Hey all, hope your quarters are cozy and your cargo holds full this season. :christmas_tree: :fire: :star: For all our captains in the void, our gift to you is a fresh update, #309: Flashing Signals. This year, we've taken a trip through the community suggestions and feedback and cherry picked a number of great quality of life suggestions and balance improvements to help us prepare for the new year.

Thank you all for your support, feedback, posts, shares and reviews. We would not be here without all of you, so thank you, happy gaming and happy holidays!

New Year, New Game Coming!

We always love seeing how many of you have pieced together the lore of Star Traders from the stories within, and enjoy the flavor of this universe your Captain is a part of. In our next game, we’re telling a very different sci-fi story but with the same depth we bring to all our worlds. Check out the dark-future feel of our upcoming cyberpunk heist RPG, and wishlist it today!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

Inline Combat Dice Results

Update #309 follows up on a great player suggestion to include the results of the dice rolls for movement, attack and boarding rolls inline in the on-screen display for each ship combat action. While all of this data is available in longform in the ship combat log, it is very helpful and educational to be able to see the numbers for the different actions flashing by. It immediately makes it far easier to get a sense of the tip of the balance and the sudden changes that a powerful buff or critical hit can have on the dice pools.


While the numbers flash by quickly, you can get the sense of the combat situation in a single series of salvos, seeing your own firing crew piling up 34+ successes on each attack and then enemy ranging from 19-28 gives you a strong sense of your own ability to land hits without having to dig through the full report of the combat log.

Merchant's Garner Favor

The Merchant's Garner Favor has long been a power Talent which yielded outside results rapidly – granting a Reputation bonus up to your Negotiation Skill (!!) for a trade over $5,000. Previously, the balance on this power Talent was to cap its Rep gain once you hit positive 80 which reduces the overall usefulness of the Talent and targets it for Respec once it has outlived its usefuless.

With Update #309, Garner Favor has been rewritten to be useful more broadly. Now, featuring a 10% + Negotiation Skill chance to granting a Reputation bonus on a $5,000+ trade it no longer needs a cap and can be evergreen beneficial. In addition, the possible Reputation bonus is based on the size of the trade, with each extra $2,500 in profit yielding a potential Rep bonus point. While this can cap out around 20 Rep per trade, the low level Talent now has room to grow and be useful in the Merchant's long-term kit.

Prize Ship Talents Improvements

With Update #309, we've rebalanced Prize Ship Talents to improve their profitability. The spread of Talent results has increased allowing a wider range for more profit balanced against more Reputation damage. In all, the profit %s are up and the Reputation damage numbers are down, so Prize Ship Talents are more competitive even as we widen their results range within the set.

Ship Components Flagged

Those ship components which are faction specific now have their faction origin displayed prominently in ship status and in the starport screen when you are considering replacing components. This can help you differentiate between icons with the same component, remember which specialized components you have and generally speed up shopping and ship analysis. Thanks to the players suggestion this one!

v3.3.19 - 12/24/20222

- In Ship Combat, results of dice rolls for move, escape, boarding and attacks are shown in results
- Rebalanced Merchant's "Garner Favor" to use 10% + Negotiation chance to gain Rep Bonus, removed cap on Rep
- Improved balance and profitability of prize ship talents, wider range of results enabling high profit or no Rep loss
- Faction flags are now shown over ship components in all instances (ship status, starport ship layout, etc)
- Clarified that reductions in Hyperwarp Jump time can never exceed 50%
- Fixed crash in Auto-Battle for crew combat if character carried Sniper Rifle and trained AOE Talent
- Fixed HUD overlap issues on iOS devices with white bar