Conquest Rework Update March 2, 2021

Conquest Rework Update March 2, 2021 Between 8:30 AM and ~1 PM UTC+1, the game servers will restart for a big game update to be deployed. This update will take […]

Conquest Rework Update March 2, 2021

Between 8:30 AM and ~1 PM UTC+1, the game servers will restart for a big game update to be deployed. This update will take longer than usual, and we will do it server by server.

New Conquest System
Conquest has been reworked from the ground up to provide clans with a worthwhile and also fun way of earning millions(!) of cryonite. The all-new Conquest has a 3+1 phase structure, and we will give you a simplified overview here. Find more detailed information about the new Conquest phases in the in-game Conquest help window (can be reached in both clan window's "planets" sub section and zone panel for Conquest planet orbits).

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Conquest Phases

Registration Phase
  • Only clans can register for Conquest. They can do so in the respective planet's zone panel, or through the "planets" sub section in their clan window.
  • "Mining Tickets" are needed in order to register for Conquest. Every clan can collect one free Mining Ticket per day, and additional Mining Tickets can be won through Conquest itself.
    • As long as a clan's daily Mining Ticket has not yet been collected, they can drop from any defeated enemy unit. Any clan member can collect it.
    • Newfound clans will begin with a negative Mining Ticket value of -7 that they need to offset before they can register for Conquest.
    • No clan can hold more than 10 Mining Tickets at a given time. If a clan chooses not to use their Mining Tickets in Conquest registration, they will no longer be able to collect daily Mining Tickets once they are holding 10 Mining Tickets.
  • Registration for a particular Conquest fixture closes two days before battle.

Draw Phase
  • Two clans are picked for Conquest battle from all clans that have registered for a particular Conquest planet fixture. The more Mining Tickets a clan has invested into their registration, the greater the chance of being picked.
  • The actual draw is performed right at the beginning of the phase. This means the two selected clans now have two days to prepare for battle.
  • Any Mining Tickets that had been used in registrations are returned to the clans that were not picked for battle in the draw. If a battle is cancelled, Mining Tickets that were used in registrations are returned as well.

Enlisting Phase
  • The Enlisting phase directly precedes Conquest battle and only lasts 30 minutes.
  • During this time, pilots for both clans need to enlist themselves in the Conquest planet's orbit.
  • At least 5 pilots need to enlist for each clan; the maximum number of pilots that can participate is 25, but this number can only be reached when both clans are able to enlist 25 pilots; team size will be determined by the least common number of pilots of either side.
    • A Mining Ticket penalty is given to the clan that does not enlist the minimum required members for the match.
  • Pilots need to choose and equip their ships adhering to the system's technology. The exact tech levels to be met are shown in Enlisting.

Conquest Phase
  • Once Conquest has begun, all enlisted pilots are required to land within a short time to be able to participate.
  • A Conquest battle will run for 45 minutes.
  • The goal of Conquest battle is, in short, to collect the greatest possible number of "unrefined ores". Unrefined ores can be collected from both special sites on the planet surface and by destroying enemy ships.​

Conquest Gameplay Mechanics

Ore Sites

  • The number of available sites in a battle is depending on team size.
  • Each active site will generate unrefined ores ready to be picked up by players.
  • In certain intervals a site can go into "heat mode" generating the double amount of ores.
  • Sites will eventually deactivate over the course of battle until all sites are depleted shortly before the end of the battle.
  • 5 minutes before the end, the last remaining ore site will go into heat mode and then deplete 2 minutes before the battle ends.
Regular Ships
  • When destroyed, regular ships drop 20% of their collected ores.
  • Squad leaders can be used as a rescue target.
Conquest Ship
  • Can only be used when team size is 10 or greater.
  • Collects unrefined ores 3 times faster than regular space ships.
  • When destroyed, Conquest ships drop 40% of their collected ores.
  • Can be used as a rescue target.
  • Takes longer in rematerialization.
  • Is not allowed to use any gravitons.
  • Will not receive 75% HP when materialized by an engineer (25% HP instead).
Zone Rules
  • Once landed, players cannot leave the planet surface as long the Conquest battle is running.
  • Automatic rematerialization will take place at the landing zone after a ship was destroyed and no rescue option was selected.
  • Spaceships are kept in the zone even for offline players, which allows the destruction of the ship for ores.
  • Activity measurements are made to determine if a player was active during the Conquest battle to calculate rewards on it.
  • There is a global rescue cooldown before players can select a rescue option.
  • Adjusted instant materialization cooldown to be 5 minutes on Conquest planets; also, an engineer rescue will not reset it.
Conquest Rewards
  • Changed the rewards from gravitons to cryonite.
  • Cryonite rewards will be calculated by the number of active players in the end of the match, their level und the amount of unrefined ore share % the clan team could collect in the end.
    • The reward bonus will increase up to 300% when 25 players are active in the match.

Clan Fund Related Changes
Clans can now collect and pool cryonite through two separate mechanisms: via donations and by doing Conquest battle. The two pools are handled separately, like this:
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Clan Cryonite Pooling
  • Split clan cryonite into two different pools:
    • The Donations Pool holds all cryonite that was donated to the clan. A donation cap is applied to this pool:
      • Introduced a max cap of 750,000 for cryonite donations made from clan members.
      • Members cannot donate any further cryonite once the cap is reached.
      • When clan equipment is sold, the clan cryonite returns will go into the donation pool (for this case, the max cap is ignored).
      • Purchases that require clan cryonite (such as Sirius jump ships) will use the donations pool first, the rewards pool second.
    • The Rewards Pool holds all cryonite that the clan has won by doing Conquest battle.
      • Clan member cryonite payouts can only be made from this pool.
        • Cryonite payout is possible 14 days after a new player has joined or created a new clan themselves that does not match the previous one. After that timer the regular weekly schedule will continue starting on Monday at midnight server time.
      • There is no max cap to the rewards pool. Win all the clan cryonite you like!
  • Reworked clan fund UI.

New Conquest Achievements & Related Changes
New achievements have been added to complement the reworked Conquest mode. Some existing achievements needed to be adjusted as well.
New Achievements
Ores:

  • Collect X amount of Ore during Conquests (cumulative)
  • Keep hold of 100 Ores during a conquest match
Kills:
  • Kill X player regular ships during Conquests (cumulative)
  • Destroy X player Conquest Ships during Conquests (cumulative)
  • Kill 100 regular player ships during in a single conquest match
Operation:
  • Pilot X Conquest ship(s) and be active with it in Conquest (cumulative)
  • Be active in X conquests matches (cumulative)
  • Collect X mining ticket for your clan (cumulative)
Conquest Wins:
  • Win a Conquest with 90% collected ores for your clan
  • Win a Conquest with no ores left uncollected
  • Win 10 conquest on planet X (for each CQ planet)
Meta:
  • Complete all Conquest Planet win achievements
  • Complete all Conquest Kill achievements
  • Complete all Ore Collection Achievements

Achievement Changes
  • Upgraded “Overlord” achievement to contain all new conquest achievements.
  • Converted “Lone Wolf” achievement to"Win 10 CQ matches without a conquest ship while the opposing team used one".
  • Updated “Conquest Ships” achievement to include the new Conquest ships:
    • Sol ship (level 55 variant)
    • Tau Ceti CQ ship
  • Implemented that the achievements are automatically unlocked after login based on reached milestones (navchips, completed artifact).

Conquest "Announcer" Messages
Announcements for pilots regarding the current Conquest phases.
Registration phase:
  • Show that the registration phase for planet X will end in Y minutes to all online players.
  • Show message when a new clan X has registered for a Conquest planet Y to all already registered clans for this conquest.
Draw phase:
  • Show that the draw has concluded for planet X and the battle will be fought between clans Y & Z (for several intervals).
Enlisting phase:
  • Show that enlisting has begun on planet X to participating clan members.
  • Show that enlisting will end on planet X in Y time to participating clan members (for several intervals).
Conquest phase:
  • Show that landing is required on the planet within X time for all players of the match (for several intervals).
  • Show that Conquest has started on planet X between clans Y and Z to all online players.
  • Show that the Conquest battle on planet X has reached the X time of the match between clans Y and Z with their ore share % if one clan is on the lead to all online players (for several intervals).
  • Show when the Conquest battle on planet X has finished between clan Y and Z showing the cryonite earnings to all online players.
  • Show when a Conquest ship was destroyed from clan X and dropped X ores to all users on the planet.

More Conquest Changes
Conquest ships, clan statistics, etc.
Conquest Balancing & Changes
  • Conquest Ship HP were roughly doubled.
  • Conquest Ship Afterburner speed has been reduced by ~25%.
  • Conquest Ship Blaster damage has been reduced so it takes about 6 firings in Vega and 4 firings in Sirius to destroy regular ships.
  • Conquest Ship Repairfield is now about four times as strong as before and stays active three times as long; cooldown has been extended accordingly.
  • Conquest Ship Protector is now two times as strong, but stays active for a shorter time and also as a longer cooldown than before.
  • Fixed a bug that did not allow the clan to create Conquest ship configurations that can be shared between clan members. This is working now. All Conquest Ship related purchases will use clan cryonite.

Conquest Clan Statistics
Implemented new Conquest statistics shown in the clan window statistics box
  • Conquest matches played (won|draw|lost)
  • Conquest win rate %
  • Average ore share % for all battles played

Other Conquest Related Changes
  • Names over ships will now include HP & shield bars unter the name including the amount of unrefined ores currently collected.

Clan Rank Related Changes
Adjusted the clan rights structure to allow better control for conquest related elements.
  • Show “Member/Admiral/etc. of..” properly for all ranks as tooltip in the scanner on the clan icon.
  • Assigning a new admiral will demote the current admira to lieutenant due to the position limits.
  • Player assigning new ranks to it members will get informed when it failed and why.
  • Added new commander rank.
  • Set rank position limits for Admiral to 1, Captain to 2 and Commander to 4. All others have no limit.
  • All ranks higher than “member” can assign the ranks below them.
  • Preselects the rank the member currently has in the rank assign window.
  • Update Rank Permissions based on the table below:

RankPositionsCQ ManagementCQ equip PurchaseManage JumpshipApprove ApplicationsManage GravitonsManage CryoniteManage ClanMange AllianceKick Member
Admiral1XXXXXXXXX
Captain2XXXXXXXXX
Commander4XXXX
LieutenantNo limitXXX
OfficerNo limitXX
MemberNo limit

Ladder System Adjustments
To improve the existing ladder's behavior and slowly phase it out of beta we need to adjust and fix a few things.
Clan Ladder & Hall of Fame changes
To properly start into the new Conquest era the ladder ranking as well should have a fresh start, together with some adjustments.

  • Reset Hall of fame & ladder and store old golden skulls in the clan window statistics panel at the same place as the wins are stored (as text form).
    • Old Conquest System Statistics:
      • Golden Skulls: XX
      • CQ Wins: XX
  • Change the clan ladder structure
    • Set evaluation period to a monthly basis
    • Reduce divisions and keep only one (Entry division)
      • Will be cleared after each evaluation
    • Set that the the Top 3 will get golden skulls as reward
  • Remove deleted clans in the hall of fame when the CQ update is deployed

Ladder Division System Changes
The division system had a few issues that caused it to break; changes are needed so that divisions can be more flexible and dynamic.

  • Clans or pilots that did not have generated warscore when the ladder is evaluated:
    • they will relegate to the division below.
    • they are not allowed promote to the upper division or do not get skulls
  • In addition the promotion slots will be dynamic based on how many slots are free in the upper division.
    • The fixed delegation and promotion slots remain present. (They are used as a minimum)
  • Added that the user can directly see if he would be promoted or relegated from the current situation before the evaluation

Pilot Hall of Fame changes
To better highlight the best players, we changed the hall of fame presentation.
  • Add one hall of fame per type (Achievements & Skulls) that can be selected by the user in the combobox

Ladder Related Conquest Changes
  • Implemented clan ladder medal rewards based on position and total winners on evaluation.
  • Increased clan ladder winning slots from 3 to 5.
  • Clan warscore gets calculated only by the % ore share the clan was able to win in Conquest.

Other Ladder Related Changes
  • Implemented that the amount of skulls won per ladder position is shown next to the skull icon.
  • Fixed that medal winners could get relegated when the division is not populated enough so that the fixed relegation slots kick them.
  • Fixed that the ladders are automatically cleared out by invalid entries (eg. deleted clans, deleted pilots etc.):
    • Hall of fame on a daily basis
    • Regular Ladders (divisions) on evaluation
  • Fixed several backend code for the ladder & hall of fame towards a more stable and less beta experience.
  • Fixed many UI related issues and usuability.
  • Further improved "my position button" handling in the ladder so that in the hall of fame this depeneds on the selected ladder type (medals, achievements).

Other Changes
Changes made in other parts of the game.
Item Balance
  • Reduce Magnet trap HP by 50% when spawned by players.
  • Increased detonation delay by 0.2 seconds for orbital strikes launched by players.
  • Engineers will now materialize ships with 75% of their HP.

Clan Related Changes
  • The "clan hopping protection" now also applies to creating a new clan (i.e. players who cannot change clans due to this mechanic can also not create a new clan, and vice versa).

Star System Related Changes
  • Fixed that the probe sent in the starmap to explore its location only took seconds instead of the shown time.
  • Adjusted that the explore time for a new route in the starmap changes based on the level of the planet up to 25 minutes.
  • Implemented that the Sirius Wormhole hangar will unlock armor upgrades depending on the jump ship's location on Sirius' rings.
  • Fixed: Missing name for siriusasteroidshangar zone and incorrect display of "Sirius Wormhole" name.

Performance Related Changes
  • Changed clearing interval of unreferenced resources from 60m to 30m to free up memory earlier
  • Fixed a bug that caused the engine trails of the spaceships to not be fully unloaded when no longer needed, increasing CPU load over time when staying in the same zone.
  • Improved performance of the buddy list when doing periodic updates while the buddy list is open.

Assorted Changes
  • Adjusted that player controlled objects (turrets, attack droid, mines etc.) do not get a always visible name floating above them. Only when they are selected it will be shown.
  • Fixed character corruption of "filled circle" character in bold font.
  • Applied fix to prevent number under/overflow for setting values in persisted objects (negative cryonite for example).
  • Graviton cooldown increased from 30min to 45min for competitive game modes.

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