Star Traders: Frontiers Update #180: Wide Open Frontier
Sept 18, 2019 11:16:00 GMT -5
strega, lordscrod, and 1 more like this
Post by fallen on Sept 18, 2019 11:16:00 GMT -5
Update #180 comes burning out of the system, opening up the frontier for traders, pirates and anyone traveling the void's lanes. With a major new filter in the Star Atlas, a new unlockable ship for purchase, further extension of the new enemy ship selector and a full rebalance of Blockade's risk and reward system, Update #180 full of improvements requested by the community with solid adds of new content.
Star Atlas at Range
The new star atlas jump filter allows you to populate the Star Atlas with zones that are outside of the currently selected system. The default comes up only showing the local zones, but if you want to cast your net wider, you can pull down the filter drop down and pick any range up to 4 jumps distant, and these zones will load in.
This will greatly increase the number of potential zones shown, as even using the 1 jump filter will pull zones from any quad within 1 jump -- which might be 1 to 4 new quads on the regular. So, it is very important to use additional filters and search to narrow down the list.
For example, look for any wilderness zone within 1 jump. Or, search for any zone that "sells explosives" within 3 jumps. Or search for a "mining" zone within 4 jumps. You can peruse what the galaxy has to offer with new ease!
Sorting by distance can be a big help to keep things useful.
Azurite Cruiser
Locked behind the Master Explorer unlock, the Azurite cruiser is 7000 Mass class combat vessel coming off the starport shelf with many upgraded components including multiple Shielded and Reinforced types of components, Deflector Array 4, upgraded weapons and more. Also promising the best-in-class base Armor for a 7000M ship and with the highest medium slot count of 10 and still packing 11 smalls -- the Azurite stands out as combat ready but also prepared to be retrofitted for many other types of duties.
The AI isn't yet flying the Azurite but will get the option soon.
Blockade Risk and Reward
The same major rework coming through Explorer and Patrol has now touched down in Blockade. All of the underlying math to determine Risk and Reward from your crew's Skills as well as all of the local factors from Danger to the zones' Economics, Starport and Military have been fine tuned and improved. We've also made a second pass on Patrol, tweaking a few things and make it even better.
You'll really feel the benefits of Patrolling and Blockading at ripe systems and can feel the pain of doing it in the wrong places even more clearly.
Quality of Life
We've also jammed a pile of community requests and reported fixes into this release.
A long running issue that allowed some of your starting Contacts to end up in Aetaan Char's faction has been resolved.
We've further expanded the AI's ship selection routines, spicing up Pirates and Military Officers with a few more options.
We've added some missing tooltips to the crew list screens and to craft during ship combat. Finally, we've fixed some issues with hanging story objectives in some branches of the new Era content.
v2.6.15 - 6/17/2019
- Star Atlas now supports jump filter, allowing viewing of systems outside of the currently selected quad, up to 4 jumps
- New Ship: 7000M Azurite Cruiser (Heavy Combat Ship)
- Unlock Azurite Cruiser with Explorer II
- Permanently fixed all occurrences of starting Contacts being in Aetaan Char's faction
- v4 of rebalanced enemy AI ship selection -- now with more than 110 ship AI
- Revised and Updated Patrol risk and reward weights based on player feedback and results from v2.6.13
- Improved Risk and Reward factors weights for Orbital Blockade including all zone stats, Rumors and other influences
- Improved hovers for Small Craft in Ship Combat
- Improved missing tooltips on Crew List / Trait List / Talent Manifest screens
- Fixed hanging story objectives that could be left during Buried Demons story branches
