**Released**

This minor update has many balance changes, in particular aimed at making dreadnaughts more viable and better equalizing the power of each faction's orbital abilities. Balance is overall in a good spot so these and other future changes are subtle.

Atlas

• Damage increased from 15 to 16

Archer

• Health reduced from 90 to 80

Tormentor

The Tormentor was too lacking in a role and will now be an excellent way of dealing with Archer spam. Previously Substrate could have issues dealing with mass frigates.

• Damage increased from 75 to 80

Reaper

This should see Reaper blobs clump up less to dive after a cruiser and make it less vulnerable to splash damage.

• Targeting priorities changed to engage all targets equally

Saboteur

Saboteur should no longer stop firing randomly.

• Fixed targeting issue
• Targeting priorities changed to engage all targets equally

Drone Hive

Drones will no longer get one-shot by the Atlas frigate as it was too easy to shut down.

• Radioactives cost reduced from 90 to 80
• Drone health increased from 15 to 20

Apollo

• Metal cost from 310 to 350
• Radioactives cost from 46 to 66

Destructor

• Plasma Rain Launcher damage increased from 13 to 14

Caregiver

The Caregiver and Regenerator are receiving a small performance boost to give Substrate more of a chance to withstand Artillery Post bombardment as well as mitigate Plasma Storm and EMP Pulse.

• Regeneration increased from 40 to 45

Avatar

PHC have two engineer spawn abilities, so they naturally will ramp up less by mixing it between both of them. Also a QoL change for the Avatar as it would often engage enemies and move out of build range as a result.

• Leash removed - It will no longer move to engage
• Quanta cost ramp up reduced from 0.25 to 0.20

Dreadnoughts

Typically players cruiser spam into air and juggernauts while skipping dreads. We want to make dreads tougher to have them see more use.

• Retributor, Cronus, Hyperion and Overmind health increased from 14,000 to 15,000
• Savager and Prometheus health increased from 16,000 to 17,500

Eye of Darkness

This change was supposed to be in 2.76 but was accidentally not included. This will make turtling up and rushing the Eye while skipping dreadnought production much riskier.

• Metal cost increased from 22,000 to 24,000
• Radioactives cost increased from 22,000 to 23,000
• Quanta cost increased from 12,000 to 13,000
• Logistics cost increased from 300 to 325
• Build time cost increased from 900 to 1000

Instigator

The Instigator suffered from often flying out of a capping radius making it unreliable to capture points. It also was unable to clear creeps with a weapon. To make it more reliable to use, it is receiving a move speed reduction so it doesn’t fly away from capturing points but is getting a cost reduction and a weapon to clear creeps and capture neutral points.

• Movement speed reduced from 450 to 300
• Now has a weak laser
• Cost reduced from 350/80 to 250/60
• Logistics reduced from 10 to 6
• Build time reduced from 40 to 35

Artillery Post

The Artillery Post was too spammable in certain maps, especially team games.

• Minimum range increased from 200 to 500
• Maximum range reduced from 3000 to 2800

Regenerator

• Regeneration increased from 30 to 35

Carving Turret

PHC had too many Orbital Abilities that could influence cruiser engagements while Substrate only had Drone Swarm. Carving Turret is now only able to engage Dreadnaughts and Juggernauts to even out PHC’s orbital advantage.

• Can no longer target frigates, cruisers and buildings

Drone Swarm

Drone Swarm was shut down too easily by armies that had modest amounts of anti-air.

• Drone health increased from 15 to 30
• Health per second increased from -0.5 to -1 (To retains its 30 second life)

Nanite Assassination

While expensive and limited to only a single target, players may wish to use this ability to snipe a Hera, Engineer or other crucial units like a sieging Artemis.

• Can now target cruisers
• Damage type changed to direct for instant killing.

Tooltips

• Updated Carving Turret & Nanite Assassination tooltips to reflect changes
• Removed obsolete “Armor piercing” and “Area Damage” tooltips from Artemis and Destructor main weapon.
• Removed obsolete “Targets radar contacts” from 8 weapons. (Everything can now target radar contacts)