2020.3 Release Notes




 Expected release: December 1-4


New Content

  • New Transport module: RELIC DRONE (unlocks at RS7, can be unlocked by players with lower credit cap)
  • New flagship module: FLOATING SHIELD (unlocks at Flagship level 8 / Corporation level 9)
  • New flagship module: DART TURRET (unlocks at Flagship level 10 / Corporation level 11)

White Stars

  • Additional high capacity asteroids will spawn in different ranges of the map during the star's lifecycle. The newly spawned asteroids can be seen and safely targeted in advance from the Time Machine. This greatly increases the maximum amount of Relics that can be generated from mining, and adds tactical options during the mid and late stage of the match.

Blue Stars

  • Middle sector will now spawn 3 asteroids 
  • Most Blue Stars will have an additional Cerberus enemy inside the middle sector (the type of the enemy depends on the strength of the participant's ships)
  • Matchmaking no longer takes into account participant's Red Star level
  • Alpha Drone can no longer be targeted directly to the star
  • Blue Star leaderboards: Only Ranked matches count toward the leaderboard. Ranked matches are capped to 3 per player per day, and never contain more than 1 Lone Battleship. 

Module changes

  • AREA SHIELD: Now covers all friendly rockets and in darts in range. Also affects Cerberus ships (i.e. Bomber rockets covered by Phoenix shield). Area Shield range now depends on module upgrade level for White Stars.
  • DELTA ROCKET: Can now pass through Barrier. Barrier still blocks all other rocket types.
  • ALPHA DRONE: Drone can no longer be targeted directly to a star
  • DART LAUNCHER: Range reduced to 150 AU (this reverts the increase to range brought by the 2020.2 update). Darts can be covered by Area Shield.
  • SUSPEND: Level 1 suspend no longer fully offsets Time Warp. Levels 1-5 of Suspend progressively increase the amount by which Time Warp is countered. Subsequent levels increase the amount of time slowdown.  
  • HYDROGEN UPLOAD: Can no longer be activated in White Star
  • UNITY: Can no longer be activated in Blue Star

Other changes and bug fixes

  • Info page for Red and Blue star scanners will now show timers for when the next rewards will be available.
  • Ability to swap modules of the same type between ship slots (this helps get a consistent order of module buttons when selecting a ship)
  • Shipment Relay now has the option to stop operating on an active sector.
  • Improved interface in Module details screen, including better overview on what stars the module operates on, and always visible blueprint count (even for modules that are under upgrade)
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Remote Bomb and rockets to apply their damage multiple times under certain circumstances
  • All drone types can now be disbanded by the owner player.
  • Ships spawned from Hydra will return to their original sector if the Hydra was bonded to a new sector
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Bond to stop working if the ship that was previously bonded was destroyed
  • Additional surface elements and orbit visuals for planets level 41-50
  • Performance improvements for screens with multiple artifact animations (i.e. shipments screen for a planet storing many artifacts)

Comments

  1. This fully shows the devs really care about what players said and what they want, though some nerf looks unnecessary, still a nice job!

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  2. Kill those leaps home in ws!

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  3. "Performance improvements for screens with multiple artifact animations (i.e. shipments screen for a planet storing many artifacts)"
    Oh yess!

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  4. Finally resolution for Drone+Leap in Blue star nice :) and extra way to bypass barrier on WS tho Delta r kind weak

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. good job, i guess. finally people stops hating on drone leapers in bls.

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  7. Wow, this is an awesome next version! Thank you for listening to us!

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  8. Some of these changes are being implemented after three years of community feedback. Let's pretend the dev cares about his ever-shrinking fan base.

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  9. Nice to see new mods! Keep em coming!

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  10. A developer who doesn't give a crap appointing moderators who act like dictators. The game was already ruined by ruining Sanctuary (we need the old version back where we could blow up our ships and return to the RS without repercussions). And now, these moronic changes (Dart Launcher nerf and Hydra spawns returning to base sector) - the game's got to die.

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    Replies
    1. Oh I'm bad at the game pls bring sanc back oooooo, the change was good, it made players better, rs was boring and ez to cheese with previous sanc, and dart wasn't a nerf, it was literally pointless to increase it's range, actually, it caused more problems , and the whole point of the hydra was a boss after clearing a planet, if it didn't return to the sector, what would he the point of even having it split, all were good changes

      Delete
    2. This change was utter shit. The changes I mentioned are complete crap.

      You don't like 'cheesing' RS, don't install Sanctuary. Let the ones who want to play as they want rather than all the elitists deciding for them.

      Weapons are supposed to be over-powered, not nerfed.

      And Hydra is a boss - it's supposed to be thrown to the side, not fought all the time.

      Delete
  11. Are you planning to add a ban on the player by turning the yellow star into a red one?

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    Replies
    1. That's a good idea. I can already imagine their panic when they see the timer XD

      Delete
  12. Great changes to the game. I really appreciate all your efforts to keep the game balanced. There is one more bug I would like to see fixed. In yellow starts, when you queue up multiple waypoints quickly, sometimes the last waypoint is cancelled.
    Keep up the good job!

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    Replies
    1. True, I exeperienced same thing too, maybe because of my ping.

      Delete
  13. Hi. Maybe reaserch station leveling to reaserch much faster?

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  14. Dart Launcher nerf was good for lone bs and the bond tele in rs11 was too easy. Now people will have to work. Overall good changes but I think delta rocket needs a bit more.

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  15. Ws hydro upload was good why make away?

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  16. Maybe you should ad a game objective. Like fighting Cerberus empire or something. So then players can participate together into killing Cerberus bases , ships and motherships on one generated game. U can call this game type like... depts of hell. Players are to pay a hydro fee to activate a newly built warp portal space station that can send battleship towards the depths of galaxy to fight Cerberus strongholds or something. That could be cool. Adding a strong querq like this while the players a reason to play more and will attract more people to the game. The rewards for an event like this should be containers full of hydro or credits on Cerberus heavily guarded planet's or maybe some higher LVL artefacts than the ones players can get at they're level.

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    Replies
    1. Kind of like a raid in other games. That does sound like a cool feature, would get me playing again. I've been inactive for the past few months.

      Delete
  17. Well done and thank you for the update!

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  18. Fantastic, thanks for this update, well done guys, I love this game and you guys just keep making it better 😊❤️

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  19. Hey Devs, nice work. Did you perhaps change the chat window on PC? The fonts are bigger and for some reason most special characters are invisible in it (but they do show on the chat after clicking enter). Thanks.

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  20. So with only 36 Points max for the br ranking a day.. you should change the demands for kristalls... 1000 points means you need to win nearly all games the hole month ^^

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  21. I kind of feel that allowing the shipment relay sectors to be deactivated actually makes higher levels of Shipment Relay worse. I just updated to SR8 with costs of 3000 per sector. Now I wish Ihad a lower level SR because for less cost and a lower SR level I could empty sectors of shipments and switch to new sectors with this new update. I think they should lower the sector costs as a result of this update. As of now I am worse off with SR8 than I was with far lower levels of SR. THe fragment cost is lower yes, but it only takes 5 minutes to get new fragments.

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  22. Thanks for the enhancements.
    But... Blue Star matching is as bad as it was before the patch - Challenging players with 40-50 ranks over is unfair, entertaining... but unfair.

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  23. Soo.... I play a lot of bls, they fit my little breaks in life quite well, as such have become accustomed to winning 200 crystals each month for exceeding the 1000 frag count..... But with update I can only earn 18 in a 24 hr period max. Simple math shows that now over 1000 frags is unachievable...

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  24. Fix the issue where two Miners - one previously working, other one moving in just after depositing Hydrogen towards the current one, but the Hydrogen finishes before it reaches the location. It is stuck at the empty space forever, until moved manually...

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  25. Shipment Relay 6 = 6 sectors at 1,000 hydro each. Cost to clear shipments for 11 sectors = 11,0000. Because now you just cancel the Relay after a couple of hours and do some new ones

    Shipment Relay 8 = 11 sectors at 3,000 hydro each. Cost to clear 11 sectors = 33,000 hydro.

    It's not just worthless to upgrade your Shipment Relay with this update, it is actually counterproductive.

    I think they need to reverse the change that lets you deactivate Shipment Relays and think it through a bit more.

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  26. I am a player who likes investing loads of credits into planets, making it possible to upgrade ships at early levels, but if I do so, then I am disvantaged at blue stars, because my modules aren't upgraded verry much due to insufficient amounts of blueprints, but matchmaking groups me with higher module level players as there aren't much players like me, instead of grouping me with lower ship level but higher module level players. Example of how it's now: lvl 4 battleship, low level modules vs lvl 4 battleships, high level modules. Example of how it may be: lvl 4 BS, low level modules vs lvl 3 BS's, high level modules

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  27. So with limited 'ranked' points.... Will the crystal reward structure change as well? It's gonna be difficult to get 1000 points and that might very well be a winning numbe ....

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  28. Nothing has been done to fix the extreme whitestar mismatches. My team has at most bond5, which is the counter to barrier5. However when barrier12 can park on my p1 and cover my gate within the first 6 hours of the match due to impulse12 and timewarp12 and delta shield, there isn't much I can do. Delta rocket moving through barriers is a good start, but it cannot be fired from gate to counter barrier12 gate camping me. Barrier doesn't run out because they quickly cycle other ships in and suspend. For this reason I have stopped participating in whitestar, it's not fun to get gate camped 3 times in a row by vastly superior opponents.

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  29. Hope I will be able to buy a Playstation 5 soon and leave this game.
    I'm level 165 and still be matched with level 223. Great job, you killed the Blue Stars.

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  30. A interesting achievement. To inhabit multiple world's, along with the responsibility of growth. Keeping regulatory in production for the needs of all that is required. Entrepreneurship essential for growth. Commanding strength into defensibly strong and powerful strategy against those that come against the new home sector.

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  31. New update kills the bs rewards....good job. Quitting the game. Lvl 135, loved the pvp before your update. Now sucks. Adios.

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  32. Good work. Thank you so much. Time to spend some extta crystals ;D. Best upgrade is relay station. Waited for it!

    If you actually read this: nice it would be to play unranked fun blue stars with the corporation members. For fun and practice mod variations.

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  33. Hi Andreas, hare it's Runik. I only have to ask you one thing: is it possible to have the Time Machine menu "floating", that is not only in central position but shiftable on any comfortable point of the screen? Generally in the central part of te monitor is running the most important part of the event. Think it would be easy. Let me know and thank you for your job.

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  34. your new blue star sucks looking for some other game to play now will likely quit this one

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  35. Well, I think those 3 new asteroids now truly favor players with bond, very unfortunate, stopped playing Blue Stars because of this, not using bond, stand no chance against that. Nice addition to the middle sector thou, if I may suggest, nerf bond in the middle sector, thx

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  36. Let me try to rephrase my concern with the change to Shipment Relays which allows sectors to be deactivated and then new sectors selected.

    There were 2 benefits to upgrading your Shipment Relay from say, level 6 to level 8. The minor benefit was the lower fragment cost and the major benefit was coverage to more sectors. Now that the major benefit has been negated by allowing SRs to do extra sectors, the SR 8 is objectively far worse than the SR 6.

    With SR 6 as an example, you can select 6 sectors at a cost of 6000 H and 24 frags. After the planets are emptied (2-3 hours) you can deactivate them all and re-select another 6 sectors. So, shipments for 12 sectors are done at a combined cost of 12,000 H and 48 frags.

    Another player has SR 8 and can select 11 sectors at a cost of 33,000 H and 33 frags. To put both examples on the same footing, this player can deactivate a sector and add a 12th, for a total spend of 36,000 H and 36 frags.

    As a player who had SR 8 before the change, my problem with the new system is that I am spending an extra 24,000 H to clear out the same number of shipments (12) as a player with SR 6. On the plus side I am spending 12 frags less.

    Different people’s playstyles might dictate that this is an acceptable trade-off, but for others (me) it’s not. Had this change been implemented prior to me upgrading past SR 6, I would never have done it because for me, the “upgrade” past SR 6 is actually a DOWNGRADE due to the dramatically increased hydro spend for only a minor benefit.

    Possible fixes include:

    1. Cancel the ability to deactivate. If the ability to deactivate was there due to people wanting to roll back a mistaken click, just add a confirm button instead at selection screen.

    2. Allow deactivation, but make the sector timer continue to run before a new sector can be selected.

    3. Reduce the hydro cost of higher-level SRs. I suggest after SR 6, the cost of 1,000 H should not increase further.

    4. Allow players the opportunity to downgrade their SR level. Ideally with a refund of the credits spent.

    5. Add some other benefit to leveling up SRs, such as a percentage increase on shipment values.

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  37. First of all, thank you for an enjoyable, challenging, and diverse space game. Also, thanks for continuing to add new features to keep it interesting. I like the new update and the idea of making Blue Stars more dependent on people playing people instead of bots and nerfing the method of winning the Blue Star ladder by playing the most matches. I see the effort to balance out Blue Stars by eliminating Red Star level as a criteria for matching up players and applaud your efforts, but I would like to point out that about 80% of the time I find myself playing people and bots that have higher level weapons, mods, ships, and shields. It does make it interesting, but also frustrating when I’m trying to earn credits, hydro, and crystals. It’s also frustrating when I do get a fair match up that it doesn’t count towards the ladder, because there aren’t three other people in the match with me. If any adjustments to Blue Stars are made in the future, could the criteria for matches counting towards the ladder be adjusted to needing only three or two people? Also, for matching up players, maybe the criteria could progress as follows: weapons, mods, ship level, and shields (with the first having the most influence). Thanks again for your efforts.

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  38. Thanks for new version upgrades. It made the game more enjoyable for sure.

    I'd like to suggest something after adding BLS ranked play: An ability to force a ranked match when initiating a search. For the cost of longer (potentially much longer) wait of course.

    Now it's annoying that if I try to get as high as possible in ranked plays I need to use unsancd ships, and if I am matched in a non ranked game (too many lones), than I risk my ship without any potential benefits.


    Another suggestion is WS matchmaker.

    It's something that is not new in this version, but cause serious problems to many corporations. It's probably caused by much too high value of flagship level. After upgrading our corporation's flagship we started to be matched against much stronger opponents just because they have lower level flagships. 1 level of flagship has the same value as if 10 players have upgraded their battleships from lvl 5 to lvl 6... Really?


    It's also problematic about all unlocked mods increasing WS score. I'd suggest ability to lock some mods (by each player) before initiating a WS scan. If mod is locked, player can't use it during a WS, but it is not added to corporation's WS score.

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    1. I think devs should fix the second problem fast, because if you have got lots of mods whitch you don't use, the matchmaking is really unfair, my corp lost 5 times in a row.

      Delete
  39. Love the new Blue Star matches, they're now actual battles. For sure some people are upset as their tedious setups to exploit loopholes no longer work, but they genuinely feel more skillful and satisfying now, win or lose. Awesome job.

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  40. The new updates to Blue Star and Shipment Relay, don't really affect me too much, as I only really use Blue Star every now and then just for fun. I am happy in how I used my transport and how I trade between planets so I don't rely too heavily on the Relay Station or any other similar modules. I am just happy to see that there are so enupdayes.made on a regular enough basis to try and keep it fresh. However, there are one or two updates that I think would be useful:

    1) The ability to turn certain modules off after they have been activated. If the module is turned off before it is fully used it could have a cool down period similar to the yellow star time modulator, only recovering what was used. Obviously, to balance you would still pay the full activation cost.

    2) Another user mentioned a raid mode. I think this would be interesting whether it is a portal bringing us to Cerberus systems and joining other players and destroying a base and army or whether it is a tower defence mini game where the Cerberus army attack our system and we have the option of building additional defensive options, such as turrets and linking them to the short range scanners or an option where we could build an outpost with turrets built in. A reward system could include crystal packs, blueprints or high level artifacts

    3) A perk tree of some kind which would allow upgrades to all ship types i.e hull upgrades, speed upgrades and range upgrades and for those you could afford it additional module upgrades. If balanced correctly, I feel this would help keep players interested by giving them more options to customise, spend credits, vary experience and offer new tactical options.

    Thanks again for making an awesome game.

    Calum Goodway - Scruffypantz89

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  41. Разрабы всё замечательно кроме одного, сделайте склад под арты чтоб не хранить на планетах

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  42. Make Alpha Drone great again damn it. Make it like Delta Rocket and buff it's lifetime.... no one uses it now that bls is gone.

    Remove it or make it playable

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  43. Thanks for sharing the article.

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    ReplyDelete

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