The time is running fast and so we keep adding new interesting features and improving Starfall Tactics' Galaxy with every day. In fact, we moved so far that you might not recognise the game now if you watched our early trailers and screenshots - and we are sure that those changes are only for the good. At the momemnt, the game is almost ready to hit the closed alpha testing, so we started finalizing some features and adding cool interesting mechanics, modules and just useful stuff for you. Let's look at some of our latest additions we'd love to show you this time:

Ichaival

Red Vanguard battleship with a taste of retrofuturistic design always brakes greatest Eclipse's minds with this hole in the middle. Somebody even considered this hole as a place for special giant module... But they are not right. Vanguard engineers keep this secret close from the very beginning and perhaps, only Father could lift the veil one day.

Ichaival, a not-so-easy-to-spell ship you will possibly prefer to abbreviate, is a great battleship for most fleet formations - it has enough defense as usual Vanguard vessel and at the same time can serve as a good ship for assaults. Be sure to check it in the game someday!

Long Range Scanner

Scouting and getting tactical data about your opponent is a very important part of a gameplay in Starfall Tactics. The more you know about enemy fleet, the better you are at planning assaults and making right tactical decisions in general, which can lead you to a glorious victory.

That makes us think about adding more special equipment for scouting - this time we are ready to present you the Long Range Scanner. It reveals target area of your choice on the map and lets you see all what's going on there for 10 seconds - you can get knowledge about enemy ships and plans or just allow some snipers to focus down a ship from a very long distance. It has quite a long cooldown in terms of quick matches - choose the moment to use it wisely and be one step ahead of your opponent!

Spy Drone

Another tactical module for your fleet, spy drone is the thing which allows you to... spy. Like a tipster from famous films about secret agents, this drone almots insendibly attaches to enemy ships and follows them. It also has a very useful option of giving you the vision of this ship wherever it is - so you can know even more about movements of the enemy fleet and get a huge advantage while planning assaults.

Spy drone can be shot down with the help of Anti-missile system or Point Defense module - prudent commanders will always have at least one anti-scouting ship in reserve to counteract your effort of collecting tactically important information.

Check out our news next week - we'd love to tell you about Point Defense and another special modules for your fleet soon!

http://starfalltactics.com/news/wip-advance-your-tactics-new-scouting-modules

Hey, Friday the 13th has never been better than today! And that's all because we are going to tell you about Point Defense and another two tricky modules which will confuse your enemies' minds, giving a burn to new evil tactics.

Point Defense module

Point Defense, as you could notice from our previous news article, is another system which helps to defend your fleet. This module is an active skill which destroys 25 projectiles (including bullets and missiles), within a certain range on activation, not depending on their size and speed. It's very effective if enemy shoots you with heavy rockects which have a long cooldown and heavy damage - eliminating even four or five of these projectiles prevents a ship loss. At the same time, you must avoid weapons with high fire rate, launching dozens of bullets and rockets - it shuts down Point Defense in seconds.

This module is good at saving your assault dreadnoughts from recieving a huge damage from the first salvos of enemy fleet - because of a specific construction and size of this special equipment you won't be able to install it on small ships, but it's going to pay you back in many ways. Remember, that you will have to think about some kind of protection for a ship when this system switches off. Otherwise, there are warp modules to help to get off the range of dangerous enemy ships.

Antiradar system

Usually minimap can be an ultimate tool to see what's going on at the battlefield and control the situation. Many players used to rely on it in many ways - of course, there are a lot of important moments you need to control manually, but minimap does a good job for you by showing all visible enemy units. And that's where Antiradar system is going to trick everybody.

By adding this module to the engineering bay you guarantee that enemies won't see this unit on the minimap, missing some of your tactical movements and getting confused with what's going on everywhere. However, Antiradar system is a very special tool which can't fit into every fleet - so think through your great strategy when taking it!

Decoy module

Decoy module is another great tool to fool your enemies. This module produces a holographic copy of the ship where it is installed - it can't be destroyed, does not deal any damage and all projectiles always fly through it. It's not so easy to use, but you will understand the true value of it as soon as enemy fleet will try to focus on it instead of your precious battleships and dreadnoughts.

Every second you win by using it is another ability for your fleet to concentrate and blow away enemy ships before they realise present posture of affairs.

So, if you want your tactics to be wise - consider taking this module along with some other interesting things we will be telling you about in our next article!

http://starfalltactics.com/news/wip-how-fool-your-rivals-couple-special-modules

The more modules with active and passive abilities Starfall Tactics gets, the more interesting and unique fleet everyone can build! This time we contine introducing you new special equipment - there are a lot of cool things to show you.

Engine Disruptor

How to catch quick vessels with slow fleets and make it unable to fly away or maneuver in the way they need to do it? One of the hardest questions gets a good answer: Engine Disruptor.

This special module has a unique ability to switch off engines of target ships, making your opponents lose control of the ship. It's hard to underestimate the value of such ability in your arsenal - everybody loves disables, which give you extra time and an important advantage.

Scanner

In Starfall Tactics, abilities of every ship strongly depend on modules you install into it. Usually you can understand specification of the ship only when the battle starts - but surprises with self-destruction modules and other special equipment are the thing which is able to make one mad, crushing best plans.

Scanner is a tiny tool created as a help for your army - and it does exactly the thing it's named for: scans ships and shows what you can find inside of it - precious modules and abilities captains want to hide from you.

Shield Disable module

Energy shield is one of the best inventions of space engineers, a very useful layer of defense and a barrier between most energy weapons and your armor. Shutting it down in any way or trying to penetrate it is a great feature for lasers with high armor damage, for example.

So, Shield Disable module grants an ability to temporarily shut down shields of a target ship: it doesn't destroy it, but for a short period of time you have an ability to directly damage next layers of defense.

At the moment we are also preparing modules with some sort of new mechanics, weapons, ship hulls and other equipment - there will be many curious things to tell you about next time!

http://starfalltactics.com/news/wip-more-special-skills-unique-fleets

Undermine your opponents, watch the evolution of Starfall Tactics's logo and get familiar with blueprints rarity system - it's a nice chance to get closer to the game! Feel free to discuss it ans ask away on the forum - we always welcome new Commanders!

New logo

Starfall Tactics logo gets a brand-new look - and it's more epic, sci-fied and more beautiful than ever! Don't miss it and watch the evolution of logo in this new video, showing all versions of it - from the first and the one you got used to, to the new logo you will see from now on!
 

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And here is a super colored version just for you:

We hope you liked it - anyway, feel free to write about your impressions!

Mines

No, that's not the place where you get coal - it's a real mine which explodes when you step on it or, in our case - flies too close to it.
 

There are four mine types for now:

• Flack mine - works as a usual mine - activates and deals damage when you get close to it;
• Stalker Mine - if you get a ship close enough, Stalker Mine rushes to you, explodes and damages armor and structure;
• EMP mine - deals damage to shields, activates when you fly close to it.
• Heavy Plasma Mine - unlike other mines, it has a friend or foe recognition system. Activates and deals damage when you get close to it.
• They are very small, so you will need to watch the battlefield carefully in order to not get cought by mines - remember that three of those will not distinguish between friendly and enemy ships.

Cards

What could be better than admiring a new epic card of equipment you've just recieved? We, in Snowforged Entertainment, understand the meaning of the visual difference between cards depending on rarity and the joy of finding epic and legendary items, so let's present to you a brand new look for it.

Keep in mind that all descriptions and characteristics are subject to change.

At the moment we have 4 types of rarity of blueprints: Basic, Refined, Advanced and Prototype. All of them you can get while opening booster packs or, if you are lucky enough, buy from the Black Market, or get it by destroying fleets of other players on the Galaxy map.
 

http://starfalltactics.com/news/wip-new-logo-mines-and-rarity-system

Today we invite you to participate in a unique opportunity - creation of the greatest Universe!

We are running a special Galaxy Explorers event from 9th June 18:00 CET to 12th June 23:55 CET in Starfall Tactics. You will be able to create and customize fleets, play quick matches and discover an MMO part - a huge open world to explore with thousands of planets available to name, pirates and rivals! This is a pre-alpha event, available to a limited amount of players. You are not just going to help us crush the game and find a few new bugs (hey, we are counting on you!) but there is also a chance to earn special rewards and just have a lot of fun exploring Starfall Tactics as one of the pioneers :)

Want to participate?
Apply for the test here!

http://starfalltactics.com/news/galaxy-explorers-event-play-starfall-tactics-during-pre-alpha-test-and-earn-rewards

As we promised before, we are here to tell more about Starfall Tactics, important changes and present something new. Today you can read about:

• Clarent, new Vanguard Frigate
• Ship classification
• Engines rework
• Boarding Mechanics

And here is a fresh in-game shot:

We are happy to welcome everyone to the next test phase!

Prepare to crash your opponents in intense tactical battles, outmaneuver enemy ships or simply ram them and climb in PvP rating with your friends! New maps, modules, ships, 2x2 quick matches, co-op, tutorial and many other interesting things are waiting for you to be played and tested from 14th July 18:00 CET to 17th July 23:55 CET. Are you bold and daredevilish enough to do it all?

This is the second pre-alpha event, available to a limited amount of players. So, if you want to join you will need to apply for the Closed Alpha here. We will try to grant access and invite everybody who sent an application before 16th of July!

Hurry up, as it is the last opportunity to try Starfall Tactics before a short break, which we'll take to have a couple weeks of vacation and start doing Faction Wars feature, a massive MMO content expansion!

Learn more: http://starfalltactics.com/news/pre-alpha-test-let-battle-begin

Hey, Snowforged Team is back again and glad to present our weekly news article!

It's still hard to believe that it's already August and the biggest and most exciting part of the summer with the first and the second pre-Alpha tests is over - but we are here, our short vacation finished and the Team is now rested and ready to conquer the peaks of game development! We've already done some important changes which will improve your next experience with Starfall Tactics - most of them we will show you in our upcoming news articles.

Now, let us show you some new ships - since it's one of the most important things in Starfall Tactics for you, we always make sure that everybody can find good allies among all fleets.

Faust Deprived Battlecruiser

New Deprived battlecruiser is something you will definitely love if you prefer laser ships - 3 of 4 Faust modifications are going to have weapon bays which can fit Large Lasers! In exchange it will have a not-so-huge engineering bay, which basically means that you can't make it too special with special modules.

Skullstar Eclipse Battlecruiser

Skullstar is a long awaited Eclipse ship which name describes it the best. It is designed only for active participation in battles and will not have a SpecOps modification - just consider it as a good strike force which needs some support ships.

Gwydion Deprived Frigate

This ship confused us a lot of times and still has a lot of surprises inside. We are not going to spoil the surprise for you this time - let it be something interesting you will find while playing Starfall Tactics. There is only one thing we will tell you about - Gwydion is going to have assymetrical structure inside.

And that's not all - even more ships are coming next week! Stay tuned to read about them, a dozen new modules, new health bars and an important rework in quick matches.

http://starfalltactics.com/news/wip-we-are-back-more-ships-you

Well, It's definitely not even half of what we have already done, as there is simply too much for one news article, but here it is in a couple words:

• We reworked Control points and health bars

Control Points will give players more "come back" possibility and depend on upgrades a lot. Health bars now clearly represent the difference between dreadnought hit points and frigate hit points.

Another dozen of new modules will give a better choice then ever, and here are four of them:

• Engine Boost is an activatable module which increases all ship movement characteristics, including maximum speed, angular speed, accelaration speed and deceleration speed. It has a 2x2 size - a very convinient form for most ships in Starfall Tactics.
• Weapon Overload module deals damage to your own structure on activation, but in exchange reduces cooldown time for all weapons installed on the ships. This thing has a usual 4x2 form making it available for many different ships.
• Another passive module, a 2x4 Warp Homer, is a very good tactical feature allowing you to warp-in ships in a small zone near the ship with this module - just as your Mothership does. Perfectly fits support (SpecOps) ships.
• Sensor Disabler module has a pretty self-descriptive name - on activation it disables all sensors of a target ship. So, it can make a single ship lose it's vision, but since it's a 2?4 module, it fits better on SpecOps ships.

And we also created a new Eclipse frigate - Halley! It's going to be a very heavy ship with a good defence level, but in exchange its firepower will be average.

The Summer is almost over and the winter is coming - a period of nine cold months has just begun in Siberia, a home to Snowforged studio, creating a space wargame - Starfall Tactics. Today we continue telling you about new modules, ships and important changes in quick matches.

As an addition to changes described in previous articles, we decided to rework Mothership abilities to improve your quick match experience and make Mothership more helpful in terms of defence and give a small advantage when you fight against enemy forces close to it.

No need to pay for repairing your ships and no "repair tanks" any more! Repairing is now a passive Mothership ability - just fly close enough to it and it will send a drone. So, your Mothership now gives you an advantage when you defend it, not while attacking enemy ships on the other corner of the map.

Mothership will also have new defensive active ability - on activation it deals a sufficient amount of damage to ships in the target area. It has a long cooldown, so use it only as an emergency ability to gain temporary advantage.

There is another minor change: now you will have more WP at the start of the battle - 9000 instead of 3000. This will help you make a good start in terms of Control Points - a rebalance we talked about in previous news.

And another set of modules is ready! Note that most modules here and the ones we told you about in a previous article will be available only after leveling up your fleet.

• Mass Shield module is a special defensive feature, allowing you to create a supporting tank ship. It's an active ability, which temporarily increases area which covers shield of a ship with this module, allowing to share this shield with other units standing close to it. Has a 3?4 size.
• Mass Stealth module gives you an opportunity to make all nearby ships invisible. It's a 2?4 sized, active special equipment, using the same principles as a normal Stealth module.
• Ammo Dispenser module is an extremly helpful thing for all fleets using weapons which require ammo - it's a 2?3 module which passively gives ammo to nearby ships - just as your Mothership does.
• Aiming hack system is an active 2x3 module which hacks a ship's guidance system, making it count ally ships as enemies. Affected ship starts attacking allies if auto fire is on.

We also created two new ships: Ancile Vanguard frigate and Libra, the first Vanguard cruiser.