Star Traders: Frontiers News

Update #228 reaches the version number 3.0101, indicating 50 releases in this family (that is, 3.0.x). However, we're very excited to share that this release family is sun-setting with 3.1.x coming in fast. On our Trese Brothers Twitch development livestream last week, Cory debuted a major map preview feature we are buttoning up which allows you to check out maps you are making in the new game before you play which is a key feature of map seed version 2. We're also now getting to a point where we will be sharing map seeds v2 on Twitch and the big release of the new system is coming in just around the corner.

In the mean time, v3.0.x still has some life in it! We're finishing balancing out engines stats as well as introducing new exciting build potential for how to setup your ship operations crew by introducing a slew of new saving Talents. Update #228 also includes Gravcannon updates, changes to 1080p resolution options, upgraded stat display when shopping for ship components and fixes for Traits that should never proc together on the same character, so for everything check the full release notes

You may already be following us on Facebook and on the @TreseBrothers twitter, but we're now sharing news, sales, gameplay vids, guides & tips from the forums & discord, streams, memes, and more on Star Traders' own twitter account: https://twitter.com/StarTradersGame


[h2]Improved Crew Builds[/h2]
In response to some great community feedback, we're beefing up the availability of saving Talents for core ship Skills. With Update #228 we've focused on Ship Ops and Electronics, adding 3 new saving Talents for each Skill to different ship operational jobs. These new saving Talent options greatly expand the viable types of crew you can assemble to cover the needs of a ship's Skill Pools and saving Talents. You'll still need core crew, but you've got more room to include specialists who can help cover those spots.

First, the Crew Dog has gained additional utility by gaining an Electronics saving Talent at rank 8 to add to their Ship Ops saving Talent at rank 1. In addition, Engineers and Wing Techs have both gained an Electronics save at rank 8.

Second, to help augment the available Ship Ops saving Talents offered by Crew Dogs and Quartermasters, we've added the Talent type to 3 new Jobs -- Mechanic, Gundeck Boss and Wing Tech. Wing Techs get access to the Talent first at rank 5 while both Gundeck Boss and Mechanics need to reach rank 8 before they can lend a guaranteed saving hand to Ship Ops.


[h2]Engine Adjustments[/h2]
With Update #228, we've made further improvements to the stats to some engines that needed a little more boost to fit into the new scheme. In order to ensure that Warhammers and Behemoth engines are fairly safe, their Safety Ratings have been increased by roughly +1 across the board from the Mass 5000 to Mass 8000 engines. This removes any 4 Safety Rating engines -- which basically could never find a quadrant with Danger below their engine -- from the game and leaves a minimum of 5 Safety.

For Speed and Agility we've made a few more changes to keep the engines in balance. The Mass 8000 Chase Void Engine has gained +2 Agility to fit correctly into the class scheme. Also, to ensure they live up to their price tag and are competitive with other engine types, the Warhammer Void Engines have gained +1 or +2 Agility across the entire line regardless of Mass and the Behemoth engine line has gained +1 to +2 Speed.

[h2]Grav Cannons[/h2]
We've rebalanced the Gunnery values on rank 7 and 8 Gravcannons. More boom!

[h2]Resolution 1080p[/h2]
If you're playing at 1080p and are finding the text too small (playing on a TV, etc) we've made some changes to allow the UI to scale up to 110% instead of maxing at 100%. Give it a try and let us know if it helps!


[h2]Wishlist that Cyber Knights[/h2]
If you're loving Star Traders: Frontiers, its 228 updates, its constant new features and content or just the style of our studio, then be sure to wishlist our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. Turn-based tactics lovers and XCOM fans are not going to want to miss this one --
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

[h2]v3.0.101 - 9/16/2020[/h2]
- Improved Agility by +1-2 points on Warhammer engine line, improved Speed by +1-2 points on Behemoth line
- Improved Agility on M8000 Chaser Void Engine by +2
- Improved Safety on M5000 to M8000 Warhammer / Behemoth engines by +1
- Added 6 new Ship Ops and Electronics Talents across a wider selection of jobs
- New Electronic saving Talents for Engineer (rank 8), Wing Tech (rank 8) and Crew Dog (rank 8)
- New Ship Ops saving Talents for Mechanic (rank 8), Gundeck Boss (rank 8), Wing Tech (rank 5)
- Increased Gunnery of large slot rank 7 and 8 Gravcannons
- Added combat effects like +Void Res to starport upgrade summary screen
- Adjusted UI Scaling option to allow 110% scaling at 1080p
- Prevented Traits "Rigidly Lawful" and "Spice Addict" from mutating onto same character

Update #227 follows quickly on the heals of #226 because of the "Free Fuel" bug that accidentally slipped through in the last update. We know everyone has been enjoying the free cruiser around the galaxy but we've got to get that fixed with Update #227. To assuage the suffering of once again burning Water Fuel, we've added a killer feature from the community request list -- transferring dry docked ships between zones!

[h2]Transfer Dry Dock Ships[/h2]
If you're buying and outfitting a ship, sometimes you really need it to be in a different zone -- to access faction-specific components or to access higher military or economic ratings. Or perhaps you bought it somewhere with a nice discount but not a nice enough starport to do years of upgrades. Whatever the reason, it has long been a pain to move ships around -- you had to swap to them, fly them yourself and then find another ride (i.e. buy another ship) back to the original ship.

We're excited to announce the ability to transfer dry dock ship across the galaxy with Update #227. You can pay a reasonable fee of $100,000 credits per hyperwarp jump and an extra 11% for each Mass class at or above 6000 Mass.


In order to initiate this ferry service, you must first land on the zone where you dry docked ship resides. Then open the Star Atlas -- from the zone, from the galactic map, etc -- and find the zone you want to transfer the ship to. At the bottom of the zone, you'll find a transfer offer and price. Of course, you must meet the requirements of Military Rank 1 and the zone must have 7 Starport or a rare 9 in the case of Indies. If you can afford the fee, the transfer is made instantly -- basically, as fast as you can fly there the ship will be waiting for you.

To all those captains building out a glorious fleet and asking for dry dock transfer, enjoy!

[h2]v3.0.99 - 9/8/2020[/h2]
- Added new feature: pay to transfer dry docked ship from one starport to another using Star Atlas
- Star Atlas now includes a note about any zone that has a ship in dry dock
- Fixed issue allowing free fuel travel within quadrants for low Mass ships
- Fixed issue where starport repair detail text could still report an incorrect timeline for repairs

Update #226 comes in as a heavy-weight with an important rebalance to Void Engines across the mass and class spectrum. We're continuing to work through our planned updates and improvements to the meta with some very exciting new things coming once we are able to clear this set of hurdles. We've also added 3 new top tier pieces of gear that your officers or crew (!!) can now equip and fixed a number of minor ship component and story bugs.

If you're enjoying the pace of updates, be sure to leave a review and tell a friend. If you need more Star Traders: Frontiers memes in your day, we're now sharing them, along with news, sales, gameplay vids and more at Star Traders' own twitter account: @StarTradersGame


[h2]Void Engine Rebalance[/h2]
The void engine is part of the daily life on a Star Trader's ship. It is the heart of a ship and its energy fields change Star Traders who live near them, granting long life, makes their diet and medicine so complicated and shutting down many of the body's natural processes.

Update #226 includes two big rebalances for the void engine at any and all mass classes. There will be follow-up upgrades that expand upon these changes, including allowing ship components to modify critical stats like void engine Safety.

First, we've updated Safety Rating display for your engine, getting away from the % scale used. Safety Rating is directly compared to the Danger of Quadrants in its impact on traveling, and so it is now displayed as a simple number, just like Danger.

Second, we've rebuilt the Safety Ratings for every void engine, basing their ratings around their class (Chaser, Longhaul, etc) as well as their Mass grouping. Small ships are no longer inherently unsafe Longhaul engines are now the safest, built for extended traveling conditions. Balanced and Dual-Field engines are next down the list with standard Safety Ratings. Chasers and Travelers are lower in safety than their standard counter-parts with their focus on either Speed or Agility. Finally, Warhammers and Behemoths, huge monstrosities capable of producing the highest Reactor Points in combat have the lowest Safety Ratings.

Finally, for void engines in the the Mass 6000 and above group, there is now a fuel cost per encounter with an enemy ship. This includes encounters during travel as well as those made for missions and any type of orbital ops. The fuel cost can be as low as 1 per encounter up to 10 per encounter for the largest, heaviest combat engines like the Behemoth. Chaser class engines, built for combat efficiency, have the lowest encounter costs in each Mass grouping with the 6000 Mass Chaser still having 0 fuel cost per encounter. High speed Traveler engines have the highest fuel cost to when encountering another ship, while Balanced, Dual-Field and Longhaul engines all have average costs within their Mass grouping. This new fuel tax for large engines may require some changes in play and you might want to use a bit more of your large ship component slots to stock up on fuel.


[h2]Booster Gear[/h2]
Update #226 includes a new level 5 specialist gear now for sale from Contacts, the Interlink Wireset which grants a big boost to Wisdom. Check out the Talents your crew and officers are using and see if you might find a Wisdom boost helpful!

We've also added 3 more exciting gear that can be found via Salvage, the Ultra Heavy Jack, Isotriphate Injector and Betaphate Drip. Each comes with big Attribute bonus -- Fortitude, Quickness and Fortitude again in order. The Quickness boost is so high on the Injector that it had to come along with a -Initiative debuff to keep the peace!

[h2]Some Bug Fixes[/h2]
We've also fixed a bug with Salvage Bay 5 not actually working when salvaging ships and adjusted the Armored Salvage Bay 5 to display its proper bonus, which is 49%, not 54%. Finally, we fixed a bug that could lead to Zette's storyline spawning multiple copies of the same mission.

[h2]Wishlist Cyber Knights: Flashpoint[/h2]
Pilot a fleet of battle drones, lead a pack of cybernetically enhanced war dogs, mind-meld with a cybercat, charge your nano-blade, get your arms replaced, stalk the night of New Boston as a cybernetic mercenary-beast of 2231. If you like these words, wishlist Cyber Knights: Flashpoint today.

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

You can't tell me you don't want this cyber beagle on your team?
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]v3.0.97 - 9/7/2020[/h2]
- Void Engine Rebalance: improved significance of engine safety, rebalanced safety ratings and added encounter fuel cost to larger engines
- Void engines at 6000 Mass and higher now have a per-encounter Fuel Cost (travel, landing, orbital ops)
- Improved Display of Engine Safety to use the same scale as Quadrant Danger as the two are directly compared
- Increased impact of Engine Safety on results of Pilot and Ship Ops failures in dangerous quadrants
- New Attribute Boosting Gear for sale in Specialist Gear level 5: Interlink Wireset (+Wisdom)
- Added 3 new salvage Relics, Ultra Heavy Jack (+Debuff Res) and Isotriphate Injector (+Quickness), Betaphate Drip
- Fixed bug with Salvage Bay 5 not adding bonus while salvaging ships
- Fixed incorrect text in Armored Salvage Bay 5, it adds 49% bonus to all salvage operations
- Fixed bug with duplicate missions during Zette's storyline

Update #225 opens new and exciting possibilities for your own crew builds even as it gives more options and variety into the hands of the enemy AI crew builder. We've also improved some of the difficulty descriptions to be clear where difficulty increases are actually increasing the cleverness of the enemy AI builders. Finally, we've made an important fix to the Crimson Defender and closed a story race condition with "Blood for Blood" Faen missions.

Thanks to everyone posting reviews and playing and if you enjoy the constant stream of improvements, be sure to tell a friend and post a review!


[h2]Crew Champions, Gear Up![/h2]
Update #225 offers some new possible paths for your design of combat crew and craft pilots by allowing you to equip a limited number of crew members to equip gear. As your captain increases in level, the number of crew who can equip gear increases as well, all the way to up to 6 high potential individuals. While this does not replace the need or value of using officers for craft pilots and as crew combatants, it increases the viability of exceptional crew members taking on these rolls. Within your crew, look for your best, brightest lights. First, keep them away from airlock duty. Then, equip them with some awesome gear and send them to battle!

Starting at level 5, you can equip your first crew member. At 8, 12, 16, 32 and 38 you gain an additional equip point. This means that by level 16, you could field an entire gear-equipped combat team with a single officer or run a sizeable craft fleet with gear-equipped crew pilots only.

To help track these chracters, we've added 3 new filters to the crew list -- one for weapons, armor and gear. These filters show only those characters who you have equipped with a unique weapon, armor or gear or those that have had a special equip decision within a weapon locker. So, if you give a character special sniper rifle you bought from a contact or salvaged from a hive, they will show up here. But if you pick a combat character and manually assign that they should use a snubber over the default pick of a rifle, they will also show up here. Anyone using gear will appear in the gear filter, making it easy to find those crew who have joined this new echelon of crew.

[h2]Enemy Crew Builder Variety[/h2]
The enemy AI that designs the crew to staff a ship has received some exciting updates with #225. As always, enemy crew builder intelligence is modulated by game difficulty, so some of these will not appear -- or appear only rarely -- in easier difficulty games.

The first big change starts to open the door for more exciting enemy boarding combat teams. Traditional, the enemy boarding team is a mix of Swordsman, Pistoleers and Soldiers but now the crew builder may decide to include Snipers and/or Combat Medics to mix up these teams. These are especially more likely on military ships that have more than 4 combat crew -- a second boarding team or defensive team deployed.

The second change focuses on ship crew specifically, allowing for the enemy crew builder to consider Mechanics, Military Officers, Smugglers and Commanders among the crew ranks. These are only in consideration based on the enemy captain type (Smugglers and Explorer captains can include Smugglers but won't include Military Officers). These new additions cause some changes to the stats of an enemy ship that can be beneficial, but due to their limited number of slots, their impact will be felt mostly through the unique and new Talents they can use on behalf of their captain.

Finally, we did further increase the intelligence of high difficulty AI to make smarter decisions about both Pilot and Navigation dice pools and their allocation of Pilot and Navigator Jobs versus other options. Their pool allocation will be a little sleeker, leaving a bit more space for specialists when they can hit the 150% to 200% Skill Pool target comfortably.


[h2]Crimson Defender![/h2]
The Crimson Defender has long been missing a 12th small slot due to a minor data processing error on our part. We've resolved the issue and a new starting Officer Cabin has materialized from the void, bringing the Defender up to its fully operationally 12 small slot target.

[h2]Clarifying Difficulty[/h2]
To help clarify the on-going difficulty changes that we are making, we've modified the in-game description of difficulties and custom difficulty to make it clear that as you increase the enemy challenge level, their cleverness increases as well. We've made many changes and improvements to the enemy ship and crew builders over the last year and at times, we've failed to make it clear that these AI improvements require a certain level of intelligence from the difficulty scaler to be used. Certainly, higher difficulty will result in higher statistic enemies, but it is generally because they are making more intelligent decisions about how to setup their crew and ship.

[h2]@StarTradersGame is out of drydock on twitter![/h2]
You may already be following us on Facebook and on the @TreseBrothers twitter, but we're now sharing news, sales, gameplay vids, guides & tips from the forums & discord, streams, memes, and more on Star Traders' own twitter account: https://twitter.com/StarTradersGame


[h2]Cyber Knights: Flashpoint[/h2]
Pilot a fleet of battle drones, lead a pack of cybernetically enhanced war dogs, mind-meld with a cybercat, charge your nano-blade, get your arms replaced, stalk the night of New Boston as a cybernetic mercenary-beast of 2231. If you like these words, wishlist Cyber Knights: Flashpoint today.

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

[h2]v3.0.95 - 9/1/2020[/h2]
- Limited number of crew members may now equip Gear based on Captain Level (starting at level 5)
- Gear-wearing crew are better candidates for joining combat teams or flying craft
- At highest level, 6 crew can equip gear (progression, 5/8/12/16/32/38)
- Added 3 new crew list filters -- Weapon/Armor/Gear which show any officer or crew with custom equip
- Military Enemy AI may add Snipers and Combat Medics to their boarding teams
- Depending on their type, enemy AI can seed their crews with Mechanics, Military Officers, Commanders and Smugglers
- Enemy AI at higher difficulties better balance their allocation of Pilots and Navigators
- Clarified difficulty / custom difficulty description to be clear where AI cleverness is increased
- Fixed major balance bug with Crimson Defender, missing 12th Small Slot (Officer Cabin) re-instated!
- Fixed inconsistency with display of ransom value in ship ransom with Talents and Traits
- Fixed race condition between Duel of Assassins and "Blood for Blood" mission that could cut story short

With Update #224, we're wrapping up a big series of updates focused on ship component shopping, rebalances and starting to move on to the next series of exciting changes and content adds. We've added a set of new relic gear and the first level 5 gear sold by a Contact with more to come as well as we prep for some very exciting rule changes about gear itself.

If you're enjoying the constant, more than weekly updates, please remember to tell a friend and leave a review!


[h2]New Relics and Level 5 Specialist Gear[/h2]
Update #224 introduces 4 new high level pieces of gear that can be found in Salvage and Explorer. While the new Bladeguide Aegis is combat focused, the other three types of gear are big Attribute boosters for Officers using builds that require high Attributes, such as Charisma. These can make gear more appealing to non-combat officers as well as their battling brethren.

In addition, we've opened up for the first time the ability for Contact's with the Specialist Gear service to sell level 5 gear. The first piece of gear up for sale is the powerful Bexian Deathward which massively increases Resilience (+10!!) and Bleed Resistance (+25!!) making it an interesting piece to consider in the mix. More level 5 gear will be coming online soon after this first toe-dip.


[h2]ECCM Screens and Reactor Spike Balance[/h2]
Thanks to everyone in the community continuing to post feedback on the new component categories and their internal balance. We'll be continuing to improve the balance with the goal of raising more components up to the level where they fit a clear and powerful purpose within builds. With Update #224, we've put a target on ECCM Screen to ensure they have a place within the meta. We've both significantly increased their +Escape bonuses but added important Craft Evasion bonuses that can help ensure they can offer better coverage for ships like Smugglers and Spies who are built to disengage and flee combat.

For Reactor Spike Modules, we had to make a price increase to the first level (+$7K) and reduced the fuel stored within that module down to 5. Fine tuning another great component that is now viable for many types of builds. As part of this adjustment, we upgraded the 8000 Mass Broadsword Class to use a RSM 2 instead of an RSM 1.

[h2]Final Category Tweaks[/h2]
Hopefully for a while, we've completed the last set of tweaks to category shopping based on all the feedback we're hearing from within the community.

• If you use the "Type Match" filter and there is only one category that matches, then this category is automatically expanded to avoid double clicks.
  
• We fixed both A-Z and Z-A alphabetical sorting when you are browsing categories.
  
• We fixed the remaining duplicate of small slot Mass Reducers when looking at categories
  
• We fixed an issue with faction filtering causing some categories to disappear if the first item in the category was faction locked even if others were not
  

If you have any other issues or suggestions about the upgraded shopping experience, please share them!

[h2]Seen Cyber Knights?[/h2]
Have you seen -- and wishlisted -- our next upcoming game? Cyberpunk turn-based tactics under the shadows of the crumbling New Boston dome is not something you want to miss.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

[h2]v3.0.93 - 8/22/2020[/h2]
- New Rare Relic Gear: Bladeguide Aegis, Slindo Trade Slate, Perk Balm, Allistar Edgeweave (Attribute Boosters for Talent Officer Builds)
 - New level 5 Specialist Gear sold by Contacts: Bexian Deathward (Resilience + Bleed Resistance)
- Improved +Escape Bonus on ECCM Screen Matrices and added +Craft Evade to all levels
- Balanced Reactor Spike Module 1 with minor Fuel reduction, minor price increase
- Improved "Type Match" filter in component shopping, if there is only one matching subtype, the subtype is expanded automatically
- Fixed alphabetical sorting when viewing ship components categories
- Adjusted ship build for Broadsword Class 8000M to use Reactor Spike Module 2 instead of 1
- Fixed duplicate small slot Mass Reducer categories showing up in component shopping
- Fixed issues with Faction-filtering making some component categories disappear in component shopping