Star Traders: Frontiers Update #146: Famous Hunters

[fallen]

Update #146 starts to walk the path of the v2.5.x family of the development roadmap -- it will be story heavy, bringing all sorts of new tales, vignettes and Eras to the frontier. With Update #146, we've added new character faces, a new type of vignette focusing on an enemy Contact and their bounty hunters, improved the standard behavior of enemy Contacts who send bounty hunters, rebalanced Talents and Contact rules, made some quality of life changes to all card game operations and fixed some bugs to boot.

If you're enjoying the updates, please leave a review and tell a friend!

New Faces On Board

With Update #146, we've added two new female faces to your crew roster. You can see them above in our animation environment, getting ready to be loaded into the game.

Bounty Hunter Vignettes

The new Aurelius Hunter vignette launches with #146 and lays out a model for future Bounty Hunter stories to overlay on top of the existing Contact and Hunter simulation.

First, we've improved the visibility of the spice hall news entries when a Contact does send a Bounty Hunter after you. These are now visible galaxy-wide, regardless of the quadrant you and the Contact are in.

Second, it is possible that a Contact who hates you will hire out your Death Warrant to a famed Bounty Hunter! Beware of the heir to the Aurelius bloodline of Hunters, she may come knocking holding a death warrant with your name on it.

While only Aureilus Hunter has been added at this time, this new type of story vignette opens up a bright (and dangerous) future for Contacts to be able to send other famed hunters after you to gain their revenge.

Balance

With Update #146, we've modified both the Bio-Poison and Smoke Bomb grenades to allow use from slot 2, making them better in line with other grenades a more versatile for their high Initiative cost.

We've improved the missions to faction Prime worlds when they are assigned by another High Prince. We've also improved the logging about Contacts who are angered by your hostile missions, in addition to those directly affected.

Quality of Frontier Life

We've made a few nice changes in Update #146. First up, a strict sorting is now applied to the Talent list in all card game ops, including Explorer, Salvage, etc. This means that Talent list will never suddenly re-order when you finish using one of the stacks.

Second, Hyperwarp Jumps now include a short blurb about the readiness of your Navigation and Hyperwarp Jump efficiency Talents. You can see -- right before making the jump -- if you're covered.

We've fixed a few issues with the new Talent Summary screen, fixed a bug that prevented Captain from training as a Wing Tech, and fixed a loophole that allowed you to escape hostile story military captains using the Stiff Salute Talent -- that was never intended!

Thanks to everyone for leaving a review.

v2.5.19 - 5/2/2019

- Added 2 new character faces
- Added new Bounty Hunter story vignette - heir to the Aurelius bloodline comes hunting with a Death Warrant
- New unique Bounty Hunter storylines can start when Contacts with negative Rep send bounty hunters (instead of standard BH)
- Improved visibility of Contacts sending standard BHs after your Captain, now always visible in any Spice Hall News, regardless of quadrant
- Rebalanced Combat Medic "Bio-Poison Grenade" and Assassin "Smoke Bomb" to be used at slot 1 or 2
- Improved Mission type of diplomatic envoy to faction Prime world when given from a High Prince or Princess
- Improved display of Contacts angered by your actions during missions
- Improved faction of recruits for any United Coalition Contacts -- recruits are now of the local faction
- Prevented any re-ordering of Talents between runs of card games (Explorer, Black Market, Orbital Ops)
- Hyperwarp Jump now includes notice of readiness of Navigation Skill Save Talent as well as HW efficiency Talents
- Fixed issue where "Stiff Salute" could be used to dodge story Bounty Hunters
- Fixed issue where "Flash Charge" Talent was counted as "Skip Off the Void" in Talent Summary
- Fixed issue that prevented Captain from training in the Wing Tech Job

[Brutus Aurelius]

Beware the Blue Wasp!

[drspendlove]

This is amazing!

[tarquelne]

Enemy contacts/Bounty Hunters: I was thinking that a nemesis in the game would be cool - the game universe pushing back a the player. Excellent.

All good stuff!

[fallen]

Both Google Play and Apple iOS are now live with 2.5.19!

[grävling]

YAY!

[pendell]

Very nice!

I'm currently in the post-crimson pox era. Will I need a new character to see the new vignette, or is there a chance I will encounter it in my current game?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[fallen]

May 3, 2019 14:21:14 GMT -5 pendell said:

Very nice!

I'm currently in the post-crimson pox era. Will I need a new character to see the new vignette, or is there a chance I will encounter it in my current game?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

If there was a story that didn't proc into existing games, we'd be really up front about.

We will work on improving our release notes to explicitly state the opposite -- this story will proc into existing games.

[grävling]

But will she think that taking out Valencia Faen would be a nice profitable thing to do?

[fallen]

grävling - different story vignette.