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