Star Traders: Update #151: Qualified Graduates

[fallen]

With Update #151, we're excited to add the newest Rumor to the galaxy -- the Academy Graduation -- as well as dropping all new and terrifying tier 3 Terrox xeno ship builds. Beyond that, we've further empowered the Quartermaster Job, improve the Spice Festival Rumor, enhanced Tactics Skill impact on Civil Unrest, allowed multiple desertion Talents to fire at once and rebalanced, fixed and improved a whole pile of other things based on the community feedback. It's a momentary break from new stories as we march toward releases of some larger story arcs.

If you're enjoy the pace of new content, new features and improvements all for free, please consider telling a friend or leaving an update.

Rumor: Academy Graduation

On grav worlds, academy graduations are constant but every now and again an especially large and especially well-trained waves passes through the academies. These culminate in an Academy Graduation Rumor which leaves a zone flush with skilled recruits. The most notable bonus is that some of these grads would be willing to take up life as a spacer and so you can find Doctors, Quartermasters, Military Officers, Wing Leaders, Wing Techs and Engineers from the spice hall, all willing to sign on with a captain.

As the graduations are also a great cause for celebration, the spice hall gains +2 Spice rating during such a series of events and all recruits -- from the hall or contacts -- gain +1 bonus levels.

Especially early on as you are seeking to fill out a crew with specialist recruits, this Rumor can be a great boon to fill empty bunks without needing to invest in a wide network of Contacts.

In addition to adding the Academy Grad Rumor, we've also improved the Spice Festival Rumor so that the Spice rating of the zone jumps to 7 at a minimum during such a celebration. In final Rumor news, we've increased the impact that high Tactics Skill can have on avoiding fights during Civil Unrest.

Congats to all the grads out there this weekend!

Next Tier Terrox

With Update #151, we've opened another "next level" for Terrox xeno ships, releasing a wave of new and high level components to their more powerful ships. While these components won't be factored in below level 20, they allow xeno ship builder at higher levels to better focus and produce even more challenging ship combats. The changes also allow Terrox to change their build strategy to take advantage of the Electronics meta depending on their ship and engine setup. We've also tuned the AI and the ship builder for more deadly results at all levels.

Venerable Quartermaster

Interest in Quatermasters is at an all time high lol. Buy stock now! With this update, we've improved their availability to recruit from Contacts by allowing Prison Wardens to recruit them. We've also added Spy recruits to the Court Seer Contact type.

In addition, Quartermasters have now joined the rare ranks of Jobs that have 3 saving Talents -- gaining "Baleful Grimace" to be able to put down Intimidation save failures.

Improved Desertion Protection

For a long time, the Zealot and Quartermaster Jobs have had Talents to prevent desertion. But only one of these Talents could fire at a time, leaving your precious crew always at risk if more than one decided to jump ship. With this update, we've allowed more than one Talent to fire -- up to 5 if you have them all ready -- to prevent desertion. Notably, this would rapidly raise the salary rates across your crew, but there are more options now to pin down crew members and bribe them to stay.

We also tweaked some ship components, added some lines of missing dialog to the Valencia Faen story arc, tweaked the Xeno Ruins and Pinned Smuggler story cards to only appear after the 5 year mark, and fixed many other player-reported or player-suggested things. Check the full release notes below!

v2.5.29 - 5/18/2019

- Added next tier components for Terrox xeno, making late game xeno ships more challenging
- Improved xeno AI for ship building and combat
- Added new zone Rumor "Academy Graduation" - especially large and well-trained class graduating across multiple academies
- During "Academy Graduation" Rumor, +1 level to recruits, +2 Spice Rating
- During "Academy Graduation" Rumor can recruit Doctors, Quartermasters, Military Officers, Wing Leaders, Wing Techs and Engineers from the hall
- Added new rank 1 Talent for Quartermaster "Baleful Grimace" prevents Intimidation failures
- Quartermasters join the rare ranks with Hyperwarp Navigators of Jobs with 3 saving Talents
- Added new recruits to Contacts -- Prison Warden Contact now recruits Quartermasters, Court Seers now recruit Spies
- Improved Spice Festival Rumor to increase Spice rating to 7, spice never runs out
- Improved rules for Talents like Zealot "Unbending Law" to allow multiple desertion prevention Talents to run
- Improved story dialog in Valencia's Faen's storyline to make movement of events more clear
- Increased ability of Tactics Skill to help avoid violent confrontations during Civil Unrest Rumor
- Rebalanced install time for Armored Bulkhead components 1 thru 5
- Prevented unique story cards in mini-games from appearing too early in captain's career
- Fixed issue with starport repair detail screen showing that repairs will take "no time"
- Fixed issue where sometimes indie zones could show services incorrectly disabled in star atlas
- Improved description of Prize Ship Talents