[Neuroforge Changes]

Click here for blog post.

• Uncommon quality and up now can have 8 mods. Junk and Common are limited to 3 mods.
• Mods power scale on quality with Rare quality being the previous baseline.
• Consuming an item to Neuroforge on a Legendary or an Exalted item gives bonus rolls to that item rather than compound rolls.
• Made it so the left and right choices in the Neuroforge will be different category types and no longer will provide duplicate choices.
• Super Conducting mod renamed to Superconducting.

[Anatolia Changes]

Click here for blog post.

[Red Rogue Changes]

• All of The Fighting Pits missions now lead to separate instances.
• Carmine Cutter has had the following changes:
  • Minions can no longer spawn with modifications on their items.
  • Carmine’s Confounder has been changed to Carmine’s Prototype Confounder, which has a much less debilitating debuff effect on the shockwave.
• Scarra the Crimson has had the following changes:
  • Boss now has ~40% less shields.
  • Minions no longer spawn with augmenters or modifications, their damage has been increased to compensate.
  • Boss has had her own version of a bullet spray added to her super rotation.
  • Scarra’s drones last 10x as long and are 60% less resistant to damage.
• Scarra and Carmine no longer drop uncommon items when killed, they now drop Obscure Doubloons.
• Blueprints from Scarra the Crimson and Carmine Cutter have had their Obscure Doubloon requirements reduced to 1/10 their values.

[Client/UI Changes]

• The Cybernetic Zebucart can now use the Steam Zebucart and Steam Zebucart Mark 2 skins.
• Empyrean Total Eclipse now uses Grand Empyrean Eclipse bosses’ model with extra spikes.
• Easter and Halloween Rats will now wiggle around like normal Space Rats.
• EarthForce Space layer has been renamed to Earthforce Space.
• Added new Content Guide entries related to Player Station building:
  • Building: Station Management Skill
  • Building: Station Deployment and Solarbody Scanning
  • Building: Feeding Workers
  • Building: Trade Skills
  • Building: Extraction and Industry
  • Building: Mining Bots and Asteroids
  • Building: Upgrading and Demolishing Stations
  • Building: Permanent Drones
  • Building: Planetary Colonies
  • Building: Skill Training
  • Building: Team HQ and Outposts
  • Building: Wild Space Ownership

[Class Changes]

• Adjusted various skill spacing, spelling and description issues.

[Item Changes]

• Removed Trepidation Frigate Reformation Blueprint exchange.
• Honey Badger Drone Blueprint no longer costs Adamanturized Rage Augmenter and reduced Prawn Pieces from 32 to 16, Zebra Armada Crests reduced from 25 to 12.
• Hybrid Kidd Drone Blueprint and Mad Kidd Drone Blueprint had Prawn Pieces reduced from 24 to 16, Zebra Armada Crests reduced from 25 to 12.
• Heavy Kidd Drone Blueprint had Prawn Pieces increased from 5 to 16, Towels increased from 1 to 3, and added a cost of 12 Zebra Armada Crests .
• Honey Badger Incinerator was improperly set to T22 on a Honey Badger Drone that was T21. The weapon stats have been lowered accordingly.
• Fixed the quality of the Mercury cloaks to Exotic and increased the -Weight augmod slightly to make them attractive upgrades.
• Removed UrQa tag from Apollo Augmenter.
• Fixed the quality of the Singular Jupiter Thruster from Rare to Exotic.
• Junkyard Neurotweaks are no longer neurobound. Will only affect new purchases.
• Fixed tech level of Junkyard Light Feet Pill from 10 to 5.
• Removed Fertile from most of the Subspace parasites.
• Small Warp Beacon has been given a stronger shield and a new shield capacitor to increase its survivability.
• Removed repeatable Transwarp Device missions from Beta Antares and put them for sale in the trade bay. The initial missions for half-priced Transwarp Devices are still available.
• Fixed Bule Abadi Spectre X’s inbuilt Bule Systems Jammer: updated its weapon debuffs and visuals including new victim injection visual.
• Removed Advanced HQ Defense Field from the Advanced Demented Team HQ and Advanced Adamantium Team HQ, as the buffs they provided were already present on the improved field generators found on these station kits.
• Removed Royal Rat Gland commodity, obtained from Halloween Plaguespace. They are no longer needed to access Broodmother’s Lair.

[Mission Changes]

• Reduced the cost of DWO Drone Research mission from 3 Gigantic Halved Antimatter to 1.
• The mission “Shipment of Armageddon Laser+” now gives experience like all other trader missions.
• Improved summaries on the Making Improvements mission chain in Beta Antares, including informing of the Danger Factor roaming range for Earthforce patrol ships.
• Blue Empire missions requiring various essences will now also require a radiation kill and capture on the relevant targets. This should help make it more obvious that one of the objectives isn’t simply to capture but also turn in a special commodity from the captured ship.

[Universe Changes]

• Nullifier Shield is now locked in position in front of Matriarch Aurora.
• Gurujana Ekam’s three minions (Hantr, Raurava, and Zarkara) will now properly fight and can be killed. They will now despawn after several minutes of inactivity. They will now have spawn and despawn visual/audio effects. As before, they cannot drop their respective augmenters. The augmenters only drop from the Equipment 22 fight against Zarkara Adhara in the Bila Dvarata rift.
• Reduced the number of fighters roaming EarthForce capital ships, Massifs and Hives can launch down 2-4 and adjusted ship stats.
• Changed the drops of Perilium in Empyrean bosses to Perilium Pieces.
• Dark Diablo’s Gremmer Minion’s weapon now has a special visual with increased range and reduced rate of fire.
• The Captive Green Battleship and Captive Wattage in Arena 1 of Olympus should now focus on attacking each other instead of Ares Spectators.
• The wreckages in Zeus’s area of Olympus have had their visuals and sizes updated to conform to their modern values.
• The Alien Defense Alliance team will now use the Earthforce flag.
• Roaming and boss Aveksaka teams will all use the correct flag now.
• Roaming Kalthi teams will use the correct flag now.
• Roaming Olympus teams will use the correct flag now.
• Bonnet Bulk Traders can no longer drop Blue Interceptor Augmenters. They will now spawn with a random augmenter in place of it.
• Added player presence check to Samgrahaka Saahistha minibosses in the Subspace boss rifts. This will prevent them from deploying drones prior to the player’s arrival to that part of the rift.
• The following changes were made to Mother:
  • Mother’s projectile weaponry is now much more visible.
  • Mother’s aura will no longer disable possession’s engines. They will now receive a -90% Thrust penalty instead. Main ships continue to have engines disabled.
  • Mother’s room now has a friction cloud, which will strongly push things back towards the center.
• Added Amethyst Panel and Pyrite Panel to drop from Purple/Orange Emperor in Prism Empires.
• Remove inbuilts from the Imperiled Scutelogica to prevent it spaming its All Hands on Deck superitem in Paxian Stronghold and annoy players with the Hyper Beam Charge sound it makes.
• Omega Platform and Super Omega Platform AI have had their station radiation fields removed. This will fix their energy issues as well.
• Super Omega Battlestation, Loyal Hive, Branding Claw, and Undomesticated Sahvitra have had their station radiation fields removed. Kalthi Depths DG Bosses with station radiation fields will still have them.
• Significantly increased the trigger radius of the Paxian Expedition spawner in Prism.
• The Bhisaj Sahistha in Vihara Sas (Shielding 22 miniboss) will no longer repeat shield remodulation damage types, until all three available damage types have been picked once and has galaxy chat shouts for when its shield remodulation occurs, similar to Vaidya (Shielding 22 boss).
• Janayitri Sahistha (Piloting 22) will only become killable after Janayitri Antu Catur is killed, now requiring all four to be destroyed.
• Changed Angre and Gonzales shouts for too many players to be every 10 minutes instead of every 1 minute.
• Subspace boss rifts will now be owned by the relevant Aveksaka teams.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Transwarp Beacon in Kumari is now teamless (hopefully to address missing on transwarp menu bug) and doubled its size.
• The Jungle boss rifts now have standard rift visuals in place of their old wormhole visuals.
• Jungle wormholes have had their sizes increased to match typical wormholes.
• Wolf 359 is now properly owned by Earthforce.
• Added spawn/despawn effects to various AI throughout the game.
• Removed target name from Barbe Bleu’s shout on fight start. This was causing the shout to become blank.
• Lowered the suns throughout Prism Empires, to prevent ships from flying underneath them.
• Changed suns in Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity from M class to be K class to improve player vision in these areas.
• Holiday Hub’s wormholes will now use typical names, including a fixed name for Easter Warren.
• Moved Mega Moe item exchanges from The Junkyard to Graveyard.
• Nexus AI Stations have had their vending lists fixed, offering a wide selection of ships and equipment once more.
• Plasma Vents weapon now available for purchase throughout Nexus.
• Flamlite added to Arctia AI Station.
• Fixed Swirlation item exchange in Lyceum to no longer require itself and the materials required on the blueprint.
• Removed Plasma Capacitor mission item drops from Arctia and Vulcan AI, used for an Engineer mission and intended only to drop from Blue Pirates.
• The ambush spawners used during the Siege of Mzungu Angani mission have had their trigger distance increased greatly.
• The ambush spawners used during the Siege of Mzungu Angani will now announce their spawn in Galaxy chat in addition to Event chat.
• The ‘Giant Asteroid!’ mission’s repeatable version now requires the original mission to be completed before becoming accessible.
• The ‘Vazaha Defense’ mission changed from 4 to 3 Iq’ UrQa Guard kills to complete.
• Increased shields on the Earthforce capital ship roamers, minus the Interdiction Frigate which will receive a reduction.

[Server Changes]

• Tractoring hate is now based off the power of the tractor instead of being always a flat 25 hate.
• Trade bots can no longer use galaxy scanners.
• Added a check that prevents skills from passing on to Fighters/Missiles launched from Stations.
• End of the Universe event now correctly delays the ownership buffer and extraction modifiers until one week is left

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed a crash when using an item while a ship isn’t in a galaxy.
• Dark Kobaldstein’s mechanics have been fixed. He will now properly cycle through different attack modes with associated shouts and actions.
• The Alien Defense Alliance has sourced new bomb triggers for the Paxian Bombs used against Janayitriadhara (Tractoring 22). They will now detonate properly as before.
• Fixed broken Fallen Mine spawner in Fallen Minelayer fight in Ruined Sanctuary.
• Removed target name from Earthforce Captive from Infernal Tempest’ Infernal Confinement shout upon being attacked. This was causing the shout to become blank.

The Neuroforge is one of the most impactful sources of power we’ve added to the game. But, for many, it has also been a source of immense frustration. With the Neuroforge 2.0 update, we’re delivering a wide ranging set of changes designed to make modding and enhancing your gear feel smooth at every step. Whether you’re just starting out on your journey or hunting for the perfectly modded item to fine tune your loadout, this update brings consistency to the modding process.

No More Chaotic Rolls

Prior to this update, Exalted and Legendary items received a combined double roll whenever you Neuroforged them. While this sounds like a bonus on paper, and in our heads, in practice it created unpredictable results and made it harder for players to land on a desirable mod combination.

With the update, that feature is gone.

Instead, you’ll now receive back to back individual rolls for each Exalted or Legendary item you throw into the forge. This change gives you an extra chance to land on what you’re looking for, without the volatility that came with mashed together rolls. Getting more rolls also means you’ll need fewer duplicates of those rare items to chase your ideal build.

Simplifying the Mod Cap

Another pain point in the old system was the interaction between item quality and mod caps. Players had to navigate strange mechanics and edge cases to push items past their limits. It wasn’t intuitive, and it certainly wasn’t intended to be this way.

We’re changing that by making the following adjustments:

• Junk and Common items are now capped at 3 mods.

• Uncommon and above can have up to 8 mods.

Mod Removal

The “Remove a Mod + Gain Enhancement Level” option used to be one of the least popular choices in the Neuroforge. In some cases, it actively made your items worse! Especially when it prevented you from ever getting a new mod again due to mod cap limitations on lower quality items.

This option has been reworked.

Now, choosing to remove a secondary mod grants you an additional roll. This makes it far more valuable. And critically, on items that are Uncommon quality or higher, removing a mod no longer blocks you from gaining another mod in the future.

Free Rerolls

A brand-new roll type has entered the pool: the Bonus Forge!

This ultra-rare option gives you another shot at modding without consuming any items. It won’t show up often but when it does, it just might be a welcome gift.

No More Duplicate Roll Types

We’ve heard the feedback loud and clear: seeing the same Neuroforge roll on both sides of the dialog box feels bad.

With Neuroforge 2.0, this should almost never happen.

Behind the scenes, we’ve added logic to ensure the left and right options in the neuroforge UI are almost always different.

Scaling with Quality

To help distinguish item quality levels even further, mods that scale with tech level now also scale with quality level (with the exception of Transcendental mods). Each quality level has a unique modifier to the Tech level that the modification is multiplied by.

This means that, for a Tech 22 item:

• Common: Secondary mods act as if the item were Tech 12.

• Uncommon: Secondary mods act as if the item were Tech 17.

• Rare: no change to Secondary mods.

• Exotic: Secondary mods act as if the item were Tech 27.

• Exalted: Secondary mods act as if the item were Tech 29.

This gives you more incentive to use well modded higher quality gear across your entire loadout.

A Cleaner Forging Experience

Neuroforge 2.0 is all about giving you more control, clarity, and meaningful progression. Whether you’re Neuroforging an item from scratch or pushing an old favorite to new heights, these changes aim to make the entire experience feel more intuitive and rewarding. We can’t wait to see what you do with it.

The thrill of the Emperor Contest lies in its mix of tactical combat, team coordination, and high-stakes decision-making. But one piece of the puzzle has long felt like it lagged behind: depositing Influence. Until now, delivering Influence to your team’s tally was as simple as docking. That simplicity undercut the layered gameplay players experienced while gathering it. So we’re shaking things up.

Depositing Influence

Influence is no longer deposited through docking. It must be delivered to special planets that have had the will of Midas directly imposed on them via Rizokastros. In order to gain Influence, you must free these planets from Midas’ grip. A single Rizokastro will spawn somewhere in the layer at all times, creating a temporary opportunity to make your deposit.

Each Rizokastro comes with strict processing limits. It can only hold a certain amount of Influence at a time, and it processes that Influence slowly. Once a Rizokastro starts accepting Influence, it locks itself to that batch until it’s done. Only after it finishes processing any influence delivered will it accept more. If multiple teams are holding Influence nearby, it will refuse to accept any Influence at all. This creates an opportunity for disruption and conflict.

Only planets are eligible for Rizokastro deployments. To deposit Influence, players must be within a defined range of the Rizokastro planet while carrying an Influence item in their ship’s hull. Once a Rizokastro has reached its maximum capacity, it vanishes and another will spawn somewhere else after a delay.

Surge Behavior

During Surges, more Rizokastro spawn to accommodate the increased activity and higher volumes of Influence. As long as the Surge is active, they’ll continue to respawn.

New Rules

because Influence is no longer meant to be deposited or stored in large quantities we have added some functionality changes:

• Influence items now have a half-life of 2 hours.
• Docking at an AI base while holding Influence causes it to drop.

We have also adjusted the victory margin for the Emperor Contest’s tiebreaker phase. Teams must now earn a 2 million point lead (up from 1 million) to claim the Throne once the contest enters overtime.

Note

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

[Red Outpost]

Stage 2 of the Fighting Pits has arrived, and the stakes have never been higher. Survive the chaos and you might just earn the attention of some of the Red Rogues’ most infamous champions. Rumor has it they’ve been itching for a real fight… and they’re not picky about who they pulverize to get it! Think you’ve got what it takes to climb the ranks? Step into the arena and find out… if you dare.

• Added new missions, loot and instances for Red Outpost.
• Added new mission to Paxian Foothold to allow alts to skip the Peacemaking grind, requires Paxian Peacekeeper Signaculum’s that the player can obtain from turning in Obscure Doubloons in Paxian Foothold.

[Client/UI Changes]

• 20th Anniversary Zebucart skin added to game.
• Added new skin for ships that drop from Matriarch Aurora.
• Fixed a bug that prevented middle mouse click to work on tables.
• Added new context menu with Autopilot, Avoid Galaxy and Avoid Team to the Galaxy map for right clicking on a galaxy. The previous functionality of centering on a galaxy is now double right click.
• Added the ability to search items by Hull Restrictions, “Station” (type and station locked gear), “Industry” (station type items outside of blueprints and kits)
• Rift Difficulty now displays on main Squad dialog directly above Set Rift Difficulty button. Currently this only shows the correct difficulty for the squad leader.

[Item Changes]

• Added 20th Anniversary holos to the game.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Fix things like [Scoped] from becoming a squad link, expects to find at least a single number after [S to be a valid squad link.
• Right clicking a squad link now copies it to chat for easier sharing (previously left and right click both joined squad).
• Moved "Choose between ships" text element behind "Barf's" button to prevent players from being unable to click part of the button in Ships tab.
• Corrected Class toggle label cutting off text in the F10 menu.
• Renamed Test 1 to "Public Test Server" for future preparation of a dedicated player test server. Will be a post announcing when this is ready.

[Class Changes]

• Seer no longer has a Warp Navigation bonus as part of it’s skills. Any seers on login will automatically get the appropriate level of warp navigation they had.

[Item Changes]

• Adjusted Academy Thatch, Gelato, Thatch, Singularity Sphere and Merchant Navy Contriver Vis, Reflectivity and Diameter as they were missed during the freighter size changes.
• Red Drone has had new Shield, Weapons, and Energy for the Red Drone. This will result in a removal in augmods, increased shield bank and energy bank but less energy and shield regen, the weapons now have On Hit effects (the beam has Splash and the pulse has AoE). Increased the Mobility Factor of the Red Drone from 200 to 300.
• Adjusted Red Caiprianha, Salvation, Blocker to be 30 second duration tweaks with 90 second cooldowns. The magnitudes of their effects have been changed to reflect their increased duration. Their secondary effect applies immediately upon using the tweak instead of after a delay.
• Adjusted Red Afterburner tweak to apply a forced thrust effect.
• Red Tweak now lasts for 1 hour and grants 7.5% Hull Space as well.
• Replaced Transference Efficiency with Damage, Transference Power, or Critical Hit Strength on Expanders, Ship Hulls, Overloaders, Shields, Solar Panels, and Engines. Replaced Transference Efficiency with Rate of Fire on Transferences.
• Corrected Panther Instinct and Primal Panther Instinct’s descriptions (sense -> sensed).
• Added text to Anatolian Crown and removed double punctuation on Anatolian Trade Orders.
• A rotating blocker auto equipped to all CnC kits sticky that activate while the CnC is damaged and give -80% damage taken for 60 seconds on a 180 seconds charge time.
• Reduced the On Hit effect damage of the Bounce effect from 125% to 100%. Some of the weapons this effects are: Empyreal Extracting Cannon, Empyreal Solar Pulse, Celestial Heavy Autopiercer, Celestial Autopiercer, Celestial Particle Cannon, Experimental Celestial Autopiercer, Luminous Destabilizing Implosion Rigidifier, Operative’s Blaster, Grand Eclipse, Extracting Bombard, Angre’s Demolisher.
• Station Weapon:
  • Super Lasers have had their DPS increased, DPE decreased, and Range increased
  • X/Y/Z Lasers have had their Range and AoE range increased.
  • MagCannons have had their DPS increased, DPE decreased, and Range increased.
  • Note: The Annihilator Cannon and Adamantiumized Heavy Cannon have NOT had their range increased.
• Blue Photon Fore Missile Tubes item has been deleted. While it was already removed from the Blue Photon Corvette ship, this will remove any existing unremovable copies left.
• Halloween line of Pumpkin Seed tweaks now last for 7.5 seconds instead of 20 seconds.
• Added AIONLY tag to the + neurotweaks, used in the generic tweak superitems.
• Removed Oilheart’s Afterburner+, Shield Salvation+, and Tiny Power Punch+ neurotweaks from vending list. These were accidentally added to the vending list due to the originals having the TYPE tag set to common, back when it was still used.
• Removed Charge Afterburner neurotweak from vending list, it was created for a superitem to use.
• Changed Halflife of the following commodities to 168 hours:
  • Conclusion Icicle, Xeno Energy Remains, Xeno Shield Remains, Giant Goblets, Gargantuan Goblets.
• Temporal Dipole has been changed on the Cybernetic Zebucart: Instead of a nanite granting bonus damage to specific damage types,  now the item applies a permanent +40% damage bonus tweak when equipped.

[Mission Changes]

• Fixed no start vendor for the “A Beginning of an End” mission in Paxian Foothold galaxy.
• Updated Paxian Foothold Cloaking 23 mission to refer to Cloaking instead of Piloting.
• Strontium-90 mission “[Tier 7 Platinum Bounty] Kalthi Dungeon Guards” now requires the player to hunt for 30 Super Omega BattleStation instead of 30 Omega BattleStation.
• Fixed Omega BattleStation kills for Strontium Gold missions not counting.

[Universe Changes]

• Qu’ishi Qa now has reduced the respawn time during the final phase’s Envelopment circling drones and added a one time blocker to the start of this phase.
• The Vihara Dvarata instance’s wormholes to Vihara Dve and Vihara Tra in Vihara Ekam have been swapped around to their correct positions as per the map and their corresponding wormhole positions in Vihara Katur.
• The Vihara Dvarata instance’s Vihara Tra gal now properly locks the exit until all nearby enemies are eliminated, and will update its visual lock status accordingly.
• The Akhara Dvarata instance’s early encounter with Rajanicaravizvadrz and Rajanicaragupta in Akhara Tra will now play a warpout sound effect and properly display a visual portal effect when they retreat to their arenas, and they can no longer be killed early (this did not give loot or affect their later fights).
• Aveksaka in all Subspace boss instances and in Avidhi Sas now have floating text when they shout.
• The Kandara Dvarata instance boss Mahazaya Var Indrakoza now has proper punctuation on its shouts.
• The Vihara Dvarata instance boss Vaidya will no longer enrage prior to entering their arena, allowing players to safely enter as originally intended.
• The Praheti that transform into Sahvitra, found in some Subspace boss instances and other areas’ asteroid belts, will no longer spam a brake tweak every few seconds after their first evolution. That egg form is now named Praheti Sahvitra.
• Adjusted various boss shouts to be floaty additional to galaxy chat.
• Fixed issue with Sun in Saros mini before Grand Empyrean Eclipse not working for OOC.
• Remove turning from Bana King’s clusterbomb
• Adjusted the Cybernetic Zebucart and Masala King roamers:
  • Both bosses have much higher respawn rates
  • Both bosses no longer globally shout when they respawn or upon killing a player. Their other global shouts remain.
  • Both bosses have a new mechanic that will cause them to reset and recenter upon being far away from the center of the galaxy they are being fought in.
  • Speedy Gonzales’ vulnerability phases have been changed.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Empyrean Weekly Boss kill mission will auto starts on entry to Celestial Encampment.
• Added a bunch of additional planet and moon names to universe generation.
• Drastically increased damage of Fuzz.

[Server Changes]

• Non-PVP galaxies should prevent Tweak Inflicting Item from applying negative effects if shooter and target are player objects
• Torpedos should now follow the same z-motion as plasma, except only moving on Z after they start tracking.
• The four NCC-Bulk and NCC-Special skins (Indigo Beige NCC, Jet Eminence NCC, Cerise Purple NCC, Coquelicot Sea NCC) are no longer available for purchase due to a technical issue with the skins and the tinting system they use. These have been refunded and removed from accounts that currently have them.
• Proto-wormholes now inform on when they will open when attempting to jump into them if they will open in the next 7 days.

[Bug Fixes]

• Fixed Aurora bubble visuals on Matriarchal Overwhelming Fury to match the tweak time.
• Bots will now refuse to RTS scoop PVP items.
• Fixed a bug where tractor could remain on when the source is in stasis.
• Irradiated ships that placed Fires or Parasites on targets prior to being irradiated will no longer block OOC.
• Previously invisible Lightning Bolt missiles from Olympus will now have a yellow particle trail as their visual.

As promised in the previous blog post, here is the blog describing the milestones and objectives that will be used in the 20th Anniversary Event starting on June 13th! This post will also share some more details on the time that things will happen in the event, and in what ways game systems will be changed.

Universe Changes

The universe for the 20th Anniversary Event Server will be changed in the following ways:

• At the start of the event, no Warp Navigation training methods are available.

• Warp Navigation 1 is made available at Paxius 3 hours into the event

• Warp Navigation 2 is made available at Paxius 9 hours into the event

• Warp Navigation 3 is made available at Paxius 24 hours into the event

• Warp Navigation 4 is made available at Paxius 48 hours into the event

• PvP is enabled in all randomly generated Earthforce layer galaxies, and some unique galaxies.

• PvP is enabled inside the non-instanced galaxies in the Serengeti.

• There are only 4 Fractured Galaxies, they are available at the start of the event. They have PvP windows every single day.

• There are fewer galaxies in Wild Space, and they will be fully revealed before the last day of the event.

• A construction speed booster is available in the Earthforce Frontier Station in Sol. It provides a +400% bonus to construction speed.

Game Rate Changes

Certain systems are changed are as follows:

• Equipped augmenter drop rates are increased by 500%

• Bindomite drops from dungeons are increased by 500%

• Experience rates are increased by 500%

• Colonies will tick 1000% faster

• Prospecting nodes provide 400% more resources

• All weekly lockouts are daily lockouts

• Cargo has a 10% chance to drop on death

Milestones

Featured in the 20th Anniversary Events are server wide milestones. These milestones are tracked by the server, and all players’ efforts contribute to the completion of these milestones. Depending on the number and type of milestones completed, the Liberty server will be granted extended bonus events! These are split up into different reward tracks, with more progress leading to better rewards!

Wild Space Domination

1. 10 Galaxies are claimed by players – 1 week of the Halloween event will be applied to the server

2. 50 Galaxies are claimed by players – 1 week of the Halloween and Easter events will be applied to the server

3. 100 Galaxies are claimed by players – 1 week of the Halloween, Easter and Christmas events will be applied to the server

Clearing the Universe of Opposition

The following bonuses are additive with each other:

• Roaming Red Night Fury is defeated by the players – Week long Bindomite & Aug event +25%

• All Sas outposts are defeated by the players – Week long Bindomite & Aug event  +25%

• Cybernetic Gonzales and Angre the Spice Baron are defeated by the players – Week long Bindomite & Aug event +50%

Money is Up

1. Credits on all characters is above 100 bill when the event ends – 1 week of 10% extra credits dropped from AI on Liberty

2. Credits on all characters is above 500 bill when the event ends – 1 week of 50% extra credits dropped from AI on Liberty

3. Credits on all characters is above 3000 bill when the event ends – 1 week of 100% extra credits dropped from AI on Liberty

Put em’ All Together

Completing multiple milestones of various tiers will unlock a special reward. During the coming universe the Star Sonata Team will develop and release iconic ships from Star Sonata’s earlier days as modern ships! These will have up to date stats and super items. They will also have their own acquisition method and cost. Taking part in this event does not mean the ships are given to you, just that they will be developed and released into the game.

1. Complete one milestone from each category above – NCC Bulk (Support Freighter) and Ragnarok are developed and released

2. Complete two milestones from each category above – Gelato(Industrial Freighter) and Earthforce Battleship are developed and released

3. Complete ALL above milestones – Bulk Trader (Industrial Freighter) and Hotrod+ are developed and released

Individual and Team Goals

What’s an event without some fancy unique rewards! Players will be rewarded with a single copy of each reward per account. These items are neurobound, meaning they cannot be transferred to other accounts or sold on the market. Rewards will only be granted to accounts that earn them on the Event server, so if you want to receive the reward on a specific account on Liberty you must use earn the reward on that account on the Event server.

Individual Goals and Rewards

There are two individual rewards you can get for taking part in the 20th Anniversary Event:

• Login to the Event server – Celebratory Zebucart Skin

• Obtain Piloting 20 on at least one character on your account – Celebratory Holoprojector

Examples of these rewards will be added into the post at a later date.

Team Goals and Rewards

There are four total rewards you can get as a team! Keep in mind, this is the team that your account is on when the Event server closes, and has no relation to your team on the Liberty server. Having a single character on one of the holding teams of any of the Ai Empire HQs will make that account eligible to gain the reward. It is possible to get more then one of these!

• Currently own Scorpius when the event ends – Cybernetic Hacker

• Currently own Paradise when the event ends – Zaphragi Flurry

• Own and hold Citadel until the event ends – Kalthi Cloak

• Own and hold Dorado until the event ends – Celestial Pillar

These objectives are the main competition for this contest! They will be revealed near the end of the event, and they will only reveal one at a time.

 Wrapping Up

And that’s the bulk of the details

Some small things to note:

• The holoprojectors shown here will have versions of them obtainable on the Liberty server through various methods after the event, however those versions will not have the same color palette as what is shown here.

• All of the bonuses for completing these milestones will activate starting 10 days after the following universe has started! Those dates would then be: July 8th 2025 to July 13th 2025.

• The skins and holoprojectors will be provided to the players once the event has concluded, the holoprojectors have been added to the game and the list of players to reward to are tabulated. They should be all distributed within 14 days of the event being completed.

I, and the rest of the Star Sonata team, hope you enjoy this little celebration event!

Earthforce has officially established contact with a parallel universe—home to a counterpart organization known as Dark Earthforce. Though initial diplomatic exchanges were surprisingly cordial, relations quickly deteriorated following a contentious debate between our Lyceum and their so-called Dark Lyceum concerning the nature of our shared reality.

The point of contention? Flatness.

Dark Lyceum scientists made the bold—and patently absurd—claim that our universe, like theirs, is flat, citing their own sensor data as evidence. Our Lyceum researchers, ever gracious, recognized the primitive state of their counterparts’ scientific understanding. In an act of generosity, they not only recalibrated the Dark Lyceum’s instruments but also took the liberty of rewriting their research papers to align with the more rigorous standards of our science.

This well-intentioned intervention was met with resistance. A Dark Earthforce ambassador accused our Lyceum of overstepping diplomatic boundaries and called for an immediate cessation of all contact.

Our Lyceum’s response was swift and scholarly: they published an extensive series of papers demonstrating the fundamental flaws and obsolescence of the Dark Lyceum’s scientific methods.

Dark Lyceum retaliated not with data, but with doomsaying—issuing a dramatic prediction that our supposedly flat universe is now on an irreversible path to collapse. While this claim lacks any credible scientific basis, our Lyceum has acknowledged, with some concern, that the damage may already be done. A growing consensus among researchers suggests that the very act of acknowledging such flawed reasoning may have initiated an unstoppable chain of existential destabilization.

In short: diplomatic contact has ended, their science remains in shambles, and our universe may be doomed.

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: 18:00
GMT: 18:00

Announcement: 20th Anniversary Event

Help us celebrate twenty years of Star Sonata! With our little game completing its second decade, we feel it’s only right to run an equally spectacular event to commemorate the occasion! We’ve done so many events over the years but the most storied and popular was the “PvP Server” event of 2020. So, we would like to formally announce Star Sonata’s 20th Anniversary Event: A ten-day fresh start server on temporary characters with the rate of progression turned up to 11. This event will run from June 13th to June 23rd.

The Rundown

Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming celebration (more details to follow as the event gets closer):

• The event will run from June 13th to June 23rd 2025.

• You will log in to your regular account, but on a separate server labeled “Event” in the server drop down. The Live server will continue as normal.

• On the Event server, your account starts with no characters. Any characters you create will be completely fresh at level zero. These characters will only exist on the Event server and won’t migrate to the Live server afterwards. You don’t have to worry about overwriting anything on Live.

• You can create as many characters on the Event server as your account normally allows.

• Pay to Play and Free to Play statuses will be copied from Live. If you would like to subscribe, do so in the usual way and your subscription status will immediately copy over to the Event server.

• Standard restrictions for Pay to Play and Free to Play will apply on the Event server.

• All character and team names will be available and are first come first serve!

• Remember that any characters you create on the Event server will not be saved once the event ends. Any items you collect, stations you built, and skills you trained will be lost.

• There will be no web based features for characters on the Event server.

• Experience gain, item drop rates, lockout rates, construction rate and colony tick speeds will all be greatly increased!

• The server will be a full-featured universe with all skills, zones and bosses accessible. However, Warp Navigation skill levels will be time gated to set the pace during the early part of the event.

• There will be individual, teamwide and server-wide goals to complete, with various rewards on the Live server for completing them! These will be detailed later. Any individual awards will be cosmetic in nature.

• To get into the retro spirit of the event, the Earthforce layer will be PvP enabled (except for the protected galaxies around Sol).

The follow on post will give specifics on the timeline of the event as well details on the goals and rewards.

I hope you are excited as we are to celebrate twenty years of Star Sonata!

[Neuroforge Changes]

• Fixed description of Resonating mod on energy to state the usual shield/radar effect in addition to the half chance to use fuel.
• The rate at which you are offered the option to swap your Enhanced mod goes down as the Enhancement level of the mod goes up.
• Options to swap secondary mods, remove secondary mods, or add a new secondary mod, will be offered more as you are at higher levels of enhancement.

[Anatolia Changes]

• See Link
  • Not noted in the blog post:
    • Influence is no longer lost upon joining a team.
    • Influence is no longer lost upon player or asset death.

[Client/UI Changes]

• Added new Squad Link feature in Squad menu for creating an clickable invite link in chat.
• Added 8 skins to the Cybernetic Zebucart, 2 of which are exclusive to it.
• Added new skin for Ruined ships called Neon Nightmares.

[Class Changes]

• Added a non-bankable augmenter reset to shadow for this universe.
• Ranger:
  • Sniper empowered shot changes:
    • Critical Hit Chance used in damage calculation is now reduced by targets Critical Hit Resistance.
    • No longer benefits from Critical Hit Chance greater than 100% (after the reduction from Critical Hit Resistance)
    • Beam hits do empowered damage to collision code targets, like projectiles already did
  • Re-added 10% Damage per level for Heavy Fighters on True Grit skill.
    • Ranger still retains the 7 total marks
  • Ranger marks now decay every 5s after the first decay at 40s (while no new ones are being applied), instead of 40 seconds per mark.
• Speed Demon:
  • Overdrive energy charge no longer dissipates on jump.
• Shield Monkey:
  • When a Shield Monkey deals transference damage to a target, the shields they gain via stealing are not mitigated by the resistances of that target.
    • The damage dealt is mitigated by both the target’s shield stealing resistance and beam resistance.
    • Both damage dealt and shields gained are still mitigated by class based mitigation mechanics, Like  Speed Demon’s glance and Berserker’s frontal shield.
  • In the last patch we adjusted the rate at which shield stealing does damage and restores shields. These values were reverted to what they were before they were changed. You can see these values on the Shield Monkey Class 3 skill.
  • Made it so Transference Power auras will affect how much damage is done with a Shield Monkey Enveloper
  • Shield stealing self healing is no longer reduced by stealing resists.
  • The Shield Monkey Enveloper can only give up to 10% of the Shield Monkey’s current shield bank as bonus damage per shot.
  • Shield stealing resistance mechanic has been refactored. Resistances should now be consistent in both effect and how they are displayed to players.
• Berserker:
  • 33% of On-Hit effect damage is used for Lifesteal from the Berserker Shield Redistribution Device.
  • 0% of Damage Over Time effect damage is used for Lifesteal from the Berserker Shield Redistribution Device.

[Item Changes]

• Faranji Flower Power, Empyreal Extracting Cannon, Empyreal Solar Pulse, Celestial Heavy Autopiercer, Celestial Particle Cannon, Luminous Destabilizing Implosion Rigidifier, Operative’s Blaster, Korbolko’s Quantum Breath, Grand Eclipse Extracting Bombard, Angre’s Demolisher changed to 2 bounces from 6.Their DPS, DPE, bounce range, and damage multiplier on bounces have been adjusted as well.
• Mini Madness has been changed from an aura generator to a super item, and requires a super item slot. Its effect remains unchanged.
• Angre’s Garam Masala has had the following changes:
  • Changed the -Recoil buff from -20% to -40%, this makes the tweak about ~10% better used on cooldown than Perilous Burst with neurotweaking, instead of being ~7% worse.
• Various Scanners now list the Max Speed Difference for scanning on the item description now.
• The following Fighters have had their radar stats increased: Bulker Guard Fighter, Bulker Light Fighter, Bulldog Light Fighter, Dachshund Light Fighter, Dolius Hermes, Domesticated Killer Wasp, Greenish Fighter, Panther Kitten Fighter, Tamed Wasp, Terrier Light Fighter, Whippet Light Fighter, Vulture Hatchling, Condor Hatchling, Hawk Hatchling, Roc Hatchling, Harrier Hatchling, Caracara Hatchling, Kalthi Redeemer, Blue Photon Shrike, Blue Photon Raptor, Death Winger, Leopard’s Kitten, Kidd’s Henchman, Nightfury Hatchling, Crystal Shard Fighter, Red Fighter.
• Red Cell has had the following changes:
  • Shield Recharge increased from 2% to 5%. Increased Radar from 5% to 7.5%.
• Red Drone, Red Phaser, Red Fighter, Red Displacer have been adjusted.
• Cybernetic Zebu has had the following changed to its super items:
  • Temporal Dipole no longer randomly deducts shields twice. Only deducts 10% current shields instead of 20% when cycling.
  • Causal Domain Device has 10 second debuff duration increased from 5 second. Transference vulnerability and shield recharge debuff increased from -33.3% to -50%. Electricity needed increased by 100%.
• Outpost drone is no longer able to be acquired and has been made a temporary drone.
• Operative’s Escorting Field has had its Critical Immunity effect removed (Effect did not work as expected).
• Several Ship Scanners with ‘Ship Scanner’ labels have been updated to ‘Ship Item Scanner’ and ‘Ship Hull Scanner’.
• Matriarchal Overwhelming Fury no longer consumes current shields when used.
• Nightfury’s Burst tweak has had its stats cut in half, its Unique With Damage Tweak status removed, and its quality level changed to Uncommon.
• Red Loop Pill had its Recoil increased from -20% to -25%.
• Red Glow Pill had Energy Charge Increased from +120 to +240, added -5% Beam Vulnerability for 5 minutes.
• Pax Scutum’s All Hands on Deck superitem is now Unique With Damage Tweaks, and can be unequipped.
• Bhisaj’ayu Shield Overcharger superitem is now Unique With Damage Tweaks, and can be unequipped.
• Cybernetic Nullifier Shell’s Matriarchal Blessing super item now gives transference vulnerability to the user and nearby allies instead of transference power to yourself. This only works in PvP zones.
• Untanglers have been rebalanced.
  • Minor stat changes.

[Mission Changes]

• Improved summary on ‘Making Improvements’ mission line in Beta Antares.
• Added additional clarifying text to some low level missions that unlock Item Exchanges.

[Universe Changes]

• Reduced the shields of most AI in the Nexus.
• Added Celestial Blueprint Cache – Primary/Secondary/Tertiary to Celestial Encampment trade in via AC to acquire rare blueprints in exchange for Primordial Tokens.
• Jungle Crests for Mentions are now a one time mission and now are an item exchange in the AI Station.
• Cybernetic Gonzales has been reworked.
• Fixed trade in for “The Fast and the Pulsius” incorrectly taking “Xeno Energy” instead of “Xeno Energy Remains”.
• Minor change to mission structure in Red Outpost.
• The difficulty of the AI in the fighting pits stage 1 has been decreased.

[Next Universe Changes]

• Paxian Foothold is marked as a Special galaxy on the galaxy map.

[Server Changes]

• Made the stated Shield Stealing resistance in the ship scanner reflect diffusers and auras, but not beam resist.
• Made Resistance to Damage aug stat not give Transference Resistance.
• Shield Stealing resist will now be sent to your ship window as your Transference Resistance(resist towards healing is still a separate line item).
• Added message for how many shields a ShM stole if you have /showdamage on.

[Bug Fixes]

• Rounding calculated weapon slots down to the nearest 0.1 to address the error where the client and the error messages think you have enough weapon slots for another half weapon, but you don’t actually.
• Universe shortcuts should no longer be able to randomly choose the same from/to gal twice.
• Fixed a bug with torpedo tracking when moving while shooting.
• Fixed range restriction on Targeting Computer not being enforced.

With the major class reworks from the neuroforge behind us, we have been watching the meta and all of the accompanying build craft closely. There are some things we have observed that we believe need to change in order to encourage more variety. These changes are all on the Live Test server, available for you to test before they hit the live server. Feel free to check them out there!

Shield Monkey

With the previous patch, we made some changes to Shield Monkey. These directly reduced the Shield Monkey’s ability to both deal damage with shield stealing and heal up from shield stealing. It also gave them the ability to do increased damage with their weapons with the  Shield Monkey Enveloper. There was a vision that the Shield Monkey would mainly use stealing to refill it’s shields, and then deal damage with non-transference weapons with the help of the Enveloper. In actuality, the way the new shield stealing resists were calculated ended up mitigating the healing gained by the Shield Monkey. This made that playstyle unviable.

Stealing is not only critical for a Shield Monkey offensive ability, it’s also needed to help the Shield Monkey survive. Most importantly, its what allows them to heal others for more shields than they are capable of generating with their own shield bank. When we moved to a system where healing is 1:1 between the healer and the healed, we added Shield Stealing as a way for the class to keep up with incoming damage a squad might find themselves facing. Because a Shield Monkey needs this mechanic to function, having the amount of shields a Shield Monkey could restore vary so wildly from target to target doesn’t make sense. So here’s what we decided to do:

• When a Shield Monkey deals transference damage to a target, the shields they gain via stealing are not mitigated by the resistances of that target.

  • The damage dealt is mitigated by both the target’s shield stealing resistance and beam resistance.

  • Both damage dealt and shields gained are still mitigated by class based mitigation mechanics, Like  Speed Demon’s glance and Berserker’s frontal shield.

• In the last patch we adjusted the rate at which shield stealing does damage and restores shields. These values were reverted to what they were before they were changed. You can see these values on the Shield Monkey Class 3 skill.

We also noticed that stealing resistances were not always working as intended. Some combinations of AI resistances and diffusers were returning unexpected results.

• Shield stealing resistance mechanic has been refactored. Resistances should now be consistent in both effect and how they are displayed to players.

Finally, the way the Shield Monkey Enveloper works created some pretty ludicrous results under certain circumstances, resulting in very high Damage Per Hit values when optimized just right. We are aiming to force Shield Monkey’s to aug and gear for larger amounts of Shield Bank in order to fully unlock the damage potential of the Shield Monkey Enveloper, making it more tricky to replicate those high Damage Per Hit numbers.

• The Shield Monkey Enveloper can only give up to 10% of the Shield Monkey’s current shield bank as bonus damage per shot. This is reduced from 50%.

We are still trying to find ways to divorce Shield Monkeys from relying on its shield bank in order to power its mechanics. As long as it does, it needs to be able to generate enough shields to feel potent when using its tools.

Ranger

Ranger has been very successful at reimagining the Sniper gameplay it was meant to replace. We need to make one change to the way the class functions with Critical Hit Chance, so that it falls in line with the other classes in terms of how the stat interacts with it. This is going to heavily pull back on the ability of end game Ranger to scale with Critical Hit Chance, but it is necessary to do before we start piling on the Critical Hit Chance sources as we move into another tech level.

• Ranger’s empowered shot will only benefit from 100% critical hit chance worth of bonus damage. This bonus damage is now calculated after checking the targets Critical Hit Resistance against the Ranger’s Critical Hit Chance.

• Ranger’s “True Grit” skill now gives +10% more damage per level.

  • This damage was previously on this skill, however it was originally removed in favor of Ranger getting a 7th mark. Now they both get the bonus damage and retain the 7th mark.

Berserker

Players may have noticed that we have been very careful to make changes to Berserker. Our previous changes were focused on reducing the amount of multiplicative sustain they could generate via Lifestealing, and in doing so we made it so that they only gained 10% of their normal value from Damage Over Time weapon effects (Parasites and Fires) and On Hit weapon effects (Area of Effect, Splash, Bounce, etc.). This was the same multiplier for both effects. We do not like how this has affected the class and are making further adjustments.

• 33% of On-Hit effect damage is used for Lifesteal from the Berserker Shield Redistribution Device.

• 0% of Damage Over Time effect damage is used for Lifesteal from the Berserker Shield Redistribution Device.

Neuroforge Item Logic

We have not made many changes to the Neuroforge since it was released. We think it is in a good place, for the most part, and are mostly interested in making some slight adjustments. As a player invests more and more item copies into a Neuroforged item, the option to swap an Enhanced mod for a different Enhanced mod just isn’t as desirable. Obviously, if a player has a high enhancement level it means that they want to keep that Enhanced mod! Because of this, we’re going to make the following adjustment.

• The rate at which you are offered the option to swap your Enhanced mod goes down as the Enhancement level of the mod goes up.

  • Options to swap secondary mods, remove secondary mods, or add a new secondary mod, will be offered more as you are at higher levels of enhancement.