Introducing Quantum Stars

Arriving later this month, Quantum Stars is the first new star type introduced in Hades' Star in 8 years, since Blue Stars in 2018. It's a star type that was fun to design, based on the community's feature suggestions and ideas over many years, and even has the benefit of reusing some of the insights and features from failed attempts to create new content in the past (the original Dark Nebula update was originally meant to introduce a new star type, also called Quantum Star, that was eventually cut from the game). 

The exact details of how Quantum Stars work will be left to the community to discover after the update rolls out. There's a certain feeling of magic when players discover new areas for themselves, and I want to recreate that experience, not just in Quantum Stars but also in future expansions of the Hades' Star universe in the years ahead.

This post is meant to present some initial abstract information to help you and your Corporation prepare for the new content. At the same time, I want to stress that like all features in the last few years, Quantum Stars will be heavily influenced and shaped by player feedback. The new star has been specifically designed so that combat is fully configurable and tweakable from the server, without app updates. There will be frequent adjustments based on player feedback and observed player behavior, much more frequent than what you've seen before in other star types. Think of 2026.1 as just the starting point for Quantum Stars, and the modified gameplay they will enable over time in all other star types. From that starting point, there are a lot of directions we can take the actual gameplay, rewards and module augmentations that Quantum Stars enable. The actual direction will be picked largely by the players, and you are encouraged to participate with your observations and suggestions on our official Discord server. 

Making sure your Corporation is ready

Quantum Star missions are group PvE, with real time combat inspired by Red Stars but on a bigger scale, supporting up to 40 players participating at the same time. There was a lot of thought into how combat should work and scale, but in the end the decision was made not to scale down the difficulty for small or low tech Corporations. While this can be viewed as a controversial decision, there's really no other way to go about implementing what players asked for: A combat challenge that anyone in the Corporation can participate in. Giving any type of benefit to smaller Corporations would simply encourage players to create their own smaller Corporations, something that would negatively affect the health of the game overall. Instead, the new system will give a further incentive to smaller Corporations to merge, and I believe this is exactly the right incentive for the game's continued success. 

Scanning for a Quantum Star will require 10 active players in the Corporation, and a warning will be shown if there are less than 20 active players. Active player is anyone who logged in the last week, however Corporation leaders will also need to judge the eligibility of their players (anyone under Red Star level 7 is unlikely to be able to fully contribute without significant help by higher level players). Like everything else, these numbers will be tweaked if needed. Not every player will be required to be online at the same time, but maximizing the rewards from the Quantum Star mission will require all members to participate during the time window the mission is active.

Economy Preparation

Sending ships in Quantum Stars will require Hydrogen. Asteroids will spawn per player during the mission phase, and players will be able to deposit that Hydrogen remotely to their empire, using the Hydrogen Upload module. Making sure that module is upgraded will help your overall Hydrogen collection from the new star type. 

There will be other resource rewards in Quantum Stars, but the main reward will be converting regular Artifacts (retrieved in Red Stars) with Quantum blueprints, which allow progress toward unlocking enhanced versions of existing modules. Maximizing the Quantum Artifacts will require you to be in a very active Corporation. 

Quantum Stars will also become the only way to grow Empire Power for players that have capped out to their Red Star limit. Hopefully this will help avoid the congestion at the top of the leaderboards. 

Combat design goals

When giving feedback on the combat of the new star type, please keep these goals in mind. Game functionality or workarounds that directly contradict these goals will be very high priority to fix: 

• It should be very difficult if not impossible for a single player to accomplish their goal alone in the Quantum Star. When possible, it should require a significant amount of Hydrogen, forcing players to re-dispatch combat ships multiple times.
• There should be meaningful choices for module loadouts, so players have to think and have actual alternatives when equipping their Battleship.
• Any module that is usable in Quantum Star should have a valid use case that makes players consider it on their loadout. 
• Teamwork among multiple players and specific roles when picking modules loadouts should be encouraged. 
• Ideally the optimal strategy to finish objectives during a mission phase would involve the player sending in at least two different battleships (at different times), equipped with different modules. 

Many modules you've come to rely on in other star types, such as Solitude and Alpha shield, have different stats or different functionality in Quantum Stars. Make sure you study the Quantum star properties of all existing modules. Some of the module and combat ideas you see in Quantum Stars will find their way to future Red Star levels (13 and beyond). Depending on community feedback, they may also find their way to other star types. 

Spreading the word about Quantum Stars

Hades' Star has been live in some form for over 10 years now. Over that time frame, millions of players have experienced the game. We owe the game's continued success to the strong community that has developed and self-organized on Discord. To all of those players, and especially the volunteers who help moderate and run the community: Thank you!

The Quantum Star release is a great opportunity to remind lapsed players what a unique sci-fi experience Hades' Star is. To that end, we will be asking for your help once more. After the release, we will be posting requests for short in-game videos, the first one being to capture the first flare-up in your Quantum Star. These videos will be re-shared with your permission to social media outside of Discord. Participating Corporations will receive Crystals for all their members - stay tuned for more information on this initiative. 

- Andreas