Welcome to the first weekend of the Steam Summer Sale and another big update for Star Traders: Frontiers. Update #162 is built around the arrival of the 7th new story in the 2.5.x roadmap family -- the first vignette to result in unique story ship components becoming available based on your actions. We've also made shipping xeno artifacts a little more dangerous, improved the fuel bar in the HUD, helped the AI pick weapons to cover ranges more intelligently, and upgraded all the ship comparisons to fully take difficulty into account. And more -- so be sure to check the full release notes.
Thanks to everyone leaving a review -- it's been bonkers, so thank you!
New Vignette: Goltha Theory
We won't go into spoilers about the new storyline vignette that has been added, other than to say that it starts on Rychart worlds only after the Early Coalition Era has ended. In this messy weave of galactic espionage, there are opportunities to unlock new and unique ship components that otherwise are unavailable. Your captain's actions can help change the technology of the galaxy in this new vignette.
The Contact's name is Cassie Cain and we'd like to send out a huge thanks to the KickStarter backer who helped us develop her character and her storyline!
This storyline will eventually appear in any game, regardless of how far along your captain is -- no need to restart!
Dangerous Cargo
Carrying Terrox Artifacts just got a bit more dangerous. While no one knows why, warnings have always been whispered that smuggler's carrying troves of artifacts are the most likely to be attacked by the Terrox. Perhaps someday, humanity will better understand the Terrox to know how it is possible, but for now, know this -- every Terrox Artifact in your cargo hold gives a very fractional increase to the percentage chance of encounter a xeno in the void. It's small, but carrying a hundred Artifacts results in a few important percentage points bump!
Improved Fuel Bar
Based on some great player feedback, we've added a third field to the fuel bar text in the HUD. It now includes the exact amount of fuel, along with the fuel range in AU and the AU to the destination. While the exact amount of Water-Fuel is implied by the existing numbers (if and only if you know your ship's fuel-to-AU ratio), it is a big help to see the actual changes to your fuel gauge. It helps to impress upon a captain the differences between ships, large and small as well as between efficient and guzzling Void Engines.
Ship Comparisons
We've improved the ship comparison run down in a ship encounter and the tooltip during combat to include the Ship Combat Boost from your Difficulty setting. This was mistakenly not taken into account before, and it is a very important factor. Mostly, this was leading to enemy captains on lower difficulties looking overly powerful for what they really were, while captains on higher difficulties might look underpowered. The comparison report is even more accurate now!
v2.5.57 - 6/28/2019
- Added new story vignette "Goltha Theory" starting on Rychart worlds after the end of the Early Coalition Era -- thanks KickStarter backers!
- Get tangled up in galactic espionage in the "Goltha Theory" story arc
- Multiple possible unique story Ship Components unlocked by story -- best new spying equipment available
- Story includes new high powered Contact type, so called "Retired Diplomat"
- Improved Fuel Bar in the HUD to include exact quantity of Water-Fuel in the tanks as well as AU range and AU to destination
- Carrying Terrox Artifacts in your cargo hold while traveling increases chance of encountering xeno ship
- Improved critical hit target group in ship combat to include Launch Bays (along with Bridge, Engine, etc)
- Refined ability for enemy AI to pick ship weapons that cover a wider band of ranges
- Improved ship comparison logic in tooltip and ship encounter screen to take Ship Combat Boost from Difficulty properly into account
- Fixed a bug that could prevent the second of two orbital ops missions from appearing over the same system
- Fixed issue where hovering over an event for a Skill test or a Saving Talent could be misleading about Saving Talents ready at time of test