Greetings Captains,

Last night on Twitch, we revealed the new mode that will be coming to Fractured Space in our end of March update, Last Stand, and the in-game backstory of how it came to exist in the world of Fractured Space.

Last Stand is a PvE mode where you and two other Captains will fight together against the waves of AI Swarm over four new sectors specifically built for this new mode. For a full rundown of the story and some of the characters you will be encountering, please watch the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj3-T_St8E8

Very exciting stuff! The whole studio is very excited for all of you to get your hands on the Last Stand, which will be part of the March 2018 Update. Before that time, we still have another patch aimed for the end of February containing the brand new ship, the Zarek Punisher, which we took for its first test drive, live on air last night. If you would like to check that out, CLICK HERE

That was a jam-packed stream full of new things and we hope you are all as excited as we are to get all this new content out to you. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we’ll be taking deeper looks at the Art and Design behind Last Stand.

Greetings Captains,

Today we bring word of a new Ship that will be joining the current roster of Ships, the Zarek Punisher.

The Zarek Punisher is a medium attack ship with a variety of anti-cloak and defensive tools. These tools allow it to survive and deter cloakers from ambushing the Punisher, whilst reducing their ability to escape.

Get a closer look in the video below:

https://youtu.be/wj7xHYWEJxg

The Zarek Punisher will be joining the Prototype ship tier when the February Patch goes live at the end of the month. It can be purchased for 1,720,000 Credits or 990 Platinum.


With the arrival of the Zarek Punisher, the TDS Aegis will be moving from a Prototype ship tier down to the Production line. This means its Credit cost will reduce from 1,720,000 Credits down to 960,000 Credits.



This change also means that The Aegis Bundle and the Spectre Skin will be removed from the Store, so if you've had your eye on the Exclusive Spectre skin for the Aegis you can pick up these items now for 40% off the usual price. Hurry before it is gone forever.

• Fixed All-Stars Badge appearing incorrectly with unformatted html codes
  
• Fixed a couple of layout issues with badges
  
• Corrected spacing error on medal layout.
  
• Fixed an issue where first time the user presses TAB to open the scoreboard/map, the scoreboard isn't shown
  
• Parented numbers to the buttons on ship animation load screens to fix layout issues in specific display resolutions
  
• Fixed issue with friends leaderboard digest not showing if one of the friends leaderboards was empty, classes weren't being reset.
  
• Change loading screen name to Forward to Victory.
  
• Added comma to Vanguard badge description
  
• Changed the amount scrolled on the medals page to be the same amount scrolled on the badges page
  
• Steam Leaderboards: Requesting 11 entries around the player instead of 10 which effectively means 5 before the player, the player itself, and 5 more after the player. (Instead of 5 before, player, 4 after)

• Fixed an issue caused by reclassification of Founder Status from "inventory items" to "Badges" at run-time which resulted in the Founder Status being ignored for post-match credit bonuses. You should now receive the correct post-match credit bonuses associated with your Founder Status, even if that Badge is not equipped during the match.
  
  
• Removed new acceleration curves from flight models on all ships until we have finalized all changes correctly.
  
  
• Readded collision to the reworked Homebase tower asset so that players can't simply pass through it.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where player names would clip with their badges on the HUD Tab screen.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where selecting a skin on a Ship you don't own and then purchasing it doesn't replace the button with Buy Skin.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the progress bar would hide, but not the player level text if the player is Level 183 in the hangar.
  
  
• Increased the size of the Badge to match the size of the original badge dimensions on the Tab screen in the HUD.
  
  
• Reduced Badge size on the scoreboard to be the correct dimensions.
  
  
• Added a temporary fix for bots spamming the chat window when they ping. The fix involves preventing them to send chat lines but still be able to ping the minimap.
  
  
• Gladiator: Fixed Point Defense floating above the hull (affects Regular and Ultimate hulls).

Greetings Captains,

The "January" Patch is here
. . . in February.

We are preparing the servers now for the patch rollout and hope to be up as soon as possible, in the meantime, let's take a look at the changes.


Within your Profile, for this patch, we have included a new feature, Leaderboards. Applicable to both PvP and Quickplay, so you can duke it out to be the best in your fleet of friends or strive to be Number One in the entire galaxy.



Here’s how it works:

There is one score on the Leaderboard which is based on your top three games each week. That score is calculated on how well you play the ships you are in (calculated by your XP per minute in a match) – so if you are playing Support you don’t have to chase Takedowns to do well, likewise if you’re playing a capping ship you can focus on your job – it all counts towards your score.

We compare the XP per minute you earn in a match to what the average is on that ship. Score better than the average and you will get higher scores on the leaderboard. We then take your three best matches and add them to your overall score, regardless of how many ships you use or how many games you play – a poor game will not bring your score down (while a good game will bump it up, so there is every reason to get one more game in).

The Leaderboard will be refreshed every week at 10:00 UTC on Tuesdays and the top five players at the end of the first week will each earn the Mimas Gladiator Ultimate Skin (also available from the store).


Badges are cosmetic items awarded for unlocking the final tiers of Medals - this includes all of the current Fractured Space Medals and Masteries. When unlocked, Captains will be able to equip a Badge and display them for everyone to see.



Once equipped, these badges will appear when another Captain targets you, in the TAB screen, and on the Results screen.

A range of special Badges are available too, gifted to those of you who were founders, for tournament winners, and for things like meeting the Edge Case Games team in person.


Joining the Store are TWO variants of the new Gladiator Ultimate Skin, The Calypso, and The Mimas. It’s not about the speed of the ship, but how fast you look. Deck yourselves out in these racing liveries ready for pole position. Purchase them individually or get a discount and purchase them as part of a bundle.



Even better, owners of the Ultimate Skin Bundle will have both of these variants in their Inventory as we have made several changes to this Steam Pack.

The following will be added to the Ultimate Skins Pack:

• Colossus Charon Ultimate Skin
  
• Raider Akula Ultimate Skin
  
• Gladiator Mimas Ultimate Skin
  
• Gladiator Calypso Ultimate Skin
  
• Colossus Ship
  
• Raider Ship
  
• Gladiator Ship

The price of the Ultimate Skins Pack will remain the same as it currently is, and if you already own the Ultimate Skins Pack, these changes will automatically occur once you have the updated client.

Any duplicate skins that you already own will burn for 2400 Platinum.


We've had our Art Team give the Homebase a new lick of paint with a texture rework and optimization pass.

We'll let the pictures do the talking.





For more images, see here

• Ships are now purchasable from the store page, with an option to filter via manufacturer and unowned ships.

Aegis

• Reduced all armor sides from 2000 to 1750hp.

Basilisk

• Plasma Cannon: Introduced falloff on the ship's main weapon, starting at 7500m and tapering off linearly to 75% damage at max range.

Displacer

• Increased the HP slightly on all Displacer Marker variants to increase the likelihood of it getting through Point Defense and connecting with the target.

Ghost

• Target Blink: Increased cooldown from 20 to 25s.

Gladiator

• Added an additional turret to the front of the ship. The number of forward-facing turrets has now increased from two to three.

Watchman

• Back by popular demand: The old, slower Charge Cannon makes a return, and is now been renamed to the Heavy Charge Cannon.

Greetings Captains,

We have released a client hotfix which should address the following:

-Added a fix for the Launcher sometimes not opening correctly.
-Added additional store imagery.

This will not require any Maintenance Mode to perform.

Greetings Captains,

We are entering a Maintenance Mode shortly to deploy a back-end server hotfix which will remove unnecessary metrics that we have been receiving. There are no gameplay relevant changes within this hotfix.

During the Maintenance period, all players will be unable to log into Fractured Space. Please keep an eye on our Status twitter account to know when we are back online.

Thank you for your patience.

Captains,

We will be pushing a client only hot fix (does not require Maintenance Mode) to address the following:

• Fixed an issue where the H key could not be rebound
  
• Fixed an issue where MMR was not displaying on the results screen correctly, MMR will now update automatically on the result screen and will only show gains rather than losses.

Happy Holidays!

Ru-T0lf is in control of a malfunctioning A.I Candy Cane Destroyer! It's up to you guys to jump into the new Omega sector, destroy the ship to get it fighting on your side, and defeat the enemy team!

This scenario will encourage players to switch up their normal playstyles and try out new tactics to win the match. The Omega sector will replace Gamma and acts in a similar way - Ru-T0lf will appear in Omega when the countdown ends, and both teams will want to send players in there to try and take down the ship.

The team who manages to destroy Ru-T0lf will get the ship on their side to push down a lane. However, all players within the Omega sector will gain the Omega buff when the ship is destroyed. Each time Ru-T0lf appears, the ship he pilots will get stronger up until Omega 4 when it reaches max strength.

As if all that isn't cool enough, you'll be able to play the scenario in both PvP and PvE!

This scenario will be running from December 20th to 27th, after which the normal Conquest map will be re-enabled.




Holiday Campaign - The Jingling
We've released a timed Holiday Campaign along with this update. The Campaign will have three Nodes containing five Missions each, completing each Node will unlock a Candy Cane skin!

Node 1 – Pioneer Candy Cane
Node 2 – Paragon Candy Cane
Node 3 – Ghost Candy Cane
Or if you already own any of the above, 400 platinum!

Holiday Event - Ru-T0lfs Return
Simply win three matches between the date of the update going live and the 4th of January to bag yourself the Limited Edition, level 1 Ru-T0lf crew member! You'll be able to track your progress within the Events Tab of your Service Record in game.




We've refreshed the look of the Fractured Space Main Menu, making it cleaner, less confusing and all out nicer to look at! You'll find your ships in a handy scroll list across the bottom of your screen, as well as all of the normal information we had before, and more.

We've added the functionality to assign crew to each ship in the Hangar with this update, as well as allowing players to select which skin they'd like to go into battle with too.




Your bindings are being reset to defaults for this update to make way for new features (e.g. Quick Chat). Be sure to backup your key bindings before running the game for the first time if you don't want to have to rebind everything manually again.


Is your ship's nose constantly sticking to stations? Is reversing in Gamma becoming a tiresome and time-consuming affair? Well fret no more! Now ships across all three manufacturers come equipped with a new, revolutionary anti-stick layer as standard. All this comes at absolutely no extra cost, satisfaction guaranteed! (terms and conditions apply, no actual refund eligibility implied or to be expected, anti-stick layer is non-optional and prices non-negotiable).

Gamma

• Only players within the Gamma sector can gain the Buff
  
• Destroying a player with the gamma buff will grant your team bonus resources.

Tutorial

• Re-worked the introductory cinematic sequence to be more representative of the upcoming gameplay and give a better first impression.
  
• Various tweaks and small bug fixes to the tutorial to make the objectives clearer.
  
• Added sector highlighting to make it even clearer when the player needs to jump to another sector to progress.

VFX

• Fixed the heal VFX at stations being active even when you're not being healed (e.g. when you're at full health).
  
  
• Added a cloak transition effect to the Ghost (Excluding Phantom), where it quickly fades in and out of cloak.
  
  
• Updated the Warp Tunnel VFX
  
  
• Updated the VFX that is triggered when a ship leaves and enters a sector. Additionally if a ship jumps into a sector within 10’000m of you, a short camera shake is played based on their distance to you.
  
  
• Updated Engine and Thruster VFX across all ships.
  
  
• “Space Dust” VFX updated across all sectors. Small rocks are spawned which break apart if your ship collides with them. Ship weapons and projectiles remain unaffected.
  
  
• VFX on all small ships have been updated via adding a small “Engine Flare” to their trail particles.
  
  
• An “Upgraded” effect has been added which plays across your ship whenever you upgrade.

UI

• Updated loading tip screens with new art and updated text.
  
• Added "Strong against" listings when mousing over a ship in the drafting pick list. A 5 star rating indicates how effective the selected ship is against the listed ship. (A "counters list" is to come when mousing over an enemy's ship pick, that suggests what they're weak against. hopefully in a hotfix.)
  
• Simple tooltips added to the Drafting page to explain elements.

Other

• Made it easier to highlight and ping players on the minimap when they are very close to each other.
  
  
• Fixed fighters being launched continuously during the countdown sequence of a match.

Basilisk

• Top and Bottom armor segment health reduced from 1250 to 1000hp each.
  
• Graviton Anchor: Mobility suppression component effect reduced from -35% to -25%

Black Widow

• Flight Model: Improved Strafe acceleration from 220 to 250, increased Yaw (turn) acceleration from 0.55 to 0.65, increased max vertical speed from 220 to 240, increased vertical acceleration from 330 to 350.

Colossus

• Slow Drones: Reduced slow effect from -50% to -33%
  
• Flak: Reduced AOE effect from 1250m to 1125m. Increased the projectile lifespan from 2 to 2.05s to increase the range slightly from 9878 to 9964.6m.
  
• Engine Shutdown ability. Reworked the ability from a complete stun to a partial disable where the targeted ship cannot change course for the duration (now like Superlifter's Engine Disable ability)

Disruptor

• Increased Repair Drones heal frequency from 1 to 2 cycles per second.
• Decreased Repair Drones heal rate from 0.055 to 0.025, to result in a slight overall reduction in heals.
  
• Decreased Repair Drones Armor Regeneration Modifier from x6 to x5.
  
• Drone Health: increased RepairDrone health from 50 to 52.5HP.
  
• Increased Blink to Ally cooldown from 25 to 33s.

Endeavor

• Increased Turret Health from 1500 to 1750hp.
  
• Fixed issue where the Endeavor's turrets would stop shooting at you if you shot at them and then left them (this would trigger a 5 second agro timeout as if you were out of range).

Executioner

• Stasis Field now has its lifespan properly adjusted by Ability Duration implants.

Ghost

• Decoy ability now has its lifespan properly adjusted by Ability Duration implants.

Hunter

• Increased DPS on main cannon variants by 5%.
  - Hunter Cannon: increased from 100 to 105.
  - Light Hunter Cannon: increased from 66 to 69.3.
  - Heavy Hunter Cannon: increased from 165 to 173.25.
  
• Hunter Syphon Drones can now blink to their target like other drones in the game.

Infiltrator

• Increased Disarm cooldown from 40 to 60s.
  
• Reduced Ion Blast cooldown from 30 to 25s.

Leviathan

• Jump Point lifetime now scales properly with Ability Duration implants.

Overseer

• Shield Wall Buoy now has its lifespan properly adjusted by Ability Duration implants.

Protector

• Reduced Near Beam healing component from 0.025 to 0.0208, and reduced cooldown from 18 to 15s.
  
• Implemented an activation cost of 1000 energy for Defensive Bubble.
  
• Reduced Defensive Field energy activation cost from 230 to 200, and increased the energy cost per second from 155 to 160.

Venturer

• Introduced a 45s lifetime limit on Shield Buoy (and all its variants).

Watchman

• Reduced Charge Cannon cooldown from 28.1 to 14s, and reduced damage per hit from 1492 to 750.

Greetings Captains,

Today's optional update is not required to access the game but will update the following:

-Updated Bundle imagery.
-Refactored the Store UI to accommodate these changes.

---------------------------------------------------------


Happy Thanksgiving to all our Captains over in the States,

At 5pm UTC today our Black Friday Sale will begin where you can pick up the Aegis, Endeavour and Furion bundles for 50% off.

All our Steam Packs are currently also 50% off and now the Fleet Pack will grant you all current ships and ALL future ships that we add to the game.

(If you are a previous purchaser of the Armada Pack, we will be upgrading your packs to do the same, this change will be happening at a later date.)

EDIT 24/11/2017: The changes to Armada Packs has now been made.

You'll also find the Credit Boosters and Implant Pods are also 50% off, to help you earn more from your matches over this holiday period.

Be sure to get yourself stocked up on turkey so you are ready for battle.