Update #98 brings a major rebalance to the Rare Trade Goods system, both expanding it and limiting. It also includes a second speed-play option, this one focusing on Explorer, Spying, Blockade, Patrol and Black Market card games. It's a big release with some major improvements for players at all levels. If you're enjoying the crazy pace of updates (didn't we just do this yesterday?) please tell a friend and leave a review!
Rare Trade Goods Rebuild
Rare Trade Goods have been for some time, an unbalanced gold mine within the Contact structure. This update brings them back into the fold -- keep them exciting, some of the highest order of trading for a merchant or smuggler but also keep them more challenge and less of a run on the bank.
First, Rare Trade Goods now conform to the same ladder structure used by all of the other Contact services. The Rare Trade Goods ladder has 8 levels. As you climb this ladder of Influence and Effective Rep, you'll see the price for the goods decrease up to 20%. But more importantly, you'll be able to get more frequent repeat access to the supply for the Rare Trade Good. The new Rare Trade Goods system puts a cool down in place, in which a Contact can only sell you Rare Trade Goods so often, based on their own Influence and your Effective Rep.
Invest in a big cargo hold -- your Contacts will sell you large piles of Rare Trade Goods but then are unable to use you as a distributor again until the cool down expires.
In addition to rebuilding and balancing the purchase of Rare Trade Goods, we've improved their rules for selling. First, you simply cannot sell the Rare Trade Good back into its quadrant of origin. This is the only quadrant from which the RTG can be purchased which makes it the one supply house. So close to the supply, there is no demand and the cartel behind the RTG has ensured there is no buyer.
The farther you travel from the quadrant of origin, the better the Reputation and Influence rewards for selling RTG will be. The first two jumps give limited rewards but after that, the rewards just keep growing.
We know it is a big switch from what was previously there for Rare Trade Goods. We are excited to hear traders' sharing the feedback about the new system!
Card Game Speed
Following on Update #97's option to double the speed of map travel, we have introduced the option to double the speed of card game play. All the animations and delays are crunched down and with the option turned on, the play is extremely fast. The same warning that went with the double map travel speed applies here -- you can now play really fast, just don't play without looking to see if there are 3 xeno cards!!!
We're going to keep hammering this set of features, improving efficiency of play for our veteran captains! Combat is next.
Extended Black Market
With the recently rules allowing Black Markets on any world, regardless of Trade Law, we are opening the Contact list up a bit more with Update #98. Hunna Lieutenant contacts will always offer a Black Market, while Merchant and Weapons Dealer Contacts both join the ranks of those Contacts willing to offer Black Market access only if they have the Greedy, Corrupt or Underworld Trait.
Of course, we've also fixed a pile of bugs. We resolved 2 crew combat animation issues around pistols and throwing grenades or shooting a pistol while holding a blade. We fixed an issue where the weapons or Talents list in ship combat could become oddly stuck at times. The new Conflict events were flipped -- now they are properly aligned. And more -- check the full list below.
If you're enjoying the pace of updates, please leave a review and tell a friend!
v2.3.49 - 8/28/2018
- Added new option for faster results / animation speed during minigames
- Rebuilt Rare Trade Goods Contact service and benefits of selling them
- Contacts can sell you Rare Trade Goods and then cannot sell again for a time; time is determined by Contact Influence and Rep
- As you climb the Rare Trade Goods ladder with Contacts, the price of Rare Trade Goods decreases and you can buy them more quickly
- Rare Trade Goods can no longer be sold in the quadrant from which they originate (where the Contact is)
- Selling Rare Trade Goods is more beneficial the farther away you are -- selling within 2 jumps has significantly less bonuses, where 3+ jumps the bonuses grow
- More Contacts offer Black Market - Hunna Lieutenant always offers as well as Merchants and Weapon Dealers with Corrupt, Greedy or Underworld Trait
- Updated description of Edict benefits -- Edict 3 or higher prevents inspection from enemy ship
- Improved Trait mutation rules to avoid Traits that do not work well together (Driven + Fearless)
- Fixed occassional freeze of Talents or Weapons list in ship combat
- Fixed animation issue with pistol occasionally disappearing after throwing grenade in crew combat
- Improved animation for firing a pistol while carrying an offhand blade in crew combat
- Fixed issue with Stash screen always setting waypoint to last Stash
- Fixed issues with event logs of Conflict start and end not matching up