The Economic Assault update has been live for about six weeks and it’s already made a big impact on the Star Sonata economy. We’ve seen high levels of participation in the Active IC events (including a fair bit of good natured PvP) and a lot of productive experimentation with the Colony IC system as well. We have been loving all the engagement on the community Discord server when it comes to questions and comments about the new system. Let’s dig into some of the key feedback we’ve received and a few updates we are planning for the near future.

Key Feedback and Upcoming Changes

One significant piece of feedback was regarding the location of sale events for the lowest tier of Active ICs. Players rightly pointed out that holding these events in the Earthforce Layer could lead to trade bot automation, circumventing the “active” in Active IC. To address this, we have moved these events to Perilous Space.

Feedback from early entrepreneurs in the Colony IC space led to another big discovery. There was an unnecessarily complicated interaction between colony population and an internal “maximum storage” custom value that could be set on each commodity. The upshot was that four of the five Colony IC’s were achieving maximum sale volume at around 1 billion colony population, while the fifth Colony IC (Genetically Modified Trobbles) was never reaching its intended sale volume. This is also the reason why the Storehouse bonuses on colony enhancement items were absurdly large, yet didn’t seem to have much effect. We have torn up this old code in favor of a simpler version, while still keeping much of the well studied theory of colonies intact.

1. The trade volume of a colony now depends only on its population and its Storehouse bonus (if a colony enhancement is present). It no longer depends directly on your level of Colonial Administrator since higher suitability means more population anyway. This is a substantial buff to any colonies that are not owned by Colonial Administrator characters.
2. Storehouse bonuses now do exactly what they sound like: a colony with +80% Storehouse will buy 80% more of every commodity than it otherwise would, increasing your revenue by 80%.
3. As part of simplifying the formula for colony sales, we have made a few numerical adjustments so that the net impact on traditional commodities (e.g. Nuclear Waste, Entertainers) is neutral or a slight buff for mature colonies. Since the Storehouse bonuses on colony enhancement items are now a lot more impactful than before, we’ve adjusted the size of those bonuses on some of the items to keep their overall impact on colony revenue roughly constant.
4. As was always intended, the five Colony IC’s will now only trade in large volumes when the colony is mature. We have run fresh tests on the new system to make sure that the optimal credit sourcing of these commodities is aligned with our design. The tests confirmed that Colony IC nodes are tremendously valuable if occupied by a mature colony and traded with in an optimal fashion. As part of these adjustments, we have also modestly increased the peak sales volume of Colony IC’s so that you can not only get back to the bugged rate but even exceed it by 9% with a really good colony.

These changes will be in the next patch, expected by the end of March.

Future Plans and Adjustments

We’ve also identified some aspects that we’d like to adjust, but we need to wait until the end of the current universe. The biggest change relates to the distribution of the original five colony commodities in Wild Space (e.g. Dragon Eggs, Astral Silk). We have roughly twice as many sources of these commodities compared to last universe, meaning that there is way more supply of these commodities than mature Colony IC nodes are willing to consume. I am working with Bobbo to adjust the universe generation code so that in the next universe we will have more control over how many sources of these commodities appear. In the meantime, it’s unfortunately the case that there will not be as much demand for these commodities as projected, since the supply is about twice as high as we had forecast. To any players who aggressively claimed colony commodity sources in anticipation of liquidating these commodities via Colony IC nodes, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and assure you that the relative abundance of colony commodities to Colony IC nodes will be much more dialed in starting next universe.

When it comes to the Active IC sale events, we feel that they have been the standout success of the system and certainly don’t want to derail that success. We just want to inject a little bit more randomness to help keep traders and pirates on their toes. Our plan is to randomize the event locations so that you can’t predict where each Active IC will be sold next time, and also introduce some random variations in the price that the server will pay during each event. Our idea is that these measures will help keep the events fresh and also add a bit more nuance to the strategies around shop pricing.

Lastly, toward the end of the current universe we will take stock of the consumption rate of Active IC’s, colony commodities, and Colony IC’s. Depending on our findings, we may make some adjustments to the volume of ingredients that go into making Colony IC’s. We have high hopes for this new economy and are committed to doing things carefully and methodically. We understand that it takes a lot of time and effort on the part of the players to learn and begin to profit from a new system like this, so whenever we make adjustments we’ll endeavor to keep things simple and conservative in scope to avoid invalidating the knowledge you have gained about the system.

Conclusion

It’s been a real pleasure to see players from all corners of the game trying out the new economic systems and sharing their thoughts in the chats. We believe that the release of the Active IC economy marks the beginning of a very positive new direction for Star Sonata. We are committed to closely monitoring the economy’s evolution and methodically adjusting its various components when necessary. Our aim is to promote a healthy amount of collaboration and competition in the economy of the game, while ensuring that every individual player has multiple paths to profit from their time online.

Stay tuned for more updates and developments in the Star Sonata universe!

Lyceum has been partying hard over the holidays, having drunken enough spiced eggnog that not even Dr. L’s Cure-All has helped them fully recover. In their hungover state, they were too late to discover the Red Rogue’s latest scheme: the illegal harvesting of our universe’s very fabric of reality!

Although Lyceum has yet to reach a breakthrough in understanding the motive of the Red Rogues, a spokesperson for the pirates had this to say: “We only take small amounts of these exotic woven fibers for the purposes of creating warm blankets for the endangered space cats of Universe-8472. For more information about our ethical harvesting practices please schedule an appointment and one of our Redbeards will be with you shortly.”

Despite this, Lyceum field researchers found that over 70% of the fabric was being ripped apart and left behind, with intense harvesting often dangerously concentrated to only a handful of regions. When confronted about these tears in reality, the Red Rogues “called us nerds and dunked our ships into those tears in reality.” With the damage already done, Lyceum predicts an unstoppable collapse of our universe.

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user stations, AI stations will no longer decay goods 7 days before end of the universe. Will be a reminder post.
• Bases, permanent drones, and the credits on active bots will be lost.
  • Player ships will not be affected.
• If you’re docked during the reset, you will spawn into the new universe using your docked active ship.
  • Careful not to spawn into the new universe in an immobile ship!
• Wild Space will be scrambled and receive a new map shape.
• All other layers will have the systems scrambled but contain the same shape.
• After a universe reset, all of your docked ships will be in a state of limbo allowing you to dock them all at any non-player station.  You can use the /limbo chat command only once to bring all of your docked ships back into limbo to dock them elsewhere. There is no longer a time limit.
  • You can purchase additional limbos via Limboing Tow Service at Friedman station in Free Market for 5 billion credits each.

PST: 10:00
MST: 11:00
CST: 12:00
EST: 13:00
UTC: 17:00
BST: 18:00

Emperor Contest: Now a Time Based Event

Hey Sonatians! We’ve made a few adjustments to the Emperor Contest, (see https://www.starsonata.com/blog/dev-diary-emperor-system-wild-space-and-aug-sourcing/ and https://www.starsonata.com/blog/dev-diary-anatolian-expanse/), but we aren’t done with making adjustments to the system quite yet.

In the next universe, the Emperor Contest will last three weeks and the team with the most points at the end of that time will be crowned the emperor. As previously stated, the rewards will be split among the remaining teams proportionally based on the amount of influence they gained.

We hope this variant of the system is more enjoyable for everyone. It should remove the feeling of having to sprint to claim the throne as fast as possible before others get a chance to join the fray. As with previous adjustments, we will continue monitoring player feedback closely and keep an eye out for additional areas of improvement.

Something else to note is that the number of non-boss spawns has increased. We expect this will play a large role during the next contest because many more points are available per day through the roaming AI. This should move the contest away from being as boss-focused as it once was.

Fractured Galaxies

Now for the big news. In the next universe, there will be new galaxies in Wild Space called Fractured Galaxies. These are galaxies that have all the properties and resources of standard galaxies but with two major differences. They cannot be owned, and brand-new resources can be found on some of the moons. This resource can be used to increase the productivity of other Wild Space galaxies’ extraction. More on that later in the post.

You will be able to find these fractured galaxies on your universe map by either seeing their unique name (which does not follow the normal naming scheme of Wild Space galaxies) or by seeing a sword icon on the map. They are unownable and therefore permit PvP at all times. This means that any bases there are vulnerable to attack for the entire universe. Of course, there must be something valuable in these fractured galaxies to justify the danger. Fractured galaxies have a brand new resource to harvest and you will not be able to find this resource anywhere else in the game.

To keep things simple on initial release, we’ll be just adding one new resource: Goop! Using a factory purchased from the Building Academy Entrance, you can turn Goop into Goop Juice. Goop Juice has an entirely new property, unlike any other item. If you place it on a Command and Control Center station, when the base consumes Fusion Cells to own the galaxy, it will also consume Goop Juice. This will cause the entire galaxy’s stations to have their extraction rates boosted by 25%. We may consider other galaxy boosters in the future, but this is what we are going to be working with for now.

Both the raw resource (Goop) and the galaxy booster (Goop Juice) follow the rules of industrial commodities. They cannot be transwarped or put in storage and they decay on universe reset and drop on death. To extract Goop, you can purchase a Tech 20 extractor from Building Academy Entrance Galaxy. Also note that these extractors do NOT benefit from Extraction Expert! Feel free to use your strongest bases to extract Goop.

We have heard your cries to bring some wildness back to Wild Space. We hope these Fractured Galaxies add a bit more chaos, uncertainty and spiciness to our current Wild Space ecosystem!

Station Mastery Changes

We’ve been monitoring the weapon range of bases very closely since the Wild Space reworks of last year. While some players have called for us to revert the base weapon range changes entirely, we’re going to try a more surgical change that will strengthen bases overall and make combat in fractured galaxies less player-favored. Characters that have the station mastery skill will impart a 3% range boost per level to all bases owned by that character. At this time, there will be no changes to the weapons or augmenters. We feel that a surgical change like this will positively influence some metas when it comes to claiming galaxies, fighting termites, or battling for these fractured galaxies.

We haven’t seen much base combat out in the universe recently, but in case you may have forgotten, a new system has been applied to bases’ resistance to damage. Bases take decreased damage when the enemy shooting at the base is farthest away. This coupled with nearly doubling Station Mastery base range should make well-geared bases much harder to pop with long-range player ships.

Lyceum is ablaze with the unsettling news of the universe’s impending doom! Chaotic ripples relentlessly shred the very fabric of reality, and the once-distant disturbances are ominously inching closer, casting a dark shadow upon us all. In a bid to unravel the mystery, Earthforce dispatched a courageous taskforce to the cosmic fringes of civilization, and their findings have sent shockwaves through the galaxy.

At the heart of this cosmic conundrum, we find the mischievous architects of chaos – the elusive space cats! With enchanting brews and cursed powers, these mystical feline familiars have been leaving witnesses in awe and wonder.

Reports from the intrepid taskforce reveal that these bewitched cats have armed themselves with a repertoire of potent concoctions, each possessing properties that defy all previous understanding. The effects of their brews span a breathtaking spectrum of possibilities, with each one more intriguing and unpredictable than the last. As the universe teeters on the brink, the enigmatic space cats hold the secrets to its fate, and we are left to wonder what they are building up to next.

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user stations, AI stations will no longer decay goods 7 days before end of the universe. Will be a reminder post.
• Bases, permanent drones, and the credits on active bots will be lost.
  • Player ships will not be affected.
• If you’re docked during the reset, you will spawn into the new universe using your docked active ship.
  • Careful not to spawn into the new universe in an immobile ship!
• Wild Space will be scrambled and receive a new map shape.
• All other layers will have the systems scrambled but contain the same shape.
• After a universe reset, all of your docked ships will be in a state of limbo allowing you to dock them all at any non-player station.  You can use the /limbo chat command only once to bring all of your docked ships back into limbo to dock them elsewhere. There is no longer a time limit.
  • You can purchase additional limbos via Limboing Tow Service at Friedman station in Free Market for 5 billion credits each.

PDT: PST: 10:00
MST: 11:00
CST: 12:00
EST: 13:00
UTC: 17:00
GMT: 17:00

Red Rogues Strike Back

We have a second batch of Red Rogue content dropping soon! For too long, the Red Rogue Reaver’s have mysteriously been absent of anything unique, but that ends today.

In an upcoming patch, the Red Rogue Reavers you have been mercilessly hunting down at the behest of the Paxian Operatives will start carrying more lucrative booty. The Operative’s have informed us that their plundering and pillaging has increased tremendously, and they need your help to cull the threat.

But the Red Rogues know this too. And they’re getting ready for you.

Get ready for more loot, adjustments to the costs of various items from both Alternative Currency Purchases and Mission turn-ins within Paxian Foothold, and a new miniboss who is more than willing to blast your hulls to dust. Are you ready?

What’s a hunt?

Hunts are special encounters triggered by an item, a Temporal Tracker, that finds Red Rogues throughout the multiverse, and rips them into our universe.

The Paxian Operative’s, who have a base of operations called Paxian Foothold in the Kalthi Depths layer, need your help hunting for Red Rogues so that they can figure out how to storm their pocket dimension and put an end to their menace! Progressing through the missions provided by the Operatives in Paxian Foothold will allow you to go on hunts for yourself, obtaining powerful T23 gear and items along the way.

Red Rogues!? Are they related to the Blue Pirates?

And if so, HOW? That’s for you to find out!

This is the first of several content releases that will feature the enigmatic Red Rogues.

Answer the call of a Grand Navigator seeking your aid against them in their treacherous pocket dimension. Paxian Foothold is where a small but determined taskforce prepares for action, and they could use every bit of help they can get!

Your mission: conduct reconnaissance, neutralize high-priority targets, and sabotage critical objectives. These crucial actions will pave the way for future operations. Operating under strict secrecy, your role in this clandestine operation is paramount.

Help the Paxians discover the origins of the Red Rogues, and figure out how to stop them within Kalthi Depths! Join the fight today!

Easter is here! The bunnies have setup shop in Eastern Warren accessible from Sol, Flmer Eudd has returned to Handel’s Cove and is on the hunt for rabbits, and egg boxes litter the universe. The event will run until 15th April (Universe Reset).

Happy hunting!

Christmas is here, or near enough, with our Christmas event kicking off today. Astro-Ginch better watch out, as those pesky terrans will seek him out for his goodies.

Christmas will run from the December 16th for a bit over three weeks and end on January 5th in the new year.

The event this year will feature the normal festivities, including the return of Astro-Santa, spreading his jolly cheer and giving all the (nice, and definitely not naughty) citizens of the universe their presents.

Missions and related content can be found from the Lapland system, which will appear from a new wormhole in Sol.

Opening his eyes to the amber glow of the sun, the king wakes from his stasis slumber. Looking out from the palace into the endless space, a universe he claimed as his own. Yet each time he declared himself Emperor, the King of Anatolia would be crushed, camped, and usurped by a universe that was fractured by pirates, traders, farmers and other imperial dreamers.

His ship, the Golden Midas, powerless against foes, slowly rebuilt within the undefended palace as it is corrupted again and again by the fury of unjustified claimants. His spirit splintered as he was assassinated again and again for his gold and prestige.

“No longer,” the king declared.

Using his extensive spy network, King Midas claims to have infiltrated Lyceum’s deepest research vaults and stolen a power to change a small but critical portion of the universe. Midas declares that once the universe has collapsed and reset: his demesne will be worthy of his status as Emperor, he will have a fleet of unimaginable power, and will become truly immortal against all.

Whether these claims are actually true is yet to be seen but the universe has become destabilized. It will collapse and reform on October 22nd, 2022.

Dev Notes

• Extractors other then space oats shut off, colonies will no longer make purchases to/from user bases, AI bases will no longer decay goods 7 days before end of the universe. Will be a reminder post.
• Bases, permanent drones, and the credits on active bots will be lost.
  • Player ships will not be affected.
• If you’re docked during the reset, you will spawn into the new universe using your docked active ship.
  • Careful not to spawn into the new universe in an immobile ship!
• Wild Space will be scrambled and receive a new map shape.
• All other layers will have the systems scrambled but contain the same shape.
• After a universe reset, all of your docked ships will be in a state of limbo allowing you to dock them all at any non-player station.  You can use the /limbo chat command only once to bring all of your docked ships back into limbo to dock them elsewhere. There is no longer a time limit.

PDT: 10:00
MDT: 11:00
CDT: 12:00
EDT: 13:00
UTC: 17:00
BST: 18:00

Greetings! I’m excited to share some more details on the Wild Space Conflict project that will go live along with the 2-week temporary universe on April 30. A working version of this project is available on the Test server for those who are curious to get an early look–just be advised that we’re still putting the finishing touches on a few minor components. Fair warning: this is a long post that dives into some really detailed design and stats. For a lighter overview of the project, you can check out this post from February.

Controlling Territory

Back in February, I shared the following details about controlling Wild Space territory in the new system.

• Instead of merely controlling a galaxy for ten minutes, you must deploy a new type of base and complete a resource-intensive construction project in order to establish ownership. This process may take a couple hours.

• Once ownership is established, a steady stream of resources will be consumed to maintain it.

Figure 1: The equipment you’ll use to own galaxies.

I’d like to follow up on this with some details so you know what to expect well in advance of Universe Reset.

• You need a Command and Control Station Kit. It’s a tech 16 base that cannot be attached to planets and moons. You’ll be able to purchase this base kit in Building Academy.

• Your team can deploy just one single Command and Control Station in each galaxy. Once it’s deployed, you can start the Nullification Generator construction project. This takes two hours at standard build speed and carries a periodic cost of 10,000 Steel Girders and 10,000 Sentient Chatbots. For reference, this resource cost roughly equates to seven ideal tech 9 Extraction Expert bases for Metals, and half that for Silicon. Of course, it’s also possible to build the Nullification Generator over a longer period of time if your resources are spread thin at the start of the universe. Just make sure to actively monitor your space and rebuff any hostile players who try to steal your territory!

• The Nullification Generator is the device that actually establishes and maintains your team’s ownership of the galaxy. It is a base-bound factory that consumes 100 Fusion Cells every ten minutes. This cost roughly equates to one ideal tech 9 Extraction Expert base for Nuclear Waste. Every time the Nullification Generator consumes a batch of Fusion Cells, it establishes or re-establishes your team’s ownership of the galaxy. If the Nullification Generator fails to re-establish ownership for any reason (e.g. if the Command and Control Station is destroyed or abandoned), there is a grace period of up to 24 hours before ownership is lost (the grace period is shorter for galaxies that have been owned for less than a day). During the grace period, the owning team’s chat channel receives warning messages. To resolve the problem, simply feed the Nullification Generator enough Fusion Cells to catch up with the deficit (it will consume however much it’s owed).

Contesting Territory

Once a galaxy is owned, no one is allowed to take any PvP actions there. This includes hostile actions by the team that owns the galaxy! It’s no longer possible to manually toggle ownership status, so there is no practical way for the owning team to temporarily cede ownership status in order to PvP. From now on, ownership essentially means that the territory has been successfully claimed and fighting can move on to another theater.

This change means that fighting in Wild Space is much more straightforward with very few hidden or counterintuitive mechanics to get in the way of gameplay. If you want to contest another team’s ownership attempt, you need to stop them from building and activating a Nullification Generator before you. Here are some strategies you can try:

1. Interrupt enemy shipments of Steel Girders and Sentient Chatbots to their Command and Control Station.

2. Find and destroy the enemy’s extraction bases that are sourcing these Industrial Commodities.

3. Destroy the enemy’s Command and Control Station outright (but these are pretty tanky!)

Don’t forget that you’ll also need to complete a Nullification Generator on your own Command and Control Station while you’re busy slowing down your enemy’s attempts to do the same! As soon as any Nullification Generator activates, all unaffiliated bases and permanent drones are immediately destroyed and any such bases that were attached to planets or moons become unattached as well. This puts an end to the contest and awards the galaxy to the winning side.

Figure 2: Three enemy bases enter destroyed state as a different team establishes ownership. Note: the bases also detach from the planet but our tester needed an updated client to show this.

The only non-intuitive rule in the system is that unattached bases are not allowed until the galaxy is owned (with the exception of the Command and Control Station, of course). Allowing unattached bases in territory contest instantly necessitates a huge number of hidden rules and mechanics, as anyone with experience in BvB knows all too well. It’s best if we avoid the problem entirely by ruling out their use in PvP.

AI Empires will continue to exist in the new system, but the method for contesting their territory is slightly different. Since you can’t deploy bases directly in their galaxies anymore, we’ve introduced the following behaviors:

• A galaxy owned by an AI Empire will automatically lose ownership if a different team owns an adjacent galaxy.

• Deploying a base in the presence of an AI Empire will turn the AI hostile toward you.

Simply put, if you want to take territory away from an AI Empire, you must first own a neighboring galaxy (disabling the AI Empire’s ownership next door), then take over the freshly unowned galaxy by whatever means you choose. Remember that you won’t be able to use unattached bases for this task, though.

Figure 3: A player team establishes ownership in Tuscany Verge, causing the neighboring AI Empire galaxy Tyro to lose ownership.

Changes to Base Combat

Aside from the restriction on the use of unattached bases, we’ve made some other changes that will greatly affect the mechanics of base combat.

Bases no longer use healing weapons and any base augmenters the used to grant healing-related stats have been repurposed (check out Spirit of the Rhino!).

Figure 4: Spirit of the Rhino has been repurposed.

We realized that the main purpose of base healing has always been to keep your galaxy safe–particularly from enemy players–while you’re away. With the new ownership mechanic, this insurance is no longer necessary. To keep your galaxy safe from players, you only need to be on high alert during the few hours it takes to establish ownership. Granted, base healing was also helpful to protect against termites; more on this below.

Bases have a lot less range than before. When I announced this back in February, some people assumed we were reducing the base weapon range cap from 10k down to 3k. This is not correct. Instead, we’ve compressed the range stat spread on base weapons, reduced the magnitude of the Range augmod on base augmenters, removed the range bonus from Station Mastery, and reduced the strength of the Volatile Projectile Overcharger. Putting everything together, your pulse gun bases will probably hit between 1,500 and 3,000 range, while some specialized long-range magcannon bases can probably reach around 6,000 range. As with the removal of base healing, we make this change with the idea that you no longer need 10,000-range bases to keep your galaxy safe from players since ownership will do that job for you. And yes, this change impacts termite defense too. So let’s talk about termites.

Termites are being made to spawn a lot more frequently and pose a bigger threat than before. Also, it’s no longer possible to enable a protected galaxy state and thereby keep the termites out. Coupling this with the removal of base healing and the reduction in practical base weapon range, how exactly are you expected to keep your bases safe from termites? Here are some key points to know:

• In our testing, three tech 20 non-Station-Mastery bases were narrowly defeated by the strongest possible swarm of termites. We used competitive setups for the bases but I’m sure our expert community theorycrafters can do better than we did.

• In lowish danger factors, the termites have their damage reduced by half. With resources being more equitably distributed across danger factor (more on this below), this is a pretty valuable consideration.

• One new termite infestation spawns every hour, meaning that the average galaxy can expect to experience around six infestations over the course of four months. Some will get unlucky, though!

• Termite nests mature over a period of 24 hours and can be destroyed by handful of properly equipped bases (and maybe also by a player squad).

Figure 5: A maximum-strength wave of Termites assaults three tech 20 Adamantium industry bases.

One thing I’m confident about is that it will no longer be safe to use low tech industry bases on outlying planets and moons. Even if chaperoned by a “fully operational” Station Mastery base, low tech bases will probably die before the termites get cleaned up. This means that to fully exploit the resources of a galaxy, you will most likely need to use more industry base slots than you’re used to. Here is what we’re doing to make that more palatable. Just as powerful, high tech extractors make high tech bases viable for extracting tier-0 commodities, we’re introducing new content that will make high tech bases advantageous in other aspects of industry as well:

1. Every tier 1-3 commodity extractor is getting a new higher-tech upgraded version that grants a substantial extraction power boost. The tech and power of each new version depends on the tier of the commodity. Tier-1 commodities get a tech 9 extractor with 50% more power; for tier 2 it’s a tech 12 extractor with 100% more power; and for tier 3 it’s a tech 16 extractor with 150% more power. You can pick up the new extractors in exchange for a regular one plus some credits.

2. Higher-tech Colonial Administrator bases can now grant extra benefits to suitability in the following way. We are introducing new base-specific items that increase suitability and max suitability when equipped, as long as the base owner has the Colonial Administrator skill. For example, a tech 20 Colonial Administrator base can build and equip an item that grants +10% suitability and raises the maximum suitability of the colony to 140%. Be warned: the first iteration of this new item type will decay upon universe reset! If it’s well received, we may release reusable alternatives down the road.

These buffs to industry bases certainly improve the value proposition of using higher tech bases (possibly with augmenters) for your outlying industry. We want you to experiment and decide for yourself how to build optimally in the new system. One thing to remember: it is fully possible that some planets are just not worth industrializing. For example, a low-gravity planet with no moons that orbits 15,000 away from your main operations would be difficult to defend due to the lack of base slots. Depending on its industrial value, you will have to decide whether it’s worth spending the resources to exploit that planet and keep your operations safe. This is intentional design. We want the game to pose complex problems and we don’t want the designers to solve them all in advance.

Another point about base combat: base weapons have been made a lot more interesting. Beams have been redesigned for medium-damage AoE with the same range stat spread as pulse guns. Magcannons keep their long range profile but have received a variety of impactful  on-hit effects. I’m really looking forward to seeing what cool new strategies emerge from the greatly increased base weapon diversity.

Lastly, we’re making some changes to the “IC” base content that’s currently obtained through Industrial Commodities.

1. During the 2-week temporary universe, “IC” base kits and augmenters will be available for purchase at the cost of 1 credit. Remember that these items will decay at the end of the temporary universe.

2. After the temporary universe, “IC” base kits will no longer be obtainable, while “IC” base augmenters will have a new cost and acquisition method: the Z-tier versions will be available for direct purchase in exchange for 4 theme-and-tech appropriate augmenters and a credit cost comparable to the price of a normal Z base augmenter. Be mindful that these augmenters will still decay on reset for the time being.

3. “IC” base gear (e.g. Annihilator Shield Z) will continue to exist but with an added “can’t-jump” tag to prevent players from moving it between galaxies. The associated research projects will also have to be conducted anew in every galaxy where “IC” base gear is desired.

4. “IC” permanent drones will continue to exist in their current form.

Resource and Territory Abundance

In February, I explained the basics of mid-universe galaxy reveals. To recap:

1. Every 9 days and 17 hours, a fresh batch of galaxies will appear in Wild Space, connected in some way to the existing map.

2. These galaxies will have higher average resource abundance to make up for lost time.

3. Since ownership is a time- and resource-intensive process, it no longer requires a connection to your team’s HQ. Anyone with spare base slots will be able to compete for the newly revealed galaxies no matter where they appear on the map.

Figure 6: Time lapse of galaxy reveals.

For convenience, Jeff has coded it so that whenever a new galaxy appears, it automatically appears on the map for anyone who’s online at the time.

I also want to tell you about some changes we’ve made to the code that distributes resources across the universe. In the current system, we have a drastic resource imbalance between the lowest and highest danger factors. I’ve worked closely with our code dev Bobbo to design a completely new process for distributing resources. The new process uses principles from probability to apply various distribution rules, ensuring that the correct amount of each resource is apportioned and that the resource value of galaxies in the highest danger factor should only be 2-3x that of galaxies in the lowest danger factor. There is still a fair bit of variance in the process, but the upshot is that it won’t feel as bad if you get stuck with suboptimal territory for a universe. Keep in mind that termites in the lower danger factors have their damage reduced by half, meaning that you might be able to find some real sweet spots to maximize your income per defense budget.