As was discussed in an earlier topic, we are looking to revamp the Augmenter Tweaking system so it is much more fair and balanced for all players. Instead of a 50 level skill at 2% per level, we have decided to go for a much more friendly 25 level skill at 4% per level and a few bonus levels after 25 directally linked to Atlum's new area. This means there will not be a massive Skill Point cost for obtaining the higher levels of the skill, but on the other hand, we are going to level restrict this skill. This should help put an emphasis on leveling, since you will need to level for this crucial skill. Currently the level restrictions are as follows. Remember, these are open to discussion.

[table][tr][th]Tweak Lv.[/th][th]Lv. Req[/th][/tr][tr][td] 1 [/td][td] 10 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 2 [/td][td] 15 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 3 [/td][td] 20 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 4 [/td][td] 25 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 5-7 [/td][td] 30 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 8 [/td][td] 50 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 9-11 [/td][td] 100 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 12 [/td][td] 150 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 13-14 [/td][td] 225 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 15 [/td][td] 300 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 16-17 [/td][td] 400 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 18 [/td][td] 500 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 19-20 [/td][td] 625 [/td][/tr][tr][td] 21+ [/td][td] 750 [/td][/tr][/table]

If you decide to buyback your skill, these restrictions will not apply, they will only apply to the new content involved with this skill.

Since this skill is going to be heavily content based we are going to unveil a few new mission features, and make use of some others that you might not have known about. First, the missions are designed to be in a block format, something that has never been done before. This means that instead of constant running back and forth between galaxies, you can accept all the missions for a level block, do them, and return just once. I am sure this will please many of the players who have had to do something like Bonnet and were fed up with constant travel between Sol and Bonnet. Also, since the missions are in a block format, combined with a specific skill restriction, this means I can offer multiple ways to get the ultimate reward. So if you do not like one of the options offered, you can always choose another. There will always be multiple ways to raise you augmenter tweaking skill to the next level.

Anyone that has visited Liberty recentally will have noticed a mission that offers a Skill reward. That feature will also be used heavily in the new Augmenter Tweaking content, since it eliminates the possibility of players muling missions and selling commodities for skills. This feature also allows for the unique block system used in the missions, since there is a skill level restriction for the reward. If you start a mission and save it for a cheap skill-up later after you have passed the skill-level max restriction for that mission, you will have wasted your time!

To continue, there is an unused feature that I added a few months ago which allows for conflicting missions. This means I can offer multiple reward missions, allowing for players to pick and choose what item they would like to get instead of being stuck with something they might not need. Once they get one reward, the feature will lock off the other reward missions for that selection. Eventually we might use this feature for entire mission chains.

Finally, I have finished a series of missions for the Nexus that will be added with the new universe. These missions explain the concept of Augmenters, Augmenter Tweaking and even things like special combination augmenter, and eventually base augmenters. Hopefully these will give new players a better understanding of a fundemental concept in Star Sonata.

As always, comments and feedback on this will be appreciated, and we will attempt to make this transition as smooth as possible for all players.

Caelestis

I think 25 is a lot smoother. Thank you. Out of interest, now that AT is being changed, what will happen about Emperor runs? By the way, Love the Mzungu ships.

could you give us the intended amount of SP per level we're looking at? and how would that affect the buyback - would we be only able to buyback as much as we can with our current SP or would we go into negative SP and get the equivalent level?

I've already had to spend loads of SP to get back my slave tweak(and its still not the same) now I have to spend a load more just to get back to the same personal AT level?

How in gods name am I supposed to do that? my slaves suck and now so does my own personal ship...

Amazing, no complaints.

AT will likely still cost sp. However, I've done a quick for loop and calculated the previous AT would cost 1500sp at the max level. This will cost about 210 as far as I know. Which is only 42 levels, for max AT, likely 40% more tweaking on all of your augs than before, and the best skill in-game. Damn worth it.

I love the whole stacking of missions and all that.

He just said that you wont need SP if you do the CONTENT.

If not then you can buy they back with SP.

That seems totally fair to me.

when he introduced the missions giving skills content, Cael said that the mission reward would still require the spare SP to finish the mission, so that it's an alternative way to get the skill but you still needed the SP. That is what i got from what he said

Also that you'd have to do the missions as the only way to get the new AT levels so that you can't farm commods or things like that

Not for all. It's 4% less than what I had before.

But how will this buying back your skills costs? If you had it before you will be able to get some levels for free?

How many levels for each level of AT?

And what of the skill points spent on the old AT skill? Will they be refunded? And the few hundred mil?

Hehe on the other hand, we rad ex are less affected since our slaves were ALREADY nerfed before mwahahaha

I think in the long run this sounds pretty good, just imagine an uber hunt where the entire party has a 100% Augmenter Bonus! Damn are some of the AI going to go down fast! I do think though that they should do something like a 'mini-universe' again when they add this. Just springing it on people at the start of an actual universe means stuff like NO bases building, NO hunting, NO NOTHING until everyone goes and buys back their AT, it really would kind of suck.

On another note, do you have to do the buyback? If you wanted to do the content to get the skills when you could buyback, is that going to be allowed?

Oh yeah. WOOOO! I can afford the SP cost! (65 levels of SP for level 100 of the skill!!)

Calypso

I know this will be very unpopular but we already have a nasty situation with some low level alts with tech 20 ships that no one coming up in levels can compete with. I personally think that buying back AT should have level reqs included. This will at least prevent an even further divide, having a lowbie with a tech 20 and a high bought up AT.

maybe refund us the money we spent getting the current AT lvls and this will be perfect

Stop bitching about a refund. You guys with Aug tweak 3 get Legacy skill 3.
A totally uber skill, which in essense has cost alot less the most worthless bar skill.

I agree with Junkie, no need for a refund, most of us have gotten AT3 before it started costing money anyway.

I do think that we should get a refund on the 15 SP that AT3 hast cost us, might seem very little but if you're a f2p with say AT2 or 3, then you'll want the SP back... just fair to not let us lose 3 levels into nothing.

I was also wondering whether the legacy skill affects things like twilight speed mod.

And I would also like to know how many SP you'll need for the skill, and how many credits (like, does the SP add or is it steady, and will we be paying a bil for each level from 20-25?)