Star Traders: Frontiers Update #179: Risk and Reward
Sept 11, 2019 22:43:45 GMT -5
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Post by fallen on Sept 11, 2019 22:43:45 GMT -5
Update #179 brings another wave of improvements to enemy ship selection, a rebalance of all the risk and reward factors for Exploring and Patrol, as well as adding all the missing operation Talent sections to the Talent Manifest (Explorer, Black Market, Salvage). We've also pushed more powerful and varied effects into Rumors, Military Rank and high Rep with factions. As we start the march to the next major Story Era and Job milestone, we're hammering away on quality of life, systems balance and community suggestions. So a huge thanks to everyone posting feedback, suggestions and bugs!
Ships Galore
We used Update #178 as a release and testing ground for the new rewrite of the enemy AI ship selection. This let us test out the new system, gather data and we had to hotfix a critical bug. Now that everything is confirmed working, with Update #179 we've revved the engine and actually applied gasoline. Boom! The enemy ship AI has a better sense of progression and has more than 100 more options across the board through the tiers of levels and with different captain types. We're eager to hear feedback from the player base, but we've taken this very important project slowly in multiple stages to ensure that this part goes smoothly and leads to a more balanced, fun and challenging experience for all captains at all difficulties.
Risk and Reward Factors
With Update #179, we've completed a rewrite of the Risk and Reward factors of Patrol and Exploring. The factors remain unchanged -- Explorer, Tactics, Danger, etc -- are all still what derive the % for Common, Good and Rare rewards, for example, but the math to combine all those factors has been adjusted to better take into account the large swing of scale of these values as well as the modifiers of Rumors and Conflicts.
This also addresses some issues that were reported about the values oddly shifting as certain Skill Pools got very high as well as some oddities with high Danger planets not being dangerous enough. They're dangerous, we fixed that!
One of the dangerous improvements to Explorer is that system-wide Ion Storm and Meteor Storms now increase Exploration risk of ship and crew damage.
Talent Manifest Expansion
We've now added the 3 missing sections to the Talent Manifest to cover all the wide variety of Talents for Explorer, Salvage and Black Market. Each major Talent type has its own section, making it easy to check on your crew's prowess within any given specialty operation and the cool down status of these Talent groups.
Rumors, Rep and Rank
We've added more effects to high Reputation, high Military Rank and recruiting Rumors.
First up -- very high Rep Captains can gain additional bonus levels recruiting anyone from a zone with Starport 8 or higher. These bonuses can be especially significant when combined with other Rumors and factors -- starting at 500 (+1 non-combat), 800 (+1 all), 1100 (+2 combat, +1 all others), 1400 (+2 all) and 2100 (+3 all).
Next up -- Permit Rank 4 and Military Rank 13 and higher both have gained additional bonuses to their recruit types. For example, Permit 4 now gives +2 level bonus to Smugglers.
Spice Festival, Academy Graduation and Mercenary Rumors also all got their level bonuses boosted, giving even better options for spice hall and contact recruits.
With all the changes, the new theoretical maximum for a recruit is now level 16, but it would take a lot of work and the right Rumor conditions!
v2.6.13 - 9/11/2019
- v3 of rebalanced enemy AI ship selection -- now with more than 100 ship AI
- Improved Risk and Reward factors weights for Explorer including all zone stats, Rumors and other influences
- Improved Risk and Reward factors weights for Orbital Patrol including all zone stats, Rumors and other influences
- Very High Rep Captains (Star Hero and above) increase bonus Recruit Levels from affiliated Starports of Rating 8 and above
- Increased Recruiting Level Impact of Rank 13, Mercenaries, Graduation and Spice Festival Rumors
- Revised some negative Trait mutation tables to better match each event's theme (void, wilderness, spice, piracy)
- Ion Storm and Meteor Storms now increase Exploration risk of ship and crew damage
- Fixed bug where a Military Officer might be sailing a Xeno Spine ship (oops!)
- Fixed bug that allowed xeno ships to surrender due to Morale loss in certain situations
- Fixed occasional crash in UCF Founding cut scene
