Star Traders: Frontiers News

Update #181 arrives to close out September and helps us preps for a really big October. With this release, we've added new character outfits, are nearly done rebalancing all of the Risk and Reward factors in the operations, pushed in some important ship component improvements and have done another round of minor improvements to the quad map and star atlas. From here, we have a few more big quality of life focused releases coming up before we drop the later October update that will close out the v2.6.x family of the dev roadmap with a bang, a boom and a scream in the void (new xeno, new era, new Job!).


While most of the outfits in the latest additions have all been matched, we've added two unique outfits today with Update #181. Before you get your pitchfork, these outfits were suggested and detailed by some of our Patreon supporters (https://patreon.com/TreseBrothers). If they're popular, we'll look into making a matched set for each but these are additions thanks to our awesome patron crew who support us every day.

First up, we've got a space-punk swordsman and second up we have a sleek and simple fashionable attire suitable for captains, diplomats, merchants and also I am betting that works for assassins too. You try and tell us what you think, captains!


We've been gathering feedback and input on the new Risk and Reward rebalance and by and large are very happy with the new results. We've continually rolled out new sets of Risk and Rewards for a new type of operation each update for the last few updates, to be careful not to upset everything at once. Still, everything in the orbital and ground ops just feels better now, and the feedback is good so we are marching forward! Spy has now had its Risk and Reward math, all reported bugs fixed and all oddities about really high Skill pools causing unpleasant results are resolved.


With Update #181 we improved the Valkri Missile Pods, the level 8 ship weapon. For that price tag, they needed to pack a bit more punch and accuracy. We've also added Ship Ops requirements to every Prisoner Cell and Passenger Cabin. This helps bump the Ship Ops pools on ships that may be investing heavily in Missions and is overall a definitely improvement for captains across the void.


We're bringing in new suggestions from the community every week and this week we picked up a few more related to the Star Atlas and the main star map hovers. We've added Trade Permit values to the hovers over zones so you don't need to remember whether or not you have a permit with a faction when shopping on the map. Also, we've added the phrase "trade law X" to the searchable term -- while it isn't perfect it can help when you're looking for some specific trading zones.

We've got a few more great requests this week about QoL in these areas and are looking forward to rolling in more community feedback in the next updates!

Thanks to everyone leaving a review and especially to our Patreon supporters.


- Added 2 new character outfits suggested by Patreons -- sleek and stylish outfit and gray and space-punk swordsman
- Improved Risk and Reward factors weights for Orbital Spy including all zone stats, Rumors and other influences
- Improved balance of level 8 ship missiles, Valkri Missile Pods
- Added Trade Permit level with faction to hover over systems on the quadrant map
- Added minor Ship Ops Skill requirements to Passenger suites of all kind and rebalanced Ship Ops requirements for Prisoner cells
- Fixed bug that allowed some non-local starting Contacts to end up on Indie zones
- Added searchable string "trade law X" for all visited zones in the Star Atlas
- Fixed issue with incorrect jump count shown when navigating to distance quad from Star Atlas
- Fixed mobile issue where too many Contacts could run off screen

Update #180 comes burning out of the system, opening up the frontier for traders, pirates and anyone traveling the void's lanes. With a major new filter in the Star Atlas, a new unlockable ship for purchase, further extension of the new enemy ship selector and a full rebalance of Blockade's risk and reward system, Update #180 full of improvements requested by the community with solid adds of new content.


The new star atlas jump filter allows you to populate the Star Atlas with zones that are outside of the currently selected system. The default comes up only showing the local zones, but if you want to cast your net wider, you can pull down the filter drop down and pick any range up to 4 jumps distant, and these zones will load in.

This will greatly increase the number of potential zones shown, as even using the 1 jump filter will pull zones from any quad within 1 jump -- which might be 1 to 4 new quads on the regular. So, it is very important to use additional filters and search to narrow down the list.

For example, look for any wilderness zone within 1 jump. Or, search for any zone that "sells explosives" within 3 jumps. Or search for a "mining" zone within 4 jumps. You can peruse what the galaxy has to offer with new ease!

Sorting by distance can be a big help to keep things useful.


Locked behind the Master Explorer unlock, the Azurite cruiser is 7000 Mass class combat vessel coming off the starport shelf with many upgraded components including multiple Shielded and Reinforced types of components, Deflector Array 4, upgraded weapons and more. Also promising the best-in-class base Armor for a 7000M ship and with the highest medium slot count of 10 and still packing 11 smalls -- the Azurite stands out as combat ready but also prepared to be retrofitted for many other types of duties.

The AI isn't yet flying the Azurite but will get the option soon.


The same major rework coming through Explorer and Patrol has now touched down in Blockade. All of the underlying math to determine Risk and Reward from your crew's Skills as well as all of the local factors from Danger to the zones' Economics, Starport and Military have been fine tuned and improved. We've also made a second pass on Patrol, tweaking a few things and make it even better.

You'll really feel the benefits of Patrolling and Blockading at ripe systems and can feel the pain of doing it in the wrong places even more clearly.


We've also jammed a pile of community requests and reported fixes into this release.

A long running issue that allowed some of your starting Contacts to end up in Aetaan Char's faction has been resolved.

We've further expanded the AI's ship selection routines, spicing up Pirates and Military Officers with a few more options.

We've added some missing tooltips to the crew list screens and to craft during ship combat. Finally, we've fixed some issues with hanging story objectives in some branches of the new Era content.


- Star Atlas now supports jump filter, allowing viewing of systems outside of the currently selected quad, up to 4 jumps
- New Ship: 7000M Azurite Cruiser (Heavy Combat Ship)
- Unlock Azurite Cruiser with Explorer II
- Permanently fixed all occurrences of starting Contacts being in Aetaan Char's faction
- v4 of rebalanced enemy AI ship selection -- now with more than 110 ship AI
- Revised and Updated Patrol risk and reward weights based on player feedback and results from v2.6.13
- Improved Risk and Reward factors weights for Orbital Blockade including all zone stats, Rumors and other influences
- Improved hovers for Small Craft in Ship Combat
- Improved missing tooltips on Crew List / Trait List / Talent Manifest screens
- Fixed hanging story objectives that could be left during Buried Demons story branches

Update #179 brings another wave of improvements to enemy ship selection, a rebalance of all the risk and reward factors for Exploring and Patrol, as well as adding all the missing operation Talent sections to the Talent Manifest (Explorer, Black Market, Salvage). We've also pushed more powerful and varied effects into Rumors, Military Rank and high Rep with factions.

As we start the march to the next major Story Era and Job milestone, we're hammering away on quality of life, systems balance and community suggestions. So a huge thanks to everyone posting feedback, suggestions and bugs!


We used Update #178 as a release and testing ground for the new rewrite of the enemy AI ship selection. This let us test out the new system, gather data and we had to hotfix a critical bug. Now that everything is confirmed working, with Update #179 we've revved the engine and actually applied gasoline. Boom! The enemy ship AI has a better sense of progression and has more than 100 more options across the board through the tiers of levels and with different captain types. We're eager to hear feedback from the player base, but we've taken this very important project slowly in multiple stages to ensure that this part goes smoothly and leads to a more balanced, fun and challenging experience for all captains at all difficulties.


With Update #179, we've completed a rewrite of the Risk and Reward factors of Patrol and Exploring. The factors remain unchanged -- Explorer, Tactics, Danger, etc -- are all still what derive the % for Common, Good and Rare rewards, for example, but the math to combine all those factors has been adjusted to better take into account the large swing of scale of these values as well as the modifiers of Rumors and Conflicts.

This also addresses some issues that were reported about the values oddly shifting as certain Skill Pools got very high as well as some oddities with high Danger planets not being dangerous enough. They're dangerous, we fixed that!

One of the dangerous improvements to Explorer is that system-wide Ion Storm and Meteor Storms now increase Exploration risk of ship and crew damage.


We've now added the 3 missing sections to the Talent Manifest to cover all the wide variety of Talents for Explorer, Salvage and Black Market. Each major Talent type has its own section, making it easy to check on your crew's prowess within any given specialty operation and the cool down status of these Talent groups.


We've added more effects to high Reputation, high Military Rank and recruiting Rumors.

First up -- very high Rep Captains can gain additional bonus levels recruiting anyone from a zone with Starport 8 or higher. These bonuses can be especially significant when combined with other Rumors and factors -- starting at 500 (+1 non-combat), 800 (+1 all), 1100 (+2 combat, +1 all others), 1400 (+2 all) and 2100 (+3 all).

Next up -- Permit Rank 4 and Military Rank 13 and higher both have gained additional bonuses to their recruit types. For example, Permit 4 now gives +2 level bonus to Smugglers.

Spice Festival, Academy Graduation and Mercenary Rumors also all got their level bonuses boosted, giving even better options for spice hall and contact recruits.

With all the changes, the new theoretical maximum for a recruit is now level 16, but it would take a lot of work and the right Rumor conditions!


- v3 of rebalanced enemy AI ship selection -- now with more than 100 ship AI
- Improved Risk and Reward factors weights for Explorer including all zone stats, Rumors and other influences
- Improved Risk and Reward factors weights for Orbital Patrol including all zone stats, Rumors and other influences
- Very High Rep Captains (Star Hero and above) increase bonus Recruit Levels from affiliated Starports of Rating 8 and above
- Increased Recruiting Level Impact of Rank 13, Mercenaries, Graduation and Spice Festival Rumors
- Revised some negative Trait mutation tables to better match each event's theme (void, wilderness, spice, piracy)
- Ion Storm and Meteor Storms now increase Exploration risk of ship and crew damage
- Fixed bug where a Military Officer might be sailing a Xeno Spine ship (oops!)
- Fixed bug that allowed xeno ships to surrender due to Morale loss in certain situations
- Fixed occasional crash in UCF Founding cut scene

Update #178 follows on the coat tails of the HIGHFALL expansion with all new improvements to the enemy AI ship selection logic as well as a wave of new ships showing up in the hands of enemy captains. We've also fixed a pile of issues with Buried Demons and the HIGHFALL story Eras, some typos and label mismatches and rebalanced a few ship components.


We've focused on this major change for this update, as we have completely rebuilt and rebalanced the enemy AI's ship selection logic. The first and foremost benefit of this is that enemy captains have far more variety available to them in their ship selection. This has not only increased the variety you'll see in lower levels, but granted higher level captains access to more powerful ships later in the game. Finally, this will further improve the appearance of faction specific ships, making it all the more likely that an enemy captain will be flying one of these rare hulls.

As with many of the big improvements we've been making to the AI stack, this has its roots in adding carriers to the enemy's arsenal. Another big notch ticked for that project!


A big thanks to everyone reporting any inconsistencies or bugs with the Buried Demons story and the resulting story Eras that can come out of it. We've been receiving saved games and details from players and have swept the board pretty clean of remaining issues with #178. In this patch, we've cleaned up the last vestiges of some of the major characters (won't name them for spoilers, but you know...) having the opposite reaction to your actions than expected.


- Rebuilt and rebalanced enemy AI ship selection -- captain types have more variety in their ship selection
- Enemy captains gain more access to different and more dangerous hull types as they progress in level
- Enemy captains are more likely to use their faction's unique ships, especially military type captains
- Resolved issues with main characters in Buried Demons having wrong reactions after the Era start
- Fixed label for mass reduction components in ship display and starport
- Fixed ECCM Screen Matrix 3 and 4 Ship Ops level
- Fixed reported crashes and typos -- thanks!

Update #177 follows up on a big week after the release of the Dissension/Consolidation Era with HIGHFALL major milestone. We're working to get back to regular order and quick cycle updates, but still have some patching and clean up to do. Tonight's patch focuses on major improvements to the starport upgrade rules, filters and sorting as well as some important story patches.


Every Star Trader's vessel requires a cargo hold -- at least one, of any size. With Update #177 we've made a rule change that now allows the large Salvage Bay components to count as a cargo hold. These Salvage Bays provide cargo storage and also important bonuses for anyone playing the Salvage orbital op. We've removed the restriction that prevented these cargo-providing components from counting for the rule and have opened up some new and exciting angles for ship design!


The list of specific improvements to filter and sort is pretty long and can be probably summed up in "more filter categories, better filter specifics and better sorting." Overall, its cleaner and easier to use and find what you are seeking, but just try it out and see what you think.

In specifics -- since Salvage Bays are now counting as cargo bays, they appear in both the standard "Ops" filter as well as the "Cargo" filter. We've added both "Offensive" and "Defensive" filters and reclassified the components which fit into these to be clean and clear. This has also meant a lot of shifts about what is in the "Ship" filter, but again its clearer and simpler.
We broke a new filter category "Medical" out from the Crew filter entirely, except if the medical component provides an Officer Cabin it still appears under "Crew". Similarly, we broke out "Mission" from Cargo entirely, splitting off Passenger and Prisoner components. Finally, for filter, the "Small Craft" filter now includes Launch Bays *and* Hangars which it was missing before.

Potentially even more importantly, we rebuilt the default sort in starport upgrade screen to group components together (all Nav Assist Modules together by default) which is a huge boon in finding things faster.


We've patched all the reported story issues -- thanks to everyone for sharing these and especially for sending in saved games. A few crashes were fixed, including those at the end of the "False Trail" mission. We've also fixed an issue where Trike would appear unexpected even though you had made choices that mean he shouldn't be there. A few more bugs were fixed and we'll keep hammering away at any and all situational mistakes we've made until everything is 100% smoothed out.

Thanks for playing and if you're enjoying the game please leave a review!


- Salvage Bay components now classify as Cargo Hold to fulfill the requirement of always having a cargo hold
- Improved, re-categorized and added more starport component filters to make finding upgrades easier
- Salvage Bay components now appear in both "Cargo" and "Ops" filters in starport upgrade
- Added "Offensive" and "Defensive" filters to starport upgrade and reclassified components into "Ship" to simplify search for components
- Added "Medical" filter to starport upgrade for all medical bay and hospital components (separated from Crew)
- Added "Mission" filter to starport upgrade for specific Passenger and Prisoner component types (separated from Cargo)
- "Small Craft" filter in starport upgrade finds both Launch Bays and Hangars -- easier to equip your carrier
- Improved default sort in starport upgrade screen to group components together (all Nav Assist Modules together by default)
- Fixed crash at the end of Arbiter's "False Trail" Mission
- Fixed issue with decision in Trike mission not being correctly remembered later
- Fixed issue with Rep damage not actually processing at the end of one of Buried Demon's choices
- Fixed reported crashes and typos -- thanks!