A roaring celebration of summer has descended up Steam and Star Traders: Frontiers is 25% off! In honor of the sale, we've released a new major update with new rumors and additional Trade Law effects across the existing rumor set.

The spice festival are extensive celebrations declared often in honor of an astronomical event or the completion of a massive construction project in the zone. These raucous celebrations overwhelm the spice halls of the zone as well as the one inside the Star Trader's controlled district with a heightened atmosphere of revelry. Spice flows freely -- spicing the crew does not consume the zone's spice count. High quality recruits flock to these events, and everyone recruit from the hall of Contact gains +1 level. Trade Law is lack as even the officials are partying and Trade Law is at -2. Finally, Smugglers can be hired directly as crew from the Spice Hall!

We have tied an additional six rumors at the system and quadrant level into trade law. Entire quadrants will see their trade law shift now as the changing conditions of the galaxy impact their economies.


We've fixed a significant issue with the new landing tasks system where you could not open the subscreen for services like Refuel or Spice if you lacked the funds to complete even some of the action. This is now fixed -- if you need the subscreen to open, use the popout arrow in the expanded version.

We're receiving a lot of great feedback about this new setup and will continue to improve.

We've also improved the keybindings for these -- by default "1" will hit the All button, and there are keybindings for all of the other services. So, now you can play without clicking at all.

- All new Rumor Type: "Spice Festival" (endless spice, recruit Smugglers, better recruits, lower trade law, Contacts gain Influence)
- "Merchant Fleet" Quadrant Rumor reduces Trade Law
- "Heavy Patrols" Quadrant Rumor increases Trade Law
- "Pirate Fleet" Planet Rumor reduces Trade Law
- "Ion Storm" / "Meteor Storm" Planet Rumors greatly reduces Trade Law
- "Blockade" Planet Rumor increases Trade Law
- Spice Hall and Contact recruiting now properly report level correctly under all bonus conditions
- Fixed starting ship Scout Cutter to have a Passenger Cabin
- Fixed issue where you could not access zone service subscreen (spice leave) with too low funds
- Fixed issues where Zone Rumors might not match -- boosted starport when there is no viable starport
- Fixed some issues with custom difficulty and high difficulty curves

Welcome to the Steam Summer Sale, captains! We hope you'll use special sale period to share the game with a friend and help us bring more captains to the game.

To get the sale started right, we've packed an update full of new art, new recruit rules, nice improvements on last night's landing zone updates, bug fixes, balance tweaks and more!

Gaining Rank, Edict and Permits with a faction will help you recruit more powerful crew or officers who fit into the roles of those faction upgrades. Edicts now grant bonus levels when recruiting Bounty Hunters, Snipers or Assassins from contacts while Trade Permits grant bonus levels when recruiting Merchants, Diplomats or Smugglers from contacts. Military Ranks grant bonus levels when recruiting Military Officers, Soldiers, Pistoleers or Swordsman from contacts. The level bonuses come at 2 tiers, granting +1 level at grade 2 and a total of +2 at a higher tier (Edict 5, Permit 4, Rank 5).



With the huge update last night, we already published one hotfix this morning to clean up a few things with the landing zones. This round hits a few more, fixing issues with hovers, click patterns, swapping the minimize button to the right. We've also adjusted the icons for the buttons when a subscreen is up so that it is clear which buttons in the task tray will pop a subscreen. Click once to open, click again to close a subscreen.

We've added 4 new contact character faces with this update, bringing the total unique faces up to 72 now.


Crew combat has always been a strong place to gain XP for your combat team. We've modulated the XP bonuses for combats now, putting an emphasis on faster victories granting more XP.

- Added 4 new contact character faces (new games and new contacts)
- Edicts grant bonus levels when recruiting Bounty Hunters, Snipers or Assassins from contacts (Edict 2 grants +1, Edict 5 grants +2)
- Permits grant bonus levels when recruiting Merchants, Diplomats or Smugglers from contacts (Permit 2 grants +1, Permit 4 grants +2)
- Ranks grant bonus levels when recruiting Military Officers, Soldiers, Pistoleers or Swordsman from contacts (Rank 2 grants +1, Rank 5 grants +2)
- Re-ordered landing zone tasks when minimized for easier completion of common tasks
- Switched sides of All and Minimize buttons in new landing zone tasks to better fit UI patterns
- Improved ordering, layout and hovers for the new landing zone interface
- Improved balance of XP gained during crew combat, XP bonus decreases as more turns are used
- Corrected positions from which a Military Officer can use Tactical Edge Talent
- Fixed crashes when visiting zones with Starport 0
- Fixed bug with Nav Talent Distant Commission giving overly large bonuses
- Fixed bugs allowing return to map while in combat
- Improved some female head art in regards to wearing hats

It has been quiet on the update front for a few days -- but for good reason! Tonight we are dropping the second major quality of life update to wrap up the v2.2.x family. Following close on the heals of the Auto-features, we're unveiling a completely rebuilt landing zone, designed to make it easier to see exactly what your ship and crew need and to greatly increase the possible speed of play.


When landing, you can now see the summary of all activities in a single glance -- whether you are all settled up (the crew is paid), or there is something to do (12 fuel needed) or the service is unavailable (lack of doctor here) or the faction is denying the service due to rep. With one click, you can quickly complete activities such as refueling or sending your injured crew to the medical clinic. If you have the money and want everything done quickly, use the "All" option to just pay for everything and get moving. Land, click once, take off again if you please!

The subscreens that were previously used to complete zone actions like paying crew all still exist. They can be open if you need the extra detail or control, such as when there are limited rounds of spice and you want to be sure they are going to the right crew.

Once you know your way around, you can minimize the services list to play even faster and leave more space to view the art.

While we are releasing the first iteration, we know there are places where we still have work to do (wild zones, orbital) and more improvements we'd like to make. Please share your feedback, play faster and click less!



While the update is full of other good stuff -- new art, rule and balance changes, tons of fixes -- we know that the new landing zone is going to steal the show so we're going to save characters and keep this section brief!

Continuing to expand the visual representations of the places you can touch down with your ship, we've added 3 new wilderness environments with this update -- two garden worlds and one more ice world.

We've re-instated a rule that penalizes you for not paying your crew for more than a few pay periods back to back. These Morale penalties will mount as crew are not paid and can be a real problem.

- Rebuilt Landing Zone for faster play, more consistent feedback and less clicks
- "All Maintenance" feature in Landing Zone completes all required tasks with a single click
- Complete individual zone activities (spice, doctor, etc) with a single click from main landing screen
- If needed, open the activity subscreen to work at a specific level, only repair certain components etc
- Added 3 new wilderness environment arts (garden worlds, ice worlds)
- Improved Trade Permit rule descriptin in contact offer - more Spice is offered at halls for Permit-carriers
- Crew who are unpaid for a long time will suffer major Morale loss on landing
- Reduced appearance of Remote Seam and Offworld Stash cards
- Fixed bugs where unpaid crew were not suffering Morale loss correctly
- Fixed bugs with Wrathful Corsair story arc when failing to complete in time
- Fixed incorrect display of required Effective Rep when asking for more than 3 missions
- Fixed issues where auto-equip from weapons locker could end up with 2 blades
- Fixed bug with Expert Scavenger alwasy reporting 0 Hull repaired
- Fixed bug where Kober Volpane's face would change oddly
- Captain can no longer gain 'Headstrong' Talent
- Improved UI scaling for wider variety of aspect ratios

In order to stop a bug in Auto-Assign Outfits in the original Update #72, we had to pull the release and then re-issue with as v2.2.77. It contains all of the features from Update #72 plus the small fix listed below to mission rep display.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/335620/announcements/detail/2780291919913942382

If you have a saved game that was damaged by the original bug in auto-assign outfit, please send it in to me at andrew@tresebrothers.com and I can help fix the game by hand. Our apologies for the bug and glad we could correct it quickly. Thanks for your patience and understanding during EA.

- Fixed issue with Contact Rep gain in missions being printed too high

The theme for Update #72 is automation and quality of life. We're releasing two major auto-features to help speed up the management of crews large and small. On top of the auto-features, we've included another big set of improvements, balances and other quality of life improvements to round out the update.

Auto-Train helps intelligently pick Talents for any crew in the current filter who have Talents to train. This can help reduce the management for larger crews or completely remove Talent training aspect of the game for captains who are not interested in this part of the crew management. The auto-train routine picks Talents that are not covered by the current crew and it is capable of making a workable mix of Talents throughout the game as your team continues to gain in levels.

The ability to Auto-Train by filter allows you to quickly hone in on who you want to train or not. You can mark a set of crew with gold stars and quickly filter for that and train them.

One limitation is that if an officer has Job levels that have not been spent, auto-train refuses to train their Talents. You'll need to train those Job levels. Finally, you can always Retrain Talents for a price.


If you want a crew that has more uniform outfits, you can now select a crew member and assign their outfit and accessory set to other crew members with the Auto-Assign feature. You can choose to assign this visual setup to all characters or all characters who share the job. So, it is now easy to set every male character to the red-coat pirate or to set all of your soldiers to the heavy armored outfit. This has been heavily requested, so enjoy tweaking your crew!


When considering the purchase of a Rank, Edict or Permit from a Contact, we have added the list of benefits for these items to the bottom of the offer screen. While the list is not exhaustive yet, it is a good step -- mentioning rules about Prize Ships, mission price bonuses, when you will lose Rank/Edict/Permit for losing Rep and exactly how much, etc. We'll keep adding to these as we go!

You can now play any of the card games by using the same keybinding hooked into "go" for navigate. The default is space -- so spacebar once to explore, spacebar again to reset the cards. Be careful, it is now way easier to play too quickly and get yourself in trouble! Spacebar! Spacebar! By the pit, was that 4 xeno cards? Spacebar!

We've done another round of improvements in ship encounters with Independents to further express the fact that you can't lose Rep with Indies. We're working our way through all the prompts that mention loss of Rep, and making sure that they are correct considering the faction.

- Added Auto-Train feature which trains Talents for all characters in the selected filter
- Added Auto-Assign Uniform feature which automatically sets uniform for all characters or all characters by job
- Wired Navigate keybinding (space) to Explore/Spy/Patrol/Blockade/Black Market card games go / reset
- Improved stats of AV28 LMG weapon sold by Contacts
- Improved encounter prompts when facing indies as there is no reputation loss with their disorganized faction
- Fixed bug where Basic / Adv Medicines were not being affected by Shortage and Surplus Rumors
- Fixed bug where Flight Academy Provosts were offering universal pardons
- Fixed story bugs related to order of operations in Erik Faen's story
- Added missing SFX in some card games

The update hiatus has ended and we are back! Expect a big week with some very exciting updates coming. With this update, we've introduced the 4th story Era -- the 3rd Century -- and are officially closing the v2.2.x family of development. Even more exciting news is that the 5th Era will be right on its heels, coming very soon with another wave of massive changes to the galaxy and the underlying simulations as well as major new story arcs.



Hundreds of years after the end of the Exodus, the Star Traders have settled into their new way. The hyperwarp gates have reunited the galaxy, a new coalition government is finding its footing, and things have settled ... as much as they may ever settle. During this century, technological and economic disparities between quadrants are slowly fading, old feuds are dying and new ones are being born. A new generation of gravs and Star Traders are setting the tone, born into a new era.

Continuing the concept of an ever evolving galaxy, we're now actively working to hook the progression of new ship components, hulls and weaponry to story Eras, and the 3rd Century Era will be the first to see a burst of new technological advancements. Coming soon to a starport near you!

A new story arc will start filtering into your captain's games -- the wrathful corsair Fredrieks. With multiple possible endings and unique story rewards, we're very exciting to keep expanding the story vignettes that help fill in the world, lore and galactic characters.

For both Contacts and System Atlas, we've now enabled filter-by-faction. These new filters will let you quickly hone in on a specific faction you want to interact with -- because of Rep or the latest Trade Permit you've picked up.

In addition, to reduce clicks, we've made the filter drop downs stay open as long as you are selecting options. If you off click on anything else, it will close.


A very special place in the hearts of all of our Templar Battleforce players, the Righteous Fallen orbital station has now received its own special art. It won't be long before stories begin to wrap themselves around this legendary battlecruiser turned orbital.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/370020/Templar_Battleforce/

- Added new story Era: 3rd Century becomes the ever-present Era after the Coalition
- 3rd Century Era defines new simulation rules and Contact actions/mutations
- Added new story arc: 'Wrathful Corsair' narrative, new unique story reward and multiple endings
- Added special art for Righteous Fallen orbital zone (from Templar Battleforce!)
- Added ship combat log entries for escape, range change and boarding
- Added filter-by-faction to Contact List and Star Atlas
- Filter drop down stays open when selecting filter options to save clicks -- off-click to close
- In Crew list, replaced "Ship Ops" filter with "Ship Crew" for clarity
- Landing zones properly display Law Type after Rumor modifications (Civil Unrest, Embargo)
- Added Trait mutation protection for certain Job-Trait crosses (Smugglers cannot be Rigidly Lawful)
- Fixed Tusken HMG weapon to have increased stats over the Raven HMG
- Fixed bug causing Loot Armory Gunner Talent not to properly repair ship weapons in victory
- Fixed bug with Righteous Profits Merchant Talent increase the price of goods purchased instead of reducing
- Fixed bug with some Signal Array components not appearing under Ops filter
- Fixed bug causing Signal Arrays to fail to give Intel bonus in Spying
- Fixed bug with Traits granting Doctor Skill and others, bonus not sticking around
- Fixed bug that would sometime create duplicate story contacts, such as Tuemette
- Fixed bug with filters when trying to select more than 5 criteria
- Fixed bug with Gestalt Technologist service not costing any credits
- Fixed bug where Crowned Smuggler Contact might die in the middle of their story
- Fixed bug with Prize Ship Talents causing crashes

Update #70 comes with new story, critical story fixes, a new tier of contact gear, as well as a huge set of balance improvements, quality of life fixes and overall fixes for the game. Before we get into the main of the update, we've got some news about a short break below.

Back with Update #62, we discussed taking a short break on updates for some travel. Instead of doing that, we got on a tear and crushed 8 updates in the last 21 days. But, after that May press with an update every 2.65 days, we are finally getting back to the break. We'll be an update hiatus for a little while, though we will be here to support. When we get back the regularly scheduled updates -- promise its going to be a big one!

Since the conflicts hotfix, Valencia Faen was failing to join crews. Someone named Edge Almaen was joining instead. This bug is now fixed -- Val is back for all future games. In addition, we've completed adding a new short story event for a proper stowaway.

Those Contacts selling gear have expanded their catalog to the 4th tier now, including some exciting new gear if you can afford them! A new tier of weapons and armor as well as new equipment art will be soon behind.



For ship combat, we've made some balance improvements to 2 AP Torpedoes, as well as some of the defensive components -- Armored Bulkheads and Deflectors Array.

To be sure we're working to communicate one of the best features of Star Traders: Frontiers, we've added the following bullet to the main's game description --

"Mold the crew by your choices: As you make decisions and set the tone for your ship, your crew will grow and change to match. Destroy enemy ships with all hands on deck and your crew will become more bloodthirsty and savage. Explore distant worlds and loot dangerous wastelands and your crew will become intrepid and clever ... or scarred and half-mad."

We've added even more Trait mutation paths with this update and fine tuned some of the possible mutations tied to crew combat.

Remember you can visit your Gestalt contacts to recondition away from many of the bad Traits that can result from lethal blows in combat. Go see those doctors!

If you enjoy the updates, please be sure to leave a review!

- Added new story event -- 'Stowaway Smuggler' narrative
- Fixed bug where instead of Valencia Faen you were recruiting Edge Almaen
- Contacts now offer a 4th service tier for gear
- Added 8 new types of level 4 gear for officers and captain
- Stash list now includes distance to stashes without having to set waypoint
- Improved Debuff from Pistoleer's Terrifying Accuracy Talent
- Fixed issues with Permits not being honored in Trade Alliance without 10 Rep
- Fixed bugs preventing Prize Ship Talents from working in Farfallen Rim
- Reduced Conflict Reputation loss for Trade War by 10%
- Fixes formatting bugs with Quadrant Map hovers
- Fixed some mutation bugs with Officers traits during Crew Combat
- Adjusted Trait Mutation results for "Searched" without negative results
- New Crew barks for Spice Addict, Loyal and Seedy
- Balancing adjustments for 2AP Torpedo damage and critical rate
- Balancing Adjustments for Armored Bulkheads, Deflector Array for install and zone
- Balancing Adjustments for Pilot/Nav Modules (Grade 3+) for component cost and zone
- Additional performance improvments

In the last update's performance fixes, we introduced a bug that is causing Conflicts to live forever. Years, decades, centuries -- forever. This bug is now fixed in today's Conflict Hotfix.

Also, we've taken some feedback from the community and adjusted the Assassins' Skill setup. We've reduced their Evasion Skill to get a nice bump to Blades to help with accuracy. This means that Assassins really have to rely on Stealth to duck and weave around enemy attacks, but that fits really well with their Job's concept.

With a continued focus on the approaching launch, we've added more performance upgrades and improved our bug reporting pipeline to help us find and fix crashes faster. We're working hard to reach 100% stable this-game-never-crashes territory soon. We're mostly already there but we're working to go that final mile.

- Reduced Assassin's Evasion Skill to gain better Blades Skill early in progression
- Crash Reporting Improvements
- Fixed bugs with Conflict duration
- Performance improvements (moar!)

With the Distinctive Services Update, we are coming around again to further deepen many of the game's core systems and concepts. This update sees the first truly limited services types -- valuable services you can only find on a few contact types. Also, as we work on wrapping up the v2.2.x family and introducing the next story Era, we are looking more and more often toward our launch priority list. Cory has completed a major round of performance optimization with this release, getting the (already fast) game to run faster and smoother.

The Gestalt Technologists have a storied history of employing cutting edge techniques, known only to the members of their order. This medical tradition is now capable of deploying a key new service -- Trait Conditioning. Using a combination of vat tech, genetic conditioning and other secret medical tech, Gestalt Technologist and Gestalt Explorer Contacts are now capable of purging certain Traits from your crew, for a pretty price.

Gestalt Conditioning can remove Battle Scarred, Combat Nerves, Crippled, Death Wish, Fatalistic, Flashbacks, Hyperwarp Sickness, Gravity Sickness or Weak System Traits.

If you're interested in learning more about the Gestalt beyond the story, check out the Lorebook:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hxev05ooli1rp37/Star%20Traders%20Frontiers%20Lore%20Book%20-%20Volume%201.pdf?dl=0



The United Coalition is in a unique and powerful position within the Star Traders society. If you have Commander and Emissary Contacts within the Coalition, they are now capable of brokering a pardon for you with any of the nine major factions. However, they can only go to bat for you one time with each faction. Once they've brokered a pardon with Cadar on your behalf, Cadar will not come to the table for a second time if you've wronged them again.

Notably, these two Contact types are primarily reachable through the Arbiter Brokstrom's Early Coalition Era storylines. So, if you're seeking forgiveness for your wrongs, consider working with the Arbiter to reach this valuable service.

The list of other improvements in Update #69 is long! A few highlights -- Assassins are far more recruitable as new Contact types are offering them. We've fixed a longstanding issue with Civil Unrest on the Faen homeworld -- it was the sneaky Aetaan Char all along!

We've made further improvements to ship encounter Rep system by adding more contextually sensitive messages around Rep loss or gain for Indies, xeno and factions.

For those player who might have struggled with Valencia's mission where she needs you to gather Explosives in the early game, we've downgraded the requirement to Crystals, but in larger numbers.

Finally, the Officer Consult pipeline has gotten a nice overhaul in this release. It is now capable of provide much more advice on any given screen, willing to give out generic advice about your ship and crew condition anywhere. We've also added new consultations about the first deserter from your ship and what to consider when promoting new officers.

If you are enjoying the stream of updates, please leave a review!

- Gestalt Technologist and Explorer Contacts can now remove certain Traits (Crippled, Battle-Scarred, Gravity Sickness, etc) with Trait Conditioning Service
- United Coalition Commanders and Emissaries (see Arbiter storyline) can now grant Universal Pardons -- one time pardon with any faction
- Court Assassin, Weapons Dealer and Blade Dancer Contacts now recruit Assassins
- Stopped Aetaan Char AI from creating 'Civil Unrest' on Calagan's Zone in the early game
- Improved Rep warnings in ship encounter to mention Indies don't keep Rep and fighting xeno grants Rep bonuses
- Added more story scenes for failing missions within the Faen arcs
- Changed Valencia storyline stash mission from Explosives to Crystals
- Added officer consult that triggers when first crew member deserts your ship to explain rules
- Added new consult about promoting officers and the things to consider when picking from crew
- Improved Officer Consult system to provide more global advice across more screens
- Fixed odd combat behaviors and repeat turns caused by On Init Debuff Talents
- Improved some hat art for characters
- Major performance improvments!
- More accurate simulator outcomes and runtime optimizations

Across the great reaches of the void, hunters come for their prey. Chasing a bounty, a personal vendetta or for some other cause, interstellar distances are not enough to stop the grand game of cat and mouse. With Update #68, a new type of killer joins the ranks: the venerable Assassin. Employing the long honored tradition of the blade, poison and striking first, the Assassin is a front line, stealth killer.

If you love the big content and feature updates, please take a moment to leave a review!

Assassins fight from the front, using blade to deploy bleeding cuts, venomous poison and constant stream of stealth hits. This new Job employing blades opens up many new combinations with not only Swordsman and Zealot but also with every pistol wielding Job, as the Assassin-Spy and Assassin-Combat-Medic are highly feared combinations!

Assassin's primary tactic for entering Stealth Mode is to lob a debuffing Smoke Bomb at the enemy front rank and disappear. It's a great new ability and again -- combines well with other Jobs like Spy.

Assassins come with 2 Boarding Victory Talents -- one that kills a standard crew and a rank 15 Talent that kills an enemy officer outright! If there is no officer to stand in the way, the Captain takes a mighty hit.

With the Assassin we've added our 26th Job to Star Traders: Frontiers. You can train your officers in the Assassin Job or recruit these deadly fighters from any Contact who has the "Uses Assassins" Trait. Some memorable story characters like Russ Axeil and Aetaan Char start with this Trait as well.



In addition to the new Assassin Job, we've added and fixed a lot of things in Update #68. We've improved a set of crew Traits that were lacking in exciting features. We've fixed issues with Contacts appearing out of their Era and are hard at work on buffing the Captain's log with more entries for important events.

With every update, we're working toward wrapping up the next major dev milestone and polishing the game for release! Thank you for your support, sharing the game and for leaving a review!

- Added new specialist Job: Assassin! Frontline, stealth, poison and blades!
- 11 new Talents, many new combinations for Blade Skilled combatants, new Stealth Talents
- Assassin's Smoke Bomb attack debuffs enemies and engages Stealth
- New level 15 Boarding Talent kills officer or may kill Captain
- Beware Assassins -- they've already joined enemy teams!
- Contact Trait "Assassins" can now recruit Assassins
- Grenade attacks now use best Skill for accuracy (blades, pistols, rifles)
- Improved Traits: Ex-Military, Headstrong, Magnetic, Hardened Presence
- Fixed issue where Signature Jammer was firing on a -1 Rep Loss but had no effect
- Fixed orbital ops components listed as type "ERROR"
- Fixed bugs with Sniper's boarding victory Talent
- Fixed issues with Coalition contacts appearing outside of proper Era
- Added Captain Log entry for Buying Pardon, New Introductions
- Fixed multi-star filtering in Crew Combat Selection
- Fixed bugs with pinning detail panels and mousewheel scrolling