Upcoming Red Star changes



As explained before, the interactions between strangers in public Red Stars are not what we wanted them to be. Starting next update, we are eliminating the incentives and opportunities for griefing (i.e. intentionally attacking or disrupting other players). In the process we are also introducing the first of many changes to make Red Stars less repetitive and more unique, exciting and likely to encourage different strategies.

Here are the changes and the motivation behind them:

Instanced Artifacts per player

Artifacts have shared up until now, enabling people to arbitrarily declare them theirs, "stealing" them from others, and abuse game rules or even other players in the chat in their quest to get as many as possible. From the next update, every Artifact each player sees is theirs for the taking. Other players taking Artifacts from the same planet won't affect their own count. This will eliminate most of the incentives for griefing.

Different public Red Star rules

Public Red Stars will behave differently in some ways, to prevent abusing game rules to destroy other player's ships. EMP won't trigger unless there's Cerberus in the sector. BOND won't be useable with Teleport. Interceptor won't attack miners and transports from players that didn't trigger them. The tiny amount of players who will see this as a challenge to find new innovative ways to destroy other player's ships will be removed from the game.

Reduced maximum number of participants

We are reducing the number of participating players to Red stars to 4, down from 5. This allows us to better balance all star levels for difficulty and number of Artifacts. It will also make it more likely to run full Red Stars in private matches, where the vast majority of Corporations has trouble filling all the slots.

More varied Cerberus configurations

Starting with this update, you'll see some more variety in how Cerberus ships spawn in RS7 and above. The changes are relatively small, but we plan to use this system more in the future to create distinct and more "rare" challenges and rewards, tailored to the number of participating players.

Sanctuary deaths and Red Stars

Battleships destroyed in a Red Star will no longer reduce the "battleships sent" counter for that Red Star, so they won't be possible to replace. This gives a much needed incentive to keep the ships alive, eliminates a large category of exploits that make it possible to clear a sector without using any strategy, and allows us to balance Red Stars for a proper challenge with future updates and new modules.


Comments

  1. Love everything about this upcoming update. Well done!

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  2. I'll take things no one asked for for 500 Alex

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  3. I'm very excited now!!!

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  4. You guys started out great. And have gone steadily and directly down hill ever since. Terrible.

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    1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    2. Estoy de acuerdo, cada vez va a peir el juego, no me extrañaría que la gente mandara a la mierda al Creador

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    3. If you don't provide a reason then these are just empty words.

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    4. They did well with this update.
      Two types of people that won't like it:
      1) Griefers/trolls - there's the door jackwads....
      2) people who just leveled up vengeance to clear a sector quickly then send in another one to finish off the system with zero thinking. Again, so sorry for your loss.

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    5. It was not about "zero thinking". It was hydro vs effeciency. Maybe dev should have thought of this BEFORE nerf batting stuff people have spent small fortunes on. Sure games change. But the cost of hydro was the offset.

      As for sanctuary. Again, double the cost of hydro using more ships. This is a choice. Devs are reducing the choices of game play. Soon. Everyone will have the exact same builds and will be little to no variety. What a shame.

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  5. That's all great news. Should lead to more interesting gameplay and make RS fun again rather than just being something you have to farm

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  6. No more vengeance bombs

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  7. This seems like positive changes. Griefing is a nasty practice and i'd be happy to see those that do it quit if they dont like these changes.

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  8. Great update! I love everything about it.

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  9. All these are great additions, the only thing I kinda feel that breaks the emmersion a bit is the artifacts change...
    Keep up the good work

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  10. Does he RS7+ reward and participation mean you get better rewards with more or less players? I.e. does the rich get richer (better corp) and vice versa.

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  11. When do we get to see who is online?

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  13. I m not agree with sanctuary deaths. The problem is vengeance, not sanctuary.

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  15. I have 3 Questions about the Artifact Amount Change:

    1. Is the new personal amount the same as the old general amount?
    2. If we deposit an artifact in a RS, does the others can take this one?
    3. How can we « gift » others with « our » artifact? Is it even possible?

    P.S. How can I edit my Post here?

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    1. Exactly. When trying for the "salvage X number of artifacts" objectives, I have given lower level players level 6 arts if they cooperate and let me take what I need. I think this change should be taken back.

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  16. Really looking forward to the update.
    Sanctuary changes definitely look like a needed re-balance, though it's pretty unpopular at the moment with players who take it for granted. A ship drops out of RS with Sanctuary? No big problem.. it means you did not protect it enough and now have the "cost" of trying to complete the RS with 1 less ship, or possibly a failed mission and a drop in influence. Still a fair trade-off for not having to fork out the replacement cost of a ship!
    Instanced artifacts sounds interesting - but unless the distribution is such that more artifacts are closer to one's gate, it sounds like Teleport on transports may become hugely popular.
    Thanks for continuing to keep the game fresh and challenging.

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  17. Glad to see the developers are pushing the image of the game away from what their current fan-base and players want and more into their own image of what they think the game should be... way to win the unpopularity vote.

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    1. If you referenced a specific problem rather than "Boo-hoo I didn't get what I wanted" maybe this post would be taken seriously.

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    2. @inquisitor maybe if you'd step off your high horse someone would rearrange you face for you.

      I think he was pretty clear, there were a large portion of players who disagreed with the anti-griefing measures who weren't griefers. It was a threat and a challenge to overcome and the game already gave a full proof method of avoiding it, you just need to join a corp. It seems that the devs would rather cater to people who don't want a challenge than to the people who enjoyed the occasional PvP struggle. The artifact nerf takes that to an insane place, makes 0 sense, and breaks immersion. This is a bad direction for the game to move in.

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    4. @inquisitor - a lot of the updates and/or changes were over zealous and a complete nerf-hammer by the devs. "boo-hoo I don't believe people should grief" *nerfs griefing entirely*. I personally never griefed and I hated it but I was always 100% watching for it in public runs. Don't like to be griefed? There is 100s of corps available. "Boo-hoo I don't like that people are abusing vengence" well you reduced the area of effect, that wasn't enough so you completely crippled vengence AND sancuary to the point you can't use them anymore and you are literally shooting yourself in the foot if you do. Want a real fix? Put a 5-10 minute cooldown on sanctuary and people won't be able to abuse either of them instead of completely eliminating the use of it all together. Quite literally vengence is dead now - sorry all the people that dropped millions of credits into it but you wasted it all.

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    5. I dont see an issue with the sanctuary change. It only stops you from kamikazing your ship over and over on a RS. Makes it more challenging. Your ship still survivez if it dies in a RS...you just can't keep jumping it back. I dont get my ships killed in a red star, til the RS explodes...so I don't see an issue with the sanctuary change.

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    6. All they had to do was put a timer on sanctuary and make it expensive enough not to be abke to just swap out the module. Or program the removal of sanctuary destroys the ship. If it was so bad. Refund and remove vengence. But no. The devs have a "vision" and that vision is one person being able to use 8 bs in a single red star as ludicrous. So they are going to lock out ships. Devs want the game to be harder and promote team work. Well i do not have enough hydro to help other random people in rs. I can do them on my own. But noooooo. High level bs are just too costly. Nit to have sanctuary. Internet hiccup for 10 seconds. Boom. Goodbye ship. It is an insurance policy. Change it, but do not make it pointless.

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  18. I am in favour of all the changes exvept the sanctuary changes... the problem is with vengeance, not sanctuary. I think this will just increase the difficulty jump between RS levels and stifle advancement

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  19. Like the updates. Still need to see who in your corp is signed on plus their last sign date. Too much keeping track of people to see if they are still playing.

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  20. Are these changes for only public Red Stars? Or all Red Stars? My worry is our corporation works very well together to help members get the "Salage X number of [artifact]" daily objectives. If the arts are no longer shared then it dampens the ability to help our members with those objectives. This becomes a bigger problem with the higher level artifacts due to the hydrogen needed to burn.

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  21. I'm Merios an I approve this update. 😂 Thx Andreas!

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  22. Why reduce maximum participants down to 4? My corp has no problem filling 5/5 for our RS8 runs. Seems like some will have to sit out. Terrible change!

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  23. Right ideas, not sure about approach. The assigned artifacts just seems ripe for abuse and breaks LOTS of ethical legit situations (like helping someone get specific arts for objectives) Ive been in a few public Stars where i swapped arts. If I was an art stealer I'd love this... Now I can just let others do the work, get the benefits and no one can complain, cause they aren't hurt.
    As for reducing participants, its more about art counts. If you have the same arts/participant you are just hurting folks that can put together "full" runs. If you spawn more arts at sub-full levels there's less jealousy when you only manage a two or three person run.
    And don't get me started on Sanc... Higher level RSes are hard enough without being able to jump a new ship in.... Better approach, just prevent jumping THAT ship back in. But allow a jumping in a reserve ship. Heck, you could probably get the same effect by adding a 10 minute Sanc Cooldown! Long enough to usually prevent reuse in a single RS, short enough that back to back RSes are still kinda doable.

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  24. The sanctuary correction seems too much. There's no chance of recovering from a horrible start which will lead to more frustration and more people quitting.

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  25. loving the RS changes - my own instanced artifacts? awesome! my corp mates get artifacts as well? equally awesome! anti-grief measures? well, coulda used them last night - corp mate accidentally triggered the interceptor... that made a run for my gate, with my transports (2 timewarps, 3 rs extenders, 16 slots). i tried to jump them but the intermittent lag bug prevented them all from jumped even though i was desperately mashing the jump button before they went .
    not sure how i feel about the Sanc fix. i don't use Vengeance right now, so i cannot say, but sometimes the spawn is just so piss-poor that my EMP lead battleship takes a little too much damage.
    maybe a better fix would be: Sanc works once every hour (like RSExt). so you get blown up once, "hey, mistakes happen." get it back in there and it gets popped again? well - that's on you.

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    1. Agreed, Im using vengence builds now, and found that part of the update is crazy. I can honestly say that the vengence-teleport tactic is the best way to deal with rs8+, with the highest successful rate (of course failure exist). The sanc change will remove the tactic completely , leave the module useless for the players.

      On the other hand, with the update, you are hardly bear the risk of mistake: spend like 10k hydro and get nothing for return will be common, simply because you cannot send anymore bs for rescue. Sanc works once every hour or two will be a nice idea to both tolerate mistake and develop tactics.


      P.S. Glad to see you guys make update again, please keep going

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  26. I'm very excited for a lot of these changes, however I do think you are nerfing/damaging the "good" corporations out there that actually work together and help each other with what appears to be an over zealous crusade against trolls. Not a huge fan of the changes to Sanctuary as well, you're just restricting players to a specific play style instead of letting different tactics perservere.

    Other than that, still a huge fan of the game! :D

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    1. The changes to sanctuary arent really going to effect corporations that actually work together. This will only prevent you from kamikazing your ships and then rejumping them in over and over and over until youve cleared a sector. Sanctuary will still save your ship...you just wont get to rejump it in. It'll be more challenging and yes...less easy for those corporations who cant handle the challenge.

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    2. Then put a timer on the module locking it out of THAT red star. There are somr of us. That use multiple bs so we can send in aoe ships to clear all tbe small ships. Then send in single target ships to clear colossi. Especially if the planets are several sectors out and blocked by spawn you have to plow through. Add in the new missile cerbs. One will HAVE to bring i. Aoe ships. And what happens if two planets are next to each other. You are trying to kill two colossi while missilee are raining down on you AND the planet killers!

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    3. I honestly think letting people jump ships into a RS after they died with new shields is part of the game and should be a mechanic. Why should I be penalized for using a different playstyle or approach? I'm already and still paying for Sanctuary in hydro use, this just limits what could have been an opportunity for interesting strats and unorthodox techniques.

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  27. I think the Sanctuary change is not the way you could balnace RS. People will allways find a way to solo RS 7+ and other will copy them. I read rhe changes and find in a few minutes a new way to solo RS 9 with positiv influence. Sure i need more Hydrogen but its still easy way. I think Sanctuary works very well the main problem is Vangance. How ever you cant balance the game from RS 1 to RS 10 is just a Dream, they are to many options and combinations that works together.

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  28. Done with this game, catering for casuals ever since the WS teleport nerf.

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  29. did you do this update just for me? I'm really honored....your best fan.

    LORD SIDIOUS.

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    1. Ah... the coward who preys upon low level players for kicks emerges... PvP belongs in WS and RS were always meant to be co-op PvE. It's sad that anti-griefing measures like this are required to stop players like you spoiling the game for everyone else. Arcardion.

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  30. but change the name to Lord Sidious 2.0

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  31. "The tiny amount of players who will see this as a challenge to find new innovative ways to destroy other player's ships will be removed from the game." This is pathetic. You basically said that you want to ban smart and creative people from the game, leaving boring sheeps only. I will say it again, it's pathetic approach...

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    1. Whats the mayyer lord sidious! White stars to hard for you? Attacking people in RS with high level emp and tele was acting like a 3 year old on a temper tantrum for not getting a lollipop hahaha. You are so full of fail.

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  32. The sanctuary change will create an elite group who have used sanctuary for a very long time in the manner you are trying to curb. Catching them will be improbable. SANC module itself should have a cool down timer perhaps staring at 10 min with each upgrade reducing cool down. Needing to burn H to get to 'my artifacts' clear across the system means group tatcis will dissolve, as others said, let some else clear and save H. Please look into leap and teleport... if I am disabled for a short time after jump, this should be for all modules, not just movements and weapons.

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  33. Games changes are welcome. I suspect there is a huge bug in the hydro economy. The most hydro avid are the transports and running to the other side of the galaxy will cost simply too much. At this point the best strategy will be to abandon an rs without engaging. It's cheaper. it will be different if every player will jump from the same portal. Everyone will get the same resources for the same expense and the teamwork will be for sure at maximum levels. I suspect galaxy generation and portal location are either not random, or based on a kind of bugged algo. I get always far and my corp mates always near. This is not a stochastic distribution.

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    1. Single entry portal... Hmmmm, that'd be one way to fix the horrible mistake of assigned arts. as for the rest, sounds like Teleport for the win... on Tps to get arts from across the map, on bses because sanc is nerfed

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  34. You guys aew great! Modifying the game where it's needed. Griefers were very annoying! Thanks for removing them. You might also think about more variable configurations for RS6 and below, f.e. more/less cerberus depending on how many artifacts are on a planet.

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  35. First it was autopilot, then passive shields, barrage, now sanctuary? Why don't you fucktards come up with new ideas for mods instead of changing the old ones?

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    1. Lol... you do realize that the changes to both passive and autopilot were buffs rather than nerfs? I am tempted to go back to passive shields now. Arcardion

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    2. So my once 13k passive shields that are now 10k is a buff???? You're ass backwards ol son. Every mod I listed has been nerfed to shit. Autopilot is now autodrone. Barrage needs 16 enemies now instead of 8 for full effectiveness. And sanctuary basically is a one time use per red star, plus preventing additional bs's to jump in to try and finish off cerbs.

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  36. I love this game and have played daily for a year plus. It does feel like these changes are trying to kill a flea with a jackhammer. One or two of the changes would have been enough. But all of them??

    I do red stars with my corp. So briefing is never an issue. Yet all of these changes will affect us. We use strategy to get everyone artifacts with minimal hydro. That's out the window. Attacking interceptors with allies nearby was a calculated risk. 4 players means less corp interaction. But I can understand it gives you more leverage in scaling difficulty.

    I think a cooldown on sanctuary would be better than limiting ships. What is the point of a 4th battleship now?

    The varied configurations is a welcome change since yes red stars could become repetitive.

    I thought this game was intended for a bit of quick play every day but I am rs7 now and it's easy to sink 1-2 hours in.

    Thanks for the great game!

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  37. I would have preferred CD on sanc allowing you to warp another BS in. Vengeance bombs should be a viable tactic as long as it is controlled... ie only once per RS. The sanc nerf means any accident or miscalculation leads to abandoning the RS. Still it's better than when I started the game and Sanc did not exist. Arcardion

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  38. Have to disagree with a bit of this update.

    Ok, I understand sanctuary returns but it never was a problem except for vengeance bombs. The solution to that is to fix vengeance. This is a non solution. The aspect of this for me is that occasionally I lose ships in rs because of lag. I send a ship in to emp and even though I press the button nothing happens for just long enough the ship dies. So not impressed by this "fix".

    The bombers are just plain stupid. During way too many rockets all over the place. If there was 1 it might be manageable, but there's almost 1 per sector. It's bizarre.

    The artifact changes in not sure is a good idea, I understand it though, but it might have been better to put a planet per player so they can grab art whilst still leaving co-op play strategies.

    The griefer thing, fair enough, probably for the best.

    So overall I'm not keen on these changes. I think they're quick solutions that don't really improve much.

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    1. Done another run now, private with a buddy.

      First: too many rockets. We were got with 3 or 4 at once. It's crazy.
      Second: shooting down rockets still causes damage, my battleship slowly got wiped out as it protected a miner.
      Third: even though we did good, still came away with negative influence.

      So it seems like this update it to encourage 4 players at a time, which doesn't really fit with fun aspect of running a rs with whoever is available, or going prss public.

      The rockets are just excessive, should be reduced in number and shooting them down should just kill them without them exploring, that way you still have to manage them as an annoyance. I also think the bombers are way too strong in hp.

      And the sanctuary return thing, really annoying if you leave support ships behind you cannot use the "jump all ships" option. Nerf vengeance (or give it a 10 min cooldown) and allow ships to jump back in. That would be a much more sensible solution.

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  39. I personally don't like the end of greifing. I don't do it, but, I enjoy the tension of watching other players to make sure they don't get me. It's excitement that this game is going to be lacking.

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  40. Take that Sanctuary restriction off private red stars!!! I can see it being beneficial for public, but not private!!!

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  41. Nothing but positive changes if you ask me.

    The idea that people support griefing tactics, to the point of saying the game is going downhill and "away from the players' vision" by combating griefing, is downright ludicrous.

    I hope devs don't listen to that malarkey - once those players are out the door, it can only get better from here.

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  42. beating up the bullies is great and all but the players that already have techs from red stars 7 8 and 9 already have the aweso.e techs dont care if its harder they already have them but for players not above 6 you just made it twice as hard for players longer then a year and ten times harder for those playing less.

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  43. I left the game in past because of a small but very annoying amount of abusers. Now it's time to get back!

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  44. Not allowing battleships to return to a red star ends my interest in the game. I built to the point where I had extra battleships in order to be able to do just that. I'm out.

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