Hi everyone! I want to give you a quick update on some improvements we have been making to the player feedback system. Earlier this year, Community Manager Kilando set up the #ideas and #feedback channels on the public Discord server, and we have collected a lot of great feedback from you all. The one downside we see with the current system is that it’s hard for devs to catch all the different ideas as they fly by in the chat, resulting in some good ideas getting buried.

New Suggestion System

In order to keep track of everyone’s comments, we are launching a community suggestions page. On a weekly basis, we will create focused discussion channels on Discord for the top-voted suggestions to help keep everything organized. On top of this, Senior Content Developer Hober Mallow will hold a weekly town hall meeting to discuss the top suggestions of the week. He will be assisted in this role by Kilando and myself, in addition to a number of community members who have volunteered their time as “Paxian Balancers” to help keep the new discussion channels flowing well. With the new system in place, we hope to collect and act on community priorities much more quickly than ever before.

How To Participate

So you’ve got an idea that would make Star Sonata better. Here’s how you get it into consideration.

1. Create a suggestion explaining your idea and why you think it would improve the game. You may wish to first workshop your idea informally in the general Discord channels so that you come up with the best presentation.

2. Vote in favor of your suggestion, and encourage others to do the same. If you see any other good suggestions posted, consider voting for them as well! It’s not a competition–any reasonably popular suggestion will get its own dedicated discussion channel.

3. Keep an eye out for the dedicated discussion channels that will be created for popular suggestions. The better a suggestion gets polished in these channels, the sooner it will be placed on a town hall meeting agenda.

4. Accounts that are either subscribed or have a level 100 character are eligible to vote/create a suggestion. Eligible accounts start with 30 votes and get 30 new votes every month. Creating a suggestion costs 3 votes. Eligible accounts can only vote 3 times on a single suggestion.

5. If you are especially passionate about game balance, you may consider applying to become a “Paxian Balancer” community volunteer. If you are interested, reach out to Hober Mallow to learn more about the roles and responsibilities of Paxian Balancers.

The Story

The Seer subskill Psionic Shrouding has been on our “radar” lately. On April 27 we began to receive reports that Seers were dodging beam attacks from bases while sneaking around killing trade bots. This surprised us because Seer doesn’t have any source of Evasion, or so we thought. After a look in the code, we discovered that Psionic Shrouding provides a hidden source of dodge chance: a hefty 20% per level! Based on how the code was written, this bonus is only meant to apply versus non-targeted damage, i.e. when a stray shot happens to pass over the Seer. The logic is that a cloaked Seer should have a pretty good chance to avoid getting hit by shots that are intended for someone else, or when the attacker can’t see them anymore.

The Problem

The problem is that the scenario being reported didn’t match our expected behavior. The bases could see the Seer and shoot at it, and yet the Seer was able to dodge. After further review of the code and comprehensive testing with the help of some players, we figured out the problem. The code was checking if the Seer was “invisible” to the attacker, not “undetectable.” As a result, any time the Seer was detected by radar, but not in visual range, they would receive the bonus 60% dodge chance from Psionic Shrouding.

Why Now?

This isn’t the first time Seers have been reported sneaking around galaxies to “pop” trade bots. That type of sabotage has been a staple of player conflicts for years. Why is it that we have only just identified the problem? In this case, unlike all previous ones, the player who reported the issue was able to provide us with new information we had never heard before: that Seers were dodging targeted beam attacks from bases. In all previous instances, the reports we received were solely that Seers were killing trade bots, which could have simply been due to lacking radar bonuses on the defensive bases. We had no reason to suspect a bug until now.

The Changes

1. The Psionic Shrouding bonus of 20% dodge chance per level has been changed to only apply when the attacker cannot view or detect the Seer.

2. The client description of Psionic Shrouding will be updated next patch to include the 20% dodge chance per level versus attackers that do not detect the Seer.

Disclaimer

I want to be frank that this mechanic was brought to light by the war between Eminence Front and Star Revolution X, and that the proposed change may have some effect on that war. Large-scale conflict between endgame players always tends to expose quirks and bugs in the system, so this is nothing new. However, I want to respect players’ time and not make unnecessary changes to the game while a war is in progress. For that reason, I sought feedback from twenty-four current members of the affected teams (Eminence Front and Star Revolution X) who also work in various roles on the dev team. The proposal received unanimous support as a sensible change that addresses an obvious bug.

As many players already know, I am always available on Discord @enk#3571 if you have any questions or comments about the game or the operations of the dev team. Drop me a line!

The researchers at Lyceum have nervously announced that, during some routine maintenance at the Engineer’s Workshop, someone accidentally tipped over the Self-Accelerating-Universe-Cruncher, and the universe as we know it will come to an end.

The engineering school graduate that made the device had a nasty run-in with hungry space urchins, the brightest minds in Lyceum can’t figure out how to turn it off, and everyone else is too afraid to try.

Scientists have sealed the device in an old storage closet, but a display on the screen of the device says ‘MAY 23’. Presumably, on that date it will crunch this universe, and — if luck holds — spit out a remarkably similar one.

Lyceum warns pilots to pack up their bases and remove the credits on their trade bots to ensure that they make it safely into the new universe!

The universe reset will be held on Saturday, May 23rd.
BST: 18:00
EDT: 13:00
CDT: 12:00
MDT: 11:00
PDT: 10:00

As of the patch on March 3rd, premium characters (p2p) are now able to log back onto their accounts with f2p status!

The following list describes exactly what this means for you today, and a few more changes that will go into effect next universe reset.

Lapsed Subscription Changes

Current Universe Changes

• Trade skills are enabled
• Bases cannot be placed in Wild Space
• Bases in Wild Space will function normally
• Trade Bot orders will be executed normally
• T21+ skills will be retained (this won’t change)
• PvP in Wild space is enabled
• Access to premium zones (Perilous Space, Kalthi Depths, Subspace, etc) is disabled.

Next Universe Changes

• Trade skills will be disabled
• Bases cannot be placed in Wild Space
• Bases in Wild Space cannot fire, extract, or trade
• Trade Bot orders will not be executed in Wild Space
• T21+ skills will be retained (this won’t change)
• PvP in Wild Space is disabled
• Access to premium zones (Perilous Space, Kalthi Depths, Subspace, etc) is disabled.

**All of these changes are subject to alterations between now and reset.

Additional Changes

Next Universe Notification Changes

• Any subscribed account without auto-renew enabled will receive an email notification one week before the subscription expires.
• A team message will be announced one day before bases lose bonuses (optional toggle in settings)

Future Subscription Bonuses

• XP boost: 25% more XP from kills
• 10 extra docked ship slots
• 1000 extra TSL capacity
• Setting up auto-renewal will reward one extra SP per month renewed!

Hello Sonatians! The last time I spoke to you about Fighters it was to tell you that we were in the process of changing them and we needed your feedback. As a result of that feedback, we settled on some long term goals that I am about to lay out for you. While implementing the features neccessary to make those goals a reality, Fighters were left in a place that was a little too one dimensional. Now, we have finally implemented everything and I am happy to share that what looks like!

Main Objectives

1. Fighters will be more powerful when launched from the Main player ship, and less powerful from Bots. Fighters should be able to account for roughly a third of the Fleet Commanders total damage output, more if they decide to specialize.
   1. Bots that launch fighters should, roughly, output a third of the damage their Owner is able to output.
   2. Players will either be able to launch lots of smaller, weaker fighters OR a few bigger, stronger fighters.
   3. Some fighters will have secondary effects of some sort.
2. Fighters will benefit from a player actively managing them rather than passively deploying them.
   1. Fighters will no longer be generated from generators, and instead they will enter a destroyed state that can be repaired by the player.
   2. There will be rarer Fighter bays with faster deployment times to enable faster reaction to changing scenarios.
3. Fighters will have more opportunities for growth and differentiation by way of Fighter Bays, Auras, the Flight Controller skill, Advanced Class Subskills, Imperial/Kalthi skills and varied types of Fighters.

Stronger Fighters

Fighters will be situated halfway between drones and bots. This means they will fly to intercept a target of your choice (like a bot), but cost energy to deploy and enter a destroyed state that requires repair when damaged (like a drone). Fighters will generally be more resilient as well. Players should see a greater variety of fighters, with different damage types and energy requirements across said fighters, making your choice of fighters even more important.

Active Management

Fleet Commanders’ will use short duration super item aura’s to significantly increase the power of fighters, and only fighters. The deployment of the right fighter for the right situation will be important, as having your fighters destroyed will mean you need to repair them ( In order to repair your combat bot’s fighters, you must select the bot and press X. A menu will appear and at the bottom, you will see a Repair option. If you click it, your bot will repair everything on it, including their fighters). Players will be able to recall their fighters by using the fighter bay itself in the event that they need to get their fighters out of harm’s way. This will cause the player’s fighters, and also their combat bot’s fighters, to instantly be teleported back into the ship that launched them.

Growth and Differentiation

Fighters will have far more variety based on the type of weapon that they use, the type of damage they do, how resilient they are, how fast they are, and whether or not they have a powerful secondary effect. These may be further augmented in the future by Advanced Class Subskills that allow a player to really embody the roll of a carrier. At present, Advanced Flight Controller is the only skill that directly affects a Fleet Commander’s fighters. In addition: Your Fighters will inherit the same skills bonuses your Bots and Drones inherit. This means things such as Imperial Skills will affect them. All Bots, Drones and Fighters inherit 50% of these skill bonuses.

All of these changes should be coming in with the upcoming patch, keep your eyes peeled!

Greetings,

I hope everyone has had a good year behind them and enjoyed the last few days and weeks with loved ones and families.

Please enjoy this New Years Bonus event until January 6th!

We will be doubling Bindomite drops, Boss Mod chances, and XP.

Happy Holidays,

Kilando

Meeting Summary For 12/12/2019
Written by: Interwoven Enigma

Comets in Custom Galaxies
Comets in custom galaxies, or POI galaxies, are coming and will drop thematic items. The example given was comet(s) in blue outpost would drop Blue Whispers, Aethers, Vapors, and Dusts.

Bots on Follow Object
Bots set to follow an object will now check how far they are from their master, they’ll get separation anxiety if further than two jumps away and will attempt to return to you.

Kalthi Vaults
Getting removed, pending rework.

Healing Revamp
Still being worked on, however, Zen of energy, spin, and acceleration have been experimentally changed to a percentage bonus rather than flat, and shield stealing currently is capped at what shields you’re currently missing from your bank. Otherwise, it’s like the fighters rework right now, things are being experimented with, tested, and changed quite a lot, there’s still a lot of flux.

Hull Balance Sheet
While mostly complete, a few values are being tweaked, and options added, it’s getting very close to being finalized. The implementation plan is to push it to live with the healing rework, and thusly will be tested in the healing rework test server before being rolled out.

Class Skills
A proposal was tabled to push back when a new player is introduced to classes and class skills to further into the game, around level 120, along with tentative looks into how the new player experience could be improved.

Reports of flyswatters pouring out of The Nexus in hoards have been broadcast from the Earthforce Defense Relay Network. While they have been able to subdue the flyswatters for now, they warn that at the current rate of growth they will only be able to hold them back for a limited time!

Earthforce Military Officers are expecting their forces to hold steady against the waves of flyswatters as they continue to terrorize the surrounding systems. There is however some worry that they may not be able to hold the line past January 11th.

The Earthforce Logistic team warns the citizens of the universe to pack your bases and dock your bots for transport into a new universe! Make sure that you have collected your bot credit holdings as they will not transfer over to the new universe.

The universe reset will be held on Saturday, January 11th
GMT: 18:00
EST: 13:00
CST: 12:00
MST: 11:00
PST: 10:00

Hello again!

A weekend event is now active. There will be a 2x increase to augmenter drops and XP!

Enjoy the event,.
Kilando

We know a lot of players are worried about the upcoming shield and healing rework that was announced. While we are still in the early stages of development for this we want to keep everyone as updated as possible. With that in mind we have decided to start doing developer video blog posts that will answer some of your questions!

The first few videos will cover a couple questions we felt that you would like answered and can be found on the Star Sonata youtube page.

We know that these will not answer all of the questions you may have, so feel free to submit those questions here!

While we will not be able to answer all of the questions you submit. We will try our best to keep everyone updated with the many changes that are coming to this revamp so that nobody is left unaware of what is happening.

~Kilando