Hi all - I am happy to release the latest content patch for Stellar Tactics today. There are a lot of changes in this build so please read the patch notes below. I'll be monitoring the bug forums closely over the next few days and patching out any issues you might find. While I've done a lot of testing on this build, as you know, things happen. I hope you enjoy the changes.

I expect I'll be spending a week or two tweaking a few things with the special attacks, addressing issues (if any), and clearing a backlog of small issues that need to be looked into.

What's next? Sometime in the next week, I'll post an update covering what you can expect going forward. There are a lot of changes coming to Stellar Tactics and I'm really excited to be at a point where I'll be implementing new story content, expanding the mission system, polishing various rough edges, adding psionics, and more.

ADDED SPECIAL WEAPON ATTACKS AND SUPPORT SKILLS:
Weapon special attacks and support skills are now in the game. Note that enemies start using special attacks at around level 5. Players get all weapon skills at the start of the game and they improve over time with five total tiers increasing at skill levels 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. Weapon skills are specific to each weapon type and several are shared (1hand slash and 1hand blunt). Initially these attacks are fairly weak, however, over time they scale nicely and you will be using them regularly in combat.

• Special attacks and support skills use zero AP and can be triggered at any time if they are available as long as it is your turn in combat.
  
• Special attacks are guaranteed to hit, however, DEFEND can mitigate damage.
  
• Enemies start using special weapon attacks at level 5
  
• Weapon special attacks are on global cooldown timers.
  
• Support skills are reset at the beginning of combat. You can use sprint, taunt, and barrier at the start of each combat session.
  
• You can use special attacks and support skills from both equipped weapons ( primary and secondary ) in the same round if global timers are reset by swapping weapons.
  
• Special attacks, taunt, and barrier increase in power as you gain skill in that weapon class at levels 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100.
  
• Game difficulty affects how NPC's use special attacks by changing how often they are used. The frequency and power of these effects from NPC's vary by enemy difficulty. A regular NPC will use them less often, a single skull enemy more often and bosses will use them most of the time when their cooldowns expire. On easy mode, these attacks are less likely to trigger - on extreme difficulty the attacks will be triggered more often.
  
• Some enemies have special abilities. For example Phage vomit. Rather than triggering a special attack, they will use their special twice in one attack if they trigger a special. New enemies in future updates may have similar attacks that they use more than once in a combat round.

UPDATED - BOARDING:

• When boarding a ship, there will always be a loot container that contains ship equipment loot similar to what would have been dropped if you had destroyed the ship. NOTE: Ore and ship ammo is not included in the loot table.
  
• Enemy subsystem regeneration time increased by 30 seconds. It should now be easier to board ships with lower-tier ship equipment. Note that it has always been intended that boarding a ship with starter turrets would be difficult. Upgrading your turrets and systems will make boarding enemy ships much easier. While boarding, a ship may regenerate its shields, however, they go down faster after repaired by the enemy crew.
  
• General reward for selling ships to Arkus increased by 30%. Selling a ship with multiple decks increased by 70%. Note that repairing ships to full always rewards more and yes, it does take some time to gather the components - though, with higher salvage skill, more components are rewarded. I will be adding side missions for Arkus and he/she/it will have missions that will let you earn better rewards as you develop your relationship.

ADDED - REVIEW AND UPDATE CREW PERKS/STATS FROM THE CREW MANAGER:
You can now edit crew member perks, stats, portrait, voice, and name in the CREW MANAGER for any crew member by selecting the crew member you want to edit from the list on the left and then clicking the "EDIT CREW MEMBER" button. This is very useful when adjusting space crew perks for mining, space combat etc. Previously, you needed to add the crew member to your active crew to make adjustments.

ADDED - DEDICATED CREW MEMBERS FOR HACKING, SALVAGING, CRAFTING, AND REPAIR
When activating any of these skills, you can now select the active crew member as dedicated. This means that no matter which crew member activates the skill, the dedicated crew member will be the crew member who's skills and perks are used. This crew member also receives all experience from actively using these skills.
If you would prefer to not use a dedicated crew member anymore, just select the portrait to remove the "check mark" and the crew member that initiates the skill will be used.
The first time any of these skills is used a popup is displayed explaining how to select this crew member as the dedicated crew.
SELECT DEDICATED CREW MEMBER: When any of the skill UI's are displayed, click the portrait and a checkmark will be displayed indicating this crew member is not the dedicated crew member for that skill.
REMOVE DEDICATED CREW MEMBER: When any of the skill UI's are displayed, click the portrait and the checkmark will be removed indicated a dedicated crew member is not selected for that skill.
--NOTE: Removing or replacing a crew member from your ground team in the crew manager will reset your currently active dedicated crew. You will need to re-assign a new crew member to the various tasks.

UPDATED - VSYNC AND FRAMERATE CAP OPTIONS:
Uncapping the framerate in the video options has been changed to give players more options. You can find a new slider in the video options menu. Default is VSYNC ON. The slider lets you cap your framerate to 30 FPS, 60 FPS, VSYNC ON, VSYNC 1/2, VSYNC 1/4, and NO LIMIT (no cap at all!). VSYNC is highly dependant on your system, monitor, and video card settings. This should give players more options and hopefully address issues of animation slowdown. If you have any issues, you can always either uncap the framerate completely by dragging the slider to the far right or set the framerate cap to 60FPS or even 30FPS.

I'll keep an eye on the bug forums to see if any of the VSYNC and framerate adjustments mentioned above cause any issues. VSYNC ON should always provide the best performance.

GENERAL PATCH NOTES:
UPDATED: Increased base Micro-Warp speed of ships.
UPDATED: Reduced spam-click timer so there is less delay when interacting with objects and NPC's.
UPDATED: Skyboxes for the main menu and FTL space.
UPDATED: Doubled faction token and faction standing rewards for agent missions.
UPDATED: Doubled positive/negative faction reward values for clearing explore locations.
UPDATED: Increase the number of credits rewarded when completing a faction agent mission
UPDATED: Faction display in the log map area now displays your current faction values as positive/negative values ranging from -50,000 (worst) to +50,000 (best). Neutral ranges from -10,000 - +10,000.
UPDATED: Hacking and auto-hacking are now faster. When entering the correct key code, the next combination digit begins immediately instead of waiting for the cooldown timer to expire.
UPDATED: Repair and Salvage experience bars when repairing/salvaging ship components on boarded ships now show experience toward the next level instead of total skill experience.
UPDATED: Adjusted bleed damage down a little.
UPDATED: The FTL guide entry is displayed the first time you enter FTL space. A reminder to accelerate is displayed on the screen when entering FTL space. Additional information added to the FTL guide entry noting that piloting skill and FTL drive quality affect SHIP speed in FTL space. Guide entries/tutorials will eventually get an overhaul.
UPDATED: Added new key binds. Your current key binds have been reset.
Keybind for toggling grenades on/off [O]
Keybind for toggling med-kits on/off

Keybind for scanning the selected target in space [DELETE]
Keybind for attacking the selected ship. When in space combat you can tab-target ships in combat with you, and press the attack key to switch all turrets to the new target. [RETURN]
FIXED: Neutral system stations would occasionally spawn faction agents that would give missions that could never be completed.
FIXED: It was possible to mount heavy turrets on light turret mount slots. I recommend replacing any heavy turrets mounted on light turret mount locations to avoid issues with space combat.
FIXED: Corrected ship info list below turrets on ship screen [K} so it correctly displays the mount point info for heavy/light turrets.
FIXED: If entering the Abandoned Facility and taking missions before completing the Slice Mines mission, it was possible you could not turn the Slice Mine mission in to Scarby Hurzog.
FIXED: Rollover highlights for a number of objects.
FIXED: When removing status effects using first-aid perkS, the status effect displayed under the crew portrait is updated immediately.
FIXED: A few minor visual glitches with projectiles.
FIXED: A few material errors with Kchor NPC's
FIXED: A skill rounding error when recruiting mercs that would round skills down one level occasionally.

I'm posting a short WIP video today showing some of the new weapon special attacks and support skills. I'm also showing a few QoL changes that are coming in the next content patch. I expect the next content patch to be ready on January 8th.

https://youtu.be/mA-WNiN7raU

For those of you who have been playing Stellar Tactics, I'm sure you have noticed the two empty slots on the combat tool-bar. Those have always been reserved for weapon special attacks and support skills. These will be available from level 1 and increase in power as you gain skill in the weapon class they are associated with.

Special attacks are zero-AP cost attacks on a global cooldown timer. They provide a number of effects like PBAoE, target-based AE, and burst single target damage. The goal of the attacks is to give you additional options. Save them for a tough fight, or use them any time. The attacks make a big difference to the pace of the game. Also, because NPC's can use these attacks, you will need to be on your toes making sure your crew's HP is topped off.

The new support skills give you additional mobility, the ability to charge your shields, reflect damage, and the possibility to taunt enemies off of crew members who need a round to regroup.

In addition to the new support and combat skills, a few QoL updates are coming:

Dedicated crew members - You can now assign dedicated crew members to hacking, salvage, crafting, and repair. That means regardless of who engages these skills, the dedicated crew member will always perform the action and gain the EXP. For repair, it means you no longer need to drag weapons and armor off crew members into general inventory.

Crew member review - You can now review any crew member from the crew manager. This makes it easy to assign perks to any crew member without needing to move them into your ground crew.

Hacking update - You can now enter combination keys when hacking before the cooldown expires. This makes hacking a lot faster.

Boarding ships - There will now always be a container with the loot that would have dropped from the ship if you had destroyed it. This should make boarding a bit more profitable. In addition, larger ships will pay out more than smaller ships. Overall, I'll be adjusting the amount you get from ships marginally. Of course, repairing ships completely before selling them always pays the most.

Happy Holidays to all of you! Stay safe and thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics.

It's patch time again. Here are the details for the patch released today.

ADDED: REPAIR SYSTEM AND REPAIR PERKS
Rollover info now displays the current condition of items. As they degrade, they become less useful (less mitigation, weapon jams, lower damage, etc.).

Maintaining your weapons is easy. Just roll over the item you want to repair and press the [SPACE] key. Item repairs require finishing items that can be obtained by salvaging junk and gear that you find in your travels. Perks allow you to repair items above 100% to a maximum of +25 (125). Crafted items can gain up to +30 (130). Overall, any crafted item with the appropriate perks can have a maximum of 155 condition from crafting and repair bonuses. In addition - repair tier bonuses apply reduced item degradation as you progress to maximum skill level.

• Repair perks have been added
  
• I've provided 20 finishing items of every type as a one time grant for repair. These items will be added to your existing finishing items - or, when starting a new game, you will start with 20 finishing items of each type. This should cover repairs needed in the early game until players can salvage enough items for future repairs.

ADDED: EQUIPMENT WEAR
Equipment wear can be disabled in the options->gameplay menu.

Looted equipment will always be in some state of wear and will never be below 50%. This applies even if equipment wear is disabled.

• Equipment wear penalties apply when equipment degrades below 50%
  
• Below 25% - Additional penalties are applied.
  
• Below 5% - Items will barely function.
  
• At 0% Items are non-functional and must be repaired.
  
• Vendors always sell items that are at 100% condition.
  
• Electro damage does more wear to shields.
  
• Thermal and explosive damage do more damage to armor.
  
• Mods, devices, cargo expansions, and items equipped to a ship hardware mount point do not wear over time.
  
• Wear to ship equipment is minimal when shields are up. Once a shield is down and you start taking damage to your hull, damage is increased.

ADDED: NEW SHIP REPAIR STATION
You can now assign a crew member to the ship repair station. This crew member will prioritize repairs to your ship over time, prioritizing the hull, then shields, engines, systems, and weapons. This crew member can repair onboard equipment to the current maximum condition and will receive repair experience over time as they repair your ship. I recommend a dedicated repair crew member for the job.

Manually repairing ship systems can apply bonuses based on your current repair skill and perk selections.

• Ship repairs take place over time. Repair skill TIER bonuses improve the speed at which ship hull plating and components are repaired.
  
• When paying for ship repairs on stations, only the hull armor of the ship is repaired. Other components need to be repaired manually or over time when a crew member is assigned to the crew repair station. Hull plating is repaired over time by crew members in the crew repair station.
  
• If the crewmember assigned to the ship repair station is also in your ground crew, repairs will not take place while on stations or ground locations.
  
• Repairs by a crew member in the repair station slot do not consume resources.

ADDED: SALVAGING PERK LINE

• Additional components can be salvaged as you unlock skill TIER bonuses.
  
• Perks added that provide bonuses to base salvaging failure, learning, and schematic experience.
  
• Perk selections that allow for increased schematic discovery for weapons, mods, armor, shields, and ship schematics.
  
• SCHEMATIC DISCOVERY PERKS - BONUSES FOR SELECTED SCHEMATIC DISCOVERY PERKS STACK FROM MULTIPLE CREW MEMBERS. Each crew member can provide a +10% schematic discovery bonus for a total of a +40% bonus if all ACTIVE GROUND crew members have a skill level of 80 in salvaging and the correct discovery perks are selected.

ADDED: CRAFTING PERK LINE
Skill tier bonuses reward reduced chance of negative conditions, bonus finishing points at the start of crafting. Perk selections apply bonus action points, item durability, reduced negative condition duration, and positive condition bonuses for weapons, mods, armor, shields, and ship equipment.

ADDED: SCHEMATIC REVIEW IN SALVAGING DISPLAY
You can now view your unlocked schematics in the salvage display without needing to travel to a crafting table.

ADDED: NEW DEVICE - THE AMMO CONVERTER
A new device is available from Varadyn faction vendors that will allow you to convert any type of ammo into other types of ammo. The UI is simple to use and you will can convert standard and heavy weapon ammo at the following ratios:

• Pistol, SMG, rifle, shotgun, and E-Cell to any other ammo type in this category = 1:1 ratio (1 for 1)
  
• Pistol, SMG, rifle, shotgun, and E-Cell to missile, fusion cell, flamer fuel, minigun = 4:1 ratio (4 for 1)
  
• Missile, fusion cell, flamer fuel, minigun to any other ammo type in this category = 1:1 ratio (1 for 1)
  
• Missile, fusion cell, flamer fuel, minigun to pistol, SMG, rifle, shotgun, and E-Cell = 1:4 ratio (1 for 4)
  
• The device can be used in any ground location including missions.
  
• This device is fairly expensive and requires that you complete a number of missions to earn the needed tokens from a Varadyn faction agent.

UPDATED: Perks or skill tier bonuses will be rewarded every 5 levels. Perk selection and preview has been completely overhauled so you can preview all skill perk and tier bonuses through skill level 100 at any time. Perks are still situational and you can switch between selections in each group as you have in the past.
IMPORTANT: You may need to assign perks in your current save now that these changes are posted. In many cases you may have a few perks available that you did not have before.

UPDATED: First aid perks overhauled - Reduced perk bonuses to healing, they were OP. Max skill tier bonuses grant a +75% bonus to healing in addition to the base medkit healing values (small, medium, and large). Perks now focus on removing status effects.

UPDATED: Explosives perk line revised with a focus on improved damage and inflicting status effects. Tier bonuses focus on CRIT and accuracy. Perk bonuses can apply addition damage and status effects:

• Stun grenades can apply bleeding
  
• Frag grenades can apply hobble
  
• EMP grenades can apply cripple

UPDATED: Weapons, armor, shields, and ship equipment all degrade over time with use and damage. You can repair these items by hovering over equipped items, inventory, stash, cargo, and ship equipment in the various menu's and pressing [SPACE] on your keyboard.
UPDATED: Maximum weapon skill level when crafting weapons is now uncapped - max skill level is now 100.
UPDATED: The currently selected crew member is not reset when transitioning between ground locations.
UPDATED: Removed perception requirement in extended rollover UI for displaying target resist values. I'll likely tie the display of additional resist information to another system.
UPDATED: On the character information screen, when selecting a new crew member, the selected skill is not reset to rifles making it easier to compare perks and skill info between crew members.
UPDATED: New SFX for most ranged weapons.
UPDATED: FTL sound effect volume reduced.
UPDATED: Reduced amount of ammo dropped now that ammo converter is available. I'll likely adjust this over time with more playtesting.
UPDATED: In HARD and EXTREME ground difficulty modes, auto regeneration of HP after combat is disabled. You will need to heal crew members with medkits.

• Shield and energy points will regen as usual.
  
• Transitioning between areas will heal crew members to full health.
  
• I'll gather feedback on this change and make adjustments as needed.

UPDATED: Increased melee proc damage from frequency modulator mods.

FIXED: PC's now display the correct amount healed in-game log if healing exceeds maximum health.
FIXED: When gaining a skill level in crafting, salvaging, and repair, a notification is sent to the screen.
FIXED: When various menus are open, key input for ship control is blocked (E.G. afterburners, thrusters, etc).
FIXED: When crafting ship equipment, some of the items were displaying an incorrect finishing item in the last stages of crafting.
FIXED: A few calculation errors in the progress toward the next skill level display on the character information screen.
FIXED: A rare case where beacons and ship ammo could be moved into the player backpack and stash inventories.
FIXED: A rare case where a crew member could die from a DOT (bleed or poison) at the end of combat leaving the game in a state where combat does not end.
FIXED: If a crew member is not assigned to the ship electronics station, you cannot scan ships or planets. A message is displayed on the screen in cases where a crew member is not assigned.
FIXED: Ship vendors now display whether a turret is a general turret mount or a missile mount in the ship information display.
FIXED: Ship hull damage cannot be repaired using the repair button in the ship info UI [K] when boarding an enemy ship.
FIXED: Crafting and salvaging menus now ignore background click events while displayed.
FIXED: Numerous small UI fixes/updates.

There are a lot of changes in this patch. I'll keep an eye on the forums over the next few days and patch any issues that pop up. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics and have a great weekend!

Here is a summary of the things you can expect for the next content patch. I hope to have this update ready for everyone by the end of next week.


Perks
The next patch will introduce the perks and skill tier bonuses for salvaging, crafting, and repair. All perks will be in the game. Some perks and tier bonuses have been revised to be more useful.

Perk and tier bonus progression adjustments

Perks or skill tier bonuses will be rewarded every 5 levels with the next patch. Perk selection and preview has been completely overhauled so you can preview all skill perk and tier bonuses through skill level 100 at any time. Perks are still situational and you can switch between selections in each group as you have in the past.

The repair system and equipment wear

Weapons, armor, and ship equipment will all degrade over time. The repair skill will allow you to repair gear through your inventory by pressing the spacebar when hovering over an item. Perk bonuses will allow you to apply additional durability bonuses to repaired items (max 125% condition) and repair tier bonuses will apply reduced item degradation to items, slowing the wear of items based on your current repair skill level. Wear progresses at a relatively slow pace so, you won't need to worry about repairing items every few missions.

The crafting perk line will allow you to apply permanent base durability bonuses to crafted equipment, assuming those perks are selected when crafting. The base durability for weapons, armor, shields, and ship equipment can be increased to 130% at the maximum crafting skill level.

Items that do degrade below 50% will have reduced functionality. Ranged weapons will misfire and jam, melee weapons will do less damage, armor will mitigate less damage, turrets will misfire, ship systems will have additional negative penalties.

• Below 25% - Additional penalties are applied.
  
• Below 5% - Items will barely function.
  
• At 0% Items are non-functional and must be repaired.

A new slot in the crew manager will let you assign a crew member to a repair station. Repair experience is granted to the crew member in the ship repair slot. Ship damage and ship equipment will be repaired over time as you travel the universe, reducing the need to dock and repair. This will be automated as long as a crew member is assigned to maintenance. Of course, there are some situations where if you do take heavy damage, you may want to manually repair your ship equipment.

Ammo converter

A new device will be available from Varadyn faction vendors that will allow you to convert any type of ammo into other types of ammo. The UI will be simple to use and you will be able to directly convert standard and heavy weapon ammo at the following ratios:

• Pistol, SMG, rifle, shotgun, and E-Cell to any other ammo type in this category = 1:1 ratio (1 for 1)
  
• Pistol, SMG, rifle, shotgun, and E-Cell to missile, fusion cell, flamer fuel, minigun = 3:1 ratio (3 for 1)
  
• Missile, fusion cell, flamer fuel, minigun to any other ammo type in this category = 1:1 ratio (1 for 1)
  
• Missile, fusion cell, flamer fuel, minigun to pistol, SMG, rifle, shotgun and E-Cell = 1:3 ratio (1 for 3)

The device can be used in any ground location including missions.

New ranged weapon sound effects - Most of the ranged weapons in the game have new sound effects. I think they sound much better overall and they pack a lot of punch.

Schematics can be reviewed in the salvage UI so you can see what you have unlocked at any time.

And of course, a number of bug fixes and issues that were on my list.

As with all patches, there will be no save game reset – you can just pick up the game and move forward from where you left off.

Once this patch is released, I’ll be finalizing the new weapon special attacks. I had hoped they would be finished at this time, but they need a lot more work. I expect these to be done in December along with a number of other smaller enhancements and QoL adjustments.

It will be great to finally be in a place where I will be working on the expanded mission system, more story content/locations, lore, new enemies, more armor sets, faction agents/merchants for the rest of the main factions, and of course - polish. It's been a long road getting to this point. I'm sure a lot of you are looking forward to the continuation of the game story and some of the features that will be unlocked through the story and side missions.

As always, thanks for supporting Stellar Tactics! I hope you all have a great weekend.

I'm releasing the boarding content patch today. Every ship in the game can be boarded and I'd like to hear your feedback on the new system. This is one of the last core systems that needed to be implemented. It will be important as I expand the current mission system adding more variety, branching missions, and of course for the game story where there will be a number of ships that need to be boarded for various reasons. If you find any issues, please post in the bug forums and I'll take a look. As with all updates, there are likely edge cases and bugs that will only show up when people start playing the new content. I'll keep an eye on the forums and patch out any issues.

As it is, boarding is a nice add-on for the game. Short scenarios that net good returns. You can choose the repair/salvage mechanic for better sale value when contacting Arkus, though it is entirely up to you if you want to take the extra time to do this. No matter what, you will at least need to identify all the broken systems on the ship. Repairing them will develop your repair skill which will be used in future content updates when I expand the mission system. Scrapping components will improve your salvaging skill. More on this below.

With the addition of boarding, sub-system targeting is now in the game. This adds a new tactical layer to space combat allowing you to disable enemy engines, weapons, and systems - giving you time to deal with other ships in multi-ship combat scenarios.

Some of you have expressed an interest in walking around on your own ships. I want to say that this is not off the table. I'll be looking into it and I have some ideas I think you will like.

Others have mentioned that they want to keep the ships. Again, not off the table. I'll be looking into ways to expand the boarding system so you can earn ships through Arkus over time.

So whats next?

• I'll be wrapping up the new perk system, rewarding perks earlier and more often. The next patch will complete all perks for the game including crafting, salvaging, and repair.
  
• I'll be adding the new special weapon attacks. These will be rewarded at various skill levels and include active skills that can be placed in the two empty combat bar slots. This will round out the ground combat system nicely.
  
• The weapon and armor repair system.
  
• Expanding the mission system. Now that all core requirements are in the game - I can start working on making missions more varied, adding missions with multiple objects, and more.

Here are the patch notes:

Boarding enemy ships:
To board an enemy ship, you need to first disable the target ship's shields. Once this happens a new icon (subsystem targeting icon) is displayed to the right of the ships targeting menu on the left side of the screen. Selecting this icon will bring up the subsystem targeting menu. At this point, you can choose to target subsystems (weapons, engines, systems). Once a subsystem is selected, your weapons will start targeting that subsystem until you click the subsystem targeting icon a second time to disable targeting for all turrets. Disabling all three subsystems will disable the ship completely and a new button will be displayed. Approach within range of the ship and you can then board.

1. Disable a ship's shields.
   
2. Select the subsystem targeting icon and disable all three main ship systems. NOTE: To turn off subsystem targeting, select the subsystem targeting icon a second time. This will turn off all turrets.
   
3. Approach the ship and select the "BOARD SHIP" button.

You have a limited amount of time to disable a ship's systems before the crew will repair the ship's shields and subsystems. A yellow bar above the subsystem targeting buttons will fill over time displaying that crews progress toward repairing the ship's shields. Once their shields go back up they will start repairing subsystems and you must bring their shields back down before you can board the ship.

• Ion weapons are ideal for disabling shields and subsystems - however, other weapons will work. You do need to be careful of strike through damage to the hull as damage to the ship's hull is calculated into the value of the ship when selling it to Arkus. The best weapon for boarding would be ION weapons as they no do little to no damage against ship armor. Beam weapons are preferable and more cost-effective, though they do require a better warp drive.
  
• Explosive turrets should be toggled off when targeting ships you want to board to avoid excess damage (missiles and plasma turrets).
  
• Strikethrough perks should not be selected if you choose to board ships.
  
• When targeting subsystems, missiles, and plasma turrets will be turned off automatically.
  
• You can only board a disabled ship when other ships are not in combat with you. In the case of incursions, all other enemy incursion ships must be destroyed before boarding.
  
• When boarding an incursion ship, incursion rewards will be granted just before you board the targeted ship.
  
• You can only board one ship at a time. If you have active boarding objectives and exit the ship, then board another ship - the previously boarded ship will fly away.
  
• If you fly away from a disabled ship - then return, and the left targeting menu is hidden, fire a few shots at the ship, and the subsystem targeting button will appear again. In some cases, the crew may be so busy that they don't notice you.
  
• Ships have a chance to spawn a unique loot chest/crate that stores ship equipment of varying quality. When you do find one of these chests, the loot will be placed directly in your cargo hold if you have room.

Captured ship repair, salvage, and sale:
To sell a boarded ship, the following objectives must be completed:

1. Eliminate the entire crew
   
2. Repair/scrap all damaged ship systems or at least examine the damaged systems.
   
3. Place a beacon at the helm of the ship. YOU MUST HAVE BEACONS in your ship's inventory or you will not be able to complete this objective.

Repairing ship systems above their default state before selling to Arkus will net you a bonus on his final price for the ship.

As an example, scrapping all items could net you around 50,000 credits when selling the ship. Repairing all systems to full (requiring a good number of parts) could net you as much as 200,000 credits.

Leaving a ship un-repaired and not scrapping any components will leave the ship in a state with a wide variance of value depending on the state of the systems onboard.

You must eliminate all enemies on the ship and review all damaged systems before you can activate the beacon at the ship's helm.

You can continue to repair and salvage components on the ship at any time, in case you decide to repair or salvage components. Once you place a beacon and notify Arkus, you will no longer be able to activate any ship systems for salvage or repair.

In general, you can completely ignore the repair system other than reviewing all systems if you want to. However, as mentioned above, repairing a ship always has a net positive effect on the number of credits you earn over time. The best strategy is to salvage and repair components. Over time, as your salvaging skill improves, you will salvage more parts. As you gain repair experience, repairing ship components becomes easier.

SALVAGING BONUSES - These will get rolled into the perks for Salvaging when I release them. All perks will be released in the next content patch - including - Salvaging, Crafting, and Repair.
LVL 20 +20% CHANCE FOR EXTRA COMPONENTS
LVL 40 +30% CHANCE FOR EXTRA COMPONENTS
LVL 60 +40% CHANCE FOR EXTRA COMPONENTS
LVL 80 +50% CHANCE FOR EXTRA COMPONENTS

You do not need to sell the boarded ship to Arkus. You can always exit the ship and go on about your business. If you dock, land, board another ship or enter FTL space, the ship will be gone when you return. You can exit the ship and reboard as long as you do not dock, land, or FTL from the system. If a ship is in a state where it can be boarded. Over time, a ship will repair it's shields first, then engines, weapons, and systems if there are still crew remaining on the ship and eventually fly away.

ADDED EXTREME DIFFICULTY MODE for ground combat. In this mode, the difficulty of enemies of all types is increased (DAMAGE, CTH, CRITS, STATS, ARMOR, etc,) and enemies are raised by one tier of difficulty. In this mode, there is more risk and more reward as enemies, in general, will drop better loot. Crew members will be K.O. on a regular basis. I would not recommend extreme mode until you have decent armor and a good arsenal of weapons that deliver various damage types.
--Basic enemies have a chance of being raised a single tier to single skull Elites.
--Elites will always be a tier higher. That is a single skull Lieutenant will always be a tier higher etc.
--I would not even attempt this mode until you have some experience with the game and decent equipment.
--Bring a ton of medkits!
--A reasonable level of skill in first-aid is recommended!
--You are going to need an arsenal of weapons that do a variety of damage types to switch between. Pay very close attention to enemy resistances and use weapons of the appropriate type.
--Switching to or from Elite requires a save and reload to re-initialize all enemies in the area. Any transition between areas will scale the encounters to extreme mode.


FIXED - A bug with the area map that could leave characters immobile.
FIXED – Micro-warp hull visual effect being left on after exiting warp.
FIXED - A rounding error when NPC's heal themselves displayed in the floating text.
FIXED - A bug that displayed incorrect info for HP and Shields when rolling over KO crew members
FIXED - Stability fixes including a few rare lockups on enemy end turns.
FIXED - In some cases, combat UI elements could be left on the screen until next turn.
FIXED - Crew members are less likely to be left behind when navigating.
FIXED - Eliminated character rotation when running upstairs and ramps.
ADDED - Occasionally, when looting, an NPC or chest/locker will reward a large sum of credits.
ADDED - Progress indicator toward next skill level up is now displayed at bottom of character screen (right panel - bottom) when selecting individual skills as a thin red bar over the progress bar.
ADDED - Added a bit of center axis tilt to ships when turning.
UPDATED: ION turrets now do minimal damage to ship armor. They may do some minor strike-through damage and strike through perks still apply to ION turrets.
UPDATED: Some work done on gravity and physics so characters stay pegged to the ground when running up and down stairs.
UPDATED: Enemy ragdoll is more "definitive" with the changes to gravity.
UPDATED: Disabled NPC ship conflict in star systems temporarily until I can work out better LOD for this system. It was causing frame rate drops and other issues.
UPDATED: All stations in the universe now have recruitable crew members and more of them. This will greatly increase the chance of finding the recruit you are looking for whether that be a male, female, Kchor, or Fabricant. It also increases the odds of finding a crew member with the starting skills you are looking for. NOTE: This only applies to stations you have not yet visited - the change is not retroactive.

I hope you all enjoy the patch. As always, thanks for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Well, I’m code complete on the boarding system as of today. I’ll be fixing a number of bugs, play testing, balancing, and finalizing everything over the next few weeks.

Here is a short video that highlights some of the features:
https://youtu.be/1tuFrImTx-Y

Boarding is accomplished by:
1) Disabling a ship's shields. At this point, a new icon appears next to the ship's target menu.
2) Selecting the subsystem targeting icon lets you target various ship subsystems (engines, turrets, and ship systems).
3) Once those are destroyed, you can board the ship.

You are competing against the enemy crew who is trying to repair their shields. In most cases, with decent turrets, this should never be a problem.

Every ship in the game (40) has had its interior modeled, enemies placed and objectives scripted. When you board a ship, you will need to eliminate the crew, repair or salvage various systems for components and place a beacon on the ship's helm.

Once a beacon is placed, you can then contact Arkus, a salvager who will give you a fixed price based on the current state of the ship. Repairing a ship before selling it will get you the best possible price, however, Arkus pays well below the market average for ships for his services. The prices are fair for the effort and he handles translocation, dismantling, and distribution. So, boarding is relatively balanced with most other activities in the game. Scrapping components is critical as these components can only be obtained by scrapping boarded ships. As you gain skill in repair, and with a decent salvaging skill (and upcoming perks), repairing ships to full capacity for full bonus sale prices to Arkus becomes easier.

I had hoped to get the updated skill and perk system in for this next patch but will need to work on this more after the release of the boarding patch. This patch has had a massive amount of work put into it and it’s taken a bit more time than I anticipated.

I hope you are all well and safe. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!

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 don’t 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, SMG’s 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!

I've been working hard on this next patch. My goal with this is to address a number of weapon class balance issues, weapon differentiation, navigation, blocking and more. Check out the video for a preview.

https://youtu.be/LCGxJ_Duc8M

I'm hoping to get this patch out in the coming week for everyone. This will be part one of a major update to the combat system. The second part will include adjustments to the current perks and the addition of skill trees for the various combat skills including special attacks, passives and other ways to enhance combat performance and pace. Here are a few notes for the upcoming patch. The overall goal of these changes is to:

1) Balance combat
2) Provide more weapon differentiation
3) Give the player more choices, more often to develop their crew
4) Improve the pace of the game and reward the player frequently

Once this work is done, I'll be moving on to the boarding system, a second pass at space combat, filling out the universe with more diversion missions, events, and long term goals and adding interesting and unique content to flesh out the overall experience. At that point, the game will finally be at full Alpha and I'll concentrate on adding the rest of the story to the game, which includes Psionics and a few other things that are part of the main storyline.

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.

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 a number of 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 a 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 you are incurring a penalty at your current range.

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 5-10% 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.
--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 NPC's in the universe.
Changes to Frequency Modulators are not retroactive, so older modulators will have the +CRIT secondary modifier.

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. NPC's can still block you and you can block NPC's. 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 ("Paladins! To the doors!")
Crew members and NPC's 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.
Missed clicks and crew members being left behind is now much less likely.
At level 80+ of melee skill, it is no longer possible to move small distances in combat (one node) for free.

Thats all I have for now. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Today's patch includes a number of performance enhancements, a pre-compiled shader system, and a few QoL updates.

Shaders are now pre-compiled when you launch the game.
--The majority of all shaders are now generated via a database at game launch. I would say 80% of all shaders are in the d-base now and more will be added over time.
--As you play the game, if a shader is not pre-compiled it is added to the database and saved so the shader does not need to be compiled on the fly ever again.
--Certain video drivers could crash - though this was very rare - when compiling complex shaders on the fly. This patch should address that.
--In some cases, when entering an area the first time after this patch, there may be a short period of stuttering as shaders are initially linked to materials.

You can now adjust mission length when speaking with a faction agent - Short - AVG 40 Min, Medium - AVG 1-2 Hrs, Long - AVG 2-4 Hrs.

You can now browse available missions while the mission window is open by selecting the "Next" button. A new mission will be offered.

You can now double click crew equipment (shields, armor, weapons) to equip them from inventory. Mods and devices need to be placed manually.

Active status effects are now displayed below each crew member's portrait along with their active duration.

Various code optimizations for performance.

A few changes to the way the physics engine handles movement.

A few changes to the animation system.

A few animation fixes/updates.

A few changes to idle and facing blend animations so they can be interrupted when moving characters. This makes movement more responsive.

The game now generates a backup "sav_dat.xml" file that is not stored on the Steam Cloud when saving the game - just in case there is a disk write error of some kind.

A possible fix for a rare lockup when healing.

FIXED: A bug that was causing random animation and physics slowdown.
FIXED: A bug that would leave idle states running at 1.5x normal speed in certain cases.
FIXED: Autosave when leaving the Dauntless.
FIXED: A bug that would leave equipment quality color border visible when unequipping an item.
UPDATED: When grenades and medkits are enabled, a reminder message is displayed when ending your turn to deselect these items from the toolbar. I think in some cases, this was causing confusion. I'll be looking into an automated solution for this.
UPDATED: Ship collision damage reduced. Collision damage now affects shields and armor.

I'm continuing to work on a few things:
--Weapon special attacks.
--Combat pace.
--Streamlining of perks so they are available earlier in the game with more frequent updates.
--Better inventory sorting.
And more...

I'll keep everyone posted as I make progress.

It's been an amazing year for Stellar Tactics. I'd like to thank all of you for your support and patience. It's not often that you see such a positive and supportive community. I owe you all a huge "Thank you!" for all you have done for the game, your feedback, and for making this game what it is and will be.

This year, we've seen the addition of updated ships, the ability to sell scan data, the drone mining system, Trade-Net, smuggling, faction warfare (first pass), the area map, crafting and salvaging. A large number of bugs have been fixed and many suggested QoL features have been implemented.

This patch introduces two "mutations" to the universe - The Kchor ( pronounced "Core" ) and the Fabricants. You can find them all over the universe on stations, in missions and they are recruitable as Mercs to join your crew on your journey.



I'm also releasing a large number of updated animations that improve combat pacing and provide a second pass of polish to the overall look and feel of the game. I'm still doing a good bit of work on combat pace for the next content patch which will introduce new special attacks and a few other features. Following that, the boarding system.

A bit of back story about the Kchor and Fabricants. More information will come when I expand the game story.

On Arrival, a large number of the pods on the HSS Pharris contained the Kchor mutation. Overall, the new species was considered robust other than several anomalies – parthenogenesis, extreme musculature, and a blue/green skin tone. The medical engineers released them with no special conditions and The Kchor have flourished. The Kchor can be found in most star systems and are generally peaceful.

The Kchor have a special relationship with the Sovereignty, having saved their fleet in the notorious Blockade of Karsus 7. Were it not for their arrival, Maezus Karsari would have destroyed or captured the entire fleet and undoubtedly overthrown the Sovereignty. Instead, The Kchor delivered Maezus to the Council earning their autonomy as a reward for their actions. The Kchor interdiction is one of many turning points in recent history that mold the current political environment of the inner systems.

The Kchor are known for their great strength and intelligence. However, rather than using their influence and innate talents, The Kchor cherish their privacy and prefer to trade and explore peacefully. They are famous for their Kchor Brandy, a favorite indulgence across the known Universe.

A number of mutations were discovered on the HSS Outland when the ships arrived. These Sleepers had a rare condition and were in a late state of mutagenic drift, having crossed genetic material with a parasitic species that flourished in their Vats. In their current stage of drift, they could not be exposed to the oxygen-rich atmosphere that Humans breath. It was hypothesized that their skin was transitioning toward a hardened exoskeleton.

Considered “unrecoverable”, Fabricants were initially scheduled for termination. A young scientist, Garrius Brons, fabricated a prototype Exo-Suit and AI module that sealed the Fabricants in a permanent outer skin. After a few trials, the suit was adapted and a modification of this suit is in use to this day.

Fabricants are incredibly talented engineers and were instrumental in FTL travel, having worked closely with Garrius Brons. Over time, they have adapted their suits and AI becoming more machine than human. They prefer to name themselves alphanumerically, and their ability to assimilate traits from common items is a closely held secret. Little is known about their culture and habits. When it comes to engineering, mathematics, and science, no other species in the known universe come close to the Fabricant.

A few things left to do - I'm working on these for the next content patch:

Fabricants

• +Bonus to crafting/learning
  
• +Bonus to scanning
  
• Unique voice audio

Kchor

• +CRIT bonus with melee weapons
  
• +CRIT bonus with heavy weapons
  
• A few animation transitions that need tuning

ADDED: The Kchor and Fabricants. You will find these two mutations on stations throughout the universe. Fabricants and Kchor can now be recruited as Mercs and added to your party when exploring.
UPDATED: Several Shikaru armor materials updated
UPDATED: A number of weapon SFX for timing
UPDATED: Ranged weapon muzzle flash lighting
UPDATED: Weapon, armor, shields, and mods now display a colored border based on quality in the equipped slots for each crew member. The quality level of these items now has a dedicated display field in rollover info.
UPDATED: Hundreds of animations updated - including increasing overall speed of animations in combat.
--Animation timings on end walk in and out of combat for less delay when navigating.
--All human animations adjusted for less foot sliding, better hit animations and overall speed
--Fixed a large number of wonky animations that have been plaguing the game for a long time.
--A number of enemy animations updated
--Unique animations added for 2Hand Pierce weapons
--Mapped all animations to the KCHOR
--Mapped all animations to the Fabricants
--I have a number of animations that I am still working on and there are a few
transitions that need to be fixed.
FIXED: A bug that would cause music to stop playing in some cases.
FIXED: A bug related to sound volume settings not being correctly saved and loaded.
FIXED: In some cases, it was difficult to enter your first starship after exiting the Aznari Ruins.
FIXED: A number of broken weapons SFX.
FIXED: When loading to space, rarely the ship camera would rotate uncontrollably.
FIXED: A number of stability fixes.
FIXED: A bug with crafted epic tier "laser beam" turrets.
FIXED: A few typos.

Note that as with all new patches, shaders will need to compile causing a short period of "hitching" for each area with new materials that need to be processed. This goes away in a short time once the shaders are compiled.

Thank you as always for supporting Stellar Tactics, and happy holidays!