Update #118 circles back to the orbital ops -- Spying and Blockading specifically -- to rebalance some of the base cards as well as add 3 new cards related to Conflicts. We've also made some player suggested changes to recruit UI, made the final planned tweak to Skip Off the Void and added a customizable keybinding for repeat last firing orders. Not to mention a few bug fixes, some minor UI tweaks -- its a good one and starts a new push to further deepen the interaction between orbital ops and Conflicts.
New Cards: Conflicts and Riches
With Update #118, we've improved the opportunities to directly make money Blockading and Spying, especially when there are linked Conflicts. First, we've increased the amount of credits you can earn with the "Extort Bribes" card while Blockading and the "Credit Score" and "Credit Skim" cards while Spying. These rewards have always been based on the local Economy ratings of the zones in the system, but each Economy point now grants even more potential earnings.
On top of that, there are new cards that can drive even higher profits from systems in Conflicts. If you are Blockading over a system of a faction in a Trade Ban or Trade War, the new cards "Trade Ban Coercion" and "Trade War Bribery" are added to the deck. Each gives a much larger bonus in terms of credits extorted and influences the Conflict, helping the enemy of the faction you are blockading. In the same way, "Spy War Leak" offers a $8-20K reward for spying in a faction system that is locked in a Spy War and will similarly influence the Conflict Score.
None of the new cards will make friends with the targeted faction, but you sure can wrack up the credits.
Recruit Talent Visibility
Whenever you are recruiting from the spice hall or from a Contact, you will now see a note about the number of recruiting Talents that are ready. This can increase your awareness of when you want to recruit and help you manage a larger pool of Talents as they go on cool down. It's a very convenient feature, so thanks to @OfficerGenious for suggesting it!
Again, Skip Off the Void
In a continued effort to balance Skip Off the Void, we've made a change to how it calculates damage to the Hyperwarp Drive. In the past, the damage was mitigated by the entire crew's Navigation Skill, which for many ships could be 60 to 120 points. This almost always resulted in the lowest possible damage for the Drive. The change now brings Skip into alignment with all other Talents -- Talents use the Skill of the individual and not of the entire crew. Therefore, the damage is now mitigated only by the character's Navigation Skill. To offset this change, we've reduced the damage range for the Talent from 30-70% to 30-60%. A single use won't know your drive out, but it is going to do more damage unless you have a really skilled Navigator. In final note, a Navigator can gain up to 27 Navigation from their Job in total, so you can see that you can still achieve near minimal damage even as an individual.
Ship Combat Weapons
We've fixed a long sneaky bug that sometimes kept weapons from being able to fire after they were damaged and then repaired during ship combat. We've also added a keybinding (default of R) for repeat last firing orders.
v2.4.35 - 10/2912018
- Increased credit rewards for Spy cards "Credit Score" and "Credit Skim" based on local economy rating
- Increased credit rewards for Blockade cards "Extort Bribes" based on local economy rating
- Added 3 new Conflict-based cards for Spy and Blockade -- Blockade for "Trade Ban Coercion" and "Trade War Bribery" and Spy for "Spy War Leak" to get even larger credit rewards ($8-20K) and influence the Conflict
- Spice Hall Recruit and Contact Recruit now state the number of ready Talents that will improve recruiting
- Changed "Skip Off the Void" Navigator Talent to only use the Navigation Skill of the owner character, not entire crew to mitigate damage
- Repeat Last Firing orders can now be bound to custom key in options, default is 'R'
- Fixed rare issue with mid-combat Repair Talents not bringing weapons or components fully back on line
- Fixed crashes in ship combat with repair talents and repeat firing weapons