New version is finally out. Whew, it's been half a year. I've been working on an
extremely hefty update, but... well, I cut an entire quest so that I could get
something out for the first anniversary of Watcher Beyond the Wall's public release. It will arrive alongside Prerelease 14. In the meantime, enjoy a passover of much of the existing content, and a solid few new goodies to find! Personally, I recommend you play through the new main-menu missions and then try the new Nexerelin "Banshee's Lost Thread" start.
Please note that this new release is
not compatible with old versions of Secrets of the Frontier. It needs to be installed either on a fresh save, or one that doesn't already have Secrets of the Frontier installed.
The new prerelease includes:
- Two new main menu missions, "Dawn and Dust" and "Good Hunting", preludes to future quests (give them a try)
- New Nexerelin starts, "The Haunted" (1 free skill point, and a persistent and malevolent stalker) and "Banshee's Lost Thread" (you and your best friend, both with unusual technological expertise)
- Many refinements and "adjustments" across the Watcher Beyond the Walls quest module, give it a shot, you might be surprised
- More AI friendship
- A new secret in the frontier
- Betrayal (see: Culann)
- An adaptive nanite swarm (?)
A full changelog can be found below:
Spoiler
- Shattered your saves into a fine dust (incompatible with old versions of SotF, but you can still add the mod midsave if you didn't have it before)
- Changed all internal IDs (prefix from fronsec_/fs_ > sotf_) - will break mod interactions until fixed, changed mod's ID to "secretsofthefrontier"
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WATCHER BEYOND THE WALLS
- The Contingency slumbers... for now...
- Added two main-menu missions, "Dawn and Dust" and "Good Hunting" as preludes to planned quests "Plausible Deniability" and "The Legacy of Walter Feros"
- Added betrayal. See: Culann (if random sector: random large TT world)
- Added consequences
- Added an adaptive nanite swarm
- Added "Hypnos"
- Added 2 new special officers
- Added special skills used by them and other NPCs
- Added ability for special officers (including Sierra) to occasionally converse with each other at the start of combat akin to Combat Chatter
- Added two new Nexerelin starts: "The Haunted" and "Banshee's Lost Thread" (latter unlocked by getting 80% at Dawn and Dust)
- The Haunted - gain a bonus skill point, and a relentless nemesis
- Banshee's Lost Thread - you and your best friend, both with unusual technological expertise
- Added Explorarium ships/fighters ported from Arsenal Expansion, with an ini toggle (has anti-overlap code to remove AE versions from Derelict known ships list)
- Includes Cavalier cruiser, Keeper carrier, Brattice interceptor, Parapet escort fighter, Peon bomber
- Cavalier - has Rugged Construction, system changed to Burn Drive, supply costs reduced 18 to 15
- Keeper - has Rugged Construction, system changed to Fast Missile Racks, supply costs increased 6 to 8
- Added the Proxies
- Mayfly: Added friendship by proxy
Request Assistance:
- Renamed to Courser Protocol
- "Adjustments"
- Now follows player through hyperspace
- Reduced escort time to 45 days
- Now joins when fighting SWP's IBB bounty fleets
A Promise:
- "Adjustments"
- Lowered level requirement from 7 to 5
- Quest objects now have high neutrino output, spawn in more obvious places
A Memory:
- Sierra's ship always phase dives to retreat if it would be destroyed during A.M., even without Fervor installed or already lost too much CR
- Friendly Tempest captain always has Combat Endurance
- Phase stress penalty no longer affects CR but independently cripples ships and their fighters
- Added an audio and message warning when first selecting a disallowed ship in deployment screen, followed by an extra warning upon actually deploying it
- Fixed harmonic coil tuning working without actually using the SP option (oops)
Wayward Star:
- Improved Eidolon's ability to break the dialogue system
- Removed her fear
- Improved her ability to playfully turn you into mincemeat
- "Adjusted" her retinue
- Improved music playback
- Star system is now considered "hidden"
Sierra:
- Has a player-relationship bar with a minor time mult boost while piloting if Cooperative
- Considered an AI officer under-the-hood (largely cosmetic - ship is still not considered automated and she doesn't affect Automated Ships skill)
- Sierra: Reckless renamed to Fearless (however, Sierra is still only as aggressive as a Reckless officer, not Reckless+ like an AI core)
- Now randomly acquires new conversation topics over time (only 3 so far)
- New set conversations: player-has-ship, player-fought-vanilla-faction
- Dialogue tuning, added altered "dramatic" battlecry set and Combat Chatter config, used during fights against bosses (Guardian, Zig, Omega, Eidolon, plus any Combat Chatter boss if that mod is installed), overall slightly reduced average excitement level
- Added minor fluff text when visiting Galatia Academy after a certain interaction
- Has a 50 credits per month "maintenance fee"
Concord ships:
- Can now swap Sierra between Concord ships by speaking to her
- Concord ships that Sierra isn't piloting are rendered largely unusable in combat
- Pledge is no longer scuttled when receiving the Vow
- Serenity: now increases threshold at which speed bottoms out by 100%, to 150% (hard flux stress never reaches max level), increased OP cost to 10/15 for Pledge/Vow
- Wispersong: 1/2/3/4 wisps to 1/2/4/6, fixed ship-detection issue when multiple ships use it simultaneously (i.e. during Wayward Star)
- Wisps ignore anti-PD flares
- Renamed Anomalous Shift to "Concord Shift"
- Reduced slow-motion effects of Sierra's Concord and Concord Shift applied to the outside world (91% and 33% speed changed to 100% and 42.5%)
- i.e Sierra's ships, when piloted by player, are played closer to real-time than previously (should be smoother, faster)
- Vow: increased OP (150 > 165), slight buffs to acceleration stats
- "Adjusted" visuals
- Rewrote Sierra chatter code to avoid multi-chatter bug
- Edict Stormblaster: increased damage (350 > 400), is now known by the Luddic Church
- Added GraphicsLib requirement
- Added some console commands, mostly for dev usage and they contain spoilers - but you may find sotf_addAbility [ability id] and sotf_printGuilt useful enough
- Can no longer load the game with WBTW and Starpocalypse's "Stingy Recovery" because the latter breaks the Sierra questline
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TACTICAL EXPANSION
- Added objective: Siegeworks Uplink, replaces Emplacement Uplink in larger battles, spawns stronger emplacements
- Added siegeworks emplacements: Gunnery Bastion, Hangar Bastion
- Renamed emplacements: Gun Turret, Autohangar, Lidar Node
- Updated icon for emplacement objectives
- Emplacements no longer repair if their owner is in full retreat
- Gun Turret: halved rotation speed
- Added special objective: Fractal Beacon
- Reinforcement droneships now receive autofits and some dmods
- Arma Armatura's strikecraft are no longer spawned as reinforcement ships
- Replaced remote_ai_factions.csv with new remote_ai_factions.json - allows for the number of cores each faction uses to be defined
- Used said new json to adjust presets - Derelicts no longer use betas but have more gammas, Remnants get an extra beta, etc. Default is now 1 beta, 3 gammas.
- Now calculates max remote AI captains at start of battle only, not on every ship spawn
- Automated Ships skill no longer displays "can use remote AI" line if Tactical Expansion is turned off
- Fixed tech-illiterate enemies gaining player's remote AI captains when player has Automated Ships
MISCELLANEOUS
- Frontier Development: orbital habitat hazard reduction is now -8% (0.92x multiplier), not flat -10 - equal for 125% hazard worlds, worse for lower, better for higher
- Fixed a tip being too long
As always, bug reports and feedback is appreciated! It's the first real content drop in a while, so some might've slipped the cracks (hopefully nothing embarrassingly obvious).
Author
Topic: [0.98a] Secrets of the Frontier (0.14.5b) - indev campaign mod (Read 470189 times)