Pilots!

In today's blog entry, we want to tell you about various improvements we've been working on after the New Year. You are going to hear about:

• Updated synergy gain mechanics for dealing damage
• Changes in ‘Sector Conquest’ rules
• Intuitive HUD settings

As you can see, the changes are very exciting and important, so we'll try to cover them in as much detail as possible.

Synergy gain

So let's start with the first item — synergy accumulation. There are several different options for obtaining synergy and efficiency in battle, and the changes we are working on right now, concern effectiveness for the damage you deal. We see that the change is necessary because the current mechanics have a few controversial points:

• The so-called ‘Kill steals’ — when a player reduces an enemy ship to, say, less than 20% of its total health, the ship could still escape and get finished off by another player. However, the pilot who dealt the bulk of the damage would find himself without a deserved reward. This aspect of the old mechanics did not suit us and many of our pilots.
• The amount of damage dealt did not affect efficiency and synergy gain at all. The player who inflicted 80% of total damage, but did not destroy the enemy ship, in the old system, received efficiency points only for a brief time (for kill assists).
• From this follows another difficult moment: new players (and sometimes experienced players, who just acquired a new ship) could get out of the fight with zero efficiency, despite actively participating in battle.

These three points had a significant impact on the overall gameplay, and that's why the system has to be improved. After extensive discussions and tests, we have come up with an improved version of the system in relation to damage, with the following changes:

Disabled damage dealing timer
As mentioned earlier, before the update, a player could gain effectiveness points only for a short time after dealing damage to an enemy destroyed by another pilot which counted as a kill assist. In the new system the damage timer was abandoned, and because of this, all damage is now properly counted after the destruction of a ship and attributed to all who participated in the destruction, regardless of where and when the enemy was destroyed.

Consider a simple example: If an enemy ship is taken down 5 minutes after you dealt some damage to it, you still get efficiency points and synergy (even if your own ship was shot down!).

Synergy and efficiency is now charged proportionally to the damage dealt
In the new system, hull and shield strength are counted together (theoretical 100%), and all damage done is memorized for each of the attackers. If the target fully restores its overall strength, and the attacker deals damage to it again, the resulting damage will not exceed these 100% in calculations. (i.e. you can not get 400% for one enemy simply because he fully recovered several times). Of course, if the damage is done by different attackers, the reward will be given to each of them, in proportion to their ‘contribution’. However, each of them will receive no more than 100% of the damage if the target was ‘difficult’. Conversely, if the target was destroyed by ‘focussing’ and did not have time to recover, all players will receive rewards in proportion to their ‘contribution’ to the result.

However, we do not want to reduce the importance of destroying enemy ships, so the player who inflicted the final damage will receive an additional 50% points of efficiency and synergy of its ‘contribution’ to the destruction of the enemy.

Let us consider an example: You inflicted 20% damage, a pilot from your team dealt another 60% of the damage, but then the enemy fled and partially regained hull and shield strength, and was killed by a third player on your team who dealt 80% of the damage (do not forget that the enemy has recovered!). All players participating in the destruction of enemy ship get efficiency and synergy. It's simple:

(Example for ships Grade 1)

• Player 1 will get 20 efficiency points (20% of damage done) and 20 points of synergy
• Player 2 gets 60 efficiency points (60% of damage done) and 60 points of synergy
• Player 3 receives 120 efficiency points (80% + of the damage plus bonus from this number, 50%) and also 120 points of synergy

Synergy will be awarded to each player individually, depending on the rank of the ship and personal player bonuses, but following the same proportions as the efficiency.

In this form, the system will solve all of the controversial issues: beginners and those just bought a new ship will be able to obtain synergy and efficiency, veterans dealing major damage will not experience a feeling of dissatisfaction, when the enemy they hit hard gets destroyed by someone else.

We understand that in the new system applying 100% of the damage will be less frequent, so we plan to increase the total amount of synergy and effectiveness awarded for the destruction of enemy ships and assists.

We want to point out that the system will be rolled out in test mode, so in the future, some changes may be made. We will continue to work with it and will constantly monitor your feedback!

Changes in the rules of ‘Sector conquest’

Now let's turn to the second part — the changes in the rules of ‘Sector Conquest’. After updating this mode, we are closely monitoring all the major events and the tactics used by pilots. At this point, it's clear that execution of combat mission is not as effective as simple destruction of enemy ships. In addition, the losing side receives no incentive to continue trying to win.

It was therefore necessary to modify the rules to make them more interesting for all players in ‘Sector Conquest’. Changes will be small, but important — now, each and every captured beacon will give the team 1 point of influence. As you remember, each map has 6 beacons, three of them belong to your team, three — to the enemy. Thus, the most successful fight will bring every pilot 6 points of influence, but there is an interesting caveat — if the losing team captures one of the winners' beacons, then they too will receive their reward in influence points!

Let's look at an example: One team captured the enemy's two beacons, but all of their ships were destroyed (technical defeat). Previously, this team lost completely without getting a single point of influence, but with the new rules, the team will still receive two points of influence for those beacons that they captured. And the winners who failed to protect their two beacon get 4 points of influence (3 for the enemy's beacons and 1 for their own remaining beacon).

Such a small change will allow our players to earn influence points and make ‘Sector Conquest’ more fun!

Again, after we apply this update, we will continue to closely monitor all incoming information and further improve this mode!

Intuitive settings for HUD

Finally we get to the last point of our blog: combat interface. After the introduction of improved HUD settings, many of our pilots noted that it lacks clarity. And today we want to note that the work on this feature is almost complete, and final testing is well underway.

That's right, in the 0.9.15 update you will see fully visual customization options for your HUD. How is it going to look? See below!

 

As you can see, now you can always get a clear idea of what each setting affects and how your HUD is going to look!

This concludes today's blog, and as always, we are looking forward to your comments!

Sincerely,
Star Conflict Team