Star Sonata is a game that has changed much over the past 12 years, including tons and tons of new content, both small and large in scope, and more are yet to come. But to avoid going off on tangents as I enjoy doing, let me skip straight to the actual topic of this blog post:
All content, new and old, relies on our balance sheets to be ‘balanced’. However, as the game evolves, the sheets need to be adjusted to better reflect how the perception of ‘balance’ has shifted. Sometimes, doing exactly that goes too far, while other times necessary changes are not done at all. Both extremes are unhealthy, as new additions to the game continue along the same flawed principles.
A big motivator of all these changes is to make less used weapon types viable. You should be able to pick a weapon that feels fun to use without sacrificing effectiveness. Currently, despite their shortcomings, the best weapons are so powerful that they are always worth using.
While it would be simple to give all underused weapons a buff, this is not practical. Many of these underused weapons, specifically Pulse Guns and Magcannons, are commonly used by AI. This is not the case for many of the weapons that are too powerful, which means that changing them would affect the game’s overall balance the least.
Changes to the most commonly used weapons will, of course, affect the relative difficulty of many AI. We are aware of that and have already adjusted a lot of them, often going as far as halving their effective shields.
In fact, a recent addition allows us to adjust the strength of individual AI much, much more easily, so keep that feedback coming and we’ll act on it!
Pulse Guns
Pulse Guns are the quintessential weapons of Star Sonata, but over time and over tech, they become lackluster compared to the alternatives.
There are two major issues:
Pulse Guns however get very, very big.
The changes:
All Pulse Guns are getting their size effectively halved.
Looking forward:
Pulse Guns are meant to be the default weapon. Reasonable DPS, reasonable DPE, reasonable skill requirement. As it stands, they are not.
The change to their size will hopefully make them more usable, but it is likely that more work is required. Ideas include increased projectile speed, or smart tracking (i.e. the projectiles are fired towards where a target is going, rather than straight).
The Thorax Conundrum
The ‘Thorax’ type weapons have been part of the game since the very beginning. Their principle is simple: High damage and high efficiency, in exchange for being very difficult to hit with.
Sometime before 2013, Torpedo (and therefore Thorax) behavior was changed:
Jumping forward, there are now additional factors to be considered:
All these little changes and synergies combined, a Thorax effectively became a “fire and forget” weapon. Their high damage and efficiency was no longer offset by being difficult to use.
And then, there’s also the fact that Thoraxes have not used a balance sheet since 2013. That issue is being rectified as well.
The changes:
Torpedo projectiles (and therefore Thoraxes) will no longer turn towards their targets during their spinning-up phase.
Torpedo projectiles will no longer get increased tracking distance from range bonuses. To compensate, their base tracking range was quadrupled.
There will also be some minor changes to their stats.
Looking forward:
While the changes to the mechanics of how Torpedoes work are significant, they should still be very effective low to medium range weapons in controlled environments (i.e. against stationary, large or controlled targets), but far harder to hit with at longer ranges.
Due to the unintended effects of Sniper projectile speed bonuses also increasing the effective tracking of thoraxes, Thoraxes will not currently get any projectile speed bonuses while we work on a satisfying solution.
All Thoraxes are effectively Torpedoes, but the actual Torpedoes have not been addressed. Many of them are lackluster. In fact, the AI base torpedoes (Torpedo, Torpedo I, Torpedo II) are objectively the worst weapons in the game!
As mentioned before, the balance sheet for Torpedoes and Thoraxes needs work, which will be my (s_m_w) next priority. Torpedoes are fun to use, but there are only a select few that are worth using. (And fun fact: This is only because they completely circumvented the OLD balance sheets!)
Bursts are Magcannons
When Timotheus the Red was introduced, among his drops was the ‘De-Focused Plasma Particle Distributor’, a Sebastopol (or incinerator, aka ‘RNF Burst’) with slightly less power than a normal Sebastopol, yet a significant amount of tracking.
Initially, the weapon was not considered to be very good. Its range was increased significantly and with that change an entire new weapon archetype was created: The Burst.
The concept was continued at tech 22 with the Hazardous Oomping Burst and various other types.
There were, however, two problems:
The added range that the RNF Burst received caused the weapon to no longer fit into the Sebastopol sheet, since it no longer had any of the characteristics that Sebastopols were supposed to have.
The changes:
All Bursts have been moved into the balance sheet for Magcannons. While we have tried to preserve their position as some of the most damaging weapons in the game, we have had to make significant changes. We have attempted to keep their DPS and size as close to live stats as possible, but they will receive a significant decrease in DPE.
Looking forward:
Magcannons and Pulse Guns with self damage are a relatively new addition to the game. The self damage aspect has not been included in the balance calculations before. While it is simple to take the same calculations that we use for Sebastopols and apply them to Magcannons and Pulse Guns, the extraneous, tech-scaling DPS bonus Sebastopols receive makes it hard to know whether that formula is reasonable. There is still room for improvement, but it is impossible to properly judge a weapon by numbers alone. Time will have to tell.
Sebastopols (including Incinerators)
Sebastopols in our balance sheets currently receive a massive bonus to their DPS scaling by tech. Since pictures say more than a thousand words, here’s what that means:
For comparison’s sake, the graph uses ‘Power’, an intuitive number to judge how ‘good’ a weapon is, calculated by multiplying DPS with DPE.
Currently, at tech 0, a Sebastopol is roughly 93% better than a Pulse Gun (due to being a more difficult to use weapon while also factoring in self damage). At tech 22, a Sebastopol is roughly 731% better than a Pulse Gun.
Sebastopols are, in fact, the ONLY weapon type that scales exponentially over tech. This is not good.
The changes:
The Cyan line shows the new scaling of Sebastopols. The extraneous +15% DPS per Tech modifier was removed. To compensate, their base power was increased by 33%. They are intended to stay very powerful, but they were magnitudes too strong.
Looking forward:
The changes to Sebastopols are, unfortunately, massive but these changes are necessary. As with all things however, the numbers do not tell the whole picture. Neither does a graph.
While there is no possible justification to retain a DPS modifier per tech, there are other ways to boost Sebastopols up more, without affecting the lower techs. Specifically, the percentual self damage could be increased for the higher tech weapons.
As the universe is coming to a close don’t forget to pack before Saturday March 11th at 1:00 PM Eastern / Server time.
Jeff
Added 25% shield regen buff to the shield trans of the Support Drone for low level support focus players.
Made a super item for low level Fleet Focus players called “Forward Operating Base Deployment Device”. It has a very short range field gen that gives +25% shield regen and +25% electric and launches two fighters, but the base is very fragile, with the intention that you either use it out of combat to regen, or in combat, but away from the enemies.
Hober
Hober will be posting two short blogs about what has been done to Kalthi Depths and Subspace.
s_m_w
Other than doing back-end stuff to ensure that AIs suddenly get super powerful thanks to the class skill changes, I’ve been digging into our balance sheets and unearthing issues and oddities, like Sebastopols getting worse DPE the more pellets they shoot.
Our experimentation with weapon balance changes, mostly focused on Thoraxes and the “Burst” line of weaponry on test continues. Expect a blog post with more details, our reasoning behind the upcoming changes, as well as our thoughts on why changes were needed in the first place in the near future.
Pixel
Pixel has been busy giving visual effects to all the tweak Superitems, here’s some examples:
He has also been working on new Tech 16, 18, 20 tier 0 base extractors for next universe last minute to encourage players to use higher tech bases as extraction kits. These will be sold in Blue Photon as blueprints. Here’s an example of metal extractors (these are subject to changes):
Pixel has been posting some topics on the forum related to next universe changes:
Everyone in general has been working towards the patch and universe reset, fixing any bugs and ironing out any potential issues that could arrise when the time comes. We’ve also updated the Steam trailer video for everyone to enjoy.
Jeff
Jeff has created a Support Drone Device that involves a Support Drone and a tech 3 weapon called “Push Back” which shoots a high velocity physical bullet with no recoil and short range. This is targeted towards ‘The Nexus’ for players to have the ability to play the support focus role by deploying this drone and healing your buddies while pushing the enemy back using the drones knockback weapon.
Darksteel
We’re changing some aspects of the commodity system of Kalthi Depths. Hazardium and Precarium are being phased out of the game as well as the Unstable / Stable / Enriched / Concentrated variants of the 2 as well as the stages of upgraded Perilium. We felt like this was unnecessary cluttering of drop tables as well as making KD builds more annoying than they really should be for no reason.
For instance, if a build currently takes 1 Precarium, 1 Concentrated Hazardium and 1 Enriched Perilium you will now have to supply 3 Perilium, 2 Rudimentary Admixium, 2 Middling Admixium, 2 Advanced Admixium and 1 Expert Admixium.
We will be making factories that will exist for one universe for the players to convert their built materials back to their raw materials EG Concentrated Hazardium –> 1 Perilium, 1 Rudimentary Admixium, 1 Middling Admixium, 1 Advanced Admixium and 1 Expert Admixium and 1 billion credits.
Pixel
Has been busy creating/splicing pixels together to create the almighty ‘Space Urchins!’, these little creatures will roam around Perilous space grappling onto their victims and exposing them to their spikey bodies. Some will inflict a lot of damage while others could provide benifical purposes… Lyceum scientists expect these to appear next universe due to the unstable nature of the fabric of space.
A new type of ship has also been created but its usage and reasoning remains a mystery!
Q/A
-13- : what is happening to Ruins at reset, specifically?
Not as far as I’m aware at this present time, apart from the current conversion of these ships which are more useful ships and will be tech 20 instead of tech 19:
-13- : is there going to be a patch before reset, and if so, when?
What will happen is the universe reset and patch will happen at the same time, this will result in a temporary universe for one week that will allow players to acquire the nessary class skill required for the proper universe reset. Gives everyone an equal start when the rush begins!
KangarooBlob: Could we get a comprehensive list of updates/balance changes coming in for reset please?
We will be providing a patchnote release and possibly other blog posts before this event takes place that we feel may need more context.
Pixel’s been busy working on a new Cleft Claw to roam around earthforce and wildspace layer. Bringing abit more hell fire to the universe.
He’s also going to start working on the base extractor changes, where only one type of each extractor can be equiped for next universe.
Hober Mallow
On test are also some changes to a variety of Pulse Guns, Magcannons and Laser Beams. Many of these weapons that had less than 1 second rate of fire now have between 1 and 1.5 second rate of fire (this is especially true of the Speed Demon locked weapons like the Hell Raiser, and other weapons that impart parasites/fires). The reasoning behind these changes was to preserve their DPS (they have the exact same DPS listed on the weapons) while enabling Speed Demons and other fast rate of firing characters to use the weapons without wasting DPS due to the rate of fire cap. It should be very hard, if not close to impossible, to hit the rate of fire cap with them now. Weapons that chain or splash, have been increased to 2-5 seconds as well. This was to make the Gunner weapons feel more thematic and heavy hitting. Let me know how these changes feel, or what effects they have on your setup.
Dark Steel
Dark Steel, mainly went over with the rest of the development team what Augmenters should be given a unequip due to changes.
This also applies to the following ships to recieve a free Augmenter reset:
Q/A
Masterful: Reset? Still in the works sadly as we’re still sorting out issues. The current goal is sometime March but don’t take this as a solid deadline.
Chrono: Are termites being more buffed again ontop? Yes next universe they’ll be unleashed into the wild to test your resolve!
I've been working on collecting bug reports and getting them fixed with the help of Egrosphere. If you know of any obscure bugs that we may not know about, please feel free to contact me on Discord and let me know about them.
Red
Red's been working on making various missions such as the tech 20 skill missions auto-start when you get to the boss zone.
Ingendum
Ingen's been busy working on spawners and tracking down bugs in the new class system to get them all tested and fixed. More testing for this new system on the test server would be very helpful to getting this system complete and ready for universe reset.
Unfortunately for readers, much of what was discussed and done was for internal changes such as changes to spawners that won't affect gameplay, as well as more tweaks and changes for the upcoming class system change.
Bobbo
Bobbo's been working on fixing universe generation issues (issues arising from the addition of Kalthi Depths to the universe, mainly).
JeffL
When a new userbase is deployed by a player, instead of being an unnamed kit, it will now display the owner's name initially.
Deathblossoms will no longer fire at every target within range (to the maximum target count they can achieve). If your deathblossom does not think it can hit an enemy within range, it will not target them. This will not affect ethereal weaponry (because if you are in range, an ethereal weapon will go through obstacles and other enemies to hit the target), this will affect non-ethereal weaponry and as a result mainly projectile weaponry.
Hober will be having a conversation with the playerbase about Kalthi Depths loot on Friday February 3rd 2017 at 3PM EST.
Click the flailing rat to join the conversation.
Hober Mallow
Hober has finished the first pass on all of the Kalthi Depths AI, the new AI should be put on test shortly for your testing pleasure.
Hober has convinced the rest of the development team that blueprints requiring Station Management by the player equipping them was unnecessary. Going forward, they will require the appropriate level of Equipment for a player to equip them to a base.
Finally, he will be adding one time missions for the majority of non Serengeti Tech 20 ships. These missions will have (roughly) the same requirements as the blueprints. This change is meant to allow players who do not have a Wild Space presence to continue progressing through content.
Pixel
Pixel is having some technical difficulties.
enkelin
enkelin applied his renowned mathematical wizardry to the Gunner Analyzer. It should be up and running on the test server sooner rather than later. He has also come up with a brilliant plan that will solve all of our BvB woes… but he’s not ready to share it yet.
Bobbo
Working on Gunner Analyzer, courtesy of enkelin.
JeffL
Created a cool new Speed Demon super item that increases Shield Regeneration out of combat! Otherwise, he is working on things behind the scenes.
MicroCapacitor
Looking into potential issues with resistances and soaks.
Jey
He has been diligently hunting down bugs, and patching vulnerability issues. He was able to get the client to a point where it state that passed all of his stability tests. Out of the 183 dmps that were sent in the past 2 months, 164 of them are confirmed to be fixed by his changes. The rest were crashes without sufficient information, so they may or may not be fixed.
He has narrowed down the root of the graphical glitch that causes engine particle effects to display on things they shouldn’t, now he has to figure out the best way to fix it.
DarkSteel, enkelin and Hober will be having a conversation with the playerbase about Perilous Perilous Space/Kalthi Depths on Friday January 27th 2017 at 5PM EST. With the upcoming class changes, some of these AI are going to require reworking and rescaling. We wanted to take this opportunity to involve the player base in the process, since you are the ones who are engaging with the content on a daily basis.
Click the following rat to join the conversation.
Hober Mallow
He has also worked with egrosphere on some interesting super item code. They are: charging based on current speed, and charging based on each instance of an evasion. The evasion and speed based charging should be helpful for both Seer and Speed Demon going forward, with some of their super items charging up faster as a result of successfully evading damage or going past a certain speed. There’s also functionality for a “target tracker” that causes all of the damage you have done to a target to be done again when the “target tracker” effect expires. He hopes to use this functionality in service of Seer in the future.
Micro Capacitor
Hes been doing a lot of things lately, heres some of them:
Pixel
PIXELS BEEN GOING CRAZY MAKING GALAXIES FOR WILDSPACE TO BUILD IN FOR NEXT UNIVERSE… enjoy!
He has also added a new superitem to the Hephaestus Machine! This superitem will allow the deployment of a Hephaestus Hospital Drone that can do a hit effect of +1.75k shield charge and 1k energy charge for 5 seconds for friendlies within 1k range.
I will be adjusting the tech level for a variety of the lowest valued Olympus gear (Hephaestus’ Mallet’s/Brackish/Shorted/Damaged/etc), and I have also changed the blueprint requirements for the Hephaestus’ Striker and Maul so that they are the same cost as a Hephaestus’ Hammer.
I have been doing some work on the Subspace Monthly invasions, going forward they will provide very large and generous rewards upon completion. They will also require you to kill outposts themselves instead of droves of Aveksaka. Look forward to a blogpost from me about the changes.
Pixel
Pixel has been busy this week making skins for the players to enjoy, here’s some of them below:
Isvas’ayu – Bumble Stinger.
Kalthi Armored Deployer Skin.
Kalthi Wrathful Deployer Skin.
The skin names are subject to changes. Pixel also has been working on steam content. Here’s some examples:
