Star Traders: Frontiers News

Update #185 rolls out with another set of additions -- new Talents, new advantages to old Talents, new Rumor effects and many improvements across the card mini-games and Trait mutation rules for the game.

If you're enjoying the relentless pace of updates, new changes and additions please be sure to leave a review and tell a friend!


Drawing on some inspiration from community suggestions, we've pushed new alternatives for Morale-damaged focused builds into the Talent set for ship combat. Commander has gained a new powerful rank 15 Talent, Warning Shots, which reduces their own damage but debuffs the enemy's move, escape and inflicts nasty Morale Damage every turn.

In addition, Gunner's "Signature Homing" (rank 1), "Targeting Lock" (rank 1) and "Scattershot" (rank 8) Talents have all gained +10 Morale/turn to enemy crew, giving some new and quick options to add Morale damage to your starting and standard builds.

A final new Talent has gone in for Diplomats at rank 11 -- Compelling Conscription -- allows these quick talkers to lean hard on a new conscript and come onto the ship with higher Morale and without any negative Trait mutation.


Rumors that are focused on Recruiting bonuses -- including Mercenaries, Spice Festival and Academy Graduation -- all the now ensure the doors for recruiting at the spice hall are always open. In situations where these Rumors could appear on low starport worlds there was not enough starfaring interest in the zone to drive recruitment. Now, these Rumors temporarily boost that.


Across a number of card game operations and combat scenarios, we've fine tuned and improved the rates for Trait mutation and XP gain.

Traits are slightly more likely to appear now on crew combat victory and slightly less likely to appear on ship combat draw and hyperwarp jump (which are both very common events). We've added new Trait mutation paths for Ship Combat Victory, Craft Destroyed (assuming you survive!) and Craft Landed to help further shape those brave men and women who take to the void in bombers, interdictors and shuttles.

In addition, larger planets now cost more Fuel and Time to land on, so have your Piloting Talents ready.


- Added new Commander Talent "Warning Shots" at rank 15 - reduce enemy move, escape and crush their Morale
- Added new Diplomat Talent "Compelling Conscription" at rank 11 - pressed crew start with higher Morale and don't gain negative Trait
- Gunner Talents "Signature Homing" (rank 1), "Targeting Lock" (rank 1) and "Scattershot" (rank 8) all gain +10 Morale/turn to enemy crew
- During Mercenaries, Spice Festival and Academy Graduation Rumors, the Spice Hall is always open for Recruiting even if Starport rating is below minimum
- Recovery of relic wargear during Exploration slightly more common, increased during "Gold Rush" Rumor
- Radiation and Molten worlds are slightly riskier for Exploration
- Very Large Planets take slightly longer and more fuel to make planetfall
- Slightly increased Trait Mutation rate for Crew Combat Victory, slightly reduced for Hyperwarp / Ship Combat Draw
- Added new Trait Mutation paths for Ship Combat Victory, Craft Destroyed, Craft Landed
- Very slightly increased Experienced earned in Ship Combat Victory
- Display of ship's offered price added to dry dock sale confirmation dialog
- Fixed missing "Unexpected Revelation" cards in Explorer decks, experience granting card now appears again
- Mechanized enemies no longer Bleed or suffer Poison Damage
- Fixed bug in map hovers where Repair service that was denied by Rep might not show as disabled
- Fixed bug with Hietta Lumotte's court (no longer appears)

Update #184 arrives with continued focus on polishing up the quality of life features, improving the UI and hitting major points of community feedback. As we keep marching to the exciting and dramatic end of the v2.6.x roadmap family, we're focused on hitting all the big points in the quality of life section of our to-do list. We'll be hammering away at this for a few more releases and then we'll be ushering in a new major blast of content!

Thanks to everyone leaving a review and telling a friend.


Immediately a popular feature, Sell All rapidly garnered a lot of smart feedback and suggestions on how to make it even better. Right away, we heard selling everything that was able to turn any profit mean you're incorrectly selling sometimes at F demand for a few credits -- so you have to abandon the button and go back to selling one by one.

Therefore, we have added a Minimum Demand slider which you can raise from F to A+. Any resource that has less than this demand won't be sold when you click "Sell All". Our testing merchants cruised through hours of profitable play without ever having to sell anything manually! This setting is remembered from Exchange to Exchange within your game, so set it where you like it and let it ride!

Also, to avoid nasty or nice surprises, we've added a warning about Trade Ban Conflicts as well as Embargo and Blockade Rumors, which can respectively damage or raise your Rep when trading. These warnings are visible from the Sell All view and can help you avoid mistakes here.

A huge thanks to everyone pouring fuel on the feedback fire for this one.


We've added a helpful confirmation dialog to selling a ship as a few players have been stung by a misclick here. Thanks again to everyone suggesting the little things to make the game even smoother.


Over the last couple of releases, we've worked to revamp the balance of Risk and Reward factors throughout all of the orbital games. We've pushed another set of balancing changes with Update #184 as well as increasing the impacts of the Plague Era and Meteor or Ion Storm Rumors. These dangerous events make this type of activity very dangerous and you should -- more than ever -- consider a lovely spying trip when meteorite storm is whizzing through the system.


- Exchange and Black Market "Sell All" now includes a preference for the Minimum Demand (such as B+) to sell cargo, cargo under this Demand is not sold
- Exchange and Black Market "Sell All" now warns about Trade Bans, Blockade Rumors and Embargo Rumors that might increase or decrease Rep with every sale
- "Sell All" button always appears when opening Exchange or Black Market sale screen
- Added confirmation dialog to Dry Dock ship sales to avoid accidental sales
- Additional balancing and fixes for Risk and Reward factor weights in Orbital Ops
- Increased impact of Plague Era in Orbital Ops (Salvage, Patrol, Spy, Blockade)
- Increased impact of Meteor and Ion Storms on Orbital Ops
- Fixed issues with buttons overlapping in Exchange on for some screen sizes
- Clarified description of some card game Talents
- New SFX for "Meteor Damage" during Orbital Ops
- Additional SFX for Xeno Encounters in Orbital Ops and Explorer

Update #183 brings a series of new features to the starport and exchanges on grav worlds to help established merchants, prize ship hunters and captains of all type get their void-faring work done faster and easier. We've also made a pile of changes to improve the October Community Challenge which put some odd strains on the game!

If you're enjoying the pace of updates, please leave a review!


Update #183 includes some fixes and balance changes specifically aimed at making this month's community challenge more playable. The community challenge -- linked below -- involves surviving 14 years with only Officers and your Captain on board the ship, in honor of Firefly's 14 awesome episodes and their tight knit group.
October Community Challenge: Firefly Tour

Update #183 reduces the minimum head count required for Orbital Ops to 5 which makes this far more achievable with officer-only setup. We've also fixed a bug with the screen locking up on orbital missions if you have less than the minimum head count on board. Finally, we fixed a bug we had never seen before -- the "chain of Storytellers" in which one Storyteller could boost another Storyteller's Morale who would in turn boost another Storyteller's Morale ... its not something you'd ever see in a larger crew but it was causing some occasional issues for this popular challenge!


The Exchange and Black Markets now have a new fire sale button! The "Sell All" button will sell all goods that can be sold in the current market at a profit. The button is not picky about how much of a profit, so be sure to check the totals displayed in the table before clicking -- even a few credits will get a cargo row tossed into the fire.

However, for most trading this is a welcome addition to speed up the pace of cargo hauls! Thanks to the players suggesting it and enjoy!


Ships parked in dry dock have long had the disadvantage that they could not be repaired. This could create some challenging situations for launching them as sometimes their officer cabins or barracks could be so damaged that your current crew couldn't transfer over for a valid launch event! Now, you can repair local dry docked ship in the starport by swapping into their repair list. Use the white arrow button in the repair box in the zone to open the repair detail and you'll see a list of any dry docked ships there. Swap in and repair! This can also help you net a better price when selling a ship, as component damage tanks the resale price of a vessel.

We've also made some improvements to how certain classes of story missions are set to expire -- specifically those by Calagan Faen and the Arbiter. In both cases, now as the Eras roll by and major political events happen if the mission is still pending as an offer from the Contact it is immediately expired. However, if you've already accepted the mission then it will not expire out from under you suddenly.


- Added "Sell All" button to Exchange and Black Market which makes all profitable trades in a single click
- Added ability to repair locally Dry Docked ships in the starport
- Improved story handling of expiring missions for Calagan and Arbiter Brokstrom -- better cleanup for mission offers and no clean up for missions in progress
- Fixed crash for Community Challenge "Firefly Tour" to prevent possible crash during Paying Wages
- Reduced minimum head count required to engage in Orbital Ops and orbital missions to 5
- Fixed bug causing game freeze when attempting an Orbital Ops mission with less than minimum head count
- Added note to all orbital operations (Spy, Blockade, Patrol, Salvage) that 5 is the minimum head count required
- Improve new Trait mutation paths for even better results, fixed bugs causing some characters to get Trait overflow

Update #182 is almost entirely dedicated to Traits and Contact Traits with a massive addition of 15 new Traits, one new Contact Trait and further refinement and deepening of all Trait mutation systems. With this big addition, we're excited to finally be marking some of the content items off the dev roadmap -- having now exceeded 210 Traits, we've cleared the "+100% Traits" goal that we put up for Trait expansion.

This doesn't mean that more Traits aren't coming, but we're getting close to knocking down a number of these categories (+33% Jobs and Talents is next).

If you enjoy the constant updates and new free content, please leave a review and tell a friend!


Update #182 comes loaded with new Traits, many of them inspired by or directly suggested by the community. A big thanks definitely goes out to @DrSpendLove for suggesting at least half of these! We've got -- Ace Pilot, Bad Eyes, Bloodstained, Bulky, Daredevil, Diggermind, Fast Talker, Flexible, Lonehawk, Maimed, Surehand, Self-Taught, Wayfarer, Well-Rounded!!! That's quite the list and its a mix of good and bad Traits to enjoy.

Ace Pilot, Daredevil and Lonehawk are specifically craft pilot focused, so watch for these when considering your choices on carriers.

We've also spent some time tuning and refining the Trait mutations, creating more links between Traits and game events and preventing odd Trait crosses. With this update and the new additions, we've added more strong faction-links to Traits -- meaning Traits like Diggermind are most prevalent on Javat where existing Traits like Spatial are most likely to appear in Alta Mesa crew. We've improved the list and added more to further differentiate the factions over the course of your crew's Trait evolution.

If you end up with Bad Eyes from exposure to Radiation or Maimed after falling under xeno claw, you can visit Chaesin and Gestalt clinics -- they can help recondition these Traits out.


With Update #182, we've added the 60th Contact Trait -- Hunted. A Contact who perhaps has had a brush with death or assassins in the past can't shake the feeling that someone is gunning for them. Hunted Contacts hire out Bodyguards, avoid violent missions and offer cheaper pardons.

In addition, we've pushed more rules about Pardon pricing to Contact Traits -- Traitor and Corrupt Contacts are willing to take lower price Pardon offers as a form of bribes while Greedy Contacts always charge more.


We've made some nice improvements to desertion this update. First, we've increased the maximum bonus that a veteran's tenure can provide from 25% to 35% -- their weeks and years on your ship will now make them even more resistant. Combined with other factors (landing on a world that doesn't match their faction, on a world that is a syndicate when they are a clan or just landing somewhere indie) your vets can reach over 100% resistance to desertion.

Another important note about desertion -- the new Wayfarer Trait can cause some issues with Officers. Those Officers who have Wayfarer gain +4 Wisdom by they are also wanderers and seekers and are willing to jump ship if their Morale is low, even when they are Officers. Otherwise, Officers never desert. So, be sure to know your Officer's Traits.

We've also fixed a bug that cause the Ship Skill Pools to not correctly update after desertion was prevented by Talent or Trait.


- Added 15 new Traits (Ace Pilot, Bad Eyes, Bloodstained, Bulky, Daredevil, Diggermind, Fast Talker, Flexible, Lonehawk, Maimed, Surehand, Self-Taught, Wayfarer, Well-Rounded)
- Added more strongly faction-linked Traits for newly recruited crew (Javat to Diggermind, Alta Mesa to Ace Pilot, as well as others new and old)
- Added more Trait mutation paths from ship and crew combat results
- Added new Trait "Surehand" which can grant Gunnery Skill Bonus up to +12
- Maimed and Bad Eyes can be healed by a mix of Chaesin and Gestalt Reconditioning
- Added new Contact Trait "Hunted" with cheaper Pardons, less violent missions and Recruits Bodyguards
- Updated Contact Traits Corrupt and Traitor to charge less for Pardons while Greedy charges more
- Fixed issue with some bonus Skills from officers not appearing in Ship Status / Logs (from Neverlost, Spatial)
- Increased maximum desertion resistance bonus that a long tenure on the ship can give a crew member by 10% up to 35%
- Fixed bug with Desertion prevention Talents and Traits not always causing Ship Skill Pools to refresh properly
- Corrected inconsistency in Born Hunter Trait description

While we are still hard at work on Star Traders: Frontiers dev roadmap -- with another big Era release and major milestone coming this month -- we are very excited to preview our next project -- Cyber Knights RPG.

It is early -- we're deep in pre-production -- but want to share the exciting news (outside of our Patreon who have been watching for a while).

Cyber Knights invites you to lead your shadow company of mercs through the New Boston Zone in 2231, testing not only your skill and what you'll compromise to make it big but also your loyalty to each other and how much you're willing to sacrifice. Built on a core of turn-based gameplay featuring stealth, hacking, ambushes, firefights layered over merc company management, base building and criminal networking, Cyber Knights weaves a sharply human story in a dehumanizing cyberpunk world.

So, while it is early, if you like are enjoying Star Traders: Frontiers, like our style of games or love our dedication to updating and expanding our games, sign up to get the call!

In the meantime, enjoy some concept art and tell a friend! Cyber Knights RPG is coming.