Last Days to Save 33% + Update #164: The Gunhawk

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Update #164 will help us wrap up the Steam Summer Sale in style! The Grand Prix theme was all about speed, and we've dropped 5 updates with tons of new content, new features and community driven improvements fast-fast-fast! And this latest update is no expection -- Update #164 features a new Rychart-only ship, 2 new ship weapons focused on disabling enemy ships, a new Javat-only cargo hold, major new improvements to how enemy AI staff their ship, rebalance for Pilot Assist Modules versus craft attacks and well, there's more too. Read the full release notes for everything!

If you've enjoyed the relentless pace of updates and the game, please leave a review and tell a friend!

Gunhawk Sabre

Rychart's own fast, sleek and deadly Gunhawk Sabre is hitting the void with a very unique build. This M2400 class ship features 10 small components, 7 medium slots and only 1 large slot but boasts high start Armor, Shield, a full set of 6 officers and the smallest crew out there, clocking in at 18. Build for close ranged combat, hit and run boarding or spying expeditions that are just in Rychart's wheel house, the Gunhawk Sabre requires a special kind of focus and a special kind of captain to command. Whether your rapidly training a small inner core of crew and officers for a large ship upgrade or planning to stay forever, the Gunhawk Sabre is a joy to fly.

Interceder Plasma Cannons

Sometimes you need someone to negotiate for peace on your behalf. You're in luck, because the new Interceder class Plasma Cannons are ready to "talk it out" with your enemy. Packing a huge Radiation Damage punch and extra Crippling Chance, these high level large class Plasma Cannons are built to decimate and cook the enemy crew and ship's internals while leaving the hull (mostly) in one piece. Perfect for pirates and salvages alike, mount these new beauties on your ship and start negotiating your way out of trouble.

Hauler Hold

Javat is finally getting into the transport game with the release of their new Hauler Hold. Boasting 65 Cargo capacity and a solid chunk of Fuel storage, the hold is perfect for any commodity merchant all the way up to someone who can afford to pack it with Rare Trade Goods and sail the stars.

Staffing Enemy Ships

Enemy ship captains are gaining a new level of versatility as they are now able to staff their crew with more interesting Job picks. Military and boarding-focused captains may choose to foregoe extra Pilots or Gunners in trade for more Swordsman, Pistoleers and Rifleman. And now, Pirate captains may swap out some of their Pilots for Pirates. These changes will have a wide set of effects -- they can make boarding against military vessels harder as you may face multiple sets of trained fighting crew. Also, they may reduce the ship pools on some ships as a Pilot or E-Tech is replaced with an extra Pistoleer or a Swordsman. This also increases the chance that Captains may find more interesting Jobs to conscript among the enemy crew. And Pirates among the enemy crew will bring new varied set of Talents to bear in ship combat.

As with all major shifts, this will be done in multiple stages, starting here and looking to expand to other enemy captain types and other exciting crew Jobs. The changes are difficulty dependent, so you're less likely to see these new swaps on lower difficulty.

Pilot Modules

With some improvements to Pilot Assist Modules, we're moving toward some important rebalancing to help defend against craft. Craft come with a percentage based attack system (60% to Hit, etc) that does not take normal ship defenses into account. If the craft is able to close and swoop down in over your hull, you're way bigger than a womprat or a barn and their bombs are going to hit you. Now, with new bonuses coming off Pilot Assist Modules, your capital ship has gained the ability to avoid their attack runs altogether with a Dodge %. This new type of bonus will be propagating to other ship components as well, as its a critical part of allowing the AI to fairly use craft, especially for smaller ships.

And More!

We've fixed a ton of other nice things for you as well! Salvage Bay components now work against xeno. All story fights against xeno are properly counted in your stats screen. We've fixed some issues with smaller maps and story missions hanging -- if you were having this crash, just try again after the update. We've resolved a bug with "Dread Legacy" Trait from xeno hunters in certain quadrants. The Quad-Goltha Scanner component needed some tweaks to be fair versus the rewards of the storyline so got a bit of a down balance. And, we fixed more odd edge-case bugs with the Arbiter storyline and story arcs timing out.

If you're enjoying the updates, we hope you'll leave a review!

v2.5.63 - 7/6/2019

- Added new ship design: Gunhawk Sabre is a unique Rychart-only M2400 class ship built for close range combat and boarding
- Added two new large slot Plasma Cannon ship weapons -- the "Interceder PCX" class deals massive Radiation Damage in trade for low Standard Damage
- Added new Javat-only "Hauler Hold" large slot cargo hold is high capacity for bulk shipments, adding 65 cargo and 40 fuel
- Military or boarding minded enemy captains will now hire additional fighting crew (difficulty dependent)
- Pirate enemy captains will now hire additional pirates to staff their boats (difficulty dependent)
- Improved Pilot Assist Modules 1-4 to include % chance to avoid attacks from small craft
- Rebalanced the Quad-Goltha Scanner against the Red series Goltha tech to improve the "Goltha Theory" storyline pay off
- Salvage Bay ship components now improve the results when salvaging xeno ships
- Fixed crash occuring on some 12 quadrant small maps with story missions ("Conspiracy in Motion", etc)
- Fixed bug with "Dread Legacy" Xeno Hunter Captain Trait that caused it not to display in certain quadrants when defeating xeno
- Fixed issue where some Mission and Story battles against xeno were not properly recorded in logs
- Fixed bug making the chance to avoid a fight in Civil Unrest Rumor very low
- Fixed bug allowing Zenrin Archivist Contact to appear on non-Zenrin systems
- Fixed other ways that the Arbiter Coalition storyline could end early
- Fixed some bugs with early Arbiter-Faen storyline and timing out