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.