Here's the scoop on this month's game update.

Analyze/Manufacture Overhaul

We're very pleased to announce improvements to the analyze and manufacturing processes. Thank you all for your feedback and suggestions! Here is what we've done:

You now have four possible results when analyzing an item, making this step a bit more forgiving. You can:

• Succeed - No changes here. If you succeed you gain the schematic for the item you're analyzing and lose the original item.
  
• Fail - No changes here. If you fail you neither gain the schematic nor retain the item.
  
• Near Success - If you achieve a near success you do not gain the schematic but you do keep the item, although it is reduced in quality. Depending on the original quality of the item, you may have a second chance at analysis. You can analyze an item if it is at least 50% quality.
  
• Critical Success - You acquire the schematic and recover some of the component parts of the original item.

Your faction at the starbase where you attempt your work does matter, so be sure you use the terminals at friendly stations for the best chances for success.

Balance Changes

We've made a few balance changes this month, including nerfing some mob abilities. Here's a list of some of the ones you're most likely to notice:

• Repulsor Field Improved - We've made some changes to the Repulsor Field Skill. In most cases the power of the ability at each skill level has been increased, though the duration has been reduced.

• Shared Experience - We have increased the shared experience range from 15K to 25K. You were right; it wasn't far enough when set at the 15k value. Thanks for the input and suggestions.

• Mob Menace Mitigated - We've changed the Menace skill so that you have a higher chance to resist when a mob uses the skill on you.

• The Psi Get Nerfed! - Many of the Psi mobs have had their ability to psi shield themselves reduced, as they were extremely difficult to defeat in their previous state. While it made sense that Psi's would have great psi shields, in retrospect they were a bit too good.

• Summoning Ping-Pong - We've modified several mobs with the "instant summoning" ability to address the ping-ponging many players are seeing as they're passed back and forth between hostile mobs. If a mob summons you, other mobs will not try to instantly summon you again for a period of time. They may try to use the summon skill on you, but they have a chance to fail those attempts.

• Turbo changes- Weapon haste and slow effects will now adjust the rate of fire of weapons by the stated amount rather than the delay. This corrects a problem with the extremely high rates of fire when equipping multiple devices with weapon haste.

  Here's how Turbo worked prior to the patch:
  
  The Turbo game effects reduce a weapon's delay by the % specified in the game effect. So if an item has 25% turbo, it reduces the delay of your weapons by 25%.

  Example: A weapon that does 100 damage with a delay of 10 seconds does 10 damage per second. (100 damage / 10 seconds). With 25% turbo, this weapon would have a delay of 7.5 seconds.

  Its final DPS (damage per second) would be 13 (100 damage / 7.5 seconds) - 30% more DPS.
  
  Now assume an 80% turbo:

  The above weapon would have a delay of 2 seconds, and a DPS of 50 (100 damage / 2 seconds) - 500% more damage.
  
  DPS from Turbo gets exponentially higher as the % delay reduction increases. This is very bad for the balance of the game, as single players with high Turbo buffs are able to out damage an entire group of players without Turbo. This makes tuning mob encounters extremely difficult and allows players to do far more damage to mobs than intended.
  
  Here is how Turbo works now:
  
  If an item is listed as having 25% turbo, it will increase your DPS by 25%. Your weapons will fire faster, but not to the degree they did before this change. We have not changed the stacking rules for Turbo.

Just in from Net-7...

Unconfirmed reports from Blackbeard's Wake
Net-7 has received a handful of unconfirmed reports recently from sources close to the Red Dragons, indicating possible increased traffic into Blackbeard's Wake. Net-7 has not been able to ascertain why the traffic is increasing, and indeed has not even been able to confirm the scattered reports received thus far.

However, the EarthCorps public affairs office has also released a minor statement which may indicate EarthCorps' own interest in the case. Buried in recent reports of EarthCorps routine patrols was the following statement:

"Intelligence sources have noticed possible spikes in traffic into the Blackbeard's Wake sector, apparently from all known gates into the area. While this increased activity is most likely related to the Red Dragons and may indicate an organizational meeting of some sort, pilots should be aware of such traffic and should report any unusual sightings. Priority is currently considered low."

Net-7 will revisit this issue if and when circumstances warrant further coverage.

EarthCorps reports missing?
Net-7 reporter Viktor Santos has uncovered an incident which could prove embarrassing to EarthCorps. An unnamed EarthCorps source, who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, told Santos that a crate full of military reports has disappeared.

"I can't imagine what happened to it," the source said. "I printed out a large number of routine reports to distribute to our outlying outposts, but before I could put them on the transport shuttle, they just disappeared. I mean, they were just gone. The whole crate."

"The weird part is that there is nothing in these reports that anyone could possibly be interested in. They're just personnel transfers, weather forecasts, and supply lists. No one could find this stuff remotely interesting. Heck, I had to review them all for grammar and punctuation, which I normally enjoy, and these things put me to sleep. Why anyone would want to steal them is beyond me. Now I have to print out the entire shipment again. Do you know how hard it is to requisition new printer cartridges from Corporal Minsk?"

Captive Bunyip growing
The Glenn Commission announced today that its captive Bunyip Hatchling has grown to the point where it is now, officially, a "Bunyip Pollywig." While this point may seem trifling to many, Glenn scientists point out that it is an important distinction.

"The fact that the Bunyip has matured beyond the hatchling stage, in captivity, is quite remarkable," said one scientist. "We are now seeing maturation in the pollywig stage and the entire scientific community is watching with interest as the Bunyip continues to develop."

Enjoy!

- Cerdith

Here are the details:

General

• Corrected a variety of spelling and grammatical errors.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented music from playing in Antares frontier.
  
• Fixed a graphics bug that occurred with sparking and damage effects on some mobs.
  
• Fixed a bug where Megan would explain grouping to players who targeted themselves rather than when they targeted another player for the first time.

• Made Dai'Shao Ohanzee in Europa Sector invulnerable so that he cannot be attacked or interfered with in his training capacity.
  
• Terran Traders will now be able to complete the Supply Run mission multiple times as advertised in High Earth.
  
• Push missions in the Sol system will now work correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where scan missions could not be taken from job terminals.

• Removed the Shield inversion skill from most of the Ten-Gu at the Tada-O Gate. The skill usage by the Ten-gu was generating enormous video problems for many players. No other changes were made to the combat abilities of the Tada-O Gate mobs.
  
• Weapon haste and slow effects will now adjust the rate of fire of weapons by the stated amount rather than the delay. This corrects a problem with the extremely high rates of fire when equipping multiple devices with weapon haste.
  
• We've modified several mobs with the "instant summoning" ability to address the ping-ponging many players are seeing.
  
• Reduced ability of many Psi mobs to psi shield themselves.
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing the Tada-O gate event to respawn after only 1 hour. There will now be a longer delay between a successful attack on the gate and when the gate becomes active again.
  
• Changed the Red Dragon base encounter in Aragoth Prime Sector to prevent exploiting. The gate to inner Aragoth Prime has been removed. Additionally the denizens of the Red Dragon Base will be a bit more diligent about protecting themselves.
  
• Improved the organic loot drop frequency for the Ten-Gu mobs that are not at the gate. It should now be more lucrative to hunt them.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Chavez loot tables that was preventing some of their rare items from dropping.
  
• Made an adjustment to the Celestial Warder's loot tables. (Before obliterating the poor warder, you might see if any researchers are waiting to talk to him. This message brought to you by the Evolving Storyline Thread folks.)
  
• Fixed a bug that was causing effects with resist checks to be reevaluated when player gated. Before, if players got a negative buff attached to them, they could repeatedly gate in the hopes of resisting and getting it stripped. Now once you've been debuffed, you can't pass back and forth through the gates to try to get another try at resisting it.
  
• Made the Red Dragon Informant in Asteroid Belt Alpha unsummonable.
  
• Fixed a bug where First Sergeant Kagiso, an undamagable mob, would agro on players with bad Terran Enforcer Faction.

• Made some changes to the Repulsor Field Skill. In most cases the power of the ability at each skill level has been increased by the changes, though the duration has been reduced.
  
• Changed the Menace skill so that you have a higher chance to resist when a mob uses the skill on you.
  
• The Area Equipment Repair ability can now only be used while targeting a friendly ship with damaged equipment. It can no longer be activated while targeting non-ships or ships that have no damaged equipment.
  
• Fixed typos in skill descriptions of Enrage, Megacharge Shields, Jumpstart and Repulsor Field.
  
• Fixed a bug where Progen Warriors could, under certain circumstances, fail to get the critical targeting skill from their trainer.
  
• Fixed a bug with the confirmation box for Jumpstart.
  
• Fixed a problem with Repulsor Field that was causing it to try to "attack" objects in sectors with environmental damage (and other immobile objects).

• There seems to be an awful lot of interest in Blackbeard's Wake lately...
  
• Made adjustments to the resource tables. Increased the drops of the following resources: Discordite, Apollonite, Tiberium, Horusium, Adamatine, Homerite, Raw Eye Stone, and Flawless Ruby.
  
• Navs Path of Fire IV through Path of Fire VII, in Valkyrie Twins have had minor position changes. Players should not encounter warp exit oddities when using these navs.
  
• The gate turret near the Xipe Totec gate in Swooping Eagle has been moved from beside the gate to above the gate.
  
• The arrival point in Primus from Primus Planet has been moved closer to the planet.
  
• Fixed destination of the Europa to Jupiter gate. Players will now arrive in Jupiter closer to the gate back to Europa.

• Overhauled analyze/manufacture.
  
• Added some of the items that the Voltoi drop to other high level mobs in other sectors. The Voltoi still drop these items, but it might be easier to get them elsewhere now. This does not affect boss specific loot. Those items are still only dropping from the appropriate Voltoi boss.
  
• You can no longer stack player-made items with non-player made items. (Thanks to everyone that reported this annoying bug!)
  
• Items can no longer be moved out of the trading interface back into cargo due to potential exploits. The trade must be canceled and re-initiated instead.
  
• Fixed a buff typo on the following items: Tada-O Eerie Breed PL C3, Tada-O More Eerie Breed PL C3, Tada-O Most Eerie Breed PL C3, Tada-O Macabre Breed PL B2, Tada-O More Macabre Breed PL B2, Tada-O Most Macabre Breed PL B2, Tada-O Spooky Breed PL A1, Tada-O More Spooky Breed PL A1, Tada-O Most Spooky Breed PL A1, Tada-O No 1 Most Value PL Type Zet. In addition to their other effects, all of these items should have the "Increase Maneuverability (Equip)" effect, as intended.
  
• Weapon Skill increasing buffs will no longer state that they increase damage when in reality they adjust accuracy.
  
• Chernevog Station will no longer pay as much for Jenquai Technology.
  
• Ammunition for the Smuggler's Recourse is now level 6.
  
• K3 ProTECH Celestial will now be available where other tech 7 components are found.
  
• The manufacturing fee for the Miner's Fury line of missiles has been reduced to be more in line with similar missiles.
  
• Removed the Discordium from the Berserker Ammunition recipe. It has been replaced with a K3 Chemical pack.
  
• Both the Quark Seeker Rails Type 2 and the Ultra Crossfire Will now be sold at vendors of their appropriate tech level.
  
• Recourse ammo manufacturing costs are more in line with similar types of ammo.
  
• Fixed issues with manufacturing error messages. Manufacturing error messages will now include the name of the item selected for manufacturing.
  
• Corrected background of inferno and honor reactor icons.
  
• Added more vendors to Queen Anne's Revenge. The old vendor that was there has had the items split between vendors Julius Ortega and Ivanna.
  
• Removed duplicate items from vendors. They will no longer offer the same item multiple times.
  
• Nakada Hatsue in Aragoth Station has reclaimed her Jenquai heritage through extensive surgery and no longer appears to be a Terran.

• We have increased the shared experience range from 15K to 25K.
  
• Added a confirmation dialog for when leaving or disbanding a group.
  
• Added the detection of leaderless guilds to the guild leader auto-replacement logic.
  
• Fixed the bug that would cause guild members to get spammed if they had their guild interfaces open when the leader disbanded the guild.
  
• Disbanding the guild will now make your guild name disappear immediately, as opposed to only once you've gated.
  
• The "Disband" button in the guild interface will only be enabled if you are the guild leader. Previously it was always enabled. Only the guild leader could actually disband the guild, but the button was still enabled for everyone. Disband is the only button that has been changed to reflect permissions -- the rest will be handled in a later patch.
  
• Added confirmation dialog for when guild leader is promoting someone else to leader and demoting himself to make sure the leader realizes what they are doing.

• The camera angle will no longer move if you are just holding down shift or control you must also move the mouse to move the camera.
  
• Your ship won't turn or thrust if E&B isn't the active window.
  
• You can now sort by job type at the starbase job terminals.
  
• Fixed energy cost in tooltips for Jumpstart and Repair Equipment.
  
• Fixed ignore player tooltip.
  
• Buffs and debuffs should no longer repeat text messages after gating. Also, buff messages that referred to the source as "Unknown" should now contain the correct name.
  
• Players will no longer see a message when they leave the proximity of a maelstrom.
  
• The system will no longer spam the players with information about bad scripts that failed to attach every time they enter the game.
  
• Added the ability to edit Chat Font to the Options menu.
  
• The credit window in a player trade will no longer disappear under the trade screen if you click the trade screen while the credit window is open.
  
• Fixed a bug that made it difficult to select certain inventory slots from your cargo hold when issuing a player to player trade.
  
• Shortcut bar will no longer toggle by holding ALT if E&B isn't the active window.
  
• Fixed issue with combat trance buff icon shifting position when player moves.
  
• Fixed bug where you can't do some slash commands after hitting the L key if you are not in a group.
  
• Cleaned up interface for analyze and manufacturing terminals.
  
• Fixed bug with buff icons details and counts were not displayed after the visible buff limit had been exceeded.
  
• Fixed text color on 'Insufficient energy to activate item' message (It is now red).
  
• In character selection, when a character is zoomed up, clicking on an empty slot now goes directly to create a character. It used to just zoom back out.
  
• Made it easier to access your vault from within starbase interfaces.
  
• Shortcut bar settings are now saved in-game, so they will still be there if the game crashes.