Lots of changes below. I'll keep an eye on the bug forums over the next few days for any problems and patch out any blockers or major bugs. I'll be moving on to updates to the pace and timing of skill and perk rewards (more frequent rewards and useful skills) and the boarding system. This update will be quite a bit of work and will include some changes to the visuals in Star Systems, adjustments to space combat, and more. It will take a while and I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. A few highlights in case you dont want to read through all the notes:

• Cargo volume increased across most ships in the game.
• You no longer block your own crew members in combat. NPCs can still block you and you can block NPCs.
• EXP increases for salvaging, crafting, first aid, hacking and space skills.
• Kchor and Fabricants now have innate bonuses (crafting, CRIT, scanning).
• New rollover info and right-click extended hud for combat.
• A pass at resists in the game.
• Personal shields re-balanced.
• Adjustments to rifles and heavy weapons with near range penalties (unwieldy).
• Shotguns, SMGs and flame throwers now do spread damage in a cone that affects multiple enemies.
• Melee weapons now do more damage overall, additional damage to enemy shields and allow mods to be equipped that change the base damage of these weapons.
• Pugilist weapons added mods can be equipped. The only weapon type that can be equipped in the primary and secondary weapon slots.
• Adjustments to crafting conditions they occur less often.
• Lots of small tuning adjustments to make the pace of combat faster more work to do including new skills active and passive, special attacks, perk adjustments, pace etc.

INCREASED CARGO VOLUME: All smaller ships, including the starter ship, have higher base cargo volumes. Cargo expansions for these ships will also be larger (scaled from the base cargo volume of the ship). Adjustments to cargo expansions are not retroactive so you will need to buy new cargo expansions if you want the extra volume. KCHOR + CRIT innate bonus with all melee weapons. + CRIT innate bonus with all heavy weapons. FABRICANTS --Fabricants are less likely to generate negative conditions when crafting regardless of skill level. --Fabricants get a bonus to scanning ships and planets. NEW: ROLLOVER INFO AND RIGHT CLICK EXTENDED INFO HUD A new rollover info display. This display shows additional information at a glance - enemy difficulty, CTH, Remaining AP/Total AP, HP, shield points, and active debuffs. Right-clicking an enemy will display the extended info and targeting UI. I've had several comments that "hunting the pixel" is not fun - so, this revised hud lets you select individual body targets with the extended UI. When this UI is active, the targeted enemy is locked until you right-click again, press escape or the space bar. The extended information displays: --Buttons that can be clicked to attack head, torso, legs, and arms --You can reload your ranged weapon --You can change ranged weapon fire modes --Extended targeting information including min/max damage, range penalties if any and status effects that can be inflicted including the percent chance of inflicting the effects. --Enemy resistance information (innate and shield totals) based on the active crew members' perception STAT. The currently selected weapon damage type highlights that particular resist icon. Note that you can still attack without opening the extended info HUD, add attacks to the combat queue and even fine aim if you want to. None of that has changed. RESISTS: Resists are now more important and can be reviewed by right-clicking enemies with the new popup extended info UI. Higher perception will display more resist information in the extended info popup when right-clicking enemies. Some second and third-tier enemies are immune to certain types of damage. Having an array of weapons that deal various types of damage can help you take your enemies down much faster. You now have options to change the base damage type of melee weapons (see below) to adjust your damage type strategy. Resists have always been in the game, however, without a way to see them, it could seem at times that it took a long time to defeat a specific enemy. With the new display, you can now adjust your weapons to an enemy's weakness. An enemy that might take 10 attacks using kinetic weapons may only take 3-5 attacks using a weapon that does toxic damage. This is more important as your crew progresses. Mitigation is now displayed in the combat log showing damage reduction from shields, armor/perks and defend. PERSONAL SHIELDS REBALANCED Personal shields were OP - they have been adjusted. Several things were done without modifying the loot tables so current shields are still viable without a reset. --"The slow blade" - Melee weapons deplete shields faster than ranged weapons. --The cost of recharging shields is now increased. The result is energy reserves for shields are depleted faster. RIFLES AND HEAVY WEAPONS --These weapon types now incur a ranged CTH penalty (unwieldy) when fired at close range. This promotes the use of sidearms and shotguns in close combat situations. You either need to move to range, or use your sidearms if you do not want to incur the penalty. There may be skill tree selections that adjust this penalty down when the skill tree's go in the game. A red rifle icon will display on the rollover info UI if the penalty is being applied at your current range to target. SHOTGUNS --Range slightly reduced for any newly purchased, dropped or crafted shotguns going forward. SHOTGUNS, SMG'S, AND FLAMETHROWERS These weapons now have a chance to inflict spread damage in a cone in front of the firing combatant. This effect only applies to enemies within a certain range directly in front of the firing character and applies up to 20% of the initial base damage to enemies in the weapons field of view before mitigation. This value will be increased with future changes to weapon skill tree selections. Status effects have a chance of being applied to secondary targets. --SMG'S MUST BE IN BURST OR FULL AUTO MODES MELEE WEAPONS Frequency Modulators now allow you to add specific damage types to melee weapons ( thermal, electric, toxic and bleed). In addition to changing the base damage type of melee weapons from kinetic, these mods also have a chance to trigger an additional damage burst that bypasses all defenses, including Defend. The new secondary effect on this mod type replaces the critical modifier which was redundant and applied by other mods. Bleed and toxic augments also apply the bleed and poisoned status effects. Crafting adjusted for the changes above. When a Frequency Modulator is equipped, melee weapons now display a unique particle effect associated with the various damage types. The above changes also apply to NPCs in the universe. Changes to Frequency Modulators are not retroactive, so older modulators will have the +CRIT secondary modifier. Attacks of opportunity always inflict kinetic damage regardless of the modded damage type - at least for now. PUGILIST WEAPONS Pugilist weapons are in the game now. They are a way to augment to your melee skill with mods and damage bonuses, no special visual weapons are equipped at this time. --While pugilist weapons to apply a small amount of base damage that scales by level and quality, primary damage derived from the characters skill level and stats. --Mods - Melee mods and nano's can be applied to pugilist weapons bringing them in line with other melee weapons. Overall, pugilism is very effective. --Crafting - You can craft pugilist weapons by deconstructing weapons you find. Schematics can be found by salvaging pugilist weapons or as rare random drops. --You do not need to equip pugilist weapons to fight hand 2 hand, just unequip your current weapon as it has always been. --Starting a new game and placing weapon points in the pugilism weapon skill will equip a starting pugilist weapon. --Pugilist weapons can be equipped in primary and/or secondary slots. UPDATED COMBAT BLOCKING/NAVIGATION You can now move through your crew if they are blocking corridors or doorways. NPCs can still block you and you can block NPCs. IMO, this change is a huge improvement and I think a lot of new players were put off by being blocked by their own crew members. Being able to block an enemy is a tactic. Crew members and NPCs now have discreet areas around them where movement is blocked. That is, you cannot click in a character's immediate area. This helps with pile-up and should help with missed combat clicks that move your crew when you intended to attack. Crafting --Reduced the chance of positive and negative crafting conditions --Increased EXP gain for salvaging and crafting FIXES AND UPDATES FIXED: A bug related to key binds for the Q and E keys between space and ground key configurations. FIXED: Double-clicking area exits could lock the game up in some cases - especially on the Dauntless when leaving. FIXED: If a PC is in defend mode and hit during a round of combat, the display of the defend icon is correctly removed from the display. FIXED: Status effects (toxic, bleed) that were mitigated completely by "Defend" are no longer applied to display 0 damage per tick. FIXED: A number of fixes for occasionally missed clicks in the environment. FIXED: Help hud not displaying in some cases. FIXED: Intelligent Phage now have shields. FIXED: The stash list no longer resets to the top on various actions. FIXED: It was possible to add more than 10 crew members to your crew roster. FIXED: Stairs in a specific mission location where you could get stuck. FIXED: Broken dynamic lighting in one of the stations. FIXED: If KO with status effects - status effects are now removed when you stand back up after combat. FIXED: A bug that was deriving scanning bonuses from the incorrect crew member. FIXED: In combat, if crew members are blocked by enemies and have a very long alternate navigation route to the target, they will no longer take the long route and a message is displayed to the screen. FIXED: At level 80+ of melee skill, it is no longer possible to move small distances in combat (one node) for free. UPDATED: Enemies in combat with the player no longer highlight when pressing the highlight key and cannot be targeted. Use the facing button while in combat - there is no AP cost to use this option. UPDATED: If a NPCs target is blocked, they now make a second check for a new target nearby. If not, they handle various "blocked" tasks, like healing, looking for cover, etc. UPDATED: Global tuning of enemy mitigation and shields. UPDATED: Increased EXP gain for hacking and first aid UPDATED: CTH values for burst and full-auto modes reduced globally based on range simulating less control when using these fire-modes. UPDATED: CTH Values reduction values for various body parts are now fixed regardless of skill level, with the torso always receiving full CTH at any range. Head, arms, and legs receive a CTH penalty and bonuses to various status effects and damage. UPDATED: Increased damage from "Bleed" and "Poison" status effects UPDATED: Increased base damage from frag grenades UPDATED: Numerous changes to resistances across all enemy types UPDATED: Modulators and barrel mods now drop as loot more often and are the primary +DMG mod type for ranged and melee weapons. I'm looking forward to your feedback on this patch. As always, thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

[ 2020-03-13 20:22:15 CET ] [ Original post ]