Update #208 starts an important series of shifts in the ship hull meta, introduces a new hull attribute, drops an exciting new Thulun-only battlecruiser, adds more Captain's Log entries and fixes and balances a ton of smaller items coming out of community feedback. There are some big changes here, so be sure to review the new hull rules and see how it impacts your captain's builds.
The next series of updates will focus on further improvements and expansions to the ship hull meta as well as a new story vignette as well as an exciting expansions to 2 existing Era storylines.
New Hull Meta: Maximum to Evade Craft Attacks
The biggest change in Update #208 is the addition of a new property innate in a ship hull. Maximum Craft Evasion percentage joins other fields like Max Officers, Base Fuel, Mass and the Small/Mediu/Large Slot counts (along with other values) to define the unique aspects of each ship hull. The range for Max Craft Evasion ranges from the low 60% for high mass and hard to maneuver ships to 100% for fast and nimble ships. Regardless of what ship components you install, this maximum will cap your craft evasion and requires captains who are facing carriers -- and especially Jyeeta -- to look into other ways to protect their ship if they are unable to reach 100%. Autocannons, high accuracy longer range weapons and your own Interdictors can form a formidable defense to augment a ship's Evasion to Craft Attacks and a mixed strategy is now be required. We encourage everyone to review your ship builds, post questions and build design changes you are seeing to the forum.
It is important to state that this isn't an isolated change. More changes are coming to the ship hull meta that will improve the overall balance of the game and push each the ships' unique definitions farther away from each other. On the list are included Max Armor and Max Shield for individual hulls, allowing some hulls to exceed the currently global cap of 65% (75% with buffs) as well as caps that will modify the meta around stacking ship defense. We'll make these changes carefully as we go and are excited to hear any and all feedback from the community. Much like the previous change to allow Ship Defense Strong Dice to come from either Electronics or Pilot, these changes aim to break up meta monopolies and inject new options into player's ship builds.
As always, the AI follows the same rules as the player.
Autocannons Defensive Roar
Higher level Autocannons -- from level 5 and up -- have now gained bonuses to Evading Craft Attacks. Thought small, these additional bonuses model the reality that a ship bristling with short range weapons is difficult for a bomber or interdictor to close on. In addition to helping to shoot down enemy craft, these ship weapons now provide an innate defensive bonus.
Leo Battlecruiser
The Leo Battlecruiser is the latest monstrous ship rolling out of the famous Thulun starports. Built from many exclusively Thulun components, the Leo is a loyalists dream battlecruiser. Weighing in at 7000 Mass, the Leo boasts 6 Large, 9 Medium and 12 Small slots and a Max Craft Evasion of 85%. Staffed by 7 officers, 42 crew and its component set includes 2 Reactive Hangar Bays, a Dual-Field Engine, and a mix of Autocannons, Torps and Railguns. Let the Red Lions of Thulun roar!
New Contact in Captain's Log
While the death of a known Contact has been long logged into the Captain's Log, the addition of a new Contact has not been consistently captured under all the circumstances -- orbital ops, explorer, Talents, trading. With Update #208, we've completed a clean sweep to ensure that the discovering of a new Contact is always logged with some important details about that Contact as well.
And More
We've adjusted the rules for Dismiss taking 1 Turn to exclude the first year. This allows new captains to freely dismiss some of their crew early in the game without paying a cost in turns.
We've fixed a bug with "Slippery Trader" Smuggler Talent where you could end up with positive Rep once you got over 100% effectiveness. We've also clarified the description of the Merchant's "Lawful" Trait to include the specifics that it always adjusts hostility by +1.
Be more careful when you see a Radiation Storm card in Salvage. There was a case where they were not causing damage and now they are fully operational.
v3.0.57 - 4/25/2020
- New property of Ship Hulls: Maximum to Evade Craft Attacks percentage, starting at 85% for most ships
- Max Craft Attack Evasion is lower for large hulls and higher for sleek hulls
- Improved Autocannon weapons at level 5 and above to grant small bonuses to Evading Craft Attacks (bristling gunship wards off bombers)
- New Thulun Ship: Leo Battlecruiser (7000M, Heavy Combat Carrier)
- Added new Captain Log entries to capture the details of new Contacts discovered
- Dismiss no longer requires 1 Turn in the first year of the game
- Fixed bug where Smuggler's "Slippery Trader" could reduce Rep by more than 100% and cause odd results
- Fixed bugs with sale price of Scout Bridge ships on some maps
- Clarified description of Merchant Trait "Lawful"
- Fixed issue with "Radiation Storm" Salvage card sometimes not causing ship damage