Game Update August 13, 2024 (Item Overhaul)

Game Update August 13, 2024 Around 8:45 AM UTC+2, game servers will restart for a game update to be deployed. Items Overhaul Aggro Beacon Changes & Fixes In its area […]
Game Update August 13, 2024

Around 8:45 AM UTC+2, game servers will restart for a game update to be deployed.


Items Overhaul




Aggro Beacon Changes & Fixes
  • In its area of effect the Aggro Beacon will:
    • ignite ships with a special mind flayer buff that will cause damage over time as well as additional aggro towards PvE units.
    • Heal the caster by the damage it outputs.
  • The buff does not stack.
  • The buff does not apply to mines.
  • The buff will last as long as:
    • the beacon is alive.
    • 15 seconds after buffed targets leave the beacon's range.
    • Destroying the beacon will terminate the buff instantly.
  • Aggro beacon can now be dropped on target location.
  • Aggro beacon HP is adjusted to match its new functionality.
  • Aggro beacon will leave the zone when its active time has ended.
    • This will also terminate the buff on all affected targets.
  • Beacon cannot be supported by friendly buffs (Repair, shield etc.).
  • Balancing changes
    • Increased overall HP by 25%.
    • Increased field range by 18%.
    • Ancient variants all deal the same damage in total over time.
      • Adjusted HP of Ancient variants accordingly.
  • Can now be spawned within 80% of a blaster shot.
  • Increased AOE range by 15%.
  • Added AOE logic for 100% damage to up to 10 tagets, then damage decreases with every additional target until reaching a minimum of 10% damage.
  • Adjusted visuals
    • Added visuals for enemy and friendly beacons.
    • Increased beacon size.
    • Added fly away animation.
Aggro Bomb Changes
  • Increased damage by 16% (including detonators).
  • Increased aggro by a factor of 6 to keep AOE weapons relevant in full-squad fights, making sure that the target is not lost instantly.
  • Deals 100% damage to up to 4 tagets, then damage decreases with every additional target until reaching a minimum of 40% damage.
  • Cooldown times of Antares (NPC only)/Gemini/Mizar/Sol Aggro Bombs are now in line with other Aggro Bomb items at 83 seconds.
Aim Scrambler Changes
  • Increased effect strength by 21%.
Attack Charge Changes & Fixes
  • Increased effect strength by 21%.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the strength of Attack Charge items to be capped at 125% even when a particular item's effect was actually stronger.
  • The strength of the zone Attack Charge in Gemini Conquest was corrected to 120% (down from 150%).
Attack Droid Changes & Fixes
  • Increased speed by 15%.
  • Increased HP by 260%.
  • Unified cooldown time for all Ancient variants.
  • Exchanged the Attack Droid's blaster with a sniper blaster.
    • Increased activation range to a distance between blaster range & sniper blaster range.
    • Reduced sniper blaster cooldown time by 33%.
    • Increased following and view ranges to sniper blaster range.
  • Attack droid can get spawned on own position if no target is selected.
  • AI Changes:
    • Improved AI to keep fighting when getting in range of the caster again.
    • Fixed bug that the Attack Droid does not initially engage in combat and stays close to the caster.
    • Fixed another issue with the Attack Droid script that prevented properly engaging targets even when it was following its parent. Attack Droid will now move freely within its distance to the caster and engage targets.
Corruption Cloud Changes & Fixes
  • Reduced AOE effect range by 20%.
  • Fixed a bug that was affecting Corruption Cloud balancing in both PVE and PVP
    • Regular damage reduction is 25%, but in PVE this was unintentionally boosted to 50%.
    • In PVP, damage reduction was always at 25%, ignoring level differences. Now, max damage reduction is between 0% and 35% according to the level difference between caster and target.
Deflection Droid Changes
  • Increased active time by 30%.
Lightning Chain Changes
  • Lightning Chain damage increases by 25% for each additional target hit.
Magnet Trap Changes & Fixes
  • Increased effect strength by 5%.
  • Fixed issue that the Magnet Trap did not get the right data to balance its effect correctly based on the ship level etc. like the stun does.
    • This caused Magnet Traps to have a stronger effect as intended, especially in cases where the level of the MT is close to the ship level.
Materializer Changes
  • Increased active time of Ancient Strong variant by 33%.
  • Reduced active time of Ancient Long variant by 25%.
  • These changes bring the active times of Ancient variants closer together, from 2/0.5 to 1.5/0.666.
  • Adjusted Ancient Materializer cooldown times: regular/long (rapid)/strong; 60/80/45 seconds.
Mine Changes
  • Mines are no longer visible on the minimap, and also do not appear as targets on the target list.
  • Reduced cooldown time by 14% to 26 seconds.
  • Removed "strong" variant wording, leaving only rapid and long item variants.
  • Deals 100% damage to up to 4 tagets, then damage decreases with every additional target until reaching a minimum of 50% damage.
Perforator Changes
  • Reduced cooldown time by 12%.
Protector Changes
  • Fixed an issue that caused the protector effect to overwrite the balance logic instead of properly combining both. The unintended results could be both too strong or too weak.
  • When used together with a Shield, the two items work as follows:
    • Protector has priority (aka functions as the "outer shielding") and ensures protection from stuns.
    • Damage is first absorbed by the Protector shielding, then the regular Shield is used.
    • Shield HP bar shows accumulated shielding power from both Protector and Shield.
Quantum Leap Changes
  • The item can now be used without having a target selected. Doing so will move the ship in its current direction at maximum leap distance.
    • You can also leap across collision if the distance allows for it.
  • Note that due to the new functionality, the item's icon in the skill bar will no longer reflect when a chosen target is in range.
    • Even when your ship is not yet in range, it will still leap towards your chosen target at maximum leap distance.
  • The camera position is now interpolated across the leap, which helps to avoid losing orientation.
Repair Field Turret Changes
  • Added AOE logic that provides 100% repair power to up to 5 repairable units, then repair power decreases with every additional unit until reaching a minimum of 10% repair power.
  • Note: "Repairable units" are those that are allowed to be repaired and are damaged.
Rocket Changes
  • Adjusted AOE logic for 100% damage to up to 4 targets, then damage decreases with every additional target until reaching a minimum of 75% damage.
  • Increased speed by 50%.
  • All but eliminated warmup time.
Shield Changes
  • Increased HP by 15%.
  • Increased active time by 25%.
Speed Actuator Changes
  • Increased cooldown time by ~15%.
Sticky Bomb Changes
  • Reduced delay/active time from 6 to 4 seconds.
  • Increased damage by 12%.
  • Sticky Bomb now always hits when fired, even ignoring aim reduction items.
  • Adjusted AOE logic for 100% damage to up to 4 targets, then damage decreases with every additional target until reaching a minimum of 50% damage.
Stun Charge Changes
  • Increased strength by 17%, adjusted Ancient item timings.
  • Increased speed effect by 18% to level out with Magnet Trap.
  • Reduced duration by 15%.
  • Adjusted active times of regular/long/strong Ancient variants by +2%/+27%/-18%.
Stundome Changes
  • Increased AOE effect range by 50%.
  • Increased duration by 25%.
  • Increased strength by 38%, adjusted Ancient item timings.
    • This only applies to stundomes cast by pilots; the strength of npc-cast stundomes remains unchanged.
Taunt Changes
  • New Effects:
    • Added repair effectiveness reduction by 25% for all repairs towards the taunted target.
    • A taunted target will receive 15% more damage.
  • Increased cooldown time by 48%.
  • Reduced active time by 16%.
  • Increased generated aggro to allow tanks to attract their target better.
Thermoblast Changes
  • Reduced cooldown time by 25%.
Other Item-Related Changes & Fixes
  • Fixed that shield and repair items did give too much effort when the level difference was high.
  • Fixed that other repair actions will also generate effort (Allies Cover, Damage Inverter, etc).
  • Fixed Tau Ceti Conquest zone and field speed/attack charge buff levels.
  • Fixed Sirius Conquest zone/field speed/attack charge buff levels.
  • Fixed that all Rare Attack Turrets were using Draconis-strength fields.
  • Once successfully cast/fired at a target, Sticky Bomb, Rocket and Blaster are now also able to hit the target regardless of a change in relation between caster and target (Pirate mode, etc.) which could have happened during the projectile's flight time.
  • Improved validation checks for field buffs (Aggro Beacon, Repair Field etc.) in scenarios where the PVP relation changes (e.g. when a pilot is defeated, Pirate Mode changes, etc.)
    • This fixes the issue that Aggro Beacons were still damaging pilots even when they could not attack each other (and the beacons).
    • Also fixes the issue that buffs stayed active even when they were not allowed to affect each other (Repairs, Attack buff etc.).
  • Simplified Stun and Afterburner mixing so that the last triggered effect buff is always getting priority. Generally speaking this is very similar to the current live behavior, only that skill levels are no longer taken into account.
    • Triggering an Afterburner after getting move impaired by e.g. Stun(dome), Magnet Trap lets you flee better.
      • Afterburner adds its boost speed as an offset to the current flight speed after the Stun effect affected the base flight speed.
    • Triggering a move impairment (Stun(dome), Magnet Trap) effect on a fleeing player with an already active Afterburner will slow them down more.
      • Current flight speed that is already increased by the Afterburner gets reduced by the buff factor.


Additional Changes

PVP/Enemy Effect Visuals Changes
  • Added enemy visuals that depend on the personal status towards the unit for:
    Note: Visuals do not change when they are already visible to the player
    • Aggro beacons
    • Attack buff fields & Turrets
    • Corruption clouds
    • Magnet traps
    • Mines
      • Friendly mines are easy to see.
      • Enemy mines are little more concealed than before.
    • Orbital strikes
    • Repair fields & Turrets
    • Speed buff fields
  • Added avatar name to user-spawned items in the game world/target list.
Reactor Challenge Warscore Fix
  • Fixed a bug in the Warscore calculation of Reactor Challenges that led to an inflation of Warscore by a factor of 4.
Other Changes & Fixes
  • Fixed unneeded despawn delay of units that do not have a fly away animation.
  • Adjusted OTB Conquest penalty for being inactive and not only checking the planet landing after the Enlisting phase.
  • Improved explosion fire particle to not intersect with terrain too early.
  • Fixed enemy check for visual effects for objects that are not attackable, e.g. Orbital Strike.
  • Added "Sentry Slayer" achievement for defeating the Mantis Sentry multiple times.
  • In the stargate window, systems are now sorted in the correct order of progression through the game.
  • The Sol PVP tank achievement now includes the previously missing Sol Rare Tank.
  • The Draconis PVP Storm achievement now includes the previously missing Draconis TR-Storm.
  • Improved permanently running visual effects to not be terminated when the visual effect limit is reached.
    • This fixes that effects that run permanently end early (Magnet Trap, Corruption Cloud, etc.) when lots of effects are running/active at the same time.

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