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 Rogue Changes]

• The T23 core skill missions in Paxian Foothold now properly indicate that they require Paxian Requisition Vouchers.
• CXY-4000 Scoop has +100 scoop range, and +1 items scooped per second.
• Red Rogue Reavers:
  • Red Rogue Repair Turrets healing weapons no longer splash, inappropriately damaging players. Red Rogue Blaster Turrets do significantly more damage.
  • Added unique Exotic loot that can drop from Red Rogue Reavers.
  • Can rarely drop a tracker for a unique miniboss.
• Paxian Foothold:
  • Operative’s gear will no longer require Imperiled items, but the number of Paxian Requisition Vouchers required to purchase the gear is increased.
  • Operative’s Sentinel doesn’t require Mythic Defenders anymore.
• Black Boxes dropped by Red Rogues can now be traded via AC for Paxian Peacekeeper’s Recommendations once you have completed the mission they grant once.
• Junior Operative Augmenter turn in mission now gives the player all 4 of the augmenters instead of a single random one.
• The Five Piece’s projectiles are no longer stacked, and its particles have been adjusted.
• Peacekeeper’s Panel is larger, and generates more electricity.

[Client Changes]

• Added a new Sun Interference effect.
• Client will automatically release key when not in focus. Shift + brake , thrust and fire still work as those are intentional, but any other key getting “stuck” due to the keyboard update not reaching the client will no longer work.
• Possible fix for preventing non pinned tooltips getting stuck when client loses focus.
• Fix for some scenario where background tile end up cutting at the top of the screen.
• Modified the following engine graphics: Herbal Power, Mythos Pusher, Cara Sura/Sur’ara, Ayudhin Puccha/Puccharura, Dhatri Yantra/Yantradeva, Antu Zrgga/Zrggasamvita, Boson Blower, BFE/OS BFE/Giga BFE, Mercenary Drive, Glorious Resolve, Carrier Force.
• Adjusted the particles/graphics for weapons from Fallen / Matriarch.

[Skill Changes]

• Made it clearer that the repair cost increase from nanotech plating doesn’t apply to items which don’t take damage (e.g., fighters, drones).

[Item Changes]

• Changed any commodity crate cost to the average equivalent in commodity on Masala, Bisarme, Crystalline Shard, and Crystalline Chelonia Blueprints.
• Increased the Fabricated Armada supers on Kalthi Commander and its two upgrades to more appropriate DPS numbers for it’s inbuilt fighters.
• Decreased Envelopment V from 80 second duration to a 10 second duration and increased the minimum diameter from 100 to 150.
• Fixed spelling error in Empyreal Zenith ship description.
• Fixed grammar and inconsistent wording in the augmenter blueprint pack items.
• Fixed various spelling errors in supers.
• Removed redundant [Extractor] tag from IC extractors and Added [Industrial (insert commodity)] tag to T12/14/16/18/20 built IC extractors to allow easier for inventory searching.
• Added Warp graphic to Fallen Relocator.
• Added sound and red graphic to Fallen Shelling Focus/Forerunner’s Shelling Focus/Ruined Shelling Focus.
• Added sound and blue graphic to Badger Blockade.
• Empyreal Fragment now decays on universe reset again.
• Increased T18 Fusion Fermium Extractor to 3814 per day.
• Removed Neurobound tag from all Drone Controllers.
• Added 1 Honey to the build cost of Honey Badger.

[AI Changes]

• Fallen Delquad bosses now resets if all players wipe.
• Removed the inbuilt diffusers on Alpha Platforms.
• Removed the Solid Armor diffuser from Basils and Basilus.
• Re-added Swordfish Skin and Jelly Skin drops to Pretender Poseidon and Kraken.
• Poseidon Whorls now have a lifespan of 60 seconds instead of 21 seconds. They no longer self destruct from the warhead they use when deployed from Pretender Poseidon.
• Increased the charge time from 15 seconds to 20 seconds for Kalthi Engagement Device (Kalthi AI Mobility super).
• Reduced the range of the Space Jelly’s weapon drastically.
• Added missing Pretender Hermes common/junk drops.
• Anatolian Freighters no longer increase their targets electric tempering by 100% with their beam weapon.
• Nerfed Slimebergs and their fighters. (Part of nerfs require a new universe).
• Increased size of Lunarians and Selenites including the Avenger variants.

[Mission Changes]

• The T23 skills in Paxian Foothold now properly indicate that they require Paxian Requisition Vouchers.
• Experimental Fighter Research and Experimental Missile Research now require Piloting 22.
• Renamed daily mission “T23 Skills” to “Primordial Tokens: Target List”.
  • Reduced Estelle and Equinox kills from 5 to 3.
  • Reduced Ascension and Analemma kills from 3 to 2.
• Added a new weekly mission called “Primordial Tokens: High Priority Target List”, requiring kills of the Fleet leaders for 9 tokens. (Note: An admin will need to add this and may take a day or two from patch.)
• Doubled the credit rewards of Nexus missions.

[Universe Changes]

• Additional KD DG loot added.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Added two rounds of KD bosses.
• Reduced The Emperor’s Drone Controller and The Emperor’s Drone Controller trade in cost from 10 to 5 The Emperor’s Drone Controllers.
• Added T0 IC Factories to random AI station trade bays.
• Earthforce capital ships in EF layer will now unteamed.
• Drastically reduced costs of the Capital Armageddon Lasers at Beta Antares.
• Starting after this universe reset (aka they will exist into next universe not not the universe after) Earthforce black boxes will decay on universe reset.
• Slightly increased vis and reflectivity of Hidden Lyceum Observation Platform in Olympus Entrance.
• Increased drop rate of the Koto Rejuvenation in Nexus.
• Added a Zebucart for sale to the Ferrite Research Alpha so so the mission to upgrade to a Heavy Zebucart can still be completed if you no longer have the starting Zebucart.
• Added Advanced Plasma Extractor (t12) and Advanced Ablution Extractor (t16) for sale at Ring.
• Galaxies in Vulcan now have targetable foreground suns allowing for solar panel charging.
• Prism Paxian AI has been made non-hostile.
• The stations in Bipolar, Nihilite, and Underworld have been unteamed.
• Remote Control training to 16 in The End of the Universe has had its commodity cost reduced from 5 Giant Goblets to 3 per level.
• Golden Augmenter no longer drops from DG Goldenboy Statues and but will now drop only from roaming versions in Earthforce and Wild Space.
• Added additional roaming unteamed Hotrod Megas.
• Refuse and Waste in Nexus has been reduced in scale by half.

[Server Changes]

• Updated team attack message from “Pillbox” to “Drone”.
• The Content Guide now has chapters for Drone Deployment skill training, as well as improved chapters for Remote Control training.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed issue with Sapphire Carrier and Sapphire Transport appearing as Red instead of Blue.
• Fixed erroneous Bonnet content guide level requirement and recommendation.

Hey Sonatians,

Read more about the Emperor’s contest in our previous blog post.

Let’s talk about the Emperor system! While claiming the throne is undoubtedly the focal point of the competition, we want to talk about the rewards that are now available to teams who manage to secure a spot in the top 10 Influence earning teams.

For a team to be considered eligible for rewards, they have to reach 100,000 influence. This threshold acts as a filter to ensure that teams that have seriously participated in the contest stand a chance at receiving rewards.

The rewards are in the form of Imperial Chests. There are now 250 distributed amongst the top 10 teams. The amount they will receive is based on their proportion of the total influence gained by the top 10 teams, rounding down. Influence earned by teams outside of these requirements are not considered.

Once the contest is over, and an Emperor is crowned, the directors or councilors of the winning teams, can claim the rewards for their team when they log in by interacting with a floating dialogue box on their client. This reward can be deferred, if they don’t want to immediately claim it, and the prompt will appear again on the next login. This must be done before the universe reset, or the rewards will be lost. The team will have a login message reminding them that they can claim these rewards.

The Emperor team will still get the three Augmenter Reset Modules and three Ship Dry Dock Modules that they got previously via the Imperial Splendid Trove but the seals will be granted separately now. The Emperor winning team will still claim their rewards by docking in the palace in Anatolia, however the number of seals they get will follow the same rules as all other teams. Proportionally based on what percent of the total influence they obtained. Due to how the math is, they are guaranteed to get the highest number of seals of any team competing.

Other notables:

• Getting Emperor now grants Leadership 3 regardless of the Director’s Leadership level.
• Polemarchos’ spawn time increased by 6%. This should allow it to more clearly change time zones with its spawns.
• Ai in Anatolia will now respawn when not engaged. This should prevent them from getting all stuck in one galaxy.

[Item Changes]

• Due to their unstable nature, Temporal Quirks acquired before the patch have decayed.
• Due to the continued fraying of the timestream, Salvaged Equipment and Temporal Quirks now always drop on death.
• Added new inbuilt items for all 4 of the T23 Pax ships.
• Peacemaker Recommendations and Requisition Vouchers are no longer mission items.
• Fixed an issue with Cargo Bays that had -weight or -electric tempering getting more capacity instead of less.
  • Bule Expander, Transcendental Broom Closet, Zebucargo Bay, Empyreal Vault, Puzzling Partition have had their bonuses changed.

[Universe Changes]

• Paxian Foothold

  • Operative’s items no longer require Temporal Quirks or Uncommon gear dropped by Red Rogues.

• Red Rogue Hunts

  • Redesigned Temporal Trackers and the hunts they unlock, they are now purchasable from the AI base for Paxian Requisition Vouchers.
    • NOTE: Due to the faulty design of the original trackers, they have all decayed into Salt. Paxian Operative researchers have no idea why this happened, but they’re looking into it.
  • Updated the spawners and added new spawners for the Hunt targets in Kalthi Depths.
  • Red Rogue hunt targets are more deadly and spawn in bigger numbers.
  • Added some new rewards for players to discover while going on more difficult Hunts.
  • Red Rogue Hunts have been completely changed, and may sometimes drop a Blackbox that you can use to start a mission. Paxian Peacekeeper Recommendations are acquired through these missions.

• Temporal Interstice/Temporal Causeway/Red Outpost

  • Decreased the spawn interval for Red Rogue Defense drones from 5 minutes to 30 seconds.
  • Adjusted damage of all Red Rogues, and made them multifire fewer ethereal beams.
    • Their super items hit harder now. Watch out!

[Mission Changes]

• Fixed a typo in “Another Outpost?” mission.
• Removed daily missions from Paxian Foothold, replaced with an introductory mission that when unlocked allows the player to turn in Salvaged Equipment and Temporal Quirks for Paxian Requisition Vouchers.
  • NOTE: All mission progress in the zone has been reset, moving from daily missions to a linear mission chain required that everyone start from square one.
• Added T23 skill missions to Paxian Foothold, requiring the player to be level 3000 and to have completed the introductory mission chain to start them. They require Paxian Peacekeeper Recommendations to complete.

[Bug Fixes]

• Accepting an already accepted mission no longer returns an error message.
• Temporal Trackers should no longer use the same inventory slot as the Sniper Analyzer.
• Equipping a Tracker that already had a galaxy selected, inside of said galaxy, will now force reset the galaxy it is currently tracking.
  • This was done in a previous hotfix.

[Client / UI Changes]

• Fixed issue with Teal, Ruby and Sapphire Unt Faranji Wingship and Unt Faranji Wingship X skins.
• Fixed issue with “Toss Some” not working on bases.
• Fixed the issue with sharing skins with the Resplendent Nullifier Shell, Resplendent Nullifier Edge, Cybernetic Nullifier Edge.
• Fixed issue with Beta Client not getting news updates.
• Fix for not showing the right key on extended hotbar.

[Item Changes]

• Shard Drone now has warp wake.
• Uncommon Engines from the Red Rogues are bigger and have more weight, but have slightly higher stats.
• Adjusted the T23 Pax Ship super items.
• Added new T23 Supers for Masala, Bisarme, Crystalline Shard, and Crystalline Chelonia.
• Luminous Focused Excavation Distributor and Wondrous Engrossed Boring Distributor now have 3 projectiles instead of 5 and reduced the number of particles generated as well.
• Removed unique with damage tweaks from the Ruined Fallen and KD boss ship supers.
• Reduced the Ruined Fallen ship Initial and Periodic costs from 30 bil to 15 bil.
• Reduced the KD DG boss blueprint Initial and Periodic costs from 10 bil to 5 bil.
• Replaced Indium, Osmium, Rhenium on both KD DG and Ruined Fallen ship blueprints with Perilium, Lunarium, and Seleium.

[Universe Changes]

• Termite Mounds do not spawn any guards or attackers within 24 hours of placement.

[Server]

• Giving a RTS order while a bot is in Light Stasis (yellow) will now bring it out of stasis.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed misspelling of Reservoir on energies.

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!

[New Content Zone]

• More details SOON!

[Client / UI Changes]

• Added Teal, Ruby and Sapphire Unt Faranji Wingship X skins.
• Added Royal Purple Crab and Seaweed Crab skin for Empyrean ships.
• Earthforce layer is now called Earthforce Space.
• Fixed Recon Frigate’s texture.
• Added support to Transwarp Menu to sort the Layer column alphabetically.
• Added 10 additional hotkeys using the numpad numbers.
• Updated map colors for better clarity:
  • Warp 0 to be slightly lighter blue.
  • Warp 3 is now a light purple.
  • Warp 4 is now a dark purple.

[Item Changes]

• Scoop Adjustments:
  • Increased the scoop range of Dharv’atiguru from 50 to 200 scoop range.
  • Increased the scoop range of Gargantuan Holding Scoop from 50 to 175 range.
  • Reduced the Vacuum Range of Twisted Wormhole Scoop from 850 to 750.
  • Changed the following for Twisted Gravitational Scoop: Increased scoop range from 75 to 100, decreased the Vacuum Range from 1450 to 900, decreased the Vacuum Mass from 14500 to 8000.
  • Reduced the Levasseur’s Scoop range from 200 to 175.
  • Reduced the Drake’s Scoop’s Vacuum Mass from 10000 to 5000.
• Adjusted various IC factory input values:
  • Overclocked Machine Learning Institute now requires 1 Plasma Crystals instead of 5.
  • Self-Censored Machine Learning Institute now requires 1 Ablution Crystals instead of 2.
  • Space Algae Distillery now requires 2 Alien Bacteria instead of 5.
  • Doctor L’s Distillery now requires 2 Bacta instead of 10.
• Junkyard Kits can no longer be upgraded.
• Twisted panels now give percent Damage instead of flat DPS.
• Fixed spelling issue with the Ruined Ordnance Augmenter.
• Fixed issue with Ion Appletini superitem not correctly marked as Energy Regen Tweak.
• PVP Item (Anatolia Crests) debris should now drop to 0 speed instead of 25 speed while slowly braking and should no longer drift to forever.
• Set Sentient Machine Learning Institute and Prescient Machine Learning Institute to 100 workers to match all other IC factories.
• Update particles on various weapons to reduce lag inducing potential. Note: will continue to iterate and review.
• Made Vervaardiger ‘Kamikaze’ PS-Y’s particles visible.
• Adjusted GOALDPS of various fighters that have multiple weapons.
• Adjusted Kalthi Burn Super item on Kalthi Wrathful Commander to prevent super long cooldown bug.
• Added Sup. and Ult. augmenter tags to their respective augmenters.
• Updated the Condenser Blueprint Packs’ descriptions to clarify the Augmenters they build.
• Reduced the weight of most (but not all) Kalthi Depths blueprints from 1,000,000 to 100,000.
• Reduced cost on Lunarium Blueprint and Selenium Blueprint from 400 Sub-Shield Reactors to 200.
• Hotrod, Gonzales, and Hermes stations are no longer unattached only.
• Splendid Troves now have a chance to give 5 Shards of Empowerment instead of one and no longer have a chance for Kalthi skill commodities.
• Adjusted most Empyreal Module Blueprints to 50 uses.
• Removed Spice Pirate tag from corrupted pulse gun.
• Made Ablution Crystals no longer decay.
• Made Solarian Blueprints infinite use.
• Reduced Venusian requirements from 5 to 1 on Solarian Blueprints.
• Created Venusian Fighter Bay and Solarian Fighter Bay Blueprint.
• Renamed Heavy Kidd Drone Crate Blueprint and Captain Bling Drone Crate Blueprint to non-crate versions. They now each produce 3 drones each and reduced Prawn Piece costs from 8 to 5.

[Universe Changes]

• Reduced the difficulty of Olympus, Subspace and Empyrean mobs and bosses.
• Olympus Loot changes:
  • Removed uncommon blueprints and made uncommon gear drop directly.
  • Increased the drop rate and number of rolls of higher quality tier blueprints and gear.
  • Removed non-Olympus gear from dropping.
• Ruined Sanctuary is now a two person Rift (instance) and has additional loot.
• Adjusted and generally increased the drops and rolls for the following zones/bosses: Ruined Sanctuary, Empyrean, Dragon’s Lair, Subspace Ubers, Emperor Sharahn Rhak’kai IV, and Bonnet.
• Removed the Banu Qo Akk’oj from the Jujuso’banu mobs and added it to the Suqq’ Bana boss drop list in Mira.
• Decreased weight of Captain Albatross’s Magcannons (320 mil to 3.2mil) so he can turn better.
• Added inertial dampening to Forgone variants to prevent them from knocking themselves out 10k+ in DGs.
• Mobs no longer drop Aspect Augmenters within Serengeti.
• Serengeti bosses have a high chance to drop their respective Aspect augmenter and an additional chance to drop any aspect augmenter.
• Significantly reduced the resists of multiring Nephils in DGs.
• Reduced High Vizir Rakhnis Grahad’rhi’s Shield Max debuff from lasting 100 seconds to 10 seconds per pulse.
• Moved more various mob’s spawned with augmenters to spawner augmods instead.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Wild Space changes:
  • See dev diary here.
  • Moved Emphatic Biology and Biologique out of Perilous Space and removed custom termites and now use Wild Space termite system.
• Anatolian Expanse changes:
  • Final blow now gives 20% of influence pool instead of 50%.
  • Added 3 additional galaxies in Anatolian Expanse
  • Removed warp blockers and turrets.
  • Added more connections between the new gals and each of the 3 arms.
  • The repeating hoplite spawns on all three bosses now have despawn after a period of time.
  • Removed the mechanic that required killing the shield generator add from the three bosses
• Nexus changes:
  • Removed desyncing curved asteroid field in Contracosta and fixed the illumination of Sun so you can see other asteroid field.
  • Reduced Kendalite Harvesting mission requirements from 25 to 12 Kendalite.
  • Drastically reduced the shields of Cadet Target Dummies and Space Rats.
• Added random DGs to Kalthi Depths with new loot, mobs and bosses.
• Updated East Vindia and Anomalous Passageway’s suns to work with panels at a reasonable distance.
• Moved a bunch of Halloween missions over to Trade Bay exchanges.
• Made most rotating/moving wormholes in various boss instances no longer move.
• Made Stellation Roamers no longer hostile to other AI.
• Increased the number of Stellation DG bosses in Earthforce and Perilous space and reduced lockout time from 2 hours to 1 hour.
• Fixed issue with “bird” type dg boss weighting.
• Adjusted the following for Timotheus the Red and roaming UrQa’qa Vazuk Vo’kii:
  • Increased damage, shields and shield regeneration.
  • Increased the drop rate.
  • Reset when all player ships (excluding bots, fighters and drones) die.
• Reduced Rate of Fire and Damage of Shadow Turtles in Random DGs.
• Increased the number of Green Battleships spawning in Earthfroce DF 300.
• Increased the drop rate of Gargantuan Goblets from roaming Green Battleships.
• Updated various wormholes to correctly state “Rift to” instead of “Gate to” for Rifts.
• Changed Team of Merchant Navy Seal Commander from Merchant Navy to Merchant Navy Seals to prevent creating hostility in Strontium.
• Added player direction holoprojector to the junkyard trade bay.
• Made the shouts of roaming bosses in KD and Perilous Space float above them.
• Moved Judgement (Absolution) to an instance and increased the drop rate of the boss.
• Reduced and updated most trade bay exchange costs within Celestial Encampment.
• Moved the mini boss fleet Rifts back one galaxy within Empyrean.
• Adjusted layouts of Empyreal Fleets and Empyreal fleet bosses now have 2 bosses that both drop loot, instead of just 1.
• Increased roamer/DG Stellations to drop gear at an increased rate and lower the rate of blueprints dropping.

[Mission Changes]

• Adjusted (mostly reduced) various Augmenter Tweaking turn in costs.
• Olympus Research missions (Various Fragments to Honorary Diploma) have moved to being a trade bay exchange.
• Converted the Olympus fighter turn-in missions into trade bay exchanges.
• Created a new Tractoring 23 mission in Celestial Encampment to obtain Tractoring 23 additionally to the existing method.
• Added new Platinum Strontium Mission for KD DG mobs/bosses.

[Server]

• Scooping now uses the size of the ship as the minimum size to scoop.
• Can no longer unequip or equip capacitors while undocked.
• Added an exception for Temporary Drones to be tractored in No PvP areas if in squad with non-teammates.
• Ownership Booster Drones no longer count towards galaxy drone limits and no longer get bonuses from Drone Controllers or Drone Ops.
• Can now tractor asteroids in galaxies you do not own in Wild Space.
• Clarified for Augmenter Drop events they only affect equipped Augmenters drop rate.
• Planet Scanners and Prospecting Scanners now item link in event chat.
• Drones now have titles more akin to bots. Listing TD (Temporary Drone) and PD (Permanent Drone). AI Drones without owners will still list the drone type as the name.
• Officer+ can now manage Team Recruitment Management via “Recruit Team Members” under control on Team tab.
• Improved AI recentering code.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a bug that allowed tracking augmods, auratweaks and weapons mods affecting supers.
• Fixed a bug with Mission Indicator not working.
• Fixed a bug with players without Steam linked accounts with making Steam DLC purchases. Once the connection to steam API is confirmed – the redeem offer will appear instead of requiring to login again.
• Fixed an issue that prevented forced aug resets to docked ships you never enter.
• Fixed where Critical Hit Strength on Sniper Analysis was not scaling with speed like damage.
• Fixed a bug for XP/Influence distribution to factor the whole fight and not reset if a boss is phasing and goes to full shields.
• Fixed universe generation issue with sun interference in wild space.
• Fixed broken mission chain within Prism Empires.
• Fixed an issue with Matriarchal Blessing super item not working due to missing graphic.

Hello Sonatians!

We can barely contain our excitement for the upcoming Universe Reset! Brace yourselves for an array of incredible updates and features heading your way with the upcoming patch. Here’s just a taste of what’s to come:

Kalthi Depths DGs

After DGing received a Perilous Space expansion recently, we wanted to continue that trend and add another expansion into a familiar space. Kalthi Depths DGs are finally returning, and have been given a facelift, making them much more interesting than before!

There are 10 new DG bosses to fight and farm — enjoy 5 new ship blueprints alongside plenty of other new items to find. 11 variants of mob guards, some of which are brand new, some of which will be souped up versions of familiar foes from Perilous Space. These DGs have been tuned to be fairly difficult with rewards to match whether you’re farming it solo or together. This expansion even comes with brand new Platinum level Strontium-90 missions, making token acquisition scale into the late game.

New Loot Standards

The dev team have been in discussions about drop rates across Star Sonata for a few months now. Enkelin developed a tool that allows us to see the real time investment required to receive drops of specific rarities. Using this tool we’ve gone through many popular endgame zones and applied these rates to them as we can.

Empyrean, Ruined Sanctuary, Akuq’ba, Anomalous Passageway, Dragon’s Lair, Olympus, Zaphragi Emperor, and Bonnet have been adjusted so far, and more will be coming! This tool will allow us to make loot drops much more consistent going forward for newly introduced content zones as well.

Ruined Sanctuary Changes

Ruined Sanctuary has been given new drops including 3 new ships and many items alongside the previously mentioned loot buff.
This zone has also been made to be Star Sonata’s only duo (two player) instance, so you and a friend can go in and conquer these enemies together.

Skill Zone Rebalances

A few zones have been noticeably harder than they needed to be for a while now, and are being toned down to more appropriate levels for their target audiences.

• Olympus has been rebalanced towards a medium-sized squad of tech 20 players.

• Subspace Ubers and minibosses have been given the same treatment but for a squad of tech 21 players.

• Empyreal Fleets and regular mobs have been toned down similarly for a squad of tech 22 players.

These should be much more achievable now for aspiring players to finally be able to earn their own skills and loot, progressing naturally without relying on the help of much more powerful characters.

AI Empire HQs

The AI empire HQs have been improved. There are now four unique and worthwhile galaxies that any wild space conqueror may want to look into taking next universe:

• Scorpius, the mining galaxy.

• Citadel, the tiered commodity galaxy and has centralized T0 extraction.

• Paradise, the perfect colony galaxy.

• Dorado has lots of T0s, but no metals!

The idea behind this expansion to the AI empires was for these galaxies to each have a unique spin on what they offer. Instead of being generally good like an exotic galaxy, they specialize — being better than exotics in some areas but weaker at others

Anatolian Expanse Tweaks

The Anatolian Expanse and the emperor system have been a hotly debated topic in the community. Generally, we agree that our current system is missing some of the key things that made our historical emperor contest and the politics around it exciting.

Our end goal is to bring back some of that intrigue and a bit more risk in the emperor contest than what we have now. However, Rome was not built in a day. We still want to retain having an emperor system in the meantime while we work on this goal. To support this, we’ve lined up some changes for the current system to address some of the biggest pain points, including benefitting smaller groups rather than rewarding only the biggest teams taking part in the system.

Emperor contests will now only take place once a universe, around the middle or a month into each universe. This should address various concerns around the constant slog that was being created by multiple contests per universe.

There will be rewards taken from the emperor team’s spoils and given to the top ten teams with influence above a certain threshold. More will be given to the teams higher on the leaderboard at the time that emperor is awarded. To support this, all teams entering the expanse will require a team HQ somewhere in the universe to receive that reward.

There are some other slight tweaks regarding the layers layout that should improve the experience as well. We’ve made three new galaxies that connect the arms in the layer and removed the gate guards and static turrets to make moving around the layer not unnecessarily cumbersome.

We hope these tweaks make engaging with the expanse clearer, more streamlined, and more rewarding for any pilots who are interested in a dynamic experience! Stay tuned in the future for greater iterations to how the Emperor’s Crown may be obtained!