Patch 21 First Thoughts

Patch 21 is here, and other than taking about an hour longer than announced, it seems to have been relatively bug-free. The notification issue that was there in the last patch is still there, but now instead of just having incorrect opponents, it now lists some victories as defeats. It also seems to be more difficult to click on hostile targets. Hopefully, these will get taken care of in a hotfix relatively quickly.

Now, here are my initial thoughts on the update.

The XP Officer Fix!

The ship XP officers have never worked. For 18+ months, they’ve not worked. And now, they will. This is particularly a big deal for the Stella, which once you get to tier 5 takes an awful lot of ship XP to level up. The tactic of putting Pike Moreau and Chen on a ship and leaving it out overnight in Augment space to gain XP becomes more effective.

I did some testing, and just in case you’re curious, Pike’s captain’s maneuver doesn’t seem to have an impact on his officer ability. The 30% bonus is just 30% – but compared to nothing for months, this is fantastic.

And not just Pike, but also T’Laan, Hadley, Darwin, Leslie and Hendorff.

Data Mines Fixed

Well, sort of. The 3,700 mines that need to be reset every 10 seconds are still there, but they’ve brought back the old big mines. But the rate on these will be the same older, slower rate.

It looks like you can find these new “old” nodes in Vellamo. As with the last data node update, you may have to empty and reset the node before the new style shows up.

I guess this is an improvement. I’d hoped to see a bit of a hybrid, but we’ve lost nothing here, so it’s hard to be that upset.

Epic Eclipse Armadas

We knew these were coming. Right now there’s only one on the map in Server 11. Unlike normal epic armadas, it only takes 250 directives to start. Will these wind up in the rotation in other systems?

It pays out really well.. but it’s a monster.

It looks like you’re probably going to need to use the new Armada-specific outlaw officers and a lot of research to tackle these. Also, it’s odd that it says 39 on the armada, but then 45 in the popup.

I’m sure there’s an event coming later today that will draw all of this out.

Could it be that there’s only going to be one for the server, and that you’ll get points for damage, and a bonus for actually beating it?

Stella Particles Update

So now you’ll get more Stella particles for each scrapping of your Stella. If I’d scrapped my level 25 Stella yesterday, I would have gotten 4,300 Stella Particles for it.

Today, I’ll get 11,100.

You’ll also be able to use those Stella Particles not only for research, but you’ll be able to buy materials with them.

You’ll be able to find them in the Rogue Faction Store. However…

For now, they’re ridiculously expensive to purchase a chest. 34k for one is scrapping a level 25 Stella more than three times. I would think that this will be quicker and easier to do once your Rogue Faction rep improves, but it will take a little while for this to make an impact.

New Systems

Three new systems appear just north of the Rogue armada systems. They don’t require any warp tokens. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, for now, there’s nothing there worth seeing at all. This usually means that they’ll be used in the missions that are coming.

On the other hand, as we saw with the part one of the Outlaws arc, it also means that these systems will never be used again. Remember Skarri, that little system just above Augment space that was added for part one, and now serves no purpose at all?

Start investing with Acorns today! Get $5 when you use my invite link: #GrowYourOak! https://www.acorns.com/invite/4T95VX

New Officers

Again, they were hinted at in the storyline for Outlaws II, so we got seven of them. They’ll all be good for armadas, but I’m a little disappointed that we’re getting a bunch more original characters, rather than ones we’ve seen on screen before.

Did we need another Mudd? I guess it’s nice to have a Bajoaran officer in the game, and a Ro Laren reference, I think we’d have been better off with may three new officers.

Also, I was reading some rumors of an anti-morale officer, and we haven’t gotten one of those.

Officer	Captain Maneuver	Officer Ability	Crew	Rarity	Type
Harcourt Fenton Mudd	Chance of having a 98% shield mitigation in the first two rounds. (Synergy bonus to increase the chance.)	Chances of double shots for the first round	Outlaw	Epic	Science
Eudrydice	Opportunist: When taking shield damage, increase damage	Delta Quadrant Technology: Chance to regen 5% of shields when they’re depleted	Outlaw	Epic	Engineering
Ro Mudd	Endless Ambition: Increase the Captain’s stats	Fatal Charm: Chance of damage bonus from attack	Outlaw	Rare	Command
Ahvix	Chirurgical Precision: Crit chance bonus against Eclipse hostiles for the first three rounds	Shield Remodulation: Chance to reduce mitigation on Eclipse	Outlaw	Rare	Engineering
Goon	Grizzled Veteran: First Round crit chance bonus vs hostiles	Military Training: Increase XP Gain	Outlaw	Uncommon	Science
Sesha	Always on Guard: Chance of Reducing Eclipse Opponent’s Crit Chance by 15% (armadas included)	Intimidation: First 3 rounds increase Crit Damage against Eclipse hostiles (Armadas included)	Outlaw	Common	Science
Tiza	Security Breach: First 3 Rounds Reduce Shield MItigation of non-armada Eclipse hostiles (armadas included)	Mirani Technology: Chance of raising mitigation against Eclipse hostiles	Outlaw	Common	Command