This month's update contains a variety of enhancements, as well as the introduction of two new systems; specifically, team-based competitive play and customization of your ship and avatar.

Customization

Due to public demand from ship captains, some starbases are now opening paint and body shops and even new clothing outlets. While repainting a starship is an expensive proposition, it is now possible for the discriminating pilot. For a fee, a pilot can even alter the wing and hull configuration of his or her ship. Galactic adventurers can change their clothing as well, if they've gotten tired of that ragged old flight suit.

The bases that now offer customization terminals are Arx Magister (Mars), Praetorium Mons (Primus Planet), Porvenir Mons (Endriago Planet), Jove's Fury (Jupiter), Tokai Saikutsu (Dahin Planet), Yasuragi Station (Swooping Eagle Planet), Earth Station (Earth), Jagerstadt City (Zweihander Planet), and Inverness Down (Inverness Planet).

Team vs. Team Play

The Nova Gladiatorial Games in honor of Anjuren Kahn are now in session! Do you have what it takes to stand with the mightiest Centuriata of the Republic? Can you handle 36 starships blazing through space in a contest older than the Gate War? Test your mettle, and find out where you rank! Seek out registration beacons in Glenn, Carpenter, and Slayton sectors to join the Nova Games!

The Nova Gladiatorial Games are separated into three divisions, so that pilots of varying skill can compete with others who are of equal ability. Participants can register in Glenn (levels 0-49), Carpenter (levels 0-99), and Slayton (levels 0-150) sectors, and will compete in 15-minute contests against up to five other teams. Each team can have up to six members, for a possible maximum of 36 players in each contest.

Players collect orbs throughout the arena by mining and using their tractor beams, or by destroying members of other teams and taking the orbs they've collected. Orbs can be deposited into goals, which are placed around the arena, which will then score points for the player's team. There are several types of orbs, and each type is worth a different amount of points. Players can carry as many orbs as their cargo hold can handle (they don't stack), but should remember that while they are carrying many orbs, they become a target for other teams. (Players carrying orbs have a visible marker placed on their ship.) Orbs can be placed in a goal by flying near the goal, and the orbs are then removed and converted into points for the player's team. There are also a number of special occurrences (called "Kahn's Will") that will take place during matches, which make temporary changes to the rules and procedures.

Players can use most of their skills and any equipment during the Games. Also remember that each arena has a different configuration, thus making the challenges more varied. Each arena also contains a handful of "Kahn's Weapons," which may cause various interesting effects during the match.

Participants will not lose experience during the matches, and their items will not degrade. Ammunition will not be expended, though you must have at least one unit of an ammo type to fire the comparable weapon. The winning team of every match will be awarded experience. Player ships cannot be looted if they are destroyed, though if the player is carrying any orbs, those will be ejected from his ship if it is destroyed.

To join a match, first travel to the Arena Entry Point in your chosen sector (Glenn, Carpenter, or Slayton). Once you get to the Arena Entry Point, you can get the contest rules and registration information by chatting with the Nova Arena Registrar. To register, follow the Registrar's instructions - ONE member of your group registers the entire group by targeting the green Registration Beacon. All the registrant has to do is target the green Registration Beacon and wait for confirmation. The entire group will then be registered. You can also cancel registration by targeting the red Cancellation Beacon.

"Shepard Shuffle"

We've fixed a bug that was causing strange ship movements when gating into Shepard from Grissom, as well as other sectors. In addition to the Grissom to Shepard gate, the same bug has been fixed when gating from Witberg to Zweihander, Fenris to The Valkyrie Twins, Freya to Ragnarok, and Deneb to Gallina.

Guild Chat Fixed

We've fixed the guild chat bug!

Skill Power-Up Delay

No other skills can be activated while another one is powering up. This means that multiple skills cannot be powered up simultaneously.

New Disembarking Locations

We've added some new points to starbases where your avatar will appear when you disembark from your ship. Don't get disoriented if you exit your ship and are in a strange location!

Just in from Net-7

Bogeril Resupply
A supply ship has somehow reached the Bogeril, who have re-outfitted all of their followers. Scuttle Bug Harnesses are now appearing again in Bogeril sectors, and persistent rumors have confirmed the availability of Bogeril Manifestos and Solar Sails. While their existence is confirmed, Manifestos and Solar Sails remain extremely rare.

Tada-O Gate Woe
It appears that the dreaded Ten-Gu have expanded their hold on the area around the now infamous Tada-O Gate. Despite the destruction of their leader, Talesh, by the Phoenix Foundation of Galileo, the Ten-Gu's strength does not seem to have diminished. Rumors have been heard, referring to a new, more powerful threat seeking to exit the gate. Many pilots in Cooper have complained of voices in their heads. One common message has been reported by all: "The Ti are coming ... this system will be ours."

Aragoth Red Dragon Supply Depot
Progen intelligence officers report that the Red Dragon base in Aragoth Prime is now supplying pirates in good standing with equipment. Pirate contacts are denying rumors that the base was recently overrun.

"Elfman" Trio Distributes Sugar
Lonny, Donny and Gunter Elfman have been spotted within the Sol System recently, foisting sugary confections upon innocent bystanders. While each of the triplets has his own unique personality, they seem to have exceptionally advanced olfactory senses and can tell when you've already visited one of their brothers. Reports also mention an unidentified flying object spotted by pilots throughout all systems. "It makes a kind of bell-ringing noise, almost a jingle," confided one InfinitiCorp trader.

Correspondents Needed!
Net-7 is recruiting correspondents to assist with their award-winning broadcasts. Contact Jan Blather at Net-7 SOL in Saturn sector for more information on joining the Net-7 family. Net-7 is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate for any reason.

Happy Holidays!

There will be GMs on duty over the holidays 24/7 as usual. However, we did allow a few of the GMs to have a holiday break, so please be patient if your wait times are longer than usual.

On behalf of the Earth & Beyond team and everyone here at EA Westwood, we wish you a Happy Holiday and terrific New Year.

Enjoy!

- Cerdith

Here are the full details.

General

• You may now change the appearance of your avatar or ship for a fee. Seek out new customization terminals. The bases that now offer customization terminals are Arx Magister (Mars), Praetorium Mons (Primus Planet), Porvenir Mons (Endriago Planet), Jove's Fury (Jupiter), Tokai Saikutsu (Dahin Planet), Yasuragi Station (Swooping Eagle Planet), Earth Station (Earth), Jagerstadt City (Zweihander Planet), and Inverness Down (Inverness Planet).

• Added five new avatar emotes for each gender. Males can mime, disco, robot, judo and moonwalk. And females can mime, disco, robot, flip and rumpshake. Enjoy!

• Added more locations where your avatar will disembark from your ship when entering a docking bay.

• Added a bartender to the Arx Magister lounge (Mars sector). He will sell drinks to you and give you the opportunity to try out the drinking and drunken avatar emotes! Gather round for some egg-nog in celebration of the holiday season.

• Fixed movement artifacts experienced by ships arriving in Shepard from Grissom. (Hereby named "the Shepard Shuffle"!) The same fix was applied for gating from Witberg to Zweihander, Fenris to The Valkyrie Twins, Freya to Ragnarok, and Deneb to Gallina.

• Fixed a bug that left customer account in use if the server crashed while he or she was logging in.

• Fixed a server crash that was associated with the Celestial Warder's (Arduinne Planet) visual effects.

• Fixed a variety of grammatical and spelling errors.

Combat and Skills

• Added team vs. team combat in a gladiatorial game format. Arena registration areas may be found in Glenn, Carpenter, and Slayton sectors.

• The Red Dragons have decided that they are no longer going to sit around and watch their base get destroyed...even if it is being done by someone that they like.

• Added additional challenges to the Tada-O Gate encounters (Cooper Sector).

• Mazzaroth Reapers now drop loot and provide experience when destroyed.

• Some Dzurai will be a bit tougher, as they now no longer only use EMP weapons.

• Turrets on Primus Planet can no longer be attacked.

• "Monty's High Quality Manufacturing Components!" vendor is now invulnerable to damage. This is a component vendor found in Saturn space.

• Fixed a bug that was allowing multiple skills to power up simultaneously. You will no longer be able to use skills in this manner.

• Fixed a bug that prevented Environment Shield from protecting ships that were already taking environmental damage.

• Fixed a bug with energy/shield tap skills when used against MOBs with no shield energy.

• Fixed a bug related to the Shield Inversion skill that allowed multiple players to simultaneously shield invert with only one player's shield draining.

Exploration

• Added information about the Tech Level of a prospectable object in the targeting interface.

• Added several Gate Guardians (gate to Arduinne Space on Arduinne Planet, launch pad to Endriago on Endriago Planet, gate to Grissom Upper Orbit on Grissom Planet, gate to Inverness Orbit on Inverness Planet, sector gate to Lagarto on Risco Moon).

• Added a Starbase Guardian Turret to Yasuragi Station on Swooping Eagle Planet.

• Asteroids will no longer drop Refined Tantalum.

• Galactic Iron's item description corrected to list refined-from resource as Galactic Ore rather than Galactic Iron Ore.

• The scaracen race "ANNOUNCER" is now the "Scaracen Raceway Announcer"

Trade and Items

• Added a vendor to the Red Dragon Base in Aragoth Prime. Players with good Red Dragon faction will be able to do some power shopping there.

• Added Popper Pellets to Jagerstadt's weapon vendor.

• All Bogeril and Bogeril related scuttle bugs have gotten new loot tables. This change adds Scuttle Bug Harnesses back into the loot tables. Bogeril Manifestos and Solar Sails remain extremely rare but are confirmed as dropping.

• Those trade jobs taken from Random Mission Terminals which involve the transportation of passengers between locations now require adequate space for each individual passenger's pod.

• The item description for the Sparta Archos projectile launcher has been updated to reference the Archos instead of the Sparta Rifle.

• Removed the "unique" tag on Tada-O Good-as-Ogun Missiles to allow players to carry more than one stack at a time.

• Adjusted the Trident Alpha's weapon effect to increase projectile range to match item description.

• Adjusted the loot tables for the Densou.

• Changed the weapon effects on the InfinitiCorp PL-X1 "Switchblade" (tech 1- 3), the InfinitiCorp PL-X2 "Hatchet" (tech 3 - 5) and the InfinitiCorp PL-X3 "Dirk" (tech 5 - 7) to Terran Trader usable effects. They now reduce warp cost and warp recovery.

• Changed the BlackSun Dragonflight engines to correct a bug that caused the engine to stop functioning whenever the "Regenerate Shield" effect was activated.

• The Rage of the Vindis has had its activation cost lowered.

• All equipable devices have been reviewed and fixed to eliminate the ability to harass other players with them. These items include: Antila II, Antila Major, Antila Minor, Antila Prime, Scutums II, Scutums Major, Scutums Minor, Scutums Prime.

• Fixed a bug that could cause items to be lost during trade when a player disconnected.

• Fixed the item description for the device called "BlackSun Blinding Speed."

• Fixed a bug with item Unique flag and player trades.

• Fixed the typo in the Whittled Wood Thumpin' Stick's item description.

Missions

• Added several missions to allow players to become Net-7 correspondents. Contact Jan Blather in Net-7 SOL (Saturn) for more information.

• Terran Tradesmen who were unable to complete Louden MacEwen's Reactor Leak mission (High Earth Sector, Sol System), should try again. The mission can now be completed.

• Fixed a bug with the "Intercept Free Spacer Transmissions" mission where the mission could not be completed if the player logged out between steps 3-7.

• Fixed a bug in The Rescue mission (Xipe Totec). The shuttle now despawns correctly if mission is completed.

• Fixed a full mission log bug with the mission "Prospect Iron Ore".

• Fixed a cargo check for Monty DuChampe on Fragments of the Final Inspiration mission.

• Fixed "Anti-Grav Generator" mission to refer to the wreckage of ECS Indomitable instead of ECS Dauntless.

• Fixed a bug with Cassel during the "Deliver Genetic Data" mission where he would take the Genetic Data and not update the mission if the player irritates him.

• Fixed a bug with the Progen battle drones used for Masaaki's Initiation mission. They are now VULNERABLE to Impact, and RESISTANT to Energy and EMP.

• Pax Veritas-spawned drone now does not despawn immediately when the user uses the Power Down skill.

Guilds and Groups

• Fixed a bug that prevented the guild registration fee from being refunded if the guild creation process failed because a character being added to the guild disconnected or was already a member of another guild.
  
• Fixed the guild chat bug.

Interface

• Updated the Character Selection Interface. It now shows the complete list of skills (including details in tooltips) for each class. Tech skills (engine tech ... etc.) are not included as they are generic for all classes.

• The skill hotkey will now grey out when the skill is unusable due to the recycle timer (in addition to the recycle timer icon).

• Fixed missing visual effect for Power Down skill.

• Fixed a bug that occurred when the player selects a destination via the Nav Map and warps to that location, then closes and reopens the map during warp. Now the warp path line graphic will remain displayed.

• Fixed a bug that occurred when players used the right mouse button to drag and destroy a stack of items. Using the right button will no longer ask the player how many items they wish to drag (as it does with the left button) and instead will always drag the full stack. Players will still see a confirmation box before destroying though.

• Fixed a bug that caused multiple combat trance icons to display when a player is inside a starbase.

• When click-dragging to zoom or pan the nav or galaxy map, the magnifying-glass cursor will now continue moving off the map edge. The map will still zoom or pan as the cursor moves. If the cursor is moved off a screen edge, it will wrap to the opposite side while still panning or zooming the map. This feature means that you can zoom or pan your maps in one motion, rather than clicking and moving the mouse repeatedly within the map edges.

• Fixed a bug that caused tooltips to flash/blink when the player is entering information into the Captain's Log.

Dialogues

• Eddie DuChamp will no longer address female characters as "Blokes."