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.
- Disable a ship’s shields.
- 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.
- 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:
- Eliminate the entire crew
- Repair/scrap all damaged ship systems or at least examine the damaged systems.
- 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!