Welcome to the Steam Winter Sale and the best sales of the year! The bridge is decorated, break out the bottles of lux, let's celebrate with 50% off and welcome all the new captains with an update. Update #333 adds a new rank 15 talent for Shocktrooper, improves the balance of post-boarding ship damaging talents and revisits cargo allocation to for enemy captains. If all of these on-going free content updates are working for you, we hope you'll leave a review to help us keep it going. Update #333 welcomes you to the holiday season like the Shocktrooper likes to say hello -

New Rank 15 Shocktrooper Talent

The Shocktroopers brutal new post-boarding victory talent, Deepstrike Detonator, can absolutely cripple an opponents offensive capabilities with a single boarding action. Deepstrike Detonator depends on the enemy ship having some existing damage, or active damage over time effects, when it goes off to maximize the destruction it can inflict. We had fun testing and balancing this new Talent -- which feels like a great capstone Talent -- a very high-risk, high-reward option for a high-risk, high-reward combat job.

Victory Talent Damage Levels

While adding Deepstrike Detonator we had an opportunity to review and rebalance other similar talents that damage weapons and components in post-boarding victory. These Talents have been updated, particularly around the weighting for the number of weapons or components hit. After these changes, higher rank talents will hit more components and maximize the talent owners skill points.

Improved Cargo Allocations

This is the first of a set of updates that we will be deploying over the coming weeks that improve the allocation of Cargo to enemy ships. In this update, we have revised the cargo generation for Smuggler Ships, focusing on RTG selection and quantity. You should see Smuggler ships carrying more appropriate RTG in more appropriate quantities near RTG sources, and during rumors that encourage smuggling. In a similar vein, we have started modeling some cargo allocations against the active Era, giving Military Officers valuable weapon cargo to transport during the Consolidation periods. We are excited to release several waves of cargo allocation improvements in the coming weeks, so if you have ideas or feedback about the cargo on the ships you loot dont hesitate to reach out to us.

Contact Simulator Improvements

This update continues to add small incremental improvements to the Contact and Faction simulator. Last update added some events that allow Contacts to act immediately as a reaction to an event, and this update works to provide Contacts a more filtered list of options, and improves the weighting of those options to give the agents a better chance of selecting an action that is likely to have nearby effects. This will help make Contacts effects felt more in their local sectors than distant ones. If you see any evidence of this causing misbehavior within your game (especially on very small maps) please let us know.

Duranium Coatings & Minor Fixes

Some players demonstrated some Duranium coating builds that boarded on unfair so we fixed the error that was allowing stacking to get out of control. It is still pretty OP, but at least now it follows the rules. Weve also improved the cargo spawning (similar to the Smuggler rules) for Molten and Radiation worlds, and added Kraesline Shards to the cargo generation table they use.

Our new turn-based tactics RPG!

Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, our stealth & squad tactics heist RPG, launched into Steam Early Access and how is marching to Update #30 as it battles through its ambitious public roadmap. We've just completed the three major roadmap milestone with the Hacker's Nest, Proc-Gen Missions for endless play, and Custom Difficulty (and the ability to change difficulty during play). If you're looking for a story rich, squad-based RPG, take a minute to follow, wishlist or try Cyber Knights! All support for Cyber Knights ultimately results in a brighter future for Star Traders, so hope youll check it out and spread the word! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

v3.3.77 - 12/21/2023

- New Rank 15 Shocktrooper Talent: Deepstrike Detonator - Rebalanced Combat Victory Talent's Weapon Damaging Rules - During Consolidation Era, Military Officer ships carry valuable military cargo - Improved RTG allocation in enemy Smuggler Ships - Kraesline Shards now spawn on Molten and Radiation Worlds - Improved math in Faction simulator, making Contact's actions more likely to be nearby - Increased duration of Sniper's "Vanishing Act" Talent