The HIGHFALL major milestone unleashes a massive new story addition with 2 new story Eras as well as a new highly defensive fighting job, the dual wielding Bodyguard. This major new story expansion includes a major arc that moves forward the political story of the galaxy, brings new powerful characters to the fore and threatens to upend some of the order you may have helped establish. Please be careful with spoilers within the community, there is some *major* stuff in here!
On top of this major milestone, now is the time to join in and save 33%. If you're enjoying the game and continuous stream of major new updates without any DLCs, please take a moment to leave a review or tell a friend. If you're new to the frontiers, post your comments, feedback and suggestions to the discussion board or join us on our Discord where there is a great community to help!
Cracking Open v2.6.x
With this update we've smashed open the new group of the development roadmap. The first item in v2.6.x has fallen with the release of these two dueling eras and the new combat job.
To see more detail about what is coming next, check out our development roadmap which details the next major features and content expansions as well as our on-going content expansion initiatives.
Two New Story Eras
This update releases a major wave of story content, major branch points for the galactic story, new characters to meet, new rewards to chase and new challenges to face. This includes 2 new Eras -- Dissension and Consolidation -- which are mutually exclusive in the storyline. Your choices might help drive the galaxy one way or the other. And with each comes a heap of new content and additions to explore -- all new rules for the simulation including 2 new unique Rumors, 4 Era-specific rules for what types of cargo enemy ships are carrying, 6 new Contact creation rules to set the tone of the Era as well as a specialized Conflict setup rules and more. You might see some ship you've never seen before due to these Eras and will definitely meet some all new characters.
Keep an eye out for the "Buried Demons" storyline introduced by Silvaine von Sha to get a start on it. These Eras will only get started if you've already reached the 3rd Century Era, but will appear in any game no matter how far along you are.
In the dept of "even more new stuff" these Eras can also release up to 3 new specialist ship components as story rewards as well as an entirely new tier of ship weaponry!
Bodyguard Joins the Ranks
The Bodyguard Job is now available as the 34th Job of the frontiers. This defensive-focused fighter dual wields pistols and blades while mixing high power defensive buffs with well-aimed disabling hits. Protecting a target is a mix of keeping the enemy off balance and blocking incoming hits. The Bodyguard boasts a truly new Talent type -- Honor Guard which grants an 75% Auto-Block chance to a friendly crew member who is behind the Bodyguard. Each hit that is blocked has a 50% chance of ending the buff, but its a great way for a front-line bodyguard to protect the back-line.
The Bodyguard is also unique in having 4 Skills which stretches his or her Skill set pretty wide -- Pistols, Blades, Evasion and Tactics. Without a doubt, the best Bodyguards will be Officers with complementary Jobs. The Job combinations are staggering and extremely fun to play with -- from the Assassin, Military Officer, Bodyguard to the Spy Bodyguard, Swordsman -- there are too many too count and we're excited to see what you captains cook up!
Bodyguards can also provide life saving Talents to protect other crew and officers and special mission bonus payments for passenger and prisoner missions.
Bodyguards can be recruited from High Princes, Judicial Counsels and Courtesan Contacts.
v2.6.1 8/26/2019
- Added new pistol-blade wielding "Bodyguard" Job, unique defensive fighter and team defender!
- Added 6th Story Era: either the Era of Dissension or Consolidation
- Choose a side in the growing galactic tension between the UCF unionists and the faction leadership
- All new simulation rules, Rumors, Conflicts, and Contact actions/mutations during these new chapters of the United Coalition
- Added new story vignette to introduce the Era, "Buried Demons" with Thulun Intelligence Officer
- Added 3 new specialist ship components available through story choices and rewards
- Added 2 new unique crew weapon/armors available through story choices and rewards
- Added 2 Era-specific Rumors as Coalition power shifts -- "Anti-Coalition Riots" and "UDF Recruitment Drives"
- Added 4 Era-specific special cargo rules for Merchants, Smugglers and Pirates
- Added 6 Era-specific Contact creation rules to seed the Era new blood
- Added 8 new ship weapons released by the Era progressions -- gear up for advanced warfare!
- Added 3 new major story characters who can have wide impact
- Added new Era-driven ship encounter and mechanics and 2 new Era-driven cards for orbital ops games
- Added 2 special Missions available in different story paths of the Eras, including a chance at a first meeting with legend from Templar Battleforce
- Rippling story impacts can flow into other Eras like the Plague
- Recruit Bodyguards from High Prince, Judicial Counsel and Courtesan Contacts
- Improved Alta Mesa component "Battle Bridge" with Void/Res Resist and +Accuracy %
- Contact Search now picks up Trait-based services like Offer Rumor due to Techno Addict Trait
Update #176
We've now released Update #176 with some exciting new content and balance work for the Bodyguard. As we want to keep this news item top of our roll, we're just adding it to the bottom here.
v2.6.3 -
- Added 3 new Era-specific missions for Arbiter Brokstrom and other Coaolition Contacts during the Consolidation Era
- New mission types now capable of spawning beneficial Rumors and Contacts such as Starport Boom or UDF Recruitment Drive
- Fixed bugs with bounty hunters sent by Thulun being in the wrong ships / factions
- Adjusted theme of Bodyguard's "Tactical Shove" Talent to push someone back instead of forward
- Bodyguard's "Protective Instincts" on Init Talent can now be used from any slot including 4
- Fixed Bodyguard's "Low Blow" to not give buffs to the attacked enemy
- Adjusted Bodyguard's "Body Shot" to not be useable from slot 3
- Bodyguard's "Hamstring Slice" has debuff slightly reduced, now -2 Init and -10% Damage
- Fixed inconsistencies in Bodyguard's "Screening Fire" buff and upgraded to a 1.5x Initiaive cost
- Fixed extremely short cool down for Bodyguard's "One Step Ahead" Talent
- Added missing description for Bodyguard Job