November 24th marks the one year anniversary of the world wide launch of Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. On behalf of the entire team here at Capital Games, we want to thank you for playing the game and for your continued support.
Throughout these past twelve months, we’ve been humbled by how millions of people around the world have responded to the game and helped to make it such a success. Having a chance to work on a game based in the phenomenal Star Wars universe is a true honor, and one we take to heart.
Over the past year we’ve added a lot to the game: Guilds, Raids, Mods, Tournaments, new characters, new events, new activities. With the update releasing today, we are bringing forth our biggest update the game has seen: Ships!
Please note that some of these changes are already live, but not all of them will be. As with previous Updates, this may take up to 48 hours to fully roll out to all players. Once the update is available in your region you can manually download it from the App Store or Google Play Store. Thanks!
We hope you and the entire player base love it as much as we’ve loved creating it.
SHIIIIIIIIIPS!
For a full list of ships and their crew, please see @EA_Jesse’s updated ships preview post below
<<UPDATED SHIPS PREVIEW POST>>
The ability to collect and do battle with ships is not only a massive content expansion to the existing game – it’s another huge step toward fulfilling the fantasy of playing a strategy game that includes all of Star Wars.
Like the rest of the experience, one of our pillars was authenticity. We wanted to get as close as possible to the feeling of crewing iconic ships with iconic characters – ultimately bringing more gameplay value to collecting your favorites of either type. And in combat, each ship’s ability set has been crafted to acknowledge what makes them unique – just like we do with characters.
We also designed in a way to honor players’ engagement in our existing systems, and in a way that would connect both ships and characters. The progression of a character’s star rating is acknowledged in the ship abilities unlock path. And investing in the ship’s star rating brings even more of the crew’s power over to the ship. Increasing a character’s power increases their Crew Rating, and that directly translates into Ship Power.
And because of the many players invested in our game, another pillar was familiarity. In trying to respect the schemas that players already understand: acquiring a ship is like acquiring a character, progressing a ship is like progressing a character, setting up a fleet is like setting up a squad, Fleet Commander are similar but not identical to leaders, and squad strategy is similar but not identical to fleet strategy.
Going back to our original goal of the experience we wanted to bring to players – that has always included ships. And with ships now a part of Galaxy of Heroes strategy, we have a whole new facet of the Star Wars experience to build on in future updates.
Fleet Battles
Fleet battles will be familiar in many respects:
- A player’s fleet in battle will be 5 ships, plus one Fleet Commander, plus Reinforcements (see below)
- Reinforcements aren’t required, but highly recommended
- To win, a player must destroy their opponent’s visible ships
- Fleet Commanders are not counted toward the win condition
- Ships waiting in Reinforcements do not count toward the win condition
Fleet battles have a few key innovations:
Fleet Commanders / Capital Ships
- These units are the evolution of squad leaders, with large scale support and attack abilities
- They cannot be targeted for attack, they are the tacticians observing the field of battle
- Our launch Fleet Commanders have synergies for their alignment: Admiral Ackbar and the Rebels, Grand Moff Tarkin and the Empire, Mace Windu and the Republic
Reinforcements
- All Fleet Commanders can call in reinforcements during battle
- Players load in up to 4 Reinforcement ships in fleet management
- The number of available reinforcement slots is limited by the assigned Capital Ship’s star rating
- And the player must have activated ships available to add to the slots in order to use them in battle
- A ship called in from Reinforcements immediately takes a turn
- If all of a player’s ships in the field are destroyed but that player still has ships in Reinforcements they still lose the battle
- Also! Tap and hold on a unit (ship OR character) during battle to bring up their name
Ship blueprints
Ships are acquired through earning blueprints, similar to collecting shards for characters. There are a variety of locations to earn them, including:
- Fleet Shipments: Purchase blueprints with tokens earned in the Fleet Arena
- Galactic War Store: Blueprints for 13 cycling ships are available for War Tokens
- The last hard node of Light Side/Dark Side Battles (Geonosian Starfighter – Soldier/Jedi Star Fighter – Jedi Consular) and the last node of Cantina Battles (Plo Koon’s Jedi Starfighter
Cantina home screen
The Cantina home screen has been rearranged slightly to make room for the entrance to a new room dedicated to Ships. To access the room a player must be level 60 and complete a series of Fleet Commander Events.
Fleet Commander Training Events
Starting at level 25, players can access a series of special (and free) Events that will reward enough crew and Ships to take part in Ships combat. Additional Events will unlock every few levels leading up to Player Level 60, when the Ships room is available. Players at Level 60 or above, will be able to play through each of these Events sequentially.
The rewards listed below will be given incrementally as you progress in the Events. By the time you complete the series, you will have acquired each of these:
Crew / Ships
- Resistance Pilot and Resistance X-wing
- Jedi Consular and Jedi Consular’s Starfighter
- Imperial TIE Pilot and Imperial TIE Fighter
- Clone Sergeant Phase I and ARC-170
- First Order TIE Pilot
Fleet Commanders / Capital Ships
- Admiral Ackbar and Home one
- Grand Moff Tarkin and Executrix
- Mace Windu and Endurance
Ships Activation/Upgrading
Activating and upgrading ships will also be familiar to players. However, ships are tied directly to their crew members (these Ships can’t fly by themselves).
- All of a ship’s crew member(s) must be activated before the ship itself can be activated
- Most only have one crew character, but some will need multiple crew before they can be activated
- The crew member’s power adds to ship power (more on that below)
- Upgrading crew is a very efficient way to increase the power of the ships
- This is true for regular and capital ships
- The player must also have enough of the ship’s blueprints and an amount of building materials to activate it
- To upgrade a ship’s star rating, more blueprints must be gathered
- Very similar to promotion with characters
- Crew members do not gate upgrading a ship’s star rating
There are some clear character analogs to the ship’s activation, enhancement, and upgrade
systems. They work in similar fashion though along different paths. Here’s a handy list to
help put them in context:
- Building Materials are like Credits
- Used for enhancing and upgrading ships
- Blueprints are like Shards
- Collect to activate and increase star ratings for ships
- Upgrade is like Promote
- Uses blueprints and building materials
- Enhancement Droids are like Training Droids
- Used to enhance a ship’s level
- Enhance is like Level Up
- Uses enhancement droids and building materials
Ship Inventory and Ship Details
At level 25, a player will see an introduction to the Ship Inventory. A new button will appear on Cantina Home screen to access it. And once the main ship area is unlocked there will be another avenue to access the inventory there.
In the Ship Inventory players can:
- View their collection of ships
- Both regular and capital ships are in the inventory
- Access full details for each ship
- Monitor blueprints and crew members for inactive ships
- Filter for various categories
Ship details will give players all the info on each ship.
- Battle abilities
- Enhancement level
- Upgrade progress
- Stats
- Active or inactive crew members
- Ship power
Tapping on a ship’s crew member portraits in the details will bring the player to that character’s details page.
Ship Total Power
The key to making a Ship stronger is to improve its crew member(s) and improving the Ship itself.
- Crew Power: The biggest contributor to making a ship stronger is to invest in its crew member(s) including character level, gear level, stars, mod rarity/level, and ability level.
- Ship Upgrading: Increasing a Ship’s Star Rarity is a direct multiplier of the Crew Power and can reach a multiplier of 1.5 at 7 Stars.
- Ship Enhancement: Increasing a Ship’s level
- Ship Abilities: These are not factored directly into Total Power but also increase the effectiveness of the Ship
Character Details (for crew characters)
Once a player has unlocked the Ship Inventory, all crew member characters will have buttons in their details that link to the ship that character is associated with. Players can easily navigate from a ship to its crew member(s) and back again.
Data Cards
To provide a better player experience, the Data Cards portion of the store has been split into two sections:
- Data Cards: These include Bundles, Packs, and Data cards that are focused on Ship and Character acquisition
- Resources: These are focused on the resources needed to level Ships and Characters like Gear, Mods, Ship Building Materials, Enhancement Droids, Credits, and Training Droids
Ships Room
There is a new area in the Cantina that caters to the ships game. It’s similar to the Guilds room and lives on the far right side of the main area. It will not be available at first, a player must pass several milestones before gaining access:
- Reach player level 60
- Complete ALL of the Fleet Commander events
Once you’ve secured your right to walk into the ship area player