Star Traders: Frontiers Update #126 Relentless

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We're ringing in the new year by getting back to our relentless pace of updates! Welcome to the 3rd update in 5 days! If you like the constant stream of improvements, please tell a friend and post a review.

With update #126, we've added 8 more unique Captain-only Traits covering the last 4 Jobs and closing out this arc of development. We are very happy with the overall changes which have helped to differentiate the careers in exciting ways without going so far as to remove any of the playstyle options for your captains. A Merchant may be the best trader, but trading is still valuable part of most other captain type's careers. We'll keep balancing and tweaking these as we go.

We've also rounded out the Sniper's Talent set with a new rank 15 Talent and rebalanced a few of their Talents to fit better with the new addition.

On with it!

New Captain Traits

The 8 new Traits cover Commander, Diplomat Explorer and Scavenger Professions.

The new Commander Trait Indomitable grants a ship combat buff, adding +10% Accuracy, +5% Defense and +10% Protection against Crew and Morale Damage/Turn. With a Commander on the bridge, the crew is less likely to come apart under stress. Their second Trait, Motivating, adds bonus +2 Charisma, +2 Wisdom, +1 Initiate and helps them resist Debuffs in crew combat 20% of the time. Notably, +2 Wisdom is equivalent to +1 Initiative.

The Diplomat is the master negotiator and works most efficiently in missions and with a wide network on Contacts. Their Trait Honorable increases Personal and Faction Rep gain for completing mission steps by +1 to +2 and reduces negative Rep for mission steps by 1 always. This can stack with Talents as well! Their second Trait, Smooth adds +3 Charisma, +2 Wisdom and reduces the price of Contact Introductions by 15%.

Explorers sail the void from end to end, seeking lost artifacts and treasures. Their Overkeen Trait doubles the chance of xeno artifact cards being drawn and grants a +10% success rate to Mission cards. Overkeen's doubling for xeno artifacts works best when there was already a good chance of artifacts to be had, so it is still important to find the best worlds to explore. Second, their Voyager Trait adds +2 Wisdom, +1 Resilience and reduces the time and fuel consumption for traveling by 10%. No one can long haul like an explorer!

Finally, Scavengers are the master of hunting out the orbital salvage and finding value in anyone's trash. Junker allows the Scavenger to effect repairs to 2 ship components up to their Repair Skill whenever salvaging an enemy ship or drawing a Orbital Salvage card that gives credits. Second, Roughneck grants +2 Fortitude and +2 Wisdom and a 10% chance to learn about a Salvage Rumor when spicing. While the Roughneck ability can help pick up on random Salvage Rumors, you'll still need dedicated Contacts to keep up with all the options.

Captain Trait Updates

For Zealot's Single-Minded Trait, we dropped a +1 Fortitude in trade for a +2 Initiative, beefing their ability in crew combat to hit hard and hit fast. To help Assassins dodge bullets and blades, we've added a +10% Dodge and +10% Parry bonus to their Stalker buff, which only fires when a combat starts with a Captain or Officer in the enemy ranks.

Sniper's Trick of the Eye

Sniper has gained a new rank 15 Talent, Trick of the Eye which fires at the start of a crew combat turn. This powerful On Init Talent includes a Stealth buff and helps the Sniper return over and over again into a hidden position from which he or she can use her most powerful Talents.

We've also rebalanced One-Shot to have 55% Crit Chance instead of 45% and removed the "Requires Stealth" clause from the On Init debuff, Target Acquired, allowing the Sniper to be more offensive early with their On Init Talent.

Ship Combat Purges

With Update #126, we've brought all ship combat purge Talents -- be they ship, crew or both -- under a single cool down banner of 6 weeks. For some, this is shorter and others it is longer. Keep this in mind when allocating your ship combat Talents an consider stacking an extra option or two to make sure you don't run out if you end up in multiple fights.

We've also buffed Mechanic's System Flush rank 5 Talent to not only purge ship crippling effects but also include a small buff as well.

Final Tweaks

Terrox Xeno have had their engines modified to be a bit faster again. With the TERROX milestone, they lost a lot of Speed points and we've restored some but not all of those points. They will be a bit harder to flee and more dangerous at long range again.

The Gossip Trait now relies on Charisma to find Rumors instead of a flag 20%.

There it is folks

v2.4.57 - 1/3/2018

- Added 8 new unique Captain-only Traits by Profession for all new starting Commander, Diplomat, Explorer and Scavenger Captains
- Commander gains Indomitable (+10% Accuracy, +5% Defense, +10% Protection against Crew and Morale Dmg/Turn in Ship Combat) and Motivating (+2 Charisma, +2 Wisdom, +1 Initiative, +20% Debuff Resist)
- Diplomat gains Honorable (bonus Personal and faction Rep for all missions, mitigate negative Rep) and Smooth (+3 Charisma, +2 Wisdom, reduces Contact Introduction prices)
- Explorer gains Overkeen (double chance of finding xeno artifacts, +10% success rate on Explore Missions) and Voyager (+2 Wisdom, +1 Resilience and reduces traveling fuel consumption by 10%)
- Scavenger gains Junker (repairs 2 ship components whenever salvaging enemy ship or Salvage cards granting credit) and Roughneck (+2 Fortitude, +2 Wisdom, gain 10% chance to learn a Salvage Rumor when Spicing)
- Zealot's "Single-Minded" Trait gains +2 Initiative and loses +1 Fortitude
- Assassin's "Stalker" Trait Buff that fires when facing enemy officer/captain gains +10% Dodge and +10% Parry
- Added new Rank 15 Sniper Talent "Trick of the Eye" -- this On Init crew combat Talent Engages Stealth mode
- Sniper's "One-Shot" Talent increases Crit % to 55%
- Sniper's aggressive On Init Talent "Target Acquired" no longer requires Stealth Mode to activate
- Mechanic's rank 5 "System Flush" Talent purges ship crippling effects but also gives a buff resisting Component and Crew Damage over Time
- Rebalanced cool down on all Talents that purge ship or crew effects in ship combat to 6 weeks (shorter for "Regimented Order" and "Failsafe Protocols")
- Changed "Gossip" Trait to use a Charisma % instead of a flat 20% chance to learn Rumors
- Adjusted Speed and Agility of Terrox Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser and Spine engines
- Improved wording of warnings about Trade War and Trade Bans in Exchange