#9 Tau Ceti Part 3 & Conquest Rework

[Highway]

Hey Space Pirates,

today we finally released an update that brings important parts of the techstack migration for Pirate Galaxy to the live servers. In the last few weeks we also updated the launcher and the game clients to resolve several issues that had made it difficult for us to understand and resolve client crashes as well as other issues players could encounter when playing the game. We recommend installing the new client and game launcher installer to benefit from all optimizations.

With the migration we are also able to optimize server performance so that some of the lags players had endured so far will not be as noticeable anymore and way shorter if and when they occur. We tested and optimized this on Gaia (Thanks for the patience and feedback, especially when settings temporarily made it worse :X ) on a daily basis since last week to find the sweet spot for the best performance. Starting from today, Korell and Askone will also use these optimizations to see how it behaves on other servers over a longer period of time. When we see that the server logs show improvements we will roll this out for all servers.

In parallel to all the tech-y stuff we are reworking Conquest and preparing Tau Ceti Part 3.

Conquest Rework

Originally we had planned to get the “Conquest Rework” ready for testing after “RavenDynamics V”, but we underestimated the effort it would take to implement the game design for it. We don’t want to boast, but we think that you will be amazed when you see how much stuff we have planned for Conquest. It's quite a complex system, but (hopefully) easier to understand and play. Basically most of it is completely new.

Our main goal for the “Conquest Rework” is that we want to encourage more players to participate in Conquest because it is rewarding and fun at the same time. Let me give you a first bullet point overview before I go further into detail in later posts.

Planned Changes

• A central hub where clan members can see all scheduled Conquest planets and in what phase they are currently in etc.
• Completely new Conquest gameplay system where the main goal for participating clans is to gather as much unrefined ore as possible in a given time.
• Reward for participating in Conquest will be clan cryonite. How much can be earned is based on the clans’ performance as well as their active players during Conquest.
• Clan cryonite can be given out to clan members as regular cryonite.
• Matchmaking system that ensures that every clan has a chance to be selected for Conquest battle.
• Log files & systems around it will be removed.
• Clans gather Mining Tickets that they use to register for a particular Conquest planet.
• The size of the teams that will participate in Conquest will be determined in the enlist phase just a few minutes before the start of the battle.
• Gameplay will be adjusted based on the number of participants to make it fun even for smaller teams.

I bet you will have lots of questions. We will do in-depth follow-up posts, one aspect at a time.

Tau Ceti Part 3

Since most of the Conquest work is very code heavy our designer has already begun working on Tau Ceti 3 and is progressing quite well. Currently all the missions etc are set up on an ugly-looking dummy planet that will be replaced soon with the proper visuals. As soon we have stuff to show you we will post it here. Do you want some bullets for the content in Tau Ceti Part 3? Here you go:

Planned Content

• New story planet
• 18 story missions
• ~190 find/hunt/etc. missions
• 2 new ne0n ships
• 2 new items
• 2 item level tiers
• New enemy types

Ok, this was a wall of text again. Sorry (if you even made it this far)!

Keep the questions coming


Google's translation bad? Community translations of this changelog will get linked here (author's name included)!

Deutsche Übersetzung von Gisbragon
Traducción al español de Fission

 

[Rajaa]

Highway , will conquest changes be similar to Resource War type mission?
Having your base of course while stealing resource from enemy with good design of having both fight and running?
Also , do we "DROP" cannister if we pod etc. if that's the case ( not cannister but mineral or something we collect)?
Thanks for good info so far.

 

[destroier6]

wow, all of this is a lot of stuff going on , i have four big questions:

1. First Question

Clan cryonite can be given out to clan members as regular cryonite.

Will there be any restriction on the amount of cryonite that can be donated? If this is not the case it could destroy the economy a little bit, so you have to be careful with that.

2. Second Question

New enemy types

With new enemy types you mean completely new enemies faction or few new units added to each faction?

3. Third Question

these two big additions to the game are going to come together or separated?

4. Fourth Question

We will see any screenshot of how the new history planet is going to look like? Or the neon ships

 

[Davidreaper]

I have one question.
You mentioned 2 New Item Tiers, this includes rare(golden) blueprints?
If not.... there will be rare tau ceti equipment/ship anytime?

 

[Rajaa]

I have one question.
You mentioned 2 New Item Tiers, this includes rare(golden) blueprints?
If not.... there will be rare tau ceti equipment/ship anytime?

No mate. It's already said many times.
Tau Ceti will have 4 parts , as this is part 3/4 , there will be not Rare/Golden Ships and BPs. Just blues , but we will get new Story Planet which you can see as "Uknown" right now at tc system (black one).

 

[destroier6]

I have one question.
You mentioned 2 New Item Tiers, this includes rare(golden) blueprints?
If not.... there will be rare tau ceti equipment/ship anytime?

i suppose this should come with TC4, which is the logic of releasing stronger tech that you cant even use for the level

 

[Vesperion]

I have one question.
You mentioned 2 New Item Tiers, this includes rare(golden) blueprints?
If not.... there will be rare tau ceti equipment/ship anytime?

No mate. It's already said many times.
Tau Ceti will have 4 parts , as this is part 3/4 , there will be not Rare/Golden Ships and BPs. Just blues , but we will get new Story Planet which you can see as "Uknown" right now at tc system (black one).

OR another planet will get an alternate version and the other Planet in TC will stay unknown until part 4 comes out...

The only questions that currently is bothering me is how the new tech will be decrypted considering that we already have covered all siri variants or if they will rework the decry system to be more convinient and "logic" so that you don´t need any previous tech... As i mentioned it already in another post you can decry the next tier of tech if completed the previous tech item (Symbolic --> Perceptron --> Multi-Agent --> Modal Logic --> etc.)

Sure would annoy a few pilots who worked so hard for all that siri tech but we have seen that Split can change the decry all the time considering the hump that was a real bottleneck and still can be cus it still requires the siri item to drop again what can take up to 8 weeks.

 

[destroier6]

OR another planet will get an alternate version and the other Planet in TC will stay unknown until part 4 comes out...

They said NEW HISTORY PLANET, so i dont really expect this again, check they said different in TC2 content. also i remember some equal question in TC2 devshack and they said that TC3 and TC4 will have a completely new history planet

The only questions that currently is bothering me is how the new tech will be decrypted considering that we already have covered all siri variants or if they will rework the decry system to be more convinient and "logic" so that you don´t need any previous tech

Sure would annoy a few pilots who worked so hard for all that siri tech but we have seen that Split can change the decry all the time considering the hump that was a real bottleneck and still can be cus it still requires the siri item to drop again what can take up to 8 weeks.

Obtaining 2 sirius ships is SUPER easy currently, it normally takes less than 1 month, sirius is not there to be just skipped, so 1 month of gameplay sounds good to me, after this you need the sirius tech for the bps, which can take longer, but remember that the good point of sirius is to work together with TC, so you have different PvE activities and not just tc progression

 

[Poland]

Hello everyone and hey Highway! Thanks for effort you put into writing this Dev Shack to let us know about current development state. People are getting more hype each such a post so keep doing that

My questions that are coming up:

Conquest Rework

A central hub where clan members can see all scheduled Conquest planets and in what phase they are currently in etc.

Will it appear in the clan board? Maybe we may get additional "faster" teleports to captured by clan conquest planets' orbits or hangars for some cryonite/energy fee?

Completely new Conquest gameplay system where the main goal for participating clans is to gather as much unrefined ore as possible in a given time.

If it's some kind of new system, then will there be any option to steal already gained unrefined ore from enemies, something like killing base or whatever?

Clan cryonite can be given out to clan members as regular cryonite.

1. Who will be responsible in Clan to give members the cryonite from Clanfund? Will it be 'Admiral only' function, or Captain or some lower position members may be able to give cryonite to others?

2. This cryonite that we already have in funds can be distributed too? Or there gonna be some kind of limit only to Conquest Cryonite that we are going to get in Conquest Rework update?

Log files & systems around it will be removed.

Will the Clans, that are not able to spend all the Log-Files that they gathered all these years, get any recompense for them, or Clans have to just hurry before patch comes? ^^ And how the "Mining Tickets" will be gatherable? In what way?

Tau Ceti Part 3

2 new ne0n ships

Wasn't it like that, 3 ships each part of Tau Ceti had to come, to get 3 rare ships at Part 4, so Striker, Endurer and Corrupter (or somehow called )?

Soon, Pirates' Voice series episode about that Dev Shack! ^^ Thanks for answering and greetings.
RavenPL

 

[-BoH-]

New enemy types seem very interesting.

 

[Highway]

A lot of good questions already ^^

Highway , will conquest changes be similar to Resource War type mission?
Having your base of course while stealing resource from enemy with good design of having both fight and running?
Also , do we "DROP" cannister if we pod etc. if that's the case ( not cannister but mineral or something we collect)?
Thanks for good info so far.

If it's some kind of new system, then will there be any option to steal already gained unrefined ore from enemies, something like killing base or whatever?

The gameplay new game play mechanics will continue to use the areas you know from the current cq system. But they will not be captured in a traditional way, instead they produce unrefined ore and get depleted over time until only one area is left towards the end of the conquest. This will get players closer together in the end shifting the heat of the battle to an hotspot. Players that collected unrefined ore can be destroyed so that they have a chance to drop it for others to recollect the ore.

Overall there are more awesome details I will share soon on the gameplay and rules on the planet itself.

Will it appear in the clan board? Maybe we may get additional "faster" teleports to captured by clan conquest planets' orbits or hangars for some cryonite/energy fee?

The conquest hub will be in the clan window in an extra section that will show details on the planets and allows the clan to remotely register the clan without flying to the planet. So fast teleport will not be needed

1. Who will be responsible in Clan to give members the cryonite from Clanfund? Will it be 'Admiral only' function, or Captain or some lower position members may be able to give cryonite to others?

2. This cryonite that we already have in funds can be distributed too? Or there gonna be some kind of limit only to Conquest Cryonite that we are going to get in Conquest Rework update?

1. Will there be any restriction on the amount of cryonite that can be donated? If this is not the case it could destroy the economy a little bit, so you have to be careful with that.

1. Only clan members with a higher rank will be allowed to distribute the clan cryonite to its members. But the cryonite amount to be able to distributed will be limited to each player based on his rank and time to avoid pushing. For example a player level x is only allowed to get y amount of cryonite per week.

2. The current clan cryonite a clan has will be distributable as well when the update goes live.

Will the Clans, that are not able to spend all the Log-Files that they gathered all these years, get any recompense for them, or Clans have to just hurry before patch comes? ^^ And how the "Mining Tickets" will be gatherable? In what way?

I recommend to use up the old Logfiles as soon as you can before the rework update goes live. They will be gone for good

The mining tickets will acquirable similar to logfiles. Each clan can collect a single mining ticket each day. Each member can find one while you play and collect it, which raise the mining tickets directly for the clan. No donation etc. needed. But you also can earn them by winning conquest or loose some if you dont appear for a match etc. A Clan can only have a maximum of 10 mining tickets he can spend on registering for conquest planets.

Wasn't it like that, 3 ships each part of Tau Ceti had to come, to get 3 rare ships at Part 4, so Striker, Endurer and Corrupter (or somehow called )?

In total there are 10 neon ships. Part 1 & 2 had 3 ships while part 3 & 4 will have 2 ships. The rare ships that use all the new skills will be in part 4.

With new enemy types you mean completely new enemies faction or few new units added to each faction?

Basically you will Encounter new units that use the new items which require a new tactic to beat them effectively. Sorry if this point sounded bigger that it should be.

these two big additions to the game are going to come together or separated?

Most likely it will be a separate update since they are not connected to each other.

I have one question.
You mentioned 2 New Item Tiers, this includes rare(golden) blueprints?
If not.... there will be rare tau ceti equipment/ship anytime?

With the two tiers will feature two level stages similar to TC part 1 & 2 had. The rare(Golden) blueprints will come with part 4.

The only questions that currently is bothering me is how the new tech will be decrypted considering that we already have covered all siri variants or if they will rework the decry system to be more convinient and "logic" so that you don´t need any previous tech...

As you know is the decryption system is in place to not able to skip sirius. We will follow that path to keep it consistent. We already made it easier to acquire the Required BPs in sirius for players that did not yet found the bps they need. Don't worry it will not be any harder if you already collected the requirements for the Tau Ceti Part 2 items.

OR another planet will get an alternate version and the other Planet in TC will stay unknown until part 4 comes out...

It will feature a new planet and part 4 will have a surprise

As soon we have visuals to share you will find them here .

 

[Green]

Viele Spieler besitzen ja noch Log-Files was passiert mit diesen?
Bekommt man dafür einen Gegenwert?
Man kann ja nur theoretisch 1 Pro Tag spenden außer man bezahlt mit Gold für weitere...


MFG GreenSpider


PS: die Antwort auf die Clan Log-Files habe ich schon gesehen

 

[Gisbragon]

Die lösen sich halt auf und verschwinden somit. Das ist für die schade, die wirklich jeden Tag die Teile gesammelt haben. Ich finde, dann sollten sie sich wenigstens in Kryonit für die Clankasse umwandeln.

Viele Grüße
Gis

 

[Fission]

Viele Spieler besitzen ja noch Log-Files was passiert mit diesen?
Bekommt man dafür einen Gegenwert?
Man kann ja nur theoretisch 1 Pro Tag spenden außer man bezahlt mit Gold für weitere...


MFG GreenSpider


PS: die Antwort auf die Clan Log-Files habe ich schon gesehen

Die lösen sich halt auf und verschwinden somit. Das ist für die schade, die wirklich jeden Tag die Teile gesammelt haben. Ich finde, dann sollten sie sich wenigstens in Kryonit für die Clankasse umwandeln.

Viele Grüße
Gis

English:
They could used them to obtain Gravitons and play conquest. If they didnt it was obviously because they didnt wanted to do them. So its not logic that rewards should come from not using a mechanic. Then clans that payed and played CQs during all this time would be punished for using them.

German:
Sie konnten sie benutzen, um Gravitonen zu erhalten und Eroberung zu spielen. Wenn sie es nicht taten, war es offensichtlich, weil sie es nicht tun wollten. Es ist also keine Logik, dass Belohnungen dadurch entstehen sollten, dass man keinen Mechaniker benutzt. Dann würden Clans, die während dieser ganzen Zeit bezahlt und CQs gespielt haben, bestraft werden.)

 

[flyingjumper]

Fission wrote:
English:
They could used them to obtain Gravitons and play conquest. If they didnt it was obviously because they didnt wanted to do them. So its not logic that rewards should come from not using a mechanic. Then clans that payed and played CQs during all this time would be punished for using them.

I donit think that is the right way to look at it.
1: i acutally got over 600 logs, i can only spend 1 logfile per day, but u find way more, and i spend over 1500 to my clan so?
2: we got many thousands of logfiles in our clan bank, even if we got 29 skulls and flight many many many cqs, we just didnt flow them in the last year so we got this many so fast if many people spend them.
So we got punished for it even if we used them

 

[Fission]

I donit think that is the right way to look at it.
1: i acutally got over 600 logs, i can only spend 1 logfile per day, but u find way more, and i spend over 1500 to my clan so?
2: we got many thousands of logfiles in our clan bank, even if we got 29 skulls and flight many many many cqs, we just didnt flow them in the last year so we got this many so fast if many people spend them.
So we got punished for it even if we used them

1: Highway already said that personal logfiles will not be rewarded, yes, you can only donate 1 logfile each day, but thats not a problem here
2: If your clan have many thousand logfiles this means they didnt payed enough conquest to keep the flow of conquests in gravitons or fights. A big clan with 30 active members could get around 210 logfiles in a week without spending gold. Which is just around 2 CQs in a week (not necessarly fighted CQs). This Dev Shack just announced now, you can pay each planet each week and im sure your numbers of clan logfiles will be 0 when the update releases. Since this change was announced with time, clans can spend their logfiles instead of just keeping them till they are gone

 

[youmustconstructadditionalpylons]

very hype for all of these updates my queastion is will there be a log in reward added too? will agro beacon get reworked since magent trap is the new agro beacon? is taunt going to get a rework also?

 

[Gisbragon]

As punishment for those who have taken part in conquests, I would not see that now. After all this time, everyone has certainly accumulated a lot of reserves of log files that could be converted. Even those who regularly fly conquests.

****************

Als Strafe für die, die an Eroberungen teilgenommen haben, würde ich das jetzt nicht sehen. Jeder hat nach all der Zeit mit Sicherheit ordentlich Rücklagen an Log-Dateien angehäuft, die man umwandeln könnte. Auch die, die regelmäßig Eroberungen fliegen.

 

[Fission]

As punishment for those who have taken part in conquests, I would not see that now. After all this time, everyone has certainly accumulated a lot of reserves of log files that could be converted. Even those who regularly fly conquests.

****************

Als Strafe für die, die an Eroberungen teilgenommen haben, würde ich das jetzt nicht sehen. Jeder hat nach all der Zeit mit Sicherheit ordentlich Rücklagen an Log-Dateien angehäuft, die man umwandeln könnte. Auch die, die regelmäßig Eroberungen fliegen.

Then since now is announced they will be removed your clan can start spending them in a fast way, the update is not coming tomorrow

 

[Vesperion]

In terms of the logfiles a nice "conversion" at some rate would be a nice bonus for the Pilots considering that we could finde more then 1 per day after the "daily" one.

I too have something around 1200 logfiles flying in my "inventory" around that just collect dust cus i spend my daily one and that was it until the following day and normaly i gain at least 10/day during my average playtime of 4 hours.

The possible options here would be to convert them to cryo, energy or both and personaly i have something in mind ala 1 logfile = 100 Cryo/Energy. Sure might be a small amount comparing to the ammounts we need for the TC ships and items but still would be a nice bonus anyways instead of just "toss them out of the ship".

Aside from the current "logfile issue" and considering that i don´t have participated in any CQ at all since a few years (i think most clans as well) and if my brain is not totaly screwed wasn´t it so that they added an cryo prot during CQ rounds?

It would also benefit to add something like an "CQ Ult Mem" during those times so that even pilots without Ult mem can go all out with their items. Maybe even go a bit further and make it so that self mat costs no energy as well but after the self mat you have and 2 min cooldown instead of 1 min before the next selfmat can be used again during CQ times.

Speaking of Memberships i still vote for actually reflecting the reduced amounts to drone charging and self mat outside of CQ and PM.

In terms of Ult Mem i would even say drones never need to be recharged and stay charged as long as ult mem is active (cus there still isn´t a QoA update for their freaking charging mechanic to make them less anoying lol)