Disease Cures & Cryptid Hunt

[p]Work continues, and it's equal parts bug fixes, player suggestions, and crazy developer tangents...[/p][p][/p][p]One of the biggest complaints of the past few months is diseases. They're supposed to be terrible, but it turns out they're UN-FUN, and that's not cool. They make some players feel like they just had to wait hundreds of turns for symptoms to show up or get better. So I've made some changes.[/p][p][/p][p]The virologist skill (science officer) has always existed, and it does work to cure your diseases over time. But there has never been any indication of when that would happen (and that's because it has always been like a 1% chance per turn. nobody knew when it would happen!)[/p][p]Now that skill (and the "Immunization Station" and "Med lab" devices) actively work to cure your diseases, and you get a read-out right on screen of their progress, it's displayed in the status icon as a "% cured".[/p][p]Higher levels of Virologist also do something totally new:[/p][h3]They offer a way to cure your disease with medicinal plants. [/h3][p]And if you have level 3, you get another self-cure option that involves a lot of other resources and crazy processes. Both of these cures are presented as quests so you can keep track of them.[/p][p]Of course the old "pay for a cure" option still works, but the cost has gone up dramatically. I suggest getting yourself a way to treat your own diseases, or better yet, use an Immune Booster consumable at the first sign of zombies![/p][p]And there are 2 bonuses to curing your own diseases:[/p]

1. [p]There is no "remission period" at all. It's just gone.[/p]
2. [p]You become immune to that disease! (This is not realistic, but it could be useful...)[/p]

[p][/p][p]This is the crazy developer tangent I mentioned...[/p][p]Years ago, David sent me lots of new monsters that still aren't in the game. I was looking through that and got inspired. So now, somewhere after sector 15, you might start finding clues about a mythical creature that probably doesn't even exist... [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Everything else since the last update...[/p]

• [p]Auto-explore no longer gets stuck in an endless loop when there are 2 nutrition cubes and you're at full health...[/p]
• [p]Pirates now use missile weapons, except for the profiteering beam, which is... a beam.[/p]
• [p]Orbital Bombing cyber-skill can now be used to destroy shipwrecks. It produces less loot, but there are valid use cases.[/p]
• [p]Orbital Bombing now affects the first level of caves, and the side-areas of sprawling planets. It also hurts monsters within damaged areas.[/p]
• [p]Randomly creating heavy, light, rapid, etc. versions of ship weapons while crafting now only happens when you use both data and double parts.[/p]
• [p]No more environmental damage warnings when returning to the central map on a sprawling planet.[/p]
• [p]Pirates, Mercenaries, and Bankers now target your officers directly (their attacks have a chance of injuring officers regardless of away team HP).[/p]
• [p]Many traps (cave-ins, laser gates) also have a chance of injuring officers.[/p]
• [p]Hard Hat now prevents officer injuries from cave-ins.[/p]
• [p]Radiant Reflectors prevents officer injuries due to laser-gates.[/p]
• [p]I reduced the cost of cyberskills for sale in stations.[/p]
• [p]Rally skill now has a status icon on the right with duration counter and tooltip information.[/p]
• [p]Repair Terminal now displays reasons why auto-repair isn't available (not enough this, too many that, etc.).[/p]
• [p]I fixed a bug that spawned embassies in sector 1 (and probably 50 and 1000 \[:facepalm])[/p]
• [p]I introduced a new class of rare plants called "medicinal". They have their own sort option in the Herbarium (Infinipedia).[/p]
• [p]Blaster will no longer try to opportunity attack allies.[/p]
• [p]I created a new type of cave level : the underground lake.[/p]
• [p]I'm forcing stairs to exist in caves if the final depth is greater than the current depth (should already happen, but some reports say otherwise...)[/p]
• [p]Spelunkers who know the final depth/max of a cave will now see that in the location name at the top of the screen "Sector 73, Caverns (depth 3/10) of Voxivegoloron"[/p]
• [p]Narcratu are no longer resistant to Cryo[/p]
• [p]The away team can no longer be slimed while standing on liquid (water, lava, etc.)[/p]
• [p]The away team can't use stairs when slimed or webbed.[/p]
• [p]Golden pollen now increases less when found, but is decreased more slowly and provides better healing.[/p]
• [p]When working to cure a disease and your science officer is on the away team, you'll get a once-per-game popup suggesting you leave them on the ship to work on the cure.[/p]
• [p]Rare plants can now be detected from orbital scans.[/p]
• [p]I may have fixed the problem of allies remaining behind on old maps[/p]
• [p]You become immune to diseases you cure yourself.[/p]
• [p]I fixed a bug where standing on mountains would basically stop monsters from being able to move (!)[/p]
• [p]I haven't introduced a new monster that only lives in heavily forested side-areas of certain sprawling planets...[/p]
• [p]Grappler-type away team weapons can now be used to pick up items![/p]
• [p]Dying on the outer hull of shipwrecks causes tombstones to float off into space![/p]
• [p]Stations are now 9x as likely to sell cyber-skills so you can complete your collection. They'll even sell multiple ones in a row.[/p]
• [p]I fixed many bugs related to the "ammo belt" power.[/p]
• [p]I fixed a bug where algae harvester and oxygen conservation caused your oxygen reserves to skyrocket (sorry)[/p]
• [p]I fixed the power "cross both mountains and water".[/p]
• [p]I introduced a new monster power : The lower its health, the more melee damage it does! (Nothing has this power yet but it's there, waiting...)[/p]
• [p]I added a new code to re-lock all your ship and officer classes, in case you want to have less stuff and/or do it again. It's "Relock".[/p]
• [p]I added a new setting to automatically use the tech extractor device on ships with less than 3 decks.[/p]
• [p]Parts Junkie asteroid base room prices are now more in line with space station crafting part prices.[/p]
• [p]When selling large amounts of data, entering 0 or pressing escape will no longer sell all your data! 😮[/p]
• [p]I've made several changes to the spawning of quest items for Bankers quests, to make sure you find what you need![/p]
• [p]Bankers quests now pay higher rewards based on your reputation with them and their faction power. They reward loyalty. Doesn't make it right though...[/p]

[p][/p][p]I should take a break. [/p][p]I won't.[/p][p]Because I'm already almost done with another update, this time for the people who hate the fact that magnetic boots + auto-explore makes you go outside the ship...[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p]