Alpha build 95 is live, and with it the faction lock. It changes how you research and build, so please read this one through.
This is a required update. Older builds can no longer join the server. If your game shows UPDATE REQUIRED, press QUIT AND UPDATE and Steam will bring in build 95. If Steam does not offer the update, restart Steam.
The faction lock
Until now every commander could research and build every faction's designs. That was for testing. From today:
- You research and build your own faction's hulls and modules, plus the generic designs that every faction shares.
- If you have not chosen a faction yet, you research and build the generic designs. Your first choice of faction is free.
- The Tide's designs never open to anyone.
We said the lock would come around 2 November. It is on now, together with this update.
What you keep
- Research you did before the lock came on stays yours, and so does everything it lets you build. If you researched another faction's hull or module before today, you can still build it.
- Every ship and module you own stays yours.
- Fitting is never locked. You can fit any module you hold to any of your ships, whatever its faction.
How to open another faction's designs
There are three ways.
1. Serve that faction
Switch to the faction and its designs are yours, as they are for its own commanders. A faction you leave stays open to you, so switching never takes away what you could build before.
2. Standing: Honoured opens its modules, Exalted opens its hulls
Faction contracts raise your standing with a faction. Two tiers now open its designs, for blueprint fragments:
| Tier | Standing | Button | Opens | Fragments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honoured | 22,000 | OPEN MODULES | its modules | 50 |
| Exalted | 40,000 | OPEN HULLS | its hulls | 100 |
The buttons are on the faction's standing screen: open the contracts board with the handshake button on the HUD, pick the faction's tab and click your standing card. OPEN MODULES sits on the Honoured tile and OPEN HULLS on the Exalted tile, under WEAR TITLE. Once pressed, the button reads OPENED. What you open stays open for good. Contracts and signals pay blueprint fragments.
3. A module you hold
A module of another faction that you hold, for example one from a fight's loot, can be researched and built: that one module, not the other modules of its research node. A fitted copy counts as held.
Where you see it
- Shipyard: another faction's hulls read LOCKED on their tiles, the status reads ANOTHER FACTION'S HULL, and the panel says what opens them.
- Forge: another faction's modules say what opens them, in red under BUILD.
- Laboratory: another faction's research nodes show a padlock, and the node's panel says what opens it, in red under its buttons.
If a design is locked, the words on its panel always tell you how to open it.
Fixes
- The restart countdown is visible again. The "Server restarting" countdown at the top of the screen was hidden behind the weekend event banner. While the countdown shows, the event banner and the incursion bar now sit below it.
- FULL SPECS counts every weapon slot. At a higher Mark, a hull's firing arcs did not add up to its WEAPON SLOTS: the extra slots a Mark gives were missing from the arcs. They go to the hull's last firing arc, and FULL SPECS now counts them there, in the list and on the diagram. Thanks to the tester who reported it.
Known issue
On the Shipyard's hull panel, the long status ANOTHER FACTION'S HULL pushes the Mark selector's right arrow past the panel's edge. The arrow still works, and the next update fixes the layout.
Read more
- The Player's Guide on research has the faction lock rules.
- The Player's Guide on contracts covers standing and the OPEN buttons.
- The changelog lists every change in build 95.
Questions or bugs: #tester-chat and #bug-reports on Discord. Ideas: #feedback.