Star Traders: Frontiers News

With the major release of mod support behind us, we're returning to some regular order here with a roll-up update full of community-driven fixes. In Update #278, we've added even more mission icons, improved the way that Wing Commando's "Behind Enemy Lines" works to truly knock out the single, most powerful weapon, replaced all the Bribe offer text in ship encounters to always be correct and more.

We're getting back to regular order here with more exciting updates to come, so if you're enjoying the pace of new features, content and fixes please tell a friend and leave a review.

[h2]For a different flavor of Trese Brothers sci-fi, check out Cyber Knights![/h2]
Our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is under development. Set in a different universe than Star Traders, we think much of what you all love about STF (a lore-rich world, many ways to play, strong independent spirit, lots of RPG depth) is shared within. Learn more about the Cyber Knights setting on its Steam page, or check out this video showing a ton of art and discussing the game design.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


[h2]More Mission Icons[/h2]
With the addition of mission icons to help summarize step actions in Update #277, we've been hearing from the community about specific types of actions that weren't fully covered. We've now added icons to help summarize steps including Negotiation (huge!) and the missing variations of Intel missions.

[h2]Clearer Bribe Offers[/h2]
Ship encounter options often include Bribes but the text of those offers has often been misleading about whether or not your are paying to avoid Reputation loss or not. We've cleaned up the text on all Bribe offers to cleanly match the result you'll get if both ships leave.


[h2]Behind Enemy Lines[/h2]
The Wing Commando Talent "Behind Enemy Lines" has been fixed to operate as described in its description. Previously, it was working closer to the Gunner Talent "Disarming Sabotage". Now, Behind Enemy Lines specifically targets the most powerful, functioning weapon on the enemy ship and does it 80% damage -- a guaranteed knock out hit! A couple of Wing Commandos can work efficiently to take down enemy gun's completely if they act fast enough from their striking shuttles.

[h2]And More[/h2]
With an influx of new players coming to check out the game, the Steam forums and Discord have been busy with feedback, suggestions and minor bug posted. We've fixed a bevy of minor issues with Mass and pricing on :ththe latest set of hybrid barracks components, adjusted the failure message in Civil Unrest Rumor to be more clear and fixed a whole heap of typos.

[h2]v3.2.3 - 9/8/2021[/h2]
- Mission descriptions now include missing icons for Negotiation, some additional ship battle types, Conflict Intel missions
- Added hover to Accept/Waypoint buttons in mission offer for clarity
- Fixed Wing Commando's "Behind Enemy Lines" to match description -- guaranteed to disable most powerful enemy weapon
- Fixed all Bribe options for all captain types in ship encounters to be clear when Reputation loss is at risk
- Improved fail message with Civil Unrest Rumor when faction denies access (-10 or less Rep)
- Fixed pricing on Battle Barracks 4, fixed Mass on Shielded Barracks 4
- Fixed Barracks appearing twice in medium slot display
- Fixed Spice Hall description of recruit bonus for Mercenaries Rumor
- Fixed report crashes and typos

Now that mod support is released, let’s talk about where it will (and could) go from here. The last week since modding launched has been exciting with a lot of interest, thousands of subscribers to mods and a great update to the core game to boot. Now -- let's look at the road ahead for modding.

[h3]First: Mod Support v1[/h3]
Thanks to our dedicated modders in the private beta, some of the mod support capabilities you’re seeing today are even better than we expected.

• A mod manager that merges SQL allows multiple mods to be installed and work seamlessly with each other with many fewer potential conflicts and much less configuration than we might have released originally.
  
• Story modding became a v1 priority. Modders now have everything they need to add their own story vignettes to the game. While creating quality stories is no small task (welcome to our world 😅), we think the potential for player-created story mods filling the Star Traders universe is one of the most exciting aspects of adding modding to the game.
  

In addition to those big wins, we’re proud to have v1 offer a broad foundation for modding to begin with:

• Everything in the game database is replaceable, or can be added to. Ships, weapons, gear, talents... pretty much anything with stats. Modders can rebalance, simplify, power up, or add to any of these things.
  
• All binary files in the game directory are replaceable. Graphics, sound effects,
  
• An extensive set of documentation. Upfront: this may not mean complete, but we’ve gone through a huge amount of data fields to make it more clear what each does and what your options are as a modder for using them.
  

[h3]Second: some necessary limitations[/h3]
We want to be upfront about a few things that will not be possible with modding.

1) Hacking in crowd-sourced translation through modding. While modders are welcome to create mods in any language, or even to attempt to rewrite the portions of in-game text that are contained within the game database, we want to be that there is still too much inaccessible text through the mod kit to complete a successful translation of the game.

We know translation is a popular request, but we want to be very clear up front that modding does not answer that request. As we’ve noted elsewhere, we’ve learned a lot from this entire process, and our next game will be translated from the start.

2) We won’t be adding a scripting language for mods (though we may add some additional scripted triggers / effects for modders to use, ourselves). Star Traders: Frontiers is built on a custom engine, with a workflow heavily driven by data in the game database. While we’ve opened up the database, we can’t open up the engine, or provide a way for modders to hook in scripts without a far more extensive rebuild than we could handle with the mod kit at this date in the game's lifecycle.

However, we are listening daily to the modding community (and asking to!) to understand where there is interest for additional extensibility and hooks that can be used by the mod kit.

3) Modding Roadmap
As we have stated elsewhere -- we are continuing our work to update the base game, especially with some big upcoming story arcs and eras. At the same time, we have reserved some bandwidth to work closely with involved and interesting modding creators to expand the capabilities of the mod kit.

[h3]In-progress[/h3]

• Save editor: while the modded game databases be modified at will with simple tooling, we are still looking forward to creating a saved game editor that will allow you to execute certain sets of commands against your saved games.
  
• Improving documentation: the doc team never sleeps because there is always more to write down! Star Traders: Frontiers is a surprisingly huge and deep game (did you notice?) and so documenting every in and out of its data-driven structure is going to be a process that continues for a long time.
  
• Crowd-sourcing talent effects: some of the ready-to-play mods already make exciting tweaks to Jobs but we're looking forward to the first completely New Job mod to appear. To this end, we'll be holding a brainstorming within the mod community looking for new types of Talent effects and triggers that could help define new Jobs and allow modders to create truly unique new combinations for your crew and officers.
  

[h3]Future possibilities[/h3]

• Game Rule Control: while few rules are within reach of the mod kit today (maximum ship armor 75%) we will be working to move some of these -- those most interesting to the mod community -- into scope and play for mods over the next months.
  
• More Story Examples and Features: with the first story mod already published, we cannot wait to see more modder created storylines filling up the galaxy. As we continue to add story to the base game, we will be authoring these new storylines in the same that the modders can use, which will expand the base of examples to pull from. We're excited to work closely with any modder working on a stories as one of our top priorities to see this type of content expanding in the game and to work on building out features that specifically cater to their needs.
  
• Further authoring tool development: the modding community has already developed a pretty set of powerful authoring tools, some of which are publicly shared. Depending on the need and interest, we may further invest in helping the community make these tools easy to use and share for new modders coming on to the team.
  
• Card Control the mod kit does not include the contents and rules for card games today but if there is significant interest, this is a direction we could work to expand the kit.
  

Captains, I think you know by now that given unlimited time and resources we’d just keep adding to Star Traders: Frontiers until your scientist crew members were writing essays in their downtime pondering if they were merely living in a simulation and there were a real universe somewhere outside their perception...

Sadly, as we do not have the cheat codes to get unlimited time and resources, we do have to pick our battles. So:

[h3]Play and make some mods![/h3]
We're loving the response to modding so far, with more and more mods continuing to be added and more players trying them out. Check out the game's Steam Workshop to browse the now 20+ mods available and being updated. Give those creators some love in the mod comments! More mods played and praised = more mods made and updated.

Want to become a modder yourself? Check out Creating Mods on the Star Traders Wiki, and join the Discord for help, modding requests & discussions, and a great community of Star Traders players.

We can't wait to see what you all create! The Star Traders question we've always asked before is: what kind of Captain do you want to be? Now we get to ask: Captains, what do you want in your universe?

Update #277 is full of exciting adds and accompanied by a pile of new mods coming out on the Steam Workshop as well. We've delivered on a longtime community request to decorate Mission listing with action icons, the galactic starports are now installing 4 new types of hybrid barracks, we've buffed Battle Prows and even tweaked the placement of the Skip All button in dialog for faster play. On the Steam Workshop and modding side, we've had thousands of players subscribe to mods and welcomed 10 new mods to the ready-to-play family.

Speaking of new, new new -- if word hasn't trickled down from the tippity top of the New Boston spires, leaked below the streets and drip-drip-dripped into your safehouse, we're here to tell you about our upcoming turn-based cyberpunk heist RPG. Cyber Knights: Flashpoint will be coming to Steam in 2022 and mixes stealth, hacking and tactical combat with deep RPG elements and a unique heist system for missions. The wishlist button is calling your name, Knight.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210?snr=1_2108_9__2107

[h2]Mod Spotlight![/h2]
Modding has been live for a week and we're excited to welcome
[h3]Fly Xeno Ships![/h3]
Have you ever dreamed of flying a xeno ship? Stalking the galaxy in a semi-organic, completely alien death cruiser? Or just wearing a really big hat? Then you must be Rychart! All joking aside, in this mod Shelgeroth Cultists of Rychart have unlocked the secrets to utilizing Xeno technology and now sell the xeno ships at their starports for a hefty sum.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2495203303&searchtext=

[h3]Mini-Mod Pack[/h3]
The mini-mod pack provides a easy to modify set of changes to the game and encourages players to pick and chose among them to get just the modded experience they want. It is already a big toolkit put together by @davea and @ptarth, two of the mod creator veterans from the mod beta. Check it out!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2586893280&searchtext=

[h3]SFX Overhaul[/h3]
The newest SFX overhaul provides awesome sound FX for crew combat weapons, ship weapons, character injuries and all other parts of ship combat. Boom boom!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2586103199&searchtext=


[h2]Mission Summaries[/h2]
Mission step groups now include a full list of all the icons of the types of actions for their children. This gives you a quick way to look at a mission and know what is involved -- from crew to ship combat, from exploring to salvaging or intel, stash and cargo missions. The ability to pick and chose missions wisely -- and to do it quickly -- is way up with #277.

In addition, the icons also include a Passenger, Prisoner and Package "+" to indicate adding one and a "-" to indicate a drop off. This is a big help as well to plan out your routes for captains completing multiple missions and especially if your multiple passengers are competing for limited space.


[h2]Hybrid Barracks[/h2]
Update #277 adds 4 new hybrid Barracks options as well as rebalancing the existing small slot Compact Barracks to be overall improved. The new medium slot Squad Barracks is a good way to get a few more crew capacity crossed with an officer bunk. The entire new series of Battle Barracks 1, 2 and 3 offer medium slot ways to keep a battle-trained and hardened crew at the ready, granting both additional Defense % and Boarding points.

[h2]Dialog Skip All Button Moved[/h2]
For some of us, this is going to take some muscle memory retraining -- the Skip All button for Dialogs has moved to the bottom center of the screen to minimize needed mouse movement to reach it.

[h2]Craft Crash Fixes[/h2]
This update cleans up a few sneaky bugs with craft crashing during combat, certain ordering when destroyed by capital ship weapons and a number of other edge cases that were hard to reproduce. A huge thanks goes out to the captains who kept reporting and sharing details until we could finally hunt this down!

[h2]v3.2.1 - 8/29/2021[/h2]
- Mission description now includes type icons for all segments (combats, op types, add/drop off passenger, etc)
- Baracks Components Update: 4 New Barracks Components, rebalancing Compact Barracks
- Added new medium slot "Squad Barracks" which provides a Cabin-Barracks hybrid
- Added new medium "Battle Barracks 3" with Defense and Boarding Bonuses
- Buffed Battle Prow Boarding Bonus, Added Minor Craft Defensive Buff
- Improved Spice Festival Rumor description
- Moved "Skip All" dialog button into middle center of screen
- Fixed sort order for craft to be more closely aligned with components
- Fixed issue with extreme hostility in ship encounter printing "ERROR"
- Fixed story issue where sometimes story mission could start twice
- Fixed a crash with Ship Combat with a type of Small Craft conflict
- Fixed reported typos from Forum and Discord
- Fixed crash issue with some hotkey combinations

With new mods coming online daily, we wanted to shine a big spotlight on some of the other awesome mods already available to play -- one that adds story content, one that removes complexity in ship builds and one that re-writes the default v1 map.

The modding creators have been working hard to bring their creations before the community. Be sure to tell them how much you appreciate their work, rate and share their mod!

[h2]Mod Spotlight![/h2]

[h3]Spy Pack and Story[/h3]
This mod is the very first story mod for Star Traders: Frontiers, adding an entire new vignette introduced by Contact Valen Ducote. The Spy Pack isn't only a story mod, it also buffs spying and diplomatic abilities and Talents, adds a new Stealth Raptor ship and new spying components. The modder, @schrader, is a legend for the amount of work he put into creating this mod and helping us document and test story modding support during the private modding beta.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2578776840&searchtext=

[h3]No More Mass Reducers[/h3]
This mod reduces complexity in ship build by completing removing the concept of Mass and therefore Mass Reducers from the game. With every ship component contributing only a small amount of Mass, the only thing you need to consider are your Small, Medium and Large slots and exactly how you'd like to set them up.

Note, this mod really needs to go last in your mod config or it can cause crashes when combined with other ship or component mods.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2492139496&searchtext=

[h3]V1 Default Map Revamp[/h3]
The first mod that creates a customized map for players to enjoy, this mod revamps the original default v1 map. New jump routes have helped improve playability and travel within the original map.

After subscribing to the mod, you must delete any map_2.db file in your saved game folder, otherwise the mod changes will not take effect.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2498806096&searchtext=