Hey folks!

Time for our second dev update. This one is a bit shorter then the last, but it does include the answers to lots of the questions posted in my second thread. Look for another similar thread Friday to post more questions .

Dev Update

• Client 2
  
  • Visages
    
    • Extended visage definition to work with planets and bases
    • Changed VisageDefinition to ShipVisageDefinition, then made types for the other two
    • Bases and Planets should be working shortly, hopefully today
  • Advanced Lighting System
    
    • Currently have low end lighting system
      
      • Does not support bumpmapping, for compatibility reasons
      • Can support simple environment maps, and other simple things
    • Advanced light system could be light management or deferred shading
      
      • Light management uses individual shaders and supports about 10 lights per object
      • Deferred shading supports unlimited lights
        
        • This would take somewhat longer to implement, but be more flexible and prettier
        • This will also need more testing
      • Decision will be made once more testing with lights is done

• Database schema is complete
  
  • Needs to add integrity check for null and such
    
  • Then start coding on the savewench to work with the DB
  • Server will have 2 new parameters: -savetodb and -loadfromdb
  • Items are still saved in XML
    
    • Connected using a table with id/itemname
    • ship_inventory stores the actual items with mods, quantity, etc
  • Save size will go from 300mb to 40mb with the DB change
• Fixed a few bugs on the wiki

• Rebalance
  
  • Checked in hulls, freighter hulls, and the pulseguns, pulseshotguns, missile launchers, and missile shotguns
  • Updated on test
• Updated the Task Matrix to reflect things that need to be done before and after the uni reset. (see below for that list)
• Fixed some bugs/improved the momentum code
  
  • Up on test
• Make drones inherit skills of their owners?
  
  • DM drones would have great resists + bonuses they already have (and they have 2x as many)
  • ShM drones would have great shields
  • Sniper drones would have great range... etc

• Added a referral system

• Tracked down why missions were not showing up in bases
  
  • Test's game DB was corrupted
  • Copied over live DB and everything was fixed
  • Parsing of base's startmission tags was failing
• Found 2 other bugs on test:
  
  • Caught error in Hull:BuildHusk - Couldn't find the visage mic19maclar2 in the registry
    
    • Probably a micron problem
  • No TrueOwner ini Spaceship::IsTimeToEvaporate
    
    • Happens every update, once per update
• Slaves drift out if in a team owned gal
  
  • Should evaporate unless set to guard
• Changing tutorial to be more dynamic to player events
  
  Task Matrix Stuff Mentioned Above
  
  Things that must be finished
  
  Rebalance shields
  Finish the rest of the drone controllers
  Add the missions for the drone controllers
  ? Allow drones to inherit half the owners skills and possibly reduce DM drone stat bonuses
  Rebalance capacitors
  New Uni shape
  Convert heat weapons to DoT (and make damage augs increase parasite damage?)
  Modify stats on the existing drones (way more resists, possibly some more damage or better weapon selection)
  New long range knock-back weapons for snipers
  NPC-like fighters and AI spawned drones that launch them?
  New items for bases
  1. Base OL's
  2. Base Diffusers
  Increase the range on cap ship field gens to nearly unlimited.
  
  Things that can be done after the new Uni
  Rebalance Engines
  New visibility system
  Reblance Radars
  Rebalance Cloaks
  Aug injector for fighters
  
  
  Q&A
  
  1. What of the Drone controllers for the drone re-balance?
     
     • They are ready. Each one adds the power of an equivalent (minor - sup depending on controller) common aug to your deployed drones in the same galaxy.  They take their own slot.  You can only have one Drone Controller equipped at a time and they are hot-swappable (don't need to be docked).  Each one is from a repeatable mission that takes 30 of the corresponding augmenter.
  2. Are there any plans to have a one off mission to remove augs from our ships without destroying them?
     
     • Yes, there will be one-time missions available to players to aug reset ships. These missions will only be available next uni.  The exact number has not yet been determined, but probably something like 6 missions will be offered, unlocked at levels 21, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
  3. Will we ever have a return to more complete station log system that record player activity?
     
     • A better base log has been on our burners for a long time, and we will try getting to it during the next uni. Thanks for the patience on this very important issue.
  4. Will any weapons be changed in the way they function? (Merc Pulse and BB4)
     
     • Catapults have changed a bit. The old low DPE, high DPS guns have been made more normal along the new DPE formulas.
  5. Is there any info on the new slave/drone/fighter control for C2 such as how it will function...?
     
     • It will function similar to an RTS game. You select some drones, slaves, or stations, and right-click on something to give an order. You can right-click on an enemy to attack, a friend to follow/support, a station to dock, a debris to scoop, or a wormhole to jump through and wait. Slaves and drones will also have individual Icons somewhere on the screen (position tbd) which will give you stats on each of those things like shields and energy, etc. We will have more info on this as we work on it.
  6. What will happen with cap ships?
     
     • Nothing in particular yet. They will probably continue to get new specialized gear as we think of it.
  7. Will we ever get a proper trading and banking system which matches all other successful MMO's?
     
     • Trading: soon after client2. Banking: I don't know.
  8. Will combat focus get a small hull bonus for HF/LF or anything for snipers, at least?
     
     • Nothing is planned, but a lot of the ships got more space during the rebalance.
  9. Will their be a window mode option for this client or client 2 in the near future?
     
     • Client2 supports windowed mode.
  10. After the rebalance, engineers will only be able to use 6 drones no matter what tech they are, so will you take under consideration the fact that each and every damage type is not available at least at tech 20?
      
      • Yes, we will have to add some new drones, but we don't know exactly what, yet.
  11. BeanSidhe's junkyards looked very interesting, from the previews, is anything being done with them despite her absence?
      
      • No, but probably we should try to find someone to work on them.
  12. Will the Momentum Missile thing be implemented ingame?
      
      • All physical weapons now have momentum impacts. I'm not sure about missiles.
  13. Will ShM be seeing a boost to combat capabilities?
      
      • It's hard to say at this point. We're going to have to try things out and see.
  14. Are there any plans to regulate commodity prices?
      
      • No.
  15. Secondly, is there going to be any changes to ruins so that we won't be without certain ruin items for universes on end?
      
      • Nothing is planned.
  16. When c2 is released will c1 still work?
      
      • No. Mostly the game will continue to work with both clients as we develop client2, but we plan to add some very limited actual 3d gameplay to client2 which client1 will not be able to support. (The controls will all still be the same)
  17. What exactly are the calculations for stats in the new system?
      
      • This is too complex for a dev update question. Will be discussed at a later date.
  18. What is the reasoning behind limiting the total number of drones someone can deploy?
      
      • The reasoning is to better balance drones, and to give the DM their bonus power from having more drones rather than having much better drones. This lets everyone else still have drones that are competitive, they just can't have as many.
  19. Are there any plans to make them more available (eg ada, StM, w4 commods)?
      
      • Nothing is planned.
  20. Will you be able to simply 'get rid of' ships like release slave, but without it being a slave?
      
      • There is currently no plan for this, but it would be pretty easy to add at some point.

New Test Client
http://www.starsonata.com/StarSonata_TestClient.exe

Thanks for your support,
pip

PS. Stay tuned for information about testing the Rebalance.

sooo what i am wondering here is will heat weapons receive a dps 'nerf' as compared to other weapons because of this burning effect, i ask this because i use a urqa ka and a dwo and will likely be using a jiji. And will this burning effect just be between hits, or will it take effect if you are hitting the enemy the whole time.

Basically how is this change to heat weapons going to work.

Thanks for the update pip, thanks for figuring out the drone controllers

I am not a fan of the DOT on heat weapons....Really takes away on its dps, As im sure the formula will be something like (weapon gets 25% less dps, because it does 10% DOT) something along those lines, will Badly hurt Heat.

Also the Test Client seems to be bad..it gives me an error as soon as i pull it up.

EDIT: you just posted the test client

Sorry about that Trev, i was having errors pushing it up (maybe cause you kept interrupting it with pulls) Its up now though, and works on my system.

doesn't seem to work for me, sure its my problem ill fix it later, Any who Although you added space to the SS, And thatch, the gear size is just outrageous, My singularity on test is 5. mil or so out of 4. something overflowing, as on live, its Not overflowing with just over 4mil base hull space

Is there any making smaller base gear or do i need to invest in Lots of Bule Blackhole Generators.

The new parasite system that I programmed is very flexible. There are several new "parasite" types, not just the bugs, one of which is fires. Different heat weapons can start different types of fires on the target ships which do damage over time and possibly other negative effects. Like the parasites, these fires all have half lives. Fire extinguishers, which are like pest controls but they work against fires, will extinguish all fires simultaneously. So you get a diminishing return on starting more fires on your target ship. Each additional one will do more damage, but less than the one before it.

I don't know yet what exactly the changes will be and the exact stats on the heat weapons, but you will probably not want to rely on just heat weapons. Probably I will do something like take away 25% of the DPS on heat weapons and give them DoT effects that at maximum double the total damage over 15-30 seconds. So a heat weapon that currently does 100 DPS with no DoT would do 75 + 75 over 20 seconds. A mixture of heat and non-heat will probably yield the maximum overall DPS.

I cant get the test client to work, so i got someone to log on and tell me my stats of my ships is why you see them above, Not sure whats causing the problems, Any idea?

Same

You guys are downloading it to ss dir and running it from there? Not using your shortcut or connecting to liberty?

Here's the error I get, I dunno about Trev.

So you have taken the 2 most popular endgame weapons, Jiji and Ukuk, and made it so that it is not reccomended to use one of them on its own. You have also increased the size of both to make it difficult to carry more than one weapon type.

StarSonata_TestClient.exe is not a valid Win32 application.

and when i run it as admin:
Invalid access to memory location.

Yeah, many people dont have the HULL to carry 2 weapons. This will largely nullify the usefulness of these weapons....What i would suggest, is a more of a "Punch" DOT. think quick, save your shields, they lose DPS. Dont think so quick, and they get an extra 15-25% DPS.

You want this rebalance to all have ways to be better, jeff, not limiting things. Trust me.

EDIT: WTF? i just went on test and looked at some stats.....DWO: 59 damage per shot!? Urqa'ka: 32 Damage per shot!? You must be crazy! Sure, a DOT effect is all well and good, but you HAVE to balance it between being cool and being some silly weapon most people never use!

Take the antimatter device as an example. Sure! The Bule blackhole gen can do more physical DPS than any other weapon in the game! But its still not actually used, because its a stupid weapon, that half the time wont do NEAR what its intended to do! Now this is your solution: Make the DOT 4 seconds, MAYBE 5-6. MOST heat weapons are intended as burst damage, anyway. Additionally, this doesn't effect the damage as much, making it into a usable weapon! PLEASE dont screw over heat weapons the way you did catas a year ago!

And many ships have been given more hull, some more aug slots.



I bet you just took a quick look at the damage of the weapon and decided to make this post. Look at all the stats, try out the weapon in actual combat and compare how it performs on test to how it performs on live. Then post again and make some suggestions on how you feel it could be improved.