Star Traders: Frontiers News

From the wastes we have returned, Star Traders! Some late summer vacation put a pause on Star Traders: Frontiers updates for a minute but we're back in the spice hall and let's keep this ride going. Let's check out what we've got in Update #352!

[h2]Updates for All![/h2]
Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, our stealth & squad tactics heist RPG, launched into Steam Early Access and how is marching to Update #132 and a major milestone MAGNITUDE v2 today as it battles through its ambitious public roadmap. In celebration of the big milestone hit, the entire Steam catalog including Star Traders: Frontiers and Cyber Knights: Flashpoint are on sale this week.

If you're looking for a story rich, squad-based RPG, take a minute to follow, wishlist or try Cyber Knights! All support for Cyber Knights ultimately results in a brighter future for Star Traders, so hope you’ll check it out and spread the word!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


[h2]New Dragoon Missile Launcher[/h2]
With Update #325, we've released a new Dragoon is small slot level 9 missile launcher. As the highest level small slot missile around, it has a solid 80 Radiation Damage and a big boost for regular ship damage that lets it beat out both the Valkri and Gargoyle missiles for sheer crushing power.


[h2]Improved Crew Dmg / Morale Dmg during Travel & Landing[/h2]
With this update, we've completed a full review of travel and landing saves for Ship Ops, Electronics and other Skills that are used. We found a few places where the math - which is taking into account a lot of factors like crew size, component complexity, Rumors, etc - could get extremely spikey and produce unfairly large damage results for both health and Morale.

These issues were especially caused by bad Rumors. Bad, bad Rumors :D

We've smoothed these over to reduce sudden spikes. In other advice, be sure to have enough Saving Talents, ensure that you have highly skilled crew to work your specialized ships (keep your Skill Saves well above 100%!) and where possible keep all soft skills (Doctor, Command, Intimidate) above the head count of crew on board.


[h2]New AI Ships in the Mix[/h2]
We've also finished testing the AI ship builder capabilities for a number of new hulls - including the Vengeance Class Mk3, Wolfpack Interceptor, Paladin Crusader and Voracious. While it is nice that you can now use Prize Ship to capture these ships as your own, it is important to be wary of enemy captains who are flying these recently released hulls as they are doing pretty interesting things with them.

Finally, we've added a new AI variation for the Terrox Deathspear which can help the AI turn it into an even more deadly boat.

[h2]Re-balanced 2 Railguns[/h2]
We tweaked the balance on the Seraphim Railgun and the Daystar Railgun to ensure that they fit into the mold of the weapon class and are appropriate in stats for the small and medium slots. Be sure to check them out as you consider your next ship build.

v3.3.119 - 8/26/2024
- New Ship Weapon: Dragoon Missile Launcher (medium slot)
- Improved rules for Crew Damage and Crew Morale Damage as a result of Rumor, Travel or Landing tests
- New enemy AI for "Vengeance Class Mk3" + "Wolfpack Interceptor" + "Paladin Crusader" + "Voracious Class" + "Terrox Deathspear"
- Reworked "Daystar Railgun" Ship Weapon (small slot)
- Buffed Seraphim Railgun Array (medium slot)
- Fixed reported bugs and crashes

Captains, come sit at the spice hall and hear a tale of powerful carrier ships, highly trained wing crew and large hangar bays worth their weight in credits. It's another update in the Summer of Star Traders series which introduces 3 new Hangar Bays and fixes an issue with the recently released Large Hangar Bay and further improves Alta Mesa's position as the best-in-class when it comes to craft.

Thanks to everyone who has supported our efforts on Star Traders: Frontiers these six years! Yes, six years of updates, we launched in August of 2018 ːsteamhappyː


[h2]Large Hangars Redux[/h2]
In the last update we made a mistake with the Large Hangar bay. Sometimes when you work on a sprawling game for 6 years, you can forget the limits in certain subsystems. Currently, Hangar bays are limited to 1 craft only, and so our release of Large Hangar bay taking more than 1 craft was not supported under the game's current rules and UI.


[h2]Hangar Bay Annexes[/h2]
Annexes are types of components that offer regular bonuses for that component type as well as an additional cabin for an officer. Now you have option to pack in an officer cabin into a large slot. The Shielded and Reinforced Hangar Bays offering these annexes are massive bulwarks, offering powerful Shield or Armor ratings as well as the living quarters for the Wing officer (we assume!) and their craft.


[h2]Alta Mesa Warhawk Large Hangar[/h2]
Not to be outdone when it comes to hangars, Alta Mesa's large slot Warhawk Hangar Bay offers the super-annex option, including space for 2 Officers and 1 Craft. If your carrier can spare 2 large slots to the Warhawk series, you're S-tier all the way with Alta Mesa.


[h2]Alta Mesa Improvement[/h2]
Not to be outdone when it comes to craft, we've increased the bonuses across the board for the Alta Mesa Warhawk Launch Bay, ensuring that it is one of the best launch bay options you can find.

We've also fixed reported typos and other text errors - thanks to everyone for their attention to detail when reporting bugs.

[h2]v3.3.117 - 8/12/2024[/h2]
- Revised 'Large Hanger Bay' to hold 1 Officer, 1 Craft and Fuel
- New Ship Component: Large Shielded Hangar Bay (1 Officer + 1 Craft + Armor)
- New Ship Component: Large Reinforced Hangar Bay (1 Officer + 1 Craft + Shields)
- New Ship Component: Warhawk Hangar Bay (2 Officers + 1 Craft, Alta Mesa Only)
- Buffed Alta Mesa only Warhawk Launch Bay (Increased Bonuses)
- Fixed typos and text errors

Many welcomes, Star Traders! Come in, come in, the spice hall awaits you.. Pull up a seat, grab a spice plate and recline a while as we share the latest and greatest news from the Frontiers. Today's update continues the Summer of Star Traders update series and is focused on carriers, small craft and ship components -- with the usual mix of fixes for your reported bugs and typos that have still, to this day, somehow evaded detection.

In additional to these changes, we've made a sweep with this release to push all the new ship components that have been added in previous updates into the hands of the enemy captain and ship builder, so keep an eye out for some adjusted or more powerful ship builds, especially at the high level.


[h2]Added New Carrier Components[/h2]
First up, we have two new components that were suggested by players. We're also working on a new starting ship, and in the process of getting it to work we've had to add a new new components. Some of those are going out for testing in this release, some will go out in the next release and the last set will go out in the release after that.


The Reinforced Micro Launch Bay provides a size 1 launching point for your small craft and some additional armor points. This component appears on the new small starting ship and is particularly useful for sub-carriers that are using Shuttles for boarding instead of a mix of craft types.

The 'Large Hanger Bay' was suggested over email and provides a way to store craft in the largest components. Specifically intended for large carriers, the Large Hanger Bay can single handedly manage an entire fighter wing of small craft - 3 craft total.


[h2]Small Craft Adjustments[/h2]
Thanks to eagle-eyed Steam user 'Crim' we've got a bunch of balance adjustments to a number of small craft. Some buffs had been applied inconsistently during a previous balancing pass, and that put a few of the craft's stats pretty far outside the expected progression.

For Faulker D5 and Frostburn VX6 we've increased their speed to match the progression for their type. To bring the Cresent Chaser, Gold Paentra and Feralight MX8 into balance with their level and cost, we've increased their accuracy and agility.

This brings a number of craft that were underpowered for their level into alignment. Thanks, Crim!

[h2]Better Armored Salvage Bay 5[/h2]
To ensure the Armored Salvage Bay 5 is still worth the upgrade, we've increased both its cargo and fuel bonuses for the price it requires.


[h2]Voracious Class for a Steal[/h2]
The Voracious Class was criminally underpriced due to an error in our ship designer which was pointed out on the Steam forum and we fixed that one today. The price tag has jumped up to $950K+

v3.3.115
- New Ship Component: 'Reinforced Micro Launch Bay'
- New Ship Component: 'Large Hangar Bay' (Large Slot, holds 3 Craft as requested)
- Increased Speed for 'Faulker D5' and 'Frostburn VX6' Craft
- Increased Accuracy and Agility for Cresent Chaser, Gold Paentra Mk2, Feralight MX8
- Repriced Ship, "Voracious Class" now sold for between 950k and 1.045M
- Increased Cargo and Fuel Bonus for 'Armored Salvage Bay 5'
- Added three new components to enemy Ship builder
- Fixed text issues and reported bugs

Full challenge write up down below!

Hi Captains! I'm here with our end of the month write up for the mini-map challenge! A lot of you have taking on that tiny little map and the unique situations it created.



Matt gave us detailed write ups about the adventures of their captain and their crew. Captain Billy stayed very busy despite the small map!



Scathe, who's Capain Majara, relied on a lot on diplomacy and trade to navigate through their adventures.

Many of you, including Migal, gave the new Blade Dancer a try on this challenge too, mixing it up even more.

We really enjoyed all of you telling us about your adventures on this challenge. It's always so much fun seeing how you all choose to tackle the challenges and the shenanigans you get up to along the way!

I'll be back soon (a couple months) with another STF challenge, but make sure you join us for our CKF challenges as well if you have both games!

----------------



Hello, Captains. It’s time for another STF challenge. This is the mini-map challenge! How will you play on the smallest of maps with the least sectors? Is it very different from your standard style of play? What choices will you make and why?

This challenge really only has one "rule." That you play on the specific map seed for this challenge. Otherwise, you can play whatever professions, ships, rules, and styles you would like.

The map seed for this challenge is: st-v02-12-2-99475829

It is a 12 sector very small map. Chillbear who suggested it says that it has a very strong starting position for Steelsong.



Some ideas for what we’d love to see:

• Screenshots of your ship, your crew
  
• Descriptions of your strategies approaching such a small map and how they are different from your 'normal' strategies
  
• Tell us about the challenges your faced, particularly those around it being a small map or interesting things that happened
  
• Any other creative ways you want to share to tell us about life in so few sectors: memes, interpretive dance, gifs, etc
  

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


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 #mini_map_challenge channel found in the STF category.



Good luck and have fun, Captains!

A priority signal is beaming in from the void, captain. It's another update. They say it is update #349. There must be some mistake ... With this update we've improved the Blade Master Trait balance, circled back to improve the first Early Access profession, Bounty Hunter, added 2 new ship weapons and completed some minor improvements for the Paladin Crusader and Wolfpack Interceptor.

If you're enjoying your first-class, front-row seat on the update train here at Star Traders HQ, please be sure to leave a review, share the game and tell a friend!

[h2]Want to help shape our next game?[/h2]
So many of our updates for Star Traders are based on feedback from you all. But there are limits to what we can do in a game 5 years after its release. Our new tactical heist RPG, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, is evolving fast in Early Access, with plenty of room for content ideas and shifts in gameplay based on what early players are finding fun.

Join us to make this game another one you’ll be enjoying for years to come.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

[h2]Blade Master Trait Updates[/h2]
Thanks to the community for the outpouring of excitement and feedback about the new Blade Master profession! We've included a set of adjustments the Blade Master's Traits to balance them out. With your help, they are in a much better spot now. The Blade Master's Blood Ritual Trait has been upgraded to be much more focused on combat engagements with bonus to Fortitude, Melee Damage and a very powerful Debuff Resist.


[h2]Bounty Hunter Profession Buffs![/h2]
However, all this discussion of Profession balancing has highlighted the unfortunate fact that some of the first professions added to the game during the Early Access phase have been left behind a bit by the power curve. We'll be taking some time this month to make some adjustments and try to bring things back into balance. This patch includes some improvements to the Bounty Hunter profession.


[h2]New Ship Weapons![/h2]
Two terrifying new ship weapons are now available, the DSX Plasma Battery and the Vanguard Gravcannon. The new DSX Plasma Battery is a medium slot level 9 weapon and the Vanguard Gravcannon can punch a hole through anything at large slot, level 9. These are both based on requests from the community, so please keep your ideas and posts coming! They are fuel for the Star Traders reactor.


[h2]Improved Component Labeling[/h2]
An awesome community member brought to our attention how easily confused the Defense Pattern Matrix and the Pilot Assist Module are when looking at ship status screenshots. To make this less confusing and make screenshots more readable, we've changed the icon for Defense Pattern Matrix from Pilot Booster to Defense Booster. This better matches what the component does and is visually more clear. Win-win!

[h2]On-Going Tweaks to Paladin Crusader and Wolfpack Interceptor[/h2]
With so many new captains taking the bridge of the Paladin Crusader and Wolfpack Interceptor, we've heard a lot of feedback about how to tune these ships up to be just right. A big thanks to everyone sending this in and helping us improve. We've done some component swaps and tweaks and these are flying off the starport launch pad better than ever.

[h2]v3.3.113 - 7/27/2024[/h2]
- Further revised Blade Master Profession Traits
- Improved Bounty Hunter Profession Traits
- New Ship Weapon: DSX Plasma Battery (Size 2, Level 9)
- New Ship Weapon: Vanguard Gravcannon (Size 3, Level 9)
- Components adjustments for "Paladin Crusader" and "Wolfpack Interceptor"
- Changed ship component icon for "Defense Pattern Matrix" to increase clarity
- Fixed bugs and reported crashes