Hey guys! Starfall Tactics development is going full speed ahead - there is a lot of stuff we need to prepare to fully implement Faction Wars, and we are pretty sure that you will like it.

Due to new features we are implementing, there will be important changes in the interface. But we couldn't imagine that our 2D artist, D.Van, would give a totally new look to it.

It is still in progress and this could be not the final look.

And we are ready to present another three modules, which are going to help you develop new great tactics - just read it and imagine how much you can do only with that!

• Warp Interference is a 3x3 module. Generates space distortion on activation in a certain radius around itself, has an ulimited duration. If any ship tries to warp within this radius, it will warp to another random location instead.
• Stasis module is a 2?4 sized activatable special equipment. Temporarily puts enemy's ship into a stasis field - in this field a ship can't perform any actions, can't be attacked, won't take any damage, even if you ram it, and all ability cooldowns will freeze.
• Nebula Generator is a 2x2 module which creates a small nebula on activation. Nebula will stay where you created it for a few minutes and will work as a usual nebula - hides your ship once it gets inside, but reduces its vision.

This always happens to older characters and units - one day you understand that they are not as good as ones you've just created, not as detailed and just look too different to leave it as it is. So we've just given a new life to Advisor - Deprived Dreadnought which loves ramming your ships in survival mode.

In case you haven't seen it before or just don't remember every detail of this huge dreadnought - here is a screenshot of an older model.

Hey, today we are going to tell you about Warp Points Income Changes, two new modules and the first Deprived cruiser - Abaris!

Warp Points Income Changes

In previous articles we told you about Control Points rebalance and some other changes in Quick Matches. But there is another important thing we should tell you about - changes in WP income. As you know, in the beginning of the battle you get 9000 WP - and it's quite a big amount you can spend to warp in even a couple battlecruisers and a dreadnought. And that's where you think: Yes, I warp in my strongest ships, capture several control points, warp the rest of my fleet and that's it!

Current WP cost of your fleet can be seen on the top left of your screen.

But it would be too boring - so, we changed some WP income rules: Each ship you summon not only spends a certain amount of WP, but also requires some resource for staying on the battlefield or, in other words, has a maintenance cost, which reduces your WP income and depends on the ship cost. And, if you spend all you WP on warping in ships, you will have a low income which allow your enemy (let's think he summoned only a couple defensive ships) to collect more points, summon more ships, and become a real problem for you. That's where you decide: will you go full in (rush) on the first minutes, or will warp only a few ships to capture points and collect more resource, or go full defense, or will do something else. In this case, scouting is a very important thing since it's very important to know what your opponent is going to do and counter his tactics.

New Modules

Each new module opens a new tactical opportunity for your fleet and also allows somebody to create a counter-tactic for existing strategy - for example, this Kinetic Wall is a perfect weapon versus ramming Advisors in PvE Survival mode, while Shield Overload allows a fleet which focuses on energy shields survive even physical damage and don't exchange their maneuverability to additional armor. And that's not the only way to use them - just read short descriptions and invent your own evil strategy!

• Shield Overload module overloads shield on activation, making it able to consume not only energy damage, but also damage dealt by physical projectiles. But in exchange it continuosly consumes shield hit points and every shot deals twice damage to it. When Shield Overload is activated, all shields become visible.
• Kinetic Wall module - 2?4 special equipment. Creates a kinetic wall, which doesn't let any physical objects, including projectiles and ships, pass through it. Energy weapons can still bypass this wall, but if a ship bumps into this wall, it takes a lot of damage like if he tried to ram an asteroid.

Abaris cruiser

Deprived faction gets the first cruiser-class (400m) ship - Abaris. This is a light ship with a good turn speed and side weapons in several modifications - a good scouting ship with ability to trick and shoot frigates. At the same time, ramming on this ship or fighting with other cruisers can be no easy task, except of some specific modifications, perhaps.

If you haven't visited our Facebook and Twitter pages last week, we ensure to do it now - there are also some new screenshots and information there!

http://starfalltactics.com/news/wip-kinetic-wall-shield-overload-abaris-cruiser-and-wp-income

Another week of Starfall Tactics development is over - and we are one step closer to getting the game ready for the next test! Colonies, wars for faction territories, new ships and modules, reputation, progression and many other things we might even haven't announced yet - all in progress and waiting for its moment of glory. So read fresh news and get ready for something great ;)

Aaand the first Eclipse cruiser is ready! Arco is a small Eclipse hammer, which will crash enemy frigates by ramming them and killing with its deadly weaponry.

Let us introduce new system we created for making your journey through open space more interesting - well, at least without meeting a fleet of 20 super heavy dreadnoughts - Detachment system!

Now, to enter Galaxy map (discovery mode, MMO part of the game) your fleet will have to send a detachment to a mission. Each detachment has a certain use and, depending on it, it can contain different number of ships of each class. For example, player could be able to choose 2 different ship sets by ship class: 1) 2 battlecruisers, 3 cruisers and 3 light frigates. 2) 1 heavy dreadnought, 1 battleship, 3 battlecruisers and 2 light frigates. Players fill these entire slots with ships he has in the fleet, and they will be available during Discovery session. Note that while smaller slots can't be filled with bigger ships, huge slots can have frigates and other smaller ships inside: this helps you keep all slots filled even if you don't have heavy ships in your fleet at all.

Note: this could be not the final look of detachment menu. WIP.

How do I get detachments?

• From the very start you will have some basic detachments you can use.
• As a reward for gaining reputation levels with chosen faction.

Most detachments also can have a small bonus: +10% speed, for example - it depends on the function of the detachment. In exchange, there will be a sort of penalty - like -10% cargo which you basically don't need a lot of if you have a scouting detachment.

We've just created ping commands which you can use by holding the Alt button and clicking on the map! This option is frequently used in MOBA games, where you don't have time to stop and say something. In Starfall Tactics you have to control several units at a time, so you might have even less time.

Giant dreadnought, faction planets, ability to name a ship and get some other rewards for progression - this week is filled with epic things - and here are some of them:

New Eclipse dreadnought, giant brutal ship - Nomad!

Deprived, Vanguard and Eclipse factions - all of them have their homelands. And if you are curious enough, you could notice planet concepts while reading faction descriptions on our website. Earth, Ancora and Odysseus - they are so different, but each is a home for billions of humans. And here are two of them in all their evil beauty:

Earth, home for the Deprived, and a shameful past for the rest of humanity. That's what can happen to a single planet if you don't take care of it - ruins, radioactive wasteland, unbreathable air. But even abandoned by everybody, destined to die, smaller groups of people who were left there managed to survive and overcome it all. This disastrous world changed their appearance and lifestyle drastically, while the Black Blizzard only made some finishing touches.

Ancora became a new home for those who achieved moving from Earth. This planet was the nearest one, suitable for terraforming and, obviously, was set as a place where people hoped to start a new life for all of the humanity. While not everybody agreed with the will of Vanguard to establish a Far Left regime, there were not so many problems until Eclipse Inc. eventually separated from them.

Each ship, and even each copy of that ship, regardless of the modules you insert into it, will have a separate progression. And it's obvious, that for leveling up you will need to get a certain amount of XP, received for different actions on the battlefield: capturing points, dealing damage, taking damage, etc.

For unlo?king new levels you will receive the following rewards:

• Ability to paint your ship
• Master skin for your ship
• Ability to name your ship
• Ship Tech level increase (Ship Tech level defines modules you can equip onto this ship. You can equip modules only of the same or lower Tech level).
• Achievements (Once achievement system will be implemented).

We have some good news for you: starting now you will be able to add capacity to your ship, quickly get information about surroundings in Discovery mode and, as many of you asked, create custom key bindings!

Now you will be able to change key bindings the way you like it through the settings menu - for both quick matches and Discovery mode. To do it - simply click on the second column, press a key you want to assign and it's done!

To let you get around and understand surroundings better, we added an ability to see information about objects in hexes. By left-clicking on a hex in space you will get a small window with a picture and a short description of all objects inside of it.

Sometimes you don't have enough capacity to fit it the way you like. And this module will help you in resolving this issue - although it's huge enough (3x3), it still can work for you as a life-saving feature adding some capacity to your favourite ship.

At the moment this module is available only through fleet progression in a single copy.

September is almost over and who knows, what is coming in October? Stay tuned and never miss important information about Starfall Tactics development!

This time we are ready to show not only a new cool module and great faction planets, but also some new stuff for our MMO part of the game, which can be interesting for those who are excited about upcoming content and Faction Wars ;)

We've already shown you two faction planets in previous articles - Earth and Ancora. But there is another one left, belonging to the Eclipse faction - and it's finally here:

Odysseus

Pirates, stations, depots, warpgates, colonized planets, Motherships, black markets, huge enemy fleets - and, most likely, this is not the full list of things you will be able to encounter while furrowing the vast of Starfall Tactics universe.

So, here are new structures you couldn't see during previous tests - Outpost and Supply Station.

• Supply Station - This is a basic structure you can build for capturing a system. This Station collects resources from all planets in its' system and provides it with necessary supplies e.g. food.
• Outpost - Upgraded Supply Station. Provides better supplies distribution, launches NPC guarding fleets into the system and gives vision in this system for all faction members (doesn't depend on whether you explored it or not). Outposts have better protection and it's harder to destroy them.
• Mothership - Structure of the highest grade, the most protected one. Does all things listed above in a better way and has other important functions: allows warping between Motherships, refueling and repairing all fleets, finishing Discovery session, taking all blueprints and modules to your account inventory and selling loot.

Cluster Missile is another useful thing to help you destroy swarms of smaller ships. As you could understand from its name, it's a missile which splits into several pieces and can do some area damage with smaller missiles.

At the moment it is presented in the game as a special module, but there is a huge chance that it eventually will become a weapon.

More

Today we continue telling you about Faction Wars mechanics and, as we promised, showing some new cool weapons - hope you are ready to test it all and will invent some great strategies once you acquire these modules :)

As we already said, you can conquer faction systems by building Supply Stations there. Of course, system which belongs to your faction and where you can freely spend your time is a cool thing, but we definitely need something else to make the game more interesting, right? So, we added and will add many other things - we already have some in our roadmap, and this time we are telling you about planet colonization.

At first, let's say a couple words about ?olonization. In Starfall Tactics you are able to establish a colony on each planet, spending a special item which you can acquire from your Mothership in exchange to reputation. There are two types of colonies:

• Supply Factory: provides resources like food and other necessary stuff, which spends on maintaining life in colonies. If there are not enough supplies, people on a planet start dying and colonies become less effective. If there are a lot of resources, population increases and colonies work better.
• Mining Complex: mines valuable resources like ore which can be spent on building Supply Stations and upgrading it to Outposts and Motherships.
• But since each planet has it's own parameters like Temperature, Atmosphere, Life probability and resource availability - some of them produce better, some - worse, and some can't have colonies of certain type at all. It still can be changed if you acquire a special item which terraforms chosen planet, making conditions better within reasonable limits.

Structures like Supply Stations, Outposts and Motherships help you distribute resources from colonies: if there is one on a system, from time to time planets send a certain amount of produced resources to the structure and it distributes to planets which have a need in it or to a building structure. If a planet in need is in other system, structure sends a caravan to it, but it must be connected through other structures, like a chain - otherwise it won't be able to deliver resources. And these caravans can be attacked and robbed, but take care - while players of other faction benefit from it in all ways, players of the same faction will lose reputation. You also can deliver resources manually, receiving reward in IGC and reputation.

Last time we said that there are some new weapons in development - and today we are ready to present you three of them. And since there are not so much missile weapons in Starfall Tactics, two of them are launchers which differ not only with size and damage, but also with some smaller mechanical nuances.

• Protonic Torpedo Launcher - Launches torpedoes with a great AOE effect.
• Melted Avalanche - Assault Rocket Launcher, launching a big amount of rockets at once. Deals sufficient damage, but has a relatively long cooldown.
• CQC Laser - Assault laser with average range, deals maximum damage only in near distances.

Aside from new weapons, we decided to create another module which refers to special equipment - and it will be a great addition into a number of already existing mines.

Neutron mine is very effective against crew. While having a 2000m explosion radius and an average damage, it allows you to destroy more crew on enemy ships then usual damage does.

Wars for territories, planet colonization, faction houses (guilds), intense battles in quick matches and the whole Universe to conquer - all of this and even more is waiting for players in Starfall Tactics! We are running pre-Alpha Faction Wars test from 10th November 18:00 CET to 13th November 23:55 CET and everybody who signs up for the test receives a key.

During upcoming Faction Wars pre-Alpha test participants will be able to try the following features in their basic version:

• Wars for Faction territories - participate in galaxy conquest!
• Faction Guilds - create your own House and lead it into battle!
• Station building - build Supply Stations, Outposts and Motherships to protect faction territories.
• Planet Colonization - colonize planets to help your faction grow and upgrade structures to powerful defensive buildings!
• Freighters - Resource Distribution System, which helps you maintain all colonies and stuctures. Yes, you can rob "caravans" - some Russians will get the joke :)

Quick matches are also available to play with all changes we mentioned in previous articles. Full Patch Notes and infromation about Houses will be published later on our website.

Sign up for the test here and you will recive an access to the upcoming event ;)

Faction Wars is a very interesting and complex system and sometimes it takes more time than we expect for our small team to implement features we'd love to present here. That's why we have to take an extra week - Pre-Alpha Faction Wars test postponed until 17th November 18:00 CET! We apologize for the inconvenience it might cause to everybody who is looking forward to play Starfall Tactics here.

We also published some infirmation about attacking and capturing enemy systems which is available here.

Here are a couple of related screenshots with short info - first one shows station attack, while second one - captured regions:

To start attack on enemy systems players in Starfall Tactics need to go to the system, fly close to enemy structure and push the "Attack" button - it starts an event for capturing a system.
This event is visible for both involved factions, and announced for all faction members - you definitely won't miss it. The third faction can not participate and influence it directly - they only can set ambushes near gates to the place of conflict which is also a very painful thing for both factions.


To successfully destroy enemy structure you need to get enough military intel (represented by Warp Points) from Key Positions (special instances) around the structure. To destroy a Supply Station you should capture 5 Positions, for an Outpost - 10, for a Mothership - 20. Key Positions count as captured once the attacking faction collects 100.000 WP in this instance (hex).

And Vanguard Supply Station, Outpost and Mothership - important structures for faction wars: