Patch Notes Archive

Publish 11.2

Major Features

Apprenticeship XP

• Lowered to 300 necessary for all professions

FRS Tweaks/ Fixes

• Reduced the FRS experience maintenance costs.
  
• PvP kill lists which are used to track FRS experience now persist from session to session.
  
• Increased the amount of FRS experience received from killing rival Enclave members as well as bounty hunters.
  
• Added a no-confidence voting challenge terminal to the Light Jedi Enclave. This enables Jedi to petition for the removal of higher ranked members.

Note: As a result of these changes the FRS ranks will be reset (all Knights set to Rank 0), to allow the system to get repopulated under these new rules.

CS will not reimburse for this change so please do not email or place a petition regarding the FRS ranks being reset.

Chat

• Spatial chat persists from ground to space -- and back again

We were made aware of some issues that give people an unfair advantage over others. If you run across an issue like this in game please help us out by reporting it with our bug tool.

These fixes include:

• Fix a problem where a Jedi can log in and out quickly to drop off a tracking droid's radar
  
• Fixed a problem where Lightsabers could be overloaded
  
• Fixed pet duping issue
  
• We changed the way group payouts for missions are calculated. When a mission is generated, the reward payout per member is calculated based on the current size of the group. If the group shrinks in size or group members are too far away to receive payout, those that do get paid receive the original per member reward. For example, if 3 players take a mission that pays 12k credits, each player will receive a maximum of 4k credits when the mission is completed. They receive 0 if they are out of range, and less if more people are added to the group to complete the mission

Along with these Major Features and the above listed fixes we have changed the way City Voting is handled. Read on for more information.

City Voting Rules Update

The system for electing a new mayor has changed. Voting is now held every 3 weeks. City maintenance still occurs every week. A citizen who registers to run may now unregister from the vote terminal. The mayor may unregister as well. Changes to the voting roster are only allowed during the first two weeks of each election cycle. The citizen with the most votes wins the election.

You MUST explicitly cast a vote in order to be counted. Abstentions no longer count as votes for the incumbent.

Experience point grants for winning votes have been tripled. The incumbent mayor also receives a weekly 750 point experience bonus.

Below you will find other fixes and game play enhancements to make Star Wars Galaxies a better game.

GCW

• Overt players are now only forced covert when cloning. Players are now invulnerable while loading from travel or logging in from being safely logged out
  
• There is now a black-out period per-server during which factional base vulnerability cannot be reset that should typically conform to when the servers are down.
  
• Stopping a factional base overload now requires a friendly player to start the base shutdown, remain at the terminal for 60 seconds, and then confirm their desire to shut the base down to avoid overload.

Profession: Droid Engineer

• Increased droid battery duration by 4x

Profession: Image Designer

• Cosmetic change timer has been changed from 2 minutes to 1 minute.
  
• Body change timer has been changed from 5 minutes to 2 minutes.
  
• Stat Migration timer has been changed from 10 minutes to 4 minutes
  
• Master IDs can now make Body and Cosmetic changes to themselves outside of the ID salon without incurring a timer.

Combat

• Fixed Wookiee Grenade Certification
  
• Added /toggleCombatTaunts command

Travel

• An option to land at the Imperial Outpost on Dantooine has been added to the Dantooine Station.
  
• Fixed waypoints in Kessel and Deep Space to use the space waypoint art, not the Tatooine planet art.
  
• The star ship travel terminal will now display your current planet as the default screen
  
• Fixed a bug in star ship terminals where travel points were not being displayed when choosing to travel by ship from world to world.

Player

• Players are now invulnerable while loading in space, unless they disconnected unsafely and were still in the game.

Player City

Voting System Fixes / Changes

• Voting will change to take place every 3 weeks. City maintenance will be unaffected.
  
• Candidates, including the incumbent, will be able to opt out of the election at the city voting terminal. Everyone gets an email when this happens.
  
• You may register to run in the race during the first 2 weeks of the election. Everyone gets an email when someone registers. In order to block email spam abuse, players will only be able to register/unregister once in a 24 hour period.
  
• Votes that are not actively cast for a candidate will no longer be counted.
  
• The mayor will be elected by the majority of voters who participate.
  
• Politician XP for receiving votes will be tripled.
  
• The sitting mayor will receive a weekly Politician XP bonus of 750 points. This will allow mayors to advance if their citizens are apathetic about voting.
  
• A method for sending a city version update email to all city citizens will be added. This way each citizen will receive an in-game email detailing the new changes.

Bug Fixes

• Players that are banned will no longer be able to take a shuttle to the city they are banned from.
  
• Commands that allowed banned players to buy tickets and travel in cities they were banned from are now fixed.
  
• Structures will no longer be transferable to players who are banned from the city.
  Public structures containing vendors will be transferable without requiring the vendors be removed

Grouping

• Fixed a bug where you could target yourself and form a group of one
  
• Fixed problem where if you are in a group, you sometimes don't receive your mission reward
  
• The directional arrow now changes to a circle when the group member is on screen

Crafting

• Increased crafted engine max speeds
  
• Moved the All Purpose Ship Repair Kit to the space crafting tool so that it is now experimental
  
• Removed conductivity requirement for the Max Speed stat on crafted engines
  
• Reactors and armor no longer list an energy requirement of 0.

Profession: Pilot

• Lowered space PVP damage by 25%
  
• Add system messages when engaging/disengaging autopilot
  
• /follow no longer causes your ship to roll level, because the ship you're following may not be level.
  
• Ship warping/rubberbanding should be reduced
  
• Fixed a bug where controls could be left locked when hyperspacing to a point you were already at.
  
• Player's should hear the "qualify for skill" sound effect in space, even when zoomed out from cockpit.
  
• Fixed incorrect destination list when traveling using a personal ship.
  
• Hutt and Blacksun fighter helmets are now able to be worn by all playable species except Wookiees and Ithorians
  
• Destroying a target solely with a bomberstrike should now give you credit for the target.
  
• Removed autopilot engaged/disengaged system message spam that occurred when ship was trying to autolevel
  
• Increased firing range for capital ships
  
• Added starship repair kit to new player starting equipment
  
• Extreme and Moderate rear shield reinforcement droid program triggering and functionality fixed.
  
• Weapon tuning 3 and 4 droid program triggering fixed.
  
• Fixed incorrect experimentable mass on the Spacebomb launchers

Joysticks

• Fixed an inconsistency where moving the joystick would cancel autopilot-to-waypoint but not following

Profession: Shipwright

• Increased possible max armor stats for Mark IV and V Durasteel Plating
  
• Ship Components don't display yaw, pitch, or roll acceleration values, since these are determined by the chassis, not the engine
  
• Existing equipment factories that would not take shipwright schematics should now accept them
  
• Moved missile and countermeasure launchers to separate categories in the crafting tool

New Player

• Added notification when launching to tutorial zones vs. full zones

Ships

• Increased the mass of some privateer ship chassis, the TIE Oppressor, and the KSE Firespray
  
• Fixed a bug where large transport ships were not marked as being collidable.
  
• You can now use "match speed" on enemy ships.
  
• Slightly increased the XP reward for TIE Aggressors.

Space Loot

• Crafted and looted droid interface stats are now tiered appropriately---low level crafted items have higher command speeds, and high level items have lower command speeds.
  
• Increased level of loot drops for space
  
• Increased odds of dropping tier-appropriate loot for space
  
• Chassis Broker will now buy looted space components from any player

Stability

• Improved client stability and performance.

Space Missions

• Fixed Corellia (Talus) Imperial Trainer 2 refusing to speak to player about anything but training if the player had enough XP for a tier2 skill, but already had all 4 tier2 skills.
  
• There will no longer be a Tier 5 Blacklight Wing Commander in Dantooine near the Rebel Tier 3 inspect mission of the Naboo track.
  
• Fixed Rebel Master Jacket being wearable by Privateers only
  
• It should now be easier to find the inspect target for the Naboo Rebel Tier 3 mission 2 "Inspect remaining Blacklight Pirates" mission. Check your quest journal when on this mission for more information on who to inspect.
  
• The quest journal toolbar will now flash when you get assigned a Force Sensitive quest. (Previously it would only flash for space quests.)
  
• Naboo - Privateer: Removed the tier 5 Ay'Nat Outlaw from the space battle in Cmnd. Dulios's second mission.
  
• Naboo - Privateer: Lowered the tier for the final target in Capt. Kaydine's first mission.
  
• Naboo - Privateer: Lowered tier values for the Ay'Nat Viggo
  
• Naboo - Privateer: The Black Sun will now spawn properly at the end of Diness Imlers third mission.
  
• Tatooine Privateer: Changed the final part of Beissa's first mission.
  
• Tatooine Privateer: Lowered tier values for the Valarian Replacements
  
• Your missions will no longer activate while you are flying in a SoroSuub Yacht.
  
• Certain types of deliver missions will now properly spawn enemies to intercept you

Avatar

• Fixed bug where not all species were visible on the avatar creation screen

Space UI

• The targeting status page now displays the distance to the object before the name of the object to help players see the distance to a targeted item if the name is too long.
  
• The ship names that are displayed in the space group UI are no longer displayed in capital letters.
  
• Fixed planet sizes on the galaxy maps for ground and space.
  
• Space HUD deadzone is limited to >= 101 regardless of your mouse dead zone settings (improves virtual joystick)
  
• The targeting status page now displays the distance to the object before the name of the object to help players see the distance to a targeted item if the name is too long.
  
• Space HUD deadzone is limited to >= 101 regardless of your mouse dead zone settings (improves virtual joystick)

Theme Parks / Ground Missions / Quests

• Fixed some Theme Park NPCs in the Emperor's Retreat from being aggressive / attacking players on-sight, when they should have been calmly waiting to chat with the player.

UI

• Fixed planet sizes on the galaxy maps for ground and space.
  
• Fixed broken icons
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ship vendors to not display on the planetary map.
  
• The Toolbar is always visible.

ShipComponent UI

• Prevent case where clicking the ammo item would unload the launcher

"Increased the mass of some privateer ship chassis, the TIE Oppressor, and the KSE Firespray "

Mind sharing which Privateer ships those were? Hmmm?

---

MajorXP wrote:

Wasn't all FRS XP over 15,000 is also being deleted as well?

---

why would they do this?

(i've been out of the loop for a few days.)

While much of this update is good, I am upset by the way the devs have made the solo group obsolete, ostensibly because somehow it was "giving some players an unfair advantage"? This makes no sense whatsoever. All players, regardless of race, faction, profession, or other factors were equally capable of joining and benefiting from solo groups. Indeed, solo grouping had recently become a big part of my role playing, as I would spend the social periods of my online time (when not hunting [chimaera] or grinding [tempest]) running "MyzTek's Temp Agency," a company which functioned in Galaxies much as such establishments do in real life. By joining my "temp agency" players were put in contact with employers which they might otherwise not be able to, to get better paying jobs than might otherwise be available. It is with much sadness that I have been forced to close the doors of MyzTek's Temporary Agency.

While no clear reason has been given for the change to group payouts, from reading the astromech stats I gather the devs think this will help to bleed off many of the credits which are in circulation due to past "credit dupe" exploits. In other word, we are all being punnished for the actions of exploiters, who should have been suspended and who's counterfit credits should easilly have been identified and deleted by the developers. I encourage all who feel as I do to let the devs know. In the hope that the devs, who are undeniably talented and intelligent individuals, will reconsider the elimination of the solo group, I ask for a few brief moments of their time:

Please devs, take a moment to consider what I have said, and if you decide to keep the change to the group payout system, please provide us, your paying customers, with a clear and concise explaination of why the change was necessary.

Sincerely,
MyzTek

Imperial Master Pistoleer/Teras Kasi Master/Master Brawler (Chimaera)
Imperial Master Combat Medic/Master Doctor (Tempest)

Message Edited by MyzTekTraveler on 11-17-2004 05:37 PM

But guys, The XP gained by a solo group hasnt changed. Just the way the credits are being payed out. Its still a little silly to me. I guess I can still pull 10k+ missions solo so im fine.

I understand you feelings, Casnow, but I cannot agree. I frequently make new characters on various servers to see what is going on in different galaxies. Observing the cultural differences between galaxies' player populations is always interesting for me. Because of the time required, however, it is not realistic for me to take 6 or 7 characters completely through to their second tier masterships. I do advance them through all or part of their first skill tree from time to time, however. As far as using groups to advance a character, it worked great for my medic, but for combat professions, whether novice (eg: brawler) or elite (eg: pistoleer) I have found much more luck leveling quickly by working in a solo group than with hunting party groups. On my Chimaera character, I mastered TK and Pistoleer both entirely solo. I'm not saying my experience is typical, but this has worked well for me. Solo'ing high level missions (such as Rancors) is one of the few ways for an Elite combat profession master to make the money he or she needs to keep supplied in the armor and weapons and buffs and clothing/armor attachments necessary for PvP. Since these missions are available only when in a group, the new system will require these players to spend hour upon hour grinding much lower pay missions when they would much prefer to be engaging in PvP.

In other words, the new system will have effects not only on the economy, but also on the galactic civil war, in my humble opinion one of the most important aspects of the game both for players and for Sony. Overt players are still very rare on most servers, now they will be even rarer (unless faction missions become much more profitable, hint hint devs). I remember when I was just starting my first character, on the Tempest server. Overt Imperial and Rebel players were frequently running through the streets, I specifically remember one, Lynxx I think was her name, she would walk through the streets of Coronet, proudly wearing her Imperial alignment and trailing not one, not two, but three ATSTs as rebels ran in terror. The first time I saw that, I knew I would be playing this game for a long time. Much has changed since then, but it is that memory and others like it which give me hope and keep me feeding Sony's tremendous coffers.

Peace,
MyzTekTraveler

Imperial Master Pistoleer/Teras Kasi Master/Master Brawler (Chimaera)
Imperial Master Combat Medic/Master Doctor (Tempest)
Rebel Brawler (Gorath)
Neutral Medic (Starsider)
Doctor 4442 (Test Center)

Message Edited by MyzTekTraveler on 11-18-2004 10:27 PM