Stardust v0.9.3.1 - Released

Howdy folks! This won't be like the monstrous dev blog I left you all with last time. This is a relatively minor update, as I noticed some unhealthy weapon trends and rebalanced some Tactics Cards once I got a better feel for their utility in game.

v0.9.3.1 Changelog:

Rulebook:

- Clarified that Aces are considered the highest card, and thus move last in the activation order. Previously, this information was in the rules, but only in the Extra Activation Cards subsection, and not in the introductory rules section. Thus, it was easy to miss.

- Added a section at the end of the Introductory Rules section called Open vs. Hidden Information. This section clarifies which information may be kept secret from other players, and which must be made available upon request.

Weapon Balancing:

Light Focused Laser Cannons - Accuracy changed to 4, Shots reduced to 3, Damage changed from 1/9+ to 1/6+

Medium Focused Laser Cannons - Accuracy changed to 4, Shots reduced to 3, Damage changed from 2/7+ to 2/5+

Heavy Focused Laser Cannons - Accuracy changed to 4, Shots reduced to 4

Focused Laser Cannons, and laser weapons in general, are intended to fulfill the archetype of a weapon which throws a lot of dice, and will hit more often, but each attack individually did less damage than others. In practice, however, Focused Laser Cannons often reliably out-damaged almost every other weapon archetype in the game, and were nuking voidcraft off the board very quickly. Because their maximum damage wasn't any lower than other weapons with a similar Equipment Slot usage, their base Accuracy was better than most weapons, AND they had more chances per attack to land hits, their average damage output was very high. I had hoped that their special ability, which increases the odds of the defender passing an Armor Save against them, would help rein this in, but it appears it has not.

Since lowering their raw damage value was not an option due to those damage values already being low, I opted to remove 1 Shot per attack for each weapon, and compensated with a better Accuracy value. This should allow them to remain the reliable damage dealers that they are supposed to be, while reining in their maximum damage potential. Overall, expect a roughly 15-20% reduction in average damage for all Focused Laser weapons.

Tactics Cards

Asymmetrical Thrust Training: Removed the "Once per turn" restriction.

Ultimately, the effect is so benign, and requires action economy in the first place, that limiting to once per turn for the whole list didn't make sense.

Datalink Integration: Cost reduced from 50 to 25 points.

Given that most games devolve into close-range furballs fairly frequently, this ability is most often only useful on the first turn of actual combat, occasionally the second turn too. It can make a difference, but once you're in the knifefight, this card stops being useful. Ergo, I reduced the cost to fit its relative utility.

Defensive Maneuvering: Removed the requirement that your voidcraft have to be able to make an attack in order to gain the benefits of the effect.

Skipping an attack is pretty much always bad, and usually when that happens, it means you were severely outmaneuvered and can't make attacks at all. This card should be useful to bail you out of those situations, at least somewhat.

ECM Burst Modules: Cost increased from 50 to 100 points.

Being able to force an opponent to reroll an attack is a powerful effect, and oftentimes, the Jamming effect you have to suffer is well worth the cost. I felt that after some reflection, this card was undercosted.

Improved Fire Control: Cost reduced from 75 to 50 points.

With Focused Lasers receiving a nerf to the number of Shots they make, which this card was largely built around, it lost value of its own as a result.

Psychological Preparedness: Cost increased from 25 to 100 points.

This card was tremendously undercosted. It seems relatively benign early in the game, but this card can outright win you the game in the late game, giving you significantly improved odds of drawing better cards than an opponent without this card. Almost no other Tactics Card provides as much utility to draw good cards in general, and it was very cheap. If it remained at the same price, it would almost certainly be an auto-add card for any list, and might even still be. I will be paying close attention to this card in the future.

Radar Boresight Illuminator: Wording changed to allow Anti-Ship Torpedoes to benefit from the effect.

The bomber players deserve to have nice things too!

Sensor Fusion Datalink: Cost reduced from 50 to 25 points.

I overestimated the utility of this card. Situations in which 4 or more voidcraft are all attacking the same unit, AND one of them has an increased Pilot Skill are fairly rare. At least at 25 points, you might be incentivized to take it and try it out.

Sensor Memory Reacquisition: Roll required to activate the effect changed from 5+ to 4+.

I felt that for 25 points, you might as well have an effect that will work at least half the time.

Suppression Fire: Effect changed to only affect up to 2 enemy voidcraft at once.

Not sure what I was thinking initially. the ability to influence a full Flight of voidcraft at once is very strong, and it needed to be reined in.

Threat Warning System: Cost reduced from 150 to 50 points.

I significantly overestimated the value of this card. First, it requires you to have a Target Lock on the attacker, which means that you both have each other in your front arcs within Sensor Range, which often means they'll have a Target Lock on you, too. Then, you have to discard it in order to gain the effect. So, in essence, you get to discard your Target Lock to effectively negate the Target Lock they have on you, except they get to keep their Target Lock, and you lose yours. Essentially, while a 10% increase in the difficulty of an attack can be meaningful, and will likely make the difference a few times in a single game, it wasn't providing anywhere near 150 points in value. I may decide to buff it further in the future, such as providing a +2 To-Hit instead of +1.

Alright, I'm getting tennis elbow from all this writing. The update is live everywhere, go have fun with it!

- Rosalind