Space is filled with a substance. Or is this substance a space itself? It is a dynamic, living substance, or at least it behaves as if it was.
It is known as the Astral. read more...
The Astral is one of the end-game features of Allods Online. Players can explore its depths in their Astral Ships, fight Astral Demons or ships that belong to other players, and land on small islands that are known as allods.
Only a few areas of the Astral are safe enough to allow travel. Ships that sail beyond the boundaries of these hubs are quickly destroyed by the lethal energies of the Astral, as their shields can only protect them from the less dense parts of the hubs.
"Safe" is a relative term. While the central areas of hubs will not damage a ship, they are crawling with Astral Demons that will attack anything that comes within their range.
For the purpose of navigation, such hubs are grouped into sectors. Each sector is named after an element, such as Gold or Silver. The League has settled one of the hubs in the Pure Mercury Sector, while the Empire controls Pure Silicon.
Allods are instances that can be found in random hubs, and can be landed on by players. They are populated by powerful monsters that drop valuable loot.
Astral Layers[]
There are multiple layers of Astral, each more challenging than the previous. Access to deeper layers is granted after reaching a certain level, and completing challenging quests. Players under the required level cannot enter wormholes leading to deeper layers. Each player may only enter 20 allods in these layers every week.
The first layer of Astral can be accessed by players around level 35, though it is designed for level 40-42 players with higher-than-average gear. Allods in this layer are the source of legendary caster leather gear (level 39-40), and Ship Devices of first generation.
The second layer is unlocked at level 45. Players are given 20 Astral Keys every week for second layer and beyond. Such allods are the source of gear that can be upgraded to items of mythical quality, and Ship Devices of second generation.
The third layer is unlocked at level 47. It is essentially a copy of the second layer, with more powerful monsters, and more powerful versions of the same item rewards. Introduced are 'allod debuffs' which apply to the entire group upon entry.
The fourth layer and beyond are for level 51 players looking for gear and a challenge. They incorporate the same concepts as the previous layers and get progressively harder.
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Each layer of the Astral follows some basic concepts
- Using cannons, artillery, shields, and motor functions generate heat
- Using visor and scanner uses up astral emanations
- Killing a demon provides astral emanations and sometimes an item
- Shields are recharged automatically when entering an allod
- Hull is repaired to it's current max (max gets lower if you manually repair or blow up) when you return to Port
Each layer of astral will allow you to use lower generation ship parts, although the emanation and heat usage is doubled per higher level of astral. So a lvl 3 cannon will create x4 heat in layer 5 while a lvl 1 cannon will create x16 more. Furthermore, each layer features harder astral demons that have a variety of effects such as heat creation, demon spawns on the ship, and invisibility. Some of the more powerful demons have been known to obliterate side shields in a single attack.
Starting on the fourth layer, there are sometimes random distortions in the astral hub that affect your ship if you get close enough to them. These can do a variety of things such as damaging your ship each second, deflecting your ship off-course, and reducing heat each second.