Update #268 roars into summer with a new and challenging story vignette, Fractured Factions, a much needed fix to type-locked Launch Bays and new card art for orbital ops. The newest storyline will join any existing game after the Coalition has formed and is started by a Contact "Felix Slayer Na'Zee." As always, we want to give a shout out to all of our Kickstarter backers who gave us so many great ideas for stories over the years.

If you're enjoying the new content, please take a moment to leave a review, post some feedback and tell a friend.

Development on our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, proceeds apace. We’re currently working toward the private alpha test for Kickstarter backers, following the same process we used for Star Traders: Frontiers. But you can view the latest updates on the CKF Steam page (make sure you’ve wishlisted and followed!), or join us for behind-the-scenes discussion and development snapshots in our Discord.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


The looming maw of faction politics awaits you in the "Fractured Factions" story vignette. Keep an eye out for the Contact Felix Slayer Na'Zee who will meet you at the starport when landing at a Cadar world. We won't include any more spoilers here, but through the multiple endings, you stand to make powerful enemies, allies, and gain access to multiple powerful ship components and/or a unique crew weapon. As the quadrants have reunited, the balance of power is in constant shift ...

Update #267 included a bug that type-locked all launch bays and made it impossible to replace them with any other type of component. This was an unintentional change due to some updates made for the growing modding community and drastically changes the landscape of ship and hull design. We've rolled this bug back and now Launch Bays can be swapped out once again.


With Update #268 we've added 7 new pieces of card art to help increase the visible readability of orbital ops. When you play enough of the ops games, its extremely helpful to just be able to see the card art and grok the hand, so these new cards -- for 3 tiers of ship and crew danger and and updated mission success card -- all improve the pace of play as well as the consistency of look in a very large set of cards.

We've fixed a lingering bug with Sort by Job not working when conscripting enemy crew. Also, the Blade Dancer's Talent "Ritualized Retreat" was previously not dubbed a "Smuggle" Talent and now it is correctly marked.

- Added new story vignette "Fractured Faction" starting on Cadar worlds with Felix Slayer Na'Zee
- Get tangled up in a web of deadly faction politics
- Multiple possible unique story Ship Components unlocked by story -- top tier new lance weaponry
- Story includes new high powered Contact type, so called "Ex-Naval Commander"
- Story includes chance to earn a new high powered level 11 blade
- Added 7 new orbital ops card art for missions, and 3 tiers of ship and crew dangers
- Fixed issue with all Launch Bays being type-locked as of 3.1.67
- Fixed "Sort by Job" not working when conscripting enemy crew
- Fixed label on Blade Dancer Talent "Ritualized Retreat" to market it as a smuggling Talent

Summer has slowed our pace of updates down a little bit but still, the updates must flow. Update #267 improves Saboteur's highest level Talent, ensures that the captain's log always includes key details about story-added ship components, improves combat logging for mid-combat repair Talents, and finally hides hidden Trait bonuses from the character list effect summary. Along with a heap of community requested tweaks and fixes, it also has some important items for the modding creator community who continues to put together some really exciting stuff in advance of the upcoming full launch of mods for Star Traders: Frontiers.

Speaking of moar, better, faster -- if word hasn't trickled down from the tippity top of the New Boston spires, leaked below the streets and drip-drip-dripped into your safehouse, we're here to tell you about our upcoming turn-based cyberpunk heist RPG. Cyber Knights: Flashpoint will be coming to Steam in 2022 and mixes stealth, hacking and tactical combat with deep RPG elements and a unique heist system for missions. The wishlist button is calling your name, Knight.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210?snr=1_2108_9__2107?utm_source=steam&utm_campaign=stfupdate


Saboteur's powerful rank 15 Talent is the rare exception that allows you to always damage the enemy void engine. It's powerful but when we set it up, we included one major balancing requirement -- that the Void Engine have 0% Damage. Thanks to helpful feedback from the community, we've eased this restriction back to 25%. The 0% rule was preventing the Talent from being used in all sorts of cases and making it hard to mix and match ship weapons and boarding and the Talent successfully as a glancing hit would do 6% Damage to the Engine and tank your opening boarding strategy.

Saboteur on!

There are many different storylines that result in special ship components and craft being added to the starports, and most often faction-specific starports. These are explained in dialog, but that can be too easy to miss and so with this update we've ensured that whenever you encounter one of these story events, it always writes a clear and concise captain's log entry that includes the key details -- the component name, slot size, type and faction, if it is limited.

Those ship combat Talents like the Mechanic's "Rushed Patches" that effect mid-combat repair now include the full list of repaired components in the ship combat log. This helps cut down any detective work you might have been doing to figure out what exactly was repaired by 28%!


The awesome new effect summary on each crew roster entry had one flaw -- it could be used to reveal hidden Traits as it was including their bonuses. We've now resolved this issue and hidden Traits are now longer factored into the summary.


Your Bridge, Engine and Hyperwarp Drive are all type-locked components. This means you can't replace them with a component of any other type. To help reinforce this, we've added the type-locked icon to more screens -- the ship preview and component replacement screens. This is helpful as we've also granted the ability for modders to type-lock anything they want on any ship in this update, so for mods that perhaps force hangar bays, weapon slots, explorer slots or cargo slots on ships, this extra reinforced display will be critical.

And more of course! We have resolved an issue where crew conscripted from United Coalition ships had no Traits. There were a few Talents that stated they could "reroll any card" which has been fixed to "reroll any risk card." You will no longer lose Templar Rep for one of the steps in the middle of the "Avengent Down" story mission. The gear "Falcon Reticle" now correctly buffs Ranged Accuracy instead of Melee.

When it arrives (as the modder update lags a bit for extra testing), it will contain a number of nice improvements for our beta creators. In the utility bucket, the main menu now includes a "MODS ENABLED" badge that can help you be sure when you're running the modded version. We've also added a "Self Test" button to the main menu which will run some of our automated tests on your database, checking to make sure all the images and components load.

In the feature bucket, we've enabled the use of data.ShipDataCompartment.typeLocked field to type-lock any component on any ship. This opens up a whole world of exciting possibilities to really change the use-case for a ship. With type-locking you can force a ship to be carrier, or an orbital operations focused boat or a gunship with 6 guns. The AI will also adhere to these rules.

Finally, to help with graphical mods each mod can now include its own sprite sheet that overrides the baseline sprite sheets. This allows modders to add new icons and images without having to compete of the same set of baseline sprite sheets or every worry about merges.

- Improved Saboteur's Engine Disruption to allow it to work if Engine is less than 25% damaged
- All story events that add ship components to starports clearly list Faction, component name and slot size in the captain's log
- Ship combat Talents that repair components mid-combat now report exact list of repaired components in log
- Effect Summary of all bonuses in crew roster no longer includes bonuses from unknown Traits
- Type locked ship components (hyperwarp, bridge, engine) are shown locked in ship upgrade screen
- Fixed issue where Conscripted United Coalition crew had no starting Traits
- Fixed description of "Mitigation Protocols" and "Unflinching Risk" to read "reroll any risk card"
- Fixed issues with Dissension/Consolidation not affecting all story dialog in Plague Era
- Fixed gear "Falcon Reticle" to correctly buff ranged accuracy
- Fixed Templar Rep loss during one step of mission "Avengent Down"
- Added "Kraesline Shards" and "Jyeeta Xeno Artifacts" to the wiki

For THE MODDERS
- Each mod can now provide its own uniquely named spritesheet to overload core game art
- Ship components can be locked by type using the data.ShipCompartment.typeLocked field

Last week, we opened the beta for mod creators, inviting them to come and check out the tools, get their feet wet and start creating. It has been a wild and wonderful week to see them in action and to learn about places where we can improve our support to really let their creativity run free in in the void.

While Update #266 is very much for our mod creators it also includes a very exciting -- and to be honest, a very risk -- starting profession! The Shock Trooper Captain has arrived and it is a rush. Living on the front line of every fight a snubber in hand. Hold on to your butts, here goes!

Development on our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, proceeds apace. We’re currently working toward the private alpha test for Kickstarter backers, following the same process we used for Star Traders: Frontiers. But you can view the latest updates on the CKF Steam page (make sure you’ve wishlisted and followed!), or join us for behind-the-scenes discussion and development snapshots in our Discord.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


A Shock Trooper has been toughened and trained by some faction military, prepared for deadly battle in the closest of quarters. Whatever profession or career these warriors seek, they are likely to do it from the front ranks.

Picking this profession as a new captain may be especially challenging, if you plan to fight in the traditional way of a Shock Trooper. Access to the Shock Trooper profession has been locked behind the "Heir Apparent" unlock, which you can gain by helping Valencia on Normal or higher Difficulty.

Equipped with a snubber and the Battle Proven Trait ("Often set to a single, resolute purpose, +2 Fortitude, +2 Resilience, +2 Initiative, +20% Debuff Resist, Morale never breaks in Crew Combat") and the Undisputed Boarder Trait ("Charging to battle even from the bridge of their ship, gains +20 Boarding, +1 Initiative and +5 Range Change in Ship Combat") the Shock Trooper captain is a force to be reckoned with.

Be sure to set your Attributes high Priority!


An exciting early selection of mods is already coalescing!

Last week we were excited to open the mod creators beta Steam group and have welcomed over 60 creators now to check out the tools, see what can be done and get their hands dirty. This flurry of activity has resulted in a list of places where we want to improve our support. But, as we are with updates for the mainline, we're jumping on updates for the modders during this beta process.

Rapid improvements are already arriving! :D

This 3.1.61 update for modding version of the game will arrive soon. When it does --

A new data.JobConfig table now enables full add / replace / remove for both jobs and starting professions. This data.JobConfig table also allows easy marking of which Jobs have faction affinity, so you can add more, remove or change these as well. The Jobs that are recruited by Contact Traits can now be modified through the data.ContactTrait table. And we've retooled the SFX priority system to ensure all the database fields are used -- Talent > Weapon > default.

We'll be posting more on this update in the mod creators beta Steam group if you are interested!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/335620/view/3067493264357330871

- Added new Shock Trooper profession, the hardened military operative
- New unique Traits for Shock Trooper profession
- Shock Trooper profession requires "Heir Apparent" unlock (protect Valencia, Normal difficulty)
- Minor improvements to sorting of ship combat Talents within range groups
- Fixed misprints with Hota-Cored Shells boarding talent

- Jobs and starting Professions now ready to be modded
- Faction affinity for Jobs now ready to be modded
- Jobs recruited by Contact Trait now ready to be modded
- Override SFX for ship weapon and crew weapons now ready to be modded

It has been a long road to get here, with modding interest for the game starting on the very first day of Early Access in 2017. We are excited to announce that after #265 updates, we are now inviting any mod creator who wants to get in, test out the tools and start creating mods to come aboard and get busy!

As of Update #265 we've finished the prep work for modding and released it in a beta branch for creators to pick up and try. If you want to give it a shot, join the modding creators beta group and we can't wait to see what you create.

Things have been rolling for less than 48 hours and we have over 30 creators already on the tools and the first working content mods are starting to appear. We've even had an enterprising community member step forward to write a Mod Manager (thanks @TheWelp!) to help us improve the tooling. The wikis is growing up quickly with more and more data and great examples coming online (thanks @phara0h!)

Ever dreamed of an Empty Slot component? Ever wanted a better Palace Interceptor? Just wanted more faction armbands for your characters? The modding community is in the kitchen and cooking up a galactic storm. We cannot wait to see what you create!


If you are a mod creator please join the modding creators beta group.

If you are a player interested in mods know that mods aren't far off and our amazing community is going to deliver -- as always!

Welcome all new captains! It is a big week here on the bridge with a 40% off discount, new update, new ship weapons, improved Rumors and Traits and word coming down from the officers that our private modding beta is about to open.

Speaking of new, new new -- if word hasn't trickled down from the tippity top of the New Boston spires, leaked below the streets and drip-drip-dripped into your safehouse, we're here to tell you about our upcoming turn-based cyberpunk heist RPG. Cyber Knights: Flashpoint will be coming to Steam in 2022 and mixes stealth, hacking and tactical combat with deep RPG elements and a unique heist system for missions. The wishlist button is calling your name, Knight.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210?snr=1_2108_9__2107


Update #265 includes a lot of behind-the-scenes changes that have prepped the game for modding. It has taken a lot of work, so please report any issues you see but it is very unlikely to appear in the base game. We are excited to open the private modding beta to interested mod creators who want to take a first crack at creating mods. If you're interested, please request to join the modding private beta Steam group

We cannot wait to see what you create!


With the last few updates, we've been rounding out the options for level 8 ship weapons in the game. Update #265 adds 2 more options, the M101 Tracker Cannon is a mean new 1 RP autocannon featuring high damage and high crippling hit chance, best for pummeling capital ships into bits at close range. The new Gargoyle Missile Battery clocks in at 3 RP and has higher Crippling Rate and Damage in trade for lower Radiation and Critical Hit rate.

Big ships can bring a lot to the table but with Update #265, we've slightly ticked up their fuel cost for combat encounters to offset some of their other many advantages.

A bevy of Rumor improvements are helping to keep Rumors interesting, dangerous or valueable even into the later game. The Starport Boosted Rumor is now more likely once the 3rd Century has started, helping you late game shopping sprees. The risk and fuel costs for some of the more localized orbital Rumors -- Ion Meteor Storm, Salvage Hive, Orbital Disaster -- have all increased which makes Salvaging an landing often on the same world a little more challenging. We've also reduced the boost that "Offworld Stash" Card was getting while Exploring under the Jyeeta Spoors Rumor, as it was showing up just too often.

The "First Infections" Rumor can no longer appear on Wild Zones!

For all Traits that boost bonuses at +10% in card games and post-combat (etc), we've clearly labeled them having a 30% maximum now. We also fixed a bug where the Crafty Trait was printing oodles of reports that crew members were using their Trait above the 30% maximum (just a printing error, not real).

- New level 8 Autocannon: M101 Tracker Cannon (1 RP, High Damage & Crippling Hit)
- New level 8 Missiles: Gargoyle Missile Battery (3 RP, High Damage & Crippling Hit)
- Increased spawn rate of "Starport Boosted" Rumor during 3rd Century
- Increased Fuel cost and Danger Boost for Ion Meteor Storm, Salvage Hive, Orbital Disaster
- Reduced too common "Offworld Stash" Card during Jyeeta Spoors Rumor
- Locating a new Rumor or Contact in the Spice Hall now grants an Experience Bonus
- Increased Combat Fuel Cost for M6000, M7000 and M8000 Ships
- Clarified rules for Traits Bandit, Vulture, Crafty, Sly, Terrifying -- all stack to max 30% bonus
- Fixed issue with Crafty Trait printing all crew members even though only 30% bonus was applied
- Fixed issue where an infected crew could cause "First Infections" Rumor on a Wild Zone
- Slight balance adjustments to Xeno Ship Engine Speed & Agility

Update #264 picks up one some of the work we've completed in the last month -- faction affinity jobs, auto-trainer improvements -- and carries each a little further toward perfection. We've got a new faction affinity Job for Javat, and improved auto-trainer ruleset for Wing jobs, up-balanced in-flight Wing combat Talents and a pile of community-driven fixes to boot.

Development on our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, proceeds apace. We’re currently working toward the private alpha test for Kickstarter backers, following the same process we used for Star Traders: Frontiers. But you can view the latest updates on the CKF Steam page (make sure you’ve wishlisted and followed!), or join us for behind-the-scenes discussion and development snapshots in our Discord.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


Update #264 swaps Javat's faction affinity from Scavengers (non-combat, Talent's don't rely on Attributes) to Exo-Scout (crew combat, Attributes at a premium) which is a big win for the clan. We've also included a little blip of text in every Job description that has a faction affinity so that players are aware from which faction the the best possible recruits will hail.


Recently we made some major improvements to the auto-trainer routine to handle Skill saving Talents better, ensuring your crew has a baseline count before considering other Talents. With Update #264, we've taken a similar approach to Wing Jobs -- Leader, Bomber and Commando -- to ensure that these Jobs put a training priority on launch Talents. Without such launch Talents, they cannot fly a craft and are overall dead weight on any crew. So now, when auto-training, characters with these jobs will ensure a baseline of such Talents before considering other options.


The cooldowns for 3 more of the in-flight Wing Talents have come down to 1 week from 3 weeks. These Talents -- "Synchronized Strikes", "Vanguard Scan" and "Bolstering Fly-By" -- now all join "Protective Escort" at the 1 week cooldown level. This reduced cooldown window gives an additional advantage to craft pilots who have a high cost (must launch!) to use these buffs in the first place. They're more readily available than any other type of ship combat Talent.

It's a nice -- if minor -- balance upgrade for craft. We're continuing to work on small and steady improvements to the overall meta of combat.

For many players, finishing the Jyeeta Brood Era has resulted in a hanging quest log about the "Death of a Brood". For all future captains who pass through the ending storyline as of Update #264, this should no longer be an issue and nicely cleaned up. For those captains who already went through the Era, if you still have the hanging quest log, select it, pick actions and then dismiss mission.

We fixed the Contact Trait "Covert Ops" which was not really forcing Contacts to always buy Intel. Now they do! We also fixed the description for the Salvage card "Influence Boost" which was claiming it gave too much Influence -- it really gives +10-20.

- Changed Javat's faction affinity Job from Scavenger to Exo-Scout
- Added faction affinity bonuses to all Job descriptions to match Steel Song
- Auto-Train for Wing Jobs now puts priority on Launch Talents
- In-flight Wing Leader and Wing Bomber Talents "Synchronized Strikes", "Vanguard Scan" and "Bolstering Fly-By" reduced to 1 week cooldown
- Fixed issue with Contact Trait "Covert Ops" not correctly offering option to buy Intel
- Fixed formatting issues on Star Atlas (Water-Fuel, etc) on lower resolutions
- Fixed card description for "Boosted Influence" in Salvage orbital ops (10-20 Influence boost)
- Fixed issue with quest objective "Death of a Brood" sticking around after end of Jyeeta Brood Era

When Andrew and I released Star Traders: Frontiers, it was a new pinnacle in the years of work we’d put into the Star Traders games already. We’d delivered on our promises to more than a thousand backers on Kickstarter, gotten recognition from Steam as one of the best games from Early Access that year, and had seen so much fan and new player enthusiasm that we knew we’d be able to keep the game growing for years to come.

And we have: over 250 updates of new free content, game improvements, and story expansions to our space sim sandbox RPG. We’ve burned through an incredible number of milestones from our development roadmap, doubling or tripling almost every kind of content in the game, introducing new game mechanics, all while keeping the game balanced and as bug-free as possible across all platforms.

If we’re trumpeting how much work we’ve done here, it’s because we want it to come across just as notably how much of content and improvements we’ve made have been driven by ideas and feedback from you, the players. In reviews, forum posts, discord brainstorming, and Twitch chat, you all have made it clear that you love this universe as much as we do, and enjoy adding to it as much as you do sailing through it.

Now, we’re coming up on the end of our previously announced roadmap for Star Traders. This is not the end of new content from us for the game by any means, simply the completion of what we’ve already promised to add to the game.

We’ve always been very upfront about our ability to keep adding to our games depending on keeping a tight focus & staying in-scope. Now with these last milestones wrapping, we’ve been able to consider what larger-scale changes outside of the scope of the last roadmap we want to give you.

Given how much of what we’ve added to the game has been driven by you already, and knowing it’s a small fraction of the ideas, possibilities, and personal passions you all have for the game, we think the choice is an obvious one: we’re going to add mod support to Star Traders: Frontiers.



This means:

1. A basic save-game editor all players will be able to use to customize their personal playthroughs. Want everything unlocked? Done. Wish that officer had more Fortitude? Buff away! Want to try max level? Change difficulty mid-playthrough? Remove that one annoying trait? Check, check, and check.
   
2. Steam Workshop tools for uploading & downloading mods, and a separately-installable build of the game so you can switch between vanilla Star Traders and modded Star Traders.
   
3. Officially-supported access & documentation to the game database for mod creation.

Work has already begun, and we expect to release these tools later this year. If you are a modder who would like to be among the first to get access to our mod creation tools, please fill out this form.


As long-time fans of the studio will know, we’ve loved the idea of mod support for quite a while. The challenge has always been having both the development capacity and the playerbase scale to make adding mods viable and worthwhile. As we’ve grown, we felt confident enough to promise we’d add mod support to Cyber Knights: Flashpoint since the Kickstarter. With this announcement though, it turns out Star Traders: Frontiers will be the first Trese Brothers game have full-fledged mod support.

One of the things we value most in our games is replayability. As a studio, we would much rather create one game you want to play for the next ten years than sell ten games you’re done with after a few months. It’s an extremely high mark to hit in our novelty-driven world, but we’re excited about the potential for mods to even further extend the lifespan and replayability of these games so many of you are already so passionate about.

We can’t wait to see what you all will create. If you’re a modder, or an artist or a programmer interested in getting into modding, remember to let us know if you’d like to potentially get early access to these tools. For all our players and fans who want to simply stay in the loop, contribute ideas, or let us hear your enthusiasm 🤞 for the news, our Discord community is open to you.

Update #263 delivers on some new and devastating railgun platforms to round out the weapon set at level 8, a huge heap of card art for the Salvage, Explorer, Blockade, Spy and Patrol, a new card for the aggressive orbital ops and new enemy carrier AIs in some big, powerful carrier ships.

Speaking of new, new new -- if word hasn't trickled down from the tippity top of the New Boston spires, leaked below the streets and drip-drip-dripped into your safehouse, we're here to tell you about our upcoming turn-based cyberpunk heist RPG. Cyber Knights: Flashpoint will be coming to Steam in 2022 and mixes stealth, hacking and tactical combat with deep RPG elements and a unique heist system for missions. The wishlist button is calling your name, Knight.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210?snr=1_2108_9__2107

We've added 2 new Railguns to round out the class for the late-game. These powerful, level 8 weapons platforms are story-sensitive, just like all of the level 8 weapons, and are not released until the end of the Consolidation or Dissension Eras. However, when they do arrive on the starport shop floor, they are worth a look! The Demon-X Heavy Rail hits with a high Crippling Rate and best-in-class Damage and for a medium weapon it requires a mighty 4 Reactor Points. The Demon-X Fast Rail only demands 3 RP from your void engine in trade for a downgrade in Damage, Craft Hit %, and Crippling Rate it still is a powerful contender as the only level 8 Railgun that can be railed off at 3 RP. Be sure


We've added a new negative card for the aggressive orbital operations -- Blockade and Spy -- which can result in loss of Reputation with the local faction. This card mirrors the result you can gain in Patrol for supporting the faction and gaining Rep. It is a great one to knock out with Talents if you're looking to do your work quietly. Looking at you, intergalactic spies.

We've also improved and replaced a ton of visuals across the card set in both Explorer and the entire orbital ops group -- Patrol, Blockade, Spy and Salvage. The new card sets make the game easier to read without checking as much text -- you can now see a large weapon or gear icon when you've got valuable loot appearing in Salvage, etc.


With this update, we've finished the testing and analysis of two new high challenge level faction carriers -- the Javat Mortifor and the De Valtos Dreadnought Battlecarrier. The second is especially kitted out for battle, so beware of De Valtos Bounty Hunters sailing the stars in such a mighty vessel. Or maybe you're also kitted out for battle and you might be looking for that peak Salvage price tag or -- if you're really into making money -- using a Prize Ship Talent to bring that Dreadnought home in one piece and under your banner.

Either way, make sure you're defenses, autocannons or your own craft are primed if you run into either of these in the late-game.

The cost to maintain early Class 1 and Class 2 small craft has been reduced with this update. Running a carrier is not a cheap operation, but for those getting their new carriers off the ground in the mid-game, it just got a little more reasonable.

- New level 8 Railgun: Demon-X Heavy Rail (4AP, High Crippling Hit & Damage)
- New level 8 Railgun: Demon-X Fast Rail (3AP, High Critical Hit & Void)
- New "Reputation Loss" Card introduced for Spy and Blockade
- Added "Mortifor Carrier" Javat Military Officer AI
- Added "Dreadnought Battlecarrier" De Valtos Bounty Hunter AI
- Improved card visuals for Orbital Ops (Spy, Blockade, Patrol, Salvage)
- Improved and revised visuals for Exploration
- Improved visuals for several Orbital Cards, such as "Reputation Bonus"
- Reduced Maintenance Cost for Class 1 and Class 2 Small Craft

Update #262 bundles up a lot of meta changes that we've been in the pipe for some time as we finish testing and analysis of the improvements. #262 includes ship Crippling Effect improvements, new economic angles and demand, new enemy AI and ship combinations and finally new tweaks to high and low mass Chaser engines.

We're excited to keep improving and expanding Star Traders: Frontiers and hope you'll help us do so by sharing the game with a friend and leaving a review.

Development on our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, proceeds apace. We’re currently working toward the private alpha test for Kickstarter backers, following the same process we used for Star Traders: Frontiers. But you can view the latest updates on the CKF Steam page (make sure you’ve wishlisted and followed!), or join us for behind-the-scenes discussion and development snapshots in our Discord.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


With Update #262, we've tuned some of the classic ship crippling effects coming from powerful weapons, paying special attention to their % chance to appear for the class. As one of the rarer sets, Missiles have gained powerful bonuses to their unique effects. Crew Stunned (coming from Missiles) has gained a -1 Reactor penalty. Secondary Explosions (coming from Missiles and craft Rockets) has gained 10 Component Damage per Turn. Radiation Wash (coming from Railguns, Lances, Plasma Cannons) has split its 20 Morale Damage into 10 Crew Damage and 10 Crew Morale loss per turn.


Another meta analysis and improvement we've completed with this update is to specific economic resources and increasing their demand across the galactic Exchanges, in some cases opening up new trade route possibilities and in others simply growing the roaring yell for moar moar moar of a certain product.

• Demand for Iridlaentine has simply grown much stronger in the places where they've already called for it.
  
• Narcotic Spice is now more readily supplied by Farming worlds
  
• To feed the small but important local agriculture on Population and Luxury Population worlds, there is now demand for both Fertilizer and Pesticides
  
• Industrial worlds supply more Terraforming Components while Tradeways no longer provide these key manufactured components

As new ships are brought online in the game, we always give the player-base a chance to test them out before we build AI around them. It's a cautious move to ensure captains are not killed unfairly until we've seen the ships in action. With this release, we're catching up a bit and have added 5 new enemy captain AI's in specialized ships and factions, bringing out the Lockwood Defender for Rychart Military Officers all the way down to the Larimar Battlecruiser (yikes!) for Cadar Bounty Hunters.

In our quest to perfect the balance of ship's engines, we've reduced the Safety Rating on two engine groups with Update #262 -- the M9000 Dual Field and all Chaser engines at the M6000 class and above. We've also bumped the M2400 Chaser Engine's safety to 10.

And, as always -- a big thanks to everyone in the community posting feedback, feature requests and bugs. We've fixed a number of typos, minor display bugs and issues this week include a issue where Ship victory Talents boost the wrong Conflict!

- Rebalanced Secondary Explosions, Radiation Wash and Crew Stunned Crippling Ship Effects
- Added new galactic demand for Fertilizers and Pesticides
- Added new galactic production for Narcotic Spice
- Increased industrial supply for Terraforming Components
- Increased galactic demand for Iridlaentine
- Added "Lockwood Defender" Rychart Military Officer AI
- Added "Neutiquam Cruiser" Steel Song Smuggler AI
- Added "Tempus Freighter" De Valtos Merchant AI
- Added "Vark Carrier" Zenrin Pirate AI
- Added "Larimar Battlecruiser" Cadar Bounty Hunter AI
- Fixed issue where Ship Victory Conflict Talents could misidentify the Conflict they boosted
- Reduced Safety Rating on M9000 Balanced and Dual Field Engines
- Reduced Safety Rating on M6000+ Chaser Void Engines

Update #261 comes in with a new ultra heavy Mass 9000 ship launching to the stars paired with two new M9000 battle hyperwarp drives and a M9000 Dual-Field Void Engine. What a package! We've also rounded out the faction affinities set with 4 new affinities for Thulun, De Valtos, Javat and Moklumnue. Update #261 brings a few tweaks to combat Talents that will help negative Bleed Res be featured in more strategies as well as adjusting the Jyeeta craft weaponry (watch out, bombers incoming!) to ensure their bombers and interdictors are hitting with the right punch.

It's a big one with a lot of new content, so enjoy it! If you're liking the steady stream of free updates and expansions, be sure to tell a friend and leave a review.

Speaking of new, new, new-new: if word hasn't trickled down from the tippity top of the New Boston spires, leaked below the streets and drip-drip-dripped into your safehouse, we're here to tell you about our upcoming turn-based cyberpunk heist RPG. Cyber Knights: Flashpoint coming to Steam which mixes stealth, hacking and tactical combat with deep RPG elements and a unique heist system for missions. The wishlist button is calling your name, Knight.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210?snr=1_2108_9__2107

De Valtos has released its entry into the Mass 9000 class of ships in classically De Valtos style -- with great pomp, Mass, and circumstance! The mighty Dreadnought Battlecarrier is a 9000 Mass ship sporting 2500 Hull (exceeding Sword BC by 400), 135 Base Fuel (average in class), a crew/officer max of 42/7, 6 max craft and 12 Small / 12 Medium and 8 Large (best in class) components. Outfitted as a super carrier the price tag is very De Valtos as well at $3,981,250.

A new entry in the Mass 9000 class is sure to shake up the meta of those captain's stepping onto the bridge of the largest ships in the game during the mid-to-late game. The Dreadnought is spec'd out for ships that want more Large slot components, including launch bays or super-class weapon systems like the Obliterator Plasma Cannons, Buster Arrays or the most powerful Gravcannons.


The M9000 Dual-Field Void Engine extends this well-loved line of engines up to the highest mass class of any ship. Bringing a balance approach to engine statistics along with a much lower Mass requirement, the M9000 Dual-Field adds 12 Jump Cost but burns off 650 Mass. All for a pretty price of about $1.4m credits this new engine can help free up mass on a large scale ship to be spent on other priorities.

The Combat and Warhammer Hyperwarp Drives each add PIlot bonus to their profile along with significant Armor (3 and 7) and Jump Cost (40 and 50). Trading up into one of these drives can help reduce the need to dedicate other components to armor for a ship designed more for battle than for long range travel. If you're shopping for Drives, be sure to check "Any Faction" in the ship component filters so you'll spot the Warhammer Drive only sold by Thulun and the M9000 Performance Drive only sold by Moklumnue (which has been in the game a while).


In the last few updates, we've been loading up each faction with exciting affinities that result in the best possible Attribute bonuses when a certain Job is recruited from their spice hall or Contacts. We've now completed the set, hitting a few very core Job notes in the process. Each faction affinity is listed in the new game faction list screen under their special rules. These faction affinities grant an extra bonus on top of any existing Attribute bonuses that you are getting from Traits, Talents, zone stats, Era, recruit level, etc.

• Diplomats from Thulun
  
• Scavengers from Javat
  
• Swordsman from De Valtos
  
• Merchants from Moklumnue (could it be any other way!?)

There is no bonus during the new game process (if your captain starts as a Thulun Diplomat, for example).

With Update #261 we've tweaked the balance of three talents -- Shock Trooper's "Deepstrike Grenade" and Blade Dancer's "Thousand Cut Dance" and "Squall of Blades" to add negative Bleed Resistance. Apply negative Bleed Res can increase existing Bleeds, which helps set up more synergistic strategies for the Talents. Hitting them with both a Bleed and negative Bleed Res can spike Bleeding damage as high as possible. In the case of Deepstrike Grenade, this addition was swapped in for the -2 Init penalty.


We found and fixed a bug that was interjected into the set of Jyeeta craft at some point after their release. The Interdictor ended up with the higher power bomb and the bomber with a lower power rocket. This has now been fixed and will make attacking Jyeeta Interdictors less of a threat but definitely increases the threat from Jyeeta Bombers. Be sure to have your craft mitigation strategy firmly in place before flying headlong into the maw of the Jyeeta Brood!

- New Ship: Dreadnought Battlecarrier (De Valtos, 9000M Ultra-Heavy Battlecarrier)
- New Engine: M9000 Dual-Field ($1.1M Credits)
- Rebalanced M9000 Combat and Warhammer Hyperwarp Drives
- Added 4 new faction affinities for recruits
- Scavengers recruited from Javat spice halls or Contacts gain additional bonus Attributes
- Merchants recruited from Moklumnue spice halls or Contacts gain additional bonus Attributes
- Diplomats recruited from Thulun spice halls or Contacts gain additional bonus Attributes
- Swordsman recruited from De Valtos spice halls or Contacts gain additional bonus Attributes
- Rebalanced Deepstrike Grenade: Removed -2 Init Penalty, Added -5 Bleed Res Debuff
- Added Bleed Res Debuff to Blade Dancer Talents Thousand Cut Dance, Squall of Blades
- Improved HUD ship/crew refresh to avoid any caching issues during operation card games
- Fixed weapon mix-up in Jyeeta bombers and interdictors -- watch out, bombers now hit harder
- Fixed tooltip on shuttle's Electronics to be clear it adds to Boarding Chance %
- Fixed misnamed Dragoon Injector