This patch introduces the new Rogue Officers DLC. This DLC is part of the game and there is no need to download anything. You will just need to enable the DLC prior to starting a new game.
Here are the features of the new DLC content.
Players can now assign an officer to each and every ship in their fleet. There are 6 professions of officers and 4 ranks. The officer professions are combat, communication, engineering, medical, navigation and science. Each profession has 6 unique perks. About 2/3 of the perks affect only the ship they are assigned too, while the rest can affect your shuttle craft, planet lander or even your stats.
The race of the officers for a game are taken from the races in the game except for the main enemy or space pirates. This can come into play as assigning an officer of the same race as the ship will allow the officer to gain 50% more xp. You will never get an officer from your race or from pirate ships. This makes obtaining ships from other races much more important than what it was.
The officer ranks are (lowest to highest) Ensign, Lieutenant, Commander and Captain. Ensigns can only be assigned to small ships. Lieutenants require a medium or smaller. Commanders require a large or smaller and a Captain can be assigned to any size ship.
In addition to ship size restrictions some officers can only be assigned to certain ship types. (Battle Cruisers, Science Vessel etc)
Each assigned officer offers a specific perk related to their profession. For example a medical officer will have perks such as Triage. This perk give the assigned ship a chance to heal lost crew while in combat.
During combat the officers will gain xp. Once they have gained enough xp their rank will increase. Once they reach captain and they gain enough xp then will then create an ensign of the same race.
As an officer ranks up, their perk will also increase. For example, lets take the Triage perk. At Ensign rank there is a 5% chance that a crew member that was going to be lost in combat will be saved. Those go up to 10, 15 and 20% for the other 3 ranks.
In addtion to an officers XP they also have a loyalty gauge. This will range from 10 to 100. The higher the loyalty the better chance the officer will not decide to leave. Each 250 TU's there is a chance that 1 or 2 officers will leave. Unassigned officers have a greater chance of leaving versus assigned ones.
This DLC also introduces 8 new achievements and 2 new achievement artifacts. The two artifacts are Officers Academy and Twin Officer Quarters.
The Officer Academy allows officers that are now assigned to a ship to gain XP and it also reduces their loyal decreasing by 50%.
The Twin Officer Quarters will allow the player to assign 2 officers to a ship instead of 1.
We will also have an updated game manual within the next week. This will include information on the DLC and will also update some of the other things that have changed over the last several months.
We hope you enjoy the new content and we welcome any feedback good or bad.