Star Sonata 2 News

More details here.

• The contest itself lasts 3 weeks (21 days) now.
• Added the following login notification for Emperor Contest:
  • Winner announcement for the first week after contest ends.
  • Notification before the contest is about to start.
  • Notification before the contest is about to end.

• Fixing bug with state of the colony toggle not saving. (You will need to update and correct and be fixed going forward).
• Right clicking galaxy hotlinks will now search and center on the Map.
• Right clicking item hotlinks will now /mc the items.
• Added tech level column to ship inventories.
• Fixed issue with Kalthi Deployer skins with the attached pipes not being attached.
• Fix for thruster particles despawning in weird order. Especially noticeable on longer engine trails.

• Prospecting and DNA Extraction Beams have had their electricity costs aligned with normal tractors. This has resulted in an increased requirement for Prospecting Tractors and a reduced requirement for DNA Extraction Beams.

• Fixed the resist profiles and stats of Dark Diablo's Inferno and Dark Kobaldstein's Inferno.
• Reduced Cyborg Battleship and  Cyborg Cruiser damage dramatically.
• Fixed issue with Matriarch Auora's Formation Nullifier Platform's yellow pulses that were incorrectly tracking.

• Removed the module requirements for the uncommon Empyrean ships. They only require Empyreal Core to make the exchange now.

• Added a check to prevent demolition kits to be used on abandoned kit inside another team territory.
• Added a team wide message when an ownership kit become abandoned due to the owner subscription lapsing.
• Added a content guide entry for Microwarpers and Translocators.
• Ship upgrade items now match the Quality of the upgraded ship.
• Superitem that charge on impact now consider the real damage, and not the damage before resists.

• Fix for scoop loop scooping a ton of drones instead of the 1 per press (unless targeted).
• Fixed the wiki page link for the Transwarp content guide entry.
• Fixed misleading description on the storehouse bonuses for colony booster items (the value is a multiplier, but it said "increases".).
• Fixed issue for beam damage on diffuser not taking durability damage when hit by a beam.

Good evening Sonatians. The contest to take the Emperor’s Throne has gone through a few iterations over the past few years, from a game of “escort the payload” to the battleground oriented fights we have seen more recently. We have carefully monitored the experience of the Emperor mechanic since its inception and plan to continue iterating on the design as we learn more about player patterns and preferences.. In this blog, we will describe every aspect of the current system! It will be detail oriented and should answer any questions you may have about how engaging with it works.
[h2]The Anatolian Expanse[/h2]

First, let’s talk about the Anatolian Expanse. The Anatolian Expanse is a layer of space found by traveling to Anatolia (which can be found off of Earthforce Perilous Outpost), then heading past King Midas into his domain. Here you can find Midas’ soldiers waiting to engage whoever comes to challenge them. The soldiers come in a few forms: Midas’ mining crew, his foot soldiers and his champions. All of these soldiers drop Anatolian Crests, a currency that can be used to get rewards for participating in the Anatolian Expanse and provide your team influence. I will elaborate on that later.

This layer has a few other rules that make it a PvP battleground. You cannot transwarp in or out of this layer. You must go in through one of the entrances, and there are no other ways out. Logging out of this layer will also cause you to be kicked out of the layer, which means no hiding large fleets logged out in deep space. Every galaxy within the expanse also has a set arena size. There is a 24,000 radius asteroid belt in every galaxy, and each galaxy emits a deadly aura past that point! This allows for plenty of room for large fights, while also preventing some extreme cases of kiting Midas’ Champions. (The early fights in the expanse took place tens of thousands of distance away from the center of the galaxy)


[h2]Midas’ Soldiers[/h2]

Midas’ miners and foot soldiers aren’t too interesting. They will fight anyone that engages them, but they don’t give much influence. However, they are a good source of Anatolia Crests. You can find them at all times in the expanse, but compared to the champions they are significantly weaker.

Midas’ champions are where his might is truly on display. They are capable of fending off entire squads of players. They also provide large numbers of Anatolian Crests and a large amount of influence. These champions come in three different ranks that drastically increase in strength and rewards. There can only be one of each champion in the Expanse at a time, and they spawn on timers that can be seen in notifications next to the chat. If you do not see a notification there when you log in regarding these bosses, they are either already alive or not respawning soon. The ranks and champions are as follows:

• The lowest rank champion, Taxiarhos, is worth 30,000 Influence.
• In the middle is Strategos at 180,000 influence.
• And, finally, the strongest and most legendary champion is Polemarchos worth 900,000 influence.

[h2]Anatolian Crests[/h2]

Anatolian Crests are one of the two things that are obtained by defeating Midas’ soldiers. Their concept is relatively simple: you kill soldiers, they drop crests. Gather lots of crests and take them to any of the AI bases in the Anatolian Expanse to turn them in for lots of wonderful rewards! Be careful, if you are killed while transporting these crests you will drop them to whoever killed you! These PvP items have a few other attributes that go along with them.
 

• Crests drop on death.
• Crests drop when you leave the layer. This can happen due to logout kick or just warping out.
• Crests prevent undocking while they are in your inventory. You will have to sell them back to the base for credits if you are unable to get other rewards for them.
• Crests stick around longer than other debris.
• They provide visibility to a ship that holds them.

With 100 crests you can purchase an Anatolian Trove. These are loot boxes that contain a bunch of very useful items, including a low chance at a Tarnished  Imperial Seal! Crests and troves can be obtained before, during, and after the Throne is claimed, so come on in and fight for some crests!


 
[h2]Claiming the Throne[/h2]

As mentioned before, killing Midas’ soldiers provides influence to the killers team for killing them. Influence is what is used to determine which team will be crowned Emperor. However, you cannot just go and get influence in the Anatolian Expanse at any point in the universe. The Emperor’s contest is a timed event. At exactly 720 hours (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. This influence is provided proportionally based on how much damage each team did to the soldier. 20% of a soldier’s influence is also provided to the team that landed the killing blow on a soldier. At any given moment you can see the total amount of influence a team has by looking at the bulletin board in any AI station.

 

The contest itself lasts 3 weeks (21 days). When this time period ends, the leading team will be crowned Emperor, with a few conditions. After 3 weeks, if no teams are eligible to claim the throne, the contest continues until the moment a team becomes eligible. For a team to be eligible they must have at least 1,000,000 influence and they must also have a 900,000 point lead ahead of the team in second place. If a team is not crowned by the universe reset, all influence is wiped and an Emperor will not be crowned for that universe. Since the contest is a one time event, once an Emperor is crowned that Emperor will hold their throne for the rest of the universe.



[h2]The Contest’s Spoils[/h2]

The current rewards for the Emperor contest take 4 major forms. Three of which are only provided for the Emperor and their team:

1. A 5% tithe is applied to scooped credits and colony sales to players not on the Emperor's team.
2. The Emperor can dock at the palace in Anatolia and receive three augmenter reset modules and three ship dry dock modules
3. A galaxy in wild space will forever be named after the Emperor.

Additionally, there is another reward that is distributed amongst the top 10 participating teams who have  accrued at least 100,000 influence. A pool of 250 Imperial Chests are proportionally provided to these eligible teams based on their teams percentage of the total influence earned by all teams. The greatest amount of these will always be provided to the winning team, but there’s still chests to be earned by whoever can snag a spot in the top ten!


 
[h2]Round up[/h2]

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

 

 

• Fractured Galaxies
  
• 
  New Termite System. Each galaxy has its own termite mound spawn rate which has a default rate of 1 spawn per 3 weeks (plus a bit of RNG). The termite mound spawn rate is adjusted according to the following rules:
  
  1. 
     The galaxy's spawn rate will be doubled if any of the following events occurs during an infestation: the galaxy becomes unowned, any station enters destroyed or abandoned state during the scout phase (i.e. before full termite waves are being sent), or on at least two occasions a station enters destroyed or abandoned state after the scout stage is concluded.
     
  2. 
     The galaxy's spawn rate will be increased by 50% if by the end of the infestation, a station entered a destroyed or abandoned state on exactly one occasion and it was after the scout stage was concluded.
     
  3. 
     The galaxy's spawn rate is reduced by 33% (but not below the default rate) if an entire infestation concludes without any of the events listed above.
     
• 
  Command & Control Station Kits now start with an hour of buffer time instead of 30 minutes before the galaxy will unown without feeding it additional fusions.
  
• 
  While the End of the Universe is active (last 7 days of universe) ownership within Wild Space can no longer be lost.
  
• 
  Dorado has increased T0 commodities counts. Silver and Platinum can now also be found there.
  

 

• 
  PvP Zone galaxies (no turning off safety lock required / no PvP level limits) will now be displayed with a crossed swords icon on the map.
  
• 
  Holding the scoop button (or using shift-c) will now only scoop a single drone without interrupting the scooping of other items (so that you will still be able to scoop debris without stopping and restarting scoop).
  
• 
  You can now use scoop lock (shift+c) or hold c and then target individual drones to scoop multiple in one scooping session.
  
• 
  Shift-c now locks the scoop for 30 seconds regardless of client focus.
  
• 
  The Character tab now receives an update on placement of a station or a drone without needing to refresh the tab.
  
• 
  Updated colony UI for toggle station colony trading.
  
• 
  Changed toggle station colony trading to be any character with management privileges.
  
• 
  Sound should no longer be able to play the same effect multiple times in a single frame, each individual sound file is now limited to playing at most once per 50ms.
  
• 
  /avoid galname command now works when used from /savecommands.
  

• 
  Station Mastery now give stations 3% range bonus per level.
  
• 
  Gunner's Destruction skill now says ".per level". instead of ".ber level"..
  
• 
  Extraction Expert now states "station hull space" instead of "station cargo space". This was done to reduce confusion with the Cargo system.
  
• 
  Updated Piracy skill description to clarify it increases the rate of dropped goods on some AI and increases the drop rate of equipped Augmenters.
  

• 
  Adjusted global balance values for self damage
  
  • 
    Most self damage weapons now have near the same or lower self damage. A few exceptions.
    
• 
  Holding Scoops now give -resists instead of -shield max.
  
• 
  Drake's scoop now gives -5% resists instead of -15% shield max.
  
• 
  Reduced Gladiator Scoop from 300 range to 275 range.
  
• 
  Renamed Dark Goblin Augmenter to Dark Gyre Augmenter.
  
• 
  Renamed Dark Goblin Laser to Dark Gyre Laser.
  
• 
  Renamed Dark Hobgolin to Dark Ignis.
  
• 
  Highway drone, Advanced Highway Drone, Motorway Drone, Autobahn Drone had their stats increased for much higher survivability.
  
• 
  Microwarpers can now stack when unequipped.
  
• 
  Red Pill and Ammo Crates are now properly marked as Exotic
  
• 
  Red Loop Pill now gives -40% (from -25%) Recoil for 10 seconds, prevents you from using items the user for the duration, and increases Turning and Thrust by a % instead of giving a Constant.
  
• 
  Updated the description of Red Glow Pill - Red Block Pill now gives -92.5% (from -90%) Vulnerability to All, and prevents you from firing weapons and using items the user for the duration.
  
• 
  Fixed shrimp missile supers to shoot 1 missile per use and cut cooldown/energy cost in half, from 2 missiles per use.
  
• 
  Can now only equip one type of Untangler (Gravometric Disruptor) at a time.
  
• 
  Ownership Kit can no longer be deployed in non-owneable galaxies.
  

• 
  Fixed the issue with Vazi’s not firing their missiles.
  

• 
  Infernal Tempest and Darkness:
  
  • 
    Goblins have been removed and replaced.
    
  • 
    Added tons of new visuals for mobs and bosses.
    
  • 
    Added new exotic loot to Infernal Darkness bosses.
    

• 
  New KD DG Bosses and loot.
  
• 
  Added additional Halloween Roaming AI.
  
• 
  Arctia Changes:
  
  • 
    Increased the drop rate of Rime Drones and Rime Shields from Rime Shards.
    
  • 
    Added a Rime Drone drop to Lord Borean.
    
• 
  Slightly adjusted how the spiral is generated in Earthforce Space to add more low DF gals and reduce DF 300 by roughly 50%.
  
• 
  Subspace Sas changes:
  
  • 
    Increased the time it takes for Subspace Aveksaka to evolve.
    
  • 
    AI will despawn and be reborn to ensure there's a good distribution of hull types at all times.
    
• 
  Earthforce Permanent Drones will properly name themselves Judge and Jury with universe reset instead of Pillbox.
  
• 
  Added despawn timer for Scruples spawned from asteroids in Hyper.
  
• 
  Infernos will drop Infernal Faction Access Card instead of Goblins.
  
• 
  Cyborg Cruiser and Cyborg Battleships were greatly buffed and their unique loot drop rates increased.
  
• 
  Fixed the costs of Adamanturized Patrol, Adamanturized Racer Augmenter, and Adamanturized Monkey Augmenter's Trade Bay exchange costs to reflect that of the blueprints and costs of other augs.
  

• 
  F2P accounts are now restricted to 4 active connections per network.
  
• 
  Added several new gremlin effects that disable weapons, items, and the ability to thrust.
  
• 
  Added a privacy period to wild space galaxies during the first 4 hours when the first station is deployed that prevents all map updates in-game unless inside of the galaxy (IE. /f will no longer provide raw information from the map).
  
• 
  Event chat now lists the character's current number of drone slots after placing a Permanent Drone.
  
• 
  Unequipping Station Expansions when it will overhull will now state the amount you can unequip without causing issues in the error.
  
• 
  Ship hull scanners now start with the type of ship you've scanned in event chat.
  
• 
  Show Squad Damage will now organize Damage and Heals by Drone type again instead of each individual drone name.
  
• 
  Cargoed item weight is now capped at 1,000,000 or half of the item's weight, whichever is smaller. Previously it was just 1,000,000.
  
• 
  Can no longer do /limbo or use limbo item while some ships are already in limbo state.
  
• 
  Targeting computer should now stop firing when a ship is overhulled.
  
• 
  Spawner tracker messages should now show up as a red message in event chat instead of the standard gray, making it easier to spot.
  
• 
  Scooped credits now only show up in the event tab as a single combined line once no credits are scooped for 5 seconds. This should greatly reduce event chat spam.
  
• 
  The PvP zone warning message should only show if you were not previously in a PvP zone galaxy.
  
• 
  Boss AI now clear parasites/fire when they reset.
  
• 
  Chain weapon on hit effect is now ethereal.
  
• 
  Updated various Player Station errors from "base” to "station”.
  

• 
  Fixed an issue with shield stealing that applied resistances/vulnerabilities twice to the target.
  
• 
  Fixed a bug that allowed you to be able to overheal yourself when stealing.
  
• 
  Added a check to calculate colony prices on the first frame after server load, to avoid an issue where a bunch of prices are at 0 until the first colony tick.
  
• 
  Rations being eaten by a station while your ship(s) are docked inventory will now refresh the inventory.
  
• 
  Fixed spelling issue with ".proportionally". on diffusers.
  
• 
  Equipping multiple spawner trackers at the same time will no longer cause a spam of events messages.
  
• 
  Fixed a bug that caused the first limbo to decay universe reset items improperly.
  
• 
  Fixed a bug with Control and Resist skills not passing to stats bots correctly.
  
• 
  Ships that have a top speed of 0 no longer can have speed from augmods, tweaks or auras affect them.
  
• 
  Superitems will no longer get stuck if one of their steps returns an error.
  
• 
  Fixed Space Urchin level being tied to Subspace invasions like the Aveksaka in Perilous Space.
  
• 
  Fix for drones that are part of the uni save loading with a seemingly random team (Blue Photon warp beacon is one such example).
  
• 
  Fixed Blue Emperor mission saying to come back in five days when the lockout is only a day.
  
• 
  Fix for bots not following the player inside a public instance if the player is not in a squad or team.
  
• 
  AI and bots will properly re-enable their cloak if they have one equipped after a server restart.
  

[h2][/h2]

[h2]Emperor Contest: Now a Time Based Event[/h2]
Hey Sonatians! We've made a few adjustments to the Emperor Contest, (see https://www.starsonata.com/blog/dev-diary-emperor-system-wild-space-and-aug-sourcing/ and https://www.starsonata.com/blog/dev-diary-anatolian-expanse/), but we aren't done with making adjustments to the system quite yet.

In the next universe, the Emperor Contest will last three weeks and the team with the most points at the end of that time will be crowned the emperor. As previously stated, the rewards will be split among the remaining teams proportionally based on the amount of influence they gained.



We hope this variant of the system is more enjoyable for everyone. It should remove the feeling of having to sprint to claim the throne as fast as possible before others get a chance to join the fray. As with previous adjustments, we will continue monitoring player feedback closely and keep an eye out for additional areas of improvement.

Something else to note is that the number of non-boss spawns has increased. We expect this will play a large role during the next contest because many more points are available per day through the roaming AI. This should move the contest away from being as boss-focused as it once was.



[h2]Fractured Galaxies[/h2]
Now for the big news. In the next universe, there will be new galaxies in Wild Space called Fractured Galaxies. These are galaxies that have all the properties and resources of standard galaxies but with two major differences. They cannot be owned, and brand-new resources can be found on some of the moons. This resource can be used to increase the productivity of other Wild Space galaxies' extraction. More on that later in the post.

You will be able to find these fractured galaxies on your universe map by either seeing their unique name (which does not follow the normal naming scheme of Wild Space galaxies) or by seeing a sword icon on the map. They are unownable and therefore permit PvP at all times. This means that any bases there are vulnerable to attack for the entire universe. Of course, there must be something valuable in these fractured galaxies to justify the danger. Fractured galaxies have a brand new resource to harvest and you will not be able to find this resource anywhere else in the game.



To keep things simple on initial release, we'll be just adding one new resource: Goop! Using a factory purchased from the Building Academy Entrance, you can turn Goop into Goop Juice. Goop Juice has an entirely new property, unlike any other item. If you place it on a Command and Control Center station, when the base consumes Fusion Cells to own the galaxy, it will also consume Goop Juice. This will cause the entire galaxy's stations to have their extraction rates boosted by 25%. We may consider other galaxy boosters in the future, but this is what we are going to be working with for now.
Both the raw resource (Goop) and the galaxy booster (Goop Juice) follow the rules of industrial commodities. They cannot be transwarped or put in storage and they decay on universe reset and drop on death. To extract Goop, you can purchase an extractor from Building Academy Entrance Galaxy. Also note that these extractors do NOT benefit from Extraction Expert! Feel free to use your strongest bases to extract Goop.



We have heard your cries to bring some wildness back to Wild Space. We hope these Fractured Galaxies add a bit more chaos, uncertainty and spiciness to our current Wild Space ecosystem!

[h2]Station Mastery Changes[/h2]
We've been monitoring the weapon range of bases very closely since the Wild Space reworks of last year. While some players have called for us to revert the base weapon range changes entirely, we're going to try a more surgical change that will strengthen bases overall and make combat in fractured galaxies less player-favored. Characters that have the station mastery skill will impart a 3% range boost per level to all bases owned by that character. At this time, there will be no changes to the weapons or augmenters. We feel that a surgical change like this will positively influence some metas when it comes to claiming galaxies, fighting termites, or battling for these fractured galaxies.



We haven't seen much base combat out in the universe recently, but in case you may have forgotten, a new system has been applied to bases' resistance to damage. Bases take decreased damage when the enemy shooting at the base is farthest away. This coupled with nearly doubling Station Mastery base range should make well-geared bases much harder to pop with long-range player ships.