We have edited the instance within Red Photon Research to be unlocked to everyone while the Red Photon Turret is dead. The key is no longer required to enter the instance as long as the turret is inoperable.

Enjoy.

We are proud to announce the next chapter of the Star Sonata story:

The Rise of the Space Rat Empire

Rattie Moe has returned to unite his race under one banner and realize his vision of a dung covered paradise. They have descended upon Anatolia and claimed it for themselves. The Space Rat Empire has even brought the UrQa to their knees, enslaved them as a vassal race, and unleashed their full might onto their foes.

Their future reign of the universe has shattered the uneasy peace of Earthforce space. It will be up to the heroes of the universe to pass judgement on those who dare to steal the Terran Throne.

New Features

• New Ships: Players will wield the captured corpses of rats that have been hollowed out and outfitted with the latest in stolen technology.
• New Zone: Descend back to where it all began with your old friend Ahab against the Home nest of Rattie moe. Finding the space not how you left it, setting the tone for a cheese and dung filled wonder-land of squeaky-large proportions.
• New Customization: Improved Avatar Options: A host of new holoprojector appearance options for all ships will be made available to players when they defeat their enemies to emulate their Rodent enemies.
• New Weapons: Defecate all over your foes with brand new Dung Rockets, Dung Missiles and other Dung themed weapons.
• BvR: Enjoy a new side of Star Sonata with a new, RTS-capable Base Versus Rat layer replacing Wild Space. Battle teeming hordes of Moe’s minions that come to gnaw apart the universe.

Only you can heed Moe’s call of nature…

Coming June 2021

In response to an incident that occurred at 6:28 PM Eastern today, the server has been taken down. The server will be down for approximately 1.5-3 hours and have a 1 hour and 20 minute rollback.

The incident was the result of us turning off a parameter that stopped worker ration consumption. Unexpectedly, the workers had been counting all of their missed meals while they were not allowed to go on strike, and decided that since they could eat again, they would eat all of their missed meals as well. This event occurred due to the parameter being left in an enabled state for a long period of time and was missed during its testing phase.

We are currently working to fix the issue, but when the server comes back up it will be reset to its save state as of 6:00 pm Eastern. This will result in the ration event to be completely reverted and any stations to be in the state they were in before we enabled worker ration consumption.

We apologize for the oversight that allowed this bug to slip to live, and will be enabling double build speed and colony growth rate for two days in recognition of this inconvenience. As an added silver lining, the unexpected downtime will result in the fix to superlasers going live at the time the server is brought up again.

Please see the bottom of this post for the time the server will be going down.

[Item Changes]

• Added forced augmenter resets to several ships that lost a augmenter slot but were missed.
• Made Academy Freighter a support freighter instead of industrial freighter. No longer neurobound.
• Removed and deleted the inbuilt Assault Scoop from Assault Behemoths.
• Fixed issue with the Earthforce Capital expanders being unable to be equipped.
• Added searchable tags to faction-specific expanders.
• Change the AI Version of Reavers Laser no longer give -100% turning constantly.
• Some new weapons and larger sized gear added to random AI bases.

[AI Changes]

• Adjusted radars and beams on Space Blue Gamma and Space Blue Gamma Scout.
• Adjusted the Shields on several UrQa ships.
• Nerfed the guards in Morgan and Levasseur.
• Adjusted Red Photon Turret’s Laser Damage super and sun aura to Radiation instead of Laser.
• Adjusted some extreme genetic variables for Aveksaka.

[Universe Changes]

• Added Transference Control Removal mission to Lagrange.
• Unteamed the Warp Beacon in The Mausoleum.
• Further fine-tuned the Wild Space heat map placement of gals.

[System]

• Updated the non-bankable mission augmenter resets to their correct expiration date of June 12, 2021.
• Added Transference Control into the Control Skill reset for the Neural Replacement tab.
• Bots that are using a ship with a pending forced augmenter reset, will no longer fight properly and will complain about needing maintenance in a station whenever you try to enable fight enemy or attack target. This only affects ships like Paxian Battle Frigate or Battle Sphere that lost an augmenter slot.

Fixes

• Fixed a credit exploit.
• Removed stats on Blockade Runner Augmenter. It is now a trophy item.
• Fixed issues causing Rudimentary Shield Augmenter and Hades Augmenter dropping.
• Made Academy Freighter neurobound.
• Added a few more ships to the force aug unequip list.
• Fixed Zaphragi Ark’s model and texture not being set correctly.

Here is the full patch notes mostly outside of the major changes listed in the previous “Healing/Support Update News” and “Healing/Support Update Details” posts.

Note: + means a new universe (reset) is required for the change to come into effect.

[Client]

• Fixed environment textures on Zebucarts.
• Added new tech and uses sections to the blueprints section in the construction tab.
• Made station window box be able to be expanded wider. (Credit: Markoz)
• Added new Evening Fury/Scruple skin called the “Venerator” (Credit: Markoz)
• * Fixed some problems with the Kalthi Commander, Deployer, Stinger and Warrior models. Fixed the missing tubes on the Kalthi Deployer model.
• Added the “Dark Energy Antimatter Recollector” skin to the Flamberge and the Voulge ships, created by community member “Girl Power”.
• Silent Night is no longer transparent since it is smaller and harder to see.
• Fixed several Panther Skins not applying to Primal Leopard.
• Inventory window will now correctly display the right number of weapon slots and correctly update the number of slots as you equip or unequip items that affect weapon slots.
• Added new Neon skins for all Zaphragi ships from Serengeti and Jungle. (Credit: Markoz)

[Skill Changes]

• Fixed the Perpetual Motion missions for Astral Injection skill training to properly complete if your skill level was 6, 8, or 9 from the previous skill training system.
• Given stat descriptions to Tractor Efficiency, Mining Power, and Mining Efficiency
• Changed Despicable and Subtlety from 1% per level to 1.5% per level.
• Changed Berserker’s Weapon Master adv skill to have 200% hostility.
• Nanotech Plating will no longer have an effect for the short-term future.
• Combat bots no longer will get 50% of skills passed on automatically. Combat Bots will inherit the stats from the owners skill based on 1% for each level of Combat Bot Tweaking (up to level 30) and 30% from Bot PhD skill.
• Transference Efficiency now only affects the stealing feature of Shield Monkey and has been removed from augmenters.
• Skills do not automatically pass on to drones. Droney Adv Subskill now includes “Temporary drones inherit half the stats from your skills.” 
• Zen of Far Reaching will now explicitly give half of the effect to temporary drones.
• Reduced Radiation Expert skill from 66% extra rad damage to +50% to compensate for the +33% bonus radiation weapons got generally.
• Seer Class 2′s 25% Ethereal Damage changed to 25% Beam damage.

[Item Changes]

• Removed GoalDPS tags from drones. Restored DoTs to Drones.
• Berserker Shield Redistribution no longer makes you immune to healing, it reduces incoming healing by 50%.
• Electric Beams have new mechanics.  Instead of sending a constant amount of elec to the target, it links the energy banks of the two ships, transferring a percent of the elec consumption of the target. If the owner of the beam runs out of electricity – the beam disconnects. It is non-stackable.
• Transference weapons are only beams now. Chain and splash have been removed from transference weapons.
• Engineer aura drones will no longer affect ships. Most drones buffed to compensate for the more limited effect.
• Diffusers/Armors size will increase based on the augmods on them. Diffusers / armors now limited to one slot. No longer consumable but reduce durability based on incoming damage. Must be docked to equip/unequip. Diffusers/armors no longer take damage on death/tow. Added new stable armors throughout content.
• 45 and 20 degree beams now get more dramatic DPS and DPE exchanges.
• Shields rebalanced and mostly were buffed. Augmods now increase the size of shields instead of lowering stats.
• Removed augmods from inbuilt items on ships (except for missile bays and fighter bays).
• Rebalanced the strength of higher level Speedy and Spacy augmenters to give 4% plus 1% per tech level of speed or capacity in addition to the normal stats.
• Most weapons with damaging parasites will now automatically generate the parasite’s health and lifetime based on weapon tech and proportion of the weapon damage that the parasite does.  Stacks of parasites get weighted averages for their life and health based on the parasites that compose the stack.  Parasites no longer list their damage, half life, or health in their item descriptions.
• Parasites from projectiles now will do more damage from critical hits and adjust the average damage of the whole parasite stack to a weighted average damage accordingly.  (Parasites from beams already did this.)
• Removed Jelly’s Acidic Remains requirements from the Disintegrator Missile Factory BPs.
• +Changed the AC turn ins for t5 proficiency augmenters for low level commodities to basic augmenter tokens to prevents conflict with the augmenter token turn in’s.
• Made Impassable Protection diffuser AI Only.
• Description for the Heavy Kidd Drone Crate now correctly states it contains five drones instead of three.
• Adjusted various Bonnet items augmods.
• Mines made T25 and disabled until further notice.
• Added “Can’t Be used with other Damage Tweaks” tag to the following tweaks: Power Doughnut, Super Duper Doughnut, Barbe Rouge Wrath, Nightfury’s Burst
• Added “Can’t Be used with other Shield Tweaks” tag to the following tweaks: Werewolf Bite, Zombie Bite, Last Stand, Last Defense, Titanium Plating, Laconia Plating, Adamantium Plating, Titanium Shielding, Laconia Shielding, Adamantium Shielding
• Added “Can’t Be used with other Energy Regen” tag to the following tweaks: Vis Injection, Quantumum Injection, Energon Injection, Energy Cocktail Injection, Source of Vis, Source of Quantumum, Source of Energon, Source of Infinite Energy.
• Added Charging Time of 20 to the following tweaks: Power Doughnut, Super Duper Doughnut, Barbe Rouge Wrath, Nightfury’s Burst, Last Stand, Last Defense, Titanium Plating, Laconia Plating, Adamantium Plating, Titanium Shielding, Laconia Shielding, Adamantium Shielding, Vis Injection, Quantumum Injection, Energon Injection, Energy Cocktail Injection, Source of Vis, Source of Quantumum, Source of Energon, Source of Infinite Energy.
• Fixed issue with Condenser Packs not reflecting their tech. Updated the packs to the tech level of the augs they produce.
• Updated the UrQa’qa Qu’ishi Qa hull to use a custom turret configuration.
• Changed the Subspace Modules blueprints (Tektite, Nanite, Thalaron Processing, Thalaron Stabilization, and Biogenic Plasma Conduit) from having 6000/1 manhours/max workers (took 7 days to build) to 75million/250k(will take 50 minutes), to match the other t21 modules blueprints.
• Converted reboot modules, scrap parts, junkyard scrap/notes, the 2 class to 21/22 skill books, (mastery)slave stasis gens, gear glue, the adonis/argo/paxian station plating and bp/bp pack, the ruin weapon bps(bule calumniator, mzungu greatest sebastopol, faranji gatling laser x), the gen 1 class augs, and the fc fighter recall device have all been converted to Trophy items that give out info when used.
• Sniper Analyzer no longer gives -25% Resistance to damage.
• Changed stat on Twisted Gravitational Scoop to be in line with other vacuum scoops.
• Reduced weight of the UrQuan Uppercut BP from 10,000,000 to 100,000.
• Made Epiphanies (level up items) usable without being equipped.
• +Added a repeatable version via Trade Bay turn in for Thanars Astral Fire at the Berserker ai station in lyceum (Will need to do the normal mission to get one first).
• Removed Capital Laser Core and Capital Laser Core Research from Green Battleships. Added a new T20 beam drop to Green battleships.
• Removed Capital Ship Research Blueprint from the game.
• Earthforce Overload now takes the T18 Capital Laser instead of a T13 Capital Armageddon Laser Core to build now.
• Removed the logic that makes bots use Blue Photon Translocation Device in combat.
• +Made two new Serengeti Drone Controllers that will be able to be obtained in the Serengeti Blockade.
• +Added Industrial Thatch to Beta Antares for purchase.
• +Added an AC turn in at Serengeti Blockade main base for the ship upgrade for the Zaphragi Ark from the Battle Sphere.
• Updating Automated Laconia Factory mission end text to not sound like its a repeatable mission.
• Changed the Laconia Sheet Factory Blueprint, to have manhours/maxworkforce to limit the amount of enriched nuclear material needed per construction tick.
• +Added generic t0 equipment to Bob’s Towing for if people get stuck.
• Increase hull space of T16 Fortified, Laconia, Dementium and Adamantium kits by 100k to fit proper base progression.
• Adjusted the Twisted Fate of Death Blueprint to match the costs and material needs of other Twisted ships.
• Corrected tech of Twisted Fate of Death Upgrade Blueprint from T21 to T22.
• +Removed Minor Docking Base Augmenter from being sold at random AI bases.
• +Added the three Rudimentary Augmenters from Nexus to be sold at random AI bases.
• Added the following tags to all of the scanners to properly label them: Ship Scanner, Prospecting Scanner, Credit Scanner, Base Scanner, Planet Extraction Scanner, Galaxy Extraction Scanner. Note: Hull resistance and item scanners currently have the same ship scanner tag.
• Added Prospecting Beam tags to the Prospecting Tractors.
• Layer-bound the tweaks that drop within the Nexus. They will now decay when the player leaves the Nexus.
• Changed several dungeon gear crates (larger gear) to non-crate form to allow for mods now.
• +Added Jupiter Radial Lightning to Olympus Entrance station for exchange.
• Adjusted BNF and RNF items and drops to be in multiple drop lists and net increased the drop chances.
• Removed Trans Efficiency from augmenters and shifted it to other stats.
• Removed Not Too Badly Damaged Positronic Brain requirement from Particle, Singularity and Quantum Brake blueprints.
• Renamed Re-Tardis Station Extension to Sidrat Station Extension.
• Changed Aveksaka Submerger’s cooldown from 12 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Changed Twisted Essence’s cooldown from 5 seconds to 30 seconds. Reduced the elec per second.
• Made Carbon Hearts unable to be sold to the player via a colony anymore.
• Grinchy Tweak no longer is shipbound after opening the crate.
• Moved Arena Workers farther down the list in the trade bay and moved Psion Icicles farther up.
• Added to the description of Station Gear Token crates that they can be turned in at The Junkyard for items.
• Removed Zen of Devices being used on SuperTweaks. Buffed all SuperTweaks stats to include as if they had full neurotweaking.
• Balanced all capacitors. (Reflectivity capacitors will be reviewed during the vis rework.)
• Removed Infinite Knowledge requirement from Armada, Armada Inferno, Armada Ambush and Armada Charge Drones.
• Tweaked the description on the Seer Nanite Device superitems to be clearer about what they do.
• Bubble Drones now allow the placement of drones within the bubble after deployment.
• Moved Base Overloaders, Pulse Guns and MagCannons into the Base Gear Blueprint packs. They will no longer be sold individually.
• Adjusted particle effects on the following weapons:
  
  • Capital Death Trebuchet Driver
  • Blossom and Lacerating line of weapons
  • Dvezula Zakti
  • Selenite Annihilator Cannon
  • Polarized Catapult

[AI Changes]

• Cybernetic Interceptors now drop better loot.
• Changed Kalos Anthos uber to weekly lockout and buffed loot.
• Reduced Critical Resistance of King Khan Kilrathi (Primal Lion) from 900% to 30% and increased his Zen of Calmness to 100.
• Sentinel of adum now has an Adum’s Radar (to see low vis characters).
• The High Prophet can no longer die and prevent the players from getting loot.
• Buffed the drops of Heated Metals from Vulcan bosses.
• Reduced the Target Dummies speed from 50 to 0 so they don’t move when the galaxy is in sleepy mode.
• Changed Twisted Fate of Death and Twisted Nikolia ‘s warp mechanic. The wormhole will no longer prevent it and may warp in any directions.
• +Four of the Jiqazuk UrQa Light Fighters in the Akuq’ba lobby and four in the Bakii’Qa boss room have been fixed to target the closest enemies instead of weakest, matching the rest of their spawners.
• Added a new rare augmenter to drop from Qokujiii Qa’ik in Iq’Bana.

[Universe Changes]

• +Changed Kalthi Depths’ shape and size.
• +Re-added Neutron Laser, and Neutron Laser II, to all ais station in the Color Empires so players will not have to go outside of the zone to obtain in order to complete the missions there.
• +Adjusted Bonnet Loot and Items.
• +Reduced the required level of Infinite Knowledge from 20 to 10 to dock at Serengeti Research Labs.
• +Changed Zebra Armada Crest conversion missions to Honorary Diploma and Honorary Mentions into Alternative Currency and placed on the Serengeti Research Labs station.
• Reduced the respawn time of the Temporal Anomalies from 6 minutes to 2 minutes
• +Locked Serengeti Research Labs station to Premium Only.
• +Visual improvements to Blanco
• +Moved base-related gear from Free Market and Acropolis AI stations to a new station in Building Academy Entrance called “Advanced Station Research Facility”.
• Made sure all types of randomly generated solar systems contain at least one sun. 
• Updated and streamlined countless missions.
• +Fixed the wormholes in Bedrock Depths, part of the Vulcan zone, to properly lock the instance entrance.
• +Added new names to the universe generation galaxy list.
• +Corrected incorrect trade bay turns in for the the Proficiency augmenters (had the buy/sell backwards)
• +Removed the ability to place TSL (Storage Tab) on the towing station in Sol or Arena Lobby due to new players wasting all their credits due to misclicks.
• +Made the Entrances to Captain Kidd, Ancalagon the Black and Red Photon owned galaxies to better be able to be identified from the Galaxy map.
• +Lowered the orbit speed of the Perpetual Madness base to allow for easier docking in slightly slower ships.
• +Added new drone controllers to Perpetual Motion
• +Added Radar 16 to Maboule’s Hideout in Handel’s Cove.
• +Removed Drone Deployment from Serpica.

[Mods]

• Mods and aug stats will no longer apply from non-active weapons. Only applies mods and aug stats of the weapon that is last fired. If no weapon was fired – the first weapon in the list will be used. Multifiring only applies the mods and aug stats to the actively selected weapon and will not stack multiplies.
• Increased Hostility on evil modded weapons by 50% and doubled damage mod on evil modded weapons (10% to 15% and 1% to 2% at tech 10).
• Radioactive mods now give a constant amount of elec each from 5 to 16 elec per second depending on tech level.
• Increased XP and crit chance mod values on Super Intelligent modded weapons by 50% (base of 2% to 3% at tech 10)

[Towing]

• Removed losing hate on spirit death. Replaced with removing all hate to AI within a galaxy on tow.
• Allowed for bots to be towed from a towing station even when not in stasis.
• When using the towing feature at a towing base, the base will no longer tow ships that do not respect the ship tech level limits of the towing base’s galaxy.
• The towing base selection for players and bots in stasis (when a player docks an escape pod/spirit with their ship or in the bot’s option menu) will no longer include towing bases in galaxies that can not support the tech level of the ship.
  

  

[System]

• Removed the ‘Invite into Team’ option from the X menu on AI.
• All radiation weapons are ethereal. All non-radiation weapons no longer have ethereal.
• Drones now have a visual indicator that changes from blue to yellow to red. Ultimately will flash red when inactive. Drones deployment time standardized by tech ranges.
• Distribute the damage dealt by a failing overloader to all the weapons being multifired by a failing overloader, reducing the individual weapon damage but the net cost being the same as not MFing.
• Fixed poor wording of the credit cost / hull of the TSL tooltip.
• Added event message that tells players if they have entered an open pvp galaxy.
• Updated Content guide for training certain skills.
• Galaxy API (and by extension, universe map on website) will no longer update for the first 4 hours of a universe. 
• Made it so that /outfithull will now be run on player ships on login, as well as active bots. (Does not affect docked ships.)
• Replaced several old mentions of slave with bot.
• Added repair costs in the event log to each line when you repair things in your ship, and added a total repair cost at the end if you repair multiple items
• Aug stats on items will now only start to deteriorate with item durability starting at 50% durability.
• Added a more descriptive error message when you don’t have enough energy to deploy a permanent drone.
• Set bases to drop 25% of their credits on death, instead of a varied amount.
• Made mobile drones consider the size of the wormhole when warping (e.g. Serengeti / Oly wormholes).
• Added new “Show Stats” button to the ‘x’ menu for drones and bots to get a window similar to /showstatsources. 
• AI now will now check the value of scooped items and won’t sell lower then a certain percentage.
• Changed “Insufficient shields to initiate transwarp.” to “Insufficient shields to initiate transwarp.  Need 75%.” for clarity reasons.
• New /like commands/behaviour:
  • /like now only works for liking an individual player. If you are on a team and at rank of officer or above, it’ll also like that player for your team.

  • /liketeam is a new command and only works for liking a team. It likes everyone on the specified team. If you are on a team and at rank of officer or above, it’ll also like everyone on that team for everyone on your team.

[Bugs]

• Fixed bug with adding random AI base skills to stations after a server restart.
• Fixed where sometimes combat bots in guard location mode wouldn’t fire at enemies.
• Fixed the bug where AI and combat bots wouldn’t know to use their new ethereal radiation projectiles to shoot through stuff at their target.
• Fixed code that broke ship model banking when turning in non-orthographic mode.
• Fixed so you cannot transwarp to a galaxy you are already in and waste the charge.
• Fixed issue with translocating (brakes) onto a solar body.
• Fixed where Enveloping Monkey, Seer Backstab, and Sniper Marksman were incorrectly affecting super item damage.
• Fixed an issue with Micron and Crucible that kept warps open for 5 minutes after using a keysync. Will only stay open for 10 seconds after using the key now.
• Fixed the bug where critical hits from superitems didn’t have the base critical hit strength (50%).
• Can only get healing aggression/hate passed on with transference damage type. This will prevent aggro snowballs like in subspace when healing enemies with non transference damage.

Greetings! Earlier this week, I posted a rundown of the big Update that’s hitting on February 7. Now that the contents of the patch are locked in, I’m back with a follow-up on a few items that missed the cutoff and will be included in Version 1.1 a few weeks after the initial patch.

What’s in the Update??

If you’re curious to see how the game will look after the Update, point your game client to the LiveTest server from the login screen. You can access the Community Testing Event galaxy from Sol, where all player-obtainable gear is accessible for your testing enjoyment. We are also working on updating stat tables on the wiki so that theorycrafters have easy access to this information. I’ll post on Discord when the wiki update is complete.

Jey worked extra hard and got several late changes into Version 1.0. These include the changes to shields that make balanced shields more useful and the work on shield transference weapons that introduced greater variability in healing output and weapon range and tracking. The quality changes to the loot of Bana King and Black Nightfury are also included in Version 1.0.

What’s Waiting Till Version 1.1?

Due to Jey’s hard work, all major components of the project are included in the first patch. However, we do have an assortment of side projects and one-off changes that will have to wait till Version 1.1. I want to make sure you feel able to get out there and explore the Update from the start, so I’m going to grant another universal augmenter reset upon release of Version 1.1. Just as the first one, this reset will be activated using the command /freeAugreset, and will be available on every ship that pre-exists the release of Version 1.1. Make sure you use up the one you’re granted on February 7, as any ships that still have their reset from the first round will not accumulate a second one with Version 1.1.

Here’s a rundown of biggest components of Version 1.1:

• Market Check command support added for wildcard and spelling errors, yields interactive list of matches.
• Ultimate Art class augmenters will remain Exotic but their stat distributions will be adjusted to better reflect their pre-Update stats.
• Perilous Augmenter’s quality tier will be increased to Exotic.
• All solar panels will be converted to hybrid functionality.
• Transference weapons with low tracking (20 degrees) will be adjusted for greater usability.
• Adjustments/script improvements to Twisted, Bana King, and Black Nightfury (see next section!)

In addition to these scheduled items, Version 1.1 will also contain any adjustments and fixes that result from player feedback on Version 1.0. It’s my highest priority to address any issues with Version 1.0 without delay, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep Version 1.1 on the fast track.

Endgame Boss Improvements

Thanks to some great testing work from players, we learned that certain bosses got a bit too easy at some point along the way. The ones that concerned us most are Bana King, and Black Nightfury, and the three top bosses of Twisted, as these bosses are the sources of some of the highest quality loot in the game. When we first got the reports, we could have simply cranked up the stats of the bosses and called it a day, but this wouldn’t really have addressed the root problem. These bosses just aren’t designed in a way that goes well with the Healing/Support Update: they all involve high pressure damage and are pretty oriented toward tank-and-spank. Going forward, we want bosses to rely less on pressure damage and more on burst effects with clear tells. We also want to pack more tactical moments into boss encounters and cut down on the average time to kill. For this reason, we’ve decided to substantially rework these five boss encounters, for release with Version 1.1. In fact, three out of five reworks are already complete as of today, but unfortunately it’s not possible to incorporate that work into the February 7 patch at this late stage.

As with the Healing/Support Update as a whole, it’s our responsibility to justify any disruptions we make to existing content (especially when the content has been around for years). I believe that these five bosses are going to be much more enjoyable to fight without being inappropriately challenging. As a side benefit, Bana King and Black Nightfury will also have increased drop rates of their highly coveted loot, enabled by some improvements I made to the dev tool for drop rates.

Since these five bosses are not currently in an acceptable state and are slated for revision in the very near future, I have decided to lock their zones upon Version 1.0 release until Version 1.1. I understand that this means missing several valuable lockouts, and have the following special event prepared to compensate. Starting with the Update launch and until the release of Version 1.1, we will have double augmenter drop rates, double item modification rates, and a major prospecting event. I picked these bonuses because they will make the rest of PvE content substantially more rewarding while you wait for us to unlock the five bosses in question.

Greetings! You’ve probably heard that the Healing/Support Update is going live on February 7. I’m writing this post to tell you what to expect in the lead-up to the Update and to summarize the contents of the Update itself.

Before February 7

In the next few days, the team will finalize the exact contents of the Update. We will let you know on Discord as soon as this is done. At that point, the LiveTest server will contain the exact stats of items, skills, and AI that will go live with the update. For extra information, we’ll fire up the Test 3 server as a simulation of the update with a new universe generated. We will also use a script to update the Wiki with all stats of common items so theorycrafters will be able to pull all that data directly into their spreadsheets and programs.

Even before Update Version 1.0 goes live, we are already planning Version 1.1 for release a few weeks later. There are two reasons for releasing the project in stages. First and foremost, we recognize that no amount of pre-release testing can compare to the volume of testing player-hours that occurs after a big update. We are fully prepared for some issues and errors to be uncovered soon after release and are committed to addressing these in a timely manner. Secondly, there are some last minute adjustments that weren’t ready in time for Version 1.0, mostly involving tweaks to bosses and less commonly used ships. Once the contents of Version 1.0 are finalized, I’ll be able to give more details on Version 1.1. I will announce those details before February 7.

On February 7

The update will go live on February 7. The first thing you’ll probably notice is that a lot of gear has changed in size, as well as the capacity of most ships. Certain items have changed in power, too: for example, pulse guns are a lot more powerful than before, while some particularly strong ships and items have been toned down in strength. The upshot is that you may find yourself wanting to change around some augmenter setups! Aside from the usual means of doing this (destroying equipped augmenters, using a reset mission, and using a paid reset module) we are providing three new ways to help you optimize your setup in the update:

1. Fifteen ships had their augmenter slots reduced. Popular examples are: Thatch, Battle Sphere, and Paxian Battle Frigate. Any ships you own that lost augmenter slots will automatically have all their augmenters unequipped as soon as you activate the ship or transfer any items in or out.

2. With the exception of ships whose augmenters were unequipped per #1, all ships that existed before the update are entitled to one free augmenter reset. The reset is activated by using the chat command /freeAugreset while the ship is active. You can save this reset as long as you like; it will never expire.

3. Lastly, every character will have access to three additional augmenter reset missions at the base in Shadow. These missions will work exactly like the normal ones except that you must use them by the universe reset in October 2021, as any remaining ones will be removed at that time.

Version 1.0 Summary

At the core of the Healing/Support Update is mitigation: how much punishment your ship can take. As we analyzed mitigation in the game, we uncovered a longstanding arms race between damage on weapons on the one hand, and resistance on ships on the other. This is pretty standard in themepark MMOs where each update totally supersedes the last, but in Star Sonata we want the power curve to be flatter so that older content remains relevant and new players are reasonably able to compete with experienced ones.

Our work on the power curve has led to a number of high profile changes, such as the standardization of augmenter slots by hull type, the elimination of modification effects from inactive weapons, and the standardization of repair costs to bring down excessive costs on expensive gear. We also instituted stricter standards on the quality tier of items and introduced two tiers above Exotic to give players more room to progress. Many existing items have had their stats adjusted due to adjustments in quality tier to bring them into compliance with the new standards. Quite a few items were listed as Exotic in spite of being rather simple to acquire in terms of time and cost; we couldn’t leave these items at that quality tier without eroding the reward of progression to items that are genuinely difficult to acquire.

Another impactful change from our analysis of the power curve has been a new the development tool for ship design. Here, the biggest change is that higher-tech ships don’t accumulate bonus resistance to damage. This source of “power creep” was one of the worst offenders in the mitigation arms race. Standardizing ship resistances runs the risk of making ships less distinct from each other; while we have done our best to give them bonuses appropriate for their tech and quality tier, we hope to continue polishing ships over the coming months by upgrading their inbuilt super items with more interesting and distinctive effects. The Kalthi ships have been selected for the first pass of super item improvement.

Clearly, taking on the mitigation arms race committed us to a pretty drastic rework of many item stats. This is why we are instituting a universal augmenter reset as explained in the previous section. These resets may be particularly important for the two classes most involved in squad mitigation: Shield Monkey and Engineer.

Shield Monkey Update

As soon as we started thinking about mitigation, our attention turned to Shield Monkey. After all, this is the class most clearly focused on keeping squads alive. The two aspects of squad mitigation that felt most off to us were:

1. Squad mitigation is driven principally by healers manufacturing shields through far-above-100% healing efficiency.

2. In many encounters, squads can wipe if healing is disrupted or redirected for even a very short period of time.

To address these issues, we have made healing occur at 1:1 efficiency in all cases, and we have dramatically increased the shield bank and shield regeneration available to players. We have also toned down the damage in certain boss zones to compensate for the lower healing output from the efficiency reduction. Lastly, we have enabled Shield Monkey to use their shield transference weapons to steal shields from enemies, replenishing their own. The upshot is that Shield Monkey has more gameplay modalities available to it, ranging over the traditional healer, the vampire healer, the drain-tanker, and the squad-sheltering capital ship.

Here’s a quick list of highlights and tips on the new Shield Monkey class.

• Shield Monkey can equip an extra Shield item on Support Freighters and Capital Ships.

• Zen of Shield gives a huge amount of shield bank for this class.

• Transference Mastery (40% range, 20% tracking) is rolled into Shield Monkey class, so you get comparable range with transference weapons and more range with all other weapon types. This change also benefits the range of your combat bots.

• The Transference Efficiency augmenter stat now multiplies your shield stealing.

• Stealing-oriented Shield Monkeys will want to obtain a lot of DPS multipliers to be effective, while non-stealing Shield Monkeys will want to obtain a lot of shield regeneration.

• None of the healing and mitigation changes affect stations and permanent drones, so the Wild Space meta is largely unaffected by this project.

Engineer Update

While Shield Monkey is the official healer class in Star Sonata, Engineer has incredibly powerful healing from drones in the endgame. In fact, Engineer is a highly versatile class that can achieve impressive results in healing, DPS, and tanking. Players who select this class certainly appreciate the versatility, but a Jack of all trades isn’t supposed to be a master of all of them. As we worked on Shield Monkey, we became convinced that Engineer would become the undisputed king of healing if we didn’t make some changes there too. So, our mission with Engineer was to retain its signature versatility while dialing down its ability to perform multiple simultaneous squad roles at such a high level. In exchange, we’ve dramatically increased Engineer’s ability to customize their drone stats, as detailed below.

Here’s a quick list of highlights and tips on the new Engineer class.

• Engineer can equip an extra Energy item on Support Freighters and Capital Ships.

• Zen of Energy gives a lot of extra energy bank.

• Energy transference beams now share a portion of the target’s energy consumption with the Engineer instead of passing a flat amount of energy to the target.

• Mechanical Engineer adv subskill allows you (and your squadmates, with a Repair Drone from Lyceum) to pay the docked repair cost while in flight.

• Instead of giving resistance to damage directly, we’ve made a portion of the Engineer’s energy bank serve as an overshield to incoming damage. Only the top 50% of the energy bank can be used in this way, to prevent the Engineer from becoming crippled in combat.

• A fraction of your augmenter stats are now passed to your drones. The exact fraction is computed as 2% per level of Drone Deployment, plus 60% from Engineer class. This means that your ship augmenters benefit your drones at just over 100% effectiveness. Any augmenter that used to have Drone Ops has been reworked, so you’ll want to take a close look at the new stat distributions to see if they’re still to your liking. Don’t forget to equip a DPS augmenter if you want your drones to do damage!

Miscellaneous Changes

As part of the power curve analysis, we have made a number of other standalone changes that are chronicled here.

• Shield Chargers and Solar Panels have enhanced values but function exclusively out of combat. To benefit from these items, position yourself near a star and disengage from all combat interactions for 10 seconds. This means no receiving or dealing non-parasite damage, using or receiving tractor beams, launching missiles and fighters, and so on. You can also gain the out-of-combat effect by docking. Unlike an older draft of this effect, you do NOT need all hostile targets to be eliminated for out-of-combat status to kick in. Also note that we’ve updated the universe generation code to place at least one star in every random galaxy and dungeon.

• Damage-over-time weapons have been carefully analyzed and tuned. The main results are that parasites now do full critical damage (!), and we no longer have weapons doing more than 75% of their damage from parasites. Fire Extinguishers and Pest Exterminators are now out-of-combat items (except station-locked versions) and their power has been increased accordingly.

• Weapon damage types now have a theme and focus, leading to more pronounced use cases.

  • Laser damage => deprecated and converted to Energy or Radiation

  • Radiation => ethereal (even projectiles)

  • Ethereal but not radiation or laser => no longer ethereal (e.g. KMW)

  • Heat => Powerful damage-over-time effects

  • Mining => better against heavy fighters and capital ships

  • Physical => better against light fighters

  • Surgical => increased augmenter drop chance (up to +100% if used for the whole kill)

• A number of skills were revised a few new ones were created.

  • Bot PhD: +8 extra slots, passes 30% of your skill bonuses to bots

  • Bot Tweaking: passes 30% of your skill bonuses to bots, still gives agility and speed

  • Droney: +1 temp drone slot, passes 50% of your skill bonuses to drones

  • Zen skills (condensed from 100 levels to 50)

    • Shield: +2% bank up to 50

    • Energy: +2% bank up to 50

    • Spin and Acceleration: 2% up to 50

  • Lagrange: 10% damage / resistance when maxed at level 25, per damage type

    • Transference Mastery has been deprecated and is now Transference Control (Lagrange)

Breaking News! After vigorously combing the universe, Lyceum Scientists have discovered the origin coordinates of what we now call the “Great Stall Communication”. Hidden deep within a moon in Wild Space there appears to be ruins of an old Celestial Beancounter who left on his trans-dimensional wave radio. A new transmission was just recieved!

Boyle: “Kyle is a piece of work! Who drinks that garbage anyways?”

Robert: “The boss wants to know if the overhaul will be fixed before universe collapse.”

Boyle: “You can tell the boss that 667 will be overhauled by 2021.02.07!”

This recent expedition returned with 3 cans of condensed Baobab milk that don’t appear to be from this dimension. Inside one of the cans named “Healing and Support Revamp” appears to be a date and it reads: ”New New New New New Universe 667: 2021.02.07”

The Healing and Support revamp will be patched in on February 7th, 2021.

Earthforce Bulletin:

“We here at Earthforce pride ourselves in protecting and informing the citizens of the intergalactic community. Due to the sheer arrogance of the Kalthi, the universal rupture has reached near critical mass.  Outlying sectors of the universe are experiencing spatial anomalies and abnormal time dilations. We have instructed the Lyceum Observatory to closely monitor the situation.

Whether you reside in our space or mingle with the Kalthi scum, we would like to remind all citizens of the impending destabilization of the universe. Anyone that has instituted automated trade routes, erected trading posts or left random space junk inside or outside of Earth Force borders are recommended to cease operations and collect your assets.  The universe will collapse on February 13th, 2021.  Destabilization is imminent! “

Dev Note:  Credits on active bots, bases and permanent drones will be lost at the end of the universe. Player ships will not be affected.

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

Tentative Future Reset Dates
June 12, 2021
October 9, 2021