Star Sonata servers will be unavailable at midnight on December 12th, at 00:00 server time for server maintenance and a patch. Patch notes will be available as the server is taken offline.

Timezones for shutdown

EST: 12 Midnight
CST:  11 PM
MST: 10 PM
PST: 9 PM
GMT: 5 AM

Christmas is here and Astro-Santa is out to deliver presents to all the good peasants and workers in the universe again! However, Earthforce and the other Terran factions report that Astro-Grinch has been sighted roaming Perilous Space again! Many speculate he is looking to stop Astro-Santa from delivering his presents!

Lyceum Scientists report that the wormhole to Lapland will stabilize in Sol on December 10th, 2021 for the beginning of the Christmas event! The event will continue until January 3rd, 2022.
For the duration of the universe, Lapland will remain in Sol for any turn-in’s you may have forgotten to do.

[Emperor System]

• Galactic Palace can no longer be moved via tractors (some slight client desync), thrustered or otherwise moved.

[Items]

• Reduced Spirit of the Elephant’s Transference Power and Transference Efficiency to 40% (matching Spirit of the Rhino). Will be further reduced to pre-healing revamp values at reset.

[Bugs]

• Removed Empyreal Protection fleet instance loot drops that were not properly removed from the mobs during design. This ensures instance recreating does not allow for farming without killing the boss.  This does not affect any unique loot from the boss drops.

On November 18th, 2021 we announced that galaxy assault (BvB Slots) were temporarily disabled.

After examining the problems and discussing temporary fixes for large scale galaxy assaults, we have decided that the two week timeframe is insufficient for a good solution to be implemented. Therefore, for the duration of this universe galaxy assault is going to remain disabled, with changes being implemented on next universe reset.

This is to prevent more server-wide lag, unenjoyable gameplay, and provide a cleaner timeframe for the issues to be addressed. Over the duration of this existing universe, the development team is heavily focusing on improving the Wild Space experience, as well as addressing long-standing issues that have revolved around the galaxy assault scene.

The aspects of wild space that will be focused on are:

• Galaxy Assault
  Greatly reducing the complexity of the rules and limitations around galaxy assault while retaining deep theorycrafting potential. Also substantially reducing the engagement duration and minimum resource expenditure necessary to engage in galaxy assault.

• Player-Versus-Base Assault
  Envisioning new roles for players in galaxy assault including essential roles in backline/logistics and sabotage.

• Galaxy Control
  Lower the emphasis demanding that players are immediately present during resets, and how quickly the layer is claimed. As well as adjusting resource distribution to remove the Feast or Famine effect that is currently prevalent in Wild Space

We understand that keeping BvB disabled for the rest of the current universe will interfere with some players’ plans. If you deployed bases with the intention to support or defend against an impending galaxy assault, you may be entitled to a refund of base kits and augmenters. Message enk#3571 on Discord for a review of your case.

** Update 2 **
Some of the hardware for the new server is having delivery delays, as such, the maintenance is canceled for the time being, we are aiming at Thursday but specific time will be provided with an update as soon as were sure.

** Update **
Due to some delays in getting the hardware setup, the maintenance will be delayed 8 hours. The various timezones at the bottom of the post have been updated accordingly.

As previously mentioned on a blog post, Star Sonata will be addressing some of the server lag issues with new servers. I am happy to announce that on November 30th, at 9PM Eastern, the servers will be going down for upgrades! The downtime is expected to last until 7AM Eastern, with more announcements being made as it is known to us.

We understand some players will be inconvenienced during the downtime, but we are expecting the servers to operate at twice their current speed. To help mitigate some of the lost playtime, we will be hosting the following event upon the server coming back up until Sunday night!

Event

50% Increase to Augmenter Drop Chance
100% Increase to Bindomite Drop Chance
100% Increase to Prospecting Node Respawns
Crystal AI Invasion

Hello Sonatians!

I am delighted to announce that our Community Manager Kilando is stepping up to the rank of game admin. This is going to make your lives better and more fun in at least three ways:

1. Regular game events. Kilando has been in charge of planning our game events for a while now, but with his admin powers he’ll be able to orchestrate them without any assistance. He’s going to get creative and put on some new events you’ve never seen before, and most importantly he’ll make sure that we stick to a regular schedule.
2. Live admin assistance. Part of Kilando’s new role is to provide admin assistance on the ground during any particularly busy or stressful moments of the game, such as the Universe Reset Rush. If you accidentally start the new universe in an engineless Thatch or dock all your ships in Lunacy, Kilando is your first call.
3. New leadership in chat moderation. Kilando is now officially in charge of all chat moderation (in game and on Discord). He’ll soon announce more details on the common sense changes he’s going to drive, and I’m certain that his leadership here is going to make the chat experience a lot more informative and enjoyable for everyone.

I feel strongly that the community manager must play the game actively in order to stay up to date with player priorities and concerns. Whenever a game admin is also an active player, we must take special precautions to head off any potential conflicts of interest. Here’s a rundown of the precautions Kilando and I have set in place:

1. No game diplomacy. Kilando won’t participate in any diplomatic intrigue that his in-game associates may drum up.
2. No PvP or wars. Kilando won’t participate in any player-versus-player activities.
3. No admin actions relating to self or team. Kilando won’t take any administrative actions that relate in any way to his own player characters or those of his teammates.

I’m personally very excited to see Kilando’s plans unfold over the next few weeks and I know that he’s going to stay laser focused on what the community needs. See you all in the chats!

[Bugs]

• Fixed bug with bases being able to be captured when another team owns the galaxy. You can only capture bases when you are the same team as the galaxy or the galaxy is unowned. Note: Radding to force abandon and docking to demolition is still allowed via this change.

[Bugs]

• Fixed bug with transference resistance that prevented healing. (Example: Warp Beacons)

Because of poor experiences with recent massive BvB battles, we are temporarily suspending the availability of BvB slots. There are a couple problems with the current BvB slot design. First, the meta encourages 100 versus 100 base battles. Second, the server currently can’t handle so many bases all in one galaxy.

In the coming two weeks we are going to drastically reduce the number of BvB slots before re-enabling the slots, specifics to be determined. The long term goal is a major redesign of wild space and a new layer, but for now we want to get a system in place that is more manageable.

In addition, to address the server lag issues, we have ordered three new servers that will be delivered next month that, combined, are roughly five times faster than our current server. Actual performance difference to be seen, but it shouldn’t hurt.

We apologize for allowing the current toxic BvB meta to persist as long as it did, and we thank you for your patience and continued support of the game.

[Bugs]

• Fixed bug with mobile drones desyncing on warping through wormholes or /f.