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

No More Chaotic Rolls

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

With the update, that feature is gone.

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

Simplifying the Mod Cap

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

We’re changing that by making the following adjustments:

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

• Uncommon and above can have up to 8 mods.

Mod Removal

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

This option has been reworked.

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

Free Rerolls

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

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

No More Duplicate Roll Types

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

With Neuroforge 2.0, this should almost never happen.

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

Scaling with Quality

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

This means that, for a Tech 22 item:

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

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

• Rare: no change to Secondary mods.

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

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

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

A Cleaner Forging Experience

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

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

Depositing Influence

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

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

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

Surge Behavior

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

New Rules

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

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

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

Note

The Anatolian Expanse and associated Emperor Contest is a labor of love by us to support an active PvP event that breaks up the day to day activities in Star Sonata. We appreciate the many rounds of feedback the community has given about this experience. We are committed to continuing to support this activity and monitoring its success and failures. This blog post includes all information on the current system used to ascend to the throne to become Emperor, but like with many things in Star Sonata, it changes often. This system will likely be iterated into the future to bring an experience that promotes competition. You can stay up to date on what is involved in the contest to become Emperor by visiting our wiki page on the topic. https://www.starsonata.com/wiki/index.php/Emperor

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

Universe Changes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Game Rate Changes

Certain systems are changed are as follows:

• Equipped augmenter drop rates are increased by 500%

• Bindomite drops from dungeons are increased by 500%

• Experience rates are increased by 500%

• Colonies will tick 1000% faster

• Prospecting nodes provide 400% more resources

• All weekly lockouts are daily lockouts

• Cargo has a 10% chance to drop on death

Milestones

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

Wild Space Domination

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

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

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

Clearing the Universe of Opposition

The following bonuses are additive with each other:

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

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

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

Money is Up

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

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

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

Put em’ All Together

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

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

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

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

Individual and Team Goals

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

Individual Goals and Rewards

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

• Login to the Event server – Celebratory Zebucart Skin

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

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

Team Goals and Rewards

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

• Currently own Scorpius when the event ends – Cybernetic Hacker

• Currently own Paradise when the event ends – Zaphragi Flurry

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

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

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

 Wrapping Up

And that’s the bulk of the details

Some small things to note:

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

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

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

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

Announcement: 20th Anniversary Event

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

The Rundown

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shield Monkey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ranger

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

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

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

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

Berserker

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

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

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

Neuroforge Item Logic

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

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

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

The Emperor Contest has long been one of the most prestigious and contentious parts of Star Sonata, and this upcoming contest will continue this trend. With the next cycle fast approaching, we’re introducing a significant overhaul to how the contest works. Specifically how Fragmented Imperial Signets are obtained, how Influence is gained and lost, and when the contest comes to an End.

These changes are designed to add more depth, encourage active participation, and tighten the pacing of the contest.

If you want to understand the context of these changes, take a look at the previous Dev Diary.

Strands and Surges

Gone are the days of farming Strategos’ for Fragmented Imperial Signets. In the upcoming contest, we’re introducing Anatolian Surges. These will spawn enhanced versions of existing Hoplite and Ekdromoi, along with the return of a powerful mini-boss. These special AI will only spawn throughout the Anatolia layer when Strategos’ are active, creating dynamic and time-sensitive opportunities for teams to engage and earn Signet Fragments.

When defeated, Surge Spawner enemies drop a new item: the Imperial Strand. These strands must be delivered to Anatolian AI bases and traded in 1000 at a time to form Fragmented Imperial Signets.

To keep the intensity focused, Imperial Strands will only drop during the three-week contest period. Once that window closes, even if the contest enters a tiebreaker phase, no more strands will appear and no more surges will occur.

Escort the Influence

Gathering Influence no longer relies on an automatically deposited currency. Instead, it’s now an active objective. Influence now drops as 1 of 5 different Influence granting items from the AI in Anatolia. All Anatolian AI, except for those spawned in a Surge, will drop some of these special commodities.

Teams must recover and escort these items back to AI bases in Anatolia to successfully bank the influence and gain points for their team. This is the only way players can contribute toward their team’s standing in the Emperor Contest.

When a player holding these commodities dies, they drop as a physical item in space. Anyone can pick it up and ferry it to an Anatolian AI base to turn it in and gain Influence for their team. This change adds a new layer of tactical decision-making: Do you split up to bank influence as it comes in? Hold on to all of it and deposit it at once? Send someone to go intercept the enemy as they’re depositing Influence? That’s up to you.

Note: The amount of Influence a team can acquire from a Strategos and its minions is unchanged.

“The End”

In the event of a tie after the 21 day contest period, the only way to win has been to gain a 1 million point lead, regardless of how long it took. The process of getting that lead could theoretically drag on for weeks (or even longer), and we heard your feedback loud and clear. We understand that this uncertainty about how long the contest will last is not sustainable.

So, in the upcoming contest we’re introducing a decaying lead threshold. After the contest period ends, the required lead to win will shrink over time—until, after one week, even a single point lead will grant the top team the title. This ensures a definitive and timely conclusion while still rewarding consistent effort and tactical finesse.

We’re excited to see how these changes will shake up the contest and can’t wait to watch the new strategies unfold.

Note

The Anatolian Expanse and associated Emperor Contest is a labor of love by us to support an active PvP event that breaks up the day to day activities in Star Sonata. We appreciate the many rounds of feedback the community has given about this experience. We are committed to continuing to support this activity and monitoring its success and failures. This blog post includes all information on the current system used to ascend to the throne to become Emperor, but like with many things in Star Sonata, it changes often. This system will likely be iterated into the future to bring an experience that promotes competition. You can stay up to date on what is involved in the contest to become Emperor by visiting our wiki page on the topic. https://www.starsonata.com/wiki/index.php/Emperor

NOTE: If you haven’t read the previous blog posts, Neuroforge Update: Forging Items and Neuroforge Update: Gunner & Ranger, you might want to check them out before reading this one.

In our final blog post, we’re going to talk about a variety of notable changes that we plan on rolling out with the Neuroforge. These changes focus on addressing various class and system level issues we think keep the game in a stagnant place. Some of these things are nerfs, but some of them are buffs. Let’s break down what you can expect.

Evolving Critical Hit Mechanics

The current meta favors driving critical hit chance to 100% and then stacking critical hit strength, leading to a skewed optimal stat prioritization for DPS builds. We aim to broaden the optimal stat distribution, encouraging a more diverse set of builds by changing how critical scaling works.

Critical Hit Chance is the only DPS stat that has a ceiling. While driving up your Damage, Rate of Fire, and Critical Hit Strength always improves your overall DPS, the same isn’t true for Critical Hit Chance since you can’t benefit from more than 100% chance (adjusted for the target’s Critical Hit Resistance). The practical consequence of this situation is that as player’s stat budget grows with tech and item quality, they quickly run up against the ceiling of Critical Hit Chance; therefore, the meta for dealing weapon damage is to max out your Critical Hit Chance and then invest in Critical Hit Strength, which is available in greater amounts than Damage but gives the same benefit when paired with guaranteed Critical Hits.

We want to promote greater build diversity but we are greatly constrained by the reality of this meta. It has kept us from adding new sources of Critical Hit Chance since that would only worsen the situation, driving folks even harder into Critical Hit Strength. With this update, we have come up with a way to gradually shift the relative value of the DPS stats, with the eventual goal of normalizing the value of Critical Hit Chance and Strength when compared to Damage.

We’re going to accomplish this by granting a ramping bonus to Critical Hit Resistance to higher tech ships. Starting at tech 22, all ships and drones have 25% more Critical Hit Resistance than they used to. For every tech level above that, we add another 25%. The upshot is that the ceiling of Critical Hit Chance will rise by 25% with each new tech level, gradually reducing the pressure to invest a large proportion of your setup’s stats into the critical hit bonuses. Importantly, AI will receive these resistances as well.

As you can see in this table, as you go up in Tech the Critical Hit Resistance of ships and drones increases. This will reduce your DPS by the amount listed. These numbers assume a static 100% Critical Hit Chance, but higher Critical Hit Chance values will bring you back to a 0% reduction.

What you can see here is that as we increase the highest available tech level of content, the optimal stat spread for offensive stats will shift. This is because players will actually have a need for much higher levels of Critical Hit Chance in order to fully maximize their Critical Hit Strength in higher tech content. Going forward, we will be releasing Augmenters and Items with higher amounts of Critical Hit Chance, so players can expect to see bigger bonuses to that stat on Tech 24 and above content.

Reimagining Seer

Seer is simultaneously a very powerful alpha strike/execution class that is incredibly binary — if the player used all of their tools and mechanics without being interrupted they would often overkill a target, but if anything went wrong or their damage was blocked the vast majority of its damage bonuses were negated.

We think Seer needs to be much more consistent, so we are firmly cementing its role as an executioner with a steady damage output that ramps up as their targets get closer to death. Backstabbing and Ambushing have been adjusted, and we have added some new mechanics that offer comparable or greater damage than the Nanite.

For context, the Hidden Nanite Infusion Device once activated keeps track of all damage the Seer does to that target over a 7 second duration. After 7 seconds, it deals 175% of the damage stored. The problem with the Nanite is that it is a big chunk at the end, which makes it very easy to over kill something all in one go … or to have your entire damage bonus completely mitigated with a blocker. It is very binary, and that’s the part we’re focusing on.

So, here’s what we’ve done:

• Seer now does 100% bonus damage to targets that are under half shields, receiving a fraction of this bonus against healthier targets.
• Backstabs and Ambushes will now grant a 30% damage bonus for 5 seconds.
• We have replaced the Nanite Device and the Psionic Jammers with the Seer Remodulator, which guarantees a critical hit every 2 seconds.
• Wraith now grants the Seer 35% Critical Hit Strength against targets below 50% shields.
• Brooding Gaze makes beams ethereal against backstabbed or ambushed targets.

We took away stealth and radar, and we are aware that this can affect a Seer’s ability to avoid damage. We have made the following adjustments with an eye towards increasing a Seers ability to survive.

• We added 25% more Range
• We added Shield Recovery to Recon Focus
• We reduced Weight by 30%
• Seer’s Warp Devices charge 2x as fast
• Clairvoyant gives a 25% Resistance to Damage bonus when struck from behind
• Assassin allows the Seer to equip another Warp Device

In addition, all sources of flat visibility that an enemy can apply to you have been changed to increase your visibility by a % instead.

Recon Focus now includes an extra hull expansion by default. The Expansionist Advanced Class Subskill further boosts this by granting an additional weapon slot and doubling cargo capacity.

Speed Demon

First, we’re happy with how Speed Demon plays in the majority of situations. We think the class is a great example of a good class. There are some things that we thought we could do better, and that’s what the focus of these updates are.

The Rate of Fire cap is a tough thing to work around as a Speed Demon. The class gets a lot of Rate of Fire bonuses, and we have always wanted Speed Demon to be interested in fast firing weapons. This has been a significant limitation in buildcraft for Speed Demon over the years and we want to address that. Another observation is that Beams and Magcannons have remained meta weapons for this class, even as we have repeatedly improved Pulse Guns.

We’ve always wanted Speed Demon to make good use out of high damage projectiles, but because they inherit the velocity of the user they aren’t so easy to use while also dodging incoming fire. This has led to a preference for Beams and Magcannons among Speed Demons.

Here is what we’re doing. The Target Tracker will no longer provide a big damage boost at the cost of range, instead it will cause your projectile weapons to fire from your ship as if they were a full tracking beam weapon. This is going to allow you to keep moving while firing these weapons, opening up whole new weapon choices for the Speed Demon to use even while they are focusing on maneuvering.

In order to further encourage this, we have included a 25% Projectile Damage bonus in the base class. No more damage multiplier on the Target Tracker, but you get:

• Much better uptime with projectiles.
• You get a damage boost to projectiles.
• We have tuned the damage of the class to compensate for the loss of the damage boost on the Target Tracker.

With regards to the Rate of Fire cap, if you exceed it you will now gain the equivalent amount of damage in exchange for increased electricity consumption. This works out exactly as if there was no Rate of Fire cap, which has to remain in place for technical reasons.

And finally, you also get the Shield Recovery and Hull Expander bonuses from Recon Focus mentioned earlier in the Seer section.

This is a light touch to the class, we like where the class is (more or less) and we think what we have done here is give it a new coat of paint.

Berserker

Berserker is a very strong class and is very popular. We like how fun it is to play, and we decided to give it some fun mechanics while also implementing some targeted nerfs. We’re confident the class is going to remain very popular and effective.

• Berserker Classic will now additionally reduce the number of weapons you need to have in order to Multifire by 1. This means if you want to MF3 you are only required to have two of the same weapon equipped.
• For example, if you pick this skill your 3 equipped weapons will act as if they are 4. If you equip 4 weapons you will max out with an effective Multifiring 5.
• Impervious Armor now additionally reduces damage in a frontal arc by 30%. This means you take 70% of the damage.
• In exchange, we have shaved some of the Resistance to Damage bonus from Eye for an Eye and Impervious Armor. This is still a significant mitigation buff when taking damage in the frontal arc.
• So with regards to Lifesteal, only 10% of the damage done by On Hit effects or Parasites are eligible for Lifesteal. So instead of Lifestealing 25% of their damage, you will lifesteal 2.5% of their damage.
• The speed bonus on Berserkering Berserker was reduced from 30% to 10%.

Engineer

We haven’t changed our vision for this class at all, but we do recognize that the Neuroforge is not going to result in the same offensive power increase for Engineers who are looking to upgrade their gear with modifications.

In light of this, we have increased the non-transference damage bonus on Engineer Class 1. We recognize that it’s harder for Engineers to optimize the Critical Hit Chance of their drones than it is for other damage dealing classes to do so. We have also increased the number of Drones that Engineers can deploy from 6 to 7, since Droney will no longer grant an extra deployed Drone. Finally, as mentioned earlier, Drones now have Critical Hit Resistances as well.

We are also thinking about future updates to the Neuroforge that would give Engineers more interesting options when it comes to mods.

General Advanced Class Subskills

• Bot PhD
  • We have taken most of the bonuses from Combat Bot Tweaking and Bot PhD and given them to everyone. This means that combat bots get 50% of your skills, or 60% if you take Bot PhD. Bot tweaking doesn’t contribute to that stat anymore.
• Droney
  • We have taken the skill inheritance bonus off of this skill and given it to everyone, and instead of giving another deploy drone it gives +100% Tweaking to Drone Controllers for non Engineers. If you are an Engineer it gives 15% instead.
• Resilient
  • Now causes you and your possessions to take 20% less damage from indirect damage and on hit effects.
• Strategic Deployment
  • You and your possessions gain 50% speed out of combat.

Heat Weapons

It’s well known that Heat weapons are highly desirable in the meta. We realized very recently that one of the reasons for this is that they have unwarrantedly high damage per energy. The tools we set up were not properly increasing the energy cost of these weapons to account for the portion of the damage dealt by fires.

This required some nuance when we addressed the issue, because if we charged you upfront for the future damage of your fires it would not be fair. You cannot be sure if all those fires will do their damage before the target dies or before the situation changes.

Live values on the left, effective DPE is somewhere between .63 and 1.26. Test values on the right, the effective DPE is somewhere between .49 and .98.

It’s not fair to charge 100% of the energy costs for future damage, but we need to charge more than 0%.

We did some detailed analysis and came up with a formula to balance those extremes.

On Hit weapon effects

We have reduced the power of Area Effect Damage effects on certain weapons, and increased the power of Bounce/Chain/Splash/Spray effects on other weapons. These changes include DPS, DPE, and On Hit effect ranges. The intention is that these effects are situationally useful rather than Area Effect Damage being the only thing anyone uses most of the time.

Beam weapon sizes

We have normalized the sizes of Beams, which means longer range Beams are smaller. At the same time, we have increased the size of many short range Beams that had high DPS and low DPE. Beams like the Luminous Discrete Oscillator Cluster or Vazaha Caress are much bigger than they are on live. We want a weapons size to be aligned with high DPS, low DPE like it is for Projectile weapons. This also applies to Transference weapons.

Follow along with us

The Neuroforge update has a lot more going on than just the addition of the Neuroforge. We will have posted follow-up blogs to detail what is being changed with the Neuroforge update. We have opened up access to our test server for players to try out the systems we have designed before they go live. The changes on this server encapsulate all of what the Neuroforge has to offer so far. There are plenty of class changes and other fancy things to explore as well.

You will need a totally different client to connect to this server. You will need to connect to “Test Server” using the Delta Client. You can get this client at the follow link: https://www.starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_delta.exe

You can find the “Test Server” on the login screen by using the Server Drop down on the login screen end then selecting “Test Server.” For more information on how to use the test server or to provide your feedback, please use the Star Sonata community discord server.

Disclaimer: Anything on test servers are subject to change at any time and may not be representative of what will be seen when the live server is updated. The test server is subject to be shutdown, reset and restarted at any time.

NOTE: If you haven’t read the first blogpost, Neuroforge Update: Forging Items, you might want to check it out before reading this one.

We’re excited to unveil updates for the Gunner and Ranger classes as part of the Neuroforge overhaul. These changes focus on diversifying viable playstyles and refining mechanics to keep things fresh. These changes aim to add flexibility and new dynamics while staying true to the core identities of each class. Let’s break down what you can expect.

Ranger Rework

The Ranger class still retains its long-range stealth playstyle but now offers more flexibility. Compared to Sniper it has less range and tracking, is no longer a glass cannon, and replaced the Sniper Analyzer with a Ranger Scope for faster and chunkier damage buildup.

The core distinction between Sniper and Ranger is that Sniper had much greater stealth, range, and tracking bonuses. Sniper was all about maximizing range, with a high-damage mechanic that benefits from focusing down a target over a 2 minute and longer time scale. But this came with limitations: it was slow to ramp up damage, being near useless in short-duration fights, and depended exclusively on range and stealth for survival. Ranger brings down these extremes, making it less reliant on its fragile glass-cannon nature, allowing for more diverse strategies. The fine tuning we’ve been doing in the closed beta has been aimed towards making sure Ranger can still perform in the old long range stealthy style, while making sure that the playstyle is not the de facto way to play Ranger going forwards. We expect that what we’ve accomplished here is a class that can be played in a greater variety of styles, including the old glass cannon Sniper style. Maybe someone will come up with an offtank Ranger, or a non stealthy duelist focusing on grinding tough enemies down head to head.

Damage Ramping

One of the key new mechanics is the Ranger Scope, which works similarly to the Sniper Analyzer but ramps up much faster, in 25 seconds rather than 2 minutes. Marking a target by landing an Empowered Shot, automatically available every 5 seconds, builds up stacks on the target. These marks echo every other preexisting marks damage each time they are applied, letting you amplify your damage against a target without forcing you to tunnel vision the target.

Unlike the Sniper Analyzer which forces you to focus on a single target, Ranger can spread marks across multiple enemies. Marks decay slowly on a per target basis, allowing you to stack damage across multiple targets without fear of losing your damage bonus. By ramping up the Ranger’s damage on a per target basis, we allow the Ranger to freely choose its targets based on what they consider the highest priority to be. At the same time, Marks are not applied to extra targets via On Hit weapon effects. This means that Splash/Chain/etc will not apply a mark, nor does the extra damage done to the main target from the Marks echoes apply to extra targets damaged via on hit weapon effects either.

As you can see, the new system is really chunky. Your damage ramps up, but it ramps up in a ratcheted way. We have to be really careful to prevent excessive variance. We don’t want too much variance because it will be unsatisfactory to the player if they want a critical hit but don’t get one, and a player on the receiving end will feel really bad if they get hit with a lucky empowered critical hit. When we have such chunky damage already baked into the class, we don’t want the added variance of criticals. Because of this, Empowered Shots get a multiplier from the average critical damage bonus calculated from your Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Strength and are not allowed to critically hit.

Damage Mitigation

Sniper doesn’t have much mitigation on the live server. While they do get shields from Combat Focus and stealth/range from Stalking and Sharpshooting to stay away from damage, they’re not mobile and don’t have much of an ability to react to incoming damage or avoid it. They have to rely on range and stealth to bring their full damage to bear, and in a squad setting they often aren’t allowed to make good use of their range and stealth. We don’t think the class has good mitigation, and we think this gets in the way of the class performing consistently. We’ve addressed this by introducing two key mechanics: a mobility aura and Grit. The mobility aura activates when your speed drops to 0, giving you a brief boost to Thrust and Speed to reposition or retreat when needed. This ensures that even an unagile Ranger has the ability to reposition quickly, without feeling like you’re playing a Recon Focus class.

More significant is the addition of Grit, which stores a portion of incoming damage as a parasite that deals that damage over the next 30 seconds. This gives Rangers more time to mitigate or avoid incoming damage, and killing the enemy that caused the damage instantly removes the stored Grit. With Survivalist, an advanced subskill, you can increase Grit accumulation based on the marks you’ve applied, further enhancing survivability. Grit adds a new mitigation layer for survival. By spreading damage over time, you get more opportunities to eliminate threats before receiving their full damage. This system synergizes well with Shield Regeneration, making Rangers highly durable while offering different combat roles, from stealth sniper to brawler… which is why we’ve also added Shield Regeneration to the skill! However, this effect only works when you’re piloting a heavy fighter.

Heavy Fighter? Light Fighter?

Speaking of Heavy Fighter, when you’re flying one your overloaders are twice as powerful! This gives you additional build flexibility, so if you really want a long range build you can select an overloader that grants range to specialize in it. The same skill that gives the player access to Grit also gives 30% Shield Recharge and Damage in a Heavy Fighter. With Grit being so core to Heavy Fighter, we should see more players preferring to use a hull befitting a Combat Focus. With these changes, some may still opt for a Light Fighter. However, that will be a choice made with some risky defensive drawbacks and a loss of a damage bonus. We’re really excited to see what players do with this, and people will find ways to use it that we haven’t even thought about.

NOTE: We have tuned the numbers so that the stealthy Sniper playstyle can still exist, while also encouraging other playstyles to evolve.

Gunner Enhancements

Gunner is a class that relies heavily on stacking weapon damage to maximize the various Advanced Targeting Computers it has, allowing it to copy its high single target damage and spread it to multiple other targets at very high ranges. You also have access to missiles, but they are difficult to land in chaotic fights. Because of this, Gunner feels like a one-dimensional class. There is one meta way to play it, and that is as a long range multi target artillery piece. Our goal is to diversify its viable builds and emphasize Gunner’s role as a Fleet Focus class, capable of significantly enhancing squad damage output.

Shifting the Meta

Gunner has traditionally been about pushing weapon damage bonuses for massive Deathblossom output, but we’re moving towards a more dynamic set of mechanics with the removal of the Deathblossom and the introduction of the Targeting Computer. This allows Gunners to fire fewer but more consistent shots (with no firing arc limitations if they are projectiles), ensuring that every shot hits something even in chaotic battlefields. This means the Targeting Computer will always fire all of its extra shots, even if there’s only a single target nearby.

With our current numbers, this means that the Targeting computer is doing double damage against a single target. This makes the Targeting Computer better against small numbers of enemies in the Neuroforge update. Each shot can also propagate on-hit weapon effects! And, finally, they can even be equipped on bots for even more mayhem! Gunner’s new Fracture mechanic emphasizes its role as a fleet multiplier. When a Gunner damages an enemy with its weapons, they apply fractures to the target. Allies can then hit those targets to receive a 100% damage boost, effectively doubling squad DPS as long as the Gunner generates enough fractures. For every 100 damage the Gunner deals, allies can benefit from 700 additional fracture damage. This mechanic is crucial for fleet combat, making the Gunner an essential part of maximizing a squad’s firepower.

• Example 1: Lets say the Gunner is doing 100k DPS, and their ally does 200k DPS. The Gunner is injecting 700k fractures per second, and their ally will consume 200k of them to double their DPS. Overall, the Gunner and its ally will not be dealing 300k DPS, but will instead do 500k DPS.

• Example 2: Lets say the Gunner is doing 100k DPS, but it has a bunch of allies and its allies do 1.5mil DPS in total. The Gunner is only generating 700k worth of Fractures per second, and the squad is using all of them and cashing in the full 700k. There aren’t enough around for all of their damage to get doubled, so the squads damage is increased by 700k and the total outgoing DPS is 2.3mil as a result of the Gunner.

As you can see, depending on the Gunner’s weapon DPS, and the total DPS of their allies the fracture mechanic will have a variable multiplier on the squads total DPS but that multiplier will generally be significant and the more the Gunner invests in their weapon DPS the greater their contribution. Even better, the more Gunners you have the more fractures they create!

Expanding Playstyles

Even in solo play, this mechanic still works—fractures boost the damage of your bots, missiles, and fighters. The Mass Destruction skill amplifies this further by significantly increasing the amount of fractures your missiles and fighters can exploit. This system offers more depth for Gunners, as they must now consider balancing their own damage output against their allies’ in order to maximize their influence on the battlefield. Missiles have seen an update in terms of launch patterns, timings, and mechanics. They are more reliable when it comes to their maneuverability, are unaffected by collision code, missiles solely meant to do damage fire in a salvo, missile stats now scale off of quality level, and they benefit from a bonus to missile damage specific to the Gunner class.

We’ve also removed the Multifiring bonus, but have given a significant increase in damage to compensate, since the Gunners bots are also getting the ability to multi-target. We have also reduced Range and Tracking bonuses since Targeting Computers have less restrictions. This streamlines combat while ensuring Gunner still packs a punch in both fleet and solo scenarios.

Summary

These updates to Ranger and Gunner are meant to create room for deeper, more dynamic playstyles. From Ranger’s faster damage ramping and mitigation to Gunner’s fleet-centric fracture system and the Targeting Computer, these changes are designed to keep both solo and squad-based gameplay exciting. We’re eager to see how players adapt to these new mechanics!

Follow along with us

The Neuroforge update will have a lot more going on than just the addition of the Neuroforge. We will be posting follow-up blogs to detail what is being changed with the Neuroforge update. In the meantime, we are opening up access to our test server for players to try out the systems we have designed before they go live. The changes on this server encapsulate all of what the Neuroforge has to offer so far. There are plenty of class changes and other fancy things to explore as well. You will need a totally different client to connect to this server. You will need to connect to “Test Server” using the Delta Client. You can get this client at the follow link: https://www.starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_delta.exe You can find the “Test Server” on the login screen by using the Server Drop down on the login screen end then selecting “Test Server.” For more information on how to use the test server or to provide your feedback, please use the Star Sonata community discord server.

Disclaimer: Anything on test servers are subject to change at any time and may not be representative of what will be seen when the live server is updated. The test server is subject to be shutdown, reset and restarted at any time.

Item modifications have been an integral part of every pilot’s journey for the majority of Star Sonata’s life. The “Bindomite roulette” is something many of you are all too familiar with. We have been hinting at (and even writing full posts about) a new vision for item modifications for a very long time. After a concerted development push and a lot of help from the Paxian Disciples, we’re finally ready to announce the details of this project. Here is a breakdown of what you can expect from the finalized Modifications revamp, which is planned for release next month.

High Level: Neuroforging

The biggest feature of this revamp is the introduction of enhanced modifications via Neuroforging. Neuroforging allows you to take an item that is already neurobound and improve a single modification on that item. This is done by taking an unmodified copy of the same item and spending it to neuroenhance your chosen piece of gear. This opens up the brand new Neuroforging menu.

The Neuroforging menu gives you 3 semi-random options to pick from every time you neuroenhance an item. The first thing that may catch your eye are the pink modifications at the top of each selection, coupled with a +15 in the case of Forceful in the first option. This is an enhanced modification and is one of the key features of the modification revamp. Upon completing your first enhancement on a piece of gear, one of your modifications on that item will be enhanced.

Mid Level: Enhanced modifications

Let’s get a bit more detailed about enhanced modifications.

• Neuroforging is a process that can be done multiple times, but you can only ever have one enhanced modification at a time.

• Enhanced modifications are coupled with an enhancement level. This tracks how much extra power above a basic version of the modification is being provided.

• Some modifications get special benefits for being enhanced. These special benefits do not scale up their bonus with enhancement level.

• Not all modifications are eligible to be enhanced.

• Enhancement level has a cap, it’s not infinite!

• The higher quality the item, the better it can become. Enhancement Cap and Total modification count scale with item quality.

Keep Rolling

So the basic flow of enhancing and modifying your gear is as follows: You neurobind a piece of gear. You grab another copy of that gear, and consume it to start neuroforging. Even though the item’s enhancement level has a cap, you can neuroforging an item an infinite number of times. This can do things like swap your enhanced modification, and add or swap “secondary” modifications in addition to its normal purpose of increasing your enhancement level. However, the middle option will always increase the bonus of your currently enhanced modification and not change anything else about the item. You could call it a “safe” roll.

What do I do with all of these items?

If you were a heavy user of the current modification system, then you likely have storage ships full of Bindomite-bound gear lying around. One aspect of this modification system is that all of those items are eligible to be used for neuroforging. Neurobound items can be used in forging, but the item must first have all modifications stripped from the item. We have implemented a system that allows any Bindomite-bound item to have all modifications stripped by using another Bindomite. You are allowed to either re-roll the item for a new set of modifications or use it as fodder for neuroforging.

Follow along with us

The Neuroforge update will have a lot more going on than just the addition of the Neuroforge. We will be posting follow-up blogs to detail what is being changed with the Neuroforge update. In the meantime, we are opening up access to our test server for players to try out the systems we have designed before they go live. The changes on this server encapsulate all of what the Neuroforge has to offer so far. There are plenty of class changes and other fancy things to explore as well.

You will need a totally different client to connect to this server. You will need to connect to “Test Server” using the Delta Client. You can get this client at the follow link: https://www.starsonata.com/dl/StarSonata_2_delta.exe

You can find the “Test Server” on the login screen by using the Server Drop down on the login screen end then selecting “Test Server.” For more information on how to use the test server or to provide your feedback, please use the Star Sonata community discord server.

Disclaimer: Anything on test servers are subject to change at any time and may not be representative of what will be seen when the live server is updated. The test server is subject to be shutdown, reset and restarted at any time.

We have made another batch of adjustments to the recurring mid universe contest to take the Imperial Throne. If you want to understand the context of these changes, take a look at the previous Dev Diary. The latest suite of changes are a result of closely monitoring the outcome of our previous set of changes over the past couple of contests. In this blog, we will describe what is different in the new system!

Arena Size

Every galaxy within the expanse has had the size of its arena significantly reduced from 24,000 to 15,000. The asteroid belt encircling every galaxy now forces everything back towards the center using a friction cloud. This allows for plenty of room for large fights, but it also shuts down the tactic of dragging Midas’ champions to the outermost portions of the galaxy.

Strategos

Midas no longer sends Polemarchos or Taxiarhos to maintain order in his domain. Now, he will send 6 Strategos champions as a display of his might. These champions announce their presence globally, and spawn 5 times a day. As players fight them, they will spawn strong minions worth a good deal of Influence who also drop a generous amount of Anatolian Crests. While calling forth their minions, they will hunker down and become immune to damage while simultaneously slowing to a crawl. After 25 minutes, all of his champions will despawn. If they are not killed before they despawn, no Influence will be awarded.

Each Strategos is worth 30,000 Influence, and the minions they spawn are worth more than 30,000 in total. This means that every 24 hours there is more than 1,800,000 Influence available from Strategos alone.

Claiming the Throne

Influence is what is used to determine which team will be crowned Emperor. 30 days after a new universe is formed, killing soldiers inside the Anatolian Expanse provides any teams that took part in killing any given soldier with Influence.

At the start of the contest, there is an Influence cap of 1,000,000. No team is able to gain more influence than the cap, and the cap increases over time to 4,000,000 by the end of the 3 week period. If the 1st place team does not have 1,000,000 or greater Influence than the 2nd place team, the Influence cap is removed and the contest continues until a team has 1,000,000 more Influence than the 2nd place team.

Any team in the #1 spot loses Influence when a Player, Bot or Temporary Drone on their team is killed in Anatolia. Player deaths cause 5000 Influence to be lost, Bot deaths cause 1000 to be lost, and Temporary Drone destruction causes 200 to be lost.

Imperial Signets and Imperial Skills

All three stations in Anatolia now allow players to train the Imperial Seal skills up to level 7, at the cost of 2 Imperial Signets each. Imperial Signets are crafted with an Imperial Restoration Forge, which can be rarely acquired from defeating Strategos. In order to craft an Imperial Signet, teams will need to acquire Fragmented Imperial Signets which are earned through participation in the contest for the Imperial Throne. Once teams have accrued at least 100,000 Influence, they are eligible to earn a portion of the 2000 Imperial Signets available to all. These Imperial Signets are split based on the amount of Influence a team has in relation to the total amount of Influence in the pool.

For example, if a team has 100,000 Influence and the total amount of Influence earned by all teams is 9,000,000 then that team is eligible to earn roughly 22 Fragmented Imperial Signets. The team that claims the Imperial Throne is not guaranteed any Fragmented Imperial Signets, their proportion of Fragmented Imperial Signets is based on the exact same rules as everyone else. This means that their total Influence is the only thing that determines the amount of Fragmented Imperial Signets they earn.

These exact same rules also apply to the 250 Imperial Seals awarded at the end of the contest.

Note

The Anatolian Expanse and associated Emperor Contest is a labor of love by us to support an active PvP event that breaks up the day to day activities in Star Sonata. We appreciate the many rounds of feedback the community has given about this experience. We are committed to continuing to support this activity and monitoring its success and failures. This blog post includes all information on the current system used to ascend to the throne to become Emperor, but like with many things in Star Sonata, it changes often. This system will likely be iterated into the future to bring an experience that promotes competition. You can stay up to date on what is involved in the contest to become Emperor by visiting our wiki page on the topic. https://www.starsonata.com/wiki/index.php/Emperor