Starfleet Commander Nova

Starfleet Commander Nova is an exciting new Universe with numerous changes to the traditional Starfleet Commander game mechanics and many new additions, including buildings, ships, and defense! This Universe will run at 1.5x speed.

Starfleet Commander Nova is available at http://nova.playstarfleet.com.

---New Buildings---

	Resource Den The Resource Den will be available at launch and expands the available storage on your planet and protects a portion of your resources from plunder. When protecting resources on your planet it will attempt to do so in equal quantities (it follows the attack plunder formula) and those resources do not display on an espionage report of your planet.
	Lunar Dock The Lunar Dock will be available after launch and will allow you to undeploy your Hephaestus Class Attack Platform so that it may travel via Warp Gate. Additional details concerning this building will be available at a later date.

---New Ships---

	Empusa Class Fighter The Empusa is a small, but powerful, assault unit. It's pilots are trained to perform kamikaze missions to inflict massive amounts of damage on enemy ships. However, the Empusa is only effective against opposing ships during an attack and will always be destroyed in the first round of battle.
	Zagreus Class Recycler The Zagreus is used for collecting debris left behind in battle. It is faster than the Dionysus, but has a smaller cargo capacity. Send these on a harvest mission and you can collect the resources that float in debris fields around planets after battles.
	Curetes Class Cruiser The Curetes is a defensive style of ship designed to absorb large hits. While it has limited offense, its high shields and the fact that nothing rapid fires against it make it able to withstand large amounts of fire, making it a great addition to your fleet.
	Carmanor Class Cargo The Carmanor is the largest freight ship in the Universe. It's slower than the Atlas or Hercules but has the largest cargo capacity available making it ideal for moving large amounts of resources.
	Pallas Class Bomber The Pallas is a specialized assault unit meant for disabling enemy mine fields and hammering opposing defenses. It's not very effective against enemy fighters, but is able to quickly neutralizes mines so that they cause minimal damage.
	Thanatos Class Destroyer The Thanatos, a massive assault unit rivaled only by the Zeus, is able to make quick work of both enemy fleets and defenses.

---New Defense---

Space Mine Space Mines provide an excellent deterrent to enemy raids when placed in large numbers. However, this comes with risk. During battle your own ships may detonate a space mine and take damage.

---Battle changes---

Starfleet Commander Nova will have several changes to the battle mechanics aimed at improving the overall leader board and encouraging attacks on players of similar size. These changes include:

No destroyed ship points awarded for attacking non-player characters (NPCs) or inactive players. We will not be awarding any destroyed ship points for attacking NPCs or inactive as we work to make the destroyed ship score a reflection of a player's achievements in hunting other active players.

Relative destroyed ship points will be awarded for all attacks. To discourage players from attacking players that are significantly smaller than them we have implemented a new scale for awarding destroyed ship points in a battle. Depending on how many more or less resources spent points the opposing player in the battle has will determine the value of the destroyed ship points you earn in the battle. Attacking a player of equal size will result in one destroyed ship point per 2,000 ship resources destroyed in battle. See this wiki entry for a full explanation of how the destroyed ship value of a battle is determined.

Proportional destroyed ship points in group attacks. In all group attacks we will award destroyed ship point proportionately between the attackers based on the resources spent value of the ships contributed to the attack. This will allow destroyed ship points to be a better representation of the ships actually destroyed by each player. See this wiki entry for a full explanation of how the destroyed ship value of a battle is determined.

Chance of fleet escape for smaller opponents.If a defender is more than 100 RSP ranks lower than the attacker and the RSP value of the attacking fleet is more than 5x the RSP value (3x if the Defender has an Admiral) of the defending fleet, then the defending fleet, except for Hermes Probes, Shadow Probes, Helios Satellites, Genesis Satellites, Zeus, and an undeployed Hephaestus, will escape from combat if hydrogen is available on the planet. If the player is group defended, no fleet escape will be possible. No fleet escapes are possible after the player has 500,000RSP.

---Newbie Protection---

Newbie Protection in Starfleet Commander Nova restricts some interactions between players of widely disparate levels of development, preventing the Defenses and unsaved Ships or Resources of newer empires from being destroyed or plundered by vastly more advanced ones. The rules for newbie protection (also available on the wiki) are as follows:

•Players with fewer than 1,000 Resources Spent Points (RSP) cannot attack (except NPCs) or be attacked.

•Players with over 1,000, but fewer than 250,000 RSP, may only attack or be attacked by other players who have between one-fifth and five times (20% to 500%) their current RSP, unless the other player has fewer than 1,000 RSP.

•Players with more than 250,000 RSP may attack or be attacked by players with between one-tenth and ten times (10% to 1,000%) their current RSP, unless the other player has fewer than 250,000 RSP, in which case the 5x rule above applies.

•Group Defense is also restricted by Newbie Protection. Players may Group Defend Buddies and Alliance mates (only) if they have between one-tenth and ten times (10% to 1,000%) the mate's RSP. It does not apply directly to the attacking and group defending fleets.

---Non-Player Character changes---

In addition to the removal of destroyed ship points from non-player characters we have changed the spawning frequencies for all NPCs so that the larger NPCs will spawn more frequently. You can see the revised frequencies on the individual NPC race pages in the wiki.

---Moon related changes---

In addition to the Lunar Dock mentioned above, we will be making the following changes related to moons and structures on moons.

Reduced warp gate cool down per level.After the first level of warp gate the cool down for the warp gate will be reduced by 15% for each additional level. When two warp gates have different cool down times, the cool down for the gate ships are sent from will be applied to both gates. See this wiki entry for more details.

Destructible Moons. Shortly after launch we will finalize the ability to destroy moons with the power of your Zeus! As such, moons will now be assigned a size when they created that is directly correlated to the size of the debris field which forms it. This means that larger debris fields create larger moons which will be more difficult to destroy. We will publish more information about this addition in the coming weeks.

---Mining changes---

Mining algorithm changes. We have made changes to the mining algorithms in the game to increase end game competitiveness. You can view the new mining tables and formulas on each of the individual mine page in the wiki.

---Other changes---

Starfleet Commander Nova will run at 1.5x speed. Additionally, Starfleet Commander Nova will have no diplomacy mode and no vacation mode. Players who need to step away from the game for an extended period of time are encouraged to send their ships on long fleet saves or to try a neutrality marker.