Star Traders: Frontiers News

Welcome to the first weekend of the Steam Summer Sale and another big update for Star Traders: Frontiers. Update #162 is built around the arrival of the 7th new story in the 2.5.x roadmap family -- the first vignette to result in unique story ship components becoming available based on your actions. We've also made shipping xeno artifacts a little more dangerous, improved the fuel bar in the HUD, helped the AI pick weapons to cover ranges more intelligently, and upgraded all the ship comparisons to fully take difficulty into account. And more -- so be sure to check the full release notes.

Thanks to everyone leaving a review -- it's been bonkers, so thank you!


We won't go into spoilers about the new storyline vignette that has been added, other than to say that it starts on Rychart worlds only after the Early Coalition Era has ended. In this messy weave of galactic espionage, there are opportunities to unlock new and unique ship components that otherwise are unavailable. Your captain's actions can help change the technology of the galaxy in this new vignette.

The Contact's name is Cassie Cain and we'd like to send out a huge thanks to the KickStarter backer who helped us develop her character and her storyline!

This storyline will eventually appear in any game, regardless of how far along your captain is -- no need to restart!


Carrying Terrox Artifacts just got a bit more dangerous. While no one knows why, warnings have always been whispered that smuggler's carrying troves of artifacts are the most likely to be attacked by the Terrox. Perhaps someday, humanity will better understand the Terrox to know how it is possible, but for now, know this -- every Terrox Artifact in your cargo hold gives a very fractional increase to the percentage chance of encounter a xeno in the void. It's small, but carrying a hundred Artifacts results in a few important percentage points bump!


Based on some great player feedback, we've added a third field to the fuel bar text in the HUD. It now includes the exact amount of fuel, along with the fuel range in AU and the AU to the destination. While the exact amount of Water-Fuel is implied by the existing numbers (if and only if you know your ship's fuel-to-AU ratio), it is a big help to see the actual changes to your fuel gauge. It helps to impress upon a captain the differences between ships, large and small as well as between efficient and guzzling Void Engines.


We've improved the ship comparison run down in a ship encounter and the tooltip during combat to include the Ship Combat Boost from your Difficulty setting. This was mistakenly not taken into account before, and it is a very important factor. Mostly, this was leading to enemy captains on lower difficulties looking overly powerful for what they really were, while captains on higher difficulties might look underpowered. The comparison report is even more accurate now!


- Added new story vignette "Goltha Theory" starting on Rychart worlds after the end of the Early Coalition Era -- thanks KickStarter backers!
- Get tangled up in galactic espionage in the "Goltha Theory" story arc
- Multiple possible unique story Ship Components unlocked by story -- best new spying equipment available
- Story includes new high powered Contact type, so called "Retired Diplomat"
- Improved Fuel Bar in the HUD to include exact quantity of Water-Fuel in the tanks as well as AU range and AU to destination
- Carrying Terrox Artifacts in your cargo hold while traveling increases chance of encountering xeno ship
- Improved critical hit target group in ship combat to include Launch Bays (along with Bridge, Engine, etc)
- Refined ability for enemy AI to pick ship weapons that cover a wider band of ranges
- Improved ship comparison logic in tooltip and ship encounter screen to take Ship Combat Boost from Difficulty properly into account
- Fixed a bug that could prevent the second of two orbital ops missions from appearing over the same system
- Fixed issue where hovering over an event for a Skill test or a Saving Talent could be misleading about Saving Talents ready at time of test

We've pushed a quick patch this afternoon that adds a new QoL feature based on player feedback, fixes a crash in crew combat and fixes a number of other small display bugs that have been coming up.

With this quick patch (too small to get an Update #), we've added a "Claim All" button to the Stash screen. Explorers rejoice! One click to quickly load up the cargo hold.

We've fixed some issues with the tooltip math in ship combat, fixed the display of the -25% Armor Piercing on the new Shrapnel Shell Talent as well as a crash that could sometimes happen when it was used. We've tightened rules in crew combat to ensure you don't get Blade Skill for defense if you aren't carrying a blade. We've fixed a counting bug in the Talent Manifest that was always reporting that you had only 1/1 Port Maintenance or Skip Off the Void Talents. We've improved the title of the option to toggle between "Right Click to Navigate" and "Right Click to Set Waypoint".

That's all for this quick patch. Be sure to tell a friend and share the game while its on sale for Summer Sale. Save 33% today, Captain.

v2.5.55 -
- Added "Claim All" capability from a Stash -- load everything that fits into the cargo hold in a single click
- Fixed issue in tooltip during ship combat that was showing Tactics dice even if Gunnery is understaffed -- if Gunnery is understaffed, no Tactics on attack
- Fixed missing "-25% Armor Piercing" from Shrapnel Shell's Talent, fixed bugs when using Talent
- Improved rules in crew combat -- if you are not holding a melee weapon you do not gain Blades Skill as defensive dice
- Fixed bug in Talent Manifest that could incorrectly report 1/1 Talents in a group when you had more, such as "Repair on Landing"
- Improved options menu to be more clear about option's use "click to navigate" or "click to set waypoint"
- Fixed bug with stash and cargo screen loop

The summer heat is on and with it come the big sales! You can save 33% on Star Traders: Frontiers all through the Steam Summer Sale. If you've waited out the first 160 updates now might just be the time to get in on this wild ride across the galaxy at the best discount yet. Or, if you're already running a ship, gift a copy to a friend!

Update #161 brings all sorts of new to the game -- two new character outfits, new art for different types of hexshell and LMGs, a new rank 11 Soldier Talent to target lightly armored enemies, new improvements to the Star Atlas based directly on player suggestions, the final piece of the AI puzzle to prepare for carriers and much more. Read the entire release notes below for all the details!


The new paramilitary uniform is a matching uniform that gives the feeling of a light and mobile soldier or perhaps a wing pilot with military training. We're loving the look of this outfit on fighters, wing pilots and even ship ops crew if they have that kind of attitude. It's always exciting to deliver another outfit to the game, with new options for how to style your crew and different jobs.

As shown in the dev roadmap, there are more coming. The roadmap includes our goal of doubling the outfit count and we are about 30% of the way there now with the additions since launch in August.


Based on feedback from a number of different players, we've made a set of improvements to the Buy and Sell lists within the Star Atlas to specifically help legal traders work more quickly.

First, we've alphabetized the list. This simple sort can help you find what you're looking for faster. Even better than that, we've tagged every item that is in your cargo hold with a blue highlight. Now with a glance, you can tell if you're carrying the goods that this zone wants to purchase. If you want to know exactly how many of that cargo type you are carrying, simply hover over the item -- you can now see the exact cargo count as well.

Finally, we've made the permit tagging more clear. We've ensured that cargo types requiring permits still show their demand type (A-, etc) as well as the permit. In the tooltip we've included the permit rank required specifically to provide every bit of needed intel possible.

Happy trading, merchants! Thanks to everyone for posting feedback. We hope you enjoy seeing it filter into the game over updates :D


Soldiers have gained a new rank 11 Talent with Update #161, thanks to @DrSpendLove for the great suggestion. Shrapnel Shell is a perfect attack Talent for a low armored enemy, adding Damage, Critical and Bleeding but also reducing your attack's Armor Piercing by 25%. Not the best against a heavily armored target where the extra damage is going to get soaked up, but very effective against lower armored targets. With a debuff to Parry along with the bleeding, anyone who survives the close-range blast can be mopped up by another team member.


These updates are always deep, so you'll want to check the full patch notes below for every little thing. We've improved the AI's ability to pick a better mix of crew with this update, which is the last foundation piece required to truly prepare them for staffing carriers.

We've also improved the "Deadly Encounter" card in Black Market to note th status of your Life Saver Talents. Also, Troy 'the Blade' Circin's famous Circin Cutter has had its stats bumped.


- Added new matching character outfits -- paramilitary soldier or wing pilot
- Added new art for lower level Hexshell Rifles and LMGs (Weapons Locker A0 through A3, level 4 from Contacts)
- Added new rank 11 Soldier Talent "Shrapnel Shell" causes deadly damage and bleeding but at significant reduction to Armor Piercing
- Star Atlas now highlights cargo types in the buy/sell list in blue if present in your cargo hold, tooltip lists exact amount
- Star Atlas now lists exact permit level required for cargo types in the buy/sell list in tooltip
- Star Atlas now lists resources available to buy/sell within a zone in alphabetical order for easy reading
- Improved AI's ability to pick ship crew effectively, final prep step for Carrier AIs
- Improved Black Market card "Deadly Encounter" to list the status of Talents that prevent death like "Life Saver"
- Improved stats on "Circin Cutter" blade
- Increased mission payment offers at the end of the "Call of the Strong" storyline
- Fixed incorrect Escape dice value shown in tooltip over ship in combat when at Range 1-3
- Fixed incorrect listing for award "Survivor III" which requires 50 crew battles

Welcome to Thursday! We've dropped another big one! Update #160 includes two new character outfits, 4 new Contact character faces, one new ship component, a wealth of improvements to existing smaller ship designs, tweaked boarding Talents and a host of storyline tweaks and fixes driven by the community. If you're enjoying the pace of updates, please take a moment to leave a review and tell a friend.

Let's get right into the details!


With Update #160, we've added another outfit option for your crew, designed specifically for your ship operational crew and your wing specialist pilots. This new green flightsuit design is great for those pilots cramming into bombers and interdictors and fits well for Mechanics, Elo-Techs and more. We've got a lot more additional outfits to add as we keep moving through the roadmap, but its great to see another option targeted at the non-fighting majority on board your ship.


With Update #160, we've also finalized 4 new Contact character faces that will go into rotation for new games and new Contacts in existing games. As always, they're channeling the outlandish and unique style of the faction gravs.


Based on some great community feedback (thanks @resistor) we've made a set of improvements to some of the small ship designs, including the Dart Liner, Volk Frigate and Allistar Liner. In general, we've replaced some non-essential components with those that help increase the Skill Pools for the ship, adding Nav Assist Modules or Sig Dampeners as possible. We've also varied the weapons build out on the Dart Liner to mount a second Light Railgun on the ship.

Outside of small ships, we've improved the balance of the Dragoon Cruiser to ensure it is competitive within its class. Coming out of the starport, it now boasts heavier Armor and Shield along with slightly increased base Fuel to match its built-in Warhammer class Void Engine.


Update #160 adds a new interesting option -- a 6 bunk small component "Compact Barracks". For creative ship designers, it could help decompose the needed bunks in a ship into different component slots, such as avoiding a large slot 42 bunk barracks and instead taking a medium 36 and a small slot 6. We'll leave the rest of the design crafting in your capable hands, but enjoy this one!

We also fixed a misleading message in the Starport if you tried to replace a barracks and had too many crew. It was suggesting you dismiss *way* too many people ha!


We've hammered through a batch of story bugs reported by the community. The Arbiter Estelle storyline will no longer end prematurely at 2 supporters. You can now turn in both De Rivesh legacy pieces even if you get them separately. Prince Damien Lumotte is specific about amount of Rep lost and gained. Some short story arcs will also cause less of a delay in other stories popping up which will help when players are seeking out specific, larger storylines like Call of the Strong, etc.


- Added new matching character outfits -- green pilot, wing pilot or mechanic jump suit
- Added art for 4 new Contact character faces
- Added new ship component "Compact Barracks" a small component that holds 6 crew
- Improved Dart Liner Ship, replacing one of the Armored Bulkheads 1 with Sig Dampener (more Nav and Elo pool), replaced 2nd Torp with a Railgun
- Improved Volk Frigate, replacing Reactor Spike Module with Nav Assist Module 1 (more Nav pool)
- Improved Allistar Liner, replacing Reactor Spike Module with Nav Assist Module 1 (more Nav pool), swapped Mass Dampener 1 for Mass Modulator 1 (more Pilot)
- Improved Dragoon Cruiser within its Mass class, gaining +1 base Armor, +1 base Shield and +10 base Fuel to match its start Warhammer Class Void Engine
- Improved failure message when attempting to remove a Barracks that will remove too many beds to house your full crew
- Fixed issue where Combat Medic's "Bio-Bomb" boarding Talent was damaging a component
- Cleaned up some issues in text of improved boarding Talents "Thrown Wrench" and "Disarming Sabotage"
- Fixed issue where Arbiter's storyline and "Coalition Founder" unlock fired too early (finishing 2 instead of 3 storylines)
- Fixed bugs with the "De Rivesh Legacy" storyline -- dialog inconsistencies as well as inability to turn in the second half of the findings for reward
- Fixed issues with famous Officer Elsa Nariman's homeworld being incorrect
- Improved storyline with Prince Damien Lumotte, dialog is now specific about all Rep gains and losses for your actions
- Improved the pacing between some of the storyline events to move on more quickly from smaller events to larger ones
- Fixed issues with text formatting in Dry Dock screen

Let's start the week off with a bang! Update #159 comes straight from the community -- requests for quality of life improvements, suggestions for missing Talents, improved balance, improvements to the mission generation system -- and more, all directly dialed in by our players. So, this one goes out to you, captains! Thanks for posting, writing, joining our Discord and leaving reviews!


We've added a new blade attack Talent for Zealots at rank 1 -- "Incensed Strikes." This new ability pushes Zealot's possibilities, making it more valuable as a combat class and enables crew Zealots to have more fighting options, especially early on. Incensed Strikes costs 1.5X your weapon's Initiative, but it has a rare debuff to enemy Initiative as well as clearing their buffs!

We've also added a new Doctor rank 5 Talent "Healer's Intuition." With the constant care of the crew's health, it is only natural that a Doctor comes to know his or her crew very well. This insight can reveal a Trait when the crew is paid and has a moment to truly relax.

Based on player feedback, we've also improved the handling of Talents when paying crew to ensure that Talents with a % chance to activate don't block other Talents from firing. And finally, in this area we've fixed a bug with the Diplomat Talent "Hand that Feeds" which was prevent the Talent from activating correctly.




We've adjusted the system that helps a Contact pick the mission they request to increase the focus of Contact's on their core areas. Those Contacts giving Merchant missions are going to be more likely to dish out cargo missions, stash missions and the like while Prison Wardens are far more likely to send you on capture bounties and prisoner transports. This extra level of focus will increase your captain's ability to cleave to a type of career by cleaving to a type of Contact.

Beyond the mission-giver type, we've also strengthened the effect of Conflicts upon mission selection. Those Contacts who respond to certain types of Conflicts are going to be even *more* likely to give missions focused on the core Conflict. For example, those Contacts giving Spy missions are going to go all in on spying during an Info War while Duel of Assassins is going to turn up more Edict and death warrant missions than before.


Two Talents have come up in player feedback often -- the Mechanic's "Thrown Wrench" and Gunner's "Disarming Sabotage" where neither provided enough specifics in their description or in the details after they were used to let captains make an informed decision about their value. In both cases, we have adjusted their rules to be more powerful as these are rarer Talents -- in both cases you need to be either boarding at range 1 or have a unique Job combination on an Officer to make these available at longer range. In addition to buffing their power level, we've made their exact rules clear in their description as well as improving their in-game feedback upon use so that it is clear exactly what components or weapons were damaged and for how much.


The on-map tooltip over wild zones now displays Richness, Danger and Explore ratings giving those adventurous and brave explorers faster access to critical data as they browse a quadrant, looking for the best targets to set down and go hunting.

Good luck and avoid those xeno cards! Unless ... you're looking for them!


For a time, in ship combat victory there has been an unfair disparity between the XP granted to those taking a more peaceful route Ransoming a ship and those taking a destructive route to destroy and then salvage a ship. In order to help balance this out, we've added a minor XP bonus to the Ransom action as well as making it clear with all 3 action types -- Ransom, Destroy, Salvage -- exactly how much XP is gained for taking the action.


- Added new rank 1 Zealot Talent "Incensed Strikes" as additional blade attack option
- Added new rank 5 Doctor Talent "Healer's Intuition" which can reveal a crew members Trait on payday
- Improved rules for Talents running while paying crew -- Talents with a % to fire that do not no longer block other Talents from running
- Fixed issue with Diplomat "Hand that Feeds" Talent that was not activating while paying crew
- Added Richness, Explore and Danger rating to map hover for wild zones
- Improved rules for Mechanic's boarding Talent "Thrown Wrench" and added result that explains exact ship damage dealt
- Improved rules for Gunner's boarding Talent "Disarming Sabotage" and improved result to include full detail of what weapons are damaged
- Now gain minor Experience bonus when you Ransom a ship, exact Experience gain for destroying a ship is now displayed
- Adjusted weights for all Contact mission giver types to be more focused on their core area (Merchants > Cargo missions, Wardens > Capture bounties)
- Adjusted weights of mission givers during Conflicts to be more focused on the core Conflict (Info War > Spy missions, Duel of Assassins > Edict missions)
- Improved details of Intel sale to be clear when maximum Personal or Faction Rep has been achieved
- Slightly increased the maximum caps for Personal Rep when selling Intel
- Clarified text for all Flight Plan Talents as 4 turns such as "(launch, close, bomb, land)"
- Fixed bug with Wing Commando's "Grandiose Arrival" Talent always granting a $0 bonus
- Fixed bug allowing too much gain of Personal Rep through sale of Intel
- Fixed bug with Talent "Redemption Purge" that was allowing it to repair 5 components instead of 2-4
- Fixed text description of "Exposed Shot" to indicate you are causing a self-debuff that can be purged
- Fixed bug that could place High Prince Contacts "on vacation" on indie worlds
- Improved some screens when using UI scaling to increase visual size of elements
- Clarified rules for Exo-Scout "Keen Senses" Talent -- only rerolls risk cards