Update #81 drops with new art, new storyteller content and a set of deck-clearing bug fixes as we prepare for our next round of big feature updates.

We were surprised from day one of releasing Star Traders: Frontiers how often matching outfits have been requested. We've changed course for all future outfit art to ensure that there are matching outfits, and are working our way back through the catalog to provide matches for those that feel specifically like uniforms. We've dropped the first of these new outfits so that you can dress your entire crew with military precision if you please! More will be coming.


We are very excited to start the roll out of another creative KickStarter reward. Our backers who pledge at the "Join the Lore" level had the opportunity to share with us their favorite captains from the original Star Traders RPG ("classic"). These stories -- funny, cautionary, epic -- are now filtering into Star Traders: Frontiers through those among your crew with the StoryTeller Trait. We've added the first batch with this update, and if you are interested in soaking up more lore about the world, this will be an ongoing area of interest. This one ^^ is a big shout out to @dayan.


We want to send out a thank you to everyone watching and supporting Cory on our Twitch channel. With your support, we've funded the addition of a new contact character face -- the Grisled Explorer! We're working on a second now and it will be coming soon! Thanks for your support. If you want to see one of the devs playing and actually developing the game, join Cory every Tuesday and Thursday on Twitch!

- Added new matching female outfit -- uniformed crews now possible
- Added new Contact character face "Grisled Explorer" -- sponsored by our awesome Twitch team!
- Storytellers in the spice hall now tell more tales of legendary captains and world lore -- hover to see more lore
- First wave of KickStarter "Join the Lore" rewards loaded into storytellers' tales
- Fixed bug with plague missions not displaying the correct status in regards to medical / doctor
- Fixed bugs with Distress Signal orbital ops card -- cargo count and recruit oddities
- Fixed issues with Conflict Score during intel sales
- Fixed issues with Doctor services misreporting crew health

This weekend's update marks our 80th update during Early Access. We're averaging one update every 2.91 days for the life time of our EA. We've now knocked out two of the major features in the v2.3.x family and are gunning to knock out the rest without delay. That is to say -- we are battling our way toward the end of Early Access quickly now.

If you are enjoying your time in the frontier, please tell a friend, leave a review, help us share the game. We can offer more awesome updates in trade.


With all the new Rumors -- from Spice Festivals to Pox Outbreaks -- it was time to make sure they were more visible everywhere. This update now includes Rumors displayed on the map as first class citizens next to Missions and Contacts. If a system or any of its landing zones has a Rumor, the blue map marker will be displayed.

Also, if you know of a rumor in the zone or system to which a personal objective or mission is sending you, that Rumor's details will be displayed inline with the mission step.

Higher level xeno captain's have gained access to new cunning with this update via a secondary xeno AI to run ship combat. Also, these higher level captains now have access to new component upgrades including more powerful armor, ship boosters and weapons akin to gravity drivers, lance arrays and railguns. In addition, some xeno may now dedicate their ship build points to installing ship's engines similar to the profiles of Chaser or Traveler engines.

The newest Era is a big one with a lot of moving pieces. This update includes some needed balance to some of those systems as well as new hooks for interactions. We've improved the requirements for avoiding pox infections when running plague missions and tied this directly to the size of your crew. Smaller ships will have a lower requirement of Medical Rating and Doctor Skill while larger ships will need more dedicated medical personnel or equipment.

The Arbiter and any United Coalition contacts are stepping in to help, and all will now be offering missions to deliver medicines to affected faction holdings. We're working on some additional storyline around Arbiter Brokstrom, but this is a good start.

- Rumor icons now displayed on main map if there is a system or any zone rurmor
- Missions display any known zone or planet rumors when viewing steps to forewarn of potential issues or benefits
- Adjusted scaling on all ship art in combat to better represent ship's mass
- Improved Zone, Contact and Exchange rendering for Rumor Rules and Trade Law Adjustments
- Buffed Xeno Ships and fixed issues with Xeno difficulty
- New Xeno Ship AI, New Xeno Ship Components, New Xeno Ship Weapons
- Plague Era: Rewrote rules about avoiding infections during plague missions -- now based on Crew Count, Medical Rating, Doctor Skill
- Plague Era: United Coalition Contacts and Arbiter all offer medical delivery missions to help the sick during the era
- Plague Era: Rebalanced rate of Pox Infected Trait mutation and rate of causing First Infection Rumors on zones
- Plague Era: Fixed bugs with low payment on some plague-related missions
- Fixed issues with Xeno ships using Valiant Autocannons
- Fixed all reported crashes

Update #79 is a follow-up release to the newest Era but also contains another major milestone struck down from the v2.3.x family! We've also added 6 new rank 15 Talents and started the first improvements on a new round of changes to the starport upgrade screens.


First, we've raised the character level cap from 32 to 40 and the maximum job rank from 30 to 32 for all jobs. This allows your veteran captains, officers and crew to keep climbing in ability, even if there progression naturally slows as they become all the more elite in their task. This will probably not be the last time we raise the level cap, but as we have introduced more and more content into the game, it is the right time to crank the cap up to 40.

Of course, new max level cap should come with new high power Talents! We've introduced 6 new Talents with this release, each related to one of the card games -- Explore, Spy, Patrol, Blockade and Black Market Access. Each of these Talents gives you the ability to completely discard the 5 cards you've been dealt in the card game and get a fresh hand. This is especially perfect for your exploration runs when 2 Xeno cards come up and you can't face them, or if you have 100 illegal units of narcotic spice you are trying to get to the Black Market and two Confiscation cards are drawn.


We waited a few days to gather as much feedback as we could on the Plague Era before dropping this major update -- which contains a huge package of improvements, balances and new content for the 5th story era.

We've added a new mission type to the Chaesin list of offered missions -- one that sends your Captain straight to zones affected by Infections and Outbreaks with medical deliveries. We've also improved the description of all plague rumors to be more clear about the potential benefits of delivering medicine there. We've expanded the Rep bonuses to Outbreaks as well as Infection Rumors as well. Even more ways to benefit from the plague as a medical dispensary!

We fixed issues with Trait Mutation and bad text in the event logs and got any change to the plague score lodged in your Captain's Log so you can always check where you are at.


We've now added a visual designation to those components slots that are built into a hull's superstructure and cannot have their type changed. At the moment, this only includes the Void Engine, Bridge and Hyperwarp Drive but as we move into the next phase of ship design and launching fighters, this will become a more prevalent and common factor.

- Character level cap raised from 32 to 40 -- captain, officers and crew advance!
- All Job level caps raised from 30 to 32 -- additional skill points
- Added 6 new rank 15 Job Talents for Explorer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy, Zealot, Military Officer
- New Talents can reroll the entire hand of cards in Explore/Blockade/Patrol/Spy/Black Market
- Plague Era: new special mission type features delivery of medical supplies to Infected / Outbreak zones
- Plague Era: clarified Rumor descriptions, unless you stop them First Infection Rumors always become Outbreaks
- Plague Era: when Infection Rumor converts into Outbreak Rumor in Plague Era, new Rumor now immediately visible
- Plague Era: can also gain Reputation bonuses for 10+ deliveries of medicines to zones with Outbreak Rumor
- Plague Era: any change to the plague score is now recorded in your Captain's Log
- Plague Era: fixed bugs and typos with the Flighty Ex-Merc storyline
- Plague Era: fixed Trait Mutation issues and "ERROR" text, improved overall balance
- Bridge, Void Engine and Hyperwarp Drive components are now marked as linked-by-type, as they can only be replaced by the same type
- Fixed bug preventing some Spy/Patrol/Blockade missions to get stuck without option to go forward
- Fixed issues with opening subscreens on landing zone and odd click behavior
- Rebalanced Gunnery Skill requirement for early levels of Ship Missile Weapons
- Fixed bugs with Smuggler's Hideout Talent

- Fixed crashes in wild zone when loading missions, star atlas, rumors or factions list

A new era is dawning, but it is not a good one. We will keep the spoilers here to a reasonable minimum and let you discover all about MX11 through your captain's eyes. The specifics are in the release notes if you want them!

With this major new update, we've cracked into the v2.3.x family and knocked out the first of 5 big features. We're going to be following hot on this release with more big 2.3.x body blows and keep this process moving forward. Our Early Access plans indicate that we will be transitioning to launch during the v2.3.x period, so that is coming closer every day now.



With a scientific name like Syrgux-Tek or Mallor Eleven, you know it is not going to be pleasant. This new Era will pick up generally early during the 3rd Century, usually a few years after the end of the Early Coalition Era. And its a doozy.

The new era has all new simulation rules, 4 new unique Rumor types, special Traits that only appear during the era, 16 special types of missions, a bevy of small story vignettes and a major story arc to carry the era. It also features new abilities to break rumors through player action and to have a big impact on the trajectory of the era and exactly when it ends.

It's a challenging time on the frontier, but we are sure you are up to it!


With this update, we've also increased the quick cross reference capabilities of many of the game's screens. From within the Star Atlas, you can now see Missions and Contacts that are resident on the zones you are inspecting. From within the Contacts List, you can also see the summary of any Missions you are working on for that given contact. The Star Atlas has also become smarter about its buy/sell lists and the trade law it displays -- all now wired up to represent any known Rumors.

- Added 5th Story Era: the crimson pox!
- Join in the galactic effort to stop the plague's spread or raid and steal from those who are
- All new simulation rules, Rumors, Conflicts, and Contact actions/mutations during Plague Era
- Added 4 Era-specific Traits for the crimson pox, beware, your infected crew may become part of the problem!
- Added 4 Era-specific Rumors for the crimson pox as the plague spreads
- Added 16 special Mission types during the crimson pox era, medical supplies deliveries in high demand
- Added multiple small story vignettes across the plague Era
- Added special plague stories with Chaesin Doctors and Gestalt Technologists
- Fixed bugs making some options within Chasing Suspicion story mission inaccessible
- Fixed incorrect display of Contact Influence and Rep requirements for services due to Contact Traits
- Fixed Crew death log messages that were missing level and crew job
- Improved Star Atlas rendering for Rumor Rules, Trade Law and Trade Resources
- Improved Star Atlas with listing for Missions on the selected Zones/Planet
- Improved Star Atlas with listing for Zone Contact services (discounts, recruits, etc)
- Improved Contact List with new listing of Contact Missions
- Improve ship combat preamble rendering and fixed bugs in ship combat victory screens
- Fixed bugs with starting ship Stellar Falcon

This week's first update will be the last update in the v2.2.x family of the Early Access Roadmap. It contains one of the final big quality of life improvements we've been working on as well as a major batch of performance improvements. From here, we are sailing on straight into v2.3.x and then beyond! Prepare yourselves, captains!

Whenever a waypoint is set or you start moving, a line to your destination now appears, helping you see how far you have to go, exactly where you are going and exactly where you are. Thanks to everyone for the requests for this great feature. This new waypoint line also put us down a path to optimize the performance of the main game map, sailing, the simulation actions, tick rate and how quickly the game auto-saves your progress. It's all good stuff and its even more buttery smooth than before.


We are working on a slew of improvements to increase access to required data quickly. With this update, we've enabled all the rumor icons in system orbit and in the event log to hover with all of the rumor data. They are dense hovers, but they tell you everything you could possibly need to know about the rumor without having to open a subscreen. We've also added the any relevant missions to the Star Atlas when you're viewing a zone, making it easy to cross reference your asks as you browse the systems in your quad.


We're continuing to tune the balance, fix bugs and improve the descriptive text in ship encounters and victory. With this update, we've done another pass on Pirates, Indies and Xeno to additionally clarify the rules of the system and to help captains make the best informed decisions.

We've also added a new set of Trait mutations when destroying enemy ships. This especially heartless action will drive the people you surround yourself with to mirror your morality, gaining Traits like Menacing, Terrifying, Hardened Presence, Brute or Vulture. Additional new mutation paths to further shape your crew by your actions are coming.

- Added line on map that shows where the ship will navigate to next
- Improved turn processing performance, tick rate and game save speed
- Increased enemy captain AI intelligence when using movement / escape Talents
- Added useful tooltip over Rumors in your event log (bottom right)
- Added mission listings to the Star Atlas when a Zone is selected
- Added Personal Objective to point back to the Crowning Smuggler Contact for easier access
- Improved description in ship encounter and victory in regards to rules for Xeno, Independents and Pirates
- Improved Combat Victory handling of Independent Faction, fixed bugs with Water-Fuel counting
- Added new Trait Mutation path for destroying enemy ships, added a slew of new Crew barks
- Fixed bug with crew combat starting on turn 3
- Fixed bug with Gut the Leadership Boarding Talent
- Fixed Rumor list to always sort Eras to the top in Type/Distance
- Fixed mismatch between reported XP gained from xeno crew combat
- Fixed issue where Fading Conspiracy Personal Objective was incorrectly appearing

As we hone in on the end of the Early Access period, we're working hard to finish out the Talent sets for every Job. There are only a few left, and this release caps Explorer with a new rank 11 Talent and adds the first rank 11 Pilot Talent. In addition, we continuing to work on the carrier-and-fighters features here at Trese Brothers HQ, so we're making a number of additional ship combat balance changes in prepapration for that and 6 Talents have been tweaked or renamed.

Forward Thrusters came right out of of the community suggestion threads (thanks @drspendlove!) and is a great Talent for a captain who is ready to commit to battle. It must be used from range 5 and effectively nukes your ability to escape but imparts a long lasting buff as you commit to the battle. Tag the Beast represents the Explorer captain's long experience with Xeno and grants a powerful xeno-only debuff that can help you either survive or escape the alien. Look to your Explorers to help handle these fearsom foes!

Evasive Maneuvers, Bombardment, Raking Fire, Burner Skid have all had some rebalancing done with this release, most of them losing a small number of points to some of their effects in order to maintain the curve of combat Talents. As we move close to the carrier-and-fighter release, expect more tweaks in preparation for everything new!

With the new landing zone task bar now fully in use, we've received a number of additional bug reports. We've fixed everything reported with this release, including issues with Trait Mutation and the paying wages issue. We've improved the Dry Dock display and fixed a number of places across the game where a component could end up with over maximum 100% damage. Thanks to everyone sharing bugs -- we're knocking them out about as fast as they are coming in!



We hope you will take a moment during the Steam Spice Festival to leave a review, tell a friend about Star Traders: Frontiers or check out our other titles in the same universe. If you love the STF lore, don't miss Templar Battleforce which shows the galaxy from a completely different perspective. Lead an elite unit of mech pilots against the xeno in deadly close combat!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/370020/Templar_Battleforce/

- Added rank 11 Pilot Talent "Forward Thrusters" -- close range without purpose!
- Added rank 11 Explorer Talent "Tag the Beast" -- xeno-only Ship Combat Talent packs a powerful debuff
- Small balances to "Evasive Maneuvers", "Bombardment", "Raking Fire", "Burner Skid" Ship Combat Talents
- Flipped names of "Devastating Approach" (Pilot 8) and "Disabling Shot" (Pirate 11) to "Disabling Approach" and "Devastating Shot"
- Fixed bug where hyperwarp jumps and some other conditions were damaging components over 100%
- Fixed issues with dry dock ship list under ship status reporting incorrect distances
- Fixed issues with Pay Wages, trait mutations when using fast click
- Fixed all reported bugs with new landing zone task bar
- Performance optimization and improvements for map views (all OS)
- Fixed reported crashes and text formatting issues

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