qu’ishii qui uu’ko, ur-”

“Kak! Ishi qok urko, ish’kii. Ishi uka ko.”
“Qu’ishii kii UrQa suqqa. Ur’ Qu’ishii aku qua akuq Iq’ Bana.”
“Ur’ Qu’ishii urko? Ib kii ur.”

Pixel

Pixel’s been hard at work again! He’s made some new base missile models, more Twisted content, content fixes and much more! Here’s a screenshot of an early render of the new tech 22 support freighter player obtainable ship.

Jey

New patch is in early preparation stage, should be more details on that next week. Got some new client optimisation in progress which could give a pretty good performance boost all around (new compiler and threads support).

Blue Dwarf

I’ve set the Emperor system messages to instead use the notification system instead of spamming players every 5 minutes, it won’t be in the next coming patch but should be in the one after it (I still need to test a few things to make sure it’s all working correctly).

Blue Dwarf

A while ago Pixel made us some shiny new icons to use in our notification system (the server shutdown and alien invasion messages). I’ve added support to actually use these new icons and more things will be using the system soon!

SunDog

I’ll be posting information on what I’m working on later this universe, in the meantime here’s what I’m working on in the UrQa language:

KusoQa urk’oq uka bakoqaa! Kak qa’quu Oj’qiiQa sunqa ib’ ba! Bakoqaaiii’uq vo uk’urku…
Uj’qii ak’oj vo suqqa urko UrqaQa! Uka Qa’ik! Koquii Qa’ik!
UrQa uj’Qa. UrQa uj’qii Qa’ik kii qiiQa. Vazuk ur kasa, koquii ur ib’. ib’ qok ur.
KusoQa qok urk’qiiQa’oq vazuk. Qokujiii kur KusoQa sunqa akuq’ojj!

If someone can actually translate that and message me I might reward you, depending on how well translated it is.

Pixel

Pixel’s been adding even more drones to the Twisted Zone! Pixel has been hearing that people expected more than one boss so he will start making multiple bosses over time. Here’s a brief list of what’s been added:

• Twisted Blaster & Twisted Blaster Disaster
• TBFD 9000
• Twisted Travel Field Projector
• Upgrade blueprint for Death Striker & Death Striker+

If you wanna get involved join the SS community on Discord.

On a side note he hope you all enjoy the new base holoprojectors added to The Junkyard and the ever watchful Dragon’s Eye in Fortress galaxy!

Ryan

Ryan is still working on some behind the scenes stuff for our new ingame store.

Graphical Improvements
* Updated all suns with new higher quality textures.
* Updated all Armada drone visuals.
* Fixed subspace wormhole visually. Was linked to non existent texture.
* Reduced the textures size on disk by a lot.
* Corrected Emerald transport visage
* Loading screen now has a fade effect instead of a solid black line
* Altered dementium kit to use default user base texture. Now using in-game engine to produce blue coloring on top, saves on client size.
* Altered Paxian base to use a grayscale texture. Now using in-game engine to produce coloring on top, saves on client size.
* Improved Death Striker and Death Striker+ textures.
* Fixed prism background.

Ship Skins
* Added Golden Toxic and Ada texture skins for Samgrahakayu and Bhisajayu
* Added Super Phunki and Helga skins.
* Added new skins to Kalthi Commander ship.
* Updated Chilled Metal skin
* The Resistance ship can now use the ‘Kilo Wattage’ and ‘Tesla’s Wattage’ skins.

Holoprojectors
* Allowed holoprojectors to be directly equipped to stations as well as ships
* Converted base holoprojectors from superitems to holoprojectors.
* Added some new base holoprojectors and made them available at Junkyard Ai base.
* Added some new player holoprojectors and made them available at Junkyard Ai base.
* Updated existing holoprojectors visuals in the Junkyard AI base.
* Added rainbow holoprojector (for events), paxian spacesuit holoprojector (for events), player indicator.

UI Changes
* Added Advance Skill Points to Character dialogue (skill tab).
* Cleaned up item durability report in bot status
* Shield/energy values in bot status report are now commified and a percentage is given
* Bots now report the result of attempting to leave stasis. Failure is reported as an error (with red text) and gives reason. You’re also told of success, instead of it silently succeeding.
* Fixed the description for gyroscopic mods (description reported half the value it actually was), gives turning not agility.
* Changed how ItemCookBook items display their stats
* Fixed a typo in unique with item descriptions
* Changed the description on Extraction Expert to correctly say that it increases extraction rate by 22% per level.
* Fixed weapon range circle in the radar
* You can now click through the chat window to target objects.

Userbase/Perma Drone Changes
* Changed account base slots so that they are no longer calculated based on character skill levels, and everyone gets a flat 150 for their account.
* Removed the restriction that characters are only allowed one Outpost kit
* Tweaked Huge Docking Booms aura generator from 40 max speed to 50 max speed to overcome the Super Phunki aura.
* Removed base augmenter bps from drop list
* Engineer no longer adds tweaking to perma drones.
* Ships no longer block the deployment of attached base kits
* Junkyard Hydroponics and Extensors can now be removed off of bases when they have not yet been equipped.
* Changes the visual of Armada Ambrosia Drone, Armada Ambush Drone and Armada Baston.
* Tweaked Kasa and Iko perm drones to have 20% resistance to mining.
* Pirate drone is now vulnerable to radiation.
* Added built-in augmenters to Attached Magic Attack, Armada Ambrosia Drone and Attached Mining Defender.
* Tweaked Armada Bastion drone to be same size as a Kasa drone.
* Added Rhino Ambrosia Fighters to Armada Ambrosia Drone (requires a redeployment).
* Added Primal Lion Ultimate Slicer Superitem to Armada Bastion.
* Added holoprojector device to Armada Ambush drone.
* Added two additional superitem weapons Armada Defender (Point Defense and Armada Spitter).
* Added tags to prevent the ability to TSL transfer platform and defender drones.
* Altered Platform and Defender drone blueprint descriptions to contain “Produces 5 drones.”

Industrial Commods
* AI base consumption/production of commodities now is affected by their supply. Meaning that a station that is oversupply will consume more, and a station that is under supply will produce more

Mission Changes
* Changed the Augmenter Tweaking 16/17 mission that took Andaman Base Aug BPs to now require some augs from The Jungle.
* Adjusted strontium-90 kill mission kill numbers to make sense. restored drop kill mission to gold, silver mission still exists so players will not lose progress.
* Fixed typo in a low level seer mission that was preventing it being repeatable.
* Fixed Junkyard Kit missions listing the wrong gear onboard.
* Corrected the repeat PWI mission. Mission text accurately lists the cost & the mission is no longer available before you have completed the initial PWI chain.
* Fixed War on Earthforce missions in Brigand’s Stronghold being unavailable or available when they shouldn’t be.

Content changes
* Changed Ares Side Arenas from using Neural Keysyncs to unlocking when bosses die.
* Ancalagon (Black Nightfury) now has 12 million shieldbank, down from 20 (per phase). 2 of the guards he spawns during the fight now have 3 million shieldbank, down from 5. This change was made because we’ve noticed that the fight is fairly dull and would often take a very long time to complete, especially since we changed the way the Sniper Analyzer can be used.
* Timotheus the Red now has 10 million shieldbank, up from 3 (per phase). 2 of the guards he spawns during the fight now have 1.5 million shields, up from 500k, another 2 have 3 million shields, up from 1 million. This change was made because we’ve noticed that when Timotheus spawns and is found it takes very little time for player to kill him because they completely ignore the boss fight mechanics and just burst Timotheus down ASAP. This beef in bank will hopefully make player follow the proper fight mechanics and with it, buy some time for other contenders to reach the location and fight over the kill.
* Decreased the shieldbank of the Bana King by 15%. This change was made because Burst weapons have had nerfs, which indirectly made this boss harder to kill.
* Fixed Hermes boss from Ares ship to Hermes ship.
* Added self destructors to the fraternity/equality ai
* Decreased Armada Ambrosia drone range -30%, damage -50%, shield -110%, increases within shield recharge +20%, energy recharge +30%, transference power +20%, transference efficiency +20%, electric tempering -10%.
* Reduced Undead Jey’s resistance, should be much quicker to kill.
* The Zebu Masuta is now Radd-exable.
* Removed scoops from Mira AI.
* Added commodity crates to Perilous Perilous Space dungeon drops.

New items
* Added new t19 ship blueprints to Absolution, Beta Antares, and Sol.
* Added player indicator holoprojector to The Junkyard.
* Added to bruteforce drop Hybridized Demon Expansion or Ultimate Demon Expansion at an extreme low chance.

Item changes
* Altered the placement distance Singularity Brakes place your ship. Hopefully this will resolve the docking in Ai bases issue.
* Targeted transwarps will no longer fail if they’re warping inside of their target
* Untanglers (often known as grav disruptors) are now using a balance sheet and had their stats re-balanced accordingly.
* Added cooldowns and equip conflicts to multiple tweaks
* Built items (such as extension Ys) can no longer be pawned to ai bases.
* Lancer missile had their launch ranges increased.
* Tweaked Flare missiles
* Tweaked the launch mechanics of missiles. There should be far less cases of missiles failing to hit their target from now on.
* Reduced the magnitude of the RoF tweak applied by the Aptitude Doughnut Superitem.
* Increased the tech of the Aptitude Doughnut Superitem to t19.
* Increased the cooldown of the Power Doughnut tweak.
* Decreased the energy needed and cooldown of the Nightfury Rage & Focus Generators by 66%
* Lowered the duration of the tweak of the Nightfury Generators to 6 seconds from 10
* Converted Bule superitem and haunted superitems to holoprojectors.
* Fixed the mini rhinos engine positioning.
* Changed the Resistant to need 6000 charge required, charge rate 100 on the Resistance.
* Changed “Slave Deathblossom” to “Bot Deathblossom”.
* The Delquadrikamdon has received a rework, with an offensive and defensive form. Its blueprint requirements have also been changed so that the build cost requires less raw credits
* Fixed an exploit where ship tech upgrades could be equipped on slaves while they were undocking (and bypass ship slot limits)
* Fixed typo’s in Zaphragi and Jungle Communique.
* Added platform and defender bps to present they make 5 drones within their descriptions.

Wormhole Changes
* Created a new wormhole type that will be locked whenever there is an AI ship, drone, or solar body in front of it, for use in new content.
* Wormholes will now briefly pulse in size whenever anyone jumps in or out of them.
* Wormholes will now play sounds whenever anyone jumps in or out of them in your galaxy, rather than just hearing yourself only jump in and out.
* Added wormhole lock and unlock sounds

Misc Changes
* Normalised the volume on all sounds.
* Replaced the sun in Fortress with a eye that looks at you in top down mode.
* Fuzz aura now lasts one minute and is far more crippling in combat without being annoying outside of it.
* Added new missile sounds.
* Added new sounds to Bana Queen, Anaconda and GSA’s (Face Hugger), Temple Grounds.
* Updated Vulcanite sounds.

Misc Fixes
* Server crash fixes
* Fixed a minor error in the Station Mastery description
* Fixed targetable effects in Blue Photon Processing.
* Fixed RDD Dynamo Blueprint from giving you back a blueprint to giving you a RDD Dynamo superitem.
* Rewritten Grooved Bores skill description to be clearer, as the tracking bonus applies to all weapon types, the physical damage bonus applies to all weapon types and the projectile speed bonus applies to all damage types
* Ships looking exactly to the left no longer glitch and look as it they were rotated to the right

Changes requiring a new universe
+ Added the moons Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra to Pluto in Sol.
+ Many more Earthforce ships will be roaming the Earth Force layer of the universe and will also respawn faster.
+ Added model and texture for Saturn’s moon Mimas in Sol.
+ Added the moons Phobos and Deimos to Mars in Sol along with their models and textures.
+ Added textures for the moons Callisto, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Iapetus, Io and Rhea in Sol.
+ Added the model for Halley’s Comet and added Halley’s Comet to Sol.
+ Added Ceres and Vesta to Sol as planets and added the textures and models for them.
+ Added Tarnished Imperial Chest drop to Ancalagon the Black.
+ Added new sounds to Bigger Greens, Big Green’s, Green Battleships, Ice Picks, UrQa AI, Bana King, Hives and their wasps, Space Blues, Monochromes, Earthforce ships, Greaseballs.
+ Added 100 new solar bodies to the next universe generation (30 frozen, 30 blistering, 30 temperate, 10 gas giants).
+ Altered Aveksaka Xenobiology Platform Blueprint drop chance to lower by 100%.
+ Reduced the spawn-timer on Zobitan’s Hareem in Paxius.

Client performance improvement
* Some minor performance improvement when rendering the galaxy map and loading new textures.
* Client memory usage dropped down considerably with texture preload enabled. On a clean install, very high should use about 1.1gb of ram with all textures preloaded. Please note that since the patchbot cannot delete, only add, old install gain less memory improvement. To get the full memory usage improvement on an old client, delete the cache and Content folder then run patchbot.exe to redownload the cleaner version.

First and foremost, this idea is still in its planning stages so anything posted here may change at any given time. The purpose of this thread is to give players a chance to weigh in at an early development stage.  We welcome any questions, concerns, and suggestions.

Why are we doing this rework?

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a redesign for the Emperor contest. The current contest hasn’t been very fun or competitive for some time now. Long ago, the goal of every endgame team was to become Emperor of the universe. Today, the Emperor contest is a shell of its former glory. What used to be a very cool system that rallied players together to fight against the team claiming the throne has devolved into a system where players do not feel it is worth their time to even bother with it. We want to give the title of Emperor meaning again.

What exactly is changing and why?

We are planning to move Anatolia, which will be surrounded by a cluster of galaxies (more on those later) to Wild Space. This means that the galaxies will all become buildable. We made this design choice because permanent drones have become less powerful compared to player ships over the years and a small squad can take down 30 permanent Drones without too much trouble. As such, Anatolia requires a 24/7 active watch from the claiming team. While there is nothing wrong with the Emperor system being dependant on a team’s activity to some extent, the current lack of interest in defending Anatolia makes it clear that the player base would prefer a new system.

Anatolia will still be the galaxy where the Palace rests and it will be surrounded by a cluster of galaxies. We haven’t settled on a layout of the zone just yet, but you can expect something along the lines of this:

All these systems, including Anatolia itself (which is in the center), will have multiple planets of a new kind in them that doesn’t allow the construction of colonies. The planets will also have no resources other than a small amount of Nuclear Waste (which is required for the bases that will be built to stay fully operational). We’re taking these steps to ensure that players do not take these systems to make profit off of them, but only if they want to compete for the Throne.

The lore behind this area is that the war for the Throne has annihilated all surrounding star systems, leaving only ruined worlds behind.

How do you claim the Throne and how do you dethrone another team?

Anatolia and its surrounding galaxies will become buildable.  This means that becoming Emperor will be a King of the Hill contest. At the start of the universe King Midas will be the Emperor of the universe. Anatolia (and likely its surrounding galaxies to a lesser extent) will be defended by a good amount of Midas-type stations that players will have to BvB. We’re doing this to prevent players from instantly claiming Anatolia when the universe resets.

Once King Midas has been dethroned and his galaxies laid to waste, players will be able to own the Emperor zone for their team. With ownership also comes the standard rules that apply throughout Wild Space: you must own an adjacent galaxy for 24 hours before you are able to lay BvB kits in the galaxy you want to assault. The only difference is that you can only own the galaxies in this area by using outposts. The reason we don’t want them to be ownable by linking them up to a team’s HQ is simple: we don’t want a team to absorb these galaxies into their teamspace, making it more difficult for other teams to assault. The only way to dethrone a reigning team will be to blow up their palace, which they will be able to defend with their own stations.

What will the rewards for becoming Emperor be?

A team will get absolutely nothing from owning Anatolia and the palace until they build a Crown ship and manage to dock it in Sol. The rewards for becoming Emperor will be as follows:

• Ability to create one Unclean Imperial Seal every 24 hours on the palace. (already ingame)

• A 10% tithe to the reigning team that applies to colonies, sales to AI bases and credit scoops. (already partially ingame)

• A team-wide aura that will give a percentage boost the reigning team’s experience gained, shield, energy, speed and possibly an increase in hull space. We are still considering whether to apply these boosts to their bases as well (we haven’t decided on any values yet).

• The director of the team that has successfully docked the Crown in Sol will be given the opportunity to create an item of their choice (keep in mind that we do not intend to create new item types, as that would take a lot of development time). If said person would rather not design an item, they will be given a custom holo projector (which will be awesome, we promise).

Closing words

Once again I’d like to remind you all that this is in its beginning stages and nothing is set in stone. Any and every kind of feedback will be highly appreciated so feel free to comment!

Also, this rework will not go live until we are absolutely sure that BvB is stable and will cause no lag. The last thing we’d want is another Anatolia that is unkillable not because it’s so strong, but because your client crashes before you’re be able to kill anything… *cough* old Andaman Drones *cough*.

Jeff

Working on finalizing all the numbers for the class change. Found a bug with Seer that they aren’t currently getting the +20% crit chance when not ambushing, and fixed it. Reformatted my hard drives and reinstalled everything after a Windows 10 related debacle.

Ryan

Ryan has been doing more work on our upcoming ingame store, so that we can have discounts and live edits to items for sale in it without having to patch the server.

Jey

Jey’s patch (which we seem to mention every week) is now Very Soon™. Jey will be writing up a blog post and giving out patch notes along with a new beta client later tonight.

Hober Mallow

I finished going over the Earthforce Nexus experience, and cleaned the feeling of progression up nicely. The enemies in the Nexus are significantly easier to kill, and the chance of dying is greatly reduced. As long as you keep up with the upgrades to your ship you will be able to do all of the missions in a decent amount of time.

So, what are you supposed to do with all that free time you have now? Well, that’s what those two extra Wormholes around Voyager’s Last Stop are for! Those wormholes lead to The Building Academy and Arctia, and the player is directed to those areas with introductory missions that push them towards those galaxies. Arctia pushes you towards grouping up with other players, and teaches you about Remote Control. The Building Academy teaches you everything you need to know about stations. This will surely address the issue of new players not having enough to do.

I will move up the level range, addressing content between level 30-100 next (Blue Outpost/Vulcan/Mira come to mind). Expect more from me in the future.

I have also pushed for Tier 3 Commods to drop in crates in Perilous Perilous Space, along with a Dementium Locker that gives a few Dementium Fragments when you open it. This should be in the upcoming patch. I haven’t yet decided on a system for getting Honorary Diplomas from Subspace, but when I do that will be shared with you all.

I have a lot of other little things I’m working on, the most interesting I would say is the implementation and redesign of Class Super Items. I created a post in the General Discussion Forum, come lend your voice! I’m always on Discord and I’m always reading the forums, feel free to contact me about any concerns you have!

Blue Dwarf

More work on the event system, although it’s really not far now (he says). I’ve also taken steps to remove the emp spam and instead use the notification system.

Pixel

Pixel’s been working on skills! Here’s a sneak peak, this is all subject to changes:

Pixel would also want to mention that a lot of current existing players are on Discord now with active developers on the voice chat always able to help, take suggestions and often posts of development progress is presented within the Discord chat.

MicroCapacitor

MicroCapacitor has been working on rebalancing Base Missiles to be worth using and giving some love to low tech blueprints/weapons that people don’t use much.

Blue Dwarf

I’ve been working on more of my event system stuff, I’m now working on support for us to add, modify and delete events from our game admin panel so we can administer them without having to do any server restarts.

Hober Mallow

Class Revamp is steadily moving forward, I’ll have a bit of information to share about a community contest soon. Jeff is working on the Pirate side of the starter area, I’ll take a look at the Earthforce side of the starter area. I also plan on looking at low to mid game items that are clearly either useless/out of place or have obviously better/strikingly similar alternatives and see what can be done to make them useful. That’s about it for new player directed updates.

For the other spectrum of the player base, I’ll also be looking into making Perilous Perilous Space and other Tech 21+ content relevant for Wild Space, this will almost certainly look like an additional chance to drop Tier 3 Commodities/Dementium Chunks and other useful and highly sought after content relevant to Wild Space. I may also add a way to get Honorary Diplomas from doing Subspace bosses.

Auxilium has authorized me to share some interesting information with you all: SM21 and 22 are in the testing phase! How long will they be in the testing phase? That’s not for me to say. But the content exists, it is real, and work is being done on it. You can stop pestering me so much now *cough*-13-*cough* anyway… That’s not the only cool new thing.

The Emperor system is being reworked! Implementation has been approved and should be starting soon. I can’t share everything with you, but expect a system much more interesting and fair than the current one. The current iteration is a sort of King of the Hill style galaxy defense in order to claim the imperial throne, with rewards only being handed out after you’ve claimed the throne… and we want it to be directly linked with Wild Space! Look out for more information in the future.

Pixel

Pixel’s been adding even more content in relation to the mysterious Blanco galaxy! Three new bosses have been added and will be in next universe. Green looking ship is one of the new ships from the Twisted Zone!