Version History

**The team at Parallel Space frequently update Battleship Apollo. As the game is in Early Access, expect significant changes.**

# Full Release

## 01/16/2023

* Battleship Apollo's servers shut down. That's all, folks! -kwazedilla, owner of wiki

## 04/10/2021

* LIGHT COLOSSUS: Heal effect range and duration increased
* DARK COLOSSUS: Rage effect range increased
* ROCKET LAUNCHER: Rocket speeds slightly reduced on all stages (reduced more on the final stage)

## 20/09/2021

* Ion Blast: Time until blast reduced from 4 to 3 seconds
* Firefly Squad: Spawn time increased from 2 to 4 seconds

## 13/09/2021

* Escort: Decreased spawn time for attacker, and increased spawned time for defender
* Research Point income from newly generated Objectives will be greatly increased
* Credit income from Combat and Battleship Blueprint artifacts will increase significantly, especially for players with over 1000 total influence

## 07/09/2021

* Reduced fire rate for the Neutral Battleship turrets in ESCORT (from 3 sec to 5 sec). This makes additional strategies viable for the attacker, including short range swarms.

# Early Access

## 18/08/2021 Final Early Access update

* ROCKET LAUNCHER: Hydrogen cost reduced to 40, rocket impact damage reduced
* DARK COLOSSUS: Hydrogen cost reduced to 60
* LIGHT COLOSSUS: Heal strength increased greatly
* Underdog system for Influence (Additional influence added to the result if matched with a much stronger enemy Battleship)
* Support for 9 additional languages
* Option to lock device orientation to landscape/portrait (mobile only)
* User interface and visuals polish

This is the final Early Access update. All player progress will be reset on August 30, with the game fully launching on September 6. Between August 30 and September 6 the game may be occasionally playable, for players who want to help us iron out early game bugs only. Any player progress after August 30 but before September 6 will also be reset.

## 28/06/2021 Weekly Update - Release notes

* Added support for Draw in DUEL and RELIC CAPTURE (0 influence for both sides)
* ESCORT: Removed 2 turrets from the Escort ship. Escort ship HP increased, also depends on the level of modules players are bringing in.
* MERCURY: Teleport cost decreased to +60% of regular cost
* KRONOS, HADES: Reverted ability to previous passive behavior
* FIREFLIES: Damage per hit increased
* WISPS: Damage per hit slightly increased
* TITAN: HP reduced
* ROCKET LAUNCHER: Will no longer back out of the level
* GHOST FACTORY: HP increased, Lifetime increased (same total spawns)
* While placing a module, the enemy turrets will be shown
* Ranked seasons now unlock at 600 influence, Kronos and Gaia are no longer awarded in early game
* Turrets can be salvaged for minor credit income and to manage inventory size
* Fixed issue where ZEUS and ARES abilities could not be used with single tap
* All fighter modules now show damage per hit and hit speed in their stats page
* Added Leaderboard distinctions to Player info page
* Corporation leaderboards give weekly crystals to all Corporations that placed on the leaderboard
* Added Research Points boost option and Starter Packs
* Interface improvements
* New App Icon

This is the final weekly update for BATTLESHIP APOLLO. We will be returning in August with one or two updates that polish existing content, then the game will launch globally in September. Thank you for your support during Early Access!

## 18/06/2021 Weekly Update 16 - Release Notes

* WISP: HP increased, damage per hit increased. Affects all 3 Wisp modules
* PHOENIX: Damage per hit increased
* LIGHT COLOSSUS: Heal effect increased
* CYCLOPS: Now min and max damage depend on upgrade level. Stats can be seen on info dialog.
* BATTLESHIP ARTEMIS: Move cost increased slightly. HP increased.
* BATTLESHIP APOLLO: Ability must now be activated and has cooldown. Faster spawn rate while the ability is active.
* BATTLESHIP ARES: Move cost decreased, move speed increased, War Rage fire rate lowered to 2.5x
* BATTLESHIP KRONOS: Ability must now be activated and has cooldown.
* BATTLESHIP HADES: Ability must now be activated and has cooldown.
* BATTLESHIP ATHENA: Move cost decreased, shield max strength increased, shield regen delay reduced to 10 seconds
* BATTLESHIP MERCURY: Ability is now optional, can choose to Teleport to destination for 2x regular move hydro cost. HP increased.
* BATTLESHIP ZEUS: HP reduced slightly.
* Level is flipped if needed so that the local player always starts at the bottom of the map
* Matchmaking screen now has gameplay hints
* Fix wrong artifact being given as part of RP rewards
* DPS for newly generated Battery turrets should generally be higher
* Module effect color now shows what player used the module (EMP, Ion Blast, Portal, Decay, Meteors)

## 11/06/2021 Weekly update 16

* Turret initial stats are redone, all turrets in the game have been removed. New version of the store offers turret artifacts and occasional turret daily deals
* New turret type: Splash Battery
* Turret Boosts are now available in the store, and occasionally from Turret artifacts
* New Turret UI allows sorting Turrets by type and viewing Turrets bound to all Battleships
* ARROW: Now spawns 2 arrows side by side. Faster acceleration time. Fixed an issue that could cause Arrows to get unnecessarily close to the turrets of a Battleship they were chasing
* ARROW FACTORY: Now spawns 12 arrows total over a longer period of time
* FIREFLIES: Now spawns 4 fireflies
* FIREFLY SQUAD: Now spawns 16 fireflies
* FIREFLY FACTORY: Now spawns groups of 3 fireflies
* STEALTH FIREFLY: Fire range increased to match regular firefly. Blueprint requirements updated to match rarity.
* ROCKET LAUNCHER: Is now a rare module
* AREA SHIELD: Total damage covered increased
* WISP: Damage per hit increased
* PHOENIX: Damage per hit increased
* LIGHT COLOSSUS: Cost decreased to 50
* DARK COLOSSUS: HP reduced to match Light Colossus. Rage duration greatly increased.
* TITAN: Projectile speed greatly increased. Can now neutralize incoming head on rockets in some cases.
* GHOST: Projectile speed increased.
* GAIA: Added back turret
* ARES WAR RAGE: No longer affects Factories
* Cooldown for all modules increased to 20 seconds
* BASE ASSAULT: Slightly bigger play area. Bases moved towards the top/bottom edges of the map.
* DUEL: Starting positions adjusted so initially participating Battleships are 2 sectors away.
* Fixed an issue where a Battleship could instantly rotate when preparing to travel to a new destination
* Can now see other player turrets from the leaderboards

## 27/05/2021 Weekly update #14

* New modules: LIGHT COLOSSUS and DARK COLOSSUS
* GHOST: HP increased
* STEALTH TANK: DPS increased (slightly lower damage per hit, faster firing rate), turn speed increased
* WISP: Damage per hit increased (affects all 3 wisp modules)
* DESTROYER: Nuke damage reduced slightly
* PHOENIX: Damage increased slightly
* Interface improvements, including ability to view other player's turrets on featured Battleships
* Bug fix: Placing wisps outside the map no longer allowed
* Bug fix: Fix rocket launcher sometimes not firing against its target
* Bug fix: Player and Battleship Leaderboards should now be properly cleared after each season

## 20/05/2021 Weekly update #13 - Release Notes

* New 1vs1 game mode: BASE ASSAULT.
* PORTAL: Now spawns stealth fireflies. Lifetime slightly increased, spawn rate decreased.
* WISP: Damage increased (affects all 3 wisp modules). Better visual indicator for imminent wisp spawns.
* PHOENIX: Damage per hit increased significantly.
* RELIC CAPTURE: Total size of play area reduced. More visible relic count on the Battleship.
* ESCORT: Defender respawn time increased.
* Fixed an issue where Area Shield could stay permanently on the field after a respawn.

## 13/05/2021 WEEKLY UPDATE #12 - Release Notes

* New modules: WISP, WISP SQUAD, STEALTH WISP
* Countdown for all modules increased to 10 seconds. This reduces spam tactics, increases the need to have an overall balanced module loadout and makes thoughtful counters more likely.
* HYDROGEN FACTORY: HP reduced significantly
* ION BLAST: Damage increased. Ion Blast vs Hydrogen Factory now becomes hydrogen neutral interaction (assuming the counter comes early enough).
* COLOSSUS: Cost reduced to 40. Damage per hit reduced slightly.
* ARROW: Cost decreased to 10. Damage per hit reduced.
* ARROW FACTORY: Now spawns 8 arrows total, via increased lifetime. Arrows per second remains the same.
* ROCKET LAUNCHER: Will now properly face its target
* DECAY: Duration greatly increased. Deploy range increased to 2 sectors. Firing rate slowdown reduced on all levels. Can fully counter Rocket Launcher of the same level.
* DESTROYER: Can no longer fire until it rotates to face its target, making it significantly worse vs numerous weak fighters.
* METEORS: Spawn time increased from 1 sec to 2.5 sec. Meteors won't show up visually until the spawn time is complete and they start applying damage to the affected area.
* BOMBER: HP increased significantly
* GAIA: Front turrets re-oriented to allow easier coverage directly in front of the ship
* HADES: Fixed a bug where Hades would resurrect rockets
* DUEL mode: Colossus spawn positions tweaked so each one is closer to each player's start position.
* ESCORT mode: All escort Battleship turrets do more damage and cover a wider area, including directly over the ship.

## 06/05/2021 Weekly Update #11 - Release Notes

* New module: ROCKET LAUNCHER
* All Battleships restricted to 6 module slots for now as we focus on balancing module loadouts. Feedback here will be particularly helpful - what 6 module combination is dominant, if any? What combination do you find very hard to beat using different modules? What combination should work better but doesn't, and why?
* BOMBER: Firing range increased, DPS and area damage range greatly increased
* ARROW: DPS increased (faster fire rate). Fixed sliding that could happen when targeting moving Battleships.
* ARROW FACTORY: Cost reduced to 50. Spawn rate greatly increased (same amount of total arrows over much shorter lifetime)
* EMP: Duration reduced on all levels. Now also suspends spawn timers for enemy fighters.
* HADES: Fighters with ability on death activate their ability when initially destroyed, not after being resurrected by Hades (affects DESTROYER and PHOENIX)
* ATHENA: Fixed shield not fully restored after respawn
* MERCURY: Fixed teleport counter not reset after respawn
* ESCORT mode: More favorable respawn position for defender, less for attacker. Respawn time reduced for defender and increased for attacker.

## 30/04/2021 Weekly update #10

This week we are disabling the previous team-based modes, and introducing new 1vs1 modes. The motivation is to get more players playing with each other, and to remove the repetitive gameplay coming from bots. We have decided not to further develop bots - even if we could make them more interesting, they are fundamentally incompatible with our vision for long term, evolving gameplay. We will be putting all our effort into making the player vs player experience as good as it can be.

Ranked matches is now the only way to play. Ranked matches are unlocked per Battleship, once the Battleship reaches 200 influence. Ranked matches will rotate daily between available modes. This update introduces 3 modes, DUEL, ESCORT and RELIC CAPTURE. We have also tweaked influence so that the loss penalty is less steep until each Battleship gets to 600 influence each ranked season. Zones have been removed and all modules will now unlock faster.

With these changes, balancing Battleships is important, so that any Battleship can be viable in combat against any other. This update brings a lot of tweaks, including HP increases for Artemis; Mercury; Hades, and HP decrease for Kronos. Zeus nuke damage vs Battleships has been further reduced to 40%. Artemis now has 6 module slots. We will keep balancing Battleship abilities and other stats in the following updates.

We are aware that with the current player pool, you will likely get mismatches as only Ship influence is used for matchmaking. Please bear with us as we find the right balance for the final game. The 1vs1 modes allow us to create balanced matches with actual human players much easier than the old team based modes, but we do hope to bring the team based modes back in some form in the future.

## 22/04/2021 Weekly update #9 - Release Notes

* - Weekly Ranked Seasons - every Battleship's Influence will cap at 400 when the season ends. Influence removed is partially added back as Research points. This feature is work in progress.
* - ZEUS: HP reduced, nuke radius increased, nuke damage vs Battleships reduced to 70%, nuke minimum time to impact increased, nuke time to impact per distance unit slightly increased
* - PORTAL: Cost increased to 70, total lifetime increased, total fireflies spawned increased, spawn rate decreased
* - CARRIER: Cost reduced to 50, DPS decreased, firefly spawn rate increased
* - EMP: Cost increased to 30
* - Fixed Teleport issues with Hades and Mercury (revived fighters will no longer be destroyed immediately and inherit Hades' orientation; all projectiles heading to a specific target are now destroyed if the target Teleports)
* - Fixed an issue with damage over-reporting on the final stats page

## 16/04/2021 Weekly update #8 - Release Notes

* Ranked Matches are available when a player reaches 2000 influence, and are the only way of gaining additional Influence. This feature will be getting a lot of iterations, but at the moment is focused on encouraging high level players to face each other and provide more relevant feedback on using specific modules and battleships against real players.
* PHOENIX: Fixed deploy range (must be placed on same sector as Battleship). Hydrogen cost increased to 90.
* DECAY: Range and damage decreased. This module provided very high value for its cost, and with the METEORS change below should be more balanced instead of a straight replacement.
* METEORS: Cost reduced to 20, range increased, damage decreased, cooldown increased.
* STEALTH TANK: DPS greatly reduced, making GHOST a clear counter as originally intended
* Improved in game Players UI

## 09/04/2021 Weekly update 7

This week's update introduces two new modules: STEALTH TANK and PHOENIX.

## 01/04/2021 WEEKLY UPDATE #6 - Release Notes

* ARROW: Slowly accelerates while it travels to its target, allowing it to reach far away destinations faster and slip by slow defenders under certain circumstances
* Updated turret and ship visuals on the Shipyard page
* Updated art for the CYCLOPS module
* Corporation's global leaderboard rank now shows on the Chat page

## 26/03/2021 WEEKLY UPDATE #5 - Release Notes

Today's update introduces 3 new "rare" Battleships: ATHENA, MERCURY and ZEUS. These new Battleships (and all future rare ones) unlock slowly but consistently over time by opening Ship XP artifacts from Zone 3 and above. See below for more details on how we plan to implement this and other "rare" items in the game.

Our philosophy on "rare" items and "loot boxes"

Many games with in-app purchases offer items that have a chance to award you something awesome. These items can either be for purchase (with expensive items offering a much bigger chance to get something good), or as part of regular gameplay (where usually that chance is very low). Sometimes the chance is advertised up front, sometimes it isn't. Some of these games offer an experience that players think is fair, in others players play despite not knowing the odds and even knowing some items are completely out of reach unless they spend significant amount of money.

Our team's goal is to maximize the long term engagement of our players across all our games, not to maximize short term profit for any particular game. We believe hiding specific items behind paid purchases, or even worse, making some items \*seem\* like they could be obtained through regular play but making the chance so low that it's practically zero, would hurt that goal. We know over 90% of our players will never spend anything, and those players are still extremely important to the longevity of our games so they need to have a good experience. We also know that the small percent that will choose to spend money will sustain our game for a long time, so we also want to make purchases valuable for that small percentage of players.

Our philosophy on how to achieve these goals can be summarized simply:

All items in the game are available via free play over time. Some more rare items will take more time to get unlocked via free play - some may take months or even years. However, any player should be able to calculate correctly the exact amount of time it would take to unlock any item they want. Knowing the exact time would help players who never spend money plan their long term strategy appropriately. It would also help people who are considering spending money see the exact value they would get from their purchase, so there's no regrets and hurt feelings.

BATTLESHIP APOLLO recently introduced Rare Battleships, which provides a good example of how we plan to be transparent about total unlock time for Battleships. Every time players open a Ship XP artifact (obtained consistently through regular play), they have a small "chance" (5-12% depending on zone) to unlock a rare Battleship. I'm putting "chance" in quotes because this process isn't random at all. There is a counter that gets incremented according to this "chance" every time a Ship XP artifact is opened. When that counter reaches 100, a random rare Battleship is unlocked. In a future update of the game there will be more features to show exactly how this works, but in short: Everyone will get a rare Battleship every 1-2 weeks, assuming they maximize daily rewards from regular play. Knowing this time interval allows someone to see exactly how much time it would take to unlock every rare Battleship in the game, and if an in-app purchase for obtaining a specific Battleship faster or immediately is good value for them.

## 17/03/2021 WEEKLY UPDATE #4 - Release Notes

Gameplay changes:

* Most fighters will no longer fire unless they are facing their target. Actual allowed firing angle varies by fighter and is roughly matched to the fighter's visuals. This affects BOMBER, CYCLOPS, COLOSSUS, GAIA fighter, ARROW, TITAN, GHOST and CARRIER. This puts more emphasis on tactically placing new fighters to distract strong enemy units.
* Rotate speeds increased for some fighters (slightly increased for CYCLOPS, increased for BOMBER, greatly increased for TITAN)
* CYCLOPS: Firing range increased from 1200 to 1400. Removed the initial delay of 1 second before CYCLOPS laser would activate (that delay is now replaced with the rotation delay until it aligns with its target)
* PORTAL: Price increased to 60, while FIREFLY SQUAD was reduced to 40. This fixes unbalanced costs per firefly fighter among the various modules that create Fireflies.

Other changes:

* New Research queue separates Turret and Ship XP rewards to their own Artifacts, so it's more clear what reward is coming next.
* Various smaller bug fixes and interface improvements.

## 09/03/2021 WEEKLY UPDATE #3 - Release Notes

BATTLESHIP TWEAKS

* ARTEMIS: Extra turret on the back of the ship. Adjusted hit volume so targetable area doesn't include the engine.
* HADES: Move two turrets to the top and adjust angles for better coverage; added new Turret on the back of the ship

MODULE CHANGES

* ARROW: Firing range increased (1700->2100). In addition, ARROW (and any other fast fighters) will better maintain their distance when in firing range of a moving Battleship they are chasing.
* ARROW FACTORY: Hydrogen cost decreased from 70 to 60
* HYDROGEN FACTORY: Lifetime increased from 45 sec to 54 sec (overall Hydrogen produced over lifetime stays the same)
* EMP: Cooldown increased from 3 to 6 sec

OTHER CHANGES

* Game modes are no longer on rotation and can be picked; Only 2vs2 is available at the beginning of the game with more modes becoming available at higher zones. For now, Teammates can join a mode they've not themselves unlocked.
* Available Research Points from combat now slowly increase every hour (instead of fully refilled at the end of the day). See the tooltip to see when the next installment will be available.
* Can now see how many people are online in the Corporation page, allowing you to find and stay with more active Corporations in your time zone.
* Reworked tutorial flow, to better introduce new players to the initial fighters. Completed tutorial missions can be replayed from the Zone Progression dialog.
* Corporation weekly Relic leaderboards (This feature is work in progress, many important parts are missing in this version)
* Fixed bug where 2vs2 match showed as defeat if your Teammate was the last one standing, after your Battleship was destroyed.

## 02/03/2021 WEEKLY UPDATE #2 - Release notes

* TEAMMATE COMMUNICATION We are starting this feature small, with 2 built-in indicators to tell your teammate where you'll be moving to, or to suggest where they should move to. We will see how this system works to decide if this is the right path forward. Note we're very unlikely to implement in game chat because of the possibility of misunderstandings and harassment when strangers are matched on the same team.
* ION BLAST: Radius reduced, Hydro cost increased, deploy time increased, deployable range increased to 2 sectors, damage increased vs fighters, damage vs Battleships and Bases significantly reduced. METEORS: Radius increased WHY: These two area damage modules were too close in cost, making Ion Blast a complete replacement at higher levels. We want every module to have its use on all zones, so we're increasing the price AND the area damage Ion Blast does. At the same time, we are reducing the damage Ion Blast does against Battleships. Targeting Battleships with Ion Blast doesn't take skill and is neither fun nor fair. With its higher damage and increased range, Ion Blast should become a better tactical option against Hydrogen Collectors (a currently poorly balanced module that we think has the potential to become very fun), Titan and many more enemy fighter combos. The Meteors module on the other hand gets a range increase to better differentiate and stress its primary use case: quickly taking out large hordes of very weak fighters.
* COLOSSUS: Hit range increased, impact visuals updated, projectile speed increased. WHY: The primary motivation was it was too confusing visually to have the Colossus move so close to a Battleship before firing. We will monitor what effects this boost has in other balancing equations.
* TITAN: Small HP reduction WHY: Titan is quite powerful and overused. This is the first of potentially many tweaks until we get the module exactly where we want it to be. These tweaks will be spread over many weekly updates so we have the time to get a good feel of how each one affects high level play.
* In zone 2 and over, bots will only spawn using the Apollo battleship. WHY: The AI is not yet optimized to take advantage of the other Battleships' abilities.
* User interface improvements, including fixes with team colors on replays

## 25/02/2021 FREE FOR ALL mode update

Today we're deploying a small update with a change to the FREE FOR ALL mode, to reduce the number of participants from 6 players (+1 bot) to 2 players (+1 bot). The map size has also been reduced, and duration dropped to 3 minutes.

No Steam client update is necessary for this update. The game should auto-update when you relaunch after the maintenance.

WHY:

One important goal of Early Access is to test a variety of game modes with real players. We believe all game modes have potential, and all will be considered for inclusion in the final game (if not in the regular daily game, then as time limited special events). However, if a game mode does not perform well, it will be removed permanently. We plan to eliminate the worst performing Early Access mode every few weeks and replace it with something that has the potential to be better.

FREE FOR ALL is clearly the worst performing game mode in the first days of Early Access, with people actively avoiding it when it comes up. Before replacing it however we want to give it a fair chance to recover. We believe a big part of its problems comes from the number of participants. 7 players is too chaotic for actual tactics to form. This change, along with the guarantee that 1 of the 3 participants will always be a bot, effectively turns the mode into 1vs1 in advanced zones.

Another reason for the change is that in a future update, we plan to make it possible to see the enemy Battleships' equipped modules. This will increase the tactical element, and the on-the-spot mental preparations advanced players will have to make. All other modes have a maximum of 2 enemy ships to remember modules for. If we still had 7 enemy ships to deal with in FREE FOR ALL, it would be unreasonable to ask anyone to remember all the modules they're up against.

## 23/02/2021 WEEKLY UPDATE #1 - Release notes

- For levels with respawn, all enemy fighters and Battleships within the respawn sector at the moment of the respawn are instantly destroyed

WHY: Especially in Sector Capture, players could get stuck getting destroyed by an enemy army that has entered their respawn sector. We are aware that additional respawn protection may be needed even after this change. With respawn sectors now clearly marked, this also adds an additional tactical element to the map: avoid moving through enemy spawn sectors when possible.

- Influence is now awarded even for loss in very early game

WHY: Influence serves a very different need at the beginning of the game, and should be abundant for players to progress and earn confidence.

- Matchmaking change: When using a team mate, the highest zone between you and your teammate is used for matchmaking

WHY: Generally, nobody should come up against higher zone modules. We are choosing to allow teammates from different zones for now, but the lower zone teammate will need to understand that they may come up against higher zone modules because of their teammate. This should fix the bigger problem where someone from a lower zone could match an enemy team that has a player on a higher zone.

- Matchmaking change: On team modes, 3 human players will now be split between 2 games.

WHY: This is a temporary measure until AI ships can get better at playing the team modes. Currently being put in the same team as an AI against two human players was a big disadvantage.

- Matchmaking change: For Zone 1 only, you will never encounter a different Battleship than yours.

WHY: A big distraction during Zone 1 that causes a lot of players to quit is matching an enemy with APOLLO when they haven't unlocked it themselves. We still aim to make Artemis able to go head to head with bigger Battleships, but even when we accomplish that, Zone 1 is not the place for that confrontation.

- BOMBER: blast range slightly increased, fire rate increased, damage per hit lowered (same DPS)

WHY: Bomber needs to be better against swarms of fireflies, including poorly placed stealth fireflies. Still, it should still be possible for the Bomber to get overrun by very big firefly armies. This is a delicate balance that we'll keep working on.

- STEALTH FIREFLY : Reduce HP to match regular firefly. Reduce deploy cost to 20

WHY: Stealth firefly was designed to be a key cheap counter to many expensive modules that look overpowered at first glance. At the previous price it wasn't cheap enough.

- ARTEMIS: Motion shield protection significantly increased

WHY: The initial values were too small for players to notice Artemis' greatest strength

- TITAN: spawn time doubled to 8 seconds

WHY: To give defending players more time to counter this very powerful ship, especially when it is launched close to their Battleship. We are looking into additional ways to either inform an enemy player has TITAN, or prevent it from getting launched too close to other Battleships. We are also in the process of implementing additional weapon charge delay and warning before TITAN fires (this will possibly apply to other fighters too, including Colossus)

- Bug fixes and interfact improvements, including fixing progress for the "win combat with teammate" objective.