Update #186 rolls out the last pack of critical changes before the next major milestone -- rebalancing some aspects of ship combat, improving the AI's Job/Talent training routine, improving high level ship weapon components and tweaking some of the cards related to fighting xeno and harvesting artifacts.
Following this update, we're marching straight for the next major milestone which will include a new era, new xeno type and enemy carriers! If you're enjoying the pace of constant updates, be sure to leave a review and tell a friend!
You can see some of the "making of" the Jyeeta xeno race on YouTube. This time lapse video compresses a multi-hour animation session into a few minutes.
Boarding and Gunnery Rebalance
We've made some important changes to the meta around boarding defense and ship weapon Gunnery requirements that may impact your ship builds.
First -- we've changed the rules for boarding defense. In the past, Boarding Bonus was directly applied to your boarding defense which means a ship built to board is also excellent at defending against boarding. With this shift, we've reduced the Boarding Bonus contribution to boarding defense by 50%. Without a doubt, this is most likely to help the AI. Most players who are boarding have already figured out how to get 100% boarding success where the enemy who attempts to board fails more than 50% of the time. This change should make Bounty Hunters, Pirates and other boarding aggro enemy captains more fun and challenging.
Second -- we've increased the Gunnery Skill Pool requirements for many ship weapons above level 4 from anywhere from +1 to +8 points. Overall, this pushes the Gunnery Skill Pool higher which may require you to adjust your crew compositions to find additional Gunnery Skill, depending on how many high level weapons you have on board. However, it will also increase the accuracy of these weapons and impact the AI's interest in having higher Gunnery Skill.
AI Talent Selection
With Update #186 we've completed the final round of AI hardening before the release of enemy carriers. This update includes improving the ability for captain and officers to balance their Talent selections by upfront planning some of the decisions and needed Talents for their ship type and size. Also, the AI is now putting more weight into higher level Talents to help drive smarter choices and harder to beat strategies.
Another improvement was to avoid too many duplicates of the same Talent. This includes toning down the number of Twitch Surge's that any ship crew will take.
Artifact Card Adjustments
With the new xeno race coming it means a new type of xeno Artifact and Rare Trade Good coming as well. As we're working our way through all those impacts, we're balancing and improving the Terrox ops cards. The reward of the Explorer card "Xeno Spore!" can be improved by Mining Ship Components. In Salvage, "Xeno Assault" has an increased number of artifact rewards if you survive the double stacked xeno fights.
We've also fixed a bug where Traits gained after Crew Combat where not immediately appearing.
Also, finally we've closed the final set of reported bugs for the Buried Demons storyline, including some issues with dialog lying about Trike's final fate.
v2.6.29 - 10/25/2019
- Improved intelligence of routine training enemy ship's officers to make smarter Talent selections
- Improved balance of enemy ship's Pilot taking Twitch Surge Talent
- Rebalanced Ship Combat - Boarding rolls to make defense weaker and buff attack bonuses
- Increase Gunnery Skill Pools for most ship weapon's above level 4, increasing ship accuracy as well as Gunnery pool needs
- Adjusted visuals in ship combat to clearly differentiate between captain's ship and craft and the enemy ship (and craft soon)
- Artifact haul for "Xeno Spore!" Exploring card (xeno plus an artifact stash) is now increased by Mining Ship Components
- Increased the Terrox Artifact rewards when fighting xeno in Orbital Salvage card "Xeno Assault!"
- Fixed issues with Traits gained by crew combat victory not appear for a little while or until game reload
- Fixed story bug where dialog would state Trike Zermotte lived when he actually dies
- Fixed crashes in Ship Combat related to Small Craft