Improved Conflict Listing

As brothers, Andrew and I have shared a bond that seems to grow ever stronger with each passing year. Because of Trese Brothers, Andrew and I have been able to spend so much time together, talking daily and working together on shared projects we both love. We haven't been able to team up like this since we were in primary school building forts in the woods.

We have been on this journey as independent game developers for more than five amazing years. Thanks to the people who have supported us, purchased our games and shared them online have made this crazy dream possible.

We are truly, sincerely and endlessly thankful for this opportunity. We will never take for granted your support or the love you've given our games. Our bond, our promise, to you the players is unbroken and, like the one my brother and I share, it grows stronger ever year.

As a team of only two people, we depend a lot on our community for support, for inspiration, for guidance and for content development. This is even more true for new games and Early Access titles like Star Traders: Frontiers. We are trying to make it as easy for players to contribute to our community efforts as possible.

There are lots of ways to contribute valuable content. First, we hope all players will take a moment to leave a review on Steam!.

If you have already left a Steam Review (thank you!) there are still lots of ways you can contribute and make your voice in the community heard. Steam Discussions, Screenshots, Videos and Guides are all very valuable ways to participate and inspire discussions. A vibrant and active community on Steam will help us keep moving the game forward.

Outside of Steam, we are also connecting with people playing Star Traders: Frontiers on our Official Discord Server.

This week we are pushing an updated set of pages for the Star Traders: Frontiers Wiki (also a community project!) that improves the documentation and authoring opportunities for Ship Hulls. Next update will improve the Ship Component listing. We are looking for contributors, editors and outliners for the Wiki. Please contact cory.trese@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Our Friend, Calagan

We continue to push the roadmap towards the inevitable release of Small Craft (Fighters) and these new ship components are part of the foundation we need to have in place ahead of Small Craft. These new components rebalance the introductory tier of Orbital and Explorer upgrades.

These upgrades offer Captains who are building ships that specialize in Spy, Patrol or Blockade to more specifically customize their ships for this purpose. Rebalancing the Explorer components brings them better into alignment with their cost and the risk-reward trade off in that mini-game.

These changes are part of an overall balancing push on these mini-games ahead of the release of the new Small Craft interactions and rules related to Orbital and Explorer.


We have been listening to the community feedback on both sides of the discussion about the Reputation system. In the commission of answering some questions regarding Reputation loss we uncovered a number of bugs and miscalculations that caused deviation in the code from the design. This update fixes those issues.

In addition to fixing bugs we've made some balance adjustments to the Conflict Reputation rules. Overall, we've reduced Reputation loss (and as a result, Rank, Permit and Edict loss) for the two most commonly impacted Conflict types. Another compensation we've added in this update is mirroring the Reputation loss mechanics for Solar War into new Reputation gain mechanics for Alliance and a minor version (Merchants ships only) for Trade Alliance.

As always, we appreciate all of the feedback and discussions. We especially appreciate the members of the community who have stayed positive, supportive and helped us move forward with the game.

v2.2.63 - 5/23/2018
- Improved Conflict listing to include more information about game impacts
- Click on a character in crew combat select to remove them from the team for faster team building
- Reduced Conflict Reputation loss for Solar War, Spy War by 25%
- Added Conflict Reputation gain for Alliance, Trade Alliance
- Contact Trait "Saboteur" can now recruit Doctors
- Rebalanced Explorer Shielding and Drilling Ship Components
- Added six new Ship Components: Orbital Ops Protection (Ship and Crew)
- Fixed bug that caused incorrect Reputation Loss in Acknowledge from Conflicts
- Fixes formatting bugs with Zone hovers
- Fixes issues with multiple active Rumors on Quadrants, Planets
- Fixes issues with "Close Observation" not going on cooldown after use
- Fixes issues with Explorer bonus Ship Components triggering during Patrol
- Fixes typos in De Revish Sword subplot
- Fixed issues with Trade Ban Talents mitigating Rep for wrong Faction
- Improved Black Market notifications about permit grades and fixed display issues
- Fixed issues with Arbiter storylines across Eras

Recruiting Doctors

Update sixty-six aims to improve gameplay with an extensive collection of balance patches and bug fixes. Thanks to your reports and feedback, we have been able to continuously refine Star Traders: Frontiers.



This patch fixes a long-running bug that was allowing some events that should have been blocked to fire. This was causing the occasional report of Malcontent Captains, Xeno Fleet starting Quadrants and Quarantined worlds on Turn 300. This patch addresses the root mathematical flaw in the simulator's probability engine that permitted the incorrect results.

We continue to refine the game's Traits and Talents in an effort to both improve balance and fun and prepare the way for future releases. With new Jobs coming soon, finished Orbital zones and Small Craft Combat the Traits and Talents system is going to be getting a lot of new content so we're doing our best to clean house before those releases start dropping.



This patch includes a number of fixes and balance changes for the deep space travel rules. Input handling and performance should be improve, ship in-game turn speed has been slightly increased and other balancing adjustments have been made in a difficulty sensitive fashion.

- New Ship: 2400 Mass (5 Officer / 24 Crew) Volk Frigate
- Increased Crew Trait Mutation rate by 20% for more variation faster
- Fixed "Discover Crash Site" Explorer card's ship repair rolls
- Fixed "Makeshift Repairs" Talent to correctly calculate repair totals
- Fixed "Port Maintenance" Talent to correctly report repair totals
- Fixed "Durable" to now apply to all Death Save checks, not just Crew Combat
- Fixed "Gravity Sickness" and "Hyperwarp Sickness" Traits so they can kill Crew member
- Fixed bugs that could cause Xeno Fleet, Civil Unrest, Quarantine too early in the game
- Improved curves used to calculate available Explorer draws based on Richness (less RNG)
- Added additional Xeno encounter mutations and Trait mutation options
- Modified several (Blade Dancer, Troubadour, Architect) Contacts to now buy Intel Records
- Rebalanced starting Influence for several Contacts, updates to Influence economy
- Improved event logging for Contact actions in simulator, Conflicts and Rumors
- Fast Ships are now slightly faster, and slow ships are slightly slower
- Failed Navigation and Pilot tests now consume 1 additional game turn
- Deep Space Mutiny events now consume a number of turns between 1 and 5
- Travelling while understaffed with Navigation or Pilot is now slightly worse
- Travelling without Water-Fuel is now slightly worse, slightly slower
- Improved "Ship Defeat: Prison" Reputation recovery mechanic to be more impactful
- Calculation that determines Turns used in Patrol/Blockade/Spy revised to consider Atmo, Planet Size more
- Loss of Reputation in Patrol/Blockade/Spy now correctly reports loss of Rank/Edict/Permit
- Fixed some input processing bugs with clicks and keyboard shortcuts
- Fixed issue with Trait mutation that would cause rare incorrect mutations for the Captain
- Added 7 new enemy ship/AI combinations including Dart, Bolt, Vrax
- Improved enemy ship designer to better use new upgrades and components for building opponents

Update #65 is a sprawling beast. As it should be, it took a few days to get this one right! The log is long, so we'll dig right in below. Pass the spice plate, spacer, and enjoy the news.

As a reminder to everyone, we've stickied a thread about how your saved games are never invalidated by updates. We want to make sure that message is heard loud and clear! Because there are going to be a lot more updates :D
https://steamcommunity.com/app/335620/discussions/0/2828702373001373670/

For any late game Captain suffering the bug where the game goes into a loop of fading in and out of a black screen ... your game is now fixed! Very sorry for the bug!

With this release, we've made running blockades more fun, rewarding and risky. We've also opted the Pirates and Xeno Spores Rumors at the system level into this same system.

First -- these three rumors make it harder to land on these worlds. Every time you land on any system, you make a piloting test. If that test fails, your landing is interrupted by a ship encounter. As these are Pilot Skill tests, most often a saving Talent picks up any failure. With Update #65, we've introduced the catch that you can't use a saving Talent for running blockades or when there are pirates. 25% of the time, you can't use a saving Talent to avoid xeno spores either. Be careful!

However, the rewards are rich! In the case of any of the three rumors (Blockades, Pirates, Xeno Spores) you can gain Reputation with the local faction at 1 Rep point per $1,000 credits of a sale into their Exchange. Their economies are hurting and they need the cargo, so you can make big Rep gains by chasing these rumors.

For those faction loyalists coming to help, if you have Permit 2 or Edict 4 or higher, you can gain even more Rep for bringing cargo down.

The Blockade Runners update includes 5 new ship hulls, increasing the ranks of options and unique builds available for smaller ship Captains. This update also includes the very exciting Scout Command Bridge -- a small component that can house 3 officers. Because Bridges are locked components, only ships that start with a Small Bridge component can use the Scout Command Bridge, but it gives a critical efficiency improvement to smaller ships, freeing up slots for other components or weapons as well as packing the utility of a usually much larger component into a small slot.

Vulture Liner
This 4 Officer cruiser has the largest base fuel capacity of any 3400 Mass hull. Lightly armored but heavily armed, the Vulture uses a Scout Command Bridge to pack the firepower of a 5000 Mass with the speed and agility of a 3400 Mass.

Allistar Liner
This 4 Officer Liner is a natural upgrade for any Captain using the Scout Cutter. Heavily armored, well shielded and very fast, the Allistar Liner takes full advantage of it's compact Scout Command Bridge to pack value into an efficient package.

Bolt Raptor
This 5 Officer Raptor class is an assault ship designed for use by Faction raiders and privateers. Using only Reinforced Officer Cabins and a Scout Command Bridge, the Raptor has strong armor and shielding as well as large base fuel capacity.

Dart Liner
This 5 Officer cruiser has the heaviest armor of any ship currently available. Combine the massive base armor and shielding with a Scout Command Bridge, Reinforced components, armored bulkheads and a battle-ready Chaser engine and you'll have this hard to kill, high speed, armored dart.

Galtak Heavylift
This release included some necessary balancing adjustments to the Galtak Freighter as a starting ship. The Galtak Heavylift is the new-old Galtak Freighter in all of it's OP (and too pricy for starting ship) glory.


A number of the ship escape and move Talents have seen a small rebalance this update. Those Talents that are obviously for going forward -- Perfected Approach, Acrobatic Drive, Barrel Roll -- all now include Escape chance reductions. The Fast Escape buff has gained some +Armor and the Sharp Steering Talent is rebalanced to focus more on bonuses to changing rangine that escaping.

There are so many other great things in this update. We've extended some of the rumor blocks -- preventing Quarantine for much longer. We've rebalanced the mission generation in regards to length to provide better variety of mixed-length missions. We've fixed a ton of Trait mistakes or missing text. Rep values are now displayed in your Quad map hovers. It goes on and on -- this one is full of catch up fixes!

- New 2400 Mass Ship: "Allistar Liner"
- New 3400 Mass Ships: "Bolt Raptor", "Dart Liner", "Vulture Liner"
- New 5000 Mass Ships: "Galtak Heavylift"
- New Type of Ship Component: "Scout Bridge" holds 3 Officers for better component efficiency
- Rebalancing updates for Galtak Freighter, Scout Cutter
- Ship Repricing and Balancing Update for all ships
- Increased the difficulty of running Blockade Rumors to land on the planet and take advantage of economic boosts
- Balanced Reputation rewards for Blockade Rumor, Added rewards for Xeno Spores and Pirate Fleet
- New Bonuses for Exchange Trading into Rumors for Permit 2+, Edict 3+ and Rank 2+
- Increased duration that Quarantine and Civil Unrest are disabled at the start of the game
- Added new 5/10 year reduction (-50% chance) for Civil Unrest / Quarantine Rumors
- Fixed long standing issues with Contact Link generation being too picky
- Adds Reputation display to hovers in Quadrant Map
- Fixed two crashes in Cargo Hold -> Intel Records & fixed bug with scrolling
- Crippling Dread debuff caused by boarding cannot be remove by crew purge Talents
- Fixed many small text issues with Trait descriptions
- Xeno encounters causes more Morale loss to fewer number of crew
- Ship Buffs Perfected Approach, Acrobatic Drive, Barrel Roll all reduce Escape chance
- Ship Buffs Fast Escape gains +Armor %, Sharp Steering reduced Escape bonus
- Improved Smuggler Talent "Slippery Trader" to reduce more rep during trade Conflicts
- Fixed bug with Intel Records with no Origin planet (Victory Intel Talents)
- Fixed Reputation labeling issue on Prize Ship Talents in pre-use screens
- Fixed issue with looping "fade to black" on landing
- Improved balance of Mission generation in regards to distance
- Improved messages in ship encounters about reputation loss and bribe
- Fixed issue with Commercier missions requiring resources required on site
- Fixed Reported Crashes! Thanks for pressing report <3

Update #64 unleashes new threats and rewards into Exploration, fixes a fatal bug in the Crowned Smuggler story arc, hands a pile of new ships into the hands of the enemy and much more. We are doubling down on improvements across every aspect of the game and pushing hard to add and polish as we prepare for the v2.3.x push.

Unfortunately, the Crowned Smuggler story arc released in Update #60 had a bug that was preventing some captains from achieving the end of the arc. This has been fixed for all future captains encountering this storyline.

We've added 6 new Explorer cards to the mini-game! Some are happy trees, some are happy trees with risk. The new Pirate Treasure and Xeno Spore are risk cards that provide a solid reward but also a ground combat as the expedition meets resistance. Remote Seam and Offworld Stash uncover details about a stash of cargo on another nearby wilderness zone, which will keep your Explorer moving more often. Smuggler's Cache is a new rare reward card that provides some of the best cargo results and Gear Discovery finds a piece of specialist gear. Keep an eye out of the new cards, Exo-Scouts and Explorers!

As we add new ships for the player-base, we always put them in a holding pen for enemy captains. This gives us time to further test them, watch their performance in simulations, and be sure that we aren't jumping unfair new ships on our live captains in the field. With this release, the recent set of ships have all broken their quarantine and you'll now find merchants flying the Callus Freighter, Paladin Cutters and more.

Also, the enemy ship building routine has become smarter in its use of Engines, Officer Cabins and Barracks. Watch out, captains!

We've implemented and tweaked some traits:
- Addictive Tick: +3 Initiative, -2 Resilience, Increases chance that Trait mutation will result in other addiction-related Traits
- Death Wish: Going out in a blaze of glory, -25% Death Save to survive lethal hit in any situation, +15% Accuracy, +15% Critical
- Power Hungry: Always rises against the Captain in a Mutiny, +10% All Damage, +5% Critical



We've modified the basic requirements for Pardon as well as fixing its screen layout. And, as promised, the Edict rank 9 names are now in for your favorite factions! Get your Cadar Silverwasp or Alta Mesa Primehawk today.

- Added 6 new Explorer cards: Pirate Treasure, Xeno Spore, Offworld Stash, Remote Seam, Gear Recovery and Smuggler's Cache
- Fixed bug with Crowned Smuggler which caused it never to finish or Contact to disappear
- Pardon service now requires at least 25 Influence, improved Pardon offer screen
- Edict rank 9 now uses Faction-specific terms -- De Valtos Sword of Justice, Alta Mesa Primehawk, etc
- Implemented Addictive Tick Trait: +Initiative, -Resilience, increases chance of other addictive traits
- Fixed description of Power Hungry Trait, re-balanced Death Wish Trait
- Fixes 'Artifact Hunter' bonus being applied twice
- Increased the danger during Radiation Storm Rumor in Wasteland Quadrants
- Enemy AI Captains Trained on 8 new ship + enemy type combinations
- Enemy ship designer AI improved use of Engines, Cabins and Barracks
- Rebalanced Conflict - Contact Link generation and balancing to improve political simulator

We keep getting questions about updates and whether or not they require a restart. We'll keep working to broadcast this -- but no update *ever* requires an restart. We would never release an update that invalidates anyone's saved game -- that would be terrible thing to do and completely unacceptable, EA or not. So, play on! Of course, some features and story content may not be available if you have a saved game in the later years, but there is no force restart, ever.

Update #63 includes the second Mass 9000 ship -- the Sword Battlecruiser. One of the largest ships yet, the Sword sacrifices durability for versatility with extra components, heavy base shielding and armor. It also packs a starting complement of weapons that allow it to fight at any range.

Traits mutate as your captain and crew make their way in the galaxy. Based on your actions and how you conduct yourself, these Trait mutations will change your crew in ways that match with your actions. Those crew that lead hundreds of daring expeditions into the galactic wilderness will emerge with Traits like Adventurous, Wanderlust, Scavenger and with Other Fascination. Those who litter the void with pieces of their destroyed enemies will find themselves surrounded by Traits like Merciless, Savage, Brute and Bloodthirsty.

With Update #63, we've added 10 new exciting Traits straight from player and KickStarter backer suggestions. We've also traced 40 new paths for Trait mutation to further deepen the links between your actions and your Traits.

We're working to improve the ship encounter system across the board, and with today's update, we've expanded the effect of Trade Alliances on the looting rules. Within an Exchange, factions have long honored Trade Permits of other factions with whom they are in a Trade Alliance. In addition, when surrendering to pirates, they will not loot licensed traders who hold at Permit rank 2 within their Faction. Combining the two, we've added the rule that Pirates (like Exchanges) now honor Trade Permits of factions with whom their faction is in a Trade Alliance. Therefore, if Cadar and Moklumnue are in a Trade Alliance, and you hold Moklumnue Trade Permits, these permits are now correctly honored by Cadar Pirates.


Contacts come and go -- dying of old age, slain in the end of Conflicts, or outright killed by their enemies. If you know a Contact who is killed, an entry is now added immediately to your Captain's Log to make the cause and time clear. Also, we fixed a bug where missions from dead Contact's could linger and cause oddities. If a contact is killed, all missions are immediately canceled at no Rep penalty to the player.

In addition we've hooked in a ton of new exciting actions to Contact's Traits. As the galactic simulation ticks along, Contacts take actions based on their relationships, type, Traits and Influence. Depending on their goals, any relationship to your Captain, and their relationship to other Contacts -- they may help an enemy, cause a rumor, start a conflict, put out a bounty on your head or more.With this update, Traits have even more impact on the types of actions each Contact can execute, including tying in more contacts who can directly kill others and cause powerful rumors like Civil Unrest and Shortages.

- New 9000 Mass Ship: "Sword Battlecruiser"
- Boosted base Fuel capacity for the "Cautela Titan" by +60
- In Ship Combat Defeat's Cargo Looting result, Trade Alliances now grant Trade Permit reciprocity
- Added 10 new Traits (Fatalistic, Weak System, Mindful, Sturdy, Meticulous Care, Libertine, Spiritual, Power Hungry, Nimble, Principled)
- Improved Trait mutations from your actions (over 40 new Trait - Action mutation interactions)
- Fixed prices on tier 3 weapons and armor from Contacts
- Characters no longer equip Stealth armor automatically unless they have higher Stealth Skill
- When a Contact dies and the player knows them, a Captain's Log entry is added
- Contacts now have slightly longer lives, Max Influence role increased
- Contact Traits: Power Hungry, Zealot, Hunna Agent, Bounty Hunters can now assassinate enemy contacts
- Contact Traits: Hunna Agent, Uses Assassins, Underworld Ties and Dangerous Schemer can now cause Civil Unrest Rumor
- Contact Traits: Uses Pirates can now cause Shortages
- Added tooltips to Contact screen over flag, Influence and Effective Rep calculation
- Repriced Ship Components for Matrix Upgrades
- Fixed reported crashes

As mentioned in the last update, we are working hard to accelerate our pace of additions to the game to continue to fill out the later game content, pile in on story, and every other type of space frontiers awesome. We've expanded multiple Contact services, added a new Contact type, more Contact art, and 10 new weapons and armor for your crew combat teams.

On average, we are publishing a new update packed full of goodies every 2.83 days which is down from the 2.91 average before the big Update #47 and ELDER crew combat upgrade.

We decided to launch Star Traders: Frontiers into Early Access for exactly this reason. We believe strongly in a tight iteration loop, tons of exciting updates, and constant communication with the player community. So a huge thanks to everyone who is posting, discussing, suggesting ideas, reporting bugs and more! And also, thanks to everyone leaving a review on the game!

However, we are on the edge of a 10 day break before the next update. With a tiny team of 2, we each have some travel coming up and there will be break from regularly scheduled updates for a few days. However, trust that means the next update will be a big one.

Up until this point, no contact was willing to offer higher than a Edict tier 4. With Update #62, we've extended that reach up to the top level Edict, rank 9. We'll be working on getting the specialized faction names for the highest edicts in future releases so you can bear the Thlun Death Rose, Rychart Crimson Seal or Steel Song Bloodbadge.

As more bounty hunter missions come online, these higher Edict levels will be important for more than just their generous mission payment bonuses and basic lockout of missions. The biggest, baddest bounties will only be given to hunters bearing high level Edicts.

While the A5 Weapons Locker may have contested the tier 2 contact weapons and armor for the best spot, Contacts have it again! With tier 3 armaments rolling out, you're combat teams are going to want to make some friends in the factions!


A recently popular map seed, st-v01-40-2-133598485

We've received a trove of great feedback from players this week and are hard at work putting those ideas into the game. All of the card games have had their Risk and Reward factors recalculated so that the percentages shown are now cleanly out of 100%. We've adjusted the display of the Crowned Smuggler story mission to be more obvious and fixed issues with selling negative amounts of cargo if your ship's cargo hold is toast. We've got a boat load of additional improvements coming in the next update, so keep posting the great ideas!

- Added Edict ranks 5 through 9, rebalanced Contacts who can offer Edicts
- Contacts gain service tier 3 for selling Weapons and Armor
- New Contact: Salvage Broker; Scouting Missions, Sells Armor, Recruits Quartermaster, Discounts Upgrades
- Added 7 new crew combat weapons
- Added new crew combat weapon types: shortblade chopper and assault snubber
- Added 3 new crew combat armors
- Added 4 new Contact character faces (new games and new contacts)
- Improved card game risk and reward factors to be shown as percent (%) out of 100%
- Adjusted Crowned Smuggler missions to clearly display as story missions
- Fixed bug with Quartermaster's "Reliable Hand" Talent using Command instead of Intimidate
- Fixes issues caused by completely destroyed Cargo Holds

With Update #61 we are accelerating our additions of new content to the game and efforts in polishing. As we come around the bend preparing wrap up with v2.2.x family, we're setting our sights on v2.3.x. Especially with the new influx of Captains over the weekend, we've received a ton of exciting feedback that has helped us improve, and we'll keep grinding hard to make the game even better.

We hope all the new players will take a minute to leave a review to help us share the game!

The shipyards across the galaxy have released 3 new hulls from the trove. As always, these hulls are considered experimental on their first release and have not been given into the hands of the enemy AI yet -- but it won't be long. The new Vrax Hauler is heavily shielded and armored to protect its overall lower Hull rating, while it packs the maximum fuel tank size for longhaul travel. The Callus Freighter is a new 5 officer 3400 mass specialist hull which is perfect for pirates, bounty hunters, anyone that values officers and component / engine efficiency over crew numbers. Notably, the Callus is built with a Chaser Engine installed. With plenty of cabin and crew space as well as high hull and shield base, the Paladin Defender is ready for military outfit and tour of duty.



With Update #61, we've added 12 new ship components, filling out the upper levels of combat and defensive booster components. Many of the new components, such as the ECCM Screen Matrix, allow more flexible combat builds for both players and AI ships alike. Each Matrix upgrade family now has 4 levels. The ECCM Screens are entirely new pre-fighters upgrades that add a small Escape bonus as well as ranged combat advantages.

We've packed some new art into this update, including 3 new landing zone images for large urban zones, prime zones, and ice world wilderness.

In addition, we're releasing the first in a series of new matched outfits. These two outfits are aimed at provide more options for the standard crew -- your E-Techs and Gunners, Crew Dogs and Mechanics. With 14 outfits now available for each gender, we're looking to pack just a few more in before the end of EA.



A host of balance and UI polish issues are included in the full patch notes. Thanks to all of our players posting direct feedback and helping us making the game better! With your help, we've got better match for rumors and Conflicts in the Exchange causing Rep changes, new tooltips in ship combat, improved denial of service messages that list the negative Rep threshold and more.

As always, more updates are coming in hot this week. Remember that your saved games are always compatible with new updates, so no need to restart.

- New 5000 Mass Ships: Vrax Hauler, Paladin Cutter
- New 3400 Mass Ship: Callus Freighter
- Added new matched female & male character outfit: crew technician
- 12 New Ship Components including ECCM Screen Matrix (Long Range Defense / Escape)
- New levels for Targeting Matrix, Defense Pattern Matrix and Sensor Matrix
- Rebalanced Pilot Assists, Improved enemy ship building AI's use of Pilot / Nav / Reactor Spike Modules
- Added 3 new environmental arts -- glacial wilderness and 2 major urban zones
- Improved notices for Embargo Rumor in Exchange, fixed issues with Rep display update
- Adjusted Trade Value to Rep Gain / Loss for Trade War, Ban, Embargo and Blockade
- Added full details of Traits to New Captain screens
- Fixed issue where Retrain was not costing any credits
- Improved crew combat debuff descriptions to be clearer what is flavor text versus game effect
- Improved barked messages about denied services to include the Rep thresholds
- In story dialog, Captain's dialog is highlighted in a different color
- Fixed bug with Assisted Care Talent not going on cooldown
- Fixed bugs with partial deliveries in Stash and Cargo missions
- Added tooltips to Ship Combat fields like Morale, Engine, Hostility
- Dramatically slowed down time requirement for Crowned Smuggler - patient smuggler!
- Fixed story issues in Early Coalition Era where Arbiter Brokstrom will not accept quest completion
- Fixed story issues caused by clicking during transition out of story battles

First off, a big welcome to all of our new captains joining up this weekend! Welcome to the frontier. We're here on the boards all the time, so please post questions, feedback and suggestions! We're pushing updates every 2 - 5 days, so things are moving fast. We strongly believe Early Access should be a time of constant improvement and include a very active community feedback loop, so strap in and let's go! Also, if you're just joining up, please note that all saved games are ALWAYS compatible with new updates. We would never release an update that breaks saved games.

Excited to have landed on Rock, Paper, Shotgun yesterday with a great review! Thanks to everyone helping us improve the game, sharing it with friends and leaving a review.
https://steamcommunity.com/news/post/2394104285096340478

Update #60 rides into battle with a new story arc, new Contact Traits, new Mission types and exciting balance updates to lower Mass Void Engines. We're now in the hunt to wrap up the v2.2.x family quickly with the next Era and then all weapons systems will be targeted on the final milestone of v2.3.x and fighters. Launch all zigs!

The newly added story arc allows you to join in the ambitious schemes of a Smuggler, Fixer or Spice Runner after the start of the Early Coalition Era. He or she has some big plans, so clear your schedule and see if you can help them achieve infamy and riches in the criminal underworld! You'll need to hit at least +10 Personal Rep first.

Just like with your crew, you need to learn your Contact's Traits. More and more of the positive effects of Traits are being locked if you do not know the Trait. All the Recruit Traits work this way for Contacts, and now we've added a new killer Trait called "Talent Scout" which increases recruit levels by +2. But -- you need to know the Trait! So, dig in and get to know your Contacts. Get some Talents to help and work closely with them. Remember that general interactions where you spend money with a Contact always give you a small Charisma-based chance to learn a Trait, so even without Talents, focusing on using a Contact's services can help you get there.

With Update #60, we've relaxed the faction rules about holding high level Permits and Edicts. You now need at least -2 Rep in a single event to lose your Rank 4 Permit and -3 Rep in a single event to lose any Edict. If you're using the right set of Talents (Signature Jammer, etc) you can be far more successful holding on to these higher level Permits and Edicts.

We've fixed issues where Rep loss was not being logged correctly in ship victory and defeat, and an issue where Trade Bans were not actually causing Rep loss.



A few new type of high tier smuggler missions have been released today where you're going to be asked to gather upwards of 100 of a resource type to a wilderness stash. Where many stash missions can be finished in a single focused delivery, these are going to be a bit heftier and their pay and duration takes that into account.

Also, we've made some slight adjustments to extend the duration of all standard missions.

- New story arc "Crowned Smuggler" starts with Fixer/Smuggler/Spice Runner after Early Coalition Era begins
- Displaying Quadrant Rumors in the Quadrant Map
- New Contact Trait "Talent Scout" adds +2 Levels to any Recruits if Trait is known
- Buff to 2400 and 3400 Mass Ship Engines (3 RP Move, 2 RP Move Battle Engines)
- More positive Contact Traits have their effect only if the Trait is known
- Unknown Trait names are no longer displayed in Mission Offer screen
- Added 3 new stash mission types for Smugglers
- New Huge Stash missions require massive hoards of resources with extended duration/payment
- Extended standard mission duration
- Fixed issue with Trade Bans not causing Rep penalty
- Fixed mismatch in Military Rank titles in Faction Politics list
- Added Skill and Ship pool tooltips to Recruit screen
- Added Flag tooltips in mission offer and detail screens
- Updated Talent description of Orderly Drop and Sure Landfall, costs 1 Turn / 1 Fuel
- Fixed issue with Whisper Personal Defense gear (level 2)
- Improved Reputation Loss logging in Ship Combat Victory (thanks J4J)
- Improved Reputation Loss logging in Ship Combat Defeat (thanks MintDragon)
- Rebalanced Reputation Loss for Permit removal to -2 minimum
- Rebalanced Reputation Loss for Edict removal to -3 minimum
- Fixed Trade Alliance for News text formatter and Contact actions

When big updates land, they have a way of stirring up bugs and reports of issues. With Update #59 we've added a new hunter's helmet to help us round up the little buggies that have escaped the lab.

The new red colored helmet matches with many of the different outfits, has more of a tech-hunter feel, and brings the hat total to 8. We're shooting to reach 10 for the Early Access goal, so 2 more hats/helmets incoming! Suggestions are always welcome :D

Both 3 RP Torpedoes and Range 4 Missiles have had some balance tweaks to their stats. Advanced Mass Dampeners have joined the other components in their class and gained a Hyperwarp Jump Cost penalty, making them more expensive to have aboard.

- Added new character helmet: red hunter helmet
- Rebalanced 3 RP Torpedoes (Increased Cripple and Critical)
- Rebalanced Range 4 Missiles (Increased Damage Dice, Adjusted Critical)
- Adjusted Boarding Rolls, Improved Wiki Documentation
- Fixed Jump Cost for Advanced Mass Dampeners
- Fixed issues with Keybindings and crew rename
- Fixed issues with Reputation loss for Conscripted crew
- Fixed issues with ship sale price listings and discounts
- Fixed issues with ship hostility after boarding

Torps are best fired in rapid succession and we've fired another into the hull of the v2.2.x family of features with Update #58. Bringing custom keybindings online, we've knocked off the last feature of the family. With all of the major feature work finished, we'll be working quickly to wrap up the next era while the engineering team gets a head start on the v2.3.x features! Check out the full EA Dev Roadmap for details on all the areas we are working on, but we've included the tattered remains of the v2.2.x family below.



When offered the option to Surrender in advance of a ship combat, the prompt title and the description now give some advance warning as to what you can expect. This is based on the captain type, Faction, their Rep, your Rank and all the other factors taken into account -- but you can see when you are likely to be just searched, looted, thrown in prison or even executed.

From the main menu, pop open the keybindings screen to modify the game's keybindings. There are two sets -- common/map and combat. So you can bind the same keys to different functions between these two screens (space to navigate but also to end turn in combat, as an example). Adding custom keybindings has prompted us to add a few more hotkeys but we are aware of a few places were more will be helpful and we will keep working to add more and of course will include them here for customization. Thanks to everyone posting requests for these!



Contact offering military and specialist gear now offer a 3rd tier of gear in their service ladder. Each offer 4 new types of gear for purchase. You can see these new offerings without reaching the tier's requirements, so take a look! Some exciting and very different items are included.

There will be on-going work to keep balancing out crew combat for many more updates, especially as we add new Jobs and Talents. With Update #58, we've adjusted a rule about low Piercing versus higher Deflection. If the target's Deflection is twice the Piercing value, an extra 25% chance to avoid Piercing hit is added. This helps to level out weapons like blades and pistols that do not have the best piercing value and requires more active buffing to punch through armor unless you have a weapon like a Sniper, Snubber or HMG built for it.

For the Merchants and Smugglers alike -- the demand set for Electronic Components has been expanding to include more zone types. Check Resource Types on the wiki for more quick details!

- Added Custom Keybinding support for all screens and combat
- Ship Combat 'Surrender' option now includes intel about what enemy Captain will do (Search, Loot, Imprison)
- Contacts now offer a 3rd service tier for gear
- Added 8 new types of level 3 gear for officers and captain
- Arbiter immediately converts to UC Faction (no delay for later stage games)
- Crew combat balance shift -- if Deflection is more than twice Piercing, reduced change to Pierce by 25%
- Fixed repeat damage from relanding with Gravity Sickness and Worldsick Trait
- New Crew barks for Worldsick and Gravity Sickness
- Rebalanced Supply and Demand curves for 'Electronic Components' trade resource
- Fixed range change issues in ship combat and successful use of Blood Game cancels Escape
- Fixed issue in crew combat where viewing crew member status removed Move / Refocus / Default Attack Talents
- Fixed issues in Ship Combat victory -- dumping cargo miscounts, sorting in conscription
- Fixed up pager in crew combat Talents list
- Fixed bug where Init penalty was carrying over between completely separate crew combats