Hi all - hope you enjoy the patch. New ship models, cargo storage and a number of bug fixes.

UPDATED SHIPS: 10 of the 40 ships have been updated with final ship models. I'll continue adding the final models as they are completed. If you have any of the following ships, the next time you enter space you will be flying the new-shiny-updated version of the ship. There have been no changes to your equipment - just load and go. Hope you like them...
Victory FT-2 - Light Fighter
Arrow FT-1 - Light Fighter
Triumph ITC-4 - Interceptor
Rovah MK-1 - Explorer
Talon ATKR-2 - Medium Fighter
Khaal ATKR-4 - Heavy Fighter
Tarsus MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Severin MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Heron MRCH-3 - Light Merchant
Exetor ATKR-7 - Heavy Fighter

CARGO STORAGE: The cargo storage system is included in this patch. It is a pre-requisite for some of the work I need to do next and had to go in now. On most stations in the universe and at the Achmedius trade station, you can now purchase cargo storage space. Once you purchase storage space, it is yours forever - there are no upkeep costs and you will have 200 "slots" to store cargo items on that station.

Cargo storage is accessed via a "terminal" near the entrance of any non-hostile station that offers trade services, merchants and faction agents. You can press "TAB" to highlight the new terminals. Selecting the terminal will give you an option to purchase storage on that station. Once purchased, you can move cargo from your cargo hold to storage and back.



You can place ore, ship equipment (turrets, shields etc.) and in the future commodities and refined ore. You cannot store regular gear in cargo storage (ground weapons, armor etc.). You have a stash for all of that.

Cargo storage differs from ship cargo space. That is, a "slot" can hold unlimited stacked items. For example, lets say you have 200,000 units of raw iron ore. Placing that ore in your cargo storage will only take one of the 200 slots - a slot is just that, an item of any single type takes up a single slot. Every ship component you place in storage takes a slot because each ship component is unique. On a ship, storage is calculated in cubic meters. So, if your ship has 1000 cargo, you will only be able to move 1000 units of iron ore from your stations cargo storage container to your ship assuming your cargo hold on your ship is empty. Cargo storage is only available on any station where you purchase it.

I'll be adding a way for you to track where your storage (and ships) are located in the universe in a future patch. For now, just make a note of where you purchased storage or set it up in Achmedius. You can always jump there from other systems.

So, why cargo storage?
--You may want to store ore or commodities until you can find the best sell price in the Universe.
--You may find a shiny Legendary warp drive for a ship you don't have yet and do not want to clutter up your cargo hold.
--Refining storage (a future feature) - You will be able to refine raw ore and store it in station storage until you can bring your massive cargo ship and haul it to your favorite sell point.

And a few bug fixes:
FIXED: Tab targeting when in space combat would occasionally cause a crash to desktop.
FIXED: A very rare bug that could leave characters in a state where they could not move.
FIXED: Mercs with heavy weapons now apply the correct default heavy weapon settings when recruited so their default weapons function correctly. Any default merc heavy weapons can be removed and then equipped again to reset the weapon so it functions.
FIXED: A bug that could occasionally initiate a combat attack when using the rotate key.
FIXED: When in combat and moving, you can no longer select the rotate function which could have locked up the game in rare cases.
FIXED: You can no longer switch fire modes on your weapon once a combat attack has been started.
FIXED: It was possible after initially hacking a chest or locker to click that chest or locker after a successful hack, displaying the hacking interface. This is no longer possible. There is a now a small delay before you can attempt to hack a chest or locker gain (2 seconds).
FIXED: After hacking a locker, there was a delay before loot was displayed. Loot is now displayed immediately.
FIXED: When the entire stack of items was sold to a vendor (ore), a "phantom" cargo item could be left in the inventory. This could happen multiple times resulting in an incorrect display of the number of cargo items in your cargo hold.

And a glimpse of several of the second set of ship model replacements that will come in a future patch. Next up, some enhancements to the star map in the log to allow for system searches, display of cargo storage locations and ships stored on stations. I'll also be working on the passive drone mining system, a pass at space combat balance and more. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! I thought I would share a quick progress update. The last few weeks I've spent most of my time getting the first set of 10 new ship models in the game. I'll release these with the next patch.

https://youtu.be/jyjRrjWqXuI

Meanwhile, the second set of ships model replacements are in development and I'll get those in the game when they are ready. A few screenshots below - work in progress.


And finally, I've been working on the cargo transfer feature. When this is finished, you will be able to purchase cargo storage space on trade stations. Once you own cargo storage, you will be able to move items from your ship cargo hold to storage, swap ships and move those items to your currently equipped starship from storage. I know a lot of you have wanted a way to store all that shiny legendary gear and move it to another ship. This is also a requirement for future work on trading and crafting so needs to be done now. As you can see, you will be able to sort both your current ships cargo and the contents of the station cargo storage.

Cargo storage is only for ship equipment, ore and commodities.

When buying new ships, the current cargo transfer feature will still work - so, you will need to make sure the contents of your current ship cargo bay will fit in the new ship you are purchasing.


That's all I have for now. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. I'm hoping to get the updated ships, cargo transfer and a number of bug fixes out in a patch next Friday. As always, thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

First, I'd like to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday Season and thank you for a great year! This is the second patch as promised that provides additional bonuses to end mission loot, a new device that lets you scan for lifeforms in mission areas, a cleanup pass on the movement/interaction system and more. This is the last patch this year, and it has been a very busy year indeed. I have big plans for 2019 and I hope you enjoy the content and updates to come.

Here are the patch notes:

UPDATED: At the end of missions and when you clear hostile facilities and explore locations, you are now awarded better bonus equipment. Originally this was going to be a crate. I'm going to reserve that for major bosses that will reward epic items, and now grant these reward items as described below.
All granted items are now useful - no more health kits or junk items.
All granted items are of exceptional quality or higher.
You now get three guaranteed items at the end of missions.
Other rewards remain the same - Faction, cash rewards, and ammo are still granted depending on whether the location is a faction mission or a explore location.
--Short missions and explore locations - A chance for a legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)
--Medium missions and explore locations - A high chance for a legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)
--Long missions and explore locations - A guaranteed legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)

UPDATED: A cleanup pass to the movement and interaction system. Overall this brings a few things in line with where they should be as far as object interaction and movement is concerned. Still more work to do on this.
--When moving to a location, if you click a chest, object or NPC, the closest team member will branch off and interact with that item instead of ignoring the object and continuing to move to the destination.
--If a PC is moving towards an object to interact, other team members will stop and wait.
--If a PC is moving towards an object to interact, another click to move will interrupt the interaction and clear the interaction queue.

UPDATED: The help screen while in space has been updated.
UPDATED: When rolling over grenades and health kits popups, descriptions are now displayed on the screen so you can see what kind of grenade or health kit you are selecting.
UPDATED: The high-resolution space option now also displays higher resolution materials for planets.
UPDATED: In higher level encounters, enemy groups are less likely to be generated with multiple missile launchers. Sure, that was fun, but it can also be overwhelming.
UPDATED: New color coding icons for equipment tiers in all menus.
UPDATED: You can now translocate directly to your ship from anywhere on a trade station if you have the Halamis Translocator equipped.

ADDED: A new device exclusive to the Shikaru faction. Shikaru faction vendors now sell the Lifesign Tracker. This device exposes all lifeforms in the current mission area on the radar for 10 seconds. Enemies out of range of the scanner are displayed at the edge of the radar display. You can use this in any mission area to help you track down those elusive enemies hiding in small rooms or in the larger mission areas like caverns and stations. The device has a 2-minute cooldown. The device cannot be used to reveal ethereal creatures. The device uses a global cooldown so other team members that also have the device equipped will need to wait until the cooldown expires. The cooldown persists between saves. There will be many more useful devices coming to the game - cloaking devices, resource node scanners for salvaging, drones for scouting areas and destroying upcoming turret placements in missions etc.

ADDED: Bloom filter setting in the video options screen.

FIXED: A bug that would display the wrong number of available faction tokens when purchasing an item from a faction vendor.
FIXED: When purchasing an item from a faction vendor, the text sent to the log now correctly indicates that you used tokens to purchase the item.
FIXED: The beacon icon now disappears if active when you FTL out of a star system.
FIXED: Blending issues with nebula effects. Overall, nebula effects now better match the star system sky and are more subtle.
FIXED: Removed duplicate log entry when turning in faction missions.
FIXED: A floating container in one of the mission areas and a number of other visual glitches in various mission areas.
FIXED: A mission enemy that was linked to a group on the other side of the mission map in one of the mission areas.


A little of what you can expect for the NEXT content patch:



The first set of final models for some of the ships (10 total)
Victory FT-2 - Light Fighter
Arrow FT-1 - Light Fighter
Triumph ITC-4 - Interceptor
Rovah MK-1 - Explorer
Talon ATKR-2 - Medium Fighter
Khaal ATKR-4 - Heavy Fighter
Tarsus MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Severin MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Heron MRCH-3 - Light Merchant
Exetor ATKR-7 - Heavy Fighter

Cargo transfer on stations
Ground mining drone system
Commodities and trading tied to the beacon system currently in the game
Updated animations
Improvements to the pace of combat (tied to the new animations)
Faction Agents will buy scan data

That's not all of course and I'll be working my way through the "What's Next" and "Roadmap" posts on the forums as I move towards Alpha.

As promised, here are a few of the items I mentioned I would get in before X-Mas. This patch adds new options for sorting and marking inventory items. Stellar Tactics has tons of loot and inventory management was a hassle. You can now mark items for sale, sort items in the vendor UI's and bulk sell marked items and vendor trash. You should also see a large increase in the cash rewards from incursions and a large increase in the credits earned from selling loot to friendly factions. Hope you enjoy the update:

UPDATED: You can now mark items for sale in your shared inventory, stash and cargo hold. Just Alt-Click items to mark them for sale.
--A check mark will appear over the item in your shared inventory.
--A check mark will appear next to the item in the cargo and stash lists.
--Alt-Click again to remove the marked state.
--You cannot mark stacked items for sale (health packs, grenades etc.)
--You can also mark ore - however, see below - I've added a special "SELL ALL ORE" button to the vendor inventory.


UPDATED: Vendors now have new options that let you sell all marked items from your inventories and all junk items in your inventories. Make sure you really want all of these items sold before you select these options. Of course, you can always buy them back if you made a mistake.
--When selling to a vendor, you can sell all marked items from your shared inventory, stash and cargo bay with one click. Each item sold will be displayed in the game log and a total for the transaction will be displayed in your log.
--When selling to a vendor, you can sell all junk items with one click. Each item sold will be displayed in the game log and a total for the transaction will be displayed in your log. Selling all junk sells all vendor trash items in both your shared inventory and stash.
--If you have your cargo bay selected, a special option to sell all ore with one click replaces the "SELL ALL JUNK" option. Again, items sold and total credits earned will be displayed in the log.

UPDATED: You can now easily see the quality of items in your shared inventory, stash and cargo hold:
--In your shared inventory, items now have a color-coded border that displays if the items are exceptional, rare, legendary or epic.
--In your stash and cargo hold, there are new icons in the lists that are displayed if the items are exceptional, rare, legendary or epic.

UPDATED: The vendor UI now displays the quality of items with new color-coded icons in both the player's list area on the right of the screen and the vendor's area on the left. This should help you quickly identify items that are of value when trading. This also applies to ship equipment vendors. Marked items are also displayed when trading with vendors. You cannot mark items for sale in the vendor UI.



UPDATED: You now have sorting options in the vendor menu for all item types on both the vendor and the player sides of the vendor UI.
--Ground-based sorting options are white icons.
--Ship equipment and ore sorting options are blue icons.
--One icon is for consumables - the white health kit icon displays both health kits and ammo. This also applies to ammo and data beacons in the ship equipment vendor UI.

UPDATED: Other than ore, all prices at vendors are now modified by your faction. Ore prices will be worked on when I get the trading system in the game. These bonuses and penalties also apply to the price of ships and ship equipment and the trade in value of your current ship. These bonuses and penalties are applied after your CHA bonus is applied to the cost of items.
--FRIENDLY: +15% bonus to the value of all items sold/ -15% to the price of items purchased
--NEUTRAL: Prices for items bought and sold are the same as they have always been
--WARY: -15% applied to the value of all items sold / +15% to the price of items purchased
--HOSTILE: You are KOS and cannot buy and sell to hostile merchants

UPDATED - Mods equipped on weapons now display mod adjustment values instead of the mod name in the rollover info.

UPDATED - The number of beacons you have in inventory is now displayed in the ammunition area of the ship UI.

UPDATED - Cash rewards for space combat incursions increased significantly.

FIXED: Ore is now listed in alphabetical order on ore traders
FIXED: Removed duplicate ore vendor entry for "Silica"

Patch day! - All perks for combat skills are now in the game to level 100. FIRST AID and HACKING perks have also been added to level 100. Space-specific skill perk lines for PILOTING, WEAPONRY, ELECTRONICS and TARGETING perks are all in the game for an additional 60 perks. I'll be adjusting all perks over time as other game systems are implemented.

The middle perk line in ELECTRONICS is related to security and will be used at a later time. For now, selecting perks in this line will have no effect.

Mining perks can be selected, however, they are not fully implemented for now. I'll be adding these when I get the ground mining drone system in the game. You do get bonuses from the WEAPONRY skill perks from reload speed and energy efficiency when mining so you should see a boost from those perks.

Perks are useful in a number of ways. For ground combat, they can give you bonuses towards applying various status effects and mitigating different damages types. They are most useful for customizing your team for offensive, balanced or defensive roles. They apply secondary bonuses for applying additional damage, bleeding, hobbled, stunned, crippled, poison and shield strike-through effects. The defensive line provides additional AC and bonus mitigation against status effects.

Healing perks provide additional healing effects and the ability to remove status effects when applying med-kits. At higher levels they can remove stun, poison, bleeding, hobbled and crippled states.

Hacking perks provide bonuses to the length of time you have to select a key when hacking a chest or locker, bonus loot quality, and even auto-completing hacking.

Space perks affect all crew station bonuses displayed on the ship screen [K] - Ship speed, turn rate and evasion - Damage bonuses, reload speed and energy efficiency - scan range, security (not active yet) and shield bonuses - turret lock speed, chance to hit and shield bypass.

Perks can be changed at any time - an unusual design decision. I did not want to lock players into any specific perk decisions. In Stellar Tactics perks are situational and as development continues that will be much more important at higher levels.

As I roll out crafting, repair, salvaging and adjustments to mining, I'll also add perks for those skills. They are all interrelated and each of those skills will need to be worked on at the same time.

The total number of perks currently in the game:
Combat - 135
General - 30
Space - 60
Total - 225 perks

A few additional fixes and updates for this patch:

ADDED - Combat, first aid and hacking perks to level 100.
ADDED - Space combat perks for all space skills to level 100.
UPDATED - You can now rotate the camera with the mouse (right mouse button) while panning with the keyboard (WASD) during ground exploration.
FIXED - If an incursion spawned at your exact location, some ships would enter combat but not fire at you.
FIXED - If an incursion spawned at your exact location, tab targeting could crash the game in some cases.
FIXED - A message - "Press

to pause space combat at any time!" would continuously display even after docking or landing at a ground location.
FIXED - Ship shield strike through bonuses are now working correctly.
FIXED - A damage display error in the character info screen.
FIXED - A rare lockup when accepting missions from faction agents.
FIXED - Missile launchers now respect the friendly fire player settings.
FIXED - A bug that caused the action bar background to disappear when characters died, were KO'd or when the last enemy died of bleeding or poison damage.
FIXED: A bug that could place you at an incorrect initial entry point for missions.

Hi all - new patch today that fixes a number of issues.

I'm nearly finished with the perks for ground combat, space and several of the general skills. There will be an additional 66 perks to complete the combat, first-aid and hacking perk lines. I'm also adding all the space combat perks for an additional 60. That's a total of 126 new perks added to the game and a grand total of 225 perks! I hope to have these tested and ready to release soon. I'll be adding the additional perks for salvaging, repair and crafting as those systems get released. Mining perks are dependent on the drone mining system, so those will go in when I release that feature.

There is quite a bit of other work going on. This includes the drone mining system, updated animations including the new special weapon attacks, and more. Here are the notes:

FIXED: Duplicate display of team position in some missions. There was a display error in the mission completion map next to the radar that would display your location in mission areas more than once in some cases.
FIXED - Removed duplicate eliminate mission targets from mission areas.
FIXED - A bug related to applying armor strike through at high levels of melee skill. This changes things for melee at higher levels both for enemies and team members. Overall higher damage output from melee.
FIXED - Delayed damage and visual effects when using flamethrowers.
FIXED - A display error related to mods applied to weapons with critical chance modifiers.
FIXED - A game lockup when using the toggle combat toolbar icon or other toolbar icons while transitioning in and out of combat.
FIXED - Enemies and the player no longer scan the environment for each other while transitioning in and out of combat. In some cases, this could result in a game lockup.
FIXED - A number of data issues with some of the mission sets.
FIXED - Line of sight lines now disappear immediately when an enemy dies. Previously, the could remain visible until the enemy disappeared.
FIXED - When completing a mission, the entire message is now displayed on the screen. Previously, the text was being cut off.
FIXED - A number of general stability fixes.
UPDATED - If you have a healthkit enabled, you can now click character portraits to heal in and out of combat.
UPDATED - All ships drop at least one loot crate, even in systems that are -10 levels of your average space combat skills.
UPDATED - Your ship will tractor dropped enemy ship crates from a much larger distance now. Should help in cases where an enemy ship is too close to a planet when destroyed.
UPDATED - Improved load speeds by a few seconds
UPDATED - Reduced the amount of information sent to the log. In some cases, when playing very long sessions, this may lead to problems.
UPDATED - Voice comments adjusted:
--Team members now comment on critical hits less often.
--Team members will only comment on loot if the item looted is armor or a weapon and of rare quality and above.

Hi everyone. First, I'd like to thank all of you who reported bugs big and small over the last few weeks. I'm posting a new build and cumulative patch notes since the release of the last major content update September 21st when I opened the universe.

It's been a very busy time since the release of the patch and we've had a lot of new additions to the Stellar Tactics community providing a ship load of great feedback and suggestions. I read everything I can posted on the forums and many of you know that I'm actively engaged in the conversations there. Please do continue to post and comment. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Here is what I'll be working on next, in no particular order. I'll start rolling out these features one at a time for the most part.

In no particular order:

• Perks to level 100
  
• A few additional devices that can be used in combat.
  
• Repair system for both space and ground. The space repair system will allow you to assign crew members to ship repairs. You will of course still be able to pay for repairs on stations.
  
• Addition of weapons for pugilism along with some adjustments. Currently there are no weapon types for this combat skill. I've compensated by making this skill more powerful, however, it's time to get these weapons in with mod slots etc.
  
• Implement new animations - these are done and have been waiting until I had time to get them in the game
  
• Space trading and the Trade-Net
  
• Cargo transfer on stations
  
• Special weapon attacks
  
• Ground mining drone system
  
• Sneaking, traps and environment security systems (including turrets)
  
• Sorting for vendors, inventory, stash and cargo
  
• Space station turret defense systems
  
• Crafting
  
• Patrolling enemies and NPC's
  
• Faction Agents will buy scan data
  
• Implement the updated ship models you saw in the last announcement

FIXED: Rollover compare info when using F1-F4 keys was not displaying the correct team member when reviewing inventory in space.
FIXED: Mining skill was capped at level 60. You can now level this skill to level 100.
FIXED: You can no longer move team members while translocating out of a mission area.
FIXED: Stacked items like grenades and med-kits placed in your stash now stack. If you have unstacked items, drag them to your backpack and then back to the stash to free up slots.
FIXED: Mining ships and other ships launched from hostile systems are now hostile. You will still see other factions that may be friendly, neutral or wary entering these systems. That is intended.
FIXED: At times the docking icon was displayed and would not work until you were closer to the trade station. If docking icon is displayed, you will always dock.
FIXED: A rare crash when tab-targeting in space combat when in combat. Please let me know if you see this by posting on the bug forums. I've added additional debug info to help me locate the issue if it turns up again.
FIXED: Explore planetary locations now correctly display the "CLEARED" flag when selected if that location was actually completed. I'll be adding this to cleared hostile sector stations soon.
FIXED: Fixed a bug that would leave sold item icons (healthkits etc.) in the inventory even though they were not valid.
FIXED: A few typos
UPDATED: You can now shift-click to move items from your stash to your inventory.
UPDATED: Increased the amount of experience received at lower levels when mining. There is a leveling curve applied to EXP gain that more closely follows skill and equipment progression.
UPDATED: Reduced EXP required to gain skill in hacking by 20%. This will change when more hacking devices of various quality go in the game.
UPDATED: Increased the value of all dropped items found in ground combat including vendor junk items, armor, weapons and mods. Ground missions now generate more income overall from loot.
UPDATED: Added debuff timers to the rollover status icons for bleeding, hobbled, crippled, poisoned, stunned and EMP status effects. These show the duration in turns of any active status effect that is on a timer.
ADDED: In addition to the LOS line indicators, I've added a cover icon to the movement destination cursor. It should help you identify areas where cover is available.
ADDED: Added a beacon guide entry to the in-game guide.


FIXED: Station names in loading screen were incorrect.
FIXED: An exploit related to equipped armor. Thanks for pointing this out.
FIXED: Selecting a planet with a mission location and then selecting a planet with no data will clear the mission data information from the planet UI.
UPDATED: Crouch/Stand animations are more responsive.
UPDATED: Crouched swap weapon and leave combat animations more responsive.
UPDATED: Help menu can only be opened if other UI's are closed like inventory, crew manager etc. The help menu cannot be opened over the main menu.
UPDATED: Hacking success or failure is displayed on the screen when a hacking attempt is completed.
UPDATED: Enemy loot packs now have a larger hit box. Should help on stairs and near doorways.
UPDATED: Better handling of tooltip info so it doesn't refresh with minor mouse moves in stash, vendor lists and inventory.
UPDATED: When in vendor UI, you can now press F1-F4 to compare the rolled over item to any active team member.
UPDATED: When in your inventory and stash, pressing F1-F4 updates the compared item in the tool-tip to the active team member.

FIXED: When selecting stellar objects in the upper left space hud, you can no longer click though that UI and accidentally select planets and other objects.
FIXED: When on surface after leaving ruins, clicking an enemy target could move the character instead of firing a weapon or walk-to and melee.
FIXED: One of the cave systems had a number of linked enemies - added LOS blocking
FIXED: A few floating enemies in one of the cave scenario sets.
FIXED: Healthkit and grenade bars are hidden when transitioning between areas
FIXED: When looting ammo the weapon display ammo count is updated immediately
FIXED: A display error in the inventory ammo area that could concatenate the number of ammo you actually had in some cases.
FIXED: Pharris Mace AK-7 number of turrets corrected in merchant and ship displays.
FIXED: The approach button on the selected ship popup UI now works as intended.
FIXED: A bug with the planet scanner that could add incorrect nodes to planets that were already scanned.
FIXED: A bug with the planet scanner that was resetting the new "SCANNED: NO SURFACE LOCATIONS FOUND" message.
FIXED: Lockup if you opened the crew manager during combat. Crew manager is now disabled when in combat.
FIXED: A rare lockup when boarding stations.

UPDATED: Adjusted the information displayed for the return location when a mission is completed. It now gives you the system name, the planet (e.g. Angos IV) and whether the return location is an orbiting station around that planet or a planet based station. You can always select a finished (not yet turned in) mission to center the star map on that system and select that star system in the upper left system UI panel. From there, you can approach that system while in FTL space. I'll be adding better information handling for missions in the future.

UPDATED: Expanded the range for station docking. Some stations are large and in some cases you had to fly above or below the station to get the docking icon.

UPDATED: Better targeting handling in combat. If your cursor is over an enemy, and the cursor is a targeting reticle and you click, you will not move. Should resolve unintended movement. You can also always use the combat queue or hold down the TAB key to avoid unwanted movement when targeting enemies.

UPDATED: Increased the maximum number of loot drop crates from ships from two to three per ship.
--Maximum drops from ships will only take place in systems that are 9 levels below your current average ship crew level. Fighting ships in lower level systems results in less loot dropped.
NOTE: Rare and Legendary loot will only show up as loot from destroyed ships and on vendors if you are over a certain average level (average ship skills - piloting, weaponry, targeting and electronics) - likely the reason some of you aren't seeing these items drop from ships and on vendors. This is not a change, it's been this way for a long time.
Legendary - average level 15+
Rare and exceptional - average level 5+
UPDATED: Updated the faction agent guide entry to add information about the Halamis Translocator (for teleporting out of mission locations) and a description of how to return to the mission faction agent when missions are completed.

FIXED: In some cases when recruiting a mercenary, the game could lock up.

FIXED: A error where if you removed a crew member using the crew manager leaving an empty slot between other crew members, movement would break and a team member or team members would not move correctly.
FIXED: Selecting an object in the system object list in the upper left of the screen, then selecting a ship and then again selecting the selected object in the list would not display the targeted list item.
FIXED: If mining with a full cargo hold, mining ore containers will time out after 60 seconds and despawn. If you were mining for a long time and not scooping ore, you could end up with thousands of them which over time could crash the game.

I've adjusted EXP a little for ground combat. Not really a tuning pass just a mild tweak.
--Increased melee damage EXP a little.
--Decreased ranged weapon EXP a little.

Adjusted the drop rates for rare and exceptional items. Vendors are also affected. It's still way better than it was before, but that last patch was over the top. I'll be doing more work on this over time.

UPDATED: Updated messages for powering up turrets and a warning if you are trying to mine asteroids without a mining turret.
UPDATED: When in Achmedius in your starter ship (only the starter ship), only one enemy ship will be launched during incursions. If you leave Achmedius, the incursion system works as it always has - launching a random number of enemy ships. The enemy ships spawned in this case are always weaker than the starter ship. This is to give new players a chance to learn space combat without getting fragged - that is as long as their ship shields are up.
UPDATED: Wherever you are in the universe, if you do not have a beacon placed in the Achmedius system, I've placed one there for you automatcially. Should help those of you who may get lost in space. Just approach any FTL point (jump point in the upper left object list while in space) in any system and as long as you have 5 fusion cells in your inventory, you can translocate back to Achmedius instantly.
UPDATED: Added additional information that tracks tasks during character creation and displays remaining tasks to complete before starting the game.
UPDATED: Ship equipment vendors now have a better assortment of rare and exceptional equipment. Legendary equipment should be more common on vendors.
UPDATED: If you select single movement mode (SPACE when not in combat), that team member will walk to and interact with objects and NPC's in the environment. In group movement mode, the closest teammember will interact with the object.
UPDATED: Selected team member portrait is now highlighted in and out of combat.
UPDATED: Camera FOV indicator on radar is brighter now. You can use this indicator to set a frame of reference in the location you are exploring. For example, rotating the camera FOV so it points north will help give you an idea of where you are and where you have been.
UPDATED: When scanning a planet, the NO DATA message has been replaced with a new message letting you know that you scanned the planet. The NO DATA message appears if you have never scanned a planet. There are a few remaining bugs with scanning that I'm looking into - nothing game breaking.
FIXED: Ship warp engines on merchants now provide correct power values for various quality tiers. Ship engines for some ships, especially some of the trading vessels like the Talon, were being generated with very low power output. Warp drives for fighters and interceptors were generating too much power.
FIXED: An edge case with key input for camera panning that could cause camera movement to stick when edge scrolling.
FIXED: When exiting the Abandoned Research Facility via the exit door, you will transition to the staging area of the facility instead of space.
FIXED: You can no longer quicksave the game before speaking with Dr. Rhamus on the Dauntless the first time.
FIXED: You can no longer quicksave the second you enter combat.
FIXED: Visible line of sight indicators are now hidden when selecting end turn options.
FIXED: An edge case that reset the currently selected team members voice when editing team members by clicking their portraits in the character information and equipment screens.
FIXED: Rolling over portrait icons in the left combat order queue UI now displays the correct rollover information at the top center of the screen. When rolling over the icons, enemies are highlighted so you can distinguish their position against the order in the queue.

FIXED - An edge case where when taking missions from Zabin Morbain, garbage text was displayed in the mission window.
FIXED: An edge case that was keeping ore from spawning when mining asteroids.

IMPORTANT:
Left click on enemies can occasionally be finicky. I'm working on a right click menu popup that lets you select the body part you want to target. It will display CTH values for each of the attack positions and you can just select your choice. I'm hoping to get this in and tested by the end of next week. High perception stats will also display additional information like enemy resists. I'll need to test the resists display a good bit so, this may not make it in when I patch the new targeting UI.

Meanwhile, holding down the highlight key (TAB by default) while aiming/attacking will block movement of any kind so you can avoid unwanted movement.

If you use the combat queue, when holding the SHIFT key while attacking, movement is now blocked. Shift is the default key for the combat queue. You can read more about the combat queue by pressing the "H" key while exploring ground locations. It is important to know that when holding the shift key, you can click multiple times to queue up attacks. When ready, press the space bar and all attacks will be made at once. When queuing combat attacks, you can press the "BACKSPACE" key to clear the attacks in the queue. The combat queue can speed up combat when making multiple attacks.

FIXED: When trying to shoot Full Auto, the game required 12 ammo to be loaded - this was recently reduced to 8 shots from full auto weapons and the game now only requires 8 ammo loaded into the weapon.
FIXED: When mining asteroids that are not in the asteroid field, no loot cans were being generated. Asteroid fields were working as intended.
FIXED: Dismissing a crew member causes the remaining crew members you may select in the list to not be correctly selected, displaying incorrect stat data for that character. This did not affect the actual crew member selected and dragged and your saves and mercs are fine. It was just a display error.
FIXED: Better handling for opening and closing the crew manager which could get stuck in a state where it would not close and accept unintended click and keyboard events when open.

I'm very happy to announce that the Stellar Tactics universe is now open - from one system to 160,000+ systems. I'm very happy with the progress and this is a major milestone for the game. I hope you enjoy it.

Prepare for a wall of text...

I want to set some expectations. This is the first pass of the universe sandbox. There are likely to be bugs, though we've done some heavy testing over the last three weeks and things seem stable. That doesn't mean there won't be edge cases that cause problems. If you do find any bugs, please post them on the bug forums and I'll address them as soon as I can. https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/7/

So, what is this patch?
--This is the first pass at the sandbox universe. Over time I'll be adding a lot of content including discovery missions from logs, distress transmissions and much, much more. Think of this as the beginning of something much larger.

--There is no new story content, just missions everywhere, places to explore, mine, engage in exploration discovery encounters on planets and stations against various factions. Plenty to do and explore.

--What will I be doing after the patch releases - a lot. The goal is to get to Alpha as soon as possible. to get there I need to finish a few more of the games core systems. I'll list all of that in the "What's next" and "Roadmap" posts on the forums.

--Tuning - the game needs to be tuned, both for ground and space combat. First, perks need to be in place, special attacks need to be finished and itemization and the economy needs to be addressed.

It's important that I point out that I do have plans to add (soon) a way for you to right click enemies and choose the target body part, review enemy information (resists and possibly more information) based on your perception stat. One thing I've never liked about the current system is that it does not give you an alternative method for targeting enemies - this will be addressed.


IMPORTANT: MOUSE INTERACTION HAS BEEN CHANGED. The mouse now uses left click to interact with objects, NPC's, combat attacks, movement and movement cursor rotation. Right click is reserved for camera rotation. I've adjusted this so it conforms with the standard. I find a lot of new players are confused by the old system which felt out of place. I think it works much better so thank you everyone who suggested this change.

You can now travel through the entire Stellar Tactics Universe. Traveling between systems is done in FTL Space - a 3D representation of the entire Stellar Tactics universe.

To travel to FTL space, you no longer need to approach a jump point. You can enter FTL space anywhere in a star system as long as you are not in combat. Jump points are now used for translocating between systems where you have placed a data beacons. More on that below. When you can FTL to the Star Map, an icon will be displayed in the upper left System Info UI if that UI is opened.



Once in FTL Space, approach any system and a new icon will be displayed in the upper left of the screen under the System Information menu. Pressing that icon will drop you from FTL Space into the selected Star System.

To enter FTL space, you need to have a FTL drive equipped on your ship. These are the requirements to enter FTL space:
1) If you are in your starter ship, you must have completed the "Speak with Scarby Hurzog" mission line through completion of the mission given to you by "Phestus". You can then buy a FTL drive from Phestus that you will need to equip on your ship.
2) You can purchase a new ship. All new ships are equipped with FTL drives.
3) You must return Dr. Rhamus and Dr. Jensen to the "Achmedius Trade Station" or you will not be able to enter FTL space

I've blocked entry to some systems for story content that will come during ALPHA and BETA. When trying to enter these systems a message is displayed letting you know that you cannot enter. Considering the overall number of systems (between 160,000 - 200,000 + depending on your random seed) you won't come across these often.

Level cap raised to level 60 - Skill cap raised to level 100

A new user interface for ground exploration and general information UI's. The space UI has not been changed other than some minor edits. I still have some cleanup to do on the UI and I'm looking through everything to make small adjustments.

Line of sight indicators that are displayed when hovering over movement locations. They indicate visible enemies from that position and provide you with an idea of whether or not that location provides cover. More work to do on this including displaying the indicators when you press TAB.

Closest team member interaction: When interacting with objects in the environment, the closest team member to that object, NPC, chest, loot object etc. will always interact. This resolves situations where you may be blocked getting to the object and need to move your team members around. There are a couple of important notes here:
1) When interacting with vendors, regardless of who selects the vendor, the team member in your active team with the highest CHA will be used in vendor price calculations.
2) When hacking you will need to select the team member with the hacking tool. The closest team member will interact, however, the selected team member with the tool will actually hack the item, provide skill bonuses and receive the experience.

All ships are now available to purchase. Vendor inventory is random so check vendors for new ships.

Your key-binds have been reset.

The farther you travel out into the universe, the more difficult enemies become. Faction mission agents can be found on stations in primary faction systems - that is Halamis, Varadyn, Cilivon, Conrair, Shikaru and Aralion.

You can see which faction is controlling a Star System on the Star Map in the log by rolling over or clicking on a system. You can gather missions from agents that will send you to nearby systems. Returning for your reward will net faction, tokens and rewards. If you enter a station with a faction agent and that system is way above your level/capability, the faction agent will not issue missions. There are also agents in sub-faction systems like The Kchor, The Coven etc. Neutral systems do not have faction agents, these systems are reserved for faction warfare. I'll be expanding on these missions, the mission descriptions and more over time.

The difficulty of a particular Star System is indicated in the Log->Star Map area. When you roll over a system, information will be displayed in the lower right of the Star Map displaying:
--The name of the system
--Reputation (hostile, wary, neutral, etc.)
--The primary Faction for that system
--The sector X,Y coordinates
--The difficulty of that system displayed my minimum level requirement
--If the system has station services

I'll be doing much more work on the map for an upcoming update.

In FTL Space, combat is disabled. I'll be adding various discovery locations, skirmishes and faction warfare in the future.

System labels in FTL Space are color coded as follows:

• Green Border: System has leveled content if there are landing locations and faction mission agents.
  
  
• Yellow Border: A challenge. The content in these systems is slightly above your level. With good gear and a skilled team you will survive. Faction agents are likely to have missions for you in these systems.
  
  
• Red Border: Likely impossible - but who knows? Give it a try and see. Faction agents will not offer missions in these systems.
  
  
• Purple borer with solid dark blue background: You have a agent mission to complete in this system.
  
  
• Yellow border with solid green background: You completed a mission and an agent is waiting for you to return for your reward in this system.

Star systems on the Star Map in your log are now colored by faction. Red systems are hostile, blue neutral, yellow wary and green are friendly. When entering hostile systems, ships will spawn and intercept you. They will continue to launch ships as long as you are in a system. You can stay and fight, scan planet surfaces for stations and event locations, board hostile stations or leave the system. They will continue to hunt you until you destroy them or leave the system.

Landing on a station or ground station in a hostile system will set that location hostile and exploring those locations will result in combat. Clearing one of these locations will net you rewards and faction. No tokens are rewarded.

Ships will occasionally spawn in all systems and harass you. Mining for ore now has an added degree of risk. You are less likely to be harassed in systems that are controlled by factions that are not hostile towards you. They will continue to hunt you until you destroy them or leave the system.

Equipping your mining vessel with good shields and armor and making sure you have one or two dedicated weapon turrets is usually enough to fend off the enemies if you are in lower level systems. Destroying these ships will spawn loot so - bonus! If you see the message "Enemy ships inbound" and you are not yet ready for space combat, I'd head for the nearest station or FTL to FTL space.

Scanning planets in systems may reveal exploration opportunities. If you clear an exploration location you will get a reward and faction. No tokens are rewarded.


Two new faction armor sets, one for Varadyn and one for Shikaru. Doing agent missions for these factions will net you tokens that you can use to buy this armor. I'll be adding faction weapons in a future patch.

A new keybind that takes you directly to the ship UI, "K" by default.

PageUP and PageDown now zoom the camera in and out incrementally when exploring ground locations.


The crew manager has been added to the game. You can access the crew manager on the ground and in space using the "M" key. The crew manager is only available once you return Rhamus and Jensen to the Trade Port in Achmedius. You can find new crew members on the Achmedius trade station and stations across the universe. They are usually located in the sleeping quarters area of stations and ground facilities. Speak to NPC's you find and some may choose to join you. Accept their offers and review their skills in the crew manager. If you don't like their initial stats, you can dismiss them and find another.

• The crew manager can be accessed when in space or on the ground.
  
• The left side of the crew manager window displays all of your crew members. A total of 10 crew members can be in your crew at any time. Crew members can be recruited on friendly stations across the universe.
  
• You cannot move crew in or out of your ground crew while on the ground. You can only assign new crew to your ground team in the crew manager while in space.
  
• Selecting a crew member in the left list displays important stat and skill information for review in the center pane of the crew manager.
  
• You can assign, replace and remove crew members by dragging them from the left crew list to the right team rosters.
  
• You can remove crew members by dragging them from the active roster to the crew list on the left. This allows you to solo ground missions or limit the number of crew members you have in your active ground team.
  
• Your ship and ground crew members can be separate. That is, you can have dedicated ground and space crew or you can mix and match team members from both rosters.
  
• You cannot replace your main character. He/she is dedicated to the first slot in the ground team roster and will always be a member of your ground team.
  
• You must have at least one crew member assigned to your space crew roster.
  
• You can dismiss a crew member by selecting the crew member in the left crew list. Dismissing a crew member is permanent (at least for now). You will prompted when dismissing a crew member and notified that dismissal is permanent.
  
• Setting station assignments in the ship UI [K] will re-arrange your ship crew. It does not affect your current ground team roster. Those changes will be reflected in the crew manager.

Data Beacons: These can be purchased from ship equipment vendors. If you approach a FTL point you will notice a new icon in the lower left of the screen. If you have data beacons in your inventory, you can drop a beacon in a system. You can then teleport back to that system from any other system in the universe instantly by approaching a FTL point, selecting the beacons icon and then selecting your destination from the list. I recommend picking a home system and placing a beacon there. It can be a place where you store your ships.

• To place beacons or translocate, you must be in the vicinity of a FTL point.
  
• Once you place a beacon, the system the beacon is placed in will be listed in the beacons UI.
  
• You must have at least 5 Fusion Cells (ground type ammo) to translocate
  
• You can delete beacons using the beacons UI
  
• Beacons will eventually also feed trading data into the Trade-Net

CTH system revised. If you have over a 75% chance to hit, you will always connect. You will either get a "Grazing hit" (ranged) or "Glancing blow" (melee). Damage is scaled down based on the CTH value. Between 50% and 75% CTH you still get a second roll that has a low chance to connect with the enemy. Let's give that a try for a while. I'll make adjustments based on player feedback. Note that grazing hits and glancing blows can still be mitigated. At lower levels if the damage value is very low, enemy damage mitigation can reduce this damage to zero.

Updated radar: The radar has updated icons and now displays the position of gather items and boss enemies. Vendors have unique icons and mission agents are clearly displayed when they enter the radar.

Friendly fire is now off by default. You can turn it on/off in the Options->Gameplay menu at any time, even while in combat.


Tutorials are now a Guide. The guide can be found by press "H" and selecting the "Guide" button at the top of the displayed screen. I've added new topics to the guide that cover space combat, mining and more. I'll be expanding the in-game guide over time. Video's have been removed and replaced with illustrations. Note that most of the guide topics have multiple pages as listed at the bottom center of the guide screen.

IMPORTANT: Get yourself a "translocator". All Halamis faction merchants carry them including the faction merchant in the Abandoned Research Facility staging area. They are free and instantly teleport you out of any mission location back to space.

GENERAL BALANCE:
--Weapon burst mode damage increased
--Some balancing to ship combat. A major tuning pass will go in the game with ship perks soon.
--Below level 10, ship combat is much easier. It should give you time to get used to the combat system and upgrade your ship. You should still consider upgrading your starter ship as soon as possible. The Dr's didn't really leave you with the best equipment.
--Enemies drop better loot overall. More rare and legendary drops everywhere.
--Weapons with mod slots are more common as loot drops and from vendors.

FIXED: A bug that was preventing doors displayed on the outside edge of the radar from highlighting mission map locations.
FIXED: A bug that could make door icons on the radar unresponsive.
FIXED: The system info menu opens on the first click now ( instead of 2 clicks the first time)
FIXED: The mysterious ghost hair bug is now resolved. Hair was being left in the scene occasionally when a merc joined your team.
FIXED: You can cancel the end turn options screen using the ESC key once again.
FIXED: A major repeatable crash bug related to opening and closing the load/save menu and then transitioning between areas.
FIXED: Music volume settings persist between loading of areas.
FIXED: You can no longer attach mods to weapons that do not have mod slots - thanks JODEGAFUN!
FIXED: Damage mods can now be equipped correctly to heavy weapons and all damage bonus mod types have received a scaled boost to damage output. Adjusted damage bonus is not retroactive so you will need to find new mods if you want the new adjusted bonuses.
FIXED: When adding a new crew member to your team, you will no longer get a default duplicate portrait for that new crew member.
FIXED: A bug related to the display of power related to reload speed in the ship UI if no crew member assigned to the weaponry station.
FIXED: If stash was full, and you dragged and dropped a item in your pack to the stash, the item disappeared. Thanks Captain Electric!
FIXED: Enemy ships would occasionally get stuck circling and ignore the player ship if it was in range.
FIXED: In some cases enemy ships could be destroyed, leaving their UI stuck on the left of the screen.
FIXED: Some of the cave areas that had bad ground stone object placement. Some other fixes in cave areas.
FIXED: DPS and other stats in turret rollover when rolling over turrets on main UI now match the displayed stats in the ship UI.
FIXED: Enemy ship UI's on left of screen are reset after combat.
FIXED: A bug that was causing enemy burst and full-auto shots to fail on occasion.
FIXED: Mining turrets now apply the correct turret reload speeds modified by mining skill to mining beams. Mining turrets are now generated using the same power requirements as regular combat turrets. This change is not retroactive.
UPDATED: Random missions (missions not related to the story) are no longer added to the completed missions list. If you had previously completed random missions, they will still be in the completed missions list.
UPDATED: Weapon scaling adjusted. Weapons now have an obvious increase in base damage as you level. For example, a 1hand weapon (slash, pierce, blunt) has a base damage at level one of MIN 3, MAX 5. A similar weapon at level 10 has a based damage of MIN 6, MAX 8 depending on the quality of the weapon. Of course, your actual damage is modified by your stat assignments, current weapon skill in that weapon type, perk selections and a few other factors and then mitigated by the enemies shields, armor, stats etc.
UPDATED: When exiting a station, you can micro-warp without needing to leave the gravity well.
UPDATED: You can now travel to FTL space from anywhere in a star system as long as you are not in combat or a inside a planets gravity well. Jump points are now only required for transolocating between systems. Translocating requires that you place a data beacon in a system. Once a data beacon is placed, you can translocate to that system from any other system. Translocating requires 5 fusion cells.
UPDATED: FTL points in systems can now be targeted and approached.
UPDATED: Removed auto camera switching while in combat. The view now stays fixed where you placed it during combat.
UPDATED: Doubled the number of fusion cells you can carry at one time. They are used for both ship and personal translocation so I wanted to make sure you could carry enough inventory.
UPDATED: Increased the number of ground based rockets, flamer fuel ammo and mini-gun mags you can carry.
UPDATED: Increased the number of shotgun shells you can carry from 200 to 500.
UPDATED: Mission objectives for gather missions and eliminate missions are now displayed on the radar.
UPDATED: When in a eliminate mission, as you clear the various locations, the mission status display shows the room as cleared by displaying a green overlay similar to other mission types.
UPDATED: Key binds UI in options menu updated so I can expand key binds in the future.
UPDATED: By popular request - autosaves now use only 4 save slots (and save files). Each autosave overwrites the oldest available autosave. All previous autosaves are still on your drive in case you need/want them. I'll work on sorting of load/save lists so autosaves are displayed at the top of the list in a future patch. I recommend always having it on. You can find the setting in the options->gameplay menu.
UPDATED: You can access the inventory, character info, log and ship info UI's while in space if not in combat without pausing the game so mining and travel will continue while browsing those UI's.
UPDATED: Heavy weapon ammo has higher chance to drop and be found in chests.
UPDATED: Star Map system icons are now color coded by faction. I'll be adding a way to indicated other useful information in a future patch.
UPDATED: The Star Map indicates the location of missions. Selecting a mission in the active mission list centers the map on the target location and sets that system as the target in the upper left info UI while in space. You can then click the approach button to fly to that Star System.
UPDATED: Area transitions in the ruins are now automatic and do not require you to click the exit panels.
UPDATED: Ion weapons do very little damage to ship hull armor. Other weapon types do less damage to ship shields.
UPDATED: Recruited Mercs now have reduced secondary skills when you find them. Previously they were receiving a bonus to the allocated secondary skills for space and general skills.
UPDATED: Vendor ore prices vary slightly from system to system. I'll be doing a lot more work on this for the commodities and trading patch.
UPDATED: The challenge level increases in systems that have a minimum level requirement of 20. Additional 1, 2 and 3 dot enemies are added to enemy combat groups. More challenge = more reward - they drop better loot more often.
UPDATED: Enemy ships are less likely to collide with your ship in space combat.
UPDATED: Weapon mods need to be shift-clicked and removed before you can add a new mod. The UI currently displays incorrectly that you can drag and drop a new mod to replace an old mod. I'll get that fixed.
UPDATED: A weapons damage type for each hit is displayed in the game log window. Helpful for those occasions when you are wondering why enemies are hitting you for so much damage. Shields mitigate damage types (thermal, kinetic, etc.). If you have low thermal mitigation at higher levels and an enemy is ripping you apart, you can now check against the damage type in the log.
UPDATED: Skill experience from hacking increased.

KNOWN BUG: Exiting from the Abandoned Research Facility via the entrance door inside the facility places you in space in orbit around the planet the facility is located at. Using the translocator teleports you to the correct location in the facility staging area.

And something for those of you who braved the wall of text - for a future patch. Colin has done an amazing job and I'll be getting these in the game as soon as I can.

The next major content update will be on September 21st. Enjoy the video.

https://youtu.be/w2MK7hgOVb8

Hi everyone. No video this time, but I wanted to post a quick update to let you know what I've been up to.

Lots of work completed over the last month and a half since the last progress update. Star map performance is finished, the mission generator is placing explore missions on planets, faction agents are issuing faction missions to other systems in the area and rewarding tokens and rewards. I've also completed mission indicators so you know where to go when a mission is assigned and I've extended the system so I can add other mission types at a later time. I've spent a lot of time testing and making sure that when you arrive at mission destinations, the missions play through, complete and send you back to the originator for your reward. So, that was a big part of the work that needed to be done out of the way.

Faction was another big task. I've added two more armor sets to the faction merchants. Shikaru and Varadyn. The sets can be purchased with mission tokens. They come in three color variants.


There are many different types of locations you can discover in Stellar Tactics. Many different stations types, ground based facilities and cave systems. When exploring you may come across planets that have ground locations that need help. Some may be invaded by Phage, Scavvers, Raiders, hostile factions, mutants etc. By clearing one of these locations you end up with rewards from the dominant faction of that system. Regardless of the current faction in that system, you will get a generous faction reward. Landing at sites like this is a great way to adjust your standing with the various organizations in the universe.

Normally when you enter a system, if your faction is "Wary" or better, you can dock and land at stations and ground based locations to buy supplies, trade and repair. However, if a faction is hostile and you enter the entire station becomes a combat zone. Right now in the development build you can dock at any station. That's going to change in the next few weeks when I add station turret buoys. If you approach within a certain range, hostile stations will start firing on your ship. You will need to destroy the turrets before you can dock at a hostile station. In the future I'll add ways to bypass security, override these turrets and dock. I'll also be setting stations up so they launch ships that will hunt you down unless you FTL out of the system.

Speaking of the FTL system, after playing the current development build, I've set up the FTL drives so you can warp from anywhere. That means you can leave a station and immediately FTL. I've increased movement speed with the micro-warp drives and speed in FTL space. I spent a few days making sure travel times are significantly reduced. Jump points will still be used for translocating. To translocate you will need to place a data buoy in another system. Once that's done you end up with a translocation bookmark. As long as you are in a certain range of a jump point you can instantly teleport between systems, bypassing the FTL space completely.

I've also added a few things for combat that I think you will appreciate. The first is line of sight indicators. When in combat, if you hover your cursor over a movement destination, line indicators will be displayed showing you if that position has direct line of sight to an enemy. Ideal for finding cover and deciding where to move your team member. They are also useful for letting you know when a team member is in the way so you don't shoot them in the back.

Second, I want to talk about the random number generator. This seems to come up fairly often, not just in Stellar Tactics but in most any game that uses RNG in combat. Here is the deal, and I agree - it's just not fun to have a shot lined up with a 90% chance to hit and you "whiff" - nothing. So, I've changed the system so "YOU ALWAYS HIT" if above 75% chance to hit. Your damage will scale down if you're initial roll fails and you will only graze your enemies, but you will still hit. Below 50% CTH you will still get a second roll that may do limited damage. You will only apply status modifiers (poison, stun, bleed etc) if your initial roll succeeds. Let's give that a try for a while and see if everyone likes the new system in the next patch.

Another thing that I've finished was adjusting the way looting works. You can now choose to auto-loot objects as a setting in options. The nearest team member now interacts with loot, characters and objects in the scene. These changes were much needed and I'm glad I was able to get them in.

And finally, a few screenshots of the new UI (work in progress). These look a little empty until I get them finished and in the game. I thought I'd share them anyway.


Lots of work to do yet, though I am well past the half way point for the next patch. Thanks again for supporting Stellar Tactics!