As we near the arrival of the SpaceGuilds, we continue to give you more information about the new features and many changes that will be included in Spacelords along with that update. Yesterday we introduced the new radar system, and today we will look into how some missions have been redesigned to become more exciting and truer to the game’s core mechanics.

Hernán Ojuel, Spacelords’ Technical Designer, gave us some insight on these changes and why they have been implemented:

“We have introduced several variations and additions to four of the missions. We have focused our efforts on the initial missions for each campaign, and the Prologue -they are the initial entry points for new players, and needed to be more representative of the game as a whole, introducing all the mechanics and quirks they’ll need to understand to progress further into the game. We also made them more challenging and interesting for veteran players, rewarding skilled gameplay over time-based challenges (like trying to survive while waiting for an elevator to arrive). “

Let’s have a look at how those missions have changed:

- Hanging by a Thread: This is the more heavily modified mission. First of all, we have added Elite Officers, who will now spawn on the missile deck of the Hades Division cruiser, and will offer the Raiders the chance of start gathering Aleph earlier in the mission. As Hernán commented, now the elevator to the generator’s deck is already waiting for the Raiders, but they will have to fight their way through a veritable kill zone, defended by Hades Division machine gun emplacements. The final phase of the mission has also been altered with the elimination of an inbetween cutscene, providing a more natural climax and gameplay flow that will benefice a tactical resolution for both Raiders and Antagonists.

Before:


After:

- In Shock: This mission has already been modified and can be played in its new form right now! Now, Dr. Kuzmann is backed up by Fifth Council’s elite troops, and the torture device where he keeps Shae imprisoned requires a more tactical approach to deactivate.



- Short Fuse: After the Raiders destroy the Umbra Wardogs tanks, if the Raiders lose all their lives it won’t be “game over” anymore, but they will enter a “Survival Phase” instead, as it is the case with the rest of the game.



- A Low Blow: Once the Raiders reach the extraction area, they will need to call Cortez and wait for the Beluga to teleport them out of danger, defending the position until the ship arrives.





We hope you enjoy these small but important changes to these missions, and look forward to hear what you think of them once you get the chance to play them. Please, let us know your opinion in the comments below.

See you on the Broken Planet!

SpaceGuilds, the first major update in the Spacelords Roadmap, is almost upon us. As you can expect, the Guilds are the main focus of this update, and we will offer much more information about how they work in the following days.

But there are many, many new features, tweaks and refinements included in this milestone that deserve their time under the spotlight. Today, we will focus on a new feature that will be quite handy for Raiders and Antagonists alike: The Radar.



We have been considering adding a radar for some time, and the feedback received from our community convinced us to finally implement it in the game. We have gone through many different iterations until we settled for a version that worked along the game’s mechanics.

As you can see, the radar itself is simple and functional. Located in the lower left corner, it will pop up when you have enemies in your vicinity. Your foes will be shown as red blips of varying sizes -those located on your same altitude will be shown as dot of equal size as yours, while others above and below your position will appear as bigger and smaller blips, respectively.



The inclusion of a radar makes the tactical management of Aleph and the stress levels even more important. Raiders and Antagonists will only be visible on the radar when they are stressed.

You can use this to your advantage by keeping your stress level under control and moving literally under the radar, or doing the exact opposite and luring your rivals to an ambush, or divert their attention from the main objective. The choice is yours!

Enemy elites and special enemies, like a final boss, will be also shown in the radar with special icons.



The radar will hopefully add a new dimension to your Spacelords games, and we are looking forward seeing new strategies emerging around it when it goes live along the SpaceGuilds update -coming really soon!

What do you think of this new feature? Let us know in your comments below.
See you on the Broken Planet!

The “Easter Egg” is a modified variant of a tactical shotgun issued to Umbra Wardogs units on transport escort assignments. These weapons fire adhesive explosives equipped with motion sensors, capable of detecting movement over a 4 metre distance -ideal for dismantling enemy vehicles in pursuit. Harec found one of these weapons near a group of Umbra Wardogs bodies, that apparently had shot each other to death in their camp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WcNNkOKMEM
The shotgun had the name “Matias” engraved in the stock. Harec modified the weapon, discarding the most of its individual components and incorporating others that magnified its effective range. The Raiders’ leader really enjoys using his “snipping shotgun” ever since!

Adjustments to the rewards system.

The latest game update includes what we expect to be an improvement of the reward system for high-level matches.

We've been receiving feedback about high-difficulty matches whose rewards do not feel equivalent to the invested effort from the players.

We consider that matches should be rewarded because of the challenge they offer, so we've done a full readjustment on game difficulties which aims to disperse the population along a more diverse MMR range. This also allowed us to greatly increase the weight of the MMR on the match final score calculation and to reduce time, death and extraction importance over the score as well.

From now, higher scores - which imply higher rewards- will be more accessible and frequent on high level matches.

MercurySteam is working with actress and model Stefanie Joosten on the creation of a brand-new playable character for Spacelords! This new character will be available in Early 2019.

“I met with several MercurySteam team members at a gaming convention last year, where I had the chance to play Spacelords for the first time and was very impressed by the unique visual style of the game,” commented Stefanie Joosten. “We agreed it would be cool to collaborate in the future if the opportunity ever arose, and I am really happy to say that the time is here and now!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Towgq65lHY
After playing the character Quiet in Konami’s Metal Gear Solid V, Joosten will now lend her image and voice talents to play the role of Sööma, a member of the Umbra Wardogs faction, born in the Cydonia region, on distant Mars, as part of a seclusive cult devoted to helping those who suffer pain and oppression.



Sööma joined the ill-fated expedition to the Broken Planet as a rite of passage into her Order’s senior echelons. But the terrible reality of the war raging over the Broken Planet will put her beliefs and natural kindness to the test.

“Sööma is a really interesting, layered character to play,” adds Joosten. “She possesses great inner strength and fights with the conviction of someone who is certain her cause is just, but still harbors a naivety that will clash with the conflict she is about to become involved with.”



“We have a standing commitment to our community to continue adding top-quality content to Spacelords, and creating this new, iconic character in collaboration with Ms. Joosten adds a whole new level of depth and charisma to Sööma,” said Enric Álvarez, Studio Director. “It has been a real pleasure working with Stefanie. We are sure Sööma will become a major “fan favourite” for all our players!”

Hey Spacelords!

Welcome to the second instalment of the State of the Game Address. As with our previous article, we want to shed some light over some of the more candent topics and concerns shared by our community.

We have been following many threads in our official forums, and in our Twitter and Facebook accounts, about Spacelords’ Difficulty and MMR systems, two different but closely intertwined concepts. We hope the following post helps shedding some light over this subject. You can read all about it in the Spacelords Website

We hope you find this post informative. If you have any questions, let us know and the team will be happy to give you an answer. Thank you all and see you on the Broken Planet!

When she was just 20 years old, Ayana enlisted in the New Exeter, a notorious privateer spaceship under the famed Captain Jenkins. Ayana quickly found that she had a talent for piracy; always a fast learner, her combat and navigation skills improved by the day.

It wasn’t too long before Ayana was promoted to First Mate, and her fame steadily grew after each engagement, raid and plunder, until it reached the most remote corners of the galaxy. The legend of Ayana, “Captain of Captains”, had just began.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3KBj9qj_9U
The new “Recruit of the New Exeter” skin for Ayana is now available in Spacelords!

Nilben are fascinating creatures… They might as readily spit acid underwater than burst out a torrent of flame if they are in the surface. These little echinoderms can burn to ashes any unfortunate creature they deem as a threat -and that’s about anything within reach! Rak thought it would be fun to use the as munitions for a new weapon and throw them against his enemies. He just needed to remember to smear himself with Krogeront’s fat before doing that, lets he ends up scorched too!

Rak Mayura’s Nilben Launcher is now available in Spacelords. Play now for free!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGgSqBBqEQQ

This is a quick, one-fix patch.

Some cards combination allowed players to surpass the 100% barrier and thus became virtually invulnerable.

- Damage reduction value can never exceed 95%.


That’s all! Here is some nice picture for your enjoyment:

Many, many gameplay changes are coming today! We're fixing some economy issues as well as going hard on Raiders, Missions and Cards balance.

REWARDS

Bad streaks on Blueprint draws are rare thanks to the bonus chance after losing one Blueprint in a previous round, however, they are very unpleasing when they do happen. We've removed the loss of the Blueprint prize in the main map after losing the draw.

- One-time rewards are no longer consumed when you lose the draw.
- Mission requisite to get a Common Blueprint changed from "Win the mission" to "Score over 2"

ANTAGONIST

Playing as the Antagonist is meant to be challenging, but it's not meant to be a burden on the economy of the player. We've adjusted Antagonist's scores so that they will, on average, be similar to those of the Raiders and thus, earn the same amount of gold, faction points and have the same shot at blueprints as Raiders do. This means that Antagonist's scores may be well over 5 even when they lose the match if they perform good enough.

- Raider kills and match time now have more weight on score calculation.
- Antagonists can now get a scores above 5 even after losing a game.



MISSIONS

With the last patch we introduced a delay on using Dr.Kuzmann's levers without properly adressing the duration of Shae's electrocution. We're adressing this along with some extra touches on the Council Apocalypse campaign.

In Shock
- Greatly incrased Shae's electrocution duration.
- Decreased lever use time by 10%

A Breath of Hope
- Decreased Aleph charges needed on both second and third monolites by 10%
- Decreased Guardian's health by 10%

A Fistful of Sand
- Increased the Protector’s health by 10%

The Beast's Lair
- Decreased General Marmalade's life when not playing against an antagonist by 10%

The Destroyer of Worlds
- Increased Aneska's life when playing against an antagonist by 10%

Upside Down
- Reduced Kuzmann's crab health by 10%
- Added enemy turrets to the level.

Mind Over Matter
- Decreased the required number of enemies to pass the Fifth Council's exam by 10%
- Increased enemie's spawn rate by 5%


FACTIONS

Locals
- Increased Locals' life regeneration speed by 100%

Fifth Council
- Lowered Fifth Council player character's resistance to shooter damage from 60% to 50%

CHARACTERS

Harec
- Decreased Stalk's cooldown by 35%
- Increased Vindicta Anima's damage by 5%
- Increased Vindicta Anima's reload speed by 15%
- Increased movement speed when aiming with Vindicta Anima by 20%
- Increased movement speed when aiming with Ignis Fugit by 20%

Doldren
- Increased KLT-13's damage by 5%
- Increased KLT-13's fall off distance by 10%
- Decreased Patient Boy's clip size by 1
- Decreased Patient Boy's fall off distance by 45%
- Decreased KLT-13's reload speed by 7%
- Increased Bloody Mary's damage by 10%
- JK-5 can now perform Headshots (headshots instantly kill wounded characters)

Iune
- Last Wish can now perform Headshots (headshots instantly kill wounded characters)
- Sigh can now perform Headshots (headshots instantly kill wounded characters)

Valeria
- Decreased Little Girl's damage by 10%
- Decreased Little Girl's quantum projectile damage by 10%
- Decreased The Whip's damage by 20%
- Decreased The Whip's quantum projectile damage by 20%

Ginebra
- Decreased Hound's life from 60 to 50
- Decreased C33 SU-SCHLEUDER's damage by 5%
- Decreased JAVELIN URSA M-02's damage by 5%
- Decreased J.WHEEL M-11's damage by 10%



Ayana
- Increased Makilium's damage by 10%
- Increased Makilium's projectile re-check time to damage by 50%

Schneider
- Decreased Yama Boom Boom's damage by 5%

Konstantin
- Decreased Tolchok's damage by 5%

Hans
- Decreasad Heaven's Bane K8's damage by 5%

Rak
- Increased pishacha's regeneration cooldown by 20%
- Decreased Shepherd's damage by 5%

Alicia
- Decreased Rock&Roll's damage by 5%
- Decreased Rock&Roll's spread by 5%
- Decreased Rock&Roll's projectile explosion radius by 10%

Loath
- Decreased Bubble Gum's damage by 5%
- Increased Dragée's damage by 5%

H.I.V.E.
- Decreased Shy's clip by 1
- Decreased Shy's fire rate by 33%
- Increased Shy's infection time by 20%



CARDS

Locals
- Mystical Concentration: damage bonus increased from 25%/75% to 35%/100%
- Mystical Concentration (rare): damage bonus increased from 35%/75% to 50%/100%
- Patient: damage bonus increased from 60%/200% to 70%/250%. Required time to activate the card decreased from 6s to 4s.
- Patient (rare): damage bonus increased from 90%/200% to 110%/250%. Required time to activate the card decreased from 6s to 4s.
- Urgency: reload speed bonus increased from 70%/300% to 80%/300%
- Urgency (rare): reload speed bonus increased from 120%/300% to 80%/300%
- Abnegation: wounded time decrement bonus decreased from 30%/80% to 20%/60%
- Abnegation (rare): wounded time decrement bonus decreased from 50%/80% to 40%/60%
- Skill: reload speed bonus decreased from 13%/50% to 10%/30%
- Skill (rare): reload speed bonus decreased from 20%/50% to 15%/30%
- Merciless: damage bonus increased from 25%/80% to 35%/110%
- Merciless (rare): damage bonus increased from 40%/80% to 60%/110%
- At the last minute: damage bonus increased from 50%/150% to 60%/200%
- At the last minute (rare): damage bonus increased from 80%/150% to 100%/200%
- Lone vigilante: damage bonus increased from 50%/150% to 70%/250%
- Lone vigilante (rare): damage bonus increased from 80%/150% to 120%/250%

Fifth Council
- Failsafe: damage resistance bonus increased fro 30%/60% to 35%/60%
- Failsafe (rare): damage resistance bonus increased fro 40%/60% to 45%/60%
- Unlimited surge: activation time reduced from 60s to 40s
- Unlimited surge (rare): activation time reduced from 60s to 40s
- Effectiveness: damage bonus decreased from 5%/12% to 4%/12%
- Effectiveness (rare): damage bonus decreased from 7%/12% to 6%/12%
- Firewall: damage resistance bonus decreased from 40%/95% to 30%/90%
- Firewall (rare): damage resistance bonus decreased from 60%/95% to 45%/90%
- Reboot: regeneration bonus decreased from 110%/350% to 80%/300%
- Reboot (rare): regeneration bonus decreased from 170%/350% to 120%/300%

Hades Division
- Nerves of steel: reload speed bonus increased from 100%/400% to 120%/500%
- Nerves of steel (rare): reload speed bonus increased from 200%/400% to 240%/500%
- Charge: damage bonus increased from 15%/50% to 20%/60%
- Charge (rare): damage bonus increased from 20%/50% to 30%/60%
- Hard: damage resistance bonus increased from 25%/60% to 30%/60%
- Hard (rare): damage resistance bonus increased from 35%/60% to 40%/60%
- Cold blood: aleph meter shut off bonus decreased from 9s/120s to 8s/60s
- Cold blood (rare): aleph meter shut off bonus decreased from 16s/120s to 12s/60s
- Armor-plated ammo: damage bonus increased from 20%/40% to 25%/50%
- Armor-plated ammo (rare): damage bonus increased from 25%/40% to 35%/50%
- Spiral of violence: damage bonus decreased from 25%/60% to 15%/45%
- Spiral of violence (rare): damage bonus decreased from 35%/60% to 25%/45%
- Stealth: aleph meter attenuation bonus decreased from 35%/100% to 27%/100%
- Stealth (rare): aleph meter attenuation bonus decreased from 45%/100% to 37%/100%
- Professional: damage bonus increased from 30%/90% to 40%/100%
- Professional (rare): damage bonus increased from 45%/90% to 60%/100%
- Black belt: damage bonus decreased from 25%/65% to 17%/45%
- Black belt (rare): damage bonus decreased from 25%/65% to 25%/45%
- Survival: health bonus reduced from 80/240 to 60/200. Duration decreased from 10s to 8s
- Survival (rare): health bonus reduced from 120/240 to 90/200. Duration decreased from 10s to 8s

Umbra Wardogs
- Supreme tribal healing: regeneration speed bonus increased from 140%/500% to 160%/500%. Distance increased from 5m to 7m.
- Supreme tribal healing (rare): regeneration speed bonus increased from 250%/500% to 300%/500%. Distance increased from 5m to 7m.
- Natural selection: healing chance increased from 50%/100% to 55%/100%
- Motivation: damage resistance bonus decreased from 15%/40% to 12%/30%
- Motivation (rare): damage resistance bonus decreased from 22%/40% to 18%/30%
- Exacerbated: damage bonus increased from 60%/300% to 75%/300%
- Exacerbated (rare): damage bonus increased from 100%/300% to 140%/300%



BUG FIXES

- Fixed a bug that caused the main menu to freeze sometimes and block any possible action.
- Fixed a bug where the game was not giving PlayStation Plus’ associated skins to some users.
- Fixed a bug where the Antagonist could spawn in a different point than selected.
- Fixed a bug on Upside Down where the game could crash if the Raiders lost the match with an Elite soldier grab.
- Fixed several game crashes related to host migrations.
- Fixed a bug where Matchmaking was not working properly after cancelling a match in a squad.
- Fixed several bugs related to the squad system.
- Fixed a bug where Doldren's Bloody Mary was not resetting the score after reloading.
- Fixed a bug where if two Doldrens were on the same match with Bloody Mary, both weapons shared their score.
- Fixed a bug where Ginebra's S. Bogen C-A00 was not applying push correctly to Fifth Council's Elite Assault units.
- Fixed a bug where Lycus shield was not suffering damage from enemy bullets.