Star Traders: Frontiers Update #133 Big Game Hunter

[fallen]

The Void's most dangerous predator has arrived with Update #133. Striking another big line from our development roadmap, we are excited to announce the newest Job and starting Profession: the Xeno Hunter!

Something burns deep inside the Xeno Hunter, compelling them to chase the true terrors of the Void. Specializing in baiting, tracking and killing the alien in deadly crew combat, the Xeno Hunter uses distance and heavy weapons to gain the advantage.

We've also made some minor but important balance changes to crew combat, so check the final section for those details.

v2.4.x Winding Down

With the new Job knocked off the list, the final item in the v2.4.x family of the dev roadmap is the next Era -- then on to Fighters/Carriers!

High Difficulty Career

The Xeno Hunter Job and starting Profession is unlikely any other. Something drives these madmen and madwomen to hunt the xeno, the terrors of the void. Their Talents replace other measly risk cards with Xeno Encounter cards in Patrol and Explorer! Xeno Hunter are a special breed and they ask much of their crew and ship, but for those captains looking for a new quest, a new challenge, a new way to sail the frontiers, these predators might be just right for you.

A Rare Breed

You can get a Xeno Hunter on your ship in a number of ways. First, there is a new unlocked profession so your Captain can start as a Xeno Hunter with 2 new awesome Captain-only Traits. Second, you can easily train your existing Captain or Officers into the new Jobs. And third, the Retired Xeno Hunter Contact and any Contact with the Xeno Obsessed Trait now offers recruiting of these big game hunters of the void.

In the same vein as other Jobs like Commander, Xeno Hunter is designed to be best for officers. A crew Xeno Hunter is going to be at a disadvantage as Xeno Hunter Job will do best cross-classed for different synergies, depending on which direction you want to take the abilities.

Xeno-Only Talents

Many of the Xeno Hunter's Talents are only applicable when they can be used against Xeno, but they pack a mighty punch for the limitation. For example, the Talent "Triumphant Predator" provides the strongest post-ship-combat Morale recovery available to any Job, but can only be used if you've just fought a xeno ship. "Exalted Hunter" grants an enormous bonus to the payment for xeno hunter missions and can be stacked with normal Mission bonus Talents! And the Xeno Hunter brings the only full-team On Init Buff to battle, but "Irid-Laced Resolve" can only fire if you are facing xeno.

That said, they are powerful backline combatants that rely on heavy armor over evasion and nasty plasma damage to be effective in any combat situation -- xeno or not.

Killing Power Rebalance

As we continue to work on improving crew combat balance, we've made another round of adjustments to armor, weaponry and some Talents. Most Armors have gained a small 4% to 6% increase in their ability to soak ballistic damage. We have also reduced the Piercing % for many LMG and HMG weapons in the game to help bring them into line against snubbers and sniper rifles who excel at this type of piercing blasts and single shots.

On the Talent note, we've taken 5% off the top of Full Auto's bonus to Damage and Critical %.

There you have it -- v2.4.79 delivers on another big roadmap item! If you enjoy the updates and the progress, please leave a review and tell a friend!

v2.4.79 - 2/6/2019

- Added new Job: the dreaded Xeno Hunter! Some inner demon drives these madmen and madwomen to seek out the xeno
- 16 new Talents to hunt the xeno in space and on land and to join crew combat from the back ranks
- New high difficulty starting profession, Captains can elect to be Xeno Hunter by profession
- 2 New Captain-only Traits for Xeno-Hunter: Inner Flame and Dread Legacy
- Now featuring 28 Jobs and 13 starting Professions
- Retired Xeno-Hunters Contacts now recruit Xeno Hunter crew and officers
- Contacts with the Xeno Obsessed Trait also recruit Xeno Hunter crew and officers, more likely to give Explore or Xeno missions
- Greatly improved prompts in Ship Combat Victory over Xeno to help captains achieve best rewards (Loot > Destroy > Salvage)
- Fixed issue where sometimes Mission Accept Talents would not fire
- Increased Ballistic Soak of armor by roughly 4-6%
- Reduced Piercing values for LMGs and HMGs, reduced Damage and Crit bonus for Full Auto Talent by 5%
- Fixed bug that caused -Init Debuffs to knock enemies out of Init Penalty
- Fixed bug allowing "Influence Conflict" card to be drawn in Orbital Salvage even without a Conflict
- Fixed typos in dialog and tooltips (thanks for reporting!)

[Zer0Winds]

Yes, yes, yes!

So glad to see the fighters are inching even closer, which I've been very hyped for.

I might have to try hunting Xeno for once while I wait.