This work-in-progress article is about to bring you information about very important changes in Starfall Tactics so let's go straight to the point without any further introduction:
Ship building & new components
Along with the extension of the crafting system, come several important additions into the Ship building process: In general, the system stays almost the same - you still need a certain amount of resources and IGC to build a ship. However, as the process of building new ships looked way too simple, we've decided to make it a bit more complex in order to let you feel that you are creating something really important and huge. Building a spaceship is a serious business, right?;)
Now, to create each ship you need several components:
- Hull - a unique part for each ship class (there are currently 6 of them in the game, as you can remember), can be created from mining resources.
- Power Core, Navigation System and Life Support System - three important parts you can create using mining resources like Arkonit, Adamantane, Neitherium and a new one we will talk about in the next part of the article. Each of them has three different sizes - small, medium, large, and 4 Tech levels, just as usual equipment does.
Faction components are still required if you create a ship of another faction, and some NPC faction ships might need an additional specialized component.
Power Core
Navigation System
Life Support System
These new elements can be crafted in a crafting menu - so, basically, you can decide which ship class you want to create and prepare some general components for it even before choosing a concrete ship model. But don't forget that ships with different Tech levels can require components of different Tech levels. Also, you can go directly to the ship building menu and put all stuff required to create a concrete ship to the crafting queue.
New mining resource - Rho-element
Arkonit, Adamantane and Neitherium - three resources you can mine from rich asteroid fields, which have a different rarity and used to craft different ships are now getting a new friend - the fourth resource.
This new resource is called Rho-element and can be found in Rich asteroid fields starting 4th (Delta) level of Vortexes (previously called "Warp Anomalies"). Previously, there was a very big gap between Adamantane and Neitherium which is finally filled with a Ro-element: it is rarer than Adamantane, but not as rare as a Neitherium. To not confuse you with unusual color differentiation (white-green-orange-violet), we changed the color of the Neitherium to orange and gave a violet color to the new resource.
So now mining resources are distributed among the Galaxy in the following way:
- Arkonit - can be found in Rich asteroid fields starting from Alpha (1st) Vortex
- Adamantane - can be found in Rich asteroid fields starting from Beta (2nd) Vortex
- Rho-element - can be found in Rich asteroid fields starting from Delta (4th) Vortex
- Neitherium - can be found in Rich asteroid fields starting from Zeta (6th) Vortex
Pirate Outposts
In Starfall Tactics, Pirate Base is a big instance for a party of 3 Commanders and it's really hard for a solo player to complete it. That's why it was decided to create something you can destroy alone and, at the same time, get a certain amount of experience and loot.
We've implemented smaller instances - pirate Outposts. These small structures can be found close to Pirate bases and serve them as additional "strongholds" and warp points. Inside Outpost, you can find several Pirates and an Outpost itself, which works just as the same structures in Pirates Bases: it has some weapons to defend and is able to warp in reinforcements. Outposts can give you a rarer loot than usual pirate fleets and sometimes can also serve as a quest goal which also means more loot and experience for you. There is a huge chance that things can be changed or adjusted, but we hope that this small feature can add a bit more variety and fun into the game;)
Shields Rework - Segmented Shields
It's time for shields to get another review from the Snowforged Team: although it became much better after several tweaks and a rework, we still felt like it needs some general changes to become even better. Finally, we were able to find the way which can bring more fun to the gameplay and, at the same time, help us deal with other troubles.
Now shields on ships are separated into 4 different pieces: each of them has their own amount of hit points equal to ¼ of total ships shield hit points and covers one side of a ship. When shields from one side of the ship get destroyed, you start receiving damage to the next layer of defense - armor, even if shields on the other sides of the ship are not yet destroyed. However, you can turn the other side, where shields are still full - and continue fighting. Of course, the total amount of shields was also changed and is still a thing to balance.
This important rework does several great things at the same time: First of all, ships with weapons on different sides get a sort of advantage as now, when they lose shields on one side, they can turn the other one and still deal some damage, while ships with all weapons concentrated, for example, on the front, will have to retreat. As you can already see, rockets with their 360-degree firing ark finally get their advantage, just as it was initially planned: they can turn all sides and still deal full damage to the enemy. Also, segmented shields make you pay a bit more attention to ship positioning and let you cause more influence on the outcome of each specific battle.
Faction Abilities
Each faction in Starfall Tactics has its' own advantages and disadvantages, and while most of them just increase or decrease certain ship characteristics, the Deprived faction has a really great ability, which allows them to passively regenerate their ships. But why would it be the only one faction to have a great ability? So, we've added a special ability for all factions - they are available on each faction ship by default:
- Vanguard gets a Weapon Overload ability on each ship by default - it now becomes a unique Vanguard ability, and, just as thу same module before, on activation it reduces cooldown time for all weapons installed on the ship, but in exchange, deals a small amount of damage to your own structure.
- Eclipse faction will have a Shield Redistribution Module: on activation, it redistributes shields on all sides - summarizes hit points of all shield on the ship and once again divides it to four sides. So if a shield on one side becomes severely damaged, you can activate this ability to "redirect" some hit points from other sides to this damaged side.
- Deprived stay with the same passive regen ability as before: When their ships are out of battle, they start to slowly regenerate structure and armor. However, with each hit point regenerated, the maximum amount of armor is reduced.
Note that considering all the upcoming changes, new balance revisions are more than likely to happen in the future to make it all work together.
Stars
While our programmers and game designers work to bring you more great features and improve existing mechanics, our artist making the whole game look better with the very special magic of art. Recently, they've reworked several stars and added new ones you can now meet while exploring the Galaxy. Here are just a couple of them in action - Pulsar and Black Hole:
In general, there are 15 different stars which have been added or reworked: Red dwarf, Yellow dwarf, Orange dwarf, Blue dwarf, Ultra-cool dwarf, Blue Giant, Red Giant, Pulsar, Black Hole, Neutron star, Double star, Planetar, Red supergiant, Yellow supergiant, Blue supergiant.
Looking forward to seeing them all? Join our Facebook and Twitter pages for more updates and cool gifs!
