Star Traders: Frontiers Update #40: Void Marker Beeps On

[fallen]

With Update #40, our ship has sailed past one of the major buoys hanging in the void -- we've sunsetted the v2.1.x family. We're still working to finish the Faen storylines, but that will be coming soon but most importantly we are relentlessly pressing forward into the next major developments.

Customize from Difficulty

With this update, we've added a quick customize button to all other difficulties. Pick Hard and then click Customize to pop the settings of Hard over into the custom difficulty and tweak from there. Thanks to the community members who immediately suggested this, we rolled it in for the very next update.

We've resolved the issues in the Custom Difficulty feature, adding clarifying hovers to all of the buttons as well as correcting the values for Ship and Combat Boost.

Combat Improvements

We've improved a lot of little things across ship and crew combat in preparation for some bigger waves of changes that are coming. The visual changes are minor but helpful, better highlighting selected Talents, only showing targeting highlights over living enemies and improved the range dots for ship talents to match weapons with stars instead of dots.

The enemy AI in crew combat has also gained more intelligence around Buffs and will use them more intelligently and in more timely fashions.

In ship combat, if the enemy team successful boards you, the resulting debuffs and consequences have improved to be more symmetrical with what you would do to them.

In crew combat, we've also replaced the Escape button with Surrender. The button was causing a lot of confusion, as Escape was an automatic Defeat. Surrender will now immediately end combat. Your surviving combat crew are at the mercy of your enemy and their type and your Rep with them will determine how many are dealt fatal wounds or given mercy. For example, xeno will deal a death blow to every survivor, which will fall back on their Death Save. If you have low Rep with a human enemy, you'll see more death blows but positive Rep, Rank and Edicts can cut the death blows as low as 25%.

v2.2.1 - 2/28/2018

- Added ability to pick a difficulty (Hard) and start Custom Difficulty from that baseline
- Fixed display of Ship and Crew Combat Boost to be clearer -- higher numbers are better (50% max -- super easy)
- Replaced Crew Combat Escape with Surrender button - immediate defeat option
- Improved crew combat intelligence around use of self and team buffs
- Improved visual outline of currently selected weapons and talents in ship and crew combat
- Improved range positioning dots for ship combat talents and weapons
- Improved valid target display in crew combat
- Improved debuff to by symmetrical when enemy successfully boards your ship in combat
- Fixed bugs update mission icon in orbital screen
- Fixed issue with Jarrek Moon civil unrest still rising
- Fixed occasional crash after Hunna Starport story event
- Added new barks for wild zone landings
- Corrected names for xeno captains

[John Robinson]

Really like the new blue stars in range indicators for crew combat talents. Thanks

[fallen]

Mar 1, 2018 15:56:18 GMT -5 John Robinson said:

Really like the new blue stars in range indicators for crew combat talents. Thanks

Many welcomes! Polish polish polish!

[Sinocelt]

Feb 28, 2018 13:21:04 GMT -5 fallen said:

In crew combat, we've also replaced the Escape button with Surrender. The button was causing a lot of confusion, as Escape was an automatic Defeat. Surrender will now immediately end combat. Your surviving combat crew are at the mercy of your enemy and their type and your Rep with them will determine how many are dealt fatal wounds or given mercy. For example, xeno will deal a death blow to every survivor, which will fall back on their Death Save. If you have low Rep with a human enemy, you'll see more death blows but positive Rep, Rank and Edicts can cut the death blows as low as 25%.

So even "friendlies" are 75% likely to kill you if you surrender? Shouldn't human enemies be more likely to ransom you than kill you outright?

I mean, if word spreads that you kill your opponents if they surrender, it makes it less likely that future opponents will surrender to you, which makes it more likely your own men will die in a fight, whether you end winning or not.

[Cory Trese]

It is symmetrical now, and balanced. We're getting great feedback from players about it.

If there are any real concerns that come up, we will address them.

We will keep improving incrementally, but this is a BIG improvement and is getting positive responses.

I am glad the players are liking it so much!

[fallen]

Sinocelt - sorry if that wasn't clear. If your enemy is human, has positive Rep and Rank you have a 25% chance of not getting death blow. Surrender is not "skip combat".

[Sinocelt]

Mar 2, 2018 11:09:44 GMT -5 fallen said:

Sinocelt - sorry if that wasn't clear. If your enemy is human, has positive Rep and Rank you have a 25% chance of not getting death blow. Surrender is not "skip combat".

That's what I meant. In real life, faced with a 75% chance of being put to death, no one would surrender. People surrender because they expect their lives to be spared. Prisoners are exchanged against other prisoners, or ransomed. Even pirates in olden times usually spared the lives of people who surrendered to them, so that the next ship would be more likely to surrender, too, than to fight them to the death.

[fallen]

Thanks for the feedback!

[Sinocelt]

I'd like to be more specific, before I drop the matter. In space, you often have the opportunity to surrender rather than fight; you then get boarded and can get looted, sent off to jail, or, if hated enough, executed on the spot. That's the kind of nuance I'd like to see for crew combat too.

1. If you surrender and the fight was key to a mission, you fail the mission. If you were protecting something or someone, you surrender that item or person.
2. If you surrender during crew combat in a ship combat, you surrender the ship combat too (with the same result as you'd suffer for being incapacitated).
3. If you surrender (during mission, ship combat, or exploration) and your rep isn't horrible, you're given the opportunity to pay a ransom. The amount of the ransom, for each of the four fighters, would depend on (a) his or her status (captain, officer, crewbie), (b) his or her level, (3) your rep with the faction.
4. If your rep is horrible, you can still get jailed or executed, as when you surrender before ship combat.

[fallen]

@sinolcelt -

1. Yes, that is correct - you fail the mission.
2. Surrender in crew combat is not surrender in ship combat. It is defeat in crew combat only. We are working toward a mid-combat surrender for ship combat.
3. Interesting idea! Not something we will be adding for individual crew members, officers, etc.
4. If your rep is horrible, expect to have to rely on your Death Save %.

The sorts of outcomes that you listed are outcomes for the Captain not for individual crew in battle.