Tournament Server: Commodities, Commands and Credits, Oh My!

Greetings, Commanders!

A core factor in decision making in Starborne revolves around limited currencies – Commands, Commodities and Credits.  The scarcity of those items ensures that players must make decisions on how to spend them to best fit their play style and situation.  However, classic servers allow the use of the in-game store, which enables players to avoid some of these decisions based on limited currencies. 

We want to make sure that Tournament Servers are a testament of skill and decision making where all players must overcome this same level of scarcity.  With that in mind, we are introducing some pretty exciting changes to the Tournament Server.

Closed for Business

Most of the in-game store will be disabled.  Players will only be able to purchase account-wide items: Cosmetics, Premium Subscription, and Premium Factions.  Furthermore, players will be unable to withdraw any items from their account inventory into their inventory on the Tournament Server.

Policy Shuffle

Policies will no longer cost Commands to change.  However, each policy slot now has a cooldown of 20 hours instead of 8 hours.  This means that players can adapt their policies on a daily basis without having to log in at exactly the same time the next day to change it.  At the same time, it is a limiting factor on rapidly swapping policies for temporary benefits – such as with Total War. Factions will still be changed with the Clean Slate card; players will be given one Clean Slate card per week.  

Reduce.  Reuse. Recycle (Commodities!)

Outposts will now always refund their commodities when deconstructed.  Each level of the outpost must be deconstructed individually, which will return 50% of the minerals and 100% of the commodities (of that level).  Salvage Team cards will remain unchanged.

These changes to outposts are intended to allow players to adapt their empire over time.  Outpost placement will no longer be “permanent” because of commodity loss when deconstructing.  One note, however: we are looking at some changes that will disincentivize players from breaking everything down and spamming one type of outpost (missile batteries) at the end of the server.  This feature should encourage adaptation but not force one specific strategy.  

Delegated Commands

Commands awarded from achievements will now be front loaded towards the beginning of the server.  Players will receive 120 Commands from achievements over the first 4 weeks.  These can be used to reroll dailies, rush events, breakdown cards (enhanced), change fleet types (no exp loss) and rush change tactics*.

Give Yourself Some Credit

Credits are one of the most valuable resources in Starborne.  They allow players to craft both timed cards and permanent cards to fit specific needs.  More importantly, Credits can be translated into power projection in PVP by crafting high tier cards for fleets.

Limiting the availability of Commands will make higher tier cards more rare, and thus, more valuable.  Also, players will have fewer opportunities to use enhanced breakdown for additional Credits. Needless to say, choosing which cards to craft will be a very important factor in the Tournament Server.  Timed cards are very useful, but considering the reduced supply of Credits, it’s hard to justify crafting many of them.  

We want to make sure that players still have a reasonable choice between timed and permanent cards.  To do this, we will be significantly reducing the crafting cost of all timed cards in the Tournament Server.  Permanent cards will be crafted at full price and provide value over time.  Timed cards will be cheaper to craft but will only provide value over a short period.  Choose wisely!

Premium Tournament Experience

The Alpha Tournament Server does not require a Premium Subscription to join if you have built at least 6 stations on any server before December 1st, 2019.  Otherwise, a Premium Subscription is required to play on the Tournament Server. Note: there’s still time to build 6 stations if you haven’t already – join one of the open servers and start building your empire!  

When using a barrier to entry, there is a distinct increase in the commitment to the server.  Commitment and competition are very important to us, and we are excited to see the results before going into Open Beta. Another benefit is that it avoids giving new players a bad impression – especially if they were to spawn next to a seasoned veteran.  Lastly, we are able to create exclusive rewards for those players that survive – and thrive – in galactic conquest.

As part of this entry requirement, the balance of Tournament Servers will use the Premium Subscription as the baseline in several areas.  Below are the key items that Premium will impact on Tournament Servers.

Tournament Premium Account Changes: 

• +8 Hour Build Queue (up from +2)
• +12 Hour Ship Build Queue (up from +6)
• 20 Commands Per Daily login rewards (up from 10)

Achievements and Premium will be the only sources of Commands and Traders on Tournament Servers – and they will be in limited supply.  

A Unique Experience With Unique Rewards

We’re merely weeks away from the launch of the Tournament Server!  Keep an eye out for the next article detailing the Tournament Server rewards – coming early next week.  Every player will be able to earn some pretty awesome rewards; whether or not they are part of a major coalition.  Join our Official Starborne Discord Server to start plotting galactic domination!

Fly Safe- while you can!

-Starborne Dev Team