Star Traders: Frontiers News

As Update #304 installs itself into your local starport with some important component rebalances and a host of new high-level components to shop, we're also excited to share the November community challenge - it's a Pirate's Life (For Me!)
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/335620/view/3376037401308938450

Check out the full details of the update below and a huge thanks to everyone sharing the game, leaving a review and posting feedback and suggestions onto the Steam boards.

[h2]Our upcoming heist RPG is on the way![/h2]
Right now ~1,000 of the Kickstarter backers for Cyber Knights: Flashpoint have access to the game’s private alpha and are giving us great feedback as the game gets closer to Early Access. We also have some public demos on our roadmap for events coming up this fall. Make sure you’ve wishlisted and followed Cyber Knights for news and a special discount when it’s released!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

[h2]New Garden Outposts[/h2]
The worlds of the Star Traders scattered across the quadrants are many, and we're excited to add two more art boards for landing zones to Garden world outposts.

[h2]Sensor Arrays Rebalances and Gain Lvl 5[/h2]
With Update #304, we've revisited the catalog of Sensor Arrays and made some adjustments to ensure their progression is clearly expressed. Sensor Arrays provide more consistent bonuses across their progression from rank 1 to 4 and their installation and repair times are also correctly aligned with other small slot components.

In addition, a new 5th rank Sensor Array 5 has come online granting best in class Navigation and attack bonuses as well as and matched Electronics with Sensor Array 4.

The requirements for starports that can install Signature Dampeners have also been increased a bit as part of this rebalance.


[h2]Orbital Scoop 5[/h2]
The estimates for all Orbital Scoop components were slightly too high and have been adjusted for this update. This should help prevent players from expecting more during fuel returned during Orbital operations. A good thing, now there is an Orbital Scoop 5 component that can provide the best in class scooping for your reduced fuel cost. Install a few of these for free ops!

[h2]Small Slot Medical Options[/h2]
A new small slot Advanced Medical Chamber has joined the family and offers a superior +3 Medical Rating though it comes with neither Armor nor Shielding bonuses. The Shielded Medical Chamber now adds +2 Jump Cost to help keep it balanced within the small slot medical component options and keep it fairly weighted against the Reinforced Medical Chamber.


[h2]Advanced Hangar[/h2]
In another win of a long run of wins for carriers, the Advanced Hangar Bay is now for sale in Thulun starports across the galaxy. Built for those captains looking to take an aggressive stance, the Advance Hangar Bay provides a place for a craft, bonus fuel and aggressive bonuses against enemy craft.

[h2]Ship Repricing[/h2]
With the changes to components and all the adjustments to costs over the last few months, we've taken a moment to correct some ship prices. The Caliga Vindex has been raised to $2.1m credits and the Shizari Huntress has gained a much needed bump to $1.2m. These changes match up to the components installed on the hulls and ensure prize ship and resale prices provide fair values in the starport market.

[h2]v3.3.9 - 11/3/2022[/h2]
- Added two new "Valley View" Garden World outpost images
- Added new component "Advanced Medical Chamber" (Size 1)
- Added new component "Sensor Array 5" (Size 1)
- Added new component "Orbital Fuel Scoop 5" (Size 2)
- Added new Thulun component "Advanced Hangar Bay" (Size 2)
- Added Hyperwarp Jump Cost to 'Shielded Medical Chamber'
- Rebalanced Sensor Array 1-4
- Fixed issues with Orbital Fuel Scoop Estimates
- Adjusted ship prices for 'Caliga Vindex' and 'Shizari Huntress'

[h2]End of Challenge Wrap Up[/h2]
(original challenge description below)

Ahoy, Captains! These last couple of months it’s been all about plundering your way through the galaxy while avoiding walking the airlock in our Pirate’s Life Challenge. You all have been *ahem* “acquiring” loot, conscripting crew, and wearing the best of pirate fashion!

We’ve really enjoyed reading your stories and have been impressed by your plunder! If you want to catch up on all of the pirating and fun, check out the [url=[https://steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/0/3461606393635113766/]challenge discussion thread and pop into our Discord and head to #pirates_life_challenge.

A few highlights from the challenge:

Shallowrain, for giving us this excellent meme about the best things in life.


Scathe, for giving us all the stats on their career as a pirate, looting over 3700 pieces of cargo and conscripting 15 crew members. Ultimately, Scathe ended up with 6008 pieces of cargo looted!


Matt gave us lots of great stories about their adventures with Captain Michagorov, including surviving a mutiny and recovering through conscription, all while wearing the very important pirate hat!


Great work, Captains! So many of you participated in the challenge, sharing your screenshots, stories and more. Thank you all! Even though the official time frame for the challenge is over, we’d still love to hear about your attempt at this challenge (or any of the previous community challenges) any time!

Stay tuned for future challenges!


Update (11/30/2022) original challenge posted below.

The Pirate’s Life challenge has been a lot of fun throughout November, so we are extending it through early January with some additional challenges. Here are two more ways to challenge yourself while plundering your way through the universe.

1) Be a pirate against only a single faction. Pick one and be merciless.
2) Be a pirate against everyone. Be an indie pirate and go after every faction. How will you make it when everyone is turned against you?

The other requirements for the challenge are listed below and you can, of course, continue to do the challenge as we originally posted it!


Avast ye, Captains. It’s time for the November 2022 STF challenge. Last time, we did a trade focused merchant challenge. This time, though, it’s all about piracy in the Pirate’s Life Challenge. Time to plunder, capture, and steal your way through the universe.

This challenge is very open for how you want to play being a Pirate, but there are a few requirements. The requirements for this challenge are:

• No buying from faction worlds. You can buy from Indie worlds and sell at any world, but as this is a pirate challenge, we want to emphasize plundering and capturing goods from other ships!
  
• 5 of your crew must be conscripted. This requirement will take time to complete, but by the end of the challenge at least 5 of your crew need to have been conscripted from another ship.
  

Some ideas for what we’d love to see:

• Screenshots of your stats on cargo looted and crew conscripted, your crew, your stash of loot
  
• Stories of your conscripted crew and how they became part of your team, your favorite pirating adventure/encounter
  
• Your strategies for being a pirate: how do you find your next target, what do you do with your plundered loot
  
• Any other creative ways you want to share to tell us how you became the universe’s most notorious pirate
  

No matter what you choose to share, please include one screenshot of your piracy stats (cargo looted and crew conscripted)!



We’ve opened up a discussion here on Steam in the General Discussion forum for aIl of your posts. If you post on the discord, post in the #pirates_life_challenge channel found in the STF category.

Yarr, it’s time to plunder, Captain! Looking forward to hearing about your adventures and exploits!

After a short break, we're back warming up the update train with Update #303 Patchwork. With a new environmental artboard and some adjustments to the Contact simulation, this minor patch gets things moving again with more to come.

The last community challenge -- Merchant Mogul -- has wrapped up and the team is prepping the next exciting chapter of those challenges, so stay tuned.

Thanks to everyone for the on-going support, sharing feedback and sharing the game!

[h2]New Art Board[/h2]
We've added a new planetary artboard for the icy vastness of iceworld outposts. We've also tweaked and adjusted some of the recently added artboards for color and improved cropping.

[h2]Starting Contact Influences[/h2]
WIth this update, we've tuned a number of Contact starting points for the betterment of the Contact ecosystem. The Retired Bodyguard and Racketeer Contacts have both had their starting Influence values reduced and their action pattern adjusted so that they are better at building Influence over time. On the other hand, we have increased the starting Influence for all Templar Contacts, including the Templar Militant, and also applied an additional Templar-only rule that slows their Influence pace changes, to reflect their Zendu ways.

[h2]v3.3.7 - 10/18/2022[/h2]
- Added new 'Ice Outpost' planet artwork
- Fixed bug with 'Zendu Lineage' Trait
- Adjustment base influence for "Retired Bodyguard" & "Racketeer"
- Revised influence equations for Templar / Templar Militant

Update #302 continues to press on adding new scores to the game, adding new artwork for environments and addressing some quality of life UX work in buying ship components and selling Intel to Contacts. Most importantly, the new scores tracking for Conflicts opens up the possibility to add an entirely new type of player-direction mission where you're working to influence Conflicts directly -- any way you choose. That's an exciting future for a near-term update, but for now -- its Update #302!

[h2]Want more Trese Brothers sci-fi?[/h2]
We always love seeing how many of you have pieced together the lore of Star Traders from the stories within, and enjoy the flavor of this universe your Captain is a part of. In our next game, we’re telling a very different sci-fi story but with the same depth we bring to all our worlds. Check out the dark-future feel of our upcoming cyberpunk heist RPG, and wishlist it today!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


[h2]Conflict Scores[/h2]
Your captain's scores page now keeps record of exactly how much you've influenced any of the retribution justice Conflicts within the game. The scores are factionless, so they are counting only how many points you've added to *any* Solar War over your career. But, for bragging rights as the ultimate assassin, faction warrior or peacemaker these new scores are exciting record of your actions.

The latest community challenge -- Merchant Mogul -- is making good use of the some of the recently added captain's scores and we're looking at some ideas how a new challenge could be created around these 7 new scores as well. We're always open to additional community challenge ideas, so please do share :D

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/335620/view/3374906503254336022

[h2]Remote or Minor Outposts[/h2]
Update #302 adds another 5 new landing backgrounds for small urban zones nestled in among the beautiful wilderness remote environments -- small heat-shielded city in molten mountains, towers rising from misty jungles and peaceful settlements spread across idyllic garden-world scapes.

[h2]Buying and Selling Improvements[/h2]
We've received a number of posts recently on the Steam forums about improvements we could make to different buying and selling UIs in the game so we've started on some of those items with Update #302. When shopping for ship components, your sort order is now remembered and we are continuing to discuss the use cases for remembering filtering -- it is coming soon! In addition, the scroll position in your Selling Intel screen is kept so that you can much easier target and sell multiple sets of records without as much work.

[h2]v3.3.5 - 9/20/2022[/h2]
- Added 7 new Contact Scores to track your career's impact on Conflict Scores by type
- See your impact on Solar Wars, Trade Bans, etc from the Scores screen
- Added 5 new environment backgrounds for oceanic and radioactive worlds
- Sorting choice is remembered between shopping screens for components
- When selling Intel to Contact, the scroll position in the list is correctly remembered
- Fixed issues with oceanic world Urban zone artwork selection logic

[h2]End of Month Wrap Up[/h2]
(original challenge description below)

This month it’s been all about making that money in our Merchant Mogul challenge. You all have been stockpiling rare goods, making some massive trades, and building your trade empires, all while dodging those pesky pirates.

We’ve really enjoyed reading your stories and have been duly impressed at some of the trades you all have made! If you want to catch up on all of the bartering and fun, check out the challenge discussion thread and pop into our Discord and head to #merchant_mogul_challenge.

A few highlights from the month:

Tomcat for several massive trades, but 15.6m was the biggest one we saw! That’s a lot of spice. 😲

nhdkentun for this very impressive stash of trade goods. Set up to make some money when those get sold!

matt for sharing their adventures with pirates. Pirates can definitely complicate your plans for building your trade empire. 😄

RhysOnasi for this excellent meme on the struggles with the xeno. Always showing up at the worst time.

Great work, Captains! So many of you participated in the challenge, sharing your screenshots, stories and more. Thank you all! Even though September is over, we’d still love to hear about your attempt at this challenge (or any of the previous community challenges) any time!

Stay tuned for future challenges!


Hello, Captains. It’s time for the September 2022 STF challenge. This time it’s all about trade in our Merchant Mogul challenge. Brush up on your bartering skills and try to remember where you secretly stashed those valuable goods. How will you influence the universe through trade? How much money will you make?


This is a trade focused challenge. Update 301 added six new trade scores that will help you to tell the story about building your trade empire. Here are the requirements for this challenge:

• Build a respectable cargo ship with at least 100 cargo space
  
• That’s it. No really, just the one requirement. We want you to have the chance to play how you want as you grow your wealth through trade.
  

[h3]Some ideas for what we’d love to see:[/h3]

• Screenshots of your trading stats: highest single trade, number of trades over $500k
  
• Your strategies for making money, how you impacted trade conflicts
  
• Your favorite port to trade in, your most profitable trade triangle
  
• Your own creative way to tell us about how you became the greatest trader
  

No matter what you choose to share, please include one screenshot of your trade stats!

We’ve opened up a discussion here on Steam in the General Discussion forum for aIl of your posts. If you post in the discord, post in the #merchant_mogul_challenge channel found in the STF category.

Go make that money, Captain! Looking forward to hearing about your growing trade empire!