Star Traders: Frontiers News

Update #281 circles back to adding some new awesome looks to the game with new character faces and a new set of matching outfits. Plus, we've expanded ship component access to Engine Safety bonuses with a new set of Fuel Helix Coil components for your medium slots. Finally, we've added a few new capabilities and fixes for the modding community to enable to some new mod options.

We've got a busy season here at Trese Brothers HQ for both Star Traders: Frontiers and our next game -- 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]New Faces, New Outfits[/h2]
With this update, we've added another 3 masculine faces to the game -- one with short cropped hair, one with an awesome mustache and one with the grayer hair of a long-time space veteran. These new faces will filter into your crew and make great new captains, officers or just mates crew dogs hoping for a promotion.

We've also added 2 new matching outfits featuring a finer style associated with diplomats, the wealthy gravs or fashionable duelists. These new looks are excellent on their own for pirates, smugglers and all kinds but they also mix extremely well with the other outfits in the game if you use the "Unlock Outfit Combos" option. So, while we've added 2 new full outfits, we've added hundreds of new combos for your crew to check out! Here are a few of our favorites --


[h2]Fuel Helix Coils[/h2]
Fuel Helix Coils are a variation of a medium slot Fuel Tanks which offer a small amount of Fuel, a small amount of reduction in hyperwarp Jump Cost and most importantly a bonus to Engine Safety. With a maximum of +6 Engine Safety available from ship components, this gives another option -- next to Annex and Water-Fuel Reclamation -- as to how to get your Engine Safety fix if you need one.

The highest grade Helix Coils 4 and 5 are only manufactured and sold in Zenrin starports.


[h2]For the Modders[/h2]
With Update #281, we've fixed a few minor issues in mods where game hovers were not reflecting mod changes to maximum Ship Armor or Shield. We've also made it possible to mod the maximum number of jobs that your captain or officers can have -- that will be very interesting to see what gets done with that! Fancy a true jack of all trades? Leave it to the modders :D

[h2]Are you in the Discord?[/h2]
Our Discord server is a great community. Lots of good Star Traders discussion, one of the best places to stay in the loop on what we're working on, and sometimes... fun surprises!

We've got a giveaway going right now for light-hearted roguelike Obsidian Prince.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1373260/Obsidian_Prince/

Hop in to check it out, we have two copies to give away and all it takes is a react to the message in #giveaway to enter.


[h2]v3.2.11 - 10/15/2021[/h2]
- Added two new matched outfits
- Added 3 new character faces - gray hair, mustache, short hair!
- Added 4 new Fuel Helix Coil components -- medium slot fuel tanks that add Engine Safety, reduce Jump cost and add minor Fuel boost
- Fuel Helix Coil 4 and 5 is sold exclusively by Zenrin starports
- Enabled modders to adjust the maximum number of multi-jobs for Captain and Officers
- Fixed hovers for Armor / Shield max values if they are modded
- Fixed reported typos and crashes

Update #280 arrives with some shake up to the availability of high-end faction ships, better XP balance for mission runners, improved balance for anti-craft Talents and more. A huge thanks to everyone posting suggestions, feedback and bugs to the forum and helping us continuing to push Star Traders: Frontiers.

If you're enjoying the continued updates, be sure to tell a friend and leave a reveiw!

[h2]What’s the latest on Cyber Knights?[/h2]
Development on our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, proceeds apace. We’re currently working toward the private alpha test for Kickstarter backers, following the same process we used for Star Traders: Frontiers. But you can view the latest updates on the CKF Steam page (make sure you’ve wishlisted and followed!), or join us for behind-the-scenes discussion and development snapshots in our Discord.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


[h2]Rank Ships[/h2]
By their nature, faction-specific ships are a perk of serving a faction. Previously, all ships -- regardless of their cost -- required only Military Rank 4. With Update #280, we've pushed this to a scale grading from Rank 4 all the way up to Rank 10 for the ships costing over $2m credits. With this new ability to set the minimum rank easily for each ship individually, we've opened up an exciting new option we are investigating -- powerful faction flagships offered only to the highly qualified military officers. We're gathering some ideas and will be moving forward with this expansion soon.


[h2]Mission XP[/h2]
While some XP has been always granted for missions requiring skill checks, we've doubled that amount with Update #280 and also added a log to the mission completion details with the exactly amount. Before this update, no XP was granted if your crew ended up falling back to a Saving Talent. However, we've now adjusted this rule to grant a smaller chunk of XP, but XP bonus nonetheless. You traveled, you may have bled or fought to complete that key task -- the XP is earned, Talent or not.

[h2]Gunner and Gundeck Boss[/h2]
We've adjusted two anti-craft Talents brought by the Gunner and Gundeck Boss Jobs. The Gunner's "Close-In Defenses" Talent is a rank 11 Talent that now cleanly provides a nice mix of anti-craft with reducing boarding, reducing the craft attack chance and their evasion (-10 Boarding, -20% Hit Chance, -15% Craft Evasion for next 3 turns) -- it is best used if you have weaponry and you're planning on lighting the enemy craft up. On the other hand, the Gundeck Boss's rank 1 Talent is purely defensive and turtle strategy, with "Point Defense" (-10 Boarding, -30% Hit Chance, -25% Dmg for next 4 turns).

[h2]Magnanimous Victory Clarification[/h2]
We've tagged the description of Magnanimous Victory to be clear that it removes your options for other aggressive abilities such as looting, destruction or conscription. This is a key Talent in managing reputation damage but also ends your interaction with a defeated enemy ship.

[h2]Mod Support[/h2]
With Update #280, we've made some changes to how the AI approaches the Wing Commando's Talent "Ripcord" to support the "Merchant Marines: Fly Casual" mod -- one of the most popular mods on the Workshop right now that seeks to adjust the Star Traders: Frontiers balance to better approximate smaller crew and more of a Firefly-like experience.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2539177784

[h2]v3.2.9 - 10/1/2021[/h2]
- Faction-specific ships require scaled faction rank -- Rank 4 for basic, Rank 6 for over $1m, and up to Rank 10 for $2m+
- Doubled the XP gained for completing a mission step which require Skill Save, added XP log
- Completing mission step while relying on a Saving Talent now grants some XP for crew
- Clarified Talent "Magnanimous Victory" to be clear it prevents any further looting or aggressive actions
- Improved balance of Gunner's "Close-In Defenses" and Gundeck Bosses' "Point Defense"
- Documented faction special rules for Rychart and De Valtos expensive bribes in New Game
- Fixed Bribe option text for Pirates to ensure it never threatens Rep loss (pirates never report)
- Improved AI crew combat intelligence to work better with "Merchant Marines: Fly Casual" mod
- Fixed report crashes and typos

Update #297 brings another round of improvements directly from the community as we continue our patch and improve drive following the big Steam Workshop mod release. After we clear this backlog of balance, QOL and improvement issues we'll be moving back to larger chunks of content and story additions. For now -- buckle up, more coming!

[h2]Next up from Trese Brothers[/h2]
You may have heard our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is on its way to Steam in 2022. A turn-based cyberpunk RPG, Cyber Knight's features XCOM-like combat and a unique heist system for missions ... you don't need to hear more? Okay, just smash that Wishlist button!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


[h2]Trade Ban Visibility[/h2]
With Update #279, we've adjusted the ordering and text color for Trade Ban and Trade War warnings to ensure that they are front and center and your merchant captain can't miss them when making decisions about going through with a trade. As always, a huge thanks to the community members helping to post feedback and improve the game.

[h2]Ship Encounter, Bribes and Confiscation[/h2]
We've updated the rules for surrendering to military ships that may check your cargo holds for illegal goods and confiscate if you fail to have valid permits. There is now a possible small Reputation loss if you are carrying goods that will be confiscated. This loss can be offset if you are carrying goods that *are* legal with a permit. No matter how much you might be carrying, the Rep penalty cannot exceed 2.

We've also fixed the Bribe offering for Independents which had been lost in the latest update -- including the key fact that Indies have no stored Reputation and therefore you can never lose Rep with them.

[h2]Game Menu Ship Combat Additions[/h2]
We've enabled the ability to pull up the game menu with during the major screens in ship combat -- including during a ship encounter and mid-ship combat. This can help you drop out of the main menu without killing the game completely. Notably, Options and Save Slots are not available in these contexts. We'll keep working to make this menu access global and getting it into key places where it is still missing (crew combat).


[h2]New Shiny: Battle Barracks[/h2]
The Battle Barracks line has received an upgrade to help encourage ship combat captains to consider them worth their price (which has also gone up!). With new Armor, Shield and Void Res, these protected crew quarters are even more valuable to captains willing to pay the price and longtime cost to jump cost.

[h2]More Balance and QOL[/h2]
For those Salvage cards that included double combats, we've adjusted the language to be clearer, stating "back-to-back" combats to be sure you know just what you are risking when you make the roll.

During and after the Jyeeta Era, we've retuned the appearance of the feared Jyeeta Maeledictor to make sure it retains its boss status among other Jyeeta enemies.


[h2]For the Modders[/h2]
With Steam Workshop being quite busy, we're still working to expand the possible footprint of mods. With this update, we've added some key new capabilities, allowing modders to start to adjust specific limits in the game -- raising max character level, job level. Also, we're enabling adjusting important combat rules and thresholds -- allowing for the change of Init cost to move, morale break or being Stunned as well as the maximum Armor and Shield ratings you can achieve with components and buffed. We're very excited to see what the community will cook with this new support!

[h2]v3.2.5 - 9/17/2021[/h2]
- Improved Trade Ban warning (location, icon, red text)
- Lose up to 2 Rep when illegal cargo is seized, offset by legal permit-protected cargo
- Fixed Bribe option text for Independents to be more clear
- Added a Game Menu in Ship Combat, Combat Preamble
- Reduced spawn rate of "Jyeeta Maeledictor" in mix of Jyeeta ships
- Increased Price of Battle Barracks, Added Armor, Shields and Void Res
- Clarified "Xeno Assault" Salvage card to be clear it is 2 xeno combats back-to-back
- Better differentiated stats for the Trident DX9 and Blackhall Ultra Small Craft
- Modders can now change max character level, job level, Init costs of Stun, Morale Break, Move and Max/Buff Max of Shield/Armor

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?