0.7.1 is now out!
A moderately sized update, with a few fixes and some new stuff added in.
First off, I discovered that the Celestial Guide was missing an entire category of roles that it was supposed to show up in, which explains why it was even harder to find than intended. That's now corrected, and while still not common you should be able to find them for sale a good bit more often.
I also discovered that it's stated ability to reduce the Nebula movement penalty and hazard occurrence wasn't working. After a bit of code sleuthing that was finally nailed down and corrected. It now properly mimics some of what the Navigation skill does, and stacks with it!
Here is a 30 ship sized fleet making use of both the Navigation skill and a Celestial Guide to cruise through a nebula with only a little bit of slowdown:
Without the Celestial Guide, that fleet can only move through nebula at a 12, so not a bad improvement for a single ship! Note that the bonus doesn't stack with more CGs, although it's normal Drive Field Stabilizer does.
Other additions are the Fel PDS system. A super cheap energy pd weapon that is both OP and flux friendly, but has a very long delay between shots. Good for the occasional missile, but it can't do much if you're being pressured by a lot of stuff at once. It was primarily added in to let the Gamma Racer do its job a bit more effectively, but it does make it's way into a few loadouts as well.
The final addition is the Streak MRM series of missiles. Fast, guided missiles with decent range they're highly effective at actually hitting their target, provided it doesn't have too much point defense. However, their low damage mean they're much better for taking out small ships like frigates than doing more than pressuring larger ships.
They come in 4 flavors: Amber (fragmentation), Azure (kinetic), Crimson (energy/emp), and Violet (high-explosive). The small version has both 2 and 4 ammo versions, while the medium has 12 shots (firing two at a time) and the large 32 (firing four at a time!).
They make an excellent addition to any fleet having issues with frigates and other fast flanking assailants.
Finally, ships with Stardust Cores get a new exclusive hullmod option, the Environmental Shielding mod. It's not terribly expensive, and boosts their resistance to damage from solar coronas and storms to 100%. Quite handy, though warships may still find that OP is too precious to spend on a modest reduction in travel damage. The three exploration ships (Horizon Chaser, Stargazer, and Void Nomad) all now come with it built-in to let them do their jobs just that much better.
That's it for now. Next update should see some more art upgrades and perhaps a new ship system or two!
