Huge thanks to everyone who shared feedback and submitted bug reports during our last Community Preview Playtest; it's been so helpful!
Check out a TL:DR of our major changes since the last playtest below, and if you want to dig into all of the changes, you can find all the details further down the page!
- Balance changes to Mophs, Ion, and Sammo
- We’ve made the map larger and spread out the distance between the ships' initial spawn points
- Adjustments to weapons (e.g., Surefire, Sonic Boom) and equipment (e.g., Shield Wall) to bring them more in line with the others
- Several changes to player respawn mechanics, including a longer time before respawning and adding variable spawn points within a ship
- Some secure doors have been added to Scout, Privateer, and Hunter
Content Changes
Prospectors
Ion
“Ion felt a bit underpowered in the last playtest compared to other prospectors. With the defender buffs in this patch, we’re giving Ion a bit more room to flex his muscles.”
- Ion health up from 100 to 120
- Melee hits to destroy ship doors and windows reduced to 3 (from 5)
Mophs
“Mophs ability to camouflage while in space made him too strong as a boarder. Countering boarding is generally about engaging them at range before they are on board, and Mophs made that difficult. We still want Mophs to be able to sneak and steal but want to introduce some counterplay.”
- Mophs will no longer Camouflage passively
- Instead, Mophs can now activate Camoflage for 10 seconds in any environment (shooting, interacting, and/or taking damage breaks the cloak)
- Camouflage now replaces Maghook for Mophs only, and can be activated using the same input key or button
- Increased Mophs movement speed bonus to 30% (up from 20%)
Sammo
“We want Sammo to protect his ship, but Sammo would sometimes be waiting for you at a door when you opened it, which would lead to a rough end to your boarding attempt.”
The Quiet
- The Quiet range reduced from 30m to 20m
- Sammo can no longer detect enemies outside his ship
Ships
Overload Timing
“In the previous playtest, the time needed to start and turn off overloading a Reactor was swapped. This issue has now been fixed.”
- Reduced the time to start overloading a Reactor to 1 s (was 3 s)
- Increased the time to turn off overloading a Reactor to 3 s (was 1 s)
Player Spawn Points
“A static spawn point on ships is great to easily orient yourself, especially for new players, but it also allows enemies to predictably know where players will respawn. We are trying a variation here that gives defenders some advantages when respawning.”
- Increased the number of spawn points within a ship
- When players respawn, they are oriented toward locations where enemies commonly appear
- When teleporting home or respawning, a player spawns in a random point
Reactor Orientation on Hunter
“While the Hunter is a relatively easy ship to defend, the orientation of the Reactor made it easy for boarders to overload and camp from the rear door. We’ve adjusted the position to make it slightly harder for boarders.”
- Rotated the Reactor 180 degrees
Secure Doors
“We were concerned that if the starting ships had secured doors, new players might get trapped outside their ships. During the previous playtest, we weren’t seeing this as an issue, so we’ve decided to add secure doors to all ships.”
- Added secure doors to the Privateer, Hunter, and Scout at the front or side of the ship
- In the tutorial, secure doors will automatically open for the player when holding the Artifact
Ship Combat
“We’re tuning down some of the early ship-to-ship aggression. While we love some early aggression, we also want to give crews a chance to loot and upgrade their ships before entering into prolonged combat.”
- Reduced ship ammo to 50 (was 150)
- Players now salvage 5 ice and 5 fuel from a destroyed ship (was 10 ice / 10 fuel)
Toggle Shields Cooldown
“We want boarding to be powerful, but more focused on objectives than just cleaning out the crew. This change gives boarders an objective that has more value than it did in the previous version.”
- Increased cooldown to 10 s (was 5 s)
Weapons
Double Whammy
“The Double Whammy was similar to the Drill Charge and Ion. It also dealt a large amount of damage to AI enemies. While we still want the Double Whammy to pack a punch, we’ve reduced some of its damage, and the weapon no longer breaks ship parts.”
- Increased ammo carried by 4
- No longer does damage to ship parts (e.g., windows, doors, etc.)
- Does half as much damage to AI enemies
Sidelong
“The area of effect damage was very strong against enemy crews. We’ve tuned down the damage.”
- Deals 35 damage to enemies hit in the center and 25 damage to enemies outside that area
Sonic Boom
“The Sonic Boom was a bit weak in the previous playtest, so we’ve given it a bit more power.”
- Projectiles grow to a maximum of 25% bigger
- Slightly increased the ranges where it can 2-shot and 3-shot an enemy
- Sonic Boom can no longer one-shot kill an enemy at any range
Surefire
“The Surefire was a bit too powerful in the previous playtest, making it the go-to weapon. We’re tuning down its damage to bring it more in line with the other weapons.”
- Increased ammo clip size to 12 (was 10)
- Decreased projective damage to 20 (was 30)
- Increased the maximum spread to 1.25 (was 1)
Equipment
Drill Charge
“This buff is to offset many of the changes to boarding that make part of the game difficult. This tool needs to work, so we’re giving you a second charge.”
- Increased charges to 2 (was 1)
Foam Can
“There were some clarity issues with the Foam Can, making it hard to tell what damage it was doing and when. We made some adjustments to make it clear what happens when you use the Foam Can.”
- Removed damage over time
- Increase area of effect to match the visuals
“We found that some equipment was a bit too powerful in the previous playtest, making them the preferred pick. We’ve tuned down their power so they aren’t an immediate choice, but are still a viable option.”
Fire Can
- Reduced damage to 60 (was 80)
Flash Shield
- Reduced duration to 0.7 s (was 1 s)
Shield Wall
- Reduced the health of each hex to 50 (was 75)
- Increased size of each hex to 35 (was 30)
- Reduced charges to 1 (was 2)
- Known Issue: The in-game UI shows that the Shield Wall has 2 charges
Map
POIs
“During the previous playtest, we received a lot of feedback around the POIs and loot. We want to make finding loot, including cannons, more predictable, especially during the early game. We’ve also removed the Low Loot modifier as it was frustrating being unable to find loot, then encountering a kitted-out enemy ship.”
- Increased the number of medium POIs potentially available to 8, 9, or 10 (was 0, 5, 8, or 10)
- Removed Epic Loot POIs
- Removed the Low Loot modifier
- Removed special loot tables from the following POIs: Battleship, Colony Base, Corrupt Reactor, AI Containment, Science Vessel, and StarDock
- Small POIs now always include a Quad or Scatter Cannon
- Updated the chance to obtain some basic devices within a loot table
The Typhon Reach Size
“In the previous playtests, players would encounter enemy crews early in the match, sometimes before their first POI was completed. We’ve made the map bigger to reduce the occurrence of this happening.”
- Increased the size of the Typhon Reach by 500 m in all directions except height
- Increased the distance between ship spawn points
- Increased probe bonus distance for the Probe Sensor Hardpoint to +400 m (was +200 m)
Wildgate Open Time
“We’ve adjusted how long it takes for the Wildgate to open. The Fast Gate modifier was a bit too fast, limiting options for anyone not near the Artifact while it took slightly too long for the Artifact to be relevant in normal matches.”
- Decreased the time for the normal Wildgate to open to 23 - 25 min (was 30 min)
- Increased the time for Wildgate to open with the Fast Gate modifier to 15 min (was 12 min)
Combat
Health Regeneration
“Whittling an enemy down to low health didn’t feel impactful when they could take cover to regain health quickly. This change should make combat damage more meaningful while allowing a clever solo boarder to take on multiple defenders.”
- You now start regenerating health 8 s after taking damage (was 5 s)
Invulnerability When Spawning
“Boarders should be able to wreak havoc and deal a lot of damage, but we’re not sure they should be able to dominate the helm as much as they did. Increasing defenders’ invulnerability after spawning should give them a chance to counterattack and incentivize boarders to cause chaos elsewhere.”
- Previously, the amount of invulnerability you had when respawning depended on how many times you died in a row. Now, you always have 5 s of invulnerability when respawning
Respawn Timer
“The respawn time felt fast, so we’re increasing it slightly. We’ve also made some changes to when your camera switches from your revive orb to inside the ship, to make it clear when you can be revived.”
- Total respawn time was increased to 13 s (was 10 s)
- Changes were made to the flow within the respawn time. The sum of these changes is reflected in the total respawn time above
- Increased the respawn delay time to 12 s (was 8 s)
- Reduced time within the ship to 4 s (was 8 s)
- Reduced time until you had control of your character to 1 s (was 1.5 s)
- Reduced time within which you could revive an ally to 8 s (was 10 s)
Teleport Home
“We want this ability to feel snappy, but at 0.375 seconds, it is pretty fast. This change will hopefully make countering thieves a little easier.”
- Increased time to teleport back to the ship to 0.5 s (was 0.375 s)
Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue where Easy Anti-Cheat failed to initialize after a game crash
- Fixed an issue where special characters in the player name could cause performance issues
- Fixed an issue where players would sometimes spawn into objects when using an entry point to the Monolith after defeating Arkasor waves
- Fixed an issue where ships did not explode after all players left the game
- Fixed an issue where the Wildgate was not open by default when in the Firing Range
- Fixed an issue where the Grenades did not bounce properly
- Fixed an issue where the Thunderdash velocity was incorrectly doubled