This weekend, we’re doing a bonus XP event focuses on the new Perilous Perilous area! AI there will be dropping global +5% xp boosts like crazy! We’ll also have some powerup spawners like the last event going at the same time. Like last time though each account can only have 1 boost active at a time, so the more people in perilous perilous the higher the boost will be. Unlike our last event though, these aren’t tied to limited time spawners. So the XP limit will be based only by how many people participate! If everyone on at the time of the post were to go scoop an XP buff, we’d have +500% xp! We’re also introducing a limited time item that will be a rarer drop that will give a level to any character that uses it (up to level 9000). Like the global xp boosts, it’ll be dropping from AI in Perilous Perilous as well as dungeons there.

We hope everyone enjoys the event!

Server Patch 2.27.2015

* Prep for monthly event (blog post coming soon)
* Players can now construct up to 10k items at once, but the discount maxes out at the same percent as 1k items. This will potentially be lifted even higher in the future.
* Owning an HQ gal will now give a team 200 team xp per day
* Made is so that missions that reset themselves on completion (repeatable missions) will automatically correct themselves if they are marked as completed due to previously incorrect xml. This should fix most instances of missions being bugged for specific players.

Server Patch 2.17.2015

* Server changes to allow webchat to work again!
* Fixed an issue with Perilous Perilous Space AI tossing their missiles and fighters
* New spawner values for Perilous Perilous Space roaming AI
* Slightly rebalanced all Perilous Perilous Space AI to make up for the reduction in amount of AI and swarming
* Fixed an issue where T9 Junkyard kits came with T12 extensors
* Tweaked the drop tables for Perilous Perilous Space slightly, mainly increased the chance of getting build commodities and items as drops, and lowered the chance of getting blueprints
* Added some new items to the drop tables for Perilous Perilous Space dungeons

Hey everyone!

As a few of you have noticed from reading all chat and the forums, there has been some major rework to the spawners in Perilous Perilous Space. In this blog post I’ll quickly give you the details on what we’ve done.

The first time we launched Perilous Perilous Space, we did not have the time to test it as much as we should have, due to it being launched with the universe reset, and because it was a volunteer project that I was in charge of It turned out bigger than I expected!

Most of the galaxies looked like the one in the picture below. There were some unknown aspects of the code that I used, which I wasn’t aware of, that resulted in the AI swarming a lot. Most spawners would try to swarm, and all spawners were roaming, and they really only cared about jumping to other galaxies.

This meant that the majority of galaxies had a lot of AI jumping between wormholes. The unknown aspect of code was that teamed AI would automatically swarm together. In result, this made the content way harder than intended.

To address this, we had to go through some new values, and design the spawners in a new way. In the picture below, you can see how the new values behave in game.

The values themselves are based around the following structure:

• 75% of all AI are static. This means they don’t jump to other galaxies, they roam around in the galaxy that they spawn in
• 25% of all AI are roaming. This means that they will always jump to other galaxies, and their respawn location will be random
• All factions now have subteams, which means they will swarm to a minimum

In raw numbers, each galaxy should get around 8-15 AI in total. This will build up if you stay in the galaxy for too long, as the roamers would eventually catch you!

I should also mention that I increased the strength of the AI slightly since I lowered the total spawner amount.

And a big thanks to The SI who spent 40 minutes mass deleting the old spawners, so we could replace them with these new ones. He has been a great help in improving the Perilous Perilous Space.I encourage everyone to post feedback in this thread, and the next few weeks ahead I’ll probably try to finish some more items to improve the diversity of player obtainable content that is related to Perilous Perilous Space

Coming in the next full patch will be a feature to get bonus XP the first time you capture each type of ship. This is actually the very last part of a highly voted suggestion from a while ago called “Alternate XP Methods”.

Each character will have saved a list of the different types of hulls that he’s captured from wild AI. You can view your own list and your total count with a slash command, “/caps”. For now, the bonus XP is set to a flat 500 XP regardless of level. How many different ships can you capture? Gotta catch ‘em all!

beta 286.135
* tweaked the onscreen fps display to be smaller and less flickery. Should be a lot less annoying to the eye now.

–Since the micropatch was pretty minor, ill just slip that here–

* fix for the bases not updating their energy/shield properly when docked and the value change
* few tweaks to the perilous perilous ais to improve the balance

this is a minor performance and quality of life update.
* when you maximize the window it nows go in what could be considered equivalent to the “show taskbar” option in c1 (no titlebar but taskbar is visible if on that monitor). Except theres a restore button in the top right. This was done for 2 reasons, 1. it gives you more space on the screen for the game, 2. it fix an issue some graphic card have when you maximize a d3d9 window on a secondary monitor.
* 3 different client crashes were fixed.

- Currently cause issue with mouse related actions when maximized. (fixed in the new beta version)

to try out / use just install it from http://www.starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_beta.exe

He breathes fire and leads an army of powerful dragons… Beware the dragon master that resides within the depths of the dragon lair!

Ancalagon the Black is a dungeon version of Timotheus the Red. The boss himself and his guards are considerably stronger, but they use almost identical scripts. If you are interested in the raw details, keep reading.

The dungeon consists of two guard floors, which the player has to kill to be allowed entry to Ancalagon’s Lair. Since this is not an instance, we have made it so that the first gate stay unlocked for 10 minutes, and that the second gate stays unlocked for 30 minutes. This means, that if the gate is locked, no players have passed through within the last 30 minutes. If the gate is unlocked, players have passed through within the last 30 minutes. In the future, we might want to improve on this, but hopefully this will help players on determining whether there are someone in the boss room or not.

The guards that lead to the boss have short respawn times, and they hurt. Hopefully this will prevent people from camping the entrance.

And now for Ancalagon himself. Ancalagon is a Black Nightfury. He is extremely powerful, and I would recommend taking a large squad to fight him. He has several phases, so the fight itself should be quite lengthy.

Ancalagon has a 25% drop chance of dropping a Nightfury item from the same drop table that Timotheus the Red uses. To add to this, I also made a tweak crate and a holoprojector that he will drop every time he is killed. His lockout is 10 days, but the respawn is only 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

This is the pre reset patch. The uni reset will occur at 1PM server time (EST) (see the website frontpage for current server time)

+ Core Skill Training Revamp: We’ve added new locations to train core skills, and revamped some of the costs and requirements for the existing ones. This should make it less monotonous to train, and give more variety. We’ve also limited training to 3 in Sol, so any skill level above 3 will be trained outside Sol. The skill training that required items that could be extremely hard to obtain, were given other ways to train the skill that is always available. In addition to this, we have also updated the Lyceum Books that explains Core Skill Training to include the new locations and requirements. The missions in Sol that are related to core skills were also updated, so they work with the new locations.
+ Perilous Perilous space (see previous blog post)
* Fixed the issue with Timotheus the Red’s script
* Removed some cloaks from some low level AI that really didn’t need them
* Fixed the bug where slaves could not enter Paksapata Ekam, Dve and Tra
* Added global shouts to King Midas, Gurujana Ekam and Timotheus the Red
* Decreased the duration of vulnerability effect from unequipping a Capital Traveling Field to 10 seconds, which also decreased the warm-up time to 10 seconds
* Reduced the invulnerability aura on Uparaksana from 100% resisance to damage to 50% resistance to damage and 50% damage. This will trigger when there are other alien in the galaxy
* Increased the damage and shield on Uparaksana and similar invasion Outposts, the Uparaksana in the Sas region saw the biggest increase in damage
* Removed the Neurobound tag on Aveksaka Rift Generator
* Fixed an issue with the new T21/22 tractor blueprints not being in the right droptable
* Fixed Aveksaka in Perilous Space. They do not use grem anymore, and can not be healed by any damage types. They are also capturable as wild slaves.
* Added a new tweak and holoprojector to Ancalagon’s drop table
* Added a bunch of new tutorial events specifically for the pirate side of the Nexus if the player is not figuring out early missions
* Removed a duplicate mission on the pirate side
* Combat slaves will only start a new attack if either their master is in the same galaxy, or else they are in a galaxy owned by their team
* Removed the parasite from Stingray Laser and replaced it with -25% range and speed tweaks on the weapon itself to prevent it being too powerful
* Fix for the uni map loading speed
* Fixed a bug with tractors where they could be activated despite the target being disrupted.
* new code to help catch and fix client freezes. If your client freeze, wait about 10 seconds and a window should popup about a deadlock being detected. It will generate a starsonata.dmp same as if you crash. Send me that to dmpfile@starsonata.com and hopefully we can fix them all
* one rare occurence (less rare when multiclienting) of a freeze was fixed on the client

Hey everyone! I’m super thrilled to present some more screenshots of Perilous Perilous Space to you guys. In this blog post I’ll show you some of the challenges you can expect to encounter in Perilous Perilous Space. In the words of a wise man: “Prepare for battle!”

One major faction are the moonfighters. They are Selenites and Lunarians, who have sworn to protect the various moons in Perilous Perilous Space. They are extremely hostile to any Terran lifeforms. Some moonfighters roam around in the various galaxies and some were set to guard the several dungeons in Perilous Perilous Space.

Lunarians and Selenites are fighting side by side. They have sworn to drive any Terran lifeform out of Perilous Perilous Space, so their moons can be left alone from the Terran machinery.

The moonfighters aren’t the only ones with a strong hate towards Terran factions and Earthforce. In Perilous Perilous Space, there are also cyborgs. These were initially designed and developed by Earthforce scientists, but somewhere in the process they got corrupted, they were dumped in outer space and left to rust and rot. What Earthforce scientists didn’t predict was that these corrupted lifeforms were able to survive in outer space. They survived, and multiplied, and developed their own unique ships and technologies.

The Corrupted Cyborgs consist of four standard ships and two advanced ships.

Now, let’s visit some of the less common AI you will face. Like Perilous Space, there are also birds o’ prey present in Perilous Perilous Space. The Harrier and the Caracara strike from above, and take down any prey who doesn’t move out of the way fast enough.

And that UrQa there? Oh yes, that is an UrQa capital ship. This UrQa capital ship was once a great commander of the UrQa, but due to conflicts within the UrQa, it was banished from the rest of the UrQa fleet. It now roams around in Perilous Perilous Space, angry and upset, but it has not forgotten the arts of UrQa warfare…

And there is also room for one more faction, which you all know from before. Let me take you guys back in time. The Kalthi are ancient, they were wiped out by the UrQa. Kalthi are advanced fighters, specialized in warfare, but nobody saw much of their presence, since the Paxians reported that the Kalthi expeditions were destroyed. However, the Paxians didn’t look in the farthest corners of the universe. The Kalthi were able to establish a Kalthi Outpost somewhere in Perilous Perilous Space, a place where they could rebuild and try to regain communication with the Kalthi in Hyperion. However, due to extreme distances, the Kalthi have not been able to reach Hyperion, and most expeditions have been destroyed by the UrQa, and so they are hesitant to establish communication until they know for sure that they can safely reach Hyperion. Until then, the Kalthi are very aggressive towards any unknown lifeforms that enter the Perilous Perilous Space, as they fear that the UrQa are sending spies, possibly disguised as other lifeforms, in an attempt to find out why there were Kalthi expeditions sent from outer space towards Hyperion.

Now, it is up to you guys, noble Sonatians, to see if you actually dare to enter the Perilous Perilous Space. Gear up your strongest ships, prepare your fleets, and get ready to face… MADNESS.

This weekend we are adding Global XP Boosts into Perilous Space. Each one will trigger a +5% XP for everyone in the game for 30 minutes. There are 40 randomized spawners, and the effects stack, so if people manage to collect all 40 at once, there will be a bonus of 200%. The only caveat, is that each account can only have one boost active at once, so you will need 40 different people in order to stack 40 boosts simultaneously.

There’s a bug in the text, where when you trigger it, it says the total boost is currently 0%, but when you log in, there is a message stating the correct amount, and when you get XP, it tells you correctly how much additional bonus XP you get.

I’ll start you guys off with a special boost that adds 25% for one hour.