Stellar Age Discovery (SAD)

 Testing ends July 22, 2026 tentative Beta release July 28, 2026 subject to final story line changes.

EDIT: July 25, 2026 we were told they will not meet the July 28 date and expect about a 2 week delay.

Second Edit: Roll-out to start in early August.  September launch on Beta.  Second week of October for live server.  All dates taken with grain of salt as it's more than a year behind.

Third edit:  Roll-out moved up to launch on Beta second week of August.  Exact date TBD

Mission Control Hub

Units:

FGX-103 Shadow light melee unit

• HP 10
• Damage 1780
• Armor 1910
• Range 3
• Initiative 70 
• Move 30
• power 3000
• Has bonus against fast unit FGX-101 Skyrider attack and defense +12,500 added an additional 12,500 on rocks

Special skills:

• Stealth hides in plains AND rocks
• Contact always retaliates but still only had range of 3 in testing so it loses a lot of it's usefulness
• Frenzy deals splash damage to all enemy units within one tile of the targeted unit.  

Note: frenzy normally does 50% damage but in testing it did 100% damage in SAD.  Let's wait to see what makes it to beta.

FGX-104 Hammer artillery unit

• HP 10
• Damage 1910
• Armor 1720
• Range 24
• initiative 80
• Move 10
• Power 3000
• Bonus against heavy units FGX-102 Anvil and FGX-100 Champion attack and defense +7,500

Special skills:

• MIRV +2 targets unit and up to 3 additional units in the 2 tile range
• Recharge +1 fires every other turn.  So turn 1, 3, 5 etc.
• Only firing on odd turns makes this unit non-viable

 FGX-105 Assassin range unit

• HP 10
• Damage 1650
• Armor 1910
• Range 10
• initiative 60
• move 16
• power 3000 
• attack and defense bonuses against light unit +10,000 added 10,000 bonus on rocks

Special Skills:

• Power shot ignores most defensive skill and terrain
• Reactive Armor +4 cannot take more than 4 points of damage per attack.  Units with Keen Eye or Critical Hit can deal damage that surpasses the damage cap.  Also some units ignore reactive armor
• Stealth hides on rock terrain.  There is not a lot of rock terrain in testing so that limits the usefulness

FGX-101 Skyrider fast unit

• HP 10
• Damage 1600
• Armor 2100 changed to 2110
• Range 4
• initiative 80
• move 30
• power 3000
• bonus against artillery units +12,500 attack and defense

Special Skills:

• Flying cannot be attacked by artillery units.  Ignores terrain cost.  If you use 8 flying units you can reach enemy units and make 8 hits unless enemy units also use flying units.
• Contact - always retaliates against attacks (range of 4)
• Force field absorbs up to 2 damage points but will allow a minimum of 1 damage point.  Critical hit and keen eye bonus are calculated first so unit can still be one-shot.  The damage reduction is applied after critical hit and keen eye calculations.  

FGX-102 Anvil heavy unit

• HP 10
• Damage 1650
• Armor 2290 
• Range 8
• initiative 45
• move 20
• power 3000
• bonus against range units +7,500 attack and defense edit added an additional 8,000 on plains

Special Skills:

• Reactive Armor +5 cannot take more than 4 points of damage per attack.  Units with Keen Eye or Critical Hit can deal damage that surpasses the damage cap.  Also some units ignore reactive armor

• Force field absorbs up to 2 damage points but will allow a minimum of 1 damage point.  Critical hit and keen eye bonus are calculated first so unit can still be one-shot.  The damage reduction is applied after critical hit and keen eye calculations.  

• Stealth hides on hill terrain.  There is not a lot of rock terrain in testing so that limits the usefulness

Notes:  Artillery units have a bonus against heavy units and despite the defensive bonus they heavy units were routinely slaughtered

FGX-100 Champion -heavy

• HP 10
• damage 2040
• armor 2430
• range 8
• initiative 40
• move 20
• power 3300
• bonus against range units +8,000 attack and defense added 8,000 bonus on plain for attack and defense

Special Skills:

• Reactive Armor +5 cannot take more than 4 points of damage per attack.  Units with Keen Eye or Critical Hit can deal damage that surpasses the damage cap.  Also some units ignore reactive armor
• Blast - gain increased damage output for every tile closer to the target.  Some of the units in SAD have a very short range so this works to the advantage of players using blast units.  On auto-battle the AI will advance these champions as far forward as possible.  That can be a problem for players using rogues.  While the tool tip at this time doesn't state it champions ignore stealth and can hit stealth units at range regardless of what terrain they hide on.
• Morale - all your units start with 1 additional point of armor to your attack and defense boost.  This does not stack.

Inno went out of their way to rock/paper/scissors this new age so there isn't one dominant unit.

So I know.  Blah, blah blah what's the best?

For high attrition fighting I enjoyed 8 champions.  Just plant a champion retreat in city, age up and collect on stellar warship.

Manual fighters will have a better time than auto-battle players.  The short range of some of the units get exploited by blast ability

Stealth didn't seem all that powerful in testing but frenzy did.

Light units weren't useless.

Artillery would be awesome if it didn't take every other turn off.  Because of that artillery isn't the best or even a good choice in SAD

Range units killed easily and had a lot of survivability.  Manual fighters will love it.  (One of us used range+rogue and thought it to be the best combination)

I used 8 fast units more than anything.  You always hit first.  Even if the enemy troops have 4 fast units you still get the first 6 hits.  With crit and keen eye you should be able to take-out half their troops on that first wave.  It has a bonus against range which is what tipped the scale ahead of range units for me.  Fast unit abilities are really useful and the short range works to your advantage as enemy units hitting it triggers contact.  Not trying to spoil anything but getting fast units early is pretty easy.

Heavy unit was ok and better than the heavy units of previous years but it pales in comparison to the champions.

Early testing had units with range of 1 so improvement I guess.

So the simple answer is try it, play it, see what works best for you.  Unlike recent ages there are no bad units.  Even the light unit is ok but I enjoyed fast units best and only switched to champions for unlimited attrition fighting on trial 12.  Another tester used range and rogues.  4 champions + rogue did really well for full attrition on simulation.

Any or all of this can change before it goes live but this is where we're at right now.

Edit: Aug 1st.  First teaser set to launch in a couple of days.  Slow drip-drip of explainer posts to follow about 10 days later.  Then we can talk about it.