Audience: All Backers Server and Build info: Tech-Preview Channel - US Only servers - 12660092 12689504 Timeframe: Overnight into Friday (end time TBD) This TTK test will take place throughout the PU and AC Note: We have 1 heavy known issue for this build where ships will skip soft death and blow up at critical 0 instead of disabling. Thanks to all players who participated in the 2nd Tech Preview and gave us their valuable feedback! Based on this, we are coming to you now with our third iteration on the ship weapon balancing. But first things first, this is our core takeaway from Tech Preview 2: Overall the sentiment regarding TP2 was positive Main criticism in of TP2 addressed the lowered shield health, and the increase of shield absorption - which buffed Ballistic weapons in an unintended manner Goal to keep the TTK down in the same manner as in TP1 but through different means was only achieved partly. However, the survey showed that the TTK is still considered as too short for small to medium sized ships. Feedback on the TTK for large and capital ships has been contradicting it was both feedbacked as too low and too high Lowered Shield Regeneration and Slap down Time was successful This next Tech Preview now uses TP2 as basis for iteration. Core goals for TP3 are: Focus on Shield Balancing. This includes the overall direction of combat 2/3 of the fight duration should be spend breaking the shield. Keep balancing Energy vs Ballistic Weapons Refining Slap Down times Increase TTK for PVP, keep low TTK for PVE Increase TTK of large and capital ships To Achieve these goals we have made the following changes. If not stated otherwise ALL PREVIOUS CHANGES HAVE BEEN REVERTED. Major Increase of Shield Health by +134%-212% Adjustment of Armor Health -30% for small ships, up to +96% for capital ships. Major Increase of all Alpha Damage by +145% Armor Deflection for energy damage increased accordingly by +145% Armor Deflection for ballistic damage increased by +80% Adjustment of Shield Resistance ► 40-50% For Ballistic Damage depending on shield health and power pip assignment ► 35-45% For Energy Damage depending on shield health and power pip assignment Adjustment of Shield Absorption ► 0-80% For Ballistic Damage depending on shield health Slap Down Time increased by ► +100% for when the shield is damaged - same as TP2 ► +70% for when the shield is broken - -30% comparted to TP2 Shield Regeneration increased by 95% - keeping the same debuff as in TP2 in relation to other changes. Additionally fixed a bug in which ships with multiple shield faces recharge 4 times quicker than expected. AI modifier added for PVE. AI ships take +40% Damage. We are aware that value changes in this TP are extreme. This has a simple reason that we will cover later in this post. First we want to cover the intent of our changes. Overall time spend fighting shields in comparison amor and critical ship parts should increase With the adjustments of the Shields Resistance and Absorption, we aim to nerf ballistics again against Energy weapons and give meaning to the power pip assignments of the shields. High assignment in shield power should directly reflect on effectiveness of ballistics Now to insights into the exact value changes. Generally, as there has been more time between tech previews we were also able to do more internal testing and refining of values, which is why even though values seem odd on paper they played well in the game. Base changes were tested in a controlled Gladius vs Gladius scenario, so we cannot grantee that the results we observed translate identically to all ships, ships sizes, shield size, and weapon sizes. Controlled testing was then followed by testing in uncontrolled PVP and PVE scenarios mimicking how players would perceive our changes. Extreme value changes as observed in this tech preview is because we are raising all damage and health values to a higher level. Even though we can easily adjust shield and amor health, we unfortunately cannot quickly adjust the HP amount of the critical ship parts due to a lack of tools. If we now take a look at the HP distribution of a ship in TP2, it is apparent that the portion of critical ship parts is too large if the player is supposed to spend only 1/3 of the fight destroying armor and critical parts. As critical part health cannot be adjusted for now, Armor and especially shield health need to be increased in order to achieve the 2/3 goal. Alpha Damage is increased accordingly to keep TTK low. All other values are adjusted accordingly as well. If TP3 proves to be successful, we will take a look into how we can achieve similar results using more optimal means. We hope this TP3 will bring you as much fun as we had during testing. We again appreciate your feedback.