Update #106 rolls out a terrifying new class of missions, exciting tweaks to the Reputation rules when fighting Pirates and Smugglers and 2 new unlockable starting Contacts.

While we've been working on this update, we're also nearly done with the major Orbital Salvage expansion from the v2.4.x family of the roadmap. It's heading into testing and gold plating next week and should not be long before it and the new Scavenger Job drop!

We're thankful to our awesome community for continued suggestions and feedback. If you're enjoying our approach to game dev, please be sure to tell a friend and leave a review.


To hunt the xeno is to court death itself, or it has been said. With Update #106, we've rolled out a new class of missions -- those going directly after xeno ships and spores on the ground. These missions are high risk and high reward and are offered by Retired Xeno Hunters and any Contact with a Trait in the following dubious list: Xeno Hunter, Cult Leader or Researcher.

Be sure to check your weapons lockers, repair your ship, and upgrade your torpedoes before taking on such missions. The pay may be good, but death always wants a second date.

For those captain types seen as enemies by the local faction who is in control of the quadrant -- Smugglers and Pirates -- you can now gain Reputation with the local faction for defeating them in ship combat. Therefore, defeating Rychart Pirate in a Cadar quadrant will earn you a Reputation bonus with Cadar. The faction in control of the space appreciates your striking back against criminal elements working in their void, even if their faction who the Pirates and Smugglers pledge loyalty to do not.

Patrol is the act of defending a system against aggressive enemy ships, chasing down pirates and catching smugglers. The act of Patrolling to catch Pirates and Smugglers just got a little better -- if you fight all the way to victory. These same bonuses are applied to enemy ships defeated in Patrol, Blockade, Spying and even Missions if the conditions are met (foreign pirate / smuggler).


Two more of the unlocks have now been filled in with exciting rewards -- starting Contacts who can recruit out Spies and Military Officers. The FDF Commander and Ex-Spy are perfect Contacts for certain professions and playstyles looking to pick up experts in these areas quickly. Thanks @Seswatha and @JimmysTheBestCop for making these specific suggestions.

With this release, we've tweaked the Doctor Job -- which is not a close combat specialist -- to increase the Initiative on their single crew combat heal Talent to 10. We've also fixed a class of story bugs causing some duplicate events and fixed a edge case that was preventing passenger pick up missions from accepting and allowing you to sequence multiple passenger missions.

- Defeating a Pirate or Smuggler who does not match the Quadrant Faction grants a small Reputation bonus with the Quadrant's Faction
- Added 2 new missions to hunt xeno ships or xeno crew combat -- high risk, high reward
- Retired Xeno Hunter Contact now offers xeno hunting missions
- Any Contact with Xeno Hunter, Cult Leader or Researcher Traits may offer xeno hunting missions
- Achievement "Covert Operative" now unlocks starting Contact Ex-Spy, who recruits Spies
- Achievement "Call of the Strong" now unlocks starting Contact FDF Commander, who recruits Military Officers
- New unlockable starting Contacts increase options for new games
- Increased Doctor's "Field Surgery" Talent initiative cost to 10
- Fixed story bugs causing occasional duplication of something (two boss fights, etc)
- Fixing edge case where passenger mission would incorrect refuse to accept due to lack of cabins
- Fixed click patterns that could cause Black Market screen to freeze

Chatter in the hall grows quiet as a new update walks in. It's been a few days because we are ripping up things to support the new Orbital Salvage systems, Rumors, Jobs and Talents. But -- the new update has arrived with UI updates, balance rework, bug fixes, recolored ships and more!

Update #105 delivers on the second half of the starport UI rework released in Update #101. In the first step of replacing a component in the starport, you can now see your entire ship's status -- Skill Pools, Engine stats, weapons-by-range -- along with the entire component set. Due to popular demand, we've switched the upgrade selection to start with the grid of components with the option to switch to the list -- just click the one you want to swap!


The same ship detail available when replacing a component is now available for your dry docked ships as well. Now, even if you can't launch a ship or are examining a ship from a distance, you can see its entire detail stack and all the stats as if you had launched the ship. Notably, this can be misleading, because you may have some Skill Pools that won't work if your crew is too large to fit on the ship, but you can see all the stats and components in exhaustive detail anyway.

A long list of pre-combat and combat victory Talents had their cool downs extended to 6 weeks in this update, pushing more Talents out of the 3 week cool down window. While this may be painful for some builds, this balance helps align these Talents with the rest of the abilities in the game and to force a better pace of Talent use, or push captains to stack more of the same Jobs and Talents if they are truly Talents you want to use constantly (Unauthorized Access, Treat Wounded, etc).

Of course, there is more! The random Ship Encounter card that is rated -1 will no longer turn up a xeno ship in orbital ops. Be careful, the -4 card (Powerful Ship) still does! Also, when you're looking at buying Rare Trade Goods from a Contact, the exact places where those goods are in demand is now listed in the offer. And we fixed a host of other small bugs and issues - always improving!

- From dry dock, view a ship's status to see its components as well as its statistics if your crew were to board (even if not feasible)
- Rebuilt starport upgrade screen to pick which component to upgrade -- now allows grid or list view
- Starport upgrade pick list also includes full ship status including Skills and weapon ranges
- Fixed issues with Mission option to rely on local Contact's Influence to complete step
- Display of officer bonuses matches crew detail screen: "Value [Final Value]"
- Increased cool down to 6 weeks for some combat and post-combat Talent: Solace in Battle, Treat Wounded, Unrivaled Patch, Dredge Artifacts, Face the Terror, Call to Arms, Rushed Patches, Calming Speech, Unauthorized Access
- Xeno ships no longer appear from the -1 "Ship Encounter" card in orbital ops
- Added list of zones where Rare Trade Goods are in demand to Contact's offer
- Fixed inconsistency between Contact Introduction offer and final price
- Switched Tiberian Highliner to use Javat colors (green and gold)
- Fixed issues with Crippling Grenade Attack descriptions
- Fixed Crew Combat debuff icons that were missing
- Fixed bug with swapping Mass reducing component not updating Mass always
- Fixed story and UI bugs

Update #104 follows closely behind its predecessor due to the need for a hotfix, but also contains a very important functional change and therefore -- has received its own number!

Some of the work we were doing in new game introduced a crash if you deselected or deleted a Template. This is now resolved -- our apologies.

We've made some modifications to the hostility thresholds for Merchants and Smugglers. Now, regardless of any circumstances (Blockading, your own villainy and bad reputation, Trade Wars, etc) neither captain type will ever forcibly remove the Retreat option and force a fight. Merchants will offer Bribes at more hostility levels and Smugglers -- disinterested in searching anyone's ship -- will not accept Surrender but instead prefer Retreat.

Thanks to all the players suggesting improvements across the board, reporting bugs and helping us make Star Traders: Frontiers better daily!

- Fixes crashes in New Game / Template Management
- The 'delete' function for Templates fixed
- Rules changes based on player feedback regarding Merchant and Smuggler Ship Combat AI
- Merchants now prefer Bribes, offer Retreat option at all hosiltities
- Smugglers no longer accept Surrender, but offer Retreat option instead
- No matter the player's Reputation, Merchants/Smugglers no longer force combat

To cap off this weekend, we've returned to a few of the features we added throughout the Early Access process and worked on adding the bells and whistles they didn't get on their first pass. We've also fixed the last reported Arbiter Estelle bug, tweaked the balance of Blockading and finding Contacts, improved the stats of the story officer Elsa and differentiated two closely related types of Talents.

If you enjoy the updates, please tell a friend and leave a review!


The values required to bribe enemy captains and that you can extort from captains in the void now scale up with their ship captain's level. These values are already affected by captain type and faction, but now are modified by scaled by captain level and ship mass. Notably, large ships give less tribute and small ships require less bribe. While these values still have a pretty low cap, they do now increase throughout the game and have more dramatic stacking increases as the factors all work together.

Unlocks are typically earned on either Normal or Hard, but many players are using Custom Difficulty with a mix of settings. The difficulty checker for Unlocks is now aware of Custom Difficulty and can detect "Normal or harder" and "Hard or harder" so that you can now earn Unlocks from your Custom Difficulty. Just be sure not to make any aspect of the game easier than these difficulty's default values.

Between loads of your saved game, your ship now remembers its landing zone. This will enable the Land button in the HUD and also allow you to land on that zone without any fuel cost, landing save or any other hindrance. It is a small bit of plating, but caps off the landing zone feature in a very nice way.

You may have encountered an issue where Estelle refused to accept one of the missions she had given you. This was due to returning after the eras related to her storyline started moving forward. We've now fixed the issue so that there is no invisible cut-off -- she is willing to accept these completed missions regardless of the timeline.


We've made a needed distinction between "Landing" Talents and "At Port" Talents. Landing Talents are those Talents like Orderly Drop that help you reach a faction holding safely, perhaps faster or with less fuel. At Port Talents are those like Generous in Service or Port Maintenance that fire once per arrival in a starport. It is important to separate the two categories (which were both previously called "Landing") as one of each can fire per landing and arrival in port (which happens at the same instant in the game)

- Bribe and Tribute values scale by enemy level, mass of enemy ship, captain type, faction
- Achievements and Unlocks recognize when Custom Difficulty qualifies for Normal/Hard/etc
- Current landing zone is remembered between different loads of a saved game
- Fixed story bug preventing Arbiter from accepting story quests once the Coalition era moves ahead
- Less likely to draw Learn Contact card during Blockade orbital ops
- Learning a Contact during Blockade will most often learn a foreign Contact (not local faction)
- Improved story officer Elsa Nariman's Attributes for future hires to improve combat Initiate and viability
- Improved type label on Talents that fire "At Port" such as Generous Service and Port Maintenance versus "Landing" which help land the ship safely or efficiently
- Improved click and hover scheme in New Game > New Template
- Fixed starting/ending event lists entries for Faen Duel being flipped

Update #102 releases a slew of new components to increase ship design flexibility, a new Javat-only ship, a small set of fixes to the new starport filters, and a lovely package of bug fixes and quality of life improvements. Here at Trese Brothers HQ, we are hard at work on the first major dev roadmap item, hammering away on all the exciting Orbital Rumors and Salvage opportunities. It will feel good to burn down the first item from the new roadmap!


Javat's first faction-specific ship takes to the stars! The Tiberian Highliner is a heavily shielded transport ship with a large crew and long travel range. Fitted with passenger cabins and prison cells, the Tiberian functions as a long distance cruiser for Clan Javat.

As with all Faction-specific ships, the Tiberian Highliner requires at least Military Rank 4 to purchase.

With Update #102, we've added 2 new small size options to increase your cargo or fuel capacity. In conjunction with an increase of cargo capacity for both Storage Hold and Storage Cache, those captains looking for extra flexibility in ways to use small slot cargo or squeeze a little more cargo or fuel capacity into their ship have an expanded set of options.

We've also added Reinforced Barracks 4 option, which brings both Shield and Armor to the table and rebalanced the Jump Cost penalties for all Reinforced Barracks.


Following the last major update to the starport, we've improved a few of the default filtering and sorting rules. Those components that are faction-specific to your local faction now appear without any need to change the filtering. We've also modified the faction sort routine to place faction-specific items first and not last.


We continue to focus on the big items, but make time each week to work on the little items as well. To make map seed sharing easier and faster, we've added a copy seed button to each captain's description when you're picking a captain to load. We've done some work to improve and focus the descriptions of each starting profession and improved screen elements and how they are scaled on larger screens.

Finally, we're always looking to add any illogical Trait combinations to the exclusion tables. Thanks to the players who sent in a few of these -- they have been cut out for future possible mutations.

- New 7000 Mass Clan Javat Ship: Tiberia Highliner
- Added new 'Reinforced Barracks 4' medium size component
- Added new 'Cargo-Fuel Pod' small size component
- Added new 'Reinforced Fuel Pod' small size component
- Added button to copy map seed when looking at list of saved games
- By default local Faction-specific components appear in upgrade list without setting any filters
- Flipped Faction sort for component upgrades -- Faction-specific come first
- Fixed story bugs related to Zette's boss fight and Faen court
- Improved exclusion rules withing Crew Trait mutation to avoid additional odd combos
- Improved profession descriptions in new game
- Improved game scaling for large screens
- Reduced price of 'Cargo Hold 5' by 20%
- Increased cargo storage of medium size 'Storage Hold' component by 25%
- Increased cargo storage of small size 'Storage Cache' component by 50%
- Balanced Jump Cost penalties for Reinforced Barracks

Update #101 is a massive package of upgrades, new filters, balance changes, Talent improvements, story fixes and more! This one is clearing the decks as we prep to tackle the first big roadmap item of our dev roadmap. Get ready -- there is a lot more coming.

If you're enjoying the relentless pace of updates -- please tell a friend and leave a review! For anyone who has seen the famous "Enormous Floating Space Hat" -- that is also now fixed!


This update has focused our UI improvements on the second screen of the upgrade shopping experience -- the one where you pick the new component to install. We've rebuilt the filter set to be more expressive, allow picking multiple filter criteria, to be faction aware, and to allow you to see components that cannot be locally installed.

The "96/105 Shown" field at the top also keeps an up-to-date count of how many components you can see and how many are hidden -- which is especially helpful when it comes to shopping beyond your local starport. With the "Ignore Mins" filter, you can look at all components regardless of their starport / military / economy requirements.


Components that are faction-specific now feature a faction flag hanging over their icon while shopping. You can use the faction filter to look for specific faction's upgrades, as well as the Any Faction filter to show upgrades from every faction, even if they aren't available for install.


If you're using the Ignore Mins filter, you can now spot components that can't be installed with the label in their bottom right, listing out the specific conditions that they fail to meet.

The next UI improvement in this set of screens will focus on the first screen -- picking the component from your ship that you want to replace. So, more upgrades coming, stay tuned.

A lot of important rebalancing work has gone into Update #101. Thanks to a great player suggestion, the Bounty Hunter's Blood Game now works for boarding from range 1-3 even without a Mission. Also, Bladesman Rally is no longer a self-Talent but keeps its awesome AoE ability. Stealth Armors from weapon lockers have all been improved moderately, and the prices of high level weapons and armor from Contacts has been increased.

When selling Intel to a Contact, we've tweaked the balance of Rep gained. Specifically, if you have negative Rep with the faction, it is harder to dig yourself out of a hole by selling Intel.


We've added 2 new filters and a new sort option to your Contact list based directly off player requests. First up, filter by Trait Conditioning, which only snags Gestalt at the moment, but soon will have a few more options. Second, you can now cut through the chafe by filtering to only see Contacts with whom you have a negative or positive Personal Reputation. This means, any Contacts you've had no engagement with will get cut from the list. This helps you focus on your core crew quickly. Finally, sort by Influence to help you see who is most powerful or weakest in the bunch. Also, if you are working with a Contact who sells Rare Trade Goods, the cool down (if any) for their ability to sell more goods is now shown in the Contact List, so you can check it from a distance.

Finally, we've fixed 4 big story bugs -- Erik Faen telling lies, Zette Faen missing her mission bonus, a repeatable fight in Erik Faen's storyline and issues with 1 of 3 possible ending to Nikolai's storyline not activating his achievement.

- Improved filter and sort in Starport upgrade screen where you shop for new component
- Now apply multiple filters, filter by range, filter by faction, sort by range etc
- Now able to set filter to ignore faction holding ratings -- see even components you cannot install locally
- Now able to set filter to show other factions -- see even components you cannot install locally
- Faction flags now hang over component icons when offered for sale
- Next round of improvements coming for Starport upgrade screen where you pick which component to replace
- Hyperwarp Navigators are now recruitable based on Spice Rating (5+) instead of Economy
- Bounty Hunter "Blood Game" Talent can now be used to board from ranges 1-3 without a mission; ranges 4-5 still require Mission
- Added new Contact List filter that only shows Contacts with a relationship (positive or negative Personal Rep)
- Added new Contact List filter for Contacts with Trait Conditioning services
- Added new Contact List sort option to sort by high Influence
- Added cool down timing for Rare Trade Goods to Contact List > Detail so you can check from a distance
- Improved balance of Stealth armors from Weapons Lockers
- Increased prices of Contact-sold Weapons and Armor, rebalanced L6 Sniper
- Changed Swordsman "Bladesman Rally" Talent to not be self-only, keeps AoE, Init cost increased to 6
- Selling Intel to Contacts with negative faction Rep results in less Rep gain
- Improved story for end of Erik Faen's arc, now directly impacts Conflict
- Prevented Signature Jammer Talent from firing in cases of 1 Rep loss where it cannot mitigate
- Improved Enemy Ship builder AI to build better Palace Interceptor, Vindex and Bolt Liners
- Fixed story bug causing Erik Faen to make claims about Val's fate that were not always true
- Fixed story bug potentially causing repeat story fights in Erik Faen's questline
- Fixed story bug preventing Zette Faen from giving higher bonus for final mission as negotiated
- Fixed story bug preventing achievement from unlocking in one of 3 Nikolai story endings
- Fixed issue with Palace Interceptor having the wrong size Engine
- Fixed bug causing some Contact recruits, such as Spies, to recruit 1 level lower than expected
- Fixed story bugs with Contacts incorrectly appearing as indie
- Fixed bug Enormous Space Hat floating on screen occasionally

Update #100 feels like a big milestone to cross! We wanted to make sure this update was extra special and so took our time over the weekend to pack it full of new content, new visuals, new components, new fixes and more. What better way to celebrate than more hats!

Thanks to everyone who is helping us share the game -- by telling a friend or leaving a review.

Update #100 is celebrated with a new Rychart creation -- a feathered tricorn hat! Matched the redmoon glasses or a more traditional pirate's eyepatch, your crew and officers have a trove of new options for their looks.

Your ship's Hyperwarp Drive is one of the link components that you can't remove or swap out for another type. With this update, we've introduced a new set of HW Drives that are armored and prepared for battle. While their Jump cost in Fuel is the highest yet, these drives can help create unique ship builds that are short-ranged but focused on combat.

We also took the liberty to rename some of the Hyperwarp Drives and some other ship components as well to make their names more clear. For example, Reinforced Officer Suties has been renamed Shielded Officer Suites for clarity of effect.

As the ship component catalog grows, more and more of the new additions are going to slot under different faction specialties. We've added 5 new ship components this release -- including those from Javat, Moklumnue, Zenrin, Cadar and Alta Mesa.

An upcoming set of improvements to the filtering and sorting capabilities of the starport upgrade screen will make these far easier to find in a very near term update.

We've completed a project to further differentiate the Interceptor class ships based on discussions we've had with players which revealed that they were too similar to each other. The Palace Interceptor remains an unlockable starting ship and is now focused on Medium Sized components. The Corsair Interceptor's Engine has been upgraded and focuses on Small Size components that make it better suited to carry a variety of weapons.


Many thanks to our players for continuing to suggest improvements to the game! We're happy to deliver :D Update #100 includes new display in crew combat showing the primary Job of every character as well as highlighting Captains and Officers from among the crowd.

We fixed all known bugs with different map seeds! Thanks to everyone reporting issues with Aetaan Char being indie or the first mission being 8 jumps away! We also improved the Plague Era by ensuring that medical supplies can always be sold during the unique Rumors of that time.

- Added new hat type -- feathered tricorn
- Added new glasses -- redmoon glass
- Added 7 new battle-ready combat-focused Hyperwarp Drives
- New Clan Alta Mesa ship component 'Reinforced Fuel Tank'
- New Clan Zenrin ship component 'Armored Officer Suites'
- New Cadar Syndicate ship component 'Battle Prow 4'
- New Clan Javat ship component 'Hull Plating 4'
- New Clan Moklumnue ship component 'Cargo Hold 5'
- Reworked 'Palace Interceptor' and 'Corsair Interceptor' ship designs
- Improved naming of Hyperwarp Drive ship components
- Crew combat character display now includes primary job as well as indicator for Officers / Captains
- During Plague Era, if any plague rumor is in effect, all medical cargo types can always be sold regardless of Trade Law
- Improved Legality displays for Stash screens
- Fixed bugs with certain map seeds creating Aetaan Char as indie, first mission 8 jumps or your ship starting randomly floating in the void
- Fixed issue where Ransom Talents like Honorable Release were not going into cooldown
- Fixed issues with Mission Accept causing doubled missions
- Prevented overlaps of combat floating status text (Morale, HP, Stunned!)
- Fixed issues with very large tooltips going off the edge of the screen
- Fixed hanging dialog from Tuko Malgin when you did not accept his mission offer
- Fixed issues with Demand Tribute, tribute bonuses and repeating Tributes
- Renamed 'Reinforced Officer Suites' to 'Shielded Officer Suites' for less confusion

Update #99 welcomes the weekend with a big burst of new improvements, balances and tightening up in some of the major storylines.

With this update, we've added another benefit to high level military Ranks within the faction. At Rank 13+, you now get a bonus +1 level to any recruit from a Contact, pushing the maximum recruit level to 9 or even up to 13 with the right Rumors and Contact Traits.

We've also made some changes to the Attribute matrix for zone ratings, roughly adding a +10% boost for those zones with higher ratings.

If you were having any issues with Mac UI scaling, we've now enabled the UI Scaling in the options menu. You should able to use this to resolve any issues you were having. We're looking forward to hearing feedback from the Mac crew on this new option!

We're always excited to add awesome features suggested by the community here on Steam. We've added cargo legality directly to the buy / sell / cargo and stash screens to make it really clear where all the goods stand. Thanks
@Phasmaphobic for the great suggestion.


We've made 4 big improvements across heavily played areas of storylines to help smooth out issues, improve communication of the world and lore and to help reduce things that just were confusing. First up -- the Early Coalition Era is about 25% longer, giving you more time to work with the Arbiter or take care of other storylines appearing there. During the Plague Era, you'll now find Arbiter Brokstrom more responsive. The Crowned Smuggler story got a sizeable overhaul with new deadlines shown for every story objective, improved entries in the captain's log and also improved fail alerts -- if you fail to deliver on the crowning planning, the Smuggler/Fixer will talk to you about it instead of oddly cold-shouldering. Finally, we added a number of additional lines of dialog to the end of the Faen case to ensure that its resolution and timing are clearer to all players.

- Military Rank 13+ now grants additional +1 bonus level to any recruit from a Contact
- Increased Recruit attribute rolls by around 10% depending on Zone Ratings
- Added Legality value directly to 4th column in Exchange
- Increased the duration of the Early Coalition Era by 25%
- Improved Arbiter Brokstrom's reaction to Plague Era, she now provides Introduction to Chaesin effort
- Improved Crowned Smuggler story vignette to have clear story deadlines as well as being clear when it has failed
- Improved and clarified story explanation of Faen case ending in Erik and Valencia storylines
- Corrected description for 4 crew combat Talents that always removed all enemy buffs, but did not list it (Plas-Charge Slugs, Damning Aim, Terrifying Accuracy, Bullet Trace)
- Fixed issues with Contact Influence overflowing above 100
- Plague Rumors now have greater impacts on effected Contacts
- Fixed issues with Coalition Contact titles ("Coalition Coalition")
- Fixed captains log > score not perfectly counting every crew fight
- Improved consistency of clickable regions in zone services tray
- Fixed Screen Scaling support and improved fullscreen performance for Mac OS X

Update #98 brings a major rebalance to the Rare Trade Goods system, both expanding it and limiting. It also includes a second speed-play option, this one focusing on Explorer, Spying, Blockade, Patrol and Black Market card games. It's a big release with some major improvements for players at all levels. If you're enjoying the crazy pace of updates (didn't we just do this yesterday?) please tell a friend and leave a review!

Rare Trade Goods have been for some time, an unbalanced gold mine within the Contact structure. This update brings them back into the fold -- keep them exciting, some of the highest order of trading for a merchant or smuggler but also keep them more challenge and less of a run on the bank.

First, Rare Trade Goods now conform to the same ladder structure used by all of the other Contact services. The Rare Trade Goods ladder has 8 levels. As you climb this ladder of Influence and Effective Rep, you'll see the price for the goods decrease up to 20%. But more importantly, you'll be able to get more frequent repeat access to the supply for the Rare Trade Good. The new Rare Trade Goods system puts a cool down in place, in which a Contact can only sell you Rare Trade Goods so often, based on their own Influence and your Effective Rep.

Invest in a big cargo hold -- your Contacts will sell you large piles of Rare Trade Goods but then are unable to use you as a distributor again until the cool down expires.

In addition to rebuilding and balancing the purchase of Rare Trade Goods, we've improved their rules for selling. First, you simply cannot sell the Rare Trade Good back into its quadrant of origin. This is the only quadrant from which the RTG can be purchased which makes it the one supply house. So close to the supply, there is no demand and the cartel behind the RTG has ensured there is no buyer.

The farther you travel from the quadrant of origin, the better the Reputation and Influence rewards for selling RTG will be. The first two jumps give limited rewards but after that, the rewards just keep growing.

We know it is a big switch from what was previously there for Rare Trade Goods. We are excited to hear traders' sharing the feedback about the new system!


Following on Update #97's option to double the speed of map travel, we have introduced the option to double the speed of card game play. All the animations and delays are crunched down and with the option turned on, the play is extremely fast. The same warning that went with the double map travel speed applies here -- you can now play really fast, just don't play without looking to see if there are 3 xeno cards!!!

We're going to keep hammering this set of features, improving efficiency of play for our veteran captains! Combat is next.

With the recently rules allowing Black Markets on any world, regardless of Trade Law, we are opening the Contact list up a bit more with Update #98. Hunna Lieutenant contacts will always offer a Black Market, while Merchant and Weapons Dealer Contacts both join the ranks of those Contacts willing to offer Black Market access only if they have the Greedy, Corrupt or Underworld Trait.

Of course, we've also fixed a pile of bugs. We resolved 2 crew combat animation issues around pistols and throwing grenades or shooting a pistol while holding a blade. We fixed an issue where the weapons or Talents list in ship combat could become oddly stuck at times. The new Conflict events were flipped -- now they are properly aligned. And more -- check the full list below.

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

- Added new option for faster results / animation speed during minigames
- Rebuilt Rare Trade Goods Contact service and benefits of selling them
- Contacts can sell you Rare Trade Goods and then cannot sell again for a time; time is determined by Contact Influence and Rep
- As you climb the Rare Trade Goods ladder with Contacts, the price of Rare Trade Goods decreases and you can buy them more quickly
- Rare Trade Goods can no longer be sold in the quadrant from which they originate (where the Contact is)
- Selling Rare Trade Goods is more beneficial the farther away you are -- selling within 2 jumps has significantly less bonuses, where 3+ jumps the bonuses grow
- More Contacts offer Black Market - Hunna Lieutenant always offers as well as Merchants and Weapon Dealers with Corrupt, Greedy or Underworld Trait
- Updated description of Edict benefits -- Edict 3 or higher prevents inspection from enemy ship
- Improved Trait mutation rules to avoid Traits that do not work well together (Driven + Fearless)
- Fixed occassional freeze of Talents or Weapons list in ship combat
- Fixed animation issue with pistol occasionally disappearing after throwing grenade in crew combat
- Improved animation for firing a pistol while carrying an offhand blade in crew combat
- Fixed issue with Stash screen always setting waypoint to last Stash
- Fixed issues with event logs of Conflict start and end not matching up

Update #97 rolls out on a Monday afternoon with another one of the most hotly requested improvements since the game's launch in August. We've been hammering our way down the priority list and will continue to do so as we work to rolling out bigger story and feature bursts of the roadmap.

If you're enjoying seeing your feedback in the game and the pace of updates, please tell a friend and leave a review!


For veteran players looking to cover more space faster, the new travel speed doubles your rate of flying across the quadrant map. This new option took a while to complete, as a lot of optimization was required to keep the game and the underlying simulator running smoothly as turns tick past. While this option does allow you to play roughly twice as fast as before, it is probably not the best choice for new players or perhaps even in the early game for veteran players. As you move more quickly, the same number of events will be flashing by in the event screen, and it is easier to miss the need to reroute to a nearby system or change your plans as an accident on board leaves crew or ship components maimed. As it's an option -- the choice is yours.


The start and end of galactic conflicts and treaties will now appear in your event log as you travel, land or complete any activity that passes time. These new notifications can give improved visibility into the state of politics or a reminder of a new opportunity of which you should take advantage, or a vulnerable Contact that you need to protect. Hovering over the end of a Conflict notification includes the final score.

The enemy ship and captain builder has gained 3 new advanced AI types -- a Pirate that flies the Palace Interceptor, a Military Officer that flies the Cautela Titan and a Bounty Hunter who hunts in a Sword Battlecruiser. These advanced AI are flying deadly ships but appear in high difficulties and we have tuned their appearance on the time-based difficulty curve to line up with when players should be ready to face them. Veteran captains -- beware the factions who hunt you!

We've also fixed a pile of bugs in ship and crew combat, improved logging of use of the Doctor Life Saver's Talent and implemented the Flashbacks Trait. Flashbacks is especially bad -- the 25% Stun basically knocks the character out of crew combat viability immediately. If you have a character who suffers from this debilitating Trait, seek out a Gestalt Technologist who can use Gestalt trait conditioning to remove it.

- Added option for faster movement/animation speed during map travel
- Added Event Log notifications for start and end of Conflicts, improved Spice Hall News entries on Conflicts
- Added new Captain's Log entries for Doctor's Lifesaver Talent
- Added new Pirate AI that flies 'Palace Interceptor'
- Added new Military AI that flies 'Cautela Titan'
- Added new Bounty Hunter AI that flies 'Sword Battlecruiser'
- Fixed issues where both ships use Twitch Surge not giving chance to advance twice
- Fixed issues with Crew HP not being saved after specific crew combat situations
- Fixed issue with Turn 2 displaying as Turn 3 in crew combat
- Updated "Flashbacks" Crew Trait to always cause 25% Stun during crew combat (visit a Gestalt to cure)
- Fixed issues with some stories creating indie contacts or indie contacts offering rank/edict/permit
- Fixed issues with price displays in table for Shortage, Surplus and Tax Rumors
- Fixed crashes in new game with deleting maps