Release Status: *** TEST EDITION ***
Our April update is a bit modest, with a focus on bug fixes and balance changes. Players will also find more updated graphics, UI refinements, and updated sound FX for our existing systems.
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Thank you to all our players for taking this journey with us. We hope you’ll stay with us a bit longer while we prep the massive Advent update for later this year!
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Version 1.21.
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3 Changelog
Balance:
Rebalanced capital ship resource costs: Capital Ships are extremely potent units, so much so that ‘mass capital ship’ has become a dominant strategy in the early game for all factions. This is partially due to their excellent cost efficiency and survivability. We like how they perform in combat, and still want to support capital ship heavy fleet compositions, but they need to become a less economically efficient option, especially early in the game. Therefore, their resource costs have been increased.
TEC capital ship cost increased to 2500/850/600 (from 2500/770/480)
Vasari capital ship cost increased to 0/1800/1320 (from 0/1400/1100).
Rebalanced civilian structure costs.
Rebalanced corvette vs light frigate interactions.
Rebalanced early game research progression.
Rebalanced frigate and cruiser costs: Frigates and cruisers were quite expensive for what they provided, especially in comparison to capital ships. Their prices have been reduced in almost every case in order to ensure they are worth building when compared to the more versatile capital ships.
Rebalanced Influence recharge rate from Culture.
Rebalanced Influence to come from tech research instead of the home planet bonus.
Rebalanced Vasari Kortul abilities: The Kortul has a highly versatile and powerful ability set and was becoming dominant in Vasari fleets. It has had its first three abilities reduced in power somewhat, especially at the lower levels, while receiving an increase to the AOE damage and pierce of Volatile Nanites. This should provide more choice between spamming many low level Kortuls and trying to level one or two Kortuls to higher levels.
Rebalanced light missile and light phase missile Pierce from 250 to 300. This will increase bomber (both TEC and Vasari) and Tosurak Raider effectiveness against heavy cruisers and capital ships.
Rebalanced Minor Faction abilities for Viturak and Jiskun. The Jiskun Expedition has had its Scout Vision ability moved to level 3 to make it more accessible. Meanwhile, it loses Tachyon Boost and gains Phase Space Raid at level 4. The Viturak Cabal gains Tachyon Boost at level 3, with Phase Space Raid moved to the Jiskun.
Rebalanced Minor Faction rebuild potential.
Rebalanced Minor Faction reveal and level up costs.
Rebalanced TEC Rebel titan rail gun: Cooldown decreased from 12 to 10; damage decreased from 960 to 800.
Rebalanced Vasari titan phase cannons: Range increased from 8,000 to 10,000; cooldown decreased from 12 to 9; damage decreased from 1200 to 900.
Rebalanced Pranast United Minor Faction. Pranast United rewards have been re-ordered based on a more practical assessment of their value. Notably, the Protection Fleet now requires level 4 with the Minor Faction, meaning it needs 6 Influence and takes 480 seconds to cooldown. This should prevent egregious early game spamming by players not investing in any Influence boosting items.
Rebalanced pursuit criteria.
Updated Radiation Bomb: The requirement for the ship to face its target in order to use the Radiation Bomb has been removed in order to help the TEC deal with swarms of light units.
Rebalanced ship speed and gravity well size. A small increase to gravity well size and the speed of many ships should give a little more room to maneuver, especially as fleets get large in the late game. Scouts see the most drastic increase to speed, which should help them live a little longer and do their job more effectively.
Rebalanced Skirantra elite bombers and Vasari bomber Armor item. This ability and item combination could result in Vasari bombers having an absurd 500 hull, rendering them almost invulnerable to their counters. Both required significant value reductions to bring Vasari bombers back into line as units counterable by fighters and point defense.
Rebalanced titan armor strength and shield proportions: Titans had excessively high Armor strength, resulting in an uneven feeling damage curve in big fights. In order to smooth this curve, Armor strength has been reduced, allowing Shield Points to be increased without changing the total effective survivability of titans.
Rebalanced Trade income: Trade has been under-performing quite a bit compared to other sources of economy. In particular, the credit income from Trade is often relatively meager compared to a reasonably sized TEC Commerce economy. Trade credit income has been increased from 1.6 to 2.5, while metal and crystal have both been increased from 0.8 to 1.0. Trade tech upgrades now heavily favor increasing credits from trade instead of equally increasing all resource types. This should help ensure that the TEC can quickly and consistently solve credit shortages through the use of trade.
Rebalanced Trader and Vasari planet upgrade cost scaling.
Rebalanced Trader and Vasari research cost scaling.
Rebalanced Trader frigate and cruiser shields: Increased Shield hit points for smaller TEC ships makes the upgrade techs more meaningful and giving more time for the shields to be seen during combat.
Rebalanced Vasari bombers: The Vasari bomber has been reduced from 4 missiles per salvo back to 2. They have also had their HP reduced by a third. These changes should help point defense more effectively suppress them.
Vasari carrier capital squadrons reduced by 1.
Rebalanced Vorastra Phase Tunneling to use AU (astronomical unit) range.
Rebalanced weapon burst counts for Vasari pulse guns.
Changed Viturak’s Deploy Phase Gate to max out at 3 within an empire.
Units told to move to a specific position will not attempt to move back to the fleet unless the fleet is issued new orders or the unit is told to move to the fleet.
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