Hello Rebels, and welcome to another exciting Dev Diary for Vega Conflict!  

Wow, has it really been a year since I wrote the last one of these? Time sure flies when you’re trying to stop the very fabric of reality from unraveling. But, now that the Breach is stable once again (for now), we can take a look back at the Vega Alliance tier, the lessons we learned from it, and what lies ahead for both us and you, the players. We have some exciting things coming up for Vega Conflict over the next few months or so, and we think you’ll like the changes we are hoping to make.

First things first, Tier 13 and the clash for the Breach. With this tier, our goal was to bring back a sense of balance when it came to things like Fleet vs. Fleet combat. Or, at the very least, put a leash on the intense power creep that had come into existence with the Retrocitors and Retrosyn in Tiers 11 and 12. We wanted to take a lot of the complexity of the ship design in those tiers out for Tier 13, allowing us to give you more flexibility with your hull loadouts and, honestly, make it easier for us to design hulls faster and more efficiently. The goal was to, in a way, bring back the “old” Vega Conflict that some players had been yearning for. From a narrative perspective, this tier was fun to write for. The idea that the heroes and villains you’ve come to know have “evil” counterparts in a different timeline was just too good, in my opinion. All the while, setting up a villain that could tie the two timelines together.

We faced some challenges working on Tier 13. Bringing back the original classes meant re-learning how each class worked with, or against, the others. We learned more about which of these classes were more favored than others, and why. Trying to create new and improved versions of classic weapons had its ups and downs. We had to walk a tightrope with this tier and, in the end, I think we managed it. In fact, overall, I believe we succeeded in achieving the goals we set for ourselves in Tier 13. We may not have hit the mark every time but, at the end of the day, we view Tier 13 as a success.

Our goal now is to build off of that success with Tier 14, creating an exciting new faction for you to play with, alongside a new foe to battle. This new tier’s focus will be the battle between the Nightfall Coalition and the mysterious new faction, the Quantum Enforcers. The Nightfall Coalition is an alliance between the Rebels, the Vega Alliance, and the remaining loyal forces of the Blood Rebellion. Loyal to Lord Regent Burr, that is. Formed in order to clean up the remaining forces of the Prime Astral, the Astral Barony, and the traitors of the Blood Rebellion, their hulls will continue to utilize Blood technology while having a few new tricks up their sleeves. Tier 14 hulls will see an expanded use of the Upgrade slot that was featured on the final hull of Tier 13, the Segmenter. These upgrade components will allow you to customize your fleets for whatever encounters they may face. You may notice a similarity to the Experimental Salvage components from Tiers 11 and 12, and you’d be correct, they are similar. However, the boosts provided by the Upgrade components are not as… well, crazy as the ones found on Experimental Salvage components and they don’t have a flaw built in. Also, the Upgrade components that are released with each hull are specific to that hull, meaning that the overpowered combinations of those previous tiers will hopefully not be possible. We made these decisions in order for us to maintain balance between both these components and the hulls. You can still create some awesome combos, but it will require different hulls in order to do it, allowing each hull to have continued use as the tier progresses.

Your fleets will need to be finely tuned in order to take on the Quantum Enforcers. Without revealing too much, legends of them indicate that they can manipulate the forces of time itself in battle. They also bring with them a new damage type, Quantum. Weirdly, the Blood Rebellion seemed somewhat prepared for this situation and have Shield and Armor tech that may be able to stand up to it… Also, there’s rumors that the Quantum Enforcers might have… base encounters, so stay tuned.

One of the most exciting parts of Tier 14, for me, is the return to mixing fleets and Tiers. The Nightfall Coalition and Vega Alliance hulls can be put into fleets together and Nightfall hulls have access to the weapons and tech from Tier 13. Our goal, moving forward, is to have natural feeling increases of power when a new tier arrives. A stark contrast to the previous tiers where each new tier was necessary to get simply because it was overpowered compared to the previous one. A power increase is necessary but, if handled correctly, it can be like the flow of a stream, slow and steady, with each tier naturally progressing into the next. Since Tier 14 will be the first addition in this new system, some tweaks may be necessary as new hulls arrive. Hopefully, these changes will be few and far between, but the tides of space combat are a fickle mistress. 

We have some exciting ideas for how better to balance combat overall, including base combat. Ah, base combat, my white whale. There are some really cool ideas in the fire now that we’re just waiting to hammer out. Unfortunately, I can’t reveal anything yet as it’s too soon in the development process but, trust me, Damus and I have something cooking.

Now, onto the return of the Marauders. We are very excited that we were finally able to bring these pirates back into the game and into your hands. That being said, there’s going to be some growing pains with them. We want them to be a fun, enjoyable, and balanced PvP experience for you pilots, and we continue to learn from ongoing player feedback regarding them and their tech. With each release, we endeavor to improve these hulls and their tech in order to find the balance we are hoping for. We understand that this can be frustrating, it can be frustrating for us too, but we hope that the end result will be something you are happy with. We are also planning on creating new PvP experiences for you, so stay tuned for more information as the Tier progresses.

The team is working feverishly this Summer and beyond to bring you some exciting new content for Vega Conflict. There isn’t time to discuss it all but here are some highlights of upcoming content:

• More Marauder content
• Haunted 2024
• Base Combat Rebalance

There’s more to come as well, so strap into your flight suit, and prepare for launch, because 2024 and 2025 are going to be exciting for Vega Conflict. Until next time, Rebels!

KIX_Lore_Master