This weeks update focuses on some changes coming to the alien invasions, some new skill availability, a quick transwarp update and another brand new item that will be making its way to the game soon.

It’s been a rocky first universe for Alien Invasions, there is no denying that. Difficulty has varied wildly and we’ve not been able to find a good balance. Hopefully, this weeks patch will get us a little closer. There are two major changes to the invasion mechanics coming. Firstly, attacks will not be localized to a single galaxy. This means during the 3 hour attack window the layer will be swarmed, something many of you have told me you miss. Secondly, alien bases are getting stronger. In addition to extra shields and damage, they have been given a few new abilities when they level up — mainly in the form of some dangerous new fighters. The miniboss AI you fight in instances have been adapted to work as fighter AI which will be launched by the improved bases. This should definitely increase their difficulty as they cannot be killed while they have other aliens in the galaxy.

I have a few more transwarp details as well. Transwarps will require you to explore the galaxy with the beacon before you are allowed to warp to them. Also, you will not be allowed to use transwarp devices inside instances. These are necessary restrictions and will help keep people on equal footing during universe resets as well. For instance, a player with a transwarp would have a better chance of getting Biologique than one without if they could instantly warp to someplace like Iq’ Bana. It also keeps everyone on an equal footing when it comes to exploration, which is something we keep track of.

As part of the class rebalance, we have decided that moving forward, we are going to add new levels of Remote Control — but with the following caveat. New levels of Remote Control will be locked to your piloting level, minus two. That means you will be required to have Piloting 21 for Remote Control 19 and Piloting 22 for Remote Control 20. The new levels will be available from T21 and T22 content. Expect to see this sometime in the near future.

As for the new item. Again, a screenshot of the tooltip for the announcement!

The Deathblossom device is a special type of Gunner item that will enable them to quickly and efficiently take out large groups of smaller enemies. When equipped it increases their damage output significantly as well as starts firing the weapon currently in use at nearby additional targets. Nearby targets are randomly selected from those that are enemies, in range, visible, etc. The number of targets and energy costs is determined by the item. Here is a brief demonstration.

As you can see in the video, I cleared Rumble 2 extremely fast and with minimal effort, and in testing I could clear Rumble 3 with similar results. Overall, this item is meant to give Gunners a bit of extra firepower they can leverage in situations where there is spawn to clear (and I am sure there are a few alien galaxies where this item would be amazing).

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed yet another look at what’s been going on behind the scenes with me this past week. As always, comments are appreciated! Sound off in the forums if you have an opinion!

EFNN NEWS BULLETIN

Subspace has been stirred…

Defenders have reported a dangerous increase in hostile alien activity! Could this hostility be a feint to hide an even more nefarious plot? It is according to the Lyceum! A report recently released by top researchers claims the aliens are destabilizing the anomalies scattered throughout their sectors. This report further theorizes that should this activity be left unchecked, our universe will see increasing levels of gravimetric flux! Although graviton theory is still in its infancy, preliminary research has led the team of Lyceum researchers to believe these forces could shred the very fabric of space-time! It seems the Aveksaka have ‘gone nuclear’. Let’s hope our brave soldiers can stop them in time!

Chaz Manly, EFNN

—–

The Universe is at it’s end. The current universe will end on:

October 19, 2013 at 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time.

All ships will carry over, but permanent assets such as bases will not. For more information, check out this guide on Universe Resets.

In an effort to improve our bug tracking and reporting we are moving away from using the support ticket system for bugs that do not involve exploits or losses.

For more information please check out the bug forum post. Tickets that are not exploitable and do not involve losses will be automatically responded to and closed. Thank you for your understanding through this transition.

This weeks post details my last weeks work including some more details on Transdimensional Warp Devices, some bug fixing and a few changes for the upcoming class rebalance.

Once again it’s Monday! I’ve had a pretty busy week and there is quite a bit to talk about! First, I am sure most people are wondering how they’ll be able to get their hands on a Transwarp device. Players will be able to get their first Transwarp, a tech 0 device, in the Nexus. After that, every five equipment levels a new device will be available in Beta Antares for a modest fee. These devices will be available to everyone and will offer the following jump locations; The Nexus, Sol, Lyceum, Free Market, Kumari, Iq’ Bana, The Mausoleum and The End of the Universe. Keep in mind, you might not be able to access all of these locations from everywhere as devices have a limited number of jumps.

If you are in a team and your team decides to build their own Warp Beacons, those beacons will also be available as destinations for the entry level devices. These beacons can be placed in Wild Space and Celestial Garden. Blueprints for them will also be found in Beta Antares.

If you use the ticket system, you may have noticed that I am now handling some support tickets. We also have recruited someone to make sure the bug forums get better developer attention. As such I’ve been doing quite a bit of bug-fixing — I’d give you a list but it would make this blog unreasonably long! Expect to see me squashing more bugs going forward.

If you have been following the Dev Notes forum, you should know we are planning on a class rebalance. Since my main character in game is a Gunner, I’ve taken on the coding changes required for Gunner. Apart from some minor skill changes, the biggest project I’ve taken on so far are additions to missiles and launchers.

In order to help reduce the clicky-button spam that Gunners have to do in order to do reasonable damage in combat, we are changing missiles so they fire in salvos. These will be determined by the missile and better missiles will fire stronger salvos. There have also been some launcher changes. Apart from enabling launchers to fire the salvo of missiles, launchers will be able to give the missiles they fire augmenter stats. This will allow us to create some extremely interesting options when it comes to gearing up your Gunner. This change also allows us to give all missiles a bit of extra speed and thrust, something I’m sure everyone would agree they’re lacking.

So, that’s this week’s look at what I’ve been up to. Feel free to post comments or questions in the magically generated discussion post!

All Forum Rules, Chat Rules, and Game rules along with the User Agreement have been moved to their own dedicated page for clarity and ease of access. By using the website you agree to the rules, and user agreement outlined on that page.

You can now access the rules & EULA in the game menu of the website or going straight to this page.

The User Agreement was not changed.

So in the old tried and true we’ve decided to do Double EXP before we start making our monthly events more exciting, and dare I say, more dangerous. So level those alts and get that experience!

This monthly event will start at 12:00am EST on Friday September 27th and end at 11:59pm on Sunday September 29th.

Well well, it’s getting to that time of year again. Before you know it you’ll be blasting open presents and beating up that Astro-Grinch for his goodies, and remembering the pain that is Spiked Egg Nog. But before all of that, is a very special day, a day of candies and costumes.

To lead up to this lovely occasion, which is obviously Halloween, we, the Dev Team would like to hear all your scary stories, the more terrifying the better! The best ones will be justly rewarded.

You have until October the 13th to submit your stories. Good luck. Please post your submissions here.

This weeks dev blog is looking at an extremely exciting new feature that will be headed to game soon.

Another Monday means another update from me filling everyone in on what I’ve been up to the past week. It’s been a pretty big week and I’ve been working on an exciting new feature that I am sure everyone will be looking forward to! Once again I’m going to let a screenshot do the talking.

We are finally working on adding teleport devices! Known as Transdimensional Warpers, these new items will allow players to teleport to distant galaxies based on a few factors. First, warping distance which is controlled by the device. If the warp requires more jumps than that, it’s a no go. Second, each Warp Device has a shield and positioning requirement. If you are not at full shields and far enough away from nearby solar bodies (suns, moons, planets), it’s also a no go. Finally, you may only warp to a special Warp Beacons. There will be some AI controlled warp beacons scattered around the universe in special places like Sol, Lyceum, Iq’ Bana, etc, but the real draw is in player controlled warp beacons.

Player controlled warp beacons come in two varieties. First, there are permanent beacons. These can be built and placed in any team owned territory. Once placed, they function as a warp destination for the player who placed it, his squad and his entire team and can be used by any class of warp device. Second, there are temporary warp beacons. These are beacons that have the same placement requirements as normal drones, with the exception that they are unable to be placed in instanced or owned galaxies. As with permanent beacons, they will act as destinations for for the player who placed it, their team and their squad. The difference is they can only act as destinations for specialized transwarp devices.

Fleet Commanders (and maybe Seers) will gain initial access to the specialized devices capable of warping to temporary beacons. Even more interesting  though is the other feature of a Fleet Commander Transwarp drive. These capital ship devices will allow a player to teleport an entire squad to any warp beacon. This means you could have a speedier player scout ahead to your instance entrance, place a temp. beacon and an FC could bring the entire squad there!

Finally, for those wondering, Transwarp Devices will bring slaves along for the ride. If you have any non-stasised slaves set to follow in the galaxy with you, they’ll jump as well.

This is a really big gameplay feature that I’m extremely excited about and I’d love to hear your feedback on it. I know there are going to be a lot of questions so sound off in the forums and let me know what you think!

Once again it’s Monday, so it’s time for a Calypso update! I’ve done quite a bit in the past week so here is a run down of the bigger things I’ve been working on.

First, I’ve been doing quite a bit of bug-fixing. The Nexus is working properly now (and with the new starting missions), and a bug allowing people to un-neurobind and un-mod items that were neurobound and modded using the new feature has been squashed. I’ve also been pretty busy taking care of a few bugs with Subspace and am pleased to report that AI from different leaves of the area will no longer roam where they are not supposed to (and subsequently murder their comrades). I’ve also managed to track down a bug with the alien invasion reinforcement timer which was keeping their numbers low. It’s been fixed and when it’s patched, the aliens will be back in much greater numbers.

Secondly, new features! I think one that people might find most exciting are Subspace Tunnels. Subspace Tunnels are similar to Juxtapositions and the Subspace layer will feature six of them. Each one contains a very powerful alien and I am considering locking the higher DF exit (the one that would take you to your instance), until the guardian is dead. Naturally the exit to the lower DF Hub galaxies would remain unlocked so you could get out if you needed to. In case you were wondering, normally a change like this would require a universe reset to go in — however, I have also worked on some back end admin features so I will be able to add in the Subspace Tunnels without a universe reset.

A lot less exciting, I’ve been doing quite a bit of testing on all of the mod changes I talked about last week. With expanding the mods available on some items, adding some new items, and letting entirely new classes of items get mods, there are quite a few code changes that needed testing to make sure all the new functionality is working as intended. For those who aren’t aware, we’ve added mods for tractors, shield chargers and hull extensions. I’ve also added two new mods, Reinforced (reduced durability damage) and Angelic (lowered visibility and hostility).

Finally, the Bindomite event! It’s coming to a close today and I hope everyone enjoyed the chance to stock up on the commodity. When we released the Neurobind and Mod feature we weren’t able to add in all the sources of Bindomite that we wanted — only Prospecting. Hopefully the event has alleviated some of the demand. Keep in mind that prospecting won’t be the only source. DG Bosses will be dropping it sometime in the near future as well.

So, that’s this week’s look at what I’ve been up to. As always, feel free to give me feedback and you’ll hear from me again next week!

While researching the strange properties of a newly discovered resource (and seeking a way to further monetize it) a team of researchers from the Universal Mining Corporation, the Blue Photon Manufacturing Corporation and the Lyceum has stumbled upon a frightening discovery!

When exposed to extremely rare radiation found only in the depths of Subspace, strange things happen to Bindomite. Individual crystals align and combine, eventually coalescing into larger sentient beings!

Unfortunately… they are hostile. Seizing the entirely radiation supply the creatures have multiplied. The research base where they first took form has been destroyed. They have escaped!

This weekend only (Sept. 13 to Sept. 15), help the research team destroy the crystal abominations. The reward? Bindomite!