Steam Awards
I hope you guys have enjoyed playing USI as much as I (and Lucky) have enjoyed working on it! Theres only one option for a steam awards nomination for us, so please nominate USI for the Labor of Love award!
Upcoming Rebalance
A rebalance for Sector 80+ is coming soon (hopefully with the Spacemas update late December).
The rebalance has two parts to it that aim to solve common complaints and smooth out the progression.
R1-R5 Squish
R3 and R4 are very "samey" feeling in general, and a Reinforce every 5 sectors means you are re-running the pre-capital content far more then the fun new stuff.
So this section of the game will be reduced to 3 Reinforces. These will be at sector 80, 90 and 100, so 10 sectors per Reinforce instead of 5.
This part of the rebalances was relative "easy" to make work. I'm aiming for roughly the same total time to get through this section of the game, but shifting the time from re-runs to a little more of a grind in the new to you sections.
IMPORTANT: If you are currently in this section of the game when this patch hits, you will be put in the appropriate Reinforce bracket, meaning R1 and R2 will be in new R1 and R3 or R4 will be in new R2. I will post an update several days before the patch to give you a heads up, as it will NOT make any sense to start R2 right before the patch hits, might as well just wait a day or two for it unless you play VERY actively.
G1-G6 Artifacts Change
The artifact upgrades in these galaxies currently require a Reinforce. G7 and G8 do not and it is apparent the way G7 and G8 works is better! So the artifact upgrades in G1-G6 are being changed to apply instantly, and A bunch of Reinforce specific upgrades are showing up from Sector 100+
This change will be much more bumpy then the R1-R5 squish. The total stats you have by the end of G6 will be very close to identical as current, but the rate and places you get the stats will be a bit different.
I had to go so far as to setup a spreadsheet to be sure of the totals and redistribution! Here's a peak at it (none of this is at all final):
As you can (kinda) see, the total stats are split out between the newly instantly applying artifact upgrades, and the new sector based reinforce upgrades.
The biiiiiiiig goal here, is to make pushing sectors more rewarding, and let the galaxies help you do that instantly. This will significantly change the cadence of the gameplay during this section. Instead of potentially being soft capped on sector progress and waiting to finish a galaxy to reinforce, you can keep slowly grinding a bit more WITH the upgrades from galaxies helping you get to the next sector, or you can just reinforce regardless of galaxy progress to pick up the reinforce upgrades.
Important: If you are currently in this section of the game when this patch hits, you'll get the reinforce upgrades based on the highest sector you have reinforced at, and the artifact upgrades you have might shift around a bit since those grids are different. The amount of change in your stats is also going to vary pretty significantly depending on exactly where you are.
As always, thanks so much for all the support!