New Price and Launch Date Announced

Empyrean Frontier is now scheduled to leave early access on August 31st. The price has also been reduced from $19.99 USD to $11.99 and will remain at that price after the full release.

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This update adds the last of the corporate bosses and contains the full campaign except for the final imperial boss. The campaign lasts for 6 Zones with pirate bosses for the first 3, corporate bosses for the next 2 and the final node of the final Zone will be the imperial boss. In each zone, standard nodes have a pool of 59 possible scenarios to randomly select from, with different node types (base vs no base; neutral, pirate, or corporate owned) having different (and sometimes overlapping) sets of possible missions. These nodes range from tactical fleet vs fleet battles to heavily scripted missions and base building skirmishes. In addition to the random selection of nodes, there are 7 possible boss battles, 3 miniboss battles, and 3 enemy stronghold skirmishes that are found at quest markers (!) on the map.

Each Zone now includes 3 quests: the faction boss at the end of the zone, a miniboss in a random node, and a base building skirmish mission in a random node. These quests also involve the other factions, as the player can get additional reinforcements and rewards from whichever faction they have the best positive relationship with. Each zone contains a different (and increasingly difficult) version of the boss fight and base building skirmish.

Additionally, the player's flagship will now be replaced at the start of the next zone if it is ever destroyed. The replacement however will always be the cheapest flagship model, regardless of which flagship model the player started with.

Patch Notes:

-implemented the tech corp along with a boss fight node
-added 3 miniboss nodes and 3 stronghold skirmish nodes
-added tech corp to all missions with random faction selection
-the first use of each flagship ability module in each node now costs 0 energy
-added 3 new ability modules: damage boost, armor boost, damage debuff
-cluster missile flagship modules are now usable by the player
-campaign nodes are less likely to repeat within the previous 7 nodes
-added 3 additional campaign node scenarios
-fixed problem where projectiles that hit multiple targets were not colliding with all intended asteroids and scrap
-fixed problem where projectiles that hit multiple targets were not colliding with all intended members of a group object
-area markers can now have dynamic sizes and can be set to show only on the minimap (used in tech corp boss fight)
-added white highlight effects and "Boss Invulnerability" messages to the armor stages for the corsair's bastion boss fight
-flagship modules in campaign node pre-battle screens are shown when appropriate (only when the player can't select which units they want, to avoid confusion)
-aggressive units will no longer attack fleet portals
-fixed error where flagship modules would be invisible in the campaign setup screen after leaving a campaign with a different flagship (not the first model)
-camera move triggers can now be set to follow units
-fixed some incorrect fighter and frigate build times
-2 abandoned base missions in neutral base nodes now have a repair only store after successful completion
-harvesters are no longer selected by box selecting if non-harvester units are also being selected (to avoid accidentally giving them orders along with combat units)
-significantly improved performance of maps with many separate scrap fields (tends to happen in late game skirmishes)
-fixed problem where scrap turrets could be prevented from collecting resources if mining rate was too low or framerate was too high.
-skirmish "all buildings destroyed" victory condition now excludes capturable scrap turrets
-in the campaign map, nodes can now be "pirate" or "corporate" owned, affecting which factions are likely to appear
-fixed problem where node owners were being reset when the player first moved to it (this prevented the allied station node from ever being reached, along with other nodes which were modified in the second phase of map generation)
-fixed issue where some damage upgrades were not being applied
-increased damage of flagship module cluster missiles from 1000 per missile to 1500 per missile
-fixed rare crash related to fighter move orders
-Corporate Zones 1 and 2 and the Imperial Zone are now correctly named
-the shipyard corp boss now displays the correct intro messages
-supply cap for corp boss nodes changed from 750 to 500
-renamed the plasma ability module to "plasma gun 1" to avoid confusion with the weapon module "plasma cannon 1"
-heavy cruisers can no longer be added to the fleet in the campaign setup menu
-campaign starting credits are now increased by the number of unlocked flagships and the number of zones cleared in the previous attempt
-reduced size of regular nodes to 2/3 of star node (end of zone boss), and reduced base nodes and fleet symbols to 75% of star node
-updated quest marker texture
-quest marker for currently selected quest is now larger than non-selected quests
-reduced ore gained from the after battle screen in the campaign
-resource gain from the after battle screen is further reduced in higher difficulty levels
-in the split fleet node, the AI will now always attack correctly in both grids
-fixed potential memory overflow crash
-lowered income from trade fleets in solar system game mode
-fixed bug where trade fleets in solar system games couldn't be attacked

Further notes on the Price Change:

I had intended to keep the original price at $20 USD and I have tried to make a game worthy of that price, however it really wasn't selling very well so something had to change. At $12 the game is priced more competitively for an indie game and should be an even better value. At this point, even if the game isn't a financial success I'd like at least for more people to be able to play it.