This Nexus-specific patch fixes various balance issues and mission bugs concerning the beloved Nexus zone, which recently received a rework.

Spawner changes:

• Target Dummies have received some recoil increases:
  • Target Dummy Mk.II recoil increased from 2s to 2.75s
  • Target Dummy Mk.III recoil increased from 2s to 3.5s.
• Some Rat variants have had shield regen reductions:
  • Huge Rat shield regen reduced from 25/s to 20/s.
  • King Rat shield regen reduced from 35/s to 25/s.
  • Queen Rat shield regen reduced from 45/s to 30/s.
• Reduced knockback on allied Cadet catapults by 50%.
• Volcom Pirates have had some shielding and regen reductions:
  • Low-tier Volcom shield reduced from 650 to 350 shielding and 50/s regen down to 25/s.
  • Mid-tier Volcom shield reduced from 750 to 700 shielding and 50/s regen down to 40/s.
  • High-tier Volcom shield reduced from 1500 to 1000 shielding and 75/s regen down to 55/s.
  • High-tier Volcom Wingship shield reduced from 1125 to 750 shielding.
• Reduced the number of Volcom in Mutara Scrapyard.
• Reduced the number of Volcom Wingships guarding the Delta Fuel Platform in Deep Space from 2 to 1.
• All Flyswatter types have had their shield strength reduced by 25%:
  • Flyswatter Embryo shield reduced from 200 to 150 shielding.
  • Flyswatter Larva shield reduced from 400 to 300 shielding.
  • Flyswatter Maggot shield reduced from 600 to 450 shielding.
  • Flyswatter Flylet shield reduced from 1000 to 750 shielding.

• Koto Research has received tankiness reductions:
  • Koto Micro Zebu shield reduced from 500 to 250 shielding and 40/s regen down to 25/s.
  • Koto Zebucart shield reduced from 800 to 400 shielding and 40/s regen down to 25/s.
  • Koto Research Platform shield reduced from 3500 to 2500.
  • Koto Research Complex shield reduced from 10,000 to 7500 and 50/s regen down to 25/s.
• Space Jelly “Wave” attack recoil increased from 3s to 4s and “Sting” attack recoil increased from 1s to 2s.
• Removed the allied Cadets from Deep Space.
• Reduced the number of Black Hole Brigands in Deep Space.
• Black Hole Brigands have received some strength reductions:
  • Brigand shield reduced from 1500 to 1000 shielding and 50/s regen down to 10/s.
  • Brigand Wingship shield reduced from 1125 to 750 shielding and 50/s regen down to 10/s.
  • Brigand and Brigand Wingship damage reduced by 25% and recoil on all weaponry increased from 2s to 3s (except the Brigand Wingship’s Sebastapol, which went from 0.5s to 0.75s).
• Fixed the Brigands and Brigand Wingships to correctly drop the Black Hole Gravitas tweak.

Mission changes:

• Added new more-powerful versions of the Cadet’s Beam, Old Man Block, Cadet Catapult, and Stapleton’s Acid Shooter to replace the old ones. Existing versions will not be renamed into the new ones, due to behind-the-scenes issues with some of the player gear balance sheets.
• Added the ‘Mission Interface’ mission explaining the mission interface with an indicator pointing to the ‘Combat Practice’ mission.
• Added three new upgrade-focused missions to various Nexus stations, going over Augmenters, Ship Upgrades, and Radars.
• Added two new skill-focused missions to various Nexus stations, reminding players to train skills up.
• Tweaked summary text of ‘Skill Training’ mission and added an indicator pointing to the skills tab and the skills to choose from within that tab.
• Changed the instance missions that auto-began in the instance lobbies (Tunnels and Droppings, Whiskey Approach, and Hangfire) to no longer require exploration of that lobby system, as those versions of the missions are given to players within that lobby.
• Changed the ‘Volcom Raiders’ mission to require a Volcom and Volcom Wingship kill.
• Fixed the ‘Two Steps Back’ mission for Whiskey Outpost not conflicting with the ‘Attack on Whiskey Outpost’ mission.
• Changed the “Oats Captain” mission to only require 3 Space Oats instead of 10.
• Changed the ‘Business Rivals’ mission to only require Luigi Salmano to be eliminated.
• Fixed ‘Twin Pillars Run’ mission to be completed before ‘Twin Pillars Run II’ is available.
• Corrected the ‘Twin Pillars Run II’ mission summary from 150 to 165 seconds.
• Fixed the ‘Hidden Refuge’ mission.

Miscellaneous changes:

• Fixed instance wormholes to state minimum level requirement to enter instead of an error message.
• Updated the Nexus neurotweaks. This includes updated charge times, and altered effects for the Leaking Fuel Cell and Jelly’s Acidic Blood tweaks.
• Added additional “guideplates” (floating text in space) with helpful advice in Cadet Academy and other areas of Nexus.
• Added Janitor’s Special Cleaner to Earth Central in Sol for use in planetary projects.
• Moved Not Too Badly Damaged Positronic Brain drop away from Rattie Moe and to Space Rat Broodmother in Sol.

Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for! Star Sonata 2 is available on Steam!

As we’ve already highlighted in previous posts, it is super crucial for us to get as many of our existing players to play with the Steam version of the game during the Launch Event (June 12-July 12). By playing the game through Steam, and buying any Space Points through Steam, you are directly helping the game increase in visibility and standings which allow us to grow the game and share it with more people!

Don’t forget to check out the details of our Launch Event and the Starter Pack.

If you are a new player to Star Sonata, welcome! We are so excited to have you here. Check out our Quick Start Guide, or pop on over to our Discord server for more information to help you get started in the universe.

If you are an existing player to Star Sonata, you probably have a ton of questions about this Steam launch. Here are some questions we’ve heard that we’d like to answer.

• Will I still be able to download the client through the website?
  Yes! If you don’t want to use Steam at all, you don’t have to!

• Can I use my existing account on Steam?
  Yes! When you launch Star Sonata 2 through Steam and you come to the login screen, there is a button to switch to a non-Steam login, then you can log in with your existing account. Currently, there is no way to actually link your account with Steam, but you can still use your pre-existing account.

• How do I get the bonus of the Launch Event? 
  Launch the game through Steam and log in either with a Steam Account or a pre-existing account. When you log in you will get the bonus Raging Steam holoprojector, and the EXP bonus will activate. You will only get the EXP bonus while you are on the Steam version of the client.

Kilando has put together a video for existing players that shows how to access the game launch the game through Steam. Check it out below!

Greetings Pilots!

Here are the next set of patch notes for the Liberty server!

If you have any concerns or feedback on any of these changes please report them in the #feedback channel on the Star Sonata Discord!

(+changes require a new uni)

[Nexus Rework]

• The Nexus has been reworked, there will be a blog post soon.

[Skill Changes]

• New skill, Zen of Devices, increases the charge rate of certain super items by 3% per level up to level 100. Super items will say in their description if they are affected by this skill.

[Item Changes]

• Removing Attached Drones.
  • Converted All Attached Drone items to their non-attached variants. Attached Warp Beacon will be unchanged.
  • Converted Attached Drone Blueprints to their non-attached versions.
  • Removed Attached Magic Attach requirement from Attached Warp Beacon.
  • Converted Armada Ambrosia Drone to an unattached drone.
  • Player owned attached drones are no longer allowed to exist in Earthforce layer. They will be removed when the server restarts.

• Adjusted the stats on many super items.

• Envelopments will now always attach to the object that used them. Envelopments generally have been strengthened, but their active time reduced. Envelopments can now look like different things, such as a chunk of ice.

• Ice block super items will now have a much lower bonus resistance buff, but create an envelopment around the ship that looks like ice with a fixed hit point pool.

• Increased the tech level of many built in super items that were artificially low.

• Common shield tweaks have had their stats increased.

• Fixed a bug where Enveloping Monkey, Seer Backstab, and Sniper Marksman were affecting super item damage.

• New Roscap Mining Punch Super Item.

• All tweaks used by Super Items will automatically get the NoTweak tag and not use the Neurotweaking skill.

• All the Common tweak super items can charge faster with Zen of Devices skill.

• Changed Krill Fighter device and Alien Krill Fighter device to only launch one Krill fighter, but that fighter will do about 3x the DPS as before.

• Claw Missile Device will now charge much faster, Alien Claw Missile Device will charge a little faster, but do a lot more damage.

• Updated visuals on the Zebucart Mark 2 skin, the Volcom and its variants, the Brigand’s Volcom and its variants, the Phunka.dll, and the Helga.

• Added an unremovable “Tracking Beacon” item to a new player’s starter Zebucart ship.

• Reduced the tech level of the “Cadet Missile Launch Device”, the Cadet and Reconditioned Cadet’s missile generator, to tech 0 to fix issues with it.

[AI Changes]

• Fixed Kalthi Minion Fighter Hull engine mount locations.

• +Forgones will now take 20 seconds between firing their super item instead of 10.

[Universe Changes]

• +Changed “Earthforce Sanctuary: East Wild Space” and “Earthforce Sanctuary: West Wild Space” galaxy names to “Earthforce Sanctuary Alpha” and “Earthforce Sanctuary Beta” respectively.

• +The AC exchange for Primal Zebra / Panther Ship Remains have had their Zaphragi Research Diploma turn-in values normalized to two per.

[System]

• Fixed a bug that allowed selling items to stations without a trade bay.

• Made shops which are not public or trading have their entries removed from market check.

• Fixed bug which only allowed base owners to use items on the base. It now depends on Management permission.

• The ship window will now only show the effects of damage and rof buffs on your most recent fired weapon, and no longer show incorrect numbers for the other weapons.

• Damage tweak / aura is now a DPS tweak / aura. For the percent based ones, this won’t change anything, but the few non-percent ones will be a change in DPS now instead of damage per shot.

• Added separate smaller resets to the skill resets in stations. Can now reset classes, hostility skills, adv subskills, or control skills separately alongside the full skill reset.

• Can now search for “nb” or “neurobound” in inventory or TSL to see all NB items.
• Can now search for “*” in inventory or TSL to see all modded items.
• TSL will now display an asterisk after the names of any modded items inside

• Fixed a bug where drones on the hotbar would sometimes default back to the unequipped version.

As part of our launch on Steam, we are excited to announce the contents of our brand new Starter Pack that is exclusive to Steam! Whether you’re new to the universe, launching into your first Zebucart, or an experienced pilot traversing the stars, the Starter Pack has something for you!

Included in the Starter Pack are 5 unique ship skins, a unique Steam exclusive holoprojector named the Cosmic Shimmer, and 3 months of premium subscription time. This starter pack is a one-time purchase option for all players for $19.99! Normally a three-month subscription is $24.95, so that’s a 20% savings on a premium subscription.

Now if that isn’t enticing enough for you, during our Launch Event Window, the Starter Pack is going to be discounted even MORE. From June 12 through June 19 the Starter Pack will be 25% off the base price. So that’s 5 skins, a holoprojector, 3 months of sub time for $14.99! This deal won’t be coming back anytime soon so jump on it while you have the chance!

Here’s a preview of the Cosmic Shimmer and skins in the Starter Pack!

Don’t forget that the more you play on Steam during our Launch Event, the more it helps us to grow and gain visibility. Even better, if you purchase the Starter Pack, or any Space Points through Steam, it also really improves our rankings and visibility! If you want to support us so we can keep on making Star Sonata an epic game, here is your chance. We definitely wouldn’t be where we are today without your support, so join us on Steam!

It has been a long time coming, but we’ll be going live on Steam at roughly at 10:00am PT this Friday. We’ve already made a huge post about how you can help make our Steam Launch a success, so if you haven’t checked that out yet give it a read. In a post coming later today, we will be outlining what is included in our Starter Pack.

Today, we wanted to take a moment to highlight what our launch event is going to look like and why you should definitely play on Steam during the event! Playing through Steam helps us, so here’s what we’re offering you in return:

• Just by logging into Star Sonata through Steam, you will get a Steam exclusive holoprojector named Raging Steam. This is the only way to get this holoprojector, and it’ll be unobtainable in the future.

• Additionally, we’ll be offering 50% extra experience for characters logged in through Steam for the entire duration of the launch event.
• Finally, we’ll be offering a bonus 10 space points on top of every space point purchase through Steam. We’ve never offered a special on space points ever before and I’m not sure if we’ll ever do it again, so its a good time to stock up!

These bonuses will only apply if you are logged into the game through Steam during the launch event window, which runs from June 12th to July 12th. Make sure to log on through Steam at least once to grab the exclusive holoprojector, but we hope you’ll keep using it through July 12th to get the 50% bonus experience.  As we mentioned in our previous posts, every purchase and play through Steam during the launch event really helps us to grow our visibility and rankings within Steam, so we really hope that you participate to help make this a success! Thank you for your support, and stay tuned for the next blog post coming later today outlining the Steam Starter Pack. It’s a really good deal, so keep an eye out!

Note: Just to correct a common misconception, linking your existing account through Steam is not currently possible and not required for any of the above bonuses. You can login via your normal username and password through the Steam downloaded game client.

An issue has been identified where players have been placing low tech attached drones throughout the Earthforce Layer to intentionally use up base slots on planets and moons.

To fix this issue, the upcoming patch will be removing any attached drones in Earthforce Layer.

Any attached drones in storage will be converted from attached drones to unattached drones. The only drones that will be removed from space will be the ones in the Earthforce Layer.
Any currently attached drones in Wild Space will not be affected.

The item search functionality has been greatly expanded recently, allowing you to narrow down the item you are looking for in your storage much more effectively.

This post will highlight some useful tags that can be searched for at the bottom of your inventory window. This functionality also works for searching in your bases and TSL!

A complete list of the available tags to be searched can be found on the Star Sonata Wiki.

Here is a video that gives a quick overview of the search function, or you can scroll to see a visual breakdown below.

You can search for any item type by the tag shown at the top of the item in question. The entire tag must be entered with no abbreviations, though it is not case sensitive:

Modifications, like Evil, Sleek and Reinforced can be searched for by typing in the name of the relevant mod:

A list of all gear with modifications on them can be searched for by entering an asterisk. (*)

Neurobound equipment can be searched for by entering ‘Neurobound’ or ‘NB’.

Augmenters can be searched for with ‘Augmenter’ — handy for searching for those augmenters that might not have ‘augmenter’ in their name:

It’s worth mentioning that the original search functionality is unchanged, so if you’re looking for ‘Ore’, you will also search for items that contain the word ‘ore’, such as Powercore:

 You can even combine tags with ‘&’, as shown below:

We hope this added functionality will be of use when searching for specific items.

Greetings Pilots!

Here is the next set of LiveTest Server patch notes, the goal of these is to give you a heads up on changes before they’re pushed to Liberty and allow you to test and experiment with these changes!
If you have any concerns or feedback on any of these changes please report them in the #feedback channel on the Star Sonata Discord!

The LTS updates are only applicable to the LiveTest Server and may be changed before being pushed to Liberty.

You will need the newest Beta Client to check out these changes.
(+changes require a new uni)

[Nexus Rework]

• The Nexus has been reworked, there will be a blog post soon.

[Skill Changes]

• New skill, Zen of Devices, increases the charge rate of certain super items by 3% per level up to level 100. Super items will say in their description if they are affected by this skill.

[Item Changes]

• Removing Attached Drones.
• Converted All Attached Drone items to their non-attached variants. Attached Warp Beacon will be unchanged.
• Converted Attached Drone Blueprints to their non-attached versions.
• Removed Attached Magic Attach requirement from Attached Warp Beacon.
• Converted Armada Ambrosia Drone to an unattached drone.
• Player owned attached drones are no longer allowed to exist in Earthforce layer. They will be removed when the server restarts.

• Adjusted the stats on many super items.

• Envelopments will now always attach to the object that used them. Envelopments generally have been strengthened, but their active time reduced. Envelopments can now look like different things, such as a chunk of ice.

• Ice block super items will now have a much lower bonus resistance buff, but create an envelopment around the ship that looks like ice with a fixed hit point pool.

• Increased the tech level of many built in super items that were artificially low.

• Common shield tweaks have had their stats increased.

• Fixed a bug where Enveloping Monkey, Seer Backstab, and Sniper Marksman were affecting super item damage.

• New Roscap Mining Punch Super Item.

• All tweaks used by Super Items will automatically get the NoTweak tag and not use the Neurotweaking skill.

• All the Common tweak super items can charge faster with Zen of Devices skill.

• Changed Krill Fighter device and Alien Krill Fighter device to only launch one Krill fighter, but that fighter will do about 3x the DPS as before.

• Claw Missile Device will now charge much faster, Alien Claw Missile Device will charge a little faster, but do a lot more damage.

• Updated visuals on the Zebucart Mark 2 skin, the Volcom and its variants, the Brigand’s Volcom and its variants, the Phunka.dll, and the Helga.

• Added an unremovable “Tracking Beacon” item to a new player’s starter Zebucart ship.

• Reduced the tech level of the “Cadet Missile Launch Device”, the Cadet and Reconditioned Cadet’s missile generator, to tech 0 to fix issues with it.

[AI Changes]

• Fixed Kalthi Minion Fighter Hull engine mount locations.

• +Forgones will now take 20 seconds between firing their super item instead of 10.

[Universe Changes]

• +Changed “Earthforce Sanctuary: East Wild Space” and “Earthforce Sanctuary: West Wild Space” galaxy names to “Earthforce Sanctuary Alpha” and “Earthforce Sanctuary Beta” respectively.

• +The AC exchange for Primal Zebra / Panther Ship Remains have had their Zaphragi Research Diploma turn-in values normalized to two per.

[System]

• Fixed a bug that allowed selling items to stations without a trade bay.

• Made shops which are not public or trading have their entries removed from market check.

• Fixed bug which only allowed base owners to use items on the base. It now depends on Management permission.

• The ship window will now only show the effects of damage and rof buffs on your most recent fired weapon, and no longer show incorrect numbers for the other weapons.

• Damage tweak / aura is now a DPS tweak / aura. For the percent based ones, this won’t change anything, but the few non-percent ones will be a change in DPS now instead of damage per shot.

• Added separate smaller resets to the skill resets in stations. Can now reset classes, hostility skills, adv subskills, or control skills separately alongside the full skill reset.

• Can now search for “nb” or “neurobound” in inventory or TSL to see all NB items.
• Can now search for “*” in inventory or TSL to see all modded items.
• TSL will now display an asterisk after the names of any modded items inside

• Fixed a bug where drones on the hotbar would sometimes default back to the unequipped version.

Many people play video games as a way to unplug from the worries and responsibilities in their lives. This is especially common in role-playing games, which encourage players to escape to an entirely different persona and explore a world or universe that’s not quite like our own. In Star Sonata, our friendships and conflicts mostly play out in our virtual world between our virtual characters. It’s easy to forget that even your sworn enemy in-game is just an ordinary person like yourself, with hopes, dreams, fears, and faults. Right now, there are people in our community who are scared, anxious, and hurting. We owe it to them to respond with compassion and solidarity, not only because there would be no Star Sonata without its community, but because helping those in need is the right thing to do.

Police brutality is wrong and unacceptable. Police infringing on citizens’ rights to peaceably assemble is wrong and unacceptable. Police assaulting, arresting, and maiming journalists is wrong and unacceptable. Racist and discriminatory policing practices in the United States must be brought to an end.

I am running a donation-matching campaign with a fund of $1,000 of my own money. I will match up to $100 per contribution to any local organization that is working to end police brutality in the United States. I specifically ask for donations to local organizations because of the immediate impact these organizations can have on the communities they serve. For more information, reach out to @enk#3571 on Discord.

In compassion and solidarity,

Anil “Enk” Venkatesh
Lead Content Developer

(+changes require a new uni)

[Item Changes]

• Converted T9+ Station kit blueprints from Metal to Steel Girders.

• Added drone slots required to tooltips on permanent drones.

• Created a new t15 Cardinal’s Excommunicator weapon.

• Adjusted defuser code so that vulnerabilities take priority over resistance.

• Created a new line of Capital Lasers that upgrade into the Capital Armageddon weapons.

• Capital Armageddon weapons were set to the wrong cost category resulting in a slight reduction of DPS.

• Added in three new player obtainable capital ships and three new player obtainable support freighters.
• +Added the capital ships Mordred, Gawain and Gareth to Bonnet, Lavanite and Absolution AI bases.
• +Added the support freighters Scarab, Stag and Weevil to Bonnet, Lavanite and Absolution AI bases.

[AI Changes]

• +Update to Stella AI (roamers and DGs) for proper Solarian loot drops.

• +Cardinal Bellarmine in Absolution and his DG variant Bell from Hell have chances to drop Excoms, with Bell from Hell having a chance of dropping the Cardinal’s Excom.

• +Lowered the range and damage of Bellarmine’s Cathedral in Penance.

• +Rosemary, Basil, and Basilus AI are more tanky and do significantly more damage to be more in line with their level.

• +Reducing the number of fighters the Blue Gamma holds from 6 to 2.

• +Added Solar Prism drops to the AI in Arctia.

• +Added new line of Capital Lasers to drop from Roaming EF Capital Ships.

[Missions]

• The Galileo mission chain has been adjusted as follows:
• The player now receives an Excommunicator earlier in Galileo’s mission chain.
• The player now receives an Cardinal’s Excommunicator at the end of Galileo’s mission chain.
• +An AC turn in for Galileo’s Telescopes have been added to Sai’s Retreat in Sol after ‘Galileo’s Research’ has been completed.
• +An AC turn in for Cardinal’s Excommunicators has been added to Sai’s Retreat in Sol after ‘Excommunicator’ has been completed.

• The Vulcan mission chain has been adjusted as follows:
• The mission to kill Infernus has been made to auto start when you enter the Chamber of Heat, and can be done concurrently with the previous mission to kill the three bosses.
• +The player now receives a new mining weapon, the Vulcan Mining Blaster after finishing the first mission.
• +The player can purchase additional Vulcan Mining Blasters after completing the first mission via an AC turn in of 50 metals and a Vulcanite Core.

• Reworked the Perpetual Motion drone missions:
• +No longer will you need to bring the drones or DG drone BPs to open up the turn in missions, instead you bring items to the station to unlock AC turn ins.
• +Removed the drone BPs from the DG drop list that have mission/AC pairs.

• EF Capital ship acquisition missions have been added to Beta Antares:
• +Added missions that give EF Capital Ship Upgrades.
• +Added missions that give EF Capital Ship Upgrade Blueprints.
• +Reworked difficulty of Earthforce Roaming Capital Ships.
• +Removed Capital Ship Research Blueprint from Beta Antares.
• +AC turn-ins unlock after mission is completed.

[Universe Changes]

• Adjusted Tidepool and Tartarus Dailies to reward shards only via the end of the mission chain instead of drops via fighting enemies.

• Removed phasing effect from the large planet in the Drone Deployment 22 boss instance (Kandara Var).

• +Instanced the bosses of Jungle.

• +Instanced the bosses of Mira.

• +Added Zobitan’s Retreat to Arctia, an AI base with several Paximinus guards and a small mission chain giving a Zobitan Beam. After completion of the chain, additional Zobitan Beams can be acquired from the tradebay in exchange for 10 Solar Prisms each.

• +Added an AC turn in for the t5 class augmenters to the respective class stations in Lycuem, these will unlock once the class intro missions are completed.

• Core skill training locations have been adjusted as follows:
• +Core skills are trainable to level 3 in Sol.
• +Core skills are trainable to level 4 in Arctia for Solar Prisms.
• +Core skills are trainable to level 5 in Blue Outpost for Blue Whispers and Blue Aethers.
• +Core skills are trainable to level 7 in Vulcan for Heated Metals.
• +Core skills are trainable to level 9 in Mira for Paxian Medallions.
• +Core skills expect for Piloting are trainable to level 12 in Jungle for Jungle Powercores.

• Sol layout has been adjusted as follows:
• +Increased the planets orbit distance around the sun.
• +Increased size of planets.
• +Dramatically increased size of Earthforce Headquarters, Earth Central, Sai’s Retreat stations.
• +Moved Enforcer station to orbit Mars instead of the Earth.
• +Increased the illumination of the Sun to compensate for the increase of orbits.

• +Locked LACS 1894 (Jungle Entrance) to Warp 1.

• +Added an AC trade in Beta Antares to upgrade Capital Lasers to Capital Armageddon Lasers.

• +Converted most weapon BPs for sale in the Lyceum class bases to the AC system.

[System]

• Created a “Create a Support Ticket” menu icon to allow for an instant link to submitting a ticket.

• Added commas to energy and shield bank numbers in their tooltips.

• Fixed Storage tab not being immediately visible on first logging into the game in your TSL base.

• Moved TSL tooltips to be positioned to the side, like they are with the trade bay.