Hi,
For this patch I wanted to give the players an option to improve their soldiers so they are stronger, especially in the late game. That's why now most of the space stations have an "Augments" service, just visit the medbay of Free Colonies, Alien Diaspora and Abandoned Systems (not Pirate Lairs) and you'll have the option to install augments which are basically new traits, some of them are Implants or Biomods to make them stronger, others are Neural Packages that can increase loyalty, XP or even "respec" a soldier.
Here's a list of the current augments:
Biomods:
Adrenal Gland: unlocks action that gives 1 AP in combat in exchange of health.
Xeno Filtering Symbiont: resistance to many status effects, increased Death's Door chance.
Poisonous Glands: unlocks action that generates a poison cloud around a soldier, gives 100% resistance to poison.
Xeno Chitin Glands: increased armor, death's door chance and resistance to some status effects.
Cyber Implants:
Atlas Servo-Arms: increased melee attack and defense.
B-Holder Cyber-Eye: increased accuracy and critical. Unlocks action to reveal a small area of the Fog of War.
Secondary Heart Valve: increased HP, +50% Death's Door chance.
Atlas Servo-Legs: increased movement and dodge chance.
Neural Packages:
C4nnon_F0dd3r.EXE: grants 25% extra loyalty (once) and increases min loyalty cap and reduces salary required by 10%.
R3sp3c.EXE: "respecs" the soldier, eliminating all their skills and refunding all skill points. Be warned that It can only be used once per soldier.
All_Ship_Systems.BAT: allows the soldier to crew any ship system.
Int3nsiv3_Training.BAT: grants 100 XP to the soldier.
Note: all these augments work like regular traits so they cannot repeat per soldier. They are a bit expensive but that's because they are meant for the late game, as something that you give to your favorite soldiers.
Of course, I also have some fixes and minor changes for this patch:
Fixed an issue where a bug in customization would make the Level Up button appear in the wrong soldier.
Added new random starter traits: Reckless and Rich Kid.
Reduced slightly salary increase rate for all soldiers.
Fixed an issue where an opening or closing animation of a panel could trigger a tooltip and keep it stuck.
Now ranged defense and melee defense stats protect from critical hits and some traits can affect these stats.
Updated fog of war shader to latest version.
Tweaked some audio settings.
Edited a few dialogues.
Changed medbay NPC for Pirate Lairs.
I'm open to ideas for new augments in case you think more variety is needed.
I'm also reading your feedback, I know there's some issues with the game freezing during the AI turn (apparently while the AI is patrolling as I already have some checks in other places), I made some extra checks to ensure that doesn't happen but sadly I haven't been able to reproduce the issue. Due to that I would beg you to consider (if you encounter this bug) to send me your log to my e-mail (information about how to find the log and my e-mail are in the Bug Reports thread in the forums) and hopefully that will help me identify the root of this bug.
That's it for now, as always your feedback and bug reports are welcome and I'll see you next patch.
Regards,
Jorge