2029 active members
  282 are Online

Year

27

Day

82

Time

11:06:00

Guest
Login
Sim News RSS Feed Latest NewsArchive
Player Administration

Involuntary vacation.
(Posted by Noctis on Year 27 Day 73)
Year 27 Day 73 Noctis banned player Zuk`Ha Ntaka providing the following reason: Failure to follow IC/OOC separation. Strike 2 - P...
[more]

Big manufacturing doesnt want you to know this one simple droid trick!
(Posted by Noctis on Year 27 Day 33)
Year 27 Day 33, 11:10 Noctis banned player Inquiz Warder providing the following reason: Multi Ban Year 27 Day 33, 11:10 Noctis ba...
[more]

Hissing cat noises
(Posted by Kodkod on Year 27 Day 25)
  Y27D25, 20:29 Kodkod banned player Malcolm Marrz Blaine providing the following reason: Harassment This player has received a s...
[more]

Community News

Slight tweak to Maw Installation quest.
(Posted by Eli Descartes on Year 27 Day 68)
Life Support Console: Chance to spawn a hostile droid upon failure has been reduced from 33% to 20% Research Console: Chance to ...
[more]

Mom, can we have R&D We have R&D at home, sweetie.
(Posted by Eli Descartes on Year 27 Day 40)
Hopefully many of your will be aware that a whacky scientist is developing a new droid in the Black Hole of Quintas system, and wit...
[more]

Won't somebody think of the children?
(Posted by Eli Descartes on Year 27 Day 8)
EDIT: The race is now closed, winners are being verified, and results will be posted shortly, along with prize winnings!    After...
[more]

Technical News

Rules Team Recruitment – Space and Ground Combat Focus
(Posted by Dex Sehrin on Year 27 Day 75)
The Rules Team is looking to bring on additional members to help refine and balance key combat systems. We are seeking: 2-3 mem...
[more]

Not AI-llowed
(Posted by Kolomon Seph on Year 27 Day 66)
Greetings sentients! Just a reminder from your friendly neighborhood Custom Queue Team regarding custom submissions.... As stated...
[more]

Database Maintenance Y27D60
(Posted by Clarr Solo on Year 27 Day 57)
There will be some upcoming database maintenance on Y27D60 19:00, should take about 30 minutes. Server will be intermittently unava...
[more]

The Rules Team is looking to bring on additional members to help refine and balance key combat systems.

We are seeking:

  • 2-3 members focused on Space Combat, with primary emphasis on capital ships (assigning and balancing weapon arcs, shield arcs, and overall performance). The aim is to ensure balanced and meaningful roles for capital ships while keeping all ship classes viable and effective in their intended scenarios—from individual engagements to large fleet operations.
  • 1-2 members focused on expanded Ground Combat (infantry, vehicles, facilities, and their interactions in combined scenarios).

Significant experience in the Combine is an advantage but not required. What we need most is a strong understanding of the rules, higher-order thinking, and the ability to identify edge cases, potential abuse vectors, and the broader implications of changes across the game.

Team members will work closely with QA and the development team to get rules from the design stage through to testing phases.

Criticism is part of the process—from the player community, other teams, and internally. Thick skin is necessary; you shouldn't take criticism personally. The priority is game improvement, balance, and preventing exploits, not personal reactions.

This is a volunteer position. We aren't looking for any specific amount of hours put in, but we do expect consistent progress on assigned work. Contributors who do not contribute sufficiently are liable to be removed from the team.

Experience with spreadsheets is a significant plus (the team relies on them extensively), and basic programming skills for creating simulation tools are also advantageous, as they help speed up testing and balancing.

Applications are open now and will close in one week.

If interested, DM me here or message me on Discord (Dex). A short testing process will follow to evaluate your approach to rules analysis, edge-case identification, abuse potential, and game-wide impact considerations.

All ongoing work remains confidential unless it has been publicly announced or approval has been given to discuss it.

Let's keep combat balanced, strategic, and enjoyable for the entire community.

-Dex

 
(Edited by Dex Sehrin on Year 27 Day 75)
Posted by Eli Descartes on Year 27 Day 68 6:21
  • Life Support Console: Chance to spawn a hostile droid upon failure has been reduced from 33% to 20%
  • Research Console: Chance to spawn a hostile droid upon failure has been reduced from 50% to 33%

This is to reflect the fact that the quest was implemented pre-droid armour, and that droids are now a tougher enemy than they were at the original release.

 

 

 
Posted by Kolomon Seph on Year 27 Day 66 6:15

Greetings sentients!

Just a reminder from your friendly neighborhood Custom Queue Team regarding custom submissions....

As stated in the custom art rules, AI of any sort is only allowed for NPC image submissions (as long as all other rules are met) due to the lack of images and/or live-action representation present for a lot of alien races. This includes using AI "recoloring" tools or websites either separate and standalone or natively built in to some products - notably Photoshop and other Adobe products. Its been quite a while since this rule was implemented, and the accompanying NPC accommodation made, and has been posted and enforced since. Its posted right above the section about Art Bans even. However, recently there has been an influx of clearly AI made images being submitted. Moving forward this rule will be more heavily enforced in the following way:

  • First time: Image denial and normal message. This counts retroactively and moving forward if you've already had a denial!
  • Second time: Image denial, message notifying of a 30 day submission ban. Submitter can request the ban be lifted after 30 days have passed directly with me via discord or darkness message.
  • Third time: Image denial, permanent submission ban message. 

Always with any image denial: if you feel the denial was incorrect, you need clarification, or you'd like help fixing the issue, then please reach out - theres plenty of times where errors are made and denials are reversed and I'm always happy to help clarify information or suggest fixes. I do suggest doing your homework prior to working on or submitting images and verify they are not AI generated - being unaware won't be a valid argument. It only takes a minute or two generally.

 If you have any issues with this specific SIMnews post just drop a darkness message to Noctis and tell him how you feel. 

Happy arting,

Kolo

 

 

 
Posted by Clarr Solo on Year 27 Day 57 0:59

There will be some upcoming database maintenance on Y27D60 19:00, should take about 30 minutes. Server will be intermittently unavailable during this time.

Edit: Postponed to tomorrow, Y27D60 due to some missing code changes.

 
(Edited by Clarr Solo on Year 27 Day 59)

Hopefully many of your will be aware that a whacky scientist is developing a new droid in the Black Hole of Quintas system, and with your help, has even managed to develop a working Prototype!

At this stage I would like to clarify this community quest and how it works. 

 

After completing the Abandoned Research Installation quest in The Maw, the player is given a set of Unfinished Blueprints. These blueprints are a small part of a larger design, and can be donated to the Scientist aboard the station in the Black Hole of Quitnas system, to generate Research Points. The amount of points gained toward the community goal is proportional to your average R&D skills, so higher R&D skills equal more points! At this stage enough points have been generated to release the Prototype Droid. Any character which donates blueprints is able to redeem a single-use DC for the Prototype Droid by speaking to the scientist in the Black Hole of Quintas system.. This DC will be redeemable for up to three months after the total arc has finished, and can be redeemd by any character which has participated at any point during the event.  Once enough points have been generated, this arc will conclude with a brand new generic datacard added to the pool. 

Once you have donated your blueprints, you will also have the option to donate credits toward the research effort. This option is available once per week, and the cost will increase each time. The amount of research points generated remains tied to your R&D skills. 

You can find some more information about the location of the quests here

 
(Edited by Eli Descartes on Year 27 Day 40)
Posted by Eli Descartes on Year 27 Day 8 13:20

EDIT: The race is now closed, winners are being verified, and results will be posted shortly, along with prize winnings! 

 

After having carefully reviewed the contestants' events, and verifying the integrity of the results, I am pleased to announce the winners!

  1. 1st place: Lorenzas Atticus - 7,214 Minutes
  2. 2nd Place: Rall Dack - 7,266 Minutes
  3. 3rd Place: Regulus Jagarnat - 7,299 Minutes
  4. 4th Place: Akeeg Viawei - 7,314 Minutes
  5. 5th Place: Jarneskeg Yrfeloran - 7,331 Minutes

The prize pool came to a total of: 1,620,000,000 credits, and as such, our top 5 winners will win the following amounts:

  1. 1st place (50%) = 810,000,000 credits
  2. 2nd place (25%) = 405,000,000 credits
  3. 3rd place (15%) = 243,000,000 credits
  4. 4th place (7%) = 113,400,000 credits
  5. 5th place (3%) = 48,600,000 credits

Thank you to everyone who participated! I hope you all had as much fun participating in this as we had watching you!

___________________________________________
Edit: I've been made aware of a bug which can result in the checkpoint event being sent prematurely within the same star system. We are looking into a fix, but in the mean time: If this happens to you, please continue on to the correct checkpoint sublight location before setting course for the next checkpoint. Cheaters will not be rewarded. Thank you to those who have come forward. 

 

Edit2: The leaderboard and prize pot and now viewable on the Datapad.

 

It's a Christmas disaster! Chiss Chingle has gone missing, and the winter helpers need your help to save Christmas!

The key to saving Christmas is going to be speed this year. So grab your fastest non-modified* ship (No A-Wings allowed either!) and head over to the Winter Colony Station in Tynnani if you're feeling lucky**. There are no other specific gear requirements.

The event will take approximately seven days from the point it is "accepted", depending on the speed of your ship. It must be completed before Christmas Day. Plan accordingly, and pay attention to what the helpers tell you!

 

*Modified ship refers to any ship with the modified flag, regardless of the actual modified stat.

**You will need 5 million credits, and the knowledge that you may not get it back. 

 

 
(Edited by Falcon on Year 27 Day 33)
Posted by Clarr Solo on Year 27 Day 32 17:50

Tractor beam functionality was separated from the Tractor Beam weapon, all entities with a hangar bay or docking bay can now use tractor beams (with a new clickable icon on the Cockpit screen).
- FI events have been updated.

 
Posted by Clarr Solo on Year 27 Day 25 4:43

Facility Income Sharding Change

For server performance reasons, facility income will now run grouped by Sector and will be spread out evenly across an hour period.
The income rules and calculations remain the same. This will apply to tomorrows income run.

Bugs

Fix NPC fitout drop error when trying to drop installed cybernetic.
Fix installed cybernetics taking up weight and volume.
Add rng rolls to cybernetic install/uninstall events.
Fix character faction membership caching to be more effective.
Optimize facility inventory export querying FI transactions too often.
Optimize default building inventory sort settings.
Fix Grant XP Admin tool unintentionally setting NPC/Creatures above their level cap.
Fix db partition tool crash when table missing.
Fix php 8 crash in asteroid mining code.
Fix php 8.5 inventory filter crash.
Fix php 8.5 WS auth crash.

 
Posted by Clarr Solo on Year 27 Day 15 22:24

There will be about 30 minutes of downtime in 3 days time to perform some database maintenance. Downtime will occur at Y27 D18 19:00 CGT and last for up to 30 minutes.
Edit: Downtime is completed.

 
(Edited by Clarr Solo on Year 27 Day 18)
Posted by Falcon on Year 27 Day 12 9:41

We are updating the way escape pods are used. Today, I will be updating escape pods to have 0 sensors and applying that to all escape pods currently in existence. Moving forward, we will likely modify them to be deleted when they are empty, but will provide advance notice when doing so, and when the mechanics for that are finalized.

 

Happy Y27!

 

Angry DM to Noctis // Support Link

 
Posted by Clarr Solo on Year 26 Day 362 19:54

- Added the ability to slice doors without an item. Not using a lockbreaker has reduced success chance.
- Strike quest opponents will be more aggressive.
- Sorted tags alphabetically on some inventory subpages.
- Fixed room decal apply tool floor picker bug.
- Fixed an issue with undocking leading to unexpected ship teleporting.
- Showdown coordinators can now set showdowns to occur in asteroid fields.
- Fixed an issue with WS privilege listing privilege checks.

 
Posted by Eli Descartes on Year 26 Day 337 6:06

Final Update: You will no longer be able to accept any quest from Dr Bram Pyre. Any quests which have been accepted prior to the cut off may be still completed as usual. Be aware that each quest will time out after two weeks from the point it was accepted. Thank you for participating and we hope you enjoyed this year's halloween event!

 

Hold on to your pumpkin spice lattes, because spooky season is upon us and something strange is afoot!

Intrepid pilots have reported sighting a peculiar and quite agitated Devaronian in the entrance rooms of Trading I and Trading II stations across the Galaxy. The reports suggest that he is a scientist of sorts, but it's not entirely clear why he's so upset - maybe you could figure it out?

Happy Halloween!

 

*With thanks to Clarr for doing like 90% of the work on this year's Halloween event!

 

Edit: If taking part in these quests, it would be wise to prepare for room combat. The quests will be active for the next 2 weeks!

Edit2: In approximately one week from now, you will no longer be able to accept any quest from Dr Bram Pyre. Any quests which have been accepted prior to the cut off may be still completed as usual. Be aware that each quest will time out after two weeks from the point it was accepted.

Edit3: Consider this your 24 hour warning. 

 
(Edited by Eli Descartes on Year 26 Day 355)