Hello Sonatians! We have two exciting new projects that will go live with the upcoming Universe Reset on February 3. While these two projects are very different in the specifics, they stem from one core vision that we have for Star Sonata: we want to give players fresh and exciting ways to collaborate and compete with each other as they progress through the game. So let’s dive right in!

Active Industrial Commodities

Industrial Commodities have been in the game for ages and were originally envisioned as a way for players to liquidate extracted resources for credits, providing a simpler passive income process to the somewhat arcane art of colonial administration. Over time, the Industrial Commodity economy has become increasingly automated and saturated to the point that it’s not living up to the vision that originally created it. We’ve decided to graft an active-play component onto the existing Industrial Commodity system that, while entirely optional, may yield a lucrative credits-per-hour rate for players who choose to pursue it.

Vision

We’ve known for quite some time now that we need to do a better job of rewarding players for going out into the universe and playing the game with each other. Our previous changes to Dungeons and Instanced Content are an example of our commitment to this. This project focuses on augmenting the Wild Space economy to promote these goals, relying on two main principles:

1. New sources of passive income should have a connection to active gameplay.

2. Players should be substantially rewarded for participating in the player-driven market as opposed to running their industries entirely solo.

A huge difference between the existing Industrial Commodity economy and the new system we’ve created is the reduction* of demand-side scarcity. When players are limited in the amount of commodities they can sell, this encourages them to keep everything in-house and discourages player markets. If a credit source can dry up when too many players are selling, the best thing to do is to max it out on your own and not share it with anyone. As you read the details of the Active IC project below, note that we’ve reduced* demand bottlenecks to encourage a player market to develop.

Per our core vision for this project, the raw goods that feed into the Active IC system have to be gathered via a substantial active play component. This ensures a linkage between credit generation and player activity, which in turn means that everyone has something profitable to do the minute they log into the game.

Three-Sector Model

Taken together, these goals drive us toward establishing a three-sector game economy (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-sector_model for more on this). In the first sector, Gatherers collect raw materials while playing the game. In the second sector, these raw materials are refined by Manufacturers. In the third sector, the refined goods are sold to AI bases (or colonies) by Traders for credits.

Note that Gathering requires active play, while Manufacturing requires bases and trade bots (passive play). Trading will require active play for some commodities, and passive play for others. This means that players with holdings in Wild Space are free to Gather and Trade as well. However, it will be impractical for any one player to specialize into Gathering, Manufacturing, and Trading. This means that avoiding participating in the broader market is disincentivized and players should instead find it more profitable to do business with each other.

Wild Space Resource Flow

There are two types of commodities that will be added in this upcoming universe.

The first are actively-sourced Industrial Commodities (Active ICs). These take a single commodity that can be gathered in the game (such as a Blue Dust or Rosemary Sprig) and combine it with basic materials to produce an Active IC (a Fragrant Arrangement in this case). Each new Active IC can then be sold to special AI bases that will only buy it when an event is active and indicating it can be sold. The factories that make these commodities can be purchased in Capella. So, if you’re looking for a new way to build wealth in the game, you can spend some time farming commodities and converting them into Active ICs, which you can then hold and sell during the new events or else sell them to other players who will have their own uses for them (read on…)

The other new kind of commodity are the Colony Industrial Commodities (Colony ICs). These commodities require ordinary colony commodities (such as Astral Silk or Dragon Eggs) to be purchased from colonies and then combined with a variety of Active ICs and regular ICs. The resulting Colony ICs (​​Shimmering Astral Brocades or Luminescent Dragon Scales, in this case) can be sold to certain special colonies that are on planets capable of purchasing Colony ICs. There are only a limited number of these special planets in Wild Space, and they are only found in galaxies whose quality is Rare or higher. The factories that make Colony ICs are constructed with a blueprint that can only be acquired as a drop from Perilous Space. These factories require Goop to build, so you will need to secure some Goop from a Fractured Galaxy if you are lucky enough to claim a colony that can purchase Colony ICs.

While Colony ICs require colonies in order to passively liquidate assets for credits, these colonies can’t earn anything for their owners unless they also obtain Active ICs as well. Similarly, while Active IC factories and the raw materials from Wild Space are the only way to manufacture higher quality Active ICs, they can only do so if they connect with Gatherers. And in all cases, we have set up these new economies with limited* demand-side scarcity. Suppose you’re a player who is lucky enough to own a colony that purchases Shimmering Astral Brocades; since your fully mature colony will purchase a very large number of these items*, you have every incentive to buy Astral Silk from everyone in the universe who can provide it… at the right price, of course! You’ll also buy the Active ICs that go into making Shimmering Astral Brocades, creating multiple market relationships between yourself and Gatherers and Manufacturers.

What’s the role of the Gatherer?

The Gatherer wants to figure out what they can farm the easiest for the highest profit per hour. So they’re going to search the Market Check to see which station is buying the commodities they can gather with the least amount of effort. Then, they’re going to gather as much of these commodities as they can and sell them to the highest bidder before they end their session. Additionally, highly active Gatherers may also keep a keen eye out for the new kind of server-wide event in which a randomly selected Active IC will be purchased by an AI base at a generous price.

What’s the role of the Manufacturer?

The Manufacturer puts money and capital up on a base, buys the materials from other players, and subsequently sells them at a markup to players who bring them to the relevant AI bases during the sale event. Otherwise, the Manufacturer can hoard them and try to sell the materials themselves. Manufacturers who control colonies with commodities such as Astral Silk and Dragon Eggs will likely find that these items are now demanded by other players!

What’s the role of the Trader?

The Trader spends time looking to get good deals on various Active ICs, so they’ll be checking the prices to see how things look. They’ll also watch for cheap farmed commodities that can be sold to Manufacturers. If a surge in demand happens, they will take whatever they have stockpiled and haul them to the station with the demand surge. If they are selling one of the three Common Active ICs, they can safely offload them in Earthforce Space. However, if they want to sell the higher quality Active ICs, they will need to venture into Perilous Space. Because of this, they may need to enlist the help of other players to defend them while they bring the commodities to the base in question so that they can safely sell their goods.

What are Surges in Demand?

Intermittently, throughout the week, certain Active IC’s will be infinitely demanded by specific AI bases in Earthforce or Perilous Space, at a generous price. The Active IC will be specifically indicated in an event notification. During this time, players can sell as much of these commodities as they can move at a time to these AI bases.

Conclusion

By implementing a three-sector economy in Star Sonata, we’re creating new ways to generate credits through active play, deeper manufacturing paths to wealth, and most importantly, the potential for greatly increased interaction in the player-driven market. The Active IC and Colony IC system should create many new opportunities to collaborate with others in the economy, and just as many opportunities for healthy competition as well!

*Edit from Enk (2024-02-13): I helped Hober write the section on Active IC’s but I must have had a bit too much of Doctor L’s Cure-All Life Tonic at the time because I mistakenly wrote that there is absolutely no demand-side scarcity of Colony IC’s. I have edited the offending lines in this post to be more representative of the system. If you happen to control a colony that purchases Colony IC’s, what you need to know is that you definitely should grow that colony’s population up to mature levels in order to see large sales volumes, but if you do so you will find that it buys a TON of the relevant Colony IC, most likely far greater than you and a few friends could source on your own.

Fractured Galaxies

Fractured Galaxies are special galaxies in Wild Space that can’t be owned by any team. Consequently, they are pretty risky to occupy since you can be attacked by any player at any time. We envision Fractured Galaxies as a way for advanced players to flex their strength and potentially work off some ancient grudges against their opponents. As our first universe with Fractured Galaxies draws to a close, we’ve reflected on the  feedback we’ve received and have some adjustments queued up that should greatly improve how they work. Players generally found that Goop, the special commodity you obtain in Fractured Galaxies, wasn’t useful enough to warrant the risk of obtaining it. We are addressing this concern by making Goop essential in the Colony IC system (detailed above) and will continue to iterate until its value is in the right spot. We also received feedback that assaulting a Fractured Galaxy was nigh on impossible when the defender was heavily fortified. To allow for more contest over these Goop sources, a new station kit is going to be added in the coming universe.

Given that we’ve had some enjoyable battles over Command and Control stations, this new station is going to follow a similar gameplay loop. If you would like to disrupt someone’s stations in an unowned galaxy to make attacking them easier, you would place a Disrupt and Dismantle Station station in their galaxy. You would then have to construct one of two Station Disruption Field Generators on that station to begin disrupting all stations in the galaxy. This includes all friendly, neutral and enemy stations except for the station generating the disruption field.

These auras debuff damage, rate of fire, and shield regeneration of all other stations in the galaxy but differ in build time and strength of the debuff. The stronger aura generator takes about as long to build as a Nullification Generator. This is where we see an experience similar to a Command and Control station. If you get a notification that a Disruption station is placed in your galaxy, you’d better get in there and destroy the attackers’ station or pretty soon they’ll make your stations in the galaxy much more vulnerable to siege!

If you are looking to lay siege to someone else’s Fractured Galaxy, be aware that these Station Disruption Field Generators are not cheap. Fortunately their build costs are primarily periodic materials and are aligned with materials generally used for building strong stations. If you get a third of the way into building one and defending the disruption station isn’t going well, it may be wise to abandon ship and cut your losses on that build!

Additional Changes

To help make the process of getting colonies established, and to promote their broader use, the Colony Booster base items (e.g. Mobile Mani-Pedi SalonBot Housing) will no longer decay on reset. Instead they will be sticky, meaning once equipped they cannot be unequipped. Now you can store as many of these boosters as you’d like!