This week’s update is going to detail some general changes coming with the class rebalance. They include two new augmenter stats and a new client animation to go along with one of them. Keep reading to find out more.

As I mentioned earlier, we’re adding two new augmenter stats; the first of these is Transference Resistance. Transference resistance added by the new augmenter stat is handled in the same way transference resistance added by the Resistance augmenter stat is — that is to say it only affects positive transference damage (from an AI that uses transference damage weapons or an outgoing heal). Right now there is only a specific usage of this stat in mind, but it may make its way onto augs or gear sometime down the line.

The second new augmenter stat is one that I think is a lot more exciting; Evasion. The evasion augmenter stat gives the user a chance to dodge damage; that is the damage source will pass right through their ship without hitting them and potentially hit something behind them.

In order to keep this stat from becoming too powerful a ships evasion will scale based on the damage source.

• For projectiles evasion will scale based on the speed of the evading ship relative to the speed of the projectile. So the faster the projectile and the slower the evading ship, the lower the chance to evade.
• For laser beams evasion will scale based on the evading ships distance from the shooter. The closer the evading ship, the less likely to evade.
• For warheads evasion is ignored. That means to escape missile damage you need to kill the missile or fly away from it.

Evasion also has one other condition and that is the evading ship needs to have an equipped engine to evade. That means no evasion on your Thatches, sorry! Evasion is applicable on all lasers and projectiles fired normally. It also is applied to projectiles and lasers created by splash, chain, ricochet, spray and chain bullet weapon effects. Evasion is not applied to AoE or Warhead weapon effects.

With the mechanics out of the way, I am sure people are going to ask something along the lines of “How do I know a shot has been evaded and it’s not just lag?”. This is handled in two ways. First, the evader and the evadee will get a damage pop up reading “Miss”. The pop up will only display if you have damage pop-ups enabled. Secondly, the ship evading will do a barrel roll.

Barrel rolling will only be enabled for players who play using the perspective camera mode.

That’s it for this week’s update. As always, feel free to post your comments, suggestions and questions in the discussion topic! Until next week.

Yclepticon here with a surprise post about a new facet of the class rebalance.  Some of the older players may remember when we first put in class skills past level 20.  This was largely well received as it allowed endgame players to get a bit more hull, speed, and DPS out of their setups.  However, it was noted at the time that some classes made out a lot better than others with that addition.  For example, Sniper got about 7% more DPS while Berserker and Gunner got little to none (since 5% more Multifiring doesn’t do anything).  Here is how we are going to fix that problem.

First: class subskills will now only train up to level 20, and players who still have them higher than that will no longer receive the extra bonuses.  But don’t stop reading!

Second: each class now receives four new advanced subskills.  You can train one advanced subskill each time you level up your main class skill past 20.  So players with Berserker 21 can choose one advanced subskill, and then another one once they get Berserker 22.  And yes, the main class and focus skills will now go up to 22.  In addition to the four advanced subskills of your class, you will also have access to around ten subskills that are available to everyone.

Now some of you are probably thinking, “why should I trade in all three of my level 21 subskills for a single skill?”  The answer is self-evident when you see what the new skills are like.  So without further ado, let’s see some numbers!

Say you’re a Speed Demon with level 21 in all the subskills.  When we scale back Speedy Movement to level 20, you’ll lose a small amount of speed (about 1.4%).  That’s like unequipping a tech 4 sleek item–not that big a deal–but suppose you really want that extra edge in PvP.  You may be interested in the following advanced subskill:

Master Scout: +10% Speed, +25% Radar, -50% Scanner Energy Cost

That’s right, you’ll get a full 10% Speed increase, multiplicative with all your other skills and gear.  On top of that, you’ll pick up some extra Radar to find those pesky Snipers and Seers, and using an ENIAC Omega will suddenly be a lot easier as well (if you can fit it!)

Now suppose you have a Berserker with level 21 in all the subskills, which currently gives you some small bonuses to Resistance (2.4%), Damage (1%), and Hull Space (based on equipped weapons).  First of all, the Hull Space bonus is now moved completely over to the main Berserker class, so your hull won’t change even after subskills are scaled back to level 20.  But suppose you really want that extra Damage.  You may be interested in picking up:

Berserker Classic: +200% Multifiring, -30% Rate of Fire

If you don’t fancy carrying so many weapons around, there’s another new Berserker skill that also boosts DPS… but I’ll leave that for another day.

Finally, let’s say you have an Engineer with level 21 subskills.  One thing you can’t currently get from any skill is the ability to charge your equipped drones faster.  That’s changing now with:

Electrical Engineer: Equipped drones charge 10% faster

There are a few other new ways to improve your drone-juggling skills but I’ll leave those for a later day as well.

* Changed the client random number generation to use a greatly optimised version for performance increase on some os (windows 8 used especially should see a performance increase by about 10%, wine user by nearly 25% (depending on the kernel) and windows 7 used by about 5%. (depending on the scenario)

* client side code to handle connecting using an encrypted user/pass beta client 266.* will still send both encrypted and uncrypted connection message in parallel, to remain compatible with old and new server. Once version 267 roll in, support for uncrypted login will be dropped from the client.

* fixed 2 crash fixes from dmp files sent.

If you do not have the beta client and wish to install it. It can be downloaded from starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_beta.exe. The installation is separated from the live client, and it is recommended you keep the live client at hand reach, in case beta client update break it for you.

This week’s update is going to focus on some new items that will be released with the Class Rebalance. More specifically, a set of three new super items that will be available for Berserker.

The first item available to Berserkers will be the Engagement Device. This super item comes in tech 5 and 17 varieties. By overcharging the engines and focusing an energy shield at the front of the ship, it grants the Berserker vastly increased speed and thrust, as well as immunity to knockback and critical hits — allowing them to boldly charge into the fray. The result of the massive shift of energy when the overcharge ends results in spatial concussion pulling all nearby enemies in closer! This will function as an engagement or escape item giving Berserker some needed mobility as well as a nice way to quickly establish spawn control.

The second item is the Shield Redistribution Device. This super item is available at techs 9 and 20. This device harmonizes the Berserker’s shielding systems with that of their weapons allowing them to transfer some of the damage dealt back to the Berserker in the form of shields. This effect unfortunately will cause the Berserker’s ship to become immune to other forms of shield transfer, so it will be best used in situations where one doesn’t need to rely on a Shield Monkey! This device should give Berserker’s a little bit of self-regeneration, making solo endeavors a bit more manageable for them.

Finally Berserkers will be able to obtain the Reactive Hull Explosion. This device is available at techs 13 and 22. Unlike normal super items, which can only charge via energy, the Reactive Hull Explosion can use incoming damage to charge up. This means as the Berserker takes more damage, the device will be able to be used with a higher frequency. When fully charged, the device increases the hostility of the Berserker and releases a spray of energy plasma around the ship followed by a concussion knocking all nearby enemies away. This device should give Berserkers a nice tool to help establish and keep better spawn control.

That’s it for this week’s update, I’ll be back again next week for another update! Hopefully everyone has enjoyed a look at what we have in store for Berserkers. Question and comments, as always, can be directed to the forums!

* new ingame news system
* multiple small performance improvements for some low end hardware. (15% improvement in ideal scenario, 2-5% is more likely for most people)
* many client crash fixed
* rendering issue with the target ring fixed
* targetring will no long spin crazily when you are on top of your target.
* added the beta version indicator. If the current beta is identical to live client it will also be indicated.
* added support for livetest / test new server version (both in client code and assets).
* New context menu for the Possession tab of the Character dialog. (functional only on test/livetest)

If you do not have the beta client and wish to install it. It can be downloaded from starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_beta.exe. The installation is separated from the live client, and it is recommended you keep the live client at hand reach, in case beta client update break it for you.

This is a brief demo of the incoming new item “Large Shield Battery” which is a tech 22 Shield Monkey only class super item.

The Large Shield Battery charges up primarily using shields. It takes 60,000 shields to charge up over 100 seconds, in addition to 1000 energy. That’s 600 shields and 10 energy per second if it’s able to charge at full rate. This is the first item created that charges gradually using up shields in this manner.

Upon activation, the Large Shield Battery instantly gives the owner back all 60,000 shields, as well as a group charge that gives all nearby allies within 1000 distance a tweak of +750 shields per second for 15 seconds.

There is also an entry level tech 13 version of this item that charges up 20,000 shields over 60 seconds and gives nearby allies +500 shields per second for 10 seconds.

Also for your amusement, me struggling against a gigantic ambush in Perilous Space on the test server.  Note that I put shield batteries on my slaves, too!

Welcome to my first weekly post of the new year! In this week’s post I’ll be primarily discussing some upcoming additions to the client UI that I think most players will be extremely excited about.

What I’ve been working on is a UI addition; specifically, a right click context menu for the Possessions tab of the Character dialog. This new menu contains remote slave commands that can be used on slaves in other galaxies. It currently has five options, but it was coded in a way that it’s easily expandable, so if the feature is popular and people want more, we can do that. The current options on this menu are as follows.

• Release Slave – this was the button option that is currently in the Possessions tab. Selecting the option will allow you to permanently get rid of a slave — don’t worry, it still has the confirmation dialog so we can avoid accidents.
• Leave Stasis – this is exactly like the X-Key menu option with the added benefit that you can issue the command from another galaxy.
• Follow Me – this is also exactly like the X-Key menu option and again, it can be issued from another galaxy.
• Open Inventory – this was adapted from a little known feature of the Possessions tab — if you double click on one of your possessions it will open the inventory. I put it in the menu as well so people know it’s there (the double click command isn’t very intuitive).
• Repair Ship – this will allow you to repair your slaves on the fly, provided you can pay the credit cost needed. That’s right, no more docking to repair. Slaves being repaired must be out of stasis before the command is valid.

These new options are meant to make it possible to manage slaves when you get them stuck in hairy situations while keeping the master safe; for example getting slaves out of a galaxy like Iq’ Bana while safely sitting outside or getting your slaves to return if they get lost. They won’t in any way replace the X menu that everyone is so used to using on for slaves in the same galaxy. Also, the Repair Ship command I created for the Possessions context menu has been added to the X menu as well — as a quicker way to repair slaves on the fly without tracing through menus.

So that’s it for this week’s update. As always, questions, comments and suggestions can be posted in the forums!

Happy New Years, Star Sonatans!  2013 was a pretty good year for us, and I hope 2014 will be even better.

Within the game, 2013 saw the new Subspace Assault Expansion, with a large new area, alien invasions, and tech 22.  We added prospecting, Bindomite, TSL, and transwarping.  We restructured Olympus, and improved the galaxy map.  We continued to improve the Nexus, and rearranged and improved a lot of the low to mid level content and missions.  We’ve continued to optimize and improve both the client and server and increased both the speed and reliability of both.

We did a huge revamp on the website, which now looks and functions way better than the old one, and is much more tightly integrated.  We did massive upgrades on the billing system, and improved the whole Space Point system.  We added the suggestion list, where we can propose new features that either we come up with or the players propose on the suggestion forum, and players can vote on them to let us know where out priorities should be.

We’ve recently updated the suggestion list so that it will better track what is currently under development and what has been completed.  As you can see, the solo wave-based challenges are underway, as are the class based super items that will be the rewards for those instances.  Both are coming along really well, especially the super-item rewards that we’ve been working very hard on to help make Star Sonata a little bit more action oriented and increase the cool abilities available to players.  These will be major improvements to the game that you guys should see in the early part of 2014.

Completed, and waiting for client and server patches are new extensive high score tables and improved in-game news that will bring all the lasted developer blog posts to the in-game log in screen.

The other major project we are making great progress on is a big class rebalance spearheaded by yclepticon and s_m_w.  There have been lots and lots of discussions, maths, and testing going on, and these class balance changes are already in large part on the test server.  This is going to give more active and interesting roles to every class and improve the game for everyone across the board.

After the class balance and class super items go in, we plan another big round of suggestions and suggestion voting to help determine the major improvements to bring you during the rest of 2014.

We love working on Star Sonata and constantly improving it.  Thank you to everyone who plays Star Sonata who make all of this possible.

It’s that time of the month for a monthly event! Since the new year is right around the corner, we’re gonna extend the event to the 31st! This month we have +75% experience and +25% augmenter drop chance!

It started on December 27th at 12:01am EST and it will end on December 31st (Tuesday) at around 12:30pm EST!

Enjoy!

EDIT: Surprise! We’re extending it through the 2nd at 12:30pm EST! Happy New Year!

This is a very brief look at two more new superitems that are arriving with the class rebalance, both for Snipers.

The first is the Flak Device and is available at tech 5 and 17. This device fires a volley of exploding projectiles and fills the surrounding space with flying shrapnel hitting all nearby enemies.

The second, the Sniper Ricochet Device is available at tech 9 and 20. This devices fires a fast moving physical projectile that can bounce between targets up to five times; quickly dealing with smaller enemies or ricocheting between larger ones to deal significant damage.

Both of these devices will give Snipers a bit more AoE utility which is something they’re currently lacking. As always, questions, comments and feedback can be directed to the forums!