Hello everyone,

In this report, I've got holiday treats! I originally planned this to be a quick supplemental, but it just a quickly turned into a full-blown report. Oops.

Starship Upgrades v2

These upgrades have been completed for a long time, so much so that they were reviewed and approved by Atra back in the day. I got approval to launch them during the first evil-overlord review of Weapon Upgrades and wanted to wait until we were implementing those to launch these, but with the review process taking longer than I'd hoped I figured it'd be a nice treat to just go ahead and implement these real quick this morning. This swath of Starship Upgrades, the second iteration being launched for this item type, is based entirely off of the various mods you can apply to your craft in the hit game STAR WARS: Squadrons.

The rarities you see here in our system may not exactly match the craft you're able to put them on in Squadrons, but that's because our system functions a certain way and we needed to ensure we were continuing the same process we used with the original Starship Upgrades project.

In total, there are 25 new Starship Upgrades from this release to choose from, and all are stocked in Synergy Starship Outfitters ready for purchase by ye:

• Anti-Starfighter Missiles
• Barrage Rockets
• Burst Cannon
• Cluster Missiles
• Composite Beam Cannon
• Conversion Shield
• Emergency Assault Shield
• Goliath Missiles
• H/M Seeker Warheads
• Heavy Rotary Cannon
• Ion Missiles
• Multi-Lock Missiles
• Overloaded Shields
• Particle Burst
• Proton Bombs
• Ray Shield
• Scrambler Shield
• Seeker Mines
• Sensor Inverter
• Squadron Mask
• Tactical Shield
• Tactical Supply Droids
• Targeting Beacons
• Turret Mines

While all of the stocking rules should be set correctly on these, make sure you shoot us an email directly at [Log in to view e-mail addresses] if you see anything weird popping up.

Planetary Assets

With the recent launch of Dominions, the Regent Staff has made this an even higher priority and are making serious progress on this front. This morning I reviewed the initial doc presented to me and gave my approval of-concept on what they've got so far, and I have to say that so far I love it. This means they can continue the item prototype design/creation process, make some necessary tweaks, and soon enough we can begin to establish pricing for these item types.

Here's a sneak peak at some of the item types you'll likely see when this project launches:

• Planetary Bases
  • Fortification
  • Modular Garrison
  • Spaceports
• Base Weaponry
  • Orbital Weapon
  • Ground Weapon
• Space Stations
  • Civilian Station
  • Military Station
• Defense Shields
  • Area Shield
  • Planetary Shield
• Orbital Defenses
  • Orbital Platform
  • Orbital System

Artifacts, Weapon Upgrades, Armour Upgrades

Bubba has given the okay on the written Artifact Policy and Weapon Upgrades, so there's just one evil overlord left to give the okay on these before they're implemented. Following that, you'll see big changes afoot for weapons as we remove modification aspects and replace them with over 300 upgrades across the several different weapon types. As with all upgrade launches, this is just a v1 offering, and we'll open up the suggestion box to allow for new weapon upgrade suggestions for a v2 offering down the line.

Once the Artifact Policy has a final okay, I'll reach out to Idris and the various clan summits so we can work on creating a new set of artifacts for each clan. While the exact number we're going with has yet to be determined, there's only going to be a few to start. Now is a good time for the clans to start researching new or previous artifacts that they believe would fit within the confines of the system, and aren't canon or Legends items already in use in Star Wars, which will help speed up the process to get them new shinies. Our resident Grand Master is the proud owner of the first member-owned artifact, which the Artifact Policy will also cover. Go look for it in his possessions list. It made my Praetor taste pennies with hatred.

Work on armour upgrades has now started in-between reviews for other things. Following the launch of Armour Upgrades v1, the only remaining item type due for upgrades are Land Vehicles, and I'm very eager to see the overarching Upgrades project reach completion so that we can finally tick one of Evant's most important projects as Regent off the list. Keep an eye out for more info on these as they develop.

Booster Packs!

Following on an idea that Slagar originally pitched in his Regent application, the staff will be moving to smaller but more frequent item prototype releases that we're calling booster packs. These releases will contain 10-20 items (not including clan versions of applicable prototypes, which will be bundled together with member versions as a single item). Our goal for these booster packs is to launch them much more occasionally than a typical 40-50 item release, maintaining the overall timeline but allowing you to buy some of the items much sooner than you would having to wait for all 40-50 to be approved and implemented.

This will reduce the amount of time that it takes for us to put together an item release, allowing us to complete a booster pack while we're waiting on reviews or have some spare time. We want to keep you interested in possessions, and this feels like a good way to keep that going. The first booster pack is already in the works.

New Staffer

After much consideration and taking a look at the workload for the staff vs staff members, I've decided to reverse my decision on a second Magistrate and bring on another staffer to help with the increasing workload. I approached Evant about this decision, he gave an "alright", and bam. This will simultaneously free up a bit of my time to work with the Clans and Dark Council on other possessions projects, like faction fleets, artifacts, some incoming society items, etc.

Joining the staff as of a few days ago is Bentre Sadow, a man who needs no introduction as one of the longest reigning Consuls and Tribunes the Brotherhood has had the pleasure of having. Bentre has already dived right in to help the preexisting staff with wherever he is needed, and begun learning our processes to better serve the membership.

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