Rival Network FAQ
With the recent release of the rival network, for existing testers it's important to know a few things.
I played a run in this new patch, I saw that I lost a huge amount of player threat even though I completed the run, why?
This is a one-time adjustment for testers who have played the game prior to this patch. A new player threat calculation has been put into place, which means your background player threat which was calculated during your initial play time has been adjusted to the new calculation.
This is totally normal and expected. Subsequent runs will use the new calculation going forward.
My ships have lost equipment
Due to the change of shared modules, this is expected if you had a single module equipped to multiple ships. After this patch, that module will be equipped to the last ship it was applied to, when other ships would have those modules unequipped.
You will need to equip unique modules to these ships going forward.
If I reset my save, will the rival network be reset?
Yes and No. Save resetting is local only. Your published echoes will be kept in the rival network until you have set new network records.
But your player threat records may be adjusted accordingly.
The rival network doesn't update
It does, but it's set to update every 24 hours since your last update. This may be adjusted in the future.
Your rank adjustments will be adjusted immediately. But you won't see other player rank adjustments or intel updates until the rival network is updated.
This is due to Steam's rate limiting. For now, we will see if there are any rate limits being applied. If not, we can look at updating the rival network more often.
I only see vendettas in the intel board, and no rivals or echo's
For the first run after this patch, it's totally normal, you just got in early!
Play the game as you normally would, after your first run has been completed (either through sector completion, player death or abandonment), your data will be published to the new boards.
The more players that do this, the more populated the intel screen will become. It may take 24 hours before you see any changes to the intel board.
The best thing to do will be to encourage other testers to play.
Network echo's are really hard
Yes, they are meant to be. They have very aggressive AI setup, so it will take a combination of builds and skill to defeat them.
If you set a rival or choose a signal echo, then it's recommended to find one around your threat level for the best chance.
What's the padlock on the player threat rank?
That is your Build Floor.
That is the minimum player threat that you can be.
You have 2 categories that affect player rank: Build Floor and Activities
Build Floor is a pre-activity calculation that takes into account your fleet, each ship in the fleets' level, and modules equipped on each of those ships.
The more ships you have, the more modules you have equipped, your Build Floor increases. You cannot go below this rank unless you start unequipping modules on your ships.
Activities is the dynamic part of the player rank. When you engage in content around your rank, you will gain player threat from killing enemies, completing missions, adding sector stability, defeating bosses etc. Basically just playing the game as you would. You can also lose threat by taking damage, failing missions, abandoning runs or dying during a sector run. Each sector has a recommended player threat requirement, if you engage in content significantly below your current player threat, then you will barely gain, or in worst case scenarios, not gain any player threat, but you can lose threat. If you die in a low-ranked sector while being high ranked, then you will lose significant amounts of activity threat.
But the same works the other way around, engaging in difficult content, and succeeding will net you significantly more threat.
But you cannot go below your Build Floor.
Do I need to extract before getting my network signal rewards?
Yes. All rewards gained (except XP) during runs require successful extraction.
This process has been made slightly easier with the beacon update. Saving your beacon to late in the game to distract patrols while extracting is going to help you succeed.