Unending Universe #8

As always, Unending Universe appreciates everyone supporting the game on Ko-Fi.

And thanks to everyone who still has the enthusiasm and desire to play regularly. It's great that you're still with this game. This gives me extra motivation to continue working on it :)

For those who have lost these feelings, I hope they'll be able to regain them someday and enjoy playing UU together again. You are always welcome here. The game remembers you and eagerly awaits your return :)

Fixes and changes

Version 1.2.17

The server's uptime has been changed. The server will be up for 6 hours longer than it currently is. The new time frame is: 4 pm – 6 am (Central European Time).

Chance of minerals appearing after an asteroid is destroyed has been increased.

Asteroid without minerals:

• no change

Asteroid with 1 mineral:

• chance of respawn the same mineral has increased x3
• chance of respawn the other two minerals unchanged

Asteroid with 2 or 3 minerals:

• chance of respawn the highest value mineral has increased x3

Elemental Portal Event rewards/penalties changed.

New rewards/penalties:

• 300 gold
• 1000 ice
• 5 fragments of disk
• 1500 methane & magnetite each
• medium damage & –100 gold
• huge damage & –200 gold
  

Additionally, a reward multiplier has been introduced. If player hits gold on their first try, hitting gold again on their second try increases the reward by 2x, and on their third try in a row, they increase the reward by 3x.

• 1st attempt – gold => player receives 300 gold
• 2nd attempt – gold => player receives 600 gold
• 3rd attempt – gold => player receives 900 gold

If player doesn't hit the same reward as before, the multiplier resets. So, with a lot of luck, player could get one of the following amounts:

• 1800 gold
• 6000 ice
• 30 fragments of disk
• 9000 methane & magnetite each

Drone behavior has been completely reworked and improved to make fighting them more challenging. There is no longer a cyclical attack, flight and return. Now drones adapt their tactics to the enemy – they behave differently against light ships and differently against medium/heavy ones.

Additional drone changes:

Combat Drone:

• damage min–max: 5-34 (before update 5-35)

Sentinel Drone:

• damage min–max: 12-42 (before update 12-55)
• hull points – 1475 (before update 1350)

Assault Drone:

• damage min–max: 12-55 (before update 12-75)
• hull points – 1750 (before update 1500

Reduced the rate of fire for each drone type, resulting in 1 less bullet fired per second.

Loot rewards from drones, war platforms and freighters have been changed.

Drones (multiplier for Combat – Sentinel – Assault: 1 – 1.5 – 2):

• gold 70 – methane 200 – magnetite 200
  
• gold 35 – methane 400 – magnetite 200
  
• gold 35 – methane 200 – magnetite 400
  
• gold 20 – methane 600 – magnetite 200
  
• gold 20 – methane 200 – magnetite 600

War platforms (multiplier for Light – Medium – Heavy: 1 – 1.5 – 2):

• gold 120 – methane 250 – magnetite 250
  
• gold 50 – methane 550 – magnetite 250
• gold 50 – methane 250 – magnetite 550
• gold 30 – methane 750 – magnetite 250
• gold 30 – methane 250 – magnetite 750

Freighters:

• gold 100 – methane 350 – magnetite 350
  
• gold 40 – methane 600 – magnetite 350
• gold 40 – methane 350 – magnetite 600
• gold 25 – methane 800 – magnetite 350
• gold 25 – methane 350 – magnetite 800

Changed the number of drones that appear after mining ship request and attack artifact probes.

• For 1 Light ship – 1 drone
• For 1 Medium/Heavy ship – 2 drones

Examples:

• artifact probe guarded by 5 Heavy ships will be attacked by 10 drones (5 x 2).
• artifact probe guarded by 2 Light, 1 Medium and 1 Heavy ship will be attacked by 6 drones (2 x 1 + 1 x 2 + 1 x 2).

Around the game

The most important change is the extension of server uptime. 6 hours more, which is quite a lot. Will this change bring in new players to UU? That's the intention, but you never know. For now, I'm treating this as a 2-3 week experiment. If players are interested and the server runs without errors or crashes, these hours will become permanent.

Other changes are focused on making the gameplay more diverse/interesting (drones behaviour, portal rewards) and making farming drones, platforms, and freighters a more profitable activity.

Some bad things – the game is going through a huge faction imbalance problem. For the past few weeks, Humans have had an overwhelming advantage. Lokans simply don't play because there are too few of them, and the disproportions between the factions have already become too great. If this does not change, there will be no point in continuing the game in this form. There are many important things that are still untested (fleet battles) and given the current situation, I don't see how the next few weeks or months will change that. Therefore, it is very possible UU will need a rebuild, a stat reset, and a fresh start (though I wouldn't want to do that). I'm counting on help and ideas from active players. That's why I'm mentioning it now - maybe it's time for a faction switch or some other sensible solution that will awaken the rivalry.

As always, I would like to encourage you to help develop this project. To promote UU on various forums, space game-related discords, YouTube and other social media platforms. The game needs this help because it is the only effective way to expand its reach and attract new players. So if you like UU, spend at least a moment on these things. Thanks!

Until next time.