Greetings Starfighters,

Tonight, the dev team will once again join the ToadNet team for some open streaming of Quintet. That's less than an hour from now! Everyone is welcome to join in, though we'd also prefer if you join the ToadNet Discord server as well - all our voice chat will be handled through there.

Access their Discord via this handy invite link![discord.gg]

For those who just want to spectate, or if you're watching this from the distant future...here's a convenient permalink to the stream for you.

Hope to see you there!

Today, September 18th, at 4PM PST, we're going to have an open stream event, in conjunction with the fun people of ToadNet. If you'd like to join us, please do so.

Note: We're not using the Quintet Teamspeak today, so don't look for us there.

The link to the ToadNet Discord server is in the stream's description, and we ask that if you join us, please be polite. Teeth and I will be present for this stream, and the channels will be heavily moderated. We also ask that if you join us, please mute the stream; audio feedback is distracting. If you can't play, at least watch us! It should be a fun time. :B1:

The stream link is here!

Want to play Quintet with the devs? Join us this Thursday, February 25th, at 8:30 PM EST (GMT -5) as we join the Space Game Junkie[www.spacegamejunkie.com] team for a live stream of our gaming session. Additionally, we've provided them with Basic and Trio upgrade keys to give away during the stream! They'll be live streaming with us on their Youtube Gaming channel.

If you can't make it for the gaming session, the show will be archived on their Youtube channel for later viewing. Hope to see you there!

-The Cosmic Trio Team

From now until the Exploration Sale ends (on Dec. 1st, 2015) we've put the Trio Upgrade at 50% off, and the Basic Upgrade at 30% off. If you were holding off on that sweet Trio upgrade, now's the time to go for it!

As always, the Trio Upgrade contains everything the Basic Upgrade already gives you, plus the ability to launch Trio class ships.

Last night, Carmine, Teeth, and I joined Brian and Jim from the Space Game Junkie[spacegamejunkie.com] podcast to play Quintet, and we had a great time with them! Our session ran for about an hour and a half. Many ships were gleefully rammed into space dust in PvE, and we got in some PvP action toward the end.

Watch it here!

At 7 PM EST (GMT -5) tonight (about four hours from the time of this post) we'll have another of our glorious battle nights! Join us on our Teamspeak channel and chat with the dev team, as we engage in PvE and PvP scenarios.

Our Teamspeak Server: ts.quintet.us:5

We may also be streaming on our Twitch channel[www.twitch.tv] tonight.

Hope you can join us!

In this major update:

New game mode: Capture Wars! This persistent mode allows only players with an upgraded account to participate. That means you MUST have acquired either the Basic upgrade or the Trio upgrade on your account in order to launch or join a ship in CW. You pick a race, kill off the enemies defending the sectors, and then fly through the Artifact object to capture it for your race. Sector strength increases as you defend the area from threats. Eventually, we'll add in a "Status of the war" section to the main lobby, so players can see which race is dominating the map!

So why did we make CW require a paid account to even join a ship? We can't make everything free, and we have bills to pay. The Basic upgrade is $5 USD, and it's a lifetime purchase, for any platform that supports the game. We also provide a large amount of content for free, provided the player launching a ship has upgraded, and anyone else can then potentially join them. Please bear that in mind.


Weapons Changes:

- Lasers for the playable non-Human races have all been changed. The beam durations and cooldowns have been altered.

- We've modified some ships, so they fire "Light" and/or "Heavy" cannon shots. Functionally, these work exactly the same as the previous torpedo and LC on these ships, although they are cosmetically different. The Human, Davul, and Udu Duets and Quartets have this change.

- Some ships still have their Torpedo launcher(s), since the name change to the Light vs. Heavy cannon is mainly to differentiate which ones are fired from a turret.

- Zurna and Santoor ships now have access to Missile and/or Rocket weapons, which replace the old Torpedo launchers and Large Cannons, respectively. These weapons have new visual and sound effects as well, but function in the same way as the weapons they replace. Missiles have homing capabilities, while the dumbfire Rockets do more damage, but have no homing capabilities beyond the initial lock. Once Rockets lock on, they fire in a straight line toward the target.

- The other Tactical changes previewed in the July 1st announcement have also gone live. Follow that link for details about the new race-specific special torpedos, and the changes to Quartets!

Other changes:

- The Captain now has the option to Lock specific stations, so if they want to be the only one who controls the Helm, they can hit the Lock button next to it, and prevent anyone else from taking over that station. This is helpful, if say you want to run your ship without a password, but you also want to make sure you're the only one at the Helm. Then Tactical/Engineering/Science can be filled by other players as needed.

- The mod formerly known as Project Quintet has been renamed to Project Elpis. It still requires an upgraded account to access it.

- Bug fixes. LOTS of bug fixes. :B1:

This has been one of the largest updates we've had in the last two years. A new persistent mode; major changes to Quartets and Duets to make them even more dangerous; and Tactical upgrades for almost every ship!

Starting right now, players may opt into the Public Beta branch for V15 (The current release version is V14.7 as of this post.) To opt into this beta branch, Right click the Quintet entry in your game library, go to Properties, and then go to the Betas tab. You can select Public Beta from the dropdown menu - and there is no password required to opt into this beta branch.

EDIT: The Public Beta branch is closed, and V15 is LIVE!

The dev team will be on our Teamspeak server tonight at 7PM EST as well, so be sure to join us for this beta test: ts.quintet.us:5

So why are we calling this "Live fire testing"? Well, if you read the last announcement, there are a lot of weapon changes we're making for this version. Some new weapons (and some tweaks to existing weapons) are being added. Check the last announcement for more details on what's involved.

Here's something I didn't include in the last announcement... Some of you may be wondering, "Where did the Torpedo and Large Cannon go on some ships, and why do some ships get a Missile and/or Rocket instead?" To answer that before anyone asks:

- We've modified some ships, so they fire "Light" and/or "Heavy" cannon shots. Functionally, these work exactly the same as the previous torpedo and LC. The Human, Davul, and Udu Duets and Quartets have this change, as mentioned in the last announcement.

- Some ships still have their Torpedo launcher(s), since the name change to the Light vs. Heavy cannon is mainly to differentiate which ones are fired from a turret.

- Zurna and Santoor ships now have access to Missile and/or Rocket weapons, which replace the old Torpedo launchers and Cannons. These weapons have new visual and sound effects as well, but function in the same way as the weapons they replace. Missiles have homing capabilities, while the dumbfire Rockets do more damage, but have no homing capabilities beyond the initial lock. Once Rockets lock on, they fire in a straight line toward the target.



So what do we need to test? The new weapons, including the modified lasers for the non-Human ships. That's the primary focus for this testing, and the more feedback we get, the better! We hope you'll join us in a few hours!

Have you recovered from the Steam Summer Sale yet? Did you buy an upgrade while we had them on sale?

While those sales (including ours!) were happening, we've been working on some ship upgrades, primarily for the Duets and Quartets. Here's a little preview of some of the upcoming changes we're composing for you in V15:

Duets will have the ability to toggle their torpedo launcher to fire a Large Cannon shot instead of a torpedo, with the greater damage and longer cooldown time (30 seconds) of the LC. You can toggle between them at will in combat, but be aware of the timing of the LC's long cooldown and short range, and the fact that the LC shot doesn't have homing capability.

Quartets will have a few major changes. To compensate for their lack of a Science station, their Firewall ability is now a standard ability for all Quartets. It instantly remodulates your own shield frequency upon use, as well as prevents any scanning/hacking effects against your ship for its 30 second duration. Beware, because it also has a cooldown time of 30 seconds, and you can still get scanned again.

The other major change to the Quartets is something we've been having a lot of fun with in our closed beta testing: Race-specific torpedoes! The Tactical officer can toggle the ship's Large Cannon to fire one of these special torpedoes instead of the LC.

- Humans get a Splash torpedo that explodes upon impact, which causes both damage and a push effect to ships in its explosion radius. It's most useful against groups of clustered enemies, for obvious reasons.

- Zurna get a Gravity Well torpedo. It creates one upon impact, and that draws nearby objects toward whatever is at the center of its radius, for a short duration. For extra hilarity, fire it at a cluster of Hive ships in The 25, and watch them slam into each other until they explode! Alternatively, fire it at an asteroid when an enemy is nearby, and let the big rock damage its hull for you.

- Davul get a Cloak Hunter torpedo. This unorthodox weapon will automatically home in on the nearest cloaked hostile target, and then triggers a Disrupt Cloak effect upon impact. Does it have a tailpipe? This torpedo can find it!

- Santoor get a Hull torpedo. This torpedo ignores shields, and directly damages the hull of its target. This is rather effective as an opening move, since your targets are likely to have full shields when you initially engage them.

- Udu get an EMP torpedo. When it hits its target, it applies the same effect as the Udu Trio's EMP ability, but just to the one ship instead of a large area. It hacks the target's engines, weapons, and shields, bringing all three of the systems offline for ten seconds.

As noted, these special torpedoes are unique to the Quartet class ships.



A few Quintets have also been altered: The Zurna Quintet now has the Energy Shield ability, which was previously found only on the Zurna Trio. This huge shield covers the front of the ship, and absorbs any incoming weapons fire that makes contact with it, for a short duration. The Santoor Quintet has been given a new ability: DAT Booster. This area effect gives a short buff to any friendly D.A.T.s within its radius. Their systems are more effective while the effect lasts.



Beam lasers are getting some changes in this update, too. The Zurna, Davul, Santoor, and Udu ships' lasers have been changed, to either deal less damage per shot, but fire more rapidly (Zurna), or fire a more damaging cutting beam with a longer duration and longer cooldown between shots (Santoor) for example. All the ships of these four races have these updated lasers. Since Humans are the base line race, we left their lasers as they are.



Also: Capture Wars! I mentioned this in a previous announcement, but we've been working on this new mode, with 81 sectors in which to fight (75 of which may be captured for the glory of your chosen race!) This persistent mode is nearly ready to go live. We're just knocking out some of the tactical improvements and bug hunting before we push this version onto our closed beta branch.

Might you be interested in helping us beta test? We'll probably post some information about that in the next announcement, so stay tuned!