With Update #344, we're welcoming Endless Replay Fest to the void with what might be dubbed endless updates! We're excited to be adding a new high-end capital ship weapon, a new Bodyguard job Talent at rank 15, fixing a bug that made it hard to find medium slot Passenger Cabins and Prison cells and resolving other reported oddities with ship enemy AI rules and ship builds.
Thanks for your support captains! With a 50% off deal right now, help us share the game by telling a friend or leaving a review!
Our next endlessly replayable RPG just hit a big milestone!
If you're a fan of games like XCOM 2, Shadowrun, or Invisible Inc., be sure to check out our new squad tactics heist RPG, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. Now halfway through Early Access, we just added the game's final core feature -- safehouse base building -- and have a huge pipeline of new content coming to an already sizeable mix of dynamic story and procedurally-generated missions.
Cyber Knights uses a new custom-built story engine called the "Casting Director." As your playthrough progresses, it chooses from a pool of available storylines and selects which of your squad members and NPCs to feature in them based on their character traits and how you've engaged with them throughout the game. As we add more content, the result will be highly dynamic tabletop-RPG-like stories that feel responsive to your choices and fresh across multiple playthroughs.
You can never have enough TORP, and so the Flamebreak is a new small slot torpedo option once the UCF has ushered the higher tier weapons into the faction's arsenal. It is a big step up from the Firewave and able to pack a more significant punch from its Range 5 small slot.
Rank 15: Praetorian Guard
We've continued to fill in new rank 15 Talents for each job, and Bodyguard has just received their addition. The Praetorian Guard Talent is superior to the lower level Honor Guard Talent in many ways, but with its higher Initiative cost to use, it may be worth keeping both on the Talent roster and using each at the right time.
Finding Prison Cells and Cabins
We fixed the issue with the last update where the medium slot Prison Cells and Passenger Cabins required some special steps to make them visible. Now there are regular categories for each type visible in the list in the medium slot.
v3.3.101 - 5/13/2024
- New Rank 15 Bodyguard Talent: Praetorian Guard - New Ship Weapon: "Flamebreak Torpedo" (Size 1, 2RP) - Fixed component category missing for Medium Size Passenger and Prison Cell - Fixed issue with "Shizari Huntress" that could hide a Fighter inside a Sensor Array - Fixed issue where high level AI Captains sometimes spawned with no Talents
Update #343: Esteemed Guests, Come Aboard
Captains, welcome to the bridge. Please take the chair and get ready for Update #343. Not a typo, that's really 3-4-3. With this update we've got new 3 new high-level ship weapons, the amazing Esteemed Guest Cabin, upgraded enemy ship builder options and the on-going community challenge for Bounty Hunters.
If you're enjoying the years of support and updates, please take a moment to leave a review and check out our other games like Cyber Knights: Flashpoint.
Calling the Bounty Hunters
The community Bounty Hunter challenge has really heated up in the last weeks - get in now to sail the stars and mete our your justice and RP as your favorite famous hunter. https://steamcommunity.com/games/335620/announcements/detail/4114672134621189282?snr=2___
Esteemed Guest Cabin
This update includes a new ship component suggested by a member of our Discord server. Designed specifically for small ships with mission-centric Captains, we are introducing the humorously named "Esteemed Guest Cabins" which provide a hybrid prison cell - passenger cabin that can hold one Prisoner and 1 Passenger simultaneously. Don't worry -- the quarters are separated by security and thick walls and feature completely different entrances so your high-valued passenger never needs to know they are housed next to some of the galaxy's most wanted.
New Weapons (thanks Twitch team!)
During our Friday Star Traders: Frontiers dev chat on Twitch (join us this Friday, March 29th at 11 AM EST for more fun!) we worked on brainstorming and implementing new weapons based on community input. We added the new ship weapon, Chimera Missile Battery, which has moderate damage but a high chance to inflict devastating crippling effects on your enemy's ship. It is a terrific weapon for opening battles and gaining an advantage at long and medium range.
Also suggested, and named by our captains on Twitch, the new ship weapon Seraphim Railgun Array brings the power of a Medium sized railgun array to Captains who prefer to use 3RP weapons. The design of the Seraphim trades base damage for an increased rate of critical hits. When it scores one, the Seraphim will deliver top-tier damage by stacking high damage dice and massive void damage.
And finally, we've added a new small slot railgun, the Daystar Railgun. The Daystar Railgun provides a high level damage source for small components and is very accurate against both ships and craft. Depending on your ship's build and size, this new railgun array might be perfect for your medium range engagements.
Enemy Ship Builder Upgrades
As new ship components are added to the game, we keep an eye on them and then release them out to the enemy ship builder. Update #343 includes a new batch of high powered ship components released to the enemy ship builder, so beware that your enemies can now use so of these higher end strategies and weapons that have appeared in the last run of updates. The viewers on Twitch were less excited about this development task, but Cory yelled something about "Crew Dog scum!" and kept Morale high by introducting the run of 3 new mighty ship weapons mentioned above.
Repriced Cabins
While we were adding the Esteemed Guest Cabin, we noticed some balance issues and repriced some similar components, specifically the Reinforced Passenger Cabin and Shielded Passenger Cabin. We also fix some incorrect component levels for Passenger Cabins and Prison Cells to make the shipyard sorting better.
Our new turn-based tactics RPG!
Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, our stealth & squad tactics heist RPG, launched into Steam Early Access and how is marching to Update #65 as it battles through its ambitious public roadmap. We've just completed the sixth major roadmap milestone on the roadmap with the new Scourge class and the MAGNITUDE update adding 13 new proc-gen objective and map combinations to the the game in one massive swing. If you're looking for a story rich, squad-based RPG, take a minute to follow, wishlist or try Cyber Knights!
- New Ship Component: Esteemed Guest Cabins (1 Prisoner, 1 Passenger) - New Ship Weapon: Chimera Missile Battery - New Ship Weapon: Daystar Railgun (Size Small) - New Ship Weapon: Seraphim Railgun Array (Size Medium) - Added some new components to enemy Ship builder - Repriced Reinforced Passenger Cabin and Shielded Passenger Cabin - Fixed Ship Component levels for Passenger Cabins and Prison Cells
Save 50% and Update #342: Large Hauler
Welcome to the Steam Spring Sale! Along with the 50% discount, we've got Update #342 with new ship components, fixes for prize ships scoring and pricing, improved distribution of the loot drops in Salvage Relic cards and a pile of fixes suggested by the community.
Thanks to everyone who has supported us on this epic journey to #342 updates and beyond! We hope you'll share the game with a friend and leave a review.
Cyber Knights is getting lots of updates too!
If you haven’t checked it out in a bit, our new game Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is evolving fast in Early Access. In February we added the all new Scourge class to the game, unleashing the power of th chem-hive to poison, distract or trick the enemy security forces. And now, at the start of the Spring Sale we just dropped the MAGNITUDE update which simply blows up the variety in proc-gen missions for the game with a total of 10 new mission objective and mission map combos. Come check it out!
We've recently kicked off the latest Star Traders: Frontiers community challenge - the Bounty Hunter themed role-playing challenge. Base your to captain, officers, and playstyle around a famous bounty hunter from a movie, book or comic. Try to style your appearance, names and roles to match the famous character and their crew - and then take on the biggest bounties in the galaxy. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/335620/view/4114672134621189281
+3 New Large Fuel Tanks
By popular demand, we've added in the final 3 Large Fuel Tanks with levels 5 to 8. At the top end, this can grant a whopping 450 Fuel. If you're in a larger ship and want to install a few of these, you can now guzzle over 1000 Water-Fuel at the starports quite easily. Watch your price-per-unit now, as that can get expensive fast!
Better Salvage Artifact Distribution
We've smoothed out some bumps and issues within the artifact loot tables for Salvage, including both weapons, armor and gear. This should help prevent certain types of results from being repeated too often and increase the chances to draw high-end salvage artifacts if the gear card has a high score.
Tally Those Prize Ships!
If you are gaining new ships through your Prize Ship Talents, the now count toward your ships owend score in your captain's overall score. This path to ownership had been missed in the stats, so thanks to the captains who pointed it out for a quick fix.
We've also fixed a bug that could result in $0 prize ships and another reported issue with prize ships ending up at indie zones which generally isn't right.
Randomize On!
We had some reports that randomizing your crew from within the roster could lead to crashes. We clicked enough times to make it happen too :D and then fixed it! Now you can randomize to your hearts content. We're looking at adding new elements to the randomization so that you can get a hat or eyewear swapping too. The feature is oddly so fun, it deserves more.
v3.3.97 - 3/17/2024
- By popular demand, added Large Fuel Tank 5-8 (maxing out at 450 Water-Fuel) - During Radiation Storm Rumors, Crew Mutiny is more likely - Prize Ships now generate "Owned Ships" Score - Updated Salvage Artifacts loot tables for better distribution - Fixed crash that could happen when randomizing appearance in crew roster - Fixes issue with $0 Prize Ships - Fixes issue with Indie Prize Courts - Fixed weak Edgebane Tincture gear - Fixed weak Hogobloxin Balm gear
Bounty Hunter March 2024 Community Challenge
Hello, Captains. It’s time for another STF challenge. This challenge is a bit different as it is more of an RP challenge - to theme your captain, officers, and playstyle around being a bounty hunter. Shout out to Füchsingeist for giving us the idea with their themed playthrough.
As always there are a few requirements for this challenge, although they are more guidelines and starting points, rather than hard requirements. For this challenge:
Your captain must be a bounty hunter
Feel free to theme your run around fictional bounty hunters (Spike and Jet, Han Solo, the Mandalorian, Boba Fett) if you want or create your own original bounty hunter and their team
That's it!
Some ideas for what we’d love to see:
Screenshots of your bounty hunters and their officers
Description of your theme
Tell us about your highest bounty and the story behind it
Any other creative ways you want to share to tell us about the bounty hunter life: memes, interpretive dance, gifs, etc
No matter what you choose to share, please include one screenshot of your captain!
We’ve opened up a discussion here on Steam in the General Discussion forum for aIl of your posts. If you post on the discord, post in the #bounty_hunter_challenge channel found in the STF category.
Good luck and have fun, Captains!
Update #340: Many Among the Spice Plate
Welcome Captains, to the next episode of This Old Star Traders Update. We sincerely hope that you enjoy the twists and turns of 3.3.91. Let's dig into what's changed!
If you're enjoying the continued support and updates for Star Trader: Frontiers, we hope you'll take a moment to review the game, check out Cyber Knights: Flashpoint or tell a friend about our work.
Outfit / Name Randomization
First, by popular request we've ported the outfit and name randomizer out of the appearance screen and promoted them to the Crew details screen of the Roster. This intends to increase the number of players who can see and use this feature, as well as making it easier to re-randomize large parts of your Crew by using Next + Randomize. Be aware, Captain, that changing the appearance and name of your Crew will do nothing to dissuade or confuse Legendry Bounty Hunters, like "Draiv Solregard" who also get a sneaky little buff in v3.3.91
Improved AI Ship Builder
This update also expands the ship component catalog with new components and integrates previously released components into the AI ship architect. With each update, as we release new ship components first they head out to the player base where we can get feedback and observe their balance. Then, after a period of testing, they are released to the AI ship builder.
Water-Fuel Reclamation 6
New for players this time around are two structural components and a new type of Plasma Cannon. First, the new Water-Fuel Reclamation 6 component will help Captains with smaller fuel tanks maintain longer operational cycles by reducing fuel use and offering a rebate on used fuel. This component can also serve a powerful function in ship combat, as attacks that normally would hit the Ship's Engine can be soaked by a Reclamation plant.
Armored Salvage Bay 6
The Armored Salvage Bay 6 provides another upgrade for ships built to Salvage and Explore. The Armored Salvage Bay 6 provides substantially advantages in Salvage while also increasing ship survivability by providing a large amount of Ship's armor. The originally armored salvage bay upgrades were added due to player requests for more Salvage-Combat hybrid components. Salvage operations are always dangerous -- the richest prizes bring all the predators out -- and as a result Ships engaged in Salvage operations are far more likely than Patrol or Spy operators to encounter hostile forces. The Armored Salvage Bay provides enhanced survivability and other minor combat benefits.
New Obliterator Plasma Cannon
Ok and now for the good stuff -- new weapons! The new Obliterator PKX-5 Plasma Cannon will absolutely obliterate your opponents if you can fit it on your ship. Do not attempt to install two of these monsters, that just wouldn't be fair. As a size 3 Plasma Cannon, the Obliterator PKX-5 is now the most devastating mid-range weapon in the game. Previous iterations of the Obliterator line, such as the PKX-3 and Obliterator PKX-1 are size 3 but require a full 4RP to fire, making them difficult to field on all but the largest battleships. The advanced PKX-5 design allows for increased efficiency and plasma coil cooling which means it can be fired for 25% less overall energy while still packing the same devastating punch.
And Your Fixes!
We also fixed some small issues players found and reported. We fixed a rare and specific path through the UI that would allow players to pay landing costs twice for the same zone. We changed the rate of Mutiny generation during Xeno Fleet Rumors, without reducing the Morale loss from the Rumor. Crew are less likely to start internal fights when surrounded by Xeno ships. While less common, Mutiny during Xeno Fleet is far from impossible given the difficulty of passing through such sectors.
v3.3.91 - 2/5/2024
- Added randomize name and outfit to crew screen from roster - New Ship Component: Water-Fuel Reclamation 6 - New Ship Component: Armored Salvage Bay 6 - New Ship Weapon: Obliterator PKX-5 (RP3 Plasma Cannon) - Fixed re-landing issue where hitting space or clicking would count as a new landing - Added components from the v3.3.x updates to the AI ship designer - During Xeno Fleet Rumors, Crew Mutiny is less likely
Update #339: Void-Scouts
Update #339 continues the additions to small ships with new Scout Bridges, adds new Cargo Hold options for ships with large slots dedicated to cargo, as well as new and improved Trait mutation paths for Explorer crews, and a big retraining of the enemy human AI on How to Effectively Use Carriers (TM).
If you're loving the updates, improvements and new content please share the game with a friend and leave a review!
New Scout Bridge 6 and 7
Two new Scout Bridges have rolled out with Update #339. Available only to ships that have small slot bridges, these improved Scout Bridges are powerful additions to the small ship meta. Each is faction and era locked, so they aren't always available or available immediately in the game.
Scout Bridge 6 is developed by Cadar at the time of the start of the Second Founding Era while Scout Bridge 7 is developed by Thulun at the start of the Plague Era.
While they offer a host of advantages, these Scout Bridges are also well suited for light carrier builds that utilize Shuttles for boarding. In addition to the new Scout Bridges, we're introducing the new Level 6 gear: Trifax Interlink, designed to boost craft defense for piloting a shuttle and provide combat buffs for boarding combat.
New Cargo Holds
Both of the new Cargo Hold options -- Cargo Hold 8 for maximum storage and fuel capacity and Armored Cargo Hold 6 for a hybrid of Armor and cargo space -- are developed near the start of the Plague Era. While they are not faction-locked, both are expensive top tier components to consider installing into your high-end ship to squeeze out a few more points, fuel and cargo capacity.
Exploration Trait Mutation
With Update #339, we've improved the variety of possible Trait mutations that can come from Exploring with 5 new positive and negative routes. As you do any activity - from sailing, to spicing to Exploring - you have a constant low percentage chance that your crew will gain Trait mutations. Over time, the types of activities you repeat and repeat shape your crew. Exploration has new Trait options that will bake in over your career.
We've also updated the way in which Trait mutations are displayed during Exploration to be sure that they are always displayed clearly.
Enemy and the Skylift Carrier
With this update, we've retrained the enemy ship builder on the Skylift Carrier to help it provide more threatening and efficient builds. This will result in some new and exciting directions that the enemy ship builder can take the Skylift. It is a big and powerful ship, so it's exciting to see it be more threatening when it appears in your ship encounter.
Enemy (Human) Carriers Rebalance
Carriers are especially important to get right, as the enemy ship builder needs to consider a few extra things. Perhaps the most important is the ratio of Bomber, Interdictor and Shuttles, but to be effective this needs to closely align with the ship's capital weapon strategy as well as their crew and combat crew.
For Update #339, we've improved the decision tree for the enemy ship builder to approach the rules and order of decisions that the enemy ship builder will make when putting together an enemy carrier. This update focuses specifically on human carrier enemies, so let us know what you think if you're facing off with these captains in the void.
Think deep thoughts, enemy ship builder!
Reported Crashes
Thanks for all the typos and reported crashes! We're constantly tuning and tweaking to improve performance, stability and to stamp out the remaining typos in the game. We appreciate your attention to detail - every bit helps!
We're hanging out on the Trese Brothers community Discord, waiting to hear your thoughts on these updates, so join us there or on the forums!
Our new turn-based tactics RPG!
Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, our stealth & squad tactics heist RPG, launched into Steam Early Access and how is marching to Update #30 as it battles through its ambitious public roadmap. We've just completed the three major roadmap milestone with the Hacker's Nest, Proc-Gen Missions for endless play, and Custom Difficulty (and the ability to change difficulty during play). If you're looking for a story rich, squad-based RPG, take a minute to follow, wishlist or try Cyber Knights!
- New Ship Component: Cargo Hold 8 - New Ship Component: Armored Cargo Hold 6 - New Ship Component: Scout Bridge 6 and 7 - New Level 6 Wing Specialist Gear: Trifax Interlink - Improved the way Trait mutation reports during Explorer - Added 5 new positive and 5 new negative Trait events for Explorer - Updated AI for the Skylift Carrier - Retrained non-Xeno AI small craft strategy with new improvements - Minor performance improvements, fixed reported typos & crashes
Update #338: Small-Ship Travelers
Update #338 unleashes a completely unique and powerful small-ship Hyperwarp Drive that includes +1 Officer Cabin, 2 new high-level ship components that will only appear after the Second Founding story Era starts, more connections and impacts for Rumors, and finally also tips the scales back a bit toward the enemy with an upgraded Legendary Bounty Hunter template and finally unleashing the 3.3.x components into the enemy ship builder pool.
If you like to see a game like Star Traders: Frontiers continued to get updates for free, 6 years after its release date, please hit up the review button and check out ...
Our new game has started Early Access!
Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, our stealth & squad tactics heist RPG, just launched into Steam Early Access! Featuring in-depth character builds, turn-based stealth & combat, and an all-new story engine that selects storylines and weaves different members of your squad and contacts into them based on how you’ve played. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/
Ancient Bounty Hunters
We've upgraded the ship blueprint used by the adversary "Draiv Solregard", a Legendary Bounty Hunter. His ship's components now upgrade more effectively for combat and make him a more unique encounter compared to other normal Bounty Hunters. He is one of the oldest and most feared hunters in the void, so beware this near-ghost of an earlier era.
Traveler Hyperwarp matches Annex
We've added a unique new component for small and medium sized ships, the "Traveler" class of Hyperwarp Drive. These upgrades are expensive for a Hyperwarp drive but include a critically useful +1 Officer Cabin and are available for the 2400, 3400, 5000 Mass hulls.
With the addition of the Traveler drive and the use of Annex components, many ship builds can completely eliminate dedicated officer cabins completely at 3400 mass and below. Our testing showed that these opened up new options for early game ship builds and so we've made them available immediately at the start of the game.
+2 New High-Level Components
We are also releasing several new, late game ship components as the story Era's advance. First, providing state of the art targeting data for ship weapons is the Interlocking Sensor Matrix 7. Additionally we've added Ferrochromium Plating II to increase ship survivability in extreme survey and patrol conditions.
Both of these powerful new components are sold in starports only after Second Founding Era starts.
Enemy Ships Getting Latest Components
The current barrage of updates, called the v3.3.x series, has included a ton of new ship components, component rebalances and weapon additions. We've started the process of finalizing v3.3.x and have begun testing and cycling these new components into the ship building AI. This means in late games you may start to see some of the new components and new weapons used by hostile AI. As always, the game remains fully symmetrical so you won't see the enemy using any components that cannot purchase.
Black Markets and Rumors
In preparation for the next onslaught on Star Traders: Frontiers updates, v3.4.x, we've deployed another raft of Black Market and Rumor integrations. Pirate Fleet Rumors increase chance of Crew Combat results in Black Market, rendering this rumor a Risk and Reward booster for the Black Market.
With the zone in chaos, the Xeno Fleet Rumor will now increase chance of access in Black Market, making it easier to trade in dangerous places. And finally, the recruit-madness of the Mercenary Rumor, and all the off-world information and war stories it brings to the zone, increases the value of Intel cards in Black Market by 5x.
v3.3.87 - 1/21/2024
- Upgraded "Draiv Solregard", Legendary Bounty Hunter - New "Traveler" class of Hyperwarp Drive Component, includes +1 Officer Cabin (2400, 3400, 5000 Mass) - New Component: Interlocking Sensor Matrix 7, Ferrochromium Plating II available after Second Founding Era - Added components from the v3.3.x updates to the AI ship designer - Pirate Fleet Rumors increase chance of Crew Combat in Black Market - Xeno Fleet Rumors increase chance of access in Black Market - Mercenary Rumor increases the value of Intel cards in Black Market
Update #337: Rumors over the Plate
Update #337 swings back around to the Rumor system to deepen their impacts into multiple systems and the Contact simulation. With this update we've improved the results for Artifact Find, Merchant Fleet, Starport Closed and Mercenaries. Rumors are a key system in Star Traders: Frontiers that cause variation, reasons to travel, dynamic and short term goals and help shake up the Contacts in the simulation, so the more numbered and powerful their effects the more interesting they become.
If updates make you happy, and you know it, leave a review!
Artifact Find Expansions
The Quadrant Rumor Artifact Find has a wide impact across Explorer and encountering Smuggler ships. There are Artifacts to be found, and while previously the Rumor mostly impacted the direct results of Explorer, now the Rumor also expands the value and size of any Stashes discovered during Explorer. In the case where you find some clue that reveals another smuggler or pirate's stash, it is a stash that was bloated in value by the Artifact Find Rumor and the value and type of cargo in that stash will be better for it.
Also, we've further increased the value of bonus cargo being carried by Smugglers across the Quadrant with Artifact Find Rumor active. If you're a pirate, there is even more incentive to flock to the quadrant for valuable pickings now.
Speaking of which ...
Gone Lootin'
The Pirate's Talent "Looter's Instinct" which adds a bonus cargo to a Merchant encountered while Blockading now has Rumor hooks as well. The type of bonus cargo and the count allocated to the bonus is now larger when the Quadrant Rumors Merchant Fleet or Artifact Find are active.
If you plan to truly capitalize on the value of Rumors, be sure to build out a crew to help you find them and then use Talents to reap the rewards.
Stardock Closed Blocks Escapes
Stardock Closed Rumor already has a wealthy of unfortunate consequences. First, you can't fuel, repair, upgrade or access dry docked ships at this landing zone and any local Contacts are at risk of Influence loss. We've punched up the risk to Contacts to represent their inability to flee in the case of trouble. If a Contact suffers an assassination attempt from another Contact while such a Rumor is active, it is 25% less likely that they will survive.
Considering that a Contact may have used their action to drop this harmful Rumor on an enemy Contact's zone, they are basically setting up their enemy for a possible death blow on their next action in the simulation.
Mercenaries Jam Black Market
While a Mercenaries Rumor is affecting a zone, the Black Market can be a little more dangerous. In response to these often-troublesome off-worlders clogging the starport, spice hall and surrounding district, the local forces have doubled down on their patrols to keep the peace. Which makes sneaking your illegal cargo to the Black Market more difficulty. Where there are Merc Rumors, security patrol cards are more likely now in the Black Market.
Are you Modding?
A fan favorite - the No More Mass Reducers mod removes all Mass Reducers from the game - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2492139496
Merchant Marine mod tones down the crew size aiming to give a more Firefly-esque style of play - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2856946970
Want 24 new heads for your characters in the game - download Playable Contacts today - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2936075922&searchtext=
Everyone loves new ship components - so check out the ever-popular Dave's New Ship Components mod - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2560635932
Always wanted to have a zendu on board to dole out justice - install the Arbiter job mod - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2824645849
v3.3.85 - 1/16/2024
- 'Artifact Find' Rumor now causes increased found Stash value in Explorer - Increased value of cargo found in Smuggler's holds during 'Artifact Find' - Boosted power of Pirate Talent 'Looter's Instinct' when Merchant or Artifact rumors active - Updated 'Artifact Find' Rumor makes it easier to access the Black Market when active - The 'Stardock Closed' rumor now harms Contact influence, makes it 25% harder to escape assassins - The 'Mercenaries' rumor now increases the chance of combat patrols in Black Market
Update #336: Lance of the Gods
Update #336 rolls out with another bristling set of level 8 and 9 capital ship weapons, rebalanced enemy ship builders to improve the short-ranged Lance builds, pricing and ship weapon rebalances, new rules for Spice Hall Trait mutation and extra burning for Molten Worlds.
A huge thanks goes out to everyone playing, posting and sharing Star Traders: Frontiers! As we keep climbing toward the 350th update milestone, remember to leave a review and --
Spread the word about our new game to keep our studio going strong?
We love continuing to add to Star Traders: Frontiers, but increasingly it’s sales of Cyber Knights that keep our studio going. Help us out by spreading the word? Give the game a shout-out, or recommend it to any of your Steam friends that like games similar to Cyber Knights?
The first medium slot Gravcannon above level 6, the GUR-18 weighs in at level 8, costing 3 AP to fire and smacking with a massive 360-450 Dmg. While it can't boast best in class for its other weapon statistics, it is still a smaller, faster Gravcannon (is there such a thing?) that can still shatter enemy hulls and may fit better into your ship configuration than one of the larger high level GCs.
New Quad-Arc Lance, Lances Win Ties, AI Gets Lancey
The new Thunderstrike Quad-Arc has been called by some the Lance of the Gods. The level 9 small size lance can pack a powerful punch with 55% Crippling Hit and solid 40 Radiation Damage. Used as a battery, firing multiple at a time for 2 AP, these high-powered Lances can cripple and cook a ship effectively at 2 Range.
Lances have seen a nice rebalance to be now classified with Autocannons and Gravcannons that in the case of a tie between the attacker and the defender, the attacking Lance wins, where with all other weapon types (non AC, GC, or Lance) the defender wins ties. Ties are most common when the dice pools are small -- in early game ships or when both ships are burning, so it isn't a huge impact, but something to keep in mind if you're fighting evenly matched opponents.
We've also spent some time with the AI ship builder to make sure it is pairing its Lance builds with the right other set of ship components to get the best results in short-range, barrage fire type builds.
Torp Rebalance
Both the Torpedo Mk3-Delta and Torpedo Mk4-Ultra have both had their Crippling Effect % revised downward to prevent them from being too OP within the class.
On-Going Price Rebalance
With Update #336, we've continued the press on updating the price balance across the 700+ ship components in Star Traders: Frontiers. The Duranium Coating II and III have both had their price increased as well as all Autocannons, Lances and Gravcannons above Level 6. This helps increase their rarity among AI captains as well and makes them a bit harder to purchase or jump up to as you upgrade your ships.
Spice Hall Traits
We've started to dig in the trait mutations sections of the game, looking for exciting ways to add new context and different flavors to how and when mutations happen today. The first tweak in this area is to adjust Spice Hall Trait mutations to increase the chance of gaining Spice Addict if you're crew members are injured and low on HP.
Molten Worlds Burn Ya
If you're out exploring molten worlds, we've pushed the chance for Crew Damage cards, and especially the most damaging cards in the set, to the max. These types of worlds are dangerous and can really scorch a crew if you're not careful.
v3.3.83 - 1/10/2024
- Added new "GUR-18 Gravcannon" (Level 8, Size 2) - Added new "Thunderstrike Quad-Arc" (Level 9, Size 1) - Rebalanced Lance Ship Weapons, now classified like Autocannons, Gravcannons - Minor balance adjustments for Torpedo Mk3-Delta, Torpedo Mk4-Ultra - Retrained AI Lance strategy with new improvements - Spice Hall with low HP now increases the chance of Spice Addict Trait rolling - Increased Price Duranium Coating II, Duranium Coating III and made them more rare - Increased Price of Level 6+ Autocannons, GravCannons and Lances and made them more rare - Exploration on Molten Worlds has higher chance of generating Crew damage
Update #335: Storied Career
Happy New Year, captains! It's going to be another eventful one in the void as we cruise past the #335 Update mark. Update #335 brings new medium sized torpedo weapons, more exciting rules for Engine Damage for aggressive attack strategies, improved rules for Morale Damage when hits target Bridge and Engine, big updates to how enemy ship captains pick their ship weapons in combat and a big sweep of price raising for late game components.
If you've enjoyed just a few free updates or hundreds of updates over the years, we hope you'll consider leaving a review and sharing Star Traders: Frontiers with a friend!
Torp Power
With Update #335, we've rolled out three new medium slot Torpedoes that all pack a massive punch. These high-level medium slot torps make torpedo boats with a wider variety of designs viable into the late game as you finally have options at level 7, 8 and 9 for your medium slots. Get more Void Shielding because these torps can hit very hard and beware that late-game enemy captains may also employ the Mk3-Gamma, Torpedo Mk3-Delta and Torpedo Mk4-Ultra.
Early Engine Dmg Rule Rebalance
In a small but important change for some strategies, we've revised the special rules around Engine Damage in the first 3 Turns of ship combat. There has always been a protection for the player's engine against becoming immediately disabled before Turn 3. Some of these protections were extended to the AI ships as well in ways that made certain hyper-aggressive strategies (ALL the Gravity Cannons, Turn 1!) less effective. We've adjusted the rules on the AI's side without touching the player side rules to allow for these cases and don't punish hyper-aggressive strategies or force them to wait until Turn 3 to truly unleash their power.
A big thanks to the players posting feedback and sharing data on these strategies that helped us craft this fix.
Bridge and Engine Hits Morale
If a ship or crafts weapon attack hits the Bridge or Engine, there is now up to a 30% increase in damage to the crew's Morale. Taking hits to these critical components shakes up the crew as they know the ship is in direct danger of failing to function and therefore losing to the enemy. This change can help accelerate and make more meaningful the ship combat defeat rule that can cause an enemy ship to surrender by Morale loss.
Ship Captain AI Improved
We've updated a number of important AI templates, rules and decision points as they relate to ship weapons. We updated some of the rules and decisions for torpedoes as to what other components to pair them with the for the maximum effect. For those enemies you find hanging at long range and trying to rain torp-hell down on you, be sure to pick your fights, close, or take them out fast with your own long range fire or craft. We've also helped the enemy ship builder balance better between Torpedoes and Missiles to ensure they have good coverage at a wide set of ranges.
Finally, the enemy ship builder was not making great choices about when and where to attach Gravity Cannons to their ships, and we've improved the entire set of thinking. These highly devastating weapons can punch a hole in your hull if you're not careful, so keep an eye out for newly configured enemy mid to large class ships.
With so many weapon's related changes, we also touched on one ship class specifically to make sure the AI ship builder would be making the best decisions -- Broadsword Class. If you see an enemy captain swinging around the edge of a moon in one of these, just be sure you're on your best behavior.
Component Repricing
With over 700 components and steadily growing, sometimes prices slide out of band and we need to come back through and revise some things. With Update #335, we've completed a necessary price raise for a number of components, better matching price to performance.
The prices for the M115 Twin Autocannon, Fuel Tank 5+, Cargo Hold 6 and Armored Cargo Hold 6 have all been directly increased. In addition, the all high level Coatings have had their prices increased to better achieve the progression into such high power defensive components.
Want to help shape our next game?
So many of our updates for Star Traders are based on feedback from you all. But there are limits to what we can do in a game 5 years after its release. Our new tactical heist RPG, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, is evolving fast in Early Access, with plenty of room for content ideas and shifts in gameplay based on what early players are finding fun.
- Three new size 2 torpedoes Torpedo Mk3-Gamma, Torpedo Mk3-Delta, Torpedo Mk4-Ultra - Increased the Morale damage from direct Bridge Hits by 30% - Direct hits to Engine can now cause Morale damage for effected crew - Revised engine damage rules for early combat, to make aggressive attack strategies more viable - Post-boarding Bridge hits are now more effective vs all AI, Xeno included - Updated AI for the Broadsword Class - Retrained AI torpedo strategy with new improvements - Improved AI ship architect's weapon selection logic for missiles and torpedoes - Fixed issues with AI not correctly using Grav Cannons - Increased the price of M115 Twin Autocannon, Fuel Tank 5+, Cargo Hold 6 - Armored Cargo Hold 6 - Completely repriced high level Coatings
