Edit: You can change the names of your crew as well as your ship name; I just stumbled across it. The game isn't difficult to get into so much as difficult to survive in. If you run out of fuel or money or clash with a big ship, you're done. Might as well start over. Ship combat is okay. I still stand by all my suggestions that weren't already implemented, but some of them are already in-game and I missed them. I bought the game. My impressions: -It isn't nearly as hard to "get into" as people think. Everything is just a click here or there, controls-wise. If you're new to games in general, it would probably be overwhelming but I think it's basic intuition for a veteran gamer of RPGs. Then again, I haven't even reached the surface of the game. I've only barely started. However, I do have suggestions. I love the game so far. It combines every feature a player could think of; even the music changes up a bit so it doesn't become a constant drone. That's dedication right there. The story is complex right off the bat. That's fine, but I would love an automatic note-taking feature or something because while I enjoy complex stories, I get confused quickly if I don't take notes. There's already a half-feature for this, stating the background of your contacts or whatever, but it only lists basic information. Right now I'm panicking a little whenever a series of choices pop up in conversation and I don't know what's going on so I'm afraid I'm going to piss off the wrong people. I know there's a wiki for the game. I just prefer in-game information. The game is so good already, this would bring it to near-perfection. Also, I thought the captain character design would be more detailed than just choosing faces. I thought there was hairstyles, eye color, skin color, etc.? I saw them in a video. I thought there would be more customization. Maybe I missed it? -Is there a way to... Save captain designs? I like looking like myself but I don't want to have to scroll through everything for every game I start. Please, please make this a thing if it isn't already. Name secondary characters? That is, name the crew and name random contacts. Contacts are randomly generated, right? It would be nice to be able to add random names into the mix, Death-Road-To-Canada style. If not, at least the ability to name your own crew. If the feature isn't already there, that is (I wouldn't be surprised if it were). Save custom difficulty? Same reason as above -- I don't want to have to adjust it every time. At the same time, difficulty is supposed to vary with every playthrough as you become experienced so this feature is probably unneeded. There should be pets in this game. When I actually read about "crew dog" in the wiki I was vastly disappointed. Pets, alien or not, should be a feature. And help you possibly with combat. And boost morale. The whole dice-roll encounter thing is really boring. Please say it gets more exciting later on. I thought it was a real mini card game? Maybe it could be, somehow? In the future (by that I mean the next game, if you ever make another similar to this one): It would be nice to have FTL-styled combat. Targeting specific rooms (like oxygen... hehehe...) is way more fun than just ships exchanging blows. Even if it's text-based... saying "the oxygen room was hit" on the side like how notifications pop up about small things that happened during travel. That would make combat more immersive while not being too hard to implement (it'll just be a whole lot of text...). Combat seems to be fun though. I haven't actually done any combat, I've only watched in videos.
Templars are not likely to ever join a Star Trader's crew -- they stick to their own and require extensive support machinery to keep their mechs running. Which is all provided by Templar Engineers and Mechanics who have Lineage memory running back generations of maintaining the ancient war machines. They will be featured in future storylines and eras and may eventually appear on the field of battle. They will never join a crew as a crew member.
Thanks, glad you're enjoying the game and hope you'll leave a review! It is pretty unlikely that we can provide a font size increase for phones like the XS. The game has a minimum screen size it needs to keep in order to get everything on the screen reliably and everything is built around that concept. Phones like the XS are already at that absolute minimum.
You can rename, add hats, eyepatches, change skin color, choose from many outfits for all crew. I'd suggest starting on a lower difficulty and working on getting the profit loop down. The first skill of a successful Star Trader is to be able to make enough money to afford fuel, repair and paying the crew. Everything else hinges upon this. You've got to "Keep flying" as they say. Check the Ship Status > Captains Log for in-game notes. You can name anyone on your crew. Lol about crew dog disappointment That's just a standard job. Hope it helps!
Ahhh okay no worries. Thanks for the reply, its great how you interact with your customers. Thanks again for a great game My ideal game ever would be a cross between this and Templar Battleforce. So you can fly from planet to planet and then land and it becomes a 'Templar Battleforce' style game I used to love Elite and the fact you could do anything you wanted, always remembered there was a game out on the Amiga which was a bit like a basic Elite but once you landed on a space station it was a bit like an old skool Ultima IV top down view. Amazing !
Totally impressed so far. Everything is easy to get into - a lot of info is there at your fingertips (superior to many other games i have played). The ui starts a bit confusing but you quickly get it. -works fine on iphone 6+ The story combined with trading, factions, missions, customization etc is impressive. The crew talents and jobs is nice and all the text events. Cool with the morale and crew payment. Only thing i missed was the ability to preview a planet, before i go there (the long press preview is kinda scarce with info). Eg what can be bought there, is there wilderness etc.
We're working on buffing that long press tooltip. However, you can use the Atlas to see a lot more data. Requires more tapping tho. Glad you're enjoying the game and hope you'll leave a review
This is what it looks like to crush updates ... Update #137 is a bit of a monster. We must have gone too many days without doing an update -- features, new art, component upgrades, and all sorts of great changes just kept piling up. The result is #137, Behemoth Looms! If you're enjoying the pace of updates and all the new goodies, please tell a friend and leave a review! AI Improvements With Update #137, the enemy AI has taken another big step forward with its ability to specialize the ship during build-out and then in the ability for the AI to specifically take actions that use that specialization during battle. The enemy AI is better at managing its attempts to move into its chosen optimal battle range, better at focusing on firing its optimal weapons to the best effect and in the case where it has the Talent, successful in using Twitch Surge intelligently. The ship builder AI also has been buffed to match this, allowing for military and non-combat ships to better specialize their component builds based on their type and design pattern. Ship Adjustments Adjustments to the design of the Zartar Fang improve the fit for the assigned role by increasing Pilot and Navigation soak pools. By using a Mass Dampener and Modulator instead, the design is still able to manage mass and increase pools. The Palace Interceptor has been reworked to better avoid damage and increase performance in combat. The engine has been swapped out for a Traveler instead of a Longhaul for higher combat speed. In addition the range 2 weapon has been upgraded from a single lance to a lance array that should improve the damage output for the Palace Interceptor at range 2. Both the Vulture Liner and Callus Freighter received small balance improvements to increase their ship pools and eliminated unnecessary mass dampening components. These improvements both assist players using these ships but also improve their legality and challenge level as enemies. Component Improvements A number of components gained benefits with this release. Starting with the EVA Decks, we've added Shield and Fuel Storage. The Signal Array has increased its Electronics Pool while the Hull Cladding had gained Shielding and had its mass reduced. The Hull Plating on the other hand has gained Armor but kept its original mass. The Orbital Scoop has lost some of its Fuel storage while the Surface Scanner has gained Electronics Pool and the Resource Harvester added Cargo and Fuel storage to better match some of the other awesome hybrid components that have come out since Salvage was added. A huge thanks to the community members helping with these balance changes! Contact Introductions Thanks to slide87 for suggesting that Contact Introductions should display the full list of services offered by that contact. Now, with the clear distance, price, contact type and services offered -- you've got everything you need to make the best informed decisions about which Contacts are worth paying a hefty fee to meet. Especially with the ability to see in advance recruit types -- this is a huge win from a community suggested feature. AOE Attacks Cancel Stealth This is not a new rule -- AOE attack Talents have always ended Stealth Mode. However, we've now added this rule directly to the game in the right hand details bar when looking your Talents. Rebalancing Cards and Adding Art We've made some changes to the meta scores of cards in both the Black Market and Orbital Ops with this update. In the Black Market, we've shifted around different cards in the negative set, making Captain Damage a -1 while better aligning the Confiscate Cargo cards so that they are -3, -4 and -5. In Orbital Ops, we've bumped Distress Signal to -1 so that you can use Talents against it, as it can have some nasty results along with its possible positive results. With Update #137, we've added new card art for both Pirate and FDF ground combats. We've got more coming too! v2.4.89 - 2/25/2019 - When viewing offered Contact Introductions, these now include a list of Contact's offered services - Further improved enemy ship builder AI -- military ships are more focused on their builds and components that serve their weapon types and ranges - Improved enemy ship combat AI -- improved ability to range change to use ship's components and strategy to best ability and best use of Twitch Surge - Improved enemy ship combat AI to better focus on firing optimal ranged weapons and achieving optimal range for battle - Rebalanced meta score for Black Market cards -- cargo confiscation and captain damage - Converted Orbital Ops "Distress Signal" cards to -1 Risk Cards so they can be hit with Talents - Buying or selling cargo in exchange or black market now takes 1 Turn ("hours") if quanity is over 5 - Fixed Mechanic's "Entropic Estimate" to properly predict the timeline of the current Orbital Salvage Rumor - Crew Combat AOE attack talents now list in their rules that they End Stealth Mode - Removed rare chance that Smuggler recruit could start with Rigidly Lawful Trait - Swapped starting Contact recruit types -- Spice Traders now recruit Merchants, Smugglers recruit Smugglers - Reordered Atlas Zone listing to better match map and hovers - Increased Hyperwarp Jump Test difficulty slightly, small increase in penalties when jumps are failed - Improved "EVA Decks" Ship Component (Added Shielding, Fuel Storage) - Improved "Signal Array" Ship Components (Added Electronics Pool) - Improve "Hull Cladding" Ship Components (Added Deflection, Reduced Mass) - Improve "Hull Plating" Ship Components (Added Armor) - Improve "Orbital Scoop" Ship Components (Added Fuel Storage, Reduced Mass) - Improved "Surface Scanner" Ship Components (Added Electronics Pool) - Improved "Resource Harvest" Ship Components (Added Cargo, Fuel Storage) - Fixed issues with Templar and Hunna ships in Orbital Ops - Fixed issues with leaderboard scores not updating - Ship Design Improvements by Resistor: * Improved 'Zartar Fang' ship * Reworked 'Palace Interceptor' ship * Updated 'Vulture Liner' and 'Callus Freighter' ships - Added new card art for pirate and FDF encounters in exploring and black market
For anyone looking to disable tap-to-navigate, we have added the option "Map Mode: Limited" in the last update
Still loving the game, would love to see more people post about builds and experiences. Any news on upcoming updates? I was obviously spoiled by the large amount of updates already!
Captains, after an all-too-long drought, word is finally filtering down through the spice halls that Update #138 has arrived! The extended delay has resulted in an over-sized update, which we will get into detail below. We've improved the ship combat UI, added new animations, sped up play by adding new keybindings and tuning the orbital ops play loop, made balance changes to Rep from ship encounters with Smugglers and Explorers, tweaked 3 RP torps and the Dart Jammer ship, and made a host of small improvements and bug fixes to boot. We also want to share an important change to the dev roadmap. The 14+ day delay between updates here was in preparation for a big move -- the upcoming release of fighters and carriers. For a number of reasons, we've decided to swap the 6th Era and the launch of Fighters from Carriers. So, while this update does not yet contain the major milestone, it is a huge prep step, especially in the changes to the ship combat UI. When are carriers coming? Soon Once we get past the newly updated v2.4.x, we'll hit v2.5.x and there will be an extended period of adding Eras and vignette story arcs to the game. But for now, on to the update! Ship Combat Improvements With Update #138, missiles finally go boom as they deserve! The new animation helps them stand out from the other types of weapons and helps give that split second warning so your officer can shout "missiles incoming!" Also with Update #138, the ship combat UI is starting to get the needed stream of improvements that will prepare it for carriers and fighters release. In this update, we've made some changes to the main control scheme, added animation and improved player cues. The biggest change is the shifting of the move and range change orders out of the center lists. These have now been promoted to a constantly available set of buttons on the left side of the combat HUD, giving the option to escape, retreat, advance or board. Their tooltips have been improved to be more dynamic and list RP cost as well as target range. You can now get to these with fewer clicks as well as using the newly added keyboard shortcuts (default to Q for retreat / escape and A for advance / board). And of course, setup your own customization for the fastest play. Finally, to match the weapon counter in the HUD tabs, we've added a checkmark to the Talents tab. If you've selected a Talent to run for the turn, the checkmark appears, so that if you return to your weapons tab you can still see that you've picked a Talent for the turn and are ready to go. Ship Builder AI Update In the last update, the enemy ship builder AI got a little carried away with itself. In the early game, it was gaining accessing to some components that were out of band. We've made another round of improvements to the AI, both softening up its access to more powerful components earlier but also helping it to be more focused in its ship upgrade strategy in the later game. Early game captains will probably see a bit of a reprieve from last update, while late game captains may find their enemies have upped their design game once again. This update also ties the intelligence of the ship builder to game difficulty more closely which is a trend we'll keep pushing as we continue to make improvements. Orbital Play Loop In the endless quest to smooth out pace of play and reduce clicks, we've made an important change to how the orbital ops card games play. If you end up in a ship combat due to a card draw, after the encounter and or combat is resolved you now return directly to the orbital ops screen you were on, instead of the system orbit screen. It is a small change, but for those captains who rely on these operations in their career, it is a big one. Combined with the fast speed option, orbital ops now fly! Medium Torps and Dart Jammer After a great discussion on the Steam boards, we've improved medium slot Torpedos. These heavier torps are still best at softening up and crippling the enemy, but for their 3 RP cost they have gained additional points of Accuracy and more Void Damage. The Dart Jammer comes out of the starport with one additional Officer Cabin and one less Mass Dampener, making it more ready to fly immediately. As it seems to be a steady point of confusion, we have removed the languag "Boost Ship Skills" from components that increase ship Skill Pools. We've also fixed the install time on Defense Pattern Matrix 4. Talents Oh Talents With almost 500 Talents in the game, its a constant drum beat of fixes, rebalances and improvements. With this update, we've improved the rules for Diplomat's "Legal Pressure" Talent which now grants 20% + Intimidate extra when ransoming an enemy ship. The Talent description also warns of the chance to have a small Rep loss for using it. To avoid too much use of the word "Scavenger" except for the job, we've renamed Mechanic's "Expert Scavenger" Talent to "Orchestrated Salvage". Bounty Hunter's "Red Badge" no longer incorrectly reports affect on xeno rep. We've fixed a host of issues with Xeno Hunter Talents. "Puncture Points" no longer removes enemy debuffs. "Macabre Harvest" is now correctly counted toward boarding victory Talents. In addition, the Combat Medic "Toxin Terror" no longer remove the buffs from the character using it (what a weird little bug). v2.4.91 - 3/14/2019 - Added new ship combat animation for firing missiles - Improved Ship Combat UI: promoted Move Orders to their own space outside of the Talents/Weapons list to reduce clicks to complete orders - Added new keybinding for Escape/Retreat or Advance/Board in ship combat (Q / A) - Improved Ship Combat UI: weapons now display their damage inline where you can select them to fire - Improved Ship Combat UI: checkmark added to the Talent's tab when a Talent has been selected for the Turn - Added "Map Mode: Limited" option which prevents clicking from starting navigation - Further adjusted enemy ship builder AI -- better balanced access to powerful components in early game, more focused component upgrades in late game - Improved Accuracy and Void Damage for Medium Slot, 3 RP Torpedoes - Improved ship encounter rules for Smugglers (will always take bribes but may cause Rep loss if not bribed) and Explorers (never force a fight) - Improved repetition of all orbital ops after combat -- immediate return to card game - Any trade, any quantity, always takes 1 Turn - New Hyperwarp Trait Mutations - Negative Trait Chance on Fail - Improved Dart Jammer ship configuration, replaced Mass Dampener I with Officer Cabin - Improved "Major Setback" card in Orbital Salvage to be more clear affected faction - Swapped starting Contact recruit types -- Spice Traders now recruit Merchants, Smugglers recruit Smugglers - Improved rules for Diplomat "Legal Pressure" Talent which now grants 20%+Intimidate extra when ransoming with a chance to lose 0-2 extra Rep - Renamed Mechanic's "Expert Scavenger" Talent to "Orchestrated Salvage" - Fixed bug causing Combat Medics "Toxin Terror" to remove user's buffs - Fixed bugs with Xeno Hunter Talent "Macabre Harvest" not correctly being counted toward boarding Talents - Fixed bugs with Xeno Hunter Talent "Puncture Points" incorrectly removing enemy buffs - Fixed bugs with Bounty Hunter Talent "Red Badge" incorrectly interacting with xeno missions - Fixed overlapping hovers and UI elements in the HUD, hover for Docking on orbital zone - Removed "Boost Ship Skills" description from Ship Components to reduce confusion - Fixed install time for Defense Pattern Matrix 4 - Fixed bug in quad map causing indicator that crew need to level to stay present incorrectly
Ok, we knocked out another big update -- Update #139: Radiation Burns! == Welcome to Update #139 where Radiation Storms go to play. This update includes a big buff for Radiation Storm Rumors, fixes a critical bug with the enemy ship builder (auto-defeat) and adjusts a number of Talents, Traits and ship components for bug fixes, clarification and balance issues.. First up, we've fixed the bug where some enemy ships lose the battle automatically or lose automatically upon the first attempt board. In both cases, this was caused by a mistake in the enemy ship builder AI that would at times -- probably against the advice of all of the officers -- toss out the Void Engine and/or the crew Barracks in an attempt to get more weapons, defense etc. This is now fixed! Empowered Radiation Storms Watch out because the new Radiation Storms can really burn! The storms now match with Radiation World systems in a way that is really nasty -- together the two increase the risk of all orbital operations, orbital salvage and any exploring on that system. Also, sailing the void without Water-Fuel to provide a containment field for your engine is even more dangerous and levies event more substantial penalties. If you're crossing Radiation Storms, but we sure to pick up Talents like Storm Navigator to protect your crew and ship. Officers Loyalty We've fixed a mistake in the Trait Mutation tables that allowed Officers to gain the Loyal Trait. Since Officers never desert this Trait was not very useful and it is no longer an option. Talent Updates Update #140 applies some needed balance to "At Starport" Talent set, bringing all of them up to the standard cool down of 13 weeks. This includes "Generous in Service", "Listening Port", "Port Maintenance", "Makeshift Repairs" and "Secrets Unbound". We've also put some rules clarifications into the description of "Makeshift Repairs" so that it better matches "Port Maintenance" in detailing exactly how many components are fixed. And "Generous in Service" has received a long needed clarification to how its rules work, pointing out its maximum Rep gain per event as well as the point where returns start to really drop off. You can only become so well loved by faction leadership for running a free hospital ship. Around 40 Rep, things slow down quickly. To avoid odd situations, we've prevent two more Boarding Victory Talents from being used against xeno. "Cold-Blooded Threats" and "Call for Surrender" both nuke Morale and the xeno now ignore either and therefore they are simply removed from the list of options. v2.4.95 - 3/18/2019 - Fixed bug where some enemy ships automatically lose or have no crew - Radiation Storms are much more dangerous on Radiation Planets - Radiation Storms increase risk of Exploration, major increase in risk on Radiation Planets - Radiation Storms increase risk of Salvage operation doing damage to ship and crew - Increased penalties for running out of fuel during a Radiation Storm - Officers, who by rule never Desert the ship, can no longer gain the Loyal Trait - Boarding Victory Talents "Cold-Blooded Threats" and "Call for Surrender" can no longer be used against xeno - Extended Cool down of all "At Starport" Talents - "Generous in Service", "Listening Port", "Port Maintenance", "Makeshift Repairs" and "Secrets Unbound" now have 13 week cooldowns - Clarified rules for how damage is repaired for "Makeshift Repairs" - Clarified Rep rules for "Generous in Service" - max Rep gain is 10 per event and diminishing returns at 40 Rep - Fixes bug with Dart Jammer and Dart Liner ship components
This is a hype post only -- there is no immediate update here. It has been a long month at Trese Brothers HQ as we have hammered out and worked to perfect all of the systems related to small craft. Above you can see some of the draft animation work of a bomber swooping over a capital ship. In the next Frontiers update, we will be hitting a major milestone and adding the last KickStarter stretch goal -- the ability for carrier ships to launch multiple small craft of different specialties to join in the ship-on-ship battle. As the Nightbot on our Discord would say: "I have been hyped about things 605 times. NO ETAS." We wanted to post this news as its been a long 10 days again without updates -- we can assure you it is only because we're working on some very big stuff. A few key things whet the appetite: The small craft design is completely additive. It introduces new ways to play, new utility Talents, new combat strategies, new jobs and exciting ship builds to explore. However, it not reset the bar for the best builds nor invalidate any of the awesome builds out there. It fits hand and glove with the existing game as a new way to play. However, even if you don't employ small craft yourself, you may face carriers in ship combat. All captains will need to adjust their strategies to have some defenses against enemy carriers, just as they need to consider the risk of enemy boarders or any other power strat. Weapons, Talents and special components will all be available to help defend against small craft swarms. Carriers and craft are new mid and late-game content due to their cost of craft and specialist pilots. Building and maintaining a fleet of bombers, inderdictors and shuttles will require a bank roll to support the additional investment, helpful Contacts, extra repair cost and possibility of a total craft loss. The small craft milestone will not require new saved games. It will not invalidate saved games. We never invalidate saved games, full stop. Following the release of the small craft milestone, we'll be diving straight into the v2.5.x family of the roadmap. We have a backlog of story arcs and vignettes that are waiting in the wings for release, two new Eras to finish and drop as well as a terrifying new xeno race to unleash! Keep one ear open the spice hall, captains. Rumors are starting to whirl around worse than at the Faen court. Something's gotta give!
The INTERDICTION major milestone issues in a completely new type of ship, new style of play and and an all new frontier for ship combat meta. By installing launch bays and hangars into your ship, you can now achieve a carrier build. From there, recruit Wing specialists to staff the flight deck and pilot your craft and send the bombers, interdictors and shuttles screaming into battle or use them for utility in orbital operations, missions and in ship combat victory. This major new expansion adds 4 new Jobs, 60 new Talents, 15 unique craft across the spectrum of bombers, interdictors and boarding shuttles, 3 new ships, a pile of new ship components, new Contacts, new Contact Traits, character Trait expansions to make for ace pilots, changes to the ship meta and so much more. Carriers and craft are not for the lowly -- they are definite mid and late game content. They require a serious bank roll to get started, with a launch bay installing to the tune of a half million and the purchaseable carriers all starting around one million. Tombstone for 2.4.x The INTERDICTION milestone completes the 4 major goals we had for the 2.4.x development group. The tombstone will read that they were awesome features -- RELIC, TERROX, the Xeno Hunter and finally INTERDICTION. With the feature-heavy 2.4.x family behind us, we're turning our attention to story-heavy 2.5.x family next. Stay tuned for more eras, more story arcs, recurring characters and major shifts in the story that will ripple across the galaxy. To see more detail about what is coming next, check out our development roadmap which details the next major features and content expansions as well as our on-going content expansion initiatives. Launch All Zigs! The major carrier and craft expansion only adds to the game -- it introduces new ways to play, new utility Talents, new combat strategies, new jobs and exciting ship builds to explore. However, it does not reset the bar for the best builds nor invalidate any of the awesome builds out there. It fits hand and glove with the existing game as a new way to play. Carriers and craft are new mid to late-game content due to their cost of craft and requirement for skilled specialist pilots. Building and maintaining a fleet of bombers, inderdictors and shuttles will require a bank roll to support the additional investment, helpful Contacts, extra repair cost and possibility of a total craft loss. You can either purchase one of the three new carrier ships -- the Fallen, the Basalt or the Harbinger -- or convert your ship to a carrier. A carrier is defined by having at least one launch bay (large slot) and one hangar for a craft. You can install additional hanger (medium slot) components to increase the number of craft you can field at any given time. There are no starting carrier ships as the cost of operating a wing fleet is beyond a starting captain. Craft come in 3 varieties -- bombers, interdictors and shuttles. Each requires a specialist Wing job as a pilot. You can assign pilots when purchasing new craft or from your ship status screen. Once assigned, a wing specialist is always ready to launch their craft. A Wing Commando flies shuttles and brings extremely powerful boarding victory Talents and debuffs to bear. A Wing Leader flies interdictors and can employ both powerful defensive flight plans as well as offensive flight plans to drop big buffs. Wing Bombers fly bombers to deal devastating damage and drop massive debuffs on the enemey. Most of the Wing Commando, Wing Leader or Wing Bomber Talents require that the pilot is assigned to a craft in order to be used. The most important type of new Talent for the wing specialists are the Flight Plan Talents, which define the series of actions a craft will take during ship combat. An Interdictor might use a defensive Flight Plan which will position their craft near the carrier and intercept and shoot down incoming torpedoes or missiles. A bomber's flight plan will embark on a multi-turn bombing run to drop ordnance on the enemy capital ship, a risky maneuver as you get so close to their autocannon fire. Interdictors can also engage in multi-turn attack runs. Shuttles on the other hand use flight plans that result in a boarding run, even if your carrier ship is hanging at range 5. Your craft and their pilots are at risk once they launch into the void. Relying on their Evasion Chance % to dodge incoming fire, they can take hull and health damage independently and die out there. Whenever a capital ship fires a weapon, it has a Craft Hit Chance %, indicating whether it will also tag one launched craft. Therefore, by firing weapons, you're automatically targeting enemy craft. In the case of autocannons, once a craft has closed with your ship and is close-in, you can fire autocannons specifically at the enemy craft. These new challenges may demand that some captains reconsider how their ships are built out to be able to defend against enemy craft, considering adding an autocannon or adjusting some of their weapon choices to ensure they have some high accuracy weapons against craft. As always, the INTERDICTION major milestone does NOT require new saved games. It will not invalidate saved games. We never invalidate saved games, full stop. Recruit a wing specialist, upgrade your ship, start a wing fleet. Wing Specialist Jobs can be found in spice halls with high ratings. Wing Commandos appear when Military is above 8. Wing Bombers and Wing Leaders require 6 Military and 8 Starport. Wing Techs appear with Starport above 5 on High Tech or Orbital zones. In addition, new and old Contacts offer Wing recruits -- Alta Mesa Flight Provost, the new Naval Recruiter, Squadron Mechanic, Wing Vet, Ex-Spec Ops and Flight Academy Officers all join the fun as well. Also, the new Contact Trait "Naval Vet" Trait pays better for missions, grants +1 recruit level, recruits Wing Leaders. Character Traits will also help you find and select the best ace pilots. Traits like Spatial, Mindful, Focused, Traveler, Scrounger, Mechsync and Device Freak all help set your crew apart as potentially top wing pilots. We are very excited to have released INTERDICTION. We will now resume standard pace of relentless updates, so please know this is only the beginning. There will be a lot more coming on top of the mighty foundation laid out here today. Except updates and exepect them fast. Enemy Carriers in Waiting We have decided not to roll out enemy carriers at this time. With the extensive changes to the standard combat ship meta and the potential need for captains to adjust their own ship and crew builds to be prepared to face enemy bombers, interdictors and shuttles we've put the enemy AI on the shelf for this release. This will not last long. We'll be gathering data and talking to players for up to a week and then expect to roll out the enemy carrier builds in the mid to late game. Oh and the xeno carriers... yes those too Ship Combat Meta Changes The INTERDICTION major milestone also comes with a host of important ship combat meta changes. These changes are the result of months of talking to players, gathering data and testing. Together, they help increase your captains ability to hone in on different strategies and add more choice and variation to the viable builds within the frontier. First -- ship combat now has a working officer consult button that explains the basic rules of Turns, Talent use, range change and escape, weapons firing and craft launching. We'll grow from here. Strong and Standard dice pools have beenc changed for almost every operation. We've rebalanced Defense Dice Pools to give more options -- now, whichever of Pilot or Electronics is higher is used as Strong dice and whichever is lower is used as Standard Dice. The powerhouse combo of Tactics and Command has also been broken up. For Escape Pools, your standard dice are now Electronics and Command while for Range Change, your standard dice pools are Electronics and Tactics. To help ease these changes, we've ensured that the hovers over all of these Skills in ship status include these specific rule detail in the new blue text sections. We've also made some big changes to how Crippling Effects work. Now all weapon types can cause up to 3 Crippling Effects. Two are considered base and one is considered prime. If the two base effects are not present, they will be added first in a random order. If they are present, then the prime Crippling Effect is always added. These new Crippling Effect pyraminds create groups of weapons that work well together, crossing over and helping each other achieve prime effects. To this end, we've added 4 new Crippling Effect types, 3 of which are ship effects (Ruptured Bulkheads, Secondary Explosions, Void Contortions) and one new crew effect (System Blackout). This change also mixes up your need to use more crew and ship purge Talents, making it less easy to rely on a single type. Also, to help with this change, we've ensured the tooltips over any ship weapon include all of the details about their 2 base and 1 prime Crippling Effects. All Other Changes The INTERDICTION major milestone is not short on other changes as well. We've dedicated an entire section of the change log to "other stuff". We've added an exciting new Trait "Scrupulous" which increases Mission payments. We've tuned the Trait mutator to do better when running lots of missions and to avoid some more nonesensical combinations. A new card has been added to the Blockade orbital ops -- angry Zealots defending their home system. New Contact Trait "Warhawk" is a faction loyalist who recruits Zealots. New Contact Trait "Tinkerer" adds +1 recruit level and recrutis mechanics. And, we've fixed a ton of bugs and pushed more information into tooltips across the game. v2.5.1 - 4/15/20195 The list here is so long, we've broken it down into different categories: INTERDICTION Craft Changes - Ship can now install Launch Bays to launch Craft during ship combat and orbital operations - Install additional Hangar components to station more Craft on your carrier ship - Added 3 new ship types that come pre-built as carriers -- the Fallen Carrier, Basalt Carrier and Harbinger Carrier - Added 3 types of craft -- bombers (attack only), interdictors (attack and defense) and shuttles (boarding) - Added 3 new wing pilot Jobs -- Wing Bombers fly bombers, Wing Leaders fly interdictors, Wing Commandos fly shuttles - Added new Job Wing Tech -- the flight-deck mechanic and support for a carrier's wing fleet - Added 60 new Talents across 4 new jobs and existing Jobs like E-Tech, Pirate, Commander, Gunner, Navigator to help buff or hinder craft - Adjusted Contact recruit types -- Gestalt Explorer recruits Exo-Scouts, Spicetender recruits Smugglers, Contact Trait Saboteur recruits Wing Commandos - Added new Contact Trait "Naval Vet" Trait pays better for missions, grants +1 recruit level, recruits Wing Leaders - Added 5 new Contact types Naval Recruiter, Squadron Mechanic, Wing Vet, Ex-Spec Ops and Flight Academy Officers who offer valuable services as well as recruiting Wing specialist jobs Ship Combat Meta Changes - Added new Officer Consults to Ship Combat, covering the basics of Turn options, defeat conditions, range change rules, weapon firing, Talents and launching craft - Rebalanced Defense Dice Pools in ship combat, whichever of Pilot or Electronics is used as Strong dice and whichever is lower is used as Standard Dice - Rebalanced Range Change and Escape Pools in combat, standard dice pools are now Electronics + Command for Escape and Electronics + Tactics for range change - Added rules for ship combat dice pools to all Skill Pool hovers in status - Added 4 new Crippling Effect Types: 3 new ship effects (Ruptured Bulkheads, Secondary Explosions, Void Contortions) and 1 new crew effect (System Blackout) - All weapon classes now have 3 Crippling Effect types -- 2 base and one prime Effects. Prime is deployed only if both base Effects are already present - Tooltips over ship weapon components now display their 3 Crippling Effects, their exact stats and which are base and which is prime - Rebalanced all Crippling Effects, some reduction in power in base effects and especially long range weapon types Crippling Effects - Rebalanced and lowered the Rep penalties for claiming Prize Ships through Talents, Wing Commando includes new Prize Ship Talent at rank 15 - Reduced Crippling Chance on all Missiles by 5%, traded for slightly increased accuracy - Improved enemy ship AI intelligence about using Escape Talents early to flee -- be sure not to let your merchant targets escape easily! All Other Changes - Redced time required to complete starport repairs -- even more dependent on higher starport ratings - Added new "Scrupulous" Trait which increases all mission payments by 5%, maximum 3 at a time - Improved Trait mutation paths for completing and failing missions - Added new "Zealot" card to blockade -- watch out for faction defenders, they are highly hostile - Improved Crew Combat Log, fixed typos, added more details about enemy weaponry, cleaned up bad math - Improved tooltip over Conflicts to list the types of ships that can be captured by Prize Ship Talents in Solar War, Info War or Trade War - Improved sort of Offered Missions, now always sorted in the order that they were offered - Ending a Quarantine through Patrol orbital actions now grants a Rep bonus - Added rules description for Trade Blockade, Plague Blockade, Pirates and Xeno Spores System Rumors -- these Rumors prevent Pilot saving Talents from working during landing - Added new Contact Trait "Warhawk" which prizes faction rep and recruits Zealots, renamed Contact Trait "Zealot" to "Faction Hardliner" - Added new Contact Trait "Tinkerer" Trait increases cost of all services by 10%, grants +1 recruit level, recruits Mechanics - Added new Captain's Log entry when saving a crew or officer from a ship going down with a distress signal in Orbital Ops - Combined HUD entries for empty crew bunks and empty officer cabins into a single entry - Crew Report post combat now includes level and job of injured and demoralized crew - Fixed bug with "Flawless Reset" Talent preventing it from purging debuffs - Fixed bug that allowed Auto Refuel to function even with Starport - Fixed bug with Combat Medic "Flatline" Talent which removed characters' Buffs - Fixed bug with Xeno Hunter's "Triumphant Predator" that was prevent it from being used on destroy xeno ships - Fixed bug with name generation not working right for Coalition Emissary and Coalition Commander Contacts from missions - Fixed bug with Contact Traits that could cause services to require more than 100 Influence
