The Paxian Operatives have been monitoring the nefarious Red Rogues and their efforts to pillage our universe for what resources they can steal. Amidst the charred remains from many of their pirate ships were notes for an upcoming invasion of our universe. No doubt in a bid to expand their pocket dimension, they’ve drawn up extensive plans to steal our universe’s entire fabric of reality in one fell swoop.

The technological prowess needed, as well as the infrastructure, is far beyond what the Paxian Operatives believed the pirates were capable of. During an ensuing fight to protect our universe from the invaders, the intense weapons fire from both sides destroyed our universe’s fabric of reality in its entirety.

In an effort to make up for their unusually brash actions, the Operatives had assigned a fleet dedicated to creating a new layer of fabric, one beautiful Pax-style quilt at a time. Unfortunately, the Red Rogues returned and stole their entire prized patchwork. Without the supplies needed to make another, 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

[Active IC Changes]

• Click here to read more details.

[V Formation Changes]

• Ships in V formation will no longer “snap” / “lock” to your side while in combat or going faster then 20 speed. Outside of this they will need to use their own turning, thrust to get into position.
• Bot will now shoot if possible while trying to get back into formation.
• Added the ability for bots to use braking when trying to get into position.
• Players can now control the distance bots prioritize shooting before trying to get back into formation via Leash Distance while in V Formation.
• Adjusted the logic for Mag Canons, Pulse Guns, and Torpedo weapon types for AI/Bots/Drones when expecting to hit to be more accurate.
• Free Combat Bot reset will be added to Shadow.

[Client/UI Changes]

• New Store with items such as but not limited to:
  • Additional Character slots.
  • Neural Boost to T20 for most skills.
  • Augmenter Reset (plus a cheaper NB version).
  • Station Skins items (you cannot change/remove after applying item to a station similar to an augmenter).

• Added new Temporary Bonus window that can be toggled via the F10 menu. It displays tweaks, their amounts and the time left they have.
• Fixed a bug that caused item linked tool tips to crash the client when clicked.
• Floaties no longer vanish if the object is targeted and object type is check marked under section of “Display Float Icons” under Display Options.
•  Alt+Click no longer unequips items when clicking hotbar. This was removed due to limitations with how windows works with alt+tab causing alt to get stuck on and unequip items while players trying to use their hotbar.
• Fixed a bug that would cause inventory window to constantly close on undock after completing a mission that would grant items. Inventory window will now only force close if it was previously not opened prior to completing the mission.
• Added various tooltips, adjusted search boxes for consistency, added a exit button to the bot jump order map and various other little UI adjustments.
• Added support for Search in Buy, Sell and Dock commands within the Edit Orders bot menu.
• Fixed various bugs with tweaks not updating (not clearing on switching character, displaying player owned drone/station auras, etc.).
• Improved generic dialog (/mc, blackbox) to be resizable, and auto-sizing when opened to be applicable to more types of text display.
  • Hull scanning now uses this type of message.
• Scanning a planet now does popup text of the scan if within 1k distance.
• Fix for Ruby Wingship skin’s glow causing the ships to white out.
• Updated various references from Base to Station.
• Chat Timestamps are defaulted on.
• ESC key no longer undocks the player from stations. The “R” keybind now correctly undocks additionally to docking.
• Fixed issue where minimized clients would continue to use large amounts of CPU as if they weren’t minimized.
• [Beta Client Only] Added ability for most of the client now to scale with font size but significant parts of UI is not currently designed for such and may result in clipped or cutoff text. Feel free to use at your own risk while we update the interface to handle.

[Item Changes]

• Push type tractors are now using a different physics formula for how they push and are generally stronger when up close and weaker when farther away. Their stats have changed.
• Removed Particles from the Eyezer of Light and Zauron’s Floating Eyezer.
• All mines are now zero size. Any ships that have mines that cannot be removed will now no longer lose hull from having mines in their inventory.
• Made item multi-factories stack and added the interval to their description.
• Removed NCC-Bulk from requirements from NCC-Special Blueprint and made it produce a NCC-Special Upgrade ship item instead.
• Heavy Bloodstained Ares Sapper Drone incorrectly had Heavy Bloodstained Mars Shield and Energy instead of Ares. Item now displays correctly as a rare quality
• Updated the following items Qualities: Particle Brake to Uncommon, Sing Brake to Rare and Quantum Brake to Exotic.
• Made the T22 Boss Skill commodities decay at the same length as the T20 commodities.

[Missions]

•  Added Trade bay exchange for NCC-Bulk at East Vindia for 20 Trader Insignia after completing the “NCC-Bulk” mission (Will need to be live edited).

[Universe Changes]

• The boss copies spawned by Infernus now use additional prefixes in their names to better distinguish them as copies from the original bosses.
• Adjusted Lunarian gear drop rates to be more aligned with Selenite gear drops.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Reduced the number of asteroids in Blanco from 1,000 to 300.
• Pirate Maboule will only roam in Warp 1 instead of infinitely across EarthForce Space layer.
• Updated the first three rift wormholes in Vulcan to be closer to the centers. Locked the wormhole to Bedrock Depths until the mission to kill Infernus is available.
• Re-added roaming Zebucarts to EarthForce Space, Perilous Space, Kalthi Depths and Wild Space.
• Reduced the Resistance to Damage of Lunarian Avengers spawn with.

[Server]

• Added the ability to transfer bots and player stations to offline characters on the same account so long as you are in the same galaxy. When an item is both Neurobound and Unable to be Put in Storage – it will prevent transfer.
• Bot/AI now factor in scoop range/ship size when using their scoop. Should improve the reaction, speed and feeling of using a bot to scoop loot.
  • Hint: hold shift and right click while a combat bot is highlighted to send multiple scoop commands.
• The server now auto displays in the construction tab if a blueprint builds multiple and what the qty is.
• Missions that reward both skill and item will no longer be hidden from player if they already have the skill.
• Muted player can now invite non team members / mutual friends , every 2 minute. Inviting teammates or mutual friends do not affect the cooldown.
• Fixed Event notifications not having a duration for the initial announcement when an event starts. Removed IC active announcement when an event ends, since we have the duration on login now.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a bug where toggling auto repair would cause Pop-Up Messsage options such as Damage Inflicted, Damage Recieved, etc to disable.
• Transferring a bot will now restore its skin to default if the new owner doesn’t own that skin.
• Adding a space before listing item as there was a lack of a space previously in the error string for transferring a Neurobound item.
• Fixed a bug that caused Imperial Tweaking and Station Tweaking to apply to Station Kit inbuilt augmods.
• Fixed a bug with Out of Combat that caused it to turn on if you didn’t fire.
• Fix for a short duration bug with Rate of Fire when electrical tempering changed.
• Fix bug where teammates attacking bots could make teammates personal enemies.

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!

[Active IC System]

• Click here to read more.

[Wild Space]

• Front loaded more galaxies for reveals and removed two of the later galaxy reveal stages.
• Lowered the quantity of common galaxies and boosted the presence of other qualities.
• Termite Siege penalty conditions are now additive instead of multiplicative and capped. This should tune down the extreme cases when not perfectly defending multiple times in a row.
• Added new Dismantle & Disrupt kit to Base Academy Entrance at the “Advanced Station Research Facility” AI station that can be deployed in any unowned wild space galaxy.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Created a new skin called “Orchid Fears” for Earthforce, Trepidation Frigate, and Red Photon Ships.
• Added Trepidation Frigate and Red Photon Ships to Earthforce Teal Edition.
• Added a new skin called Pesto Masala for the Masala.
• Added two new skins for the Crystalline Shard and Crystalline Chelonia called: Schwartze Quartz and Howlite Spite.
• Added Demented Dreams skin for Fallen ships.
• Added Koto Zebucart and Ferrite Zebucart skins.
• Bug fix for moving the radar dialog.

[Item Changes]

• Adjusted the following inbuilt super items:
  • Matriarchal Overwhelming Fury: Damage +75%, Recoil -20 to Damage +50%, Recoil -40%.
  • Fallen Shelling Focus: Damage +70% to Damage +50%, Recoil -20%.
  • Forerunner’s Shelling Focus: Damage +70% to Damage +50%, Recoil -20%. Only applies to your own drones now instead of allies drones. Still applies to self as well.
  • Masala Blend: Recoil -50% to Recoil -33%, Damage +50%.
  • Bisarme Bombard: Damage +75% to Damage +50%, Recoil -20%.
  • Operative’s Nook: Recoil -60% to Recoil -40%, Damage +50%.
• Removed station lasers from the following drones: Highway drone, Advanced Highway Drone, Motorway Drone, Autobahn Drone.
• Updating Space Blue Prototype to use its own model instead of using the Hunter’s model.
• Changed Olympus Drone Blueprints to 3 uses and replaced the weapon with the uncommon drone version.
• Renamed duplicate misspelled “Hannukkah Candles” to “Hanukkah Candles”.
• Converted item cookbooks (multi-factories) into base class items instead of equipment.

[Skills]

• Added (66% efficiency) to the shield stealing line in shield monkey skill description.

[Missions]

• Updated Infernal Pirate Augmenters mission to split Goblins and Infernos lore wise as they are no longer related.
• *Fixed text errors in Augmenter Tweaking mission “Art of Class Augmenters” to clearly state “four” augmenters are required instead of saying two in some places.
• Updated “Beat ‘em to it!” mission in Wolf 359 to clarify the wreck location is to the northwest to spawn the AI to kill.
• Fixed “Kendalite Harvesting” to properly state 15 Kendalite needed instead of 25 in the mission text.
• Fixing a bug with “Ultimate Art of Destruction Augmenter Token” mission that had it set to 12,000 level minimum instead of 2,000 like the rest of the Ultimate Art missions.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Increased the range that Hidden Lyceum Observation Platform can be detected in Olympus Entrance.
• Fixed issue with lack of new energy drops in KD DGs and adjusted drop distribution.
• AI spawned by Red Rouge trackers now grant XP.
• Fixed Kumari to Lyceum Research Wormhole connection.
• Updated the Paxian Defensive Order and Paxian Offensive Order missions, part of the Paxian Dispatch Orders daily in Subspace, to have forcefield visuals to indicate target immunity states and shouts to assist the player. The hatchery fight for the Paxian Offensive Order mission now spawns Sahvitra eggs over time until the target is killed, and the target will gain/lose immunity depending on the number of its fighters and allies remaining.
• Reduced the drop rate of Apprentice’s Ward.
• Made Polaris Wreck and Icy Rubble untargetable in Arctia as new players were trying to shoot it.
• Expanded the Arctia’s sun illumination from 3k to 10k so low tech players can see the roids.
• Reduced Trade Bay Exchange Metals cost for Vulcan Mining Blaster from 50 to 25 in Vulcan.

[Server]

• AI Station Selling/Undo:
  • Players can now only sell items on ships (including via remote interface) that your main ship is docked at.
  • Undo now covers remote selling items being sold to AI stations while you are docked. (Reminder: undocking clears the undo list.)
• ‘Show Stats’ is now enabled for Stations.
• Bots guarding an object in teamed owned galaxies will no longer persist after the character logs off.
• Updated kick message if the character has stations to clearly state their stations will be destroyed.
• Blueprints that produce ship upgrades will now have their quality tier match that of the ship
• Deployed Temporary drones now count as part of your equipped limit.
• Extended Mod now states Reservoir, Protection or Space depending on item type instead of just “Max”.
• Amplified Mod now states 20% Reservoir or Protection instead of Max Bank to clarify it is not an augmod and is only modifying the item itself.
• Dynamic, Overclocked, Forceful, Reinforced and Buffered Mods clarified for situations where it isn’t an augmod.

[Bug Fixes]

• Applied a fix for a bug with AI station trade bay economy producing/consuming slower than they should when galaxy is in idle state.
• Fixed bug with Transfer All and Transfer Type with not removing cargo tag.
• Fixed issue when transferring items with a cargo tag creating new stacks instead merging into an existing stack.
• Fix display issue of buffs when affected by multiple values (was only displaying first entered rather than the best one that was actually applying).
• Fixed for a bug that caused damage tracking to not properly reset when not ai was not in combat.

Hello Sonatians! We have two exciting new projects that will go live with the upcoming Universe Reset on February 3. While these two projects are very different in the specifics, they stem from one core vision that we have for Star Sonata: we want to give players fresh and exciting ways to collaborate and compete with each other as they progress through the game. So let’s dive right in!

Active Industrial Commodities

Industrial Commodities have been in the game for ages and were originally envisioned as a way for players to liquidate extracted resources for credits, providing a simpler passive income process to the somewhat arcane art of colonial administration. Over time, the Industrial Commodity economy has become increasingly automated and saturated to the point that it’s not living up to the vision that originally created it. We’ve decided to graft an active-play component onto the existing Industrial Commodity system that, while entirely optional, may yield a lucrative credits-per-hour rate for players who choose to pursue it.

Vision

We’ve known for quite some time now that we need to do a better job of rewarding players for going out into the universe and playing the game with each other. Our previous changes to Dungeons and Instanced Content are an example of our commitment to this. This project focuses on augmenting the Wild Space economy to promote these goals, relying on two main principles:

1. New sources of passive income should have a connection to active gameplay.

2. Players should be substantially rewarded for participating in the player-driven market as opposed to running their industries entirely solo.

A huge difference between the existing Industrial Commodity economy and the new system we’ve created is the reduction* of demand-side scarcity. When players are limited in the amount of commodities they can sell, this encourages them to keep everything in-house and discourages player markets. If a credit source can dry up when too many players are selling, the best thing to do is to max it out on your own and not share it with anyone. As you read the details of the Active IC project below, note that we’ve reduced* demand bottlenecks to encourage a player market to develop.

Per our core vision for this project, the raw goods that feed into the Active IC system have to be gathered via a substantial active play component. This ensures a linkage between credit generation and player activity, which in turn means that everyone has something profitable to do the minute they log into the game.

Three-Sector Model

Taken together, these goals drive us toward establishing a three-sector game economy (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_model for more on this). In the first sector, Gatherers collect raw materials while playing the game. In the second sector, these raw materials are refined by Manufacturers. In the third sector, the refined goods are sold to AI bases (or colonies) by Traders for credits.

Note that Gathering requires active play, while Manufacturing requires bases and trade bots (passive play). Trading will require active play for some commodities, and passive play for others. This means that players with holdings in Wild Space are free to Gather and Trade as well. However, it will be impractical for any one player to specialize into Gathering, Manufacturing, and Trading. This means that avoiding participating in the broader market is disincentivized and players should instead find it more profitable to do business with each other.

Wild Space Resource Flow

There are two types of commodities that will be added in this upcoming universe.

The first are actively-sourced Industrial Commodities (Active ICs). These take a single commodity that can be gathered in the game (such as a Blue Dust or Rosemary Sprig) and combine it with basic materials to produce an Active IC (a Fragrant Arrangement in this case). Each new Active IC can then be sold to special AI bases that will only buy it when an event is active and indicating it can be sold. The factories that make these commodities can be purchased in Capella. So, if you’re looking for a new way to build wealth in the game, you can spend some time farming commodities and converting them into Active ICs, which you can then hold and sell during the new events or else sell them to other players who will have their own uses for them (read on…)

The other new kind of commodity are the Colony Industrial Commodities (Colony ICs). These commodities require ordinary colony commodities (such as Astral Silk or Dragon Eggs) to be purchased from colonies and then combined with a variety of Active ICs and regular ICs. The resulting Colony ICs (​​Shimmering Astral Brocades or Luminescent Dragon Scales, in this case) can be sold to certain special colonies that are on planets capable of purchasing Colony ICs. There are only a limited number of these special planets in Wild Space, and they are only found in galaxies whose quality is Rare or higher. The factories that make Colony ICs are constructed with a blueprint that can only be acquired as a drop from Perilous Space. These factories require Goop to build, so you will need to secure some Goop from a Fractured Galaxy if you are lucky enough to claim a colony that can purchase Colony ICs.

While Colony ICs require colonies in order to passively liquidate assets for credits, these colonies can’t earn anything for their owners unless they also obtain Active ICs as well. Similarly, while Active IC factories and the raw materials from Wild Space are the only way to manufacture higher quality Active ICs, they can only do so if they connect with Gatherers. And in all cases, we have set up these new economies with limited* demand-side scarcity. Suppose you’re a player who is lucky enough to own a colony that purchases Shimmering Astral Brocades; since your fully mature colony will purchase a very large number of these items*, you have every incentive to buy Astral Silk from everyone in the universe who can provide it… at the right price, of course! You’ll also buy the Active ICs that go into making Shimmering Astral Brocades, creating multiple market relationships between yourself and Gatherers and Manufacturers.

What’s the role of the Gatherer?

The Gatherer wants to figure out what they can farm the easiest for the highest profit per hour. So they’re going to search the Market Check to see which station is buying the commodities they can gather with the least amount of effort. Then, they’re going to gather as much of these commodities as they can and sell them to the highest bidder before they end their session. Additionally, highly active Gatherers may also keep a keen eye out for the new kind of server-wide event in which a randomly selected Active IC will be purchased by an AI base at a generous price.

What’s the role of the Manufacturer?

The Manufacturer puts money and capital up on a base, buys the materials from other players, and subsequently sells them at a markup to players who bring them to the relevant AI bases during the sale event. Otherwise, the Manufacturer can hoard them and try to sell the materials themselves. Manufacturers who control colonies with commodities such as Astral Silk and Dragon Eggs will likely find that these items are now demanded by other players!

What’s the role of the Trader?

The Trader spends time looking to get good deals on various Active ICs, so they’ll be checking the prices to see how things look. They’ll also watch for cheap farmed commodities that can be sold to Manufacturers. If a surge in demand happens, they will take whatever they have stockpiled and haul them to the station with the demand surge. If they are selling one of the three Common Active ICs, they can safely offload them in Earthforce Space. However, if they want to sell the higher quality Active ICs, they will need to venture into Perilous Space. Because of this, they may need to enlist the help of other players to defend them while they bring the commodities to the base in question so that they can safely sell their goods.

What are Surges in Demand?

Intermittently, throughout the week, certain Active IC’s will be infinitely demanded by specific AI bases in Earthforce or Perilous Space, at a generous price. The Active IC will be specifically indicated in an event notification. During this time, players can sell as much of these commodities as they can move at a time to these AI bases.

Conclusion

By implementing a three-sector economy in Star Sonata, we’re creating new ways to generate credits through active play, deeper manufacturing paths to wealth, and most importantly, the potential for greatly increased interaction in the player-driven market. The Active IC and Colony IC system should create many new opportunities to collaborate with others in the economy, and just as many opportunities for healthy competition as well!

*Edit from Enk (2024-02-13): I helped Hober write the section on Active IC’s but I must have had a bit too much of Doctor L’s Cure-All Life Tonic at the time because I mistakenly wrote that there is absolutely no demand-side scarcity of Colony IC’s. I have edited the offending lines in this post to be more representative of the system. If you happen to control a colony that purchases Colony IC’s, what you need to know is that you definitely should grow that colony’s population up to mature levels in order to see large sales volumes, but if you do so you will find that it buys a TON of the relevant Colony IC, most likely far greater than you and a few friends could source on your own.

Fractured Galaxies

Fractured Galaxies are special galaxies in Wild Space that can’t be owned by any team. Consequently, they are pretty risky to occupy since you can be attacked by any player at any time. We envision Fractured Galaxies as a way for advanced players to flex their strength and potentially work off some ancient grudges against their opponents. As our first universe with Fractured Galaxies draws to a close, we’ve reflected on the  feedback we’ve received and have some adjustments queued up that should greatly improve how they work. Players generally found that Goop, the special commodity you obtain in Fractured Galaxies, wasn’t useful enough to warrant the risk of obtaining it. We are addressing this concern by making Goop essential in the Colony IC system (detailed above) and will continue to iterate until its value is in the right spot. We also received feedback that assaulting a Fractured Galaxy was nigh on impossible when the defender was heavily fortified. To allow for more contest over these Goop sources, a new station kit is going to be added in the coming universe.

Given that we’ve had some enjoyable battles over Command and Control stations, this new station is going to follow a similar gameplay loop. If you would like to disrupt someone’s stations in an unowned galaxy to make attacking them easier, you would place a Disrupt and Dismantle Station station in their galaxy. You would then have to construct one of two Station Disruption Field Generators on that station to begin disrupting all stations in the galaxy. This includes all friendly, neutral and enemy stations except for the station generating the disruption field.

These auras debuff damage, rate of fire, and shield regeneration of all other stations in the galaxy but differ in build time and strength of the debuff. The stronger aura generator takes about as long to build as a Nullification Generator. This is where we see an experience similar to a Command and Control station. If you get a notification that a Disruption station is placed in your galaxy, you’d better get in there and destroy the attackers’ station or pretty soon they’ll make your stations in the galaxy much more vulnerable to siege!

If you are looking to lay siege to someone else’s Fractured Galaxy, be aware that these Station Disruption Field Generators are not cheap. Fortunately their build costs are primarily periodic materials and are aligned with materials generally used for building strong stations. If you get a third of the way into building one and defending the disruption station isn’t going well, it may be wise to abandon ship and cut your losses on that build!

Additional Changes

To help make the process of getting colonies established, and to promote their broader use, the Colony Booster base items (e.g. Mobile Mani-Pedi SalonBot Housing) will no longer decay on reset. Instead they will be sticky, meaning once equipped they cannot be unequipped. Now you can store as many of these boosters as you’d like!

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

[Christmas]

• Added one redesigned Christmas AI: the Christmas Ghost. There are two versions of the Christmas Ghost from DF 300 to 500.
• Added one new temporary holoprojector for Christmas.

[Client Changes]

• Added “Target Similar Ally” (default:  backquote “`“)  and “Target Similar Non-Ally” (default: Tab)  to client.
  • These 2 are variation of the “Target Similar” function (default: Q) except they select only ally (team/squad) or everything else
  • Separated bots, fighters and missiles from ships and into their own category when cycling targets. (no more will you need to press “Q” 35 times to find your target because of a bunch of bots in the gal).
  • Allied AI treated as if they were squad mate and should be handled accordingly for targeting.
  • Previous Tab Next Target can be remapped if player desires that behavior as new style will take priority if they’re the same key.
• Prospect scanning a comet or solar body which has extractable resources will now produce a sound effect.
• Fixed bug with galaxy circle not loading in the tooltip.
• Fixed a bug with double clicking and middle clicking that bled through generic windows (Add to Trade Bay, Content Guide, etc.)
• Fix for clicking tabs through another window.
• Dialogs saved offscreen (due to resolution change) will now snap within screen edge when loaded.
• Fixed sorting issues with tech and uses in construction table.

[Item Changes]

• Updated the Anatolian Crown item to use new custom model that uses the Midas texture.
• Increased Atmospheric Robotic Vacuum Dock’s Storehouse boosting from 100% to 110%.
• Increased Anatolian Colonial Regulations’s Storehouse boosting from 105% to 115%.
• Fixed missing chance for Minor Resistance Augmenter in Minor Aug roll in Splendid Trove.
• Removing Troll Tooth requirement from Spectral Charger Blueprint.
• Fixed tag on Solarian Nova from Selenite to Solarian.

[AI Changes]

• Reduced Ayudhinaguru from 80% beam resists to 20% beam resists.
• Fixed an issue for Cyborgs launching the incorrect number of fighters.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Reduced skilling in Mira from 2 Paxian Medallion to 1 and reduced various trade bay exchange costs down dramatically.
• Changed the Aveksaka in Dark Jungle to despawn after 10 minutes, so they wont get lost in deep space.
• Fixed issue with the incorrect mission auto-starting in Whiskey Approach.
• Added a new “Get them all to 23!” to Wild Space Sanctuaries, Perilous Space and Sol.
• Grim Reavers will no longer swarm/hang out together in Perilous Space.
• Updating name of Instance in Paxius to “Rift to Juxtaposition”.

[Server Changes]

• Trade bots will no longer care about their owners cloaking status when deciding to cloak.
• Improved error message when attempting to use an item which requires a trade skill you have but are unsubbed.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a bug with Targeting Computer to use its own internal cooldown so that other superweapon can work without unequipping the Targeting Computer and instead pause the targeting computer firing like they do the regular firing.
• Potential fix for towing credits dropping where it towed from and not at the tow station.
• Fixed a bug so Warp beacon should now reliably show up in the transwarp list so long as it existed for more than a minute.
• Fixed a bug where you can equip more items on a base then you normally would have. This should prevent random unequip scenarios.
• Fixed a bug with bots not properly reloading the use sticky weapons toggle.
• Fix for an exploit allowing multiple Targeting Computer to be cycled for higher dps. Targeting Computer now enforce a cooldown before allowing another to be equipped.
• Potential fix for hate issues when trying to clear hate.

[Emperor Contest Changes]

More details here.

• The contest itself lasts 3 weeks (21 days) now.
• Added the following login notification for Emperor Contest:
  • Winner announcement for the first week after contest ends.
  • Notification before the contest is about to start.
  • Notification before the contest is about to end.

[Client Changes]

• Fixing bug with state of the colony toggle not saving. (You will need to update and correct and be fixed going forward).
• Right clicking galaxy hotlinks will now search and center on the Map.
• Right clicking item hotlinks will now /mc the items.
• Added tech level column to ship inventories.
• Fixed issue with Kalthi Deployer skins with the attached pipes not being attached.
• Fix for thruster particles despawning in weird order. Especially noticeable on longer engine trails.

[Item Changes]

• Prospecting and DNA Extraction Beams have had their electricity costs aligned with normal tractors. This has resulted in an increased requirement for Prospecting Tractors and a reduced requirement for DNA Extraction Beams.

[AI Changes]

• Fixed the resist profiles and stats of Dark Diablo’s Inferno and Dark Kobaldstein’s Inferno.
• Reduced Cyborg Battleship and Cyborg Cruiser damage dramatically.
• Fixed issue with Matriarch Auora’s Formation Nullifier Platform’s yellow pulses that were incorrectly tracking.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Removed the module requirements for the uncommon Empyrean ships. They only require Empyreal Core to make the exchange now.

[Server Changes]

• Added a check to prevent demolition kits to be used on abandoned kit inside another team territory.
• Added a team wide message when an ownership kit become abandoned due to the owner subscription lapsing.
• Added a content guide entry for Microwarpers and Translocators.
• Ship upgrade items now match the Quality of the upgraded ship.
• Superitem that charge on impact now consider the real damage, and not the damage before resists.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fix for scoop loop scooping a ton of drones instead of the 1 per press (unless targeted).
• Fixed the wiki page link for the Transwarp content guide entry.
• Fixed misleading description on the storehouse bonuses for colony booster items (the value is a multiplier, but it said “increases”.).
• Fixed issue for beam damage on diffuser not taking durability damage when hit by a beam.
• Fixed an issue with Termite RNG that should give Termites a more drastic spawn time range.

Good evening Sonatians. The contest to take the Emperor’s Throne has gone through a few iterations over the past few years, from a game of “escort the payload” to the battleground oriented fights we have seen more recently. We have carefully monitored the experience of the Emperor mechanic since its inception and plan to continue iterating on the design as we learn more about player patterns and preferences.. In this blog, we will describe every aspect of the current system! It will be detail oriented and should answer any questions you may have about how engaging with it works.

The Anatolian Expanse

First, let’s talk about the Anatolian Expanse. The Anatolian Expanse is a layer of space found by traveling to Anatolia (which can be found off of Earthforce Perilous Outpost), then heading past King Midas into his domain. Here you can find Midas’ soldiers waiting to engage whoever comes to challenge them. The soldiers come in a few forms: Midas’ mining crew, his foot soldiers and his champions. All of these soldiers drop Anatolian Crests, a currency that can be used to get rewards for participating in the Anatolian Expanse and provide your team influence. I will elaborate on that later.

This layer has a few other rules that make it a PvP battleground. You cannot transwarp in or out of this layer. You must go in through one of the entrances, and there are no other ways out. Logging out of this layer will also cause you to be kicked out of the layer, which means no hiding large fleets logged out in deep space. Every galaxy within the expanse also has a set arena size. There is a 24,000 radius asteroid belt in every galaxy, and each galaxy emits a deadly aura past that point! This allows for plenty of room for large fights, while also preventing some extreme cases of kiting Midas’ Champions. (The early fights in the expanse took place tens of thousands of distance away from the center of the galaxy)

Midas’ Soldiers

Midas’ miners and foot soldiers aren’t too interesting. They will fight anyone that engages them, but they don’t give much influence. However, they are a good source of Anatolia Crests. You can find them at all times in the expanse, but compared to the champions they are significantly weaker.

Midas’ champions are where his might is truly on display. They are capable of fending off entire squads of players. They also provide large numbers of Anatolian Crests and a large amount of influence. These champions come in three different ranks that drastically increase in strength and rewards. There can only be one of each champion in the Expanse at a time, and they spawn on timers that can be seen in notifications next to the chat. If you do not see a notification there when you log in regarding these bosses, they are either already alive or not respawning soon. The ranks and champions are as follows:

• The lowest rank champion, Taxiarhos, is worth 30,000 Influence.

• In the middle is Strategos at 180,000 influence.

• And, finally, the strongest and most legendary champion is Polemarchos worth 900,000 influence.

Anatolian Crests

Anatolian Crests are one of the two things that are obtained by defeating Midas’ soldiers. Their concept is relatively simple: you kill soldiers, they drop crests. Gather lots of crests and take them to any of the AI bases in the Anatolian Expanse to turn them in for lots of wonderful rewards! Be careful, if you are killed while transporting these crests you will drop them to whoever killed you! These PvP items have a few other attributes that go along with them.

• Crests drop on death.

• Crests drop when you leave the layer. This can happen due to logout kick or just warping out.

• Crests prevent undocking while they are in your inventory. You will have to sell them back to the base for credits if you are unable to get other rewards for them.

• Crests stick around longer than other debris.

• They provide visibility to a ship that holds them.

With 100 crests you can purchase an Anatolian Trove. These are loot boxes that contain a bunch of very useful items, including a low chance at a Tarnished  Imperial Seal! Crests and troves can be obtained before, during, and after the Throne is claimed, so come on in and fight for some crests!

Claiming the Throne

As mentioned before, killing Midas’ soldiers provides influence to the killers team for killing them. Influence is what is used to determine which team will be crowned Emperor. However, you cannot just go and get influence in the Anatolian Expanse at any point in the universe. The Emperor’s contest is a timed event. At exactly 720 hours (30 days) after a new universe is formed, killing soldiers inside the Anatolian Expanse provides any teams that took part in killing any given soldier with  influence. This influence is provided proportionally based on how much damage each team did to the soldier. 20% of a soldier’s influence is also provided to the team that landed the killing blow on a soldier. At any given moment you can see the total amount of influence a team has by looking at the bulletin board in any AI station.

The contest itself lasts 3 weeks (21 days). When this time period ends, the leading team will be crowned Emperor, with a few conditions. After 3 weeks, if no teams are eligible to claim the throne, the contest continues until the moment a team becomes eligible. For a team to be eligible they must have at least 1,000,000 influence and they must also have a 900,000 point lead ahead of the team in second place. If a team is not crowned by the universe reset, all influence is wiped and an Emperor will not be crowned for that universe. Since the contest is a one time event, once an Emperor is crowned that Emperor will hold their throne for the rest of the universe.

The Contest’s Spoils

The current rewards for the Emperor contest take 4 major forms. Three of which are only provided for the Emperor and their team:

1. A 5% tithe is applied to scooped credits and colony sales to players not on the Emperor’s team.

2. The Emperor can dock at the palace in Anatolia and receive three augmenter reset modules and three ship dry dock modules

3. A galaxy in wild space will forever be named after the Emperor.

Additionally, there is another reward that is distributed amongst the top 10 participating teams who have  accrued at least 100,000 influence. A pool of 250 Imperial Chests are proportionally provided to these eligible teams based on their teams percentage of the total influence earned by all teams. The greatest amount of these will always be provided to the winning team, but there’s still chests to be earned by whoever can snag a spot in the top ten!

Round up

The Anatolian Expanse and associated Emperor Contest is a labor of love by us to support an active PvP event that breaks up the day to day activities in Star Sonata. We appreciate the many rounds of feedback the community has given about this experience. We are committed to continuing to support this activity and monitoring its success and failures. This blog post includes all information on the current system used to ascend to the throne to become Emperor, but like with many things in Star Sonata, it changes often. This system will likely be iterated into the future to bring an experience that promotes competition. You can stay up to date on what is involved in the contest to become Emperor by visiting our wiki page on the topic. https://www.starsonata.com/wiki/index.php/Emperor

[Wild Space]

• Fractured Galaxies

• New Termite System. Each galaxy has its own termite mound spawn rate which has a default rate of 1 spawn per 3 weeks (plus a bit of RNG). The termite mound spawn rate is adjusted according to the following rules:

  1. The galaxy’s spawn rate will be doubled if any of the following events occurs during an infestation: the galaxy becomes unowned, any station enters destroyed or abandoned state during the scout phase (i.e. before full termite waves are being sent), or on at least two occasions a station enters destroyed or abandoned state after the scout stage is concluded.

  2. The galaxy’s spawn rate will be increased by 50% if by the end of the infestation, a station entered a destroyed or abandoned state on exactly one occasion and it was after the scout stage was concluded.

  3. The galaxy’s spawn rate is reduced by 33% (but not below the default rate) if an entire infestation concludes without any of the events listed above.

• Command & Control Station Kits now start with an hour of buffer time instead of 30 minutes before the galaxy will unown without feeding it additional fusions.

• While the End of the Universe is active (last 7 days of universe) ownership within Wild Space can no longer be lost.

• Dorado has increased T0 commodities counts. Silver and Platinum can now also be found there.

[Client Changes]

• PvP Zone galaxies (no turning off safety lock required / no PvP level limits) will now be displayed with a crossed swords icon on the map.

• Holding the scoop button (or using shift-c) will now only scoop a single drone without interrupting the scooping of other items (so that you will still be able to scoop debris without stopping and restarting scoop).

• You can now use scoop lock (shift+c) or hold c and then target individual drones to scoop multiple in one scooping session.

• Shift-c now locks the scoop for 30 seconds regardless of client focus.

• The Character tab now receives an update on placement of a station or a drone without needing to refresh the tab.

• Updated colony UI for toggle station colony trading.

• Changed toggle station colony trading to be any character with management privileges.

• Sound should no longer be able to play the same effect multiple times in a single frame, each individual sound file is now limited to playing at most once per 50ms.

• /avoid galname command now works when used from /savecommands.

[Skill Changes]

• Station Mastery now give stations 3% range bonus per level.

• Gunner’s Destruction skill now says “.per level”. instead of “.ber level”..

• Extraction Expert now states “station hull space” instead of “station cargo space”. This was done to reduce confusion with the Cargo system.

• Updated Piracy skill description to clarify it increases the rate of dropped goods on some AI and increases the drop rate of equipped Augmenters.

[Item Changes]

• Adjusted global balance values for self damage

  • Most self damage weapons now have near the same or lower self damage. A few exceptions.

• Holding Scoops now give -resists instead of -shield max.

• Drake’s scoop now gives -5% resists instead of -15% shield max.

• Reduced Gladiator Scoop from 300 range to 275 range.

• Renamed Dark Goblin Augmenter to Dark Gyre Augmenter.

• Renamed Dark Goblin Laser to Dark Gyre Laser.

• Renamed Dark Hobgolin to Dark Ignis.

• Highway drone, Advanced Highway Drone, Motorway Drone, Autobahn Drone had their stats increased for much higher survivability.

• Microwarpers can now stack when unequipped.

• Red Pill and Ammo Crates are now properly marked as Exotic

• Red Loop Pill now gives -40% (from -25%) Recoil for 10 seconds, prevents you from using items the user for the duration, and increases Turning and Thrust by a % instead of giving a Constant.

• Updated the description of Red Glow Pill – Red Block Pill now gives -92.5% (from -90%) Vulnerability to All, and prevents you from firing weapons and using items the user for the duration.

• Fixed shrimp missile supers to shoot 1 missile per use and cut cooldown/energy cost in half, from 2 missiles per use.

• Can now only equip one type of Untangler (Gravometric Disruptor) at a time.

• Ownership Kit can no longer be deployed in non-owneable galaxies.

[AI Changes]

• Fixed the issue with Vazi’s not firing their missiles.

[Universe Changes]

• Infernal Tempest and Darkness:

  • Goblins have been removed and replaced.

  • Added tons of new visuals for mobs and bosses.

  • Added new exotic loot and increased drop rate to Infernal Darkness bosses.

[Next Universe Changes]

• New KD DG Bosses and loot.

• Added three new types of Halloween AI: the Feline Familiar, the Halloween Ghost, and the Vampire Bats. There are four versions of the Feline Familiar and the Vampire Bats, ranging from low danger factor all the way to Kalthi Depths. There are two versions of the Halloween Ghost, for high danger factor and Kalthi Depths.
• Added eight new temporary holoprojectors for Halloween.

• Arctia Changes:

  • Increased the drop rate of Rime Drones and Rime Shields from Rime Shards.

  • Added a Rime Drone drop to Lord Borean.

• Slightly adjusted how the spiral is generated in Earthforce Space to add more low DF gals and reduce DF 300 by roughly 50%.

• Subspace Sas changes:

  • Increased the time it takes for Subspace Aveksaka to evolve.

  • AI will despawn and be reborn to ensure there’s a good distribution of hull types at all times.

• Earthforce Permanent Drones will properly name themselves Judge and Jury with universe reset instead of Pillbox.

• Added despawn timer for Scruples spawned from asteroids in Hyper.

• Infernos will drop Infernal Faction Access Card instead of Goblins.

• Cyborg Cruiser and Cyborg Battleships were greatly buffed and their unique loot drop rates increased.

• Fixed the costs of Adamanturized Patrol, Adamanturized Racer Augmenter, and Adamanturized Monkey Augmenter’s Trade Bay exchange costs to reflect that of the blueprints and costs of other augs.

[Server Changes]

• F2P accounts are now restricted to 4 active connections per network.

• Added several new gremlin effects that disable weapons, items, and the ability to thrust.

• Added a privacy period to wild space galaxies during the first 4 hours when the first station is deployed that prevents all map updates in-game unless inside of the galaxy (IE. /f will no longer provide raw information from the map).

• Event chat now lists the character’s current number of drone slots after placing a Permanent Drone.

• Unequipping Station Expansions when it will overhull will now state the amount you can unequip without causing issues in the error.

• Ship hull scanners now start with the type of ship you’ve scanned in event chat.

• Show Squad Damage will now organize Damage and Heals by Drone type again instead of each individual drone name.

• Cargoed item weight is now capped at 1,000,000 or half of the item’s weight, whichever is smaller. Previously it was just 1,000,000.

• Can no longer do /limbo or use limbo item while some ships are already in limbo state.

• Targeting computer should now stop firing when a ship is overhulled.

• Spawner tracker messages should now show up as a red message in event chat instead of the standard gray, making it easier to spot.

• Scooped credits now only show up in the event tab as a single combined line once no credits are scooped for 5 seconds. This should greatly reduce event chat spam.

• The PvP zone warning message should only show if you were not previously in a PvP zone galaxy.

• Boss AI now clear parasites/fire when they reset.

• Chain weapon on hit effect is now ethereal.

• Updated various Player Station errors from “base” to “station”.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed an issue with shield stealing that applied resistances/vulnerabilities twice to the target.

• Fixed a bug that allowed you to be able to overheal yourself when stealing.

• Added a check to calculate colony prices on the first frame after server load, to avoid an issue where a bunch of prices are at 0 until the first colony tick.

• Rations being eaten by a station while your ship(s) are docked inventory will now refresh the inventory.

• Fixed spelling issue with “.proportionally”. on diffusers.

• Equipping multiple spawner trackers at the same time will no longer cause a spam of events messages.

• Fixed a bug that caused the first limbo to decay universe reset items improperly.

• Fixed a bug with Control and Resist skills not passing to stats bots correctly.

• Ships that have a top speed of 0 no longer can have speed from augmods, tweaks or auras affect them.

• Superitems will no longer get stuck if one of their steps returns an error.

• Fixed Space Urchin level being tied to Subspace invasions like the Aveksaka in Perilous Space.

• Fix for drones that are part of the uni save loading with a seemingly random team (Blue Photon warp beacon is one such example).

• Fixed Blue Emperor mission saying to come back in five days when the lockout is only a day.

• Fix for bots not following the player inside a public instance if the player is not in a squad or team.

• AI and bots will properly re-enable their cloak if they have one equipped after a server restart.