Now that mod support is released, let’s talk about where it will (and could) go from here. The last week since modding launched has been exciting with a lot of interest, thousands of subscribers to mods and a great update to the core game to boot. Now -- let's look at the road ahead for modding.

Thanks to our dedicated modders in the private beta, some of the mod support capabilities you’re seeing today are even better than we expected.

• A mod manager that merges SQL allows multiple mods to be installed and work seamlessly with each other with many fewer potential conflicts and much less configuration than we might have released originally.
  
• Story modding became a v1 priority. Modders now have everything they need to add their own story vignettes to the game. While creating quality stories is no small task (welcome to our world 😅), we think the potential for player-created story mods filling the Star Traders universe is one of the most exciting aspects of adding modding to the game.

In addition to those big wins, we’re proud to have v1 offer a broad foundation for modding to begin with:

• Everything in the game database is replaceable, or can be added to. Ships, weapons, gear, talents... pretty much anything with stats. Modders can rebalance, simplify, power up, or add to any of these things.
  
• All binary files in the game directory are replaceable. Graphics, sound effects,
  
• An extensive set of documentation. Upfront: this may not mean complete, but we’ve gone through a huge amount of data fields to make it more clear what each does and what your options are as a modder for using them.

We want to be upfront about a few things that will not be possible with modding.

1) Hacking in crowd-sourced translation through modding. While modders are welcome to create mods in any language, or even to attempt to rewrite the portions of in-game text that are contained within the game database, we want to be that there is still too much inaccessible text through the mod kit to complete a successful translation of the game.

We know translation is a popular request, but we want to be very clear up front that modding does not answer that request. As we’ve noted elsewhere, we’ve learned a lot from this entire process, and our next game will be translated from the start.

2) We won’t be adding a scripting language for mods (though we may add some additional scripted triggers / effects for modders to use, ourselves). Star Traders: Frontiers is built on a custom engine, with a workflow heavily driven by data in the game database. While we’ve opened up the database, we can’t open up the engine, or provide a way for modders to hook in scripts without a far more extensive rebuild than we could handle with the mod kit at this date in the game's lifecycle.

However, we are listening daily to the modding community (and asking to!) to understand where there is interest for additional extensibility and hooks that can be used by the mod kit.

3) Modding Roadmap
As we have stated elsewhere -- we are continuing our work to update the base game, especially with some big upcoming story arcs and eras. At the same time, we have reserved some bandwidth to work closely with involved and interesting modding creators to expand the capabilities of the mod kit.

• Save editor: while the modded game databases be modified at will with simple tooling, we are still looking forward to creating a saved game editor that will allow you to execute certain sets of commands against your saved games.
  
• Improving documentation: the doc team never sleeps because there is always more to write down! Star Traders: Frontiers is a surprisingly huge and deep game (did you notice?) and so documenting every in and out of its data-driven structure is going to be a process that continues for a long time.
  
• Crowd-sourcing talent effects: some of the ready-to-play mods already make exciting tweaks to Jobs but we're looking forward to the first completely New Job mod to appear. To this end, we'll be holding a brainstorming within the mod community looking for new types of Talent effects and triggers that could help define new Jobs and allow modders to create truly unique new combinations for your crew and officers.

• Game Rule Control: while few rules are within reach of the mod kit today (maximum ship armor 75%) we will be working to move some of these -- those most interesting to the mod community -- into scope and play for mods over the next months.
  
• More Story Examples and Features: with the first story mod already published, we cannot wait to see more modder created storylines filling up the galaxy. As we continue to add story to the base game, we will be authoring these new storylines in the same that the modders can use, which will expand the base of examples to pull from. We're excited to work closely with any modder working on a stories as one of our top priorities to see this type of content expanding in the game and to work on building out features that specifically cater to their needs.
  
• Further authoring tool development: the modding community has already developed a pretty set of powerful authoring tools, some of which are publicly shared. Depending on the need and interest, we may further invest in helping the community make these tools easy to use and share for new modders coming on to the team.
  
• Card Control the mod kit does not include the contents and rules for card games today but if there is significant interest, this is a direction we could work to expand the kit.

Captains, I think you know by now that given unlimited time and resources we’d just keep adding to Star Traders: Frontiers until your scientist crew members were writing essays in their downtime pondering if they were merely living in a simulation and there were a real universe somewhere outside their perception...

Sadly, as we do not have the cheat codes to get unlimited time and resources, we do have to pick our battles. So:

We're loving the response to modding so far, with more and more mods continuing to be added and more players trying them out. Check out the game's Steam Workshop to browse the now 20+ mods available and being updated. Give those creators some love in the mod comments! More mods played and praised = more mods made and updated.

Want to become a modder yourself? Check out Creating Mods on the Star Traders Wiki, and join the Discord for help, modding requests & discussions, and a great community of Star Traders players.

We can't wait to see what you all create! The Star Traders question we've always asked before is: what kind of Captain do you want to be? Now we get to ask: Captains, what do you want in your universe?

Update #277 is full of exciting adds and accompanied by a pile of new mods coming out on the Steam Workshop as well. We've delivered on a longtime community request to decorate Mission listing with action icons, the galactic starports are now installing 4 new types of hybrid barracks, we've buffed Battle Prows and even tweaked the placement of the Skip All button in dialog for faster play. On the Steam Workshop and modding side, we've had thousands of players subscribe to mods and welcomed 10 new mods to the ready-to-play family.

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

Modding has been live for a week and we're excited to welcome
Have you ever dreamed of flying a xeno ship? Stalking the galaxy in a semi-organic, completely alien death cruiser? Or just wearing a really big hat? Then you must be Rychart! All joking aside, in this mod Shelgeroth Cultists of Rychart have unlocked the secrets to utilizing Xeno technology and now sell the xeno ships at their starports for a hefty sum.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2495203303&searchtext=

The mini-mod pack provides a easy to modify set of changes to the game and encourages players to pick and chose among them to get just the modded experience they want. It is already a big toolkit put together by @davea and @ptarth, two of the mod creator veterans from the mod beta. Check it out!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2586893280&searchtext=

The newest SFX overhaul provides awesome sound FX for crew combat weapons, ship weapons, character injuries and all other parts of ship combat. Boom boom!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2586103199&searchtext=


Mission step groups now include a full list of all the icons of the types of actions for their children. This gives you a quick way to look at a mission and know what is involved -- from crew to ship combat, from exploring to salvaging or intel, stash and cargo missions. The ability to pick and chose missions wisely -- and to do it quickly -- is way up with #277.

In addition, the icons also include a Passenger, Prisoner and Package "+" to indicate adding one and a "-" to indicate a drop off. This is a big help as well to plan out your routes for captains completing multiple missions and especially if your multiple passengers are competing for limited space.


Update #277 adds 4 new hybrid Barracks options as well as rebalancing the existing small slot Compact Barracks to be overall improved. The new medium slot Squad Barracks is a good way to get a few more crew capacity crossed with an officer bunk. The entire new series of Battle Barracks 1, 2 and 3 offer medium slot ways to keep a battle-trained and hardened crew at the ready, granting both additional Defense % and Boarding points.

For some of us, this is going to take some muscle memory retraining -- the Skip All button for Dialogs has moved to the bottom center of the screen to minimize needed mouse movement to reach it.

This update cleans up a few sneaky bugs with craft crashing during combat, certain ordering when destroyed by capital ship weapons and a number of other edge cases that were hard to reproduce. A huge thanks goes out to the captains who kept reporting and sharing details until we could finally hunt this down!

- Mission description now includes type icons for all segments (combats, op types, add/drop off passenger, etc)
- Baracks Components Update: 4 New Barracks Components, rebalancing Compact Barracks
- Added new medium slot "Squad Barracks" which provides a Cabin-Barracks hybrid
- Added new medium "Battle Barracks 3" with Defense and Boarding Bonuses
- Buffed Battle Prow Boarding Bonus, Added Minor Craft Defensive Buff
- Improved Spice Festival Rumor description
- Moved "Skip All" dialog button into middle center of screen
- Fixed sort order for craft to be more closely aligned with components
- Fixed issue with extreme hostility in ship encounter printing "ERROR"
- Fixed story issue where sometimes story mission could start twice
- Fixed a crash with Ship Combat with a type of Small Craft conflict
- Fixed reported typos from Forum and Discord
- Fixed crash issue with some hotkey combinations

With new mods coming online daily, we wanted to shine a big spotlight on some of the other awesome mods already available to play -- one that adds story content, one that removes complexity in ship builds and one that re-writes the default v1 map.

The modding creators have been working hard to bring their creations before the community. Be sure to tell them how much you appreciate their work, rate and share their mod!


This mod is the very first story mod for Star Traders: Frontiers, adding an entire new vignette introduced by Contact Valen Ducote. The Spy Pack isn't only a story mod, it also buffs spying and diplomatic abilities and Talents, adds a new Stealth Raptor ship and new spying components. The modder, @schrader, is a legend for the amount of work he put into creating this mod and helping us document and test story modding support during the private modding beta.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2578776840&searchtext=

This mod reduces complexity in ship build by completing removing the concept of Mass and therefore Mass Reducers from the game. With every ship component contributing only a small amount of Mass, the only thing you need to consider are your Small, Medium and Large slots and exactly how you'd like to set them up.

Note, this mod really needs to go last in your mod config or it can cause crashes when combined with other ship or component mods.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2492139496&searchtext=

The first mod that creates a customized map for players to enjoy, this mod revamps the original default v1 map. New jump routes have helped improve playability and travel within the original map.

After subscribing to the mod, you must delete any map_2.db file in your saved game folder, otherwise the mod changes will not take effect.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2498806096&searchtext=

After months of working closely with the mod community, Star Traders: Frontiers is opening our Steam Workshop for all to contribute and enjoy. After years of interest and requests from the community, we've been able to add modding to Star Traders: Frontiers just after its 3 year anniversary. We owe a great thanks to the 100+ creators who have already started working in the modding space and helped us write documentation, improve mod capabilities and test out the entire workshop kit.

One of the first things many of you will notice is the game now offers you a choice at launch, to play either ST:F or its moddable version. These two versions of the game will both receive the same updates, but will store saves separately. Additionally, the mod version of the game comes with all of the Unlocks automatically achieved, so you may decide to play this version of the game just for that.


The Steam Workshop is now open with some of the first mods created and tested during the modding beta. This first wave of mods covers a wide gamut -- from UI, to SFX to ship design and more. The creators are hanging out with us -- and the community -- in our Discord #stf_mods channel waiting for your feedback and ideas.

To check out these mods, the process is straightforward:

1. Visit the Steam Workshop, browse and pick some mods by clicking the green “Subscribe” button on the mod page. Your Steam client will download any subscribed mods. If you don't see the downloads queuing, then try restarting your Steam client (classic).
   
2. Select Star Traders: Frontiers within your Game Library and push the big green Play button. This will pop up a choice to play the regular version of the game or the moddable version of the game.
   
3. When you pick the mod version of the game, you'll see a very different main menu with your subscribed mods listed. Click "Activate" to enable any mod you'd like to include in your current game configuration.
   
4. Any time your mod configuration changes, you must restart the game.

We've worked for 4 months with the modding creator beta team to expand modding support and build out the needed documentation. With the first crop of mods now out and the Workshop going public, we know there is a lot more coming. There are multiple story mods for vignettes in the works -- some reportedly being released soon -- and a great frontier of new content that could be added including jobs, professions, story vignettes, eras, ships, outfits and more.

Join us in Discord or on the new Modding discussion board in Steam’s community hub to post up your ideas for mods, find like minded creators and get busy! The modding documentation for players and creators is homed on the wiki.


Merchant Marine: Fly Casual is a game rebalance mod that was inspired by Space Opera and Western tales, small ships with small crews up against the universe. But has since broadened to include a larger number of changes to base ST:F gameplay. The mod aims to increase the options players have, while fundamentally retaining the gameplay of ST:F.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2539177784

Dave's New Component mod lives up to its name, dropping a boat load of new and awesome ship components into the game, such as new officer cabins (Quartermaster's HQ and the Shrine of Shalun), cargo holds that reduce the Mass of your ship, and the Caterpillar engine which reduces both ship encounters and fuel use drastically. Not stopping at components, Dave has also included a new ship, the Habbanya Frigate, a 5000 mass ship with a unique layout and at a price that's difficult to resist.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2560635932

A classic cheat mod, the Instamax Mod rockets your crew to level 40 in a blink of an eye and sets the price of every ship in the game to $1. Play with a new level of freedom and power as you cruise the void with max max max!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2500463612

This mod moves around the Talents of the MIlitary Officer and Commander Jobs to help each better focus on a single thing -- the new Army Officer is a crew combat expert while the Naval Commander excels in ship to ship battle in the void.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2501902114

Currently 15 of the game's nearly 40 crew jobs provide special bonus traits to a Captain who starts with one of them. Now with the Doctor Profession mod, you have a new archetype to create your captains with. Envisioning a quippy Captain McCoy, a steely-smart Simon Tam, or ...why not Zoidberg? This mod gives you medical-minded captains a nice boost.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2567607837

While we've opened the door for modders to create in the endless reach of the void, this is far from the end of our own content for Star Traders: Frontiers. We'll be updating the public roadmap in the months to come and still have more story content and Eras planned.

If you enjoy the new features and capabilities still being added to the game without charge 3 years later, we hope you'll consider telling 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

- Enables mod support and Steam Workshop

Update #275 brings a major improvement to your quadrant map to make starred zones ever-visible as well as improving ship encounter messages, fixing an Explorer card, tweaking a ship price and making final preparation for the modding upgrade. Thanks, as always, to the community for making great suggestions on how to improve the game, reporting bugs and pointing out little places where we could put on a little more polish. We wouldn't have made it to Update #275 without such an amazing community gathered around the game, so many thanks!

The launch of Steam Workshop and full mod support is very close now. We're lucky to have had such an amazing crew of creators working on different improvements, adjustments and adds to the game. It's going to be awesome to see so many new things available to everyone on the first modding day!

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

If you use Stars on your zones, they now appear right on the quadrant map as you pan or sail around. This really helps brings stars into constant consideration, avoids the need to use the Atlas and can help you spot and remember zones you might have otherwise forgotten. My captains are already grumbling about needing more colors!

Update #275 is more specific about the Depart messages in ship encounters for Merchants, Smugglers and Explorers, removing vague warnings about losing Reputation in the cases when that is not a possible result. We've also improved the text on the explorer card "Wild Revelations" and increase the number of crew who can possibly gain XP. The price on the Neutiquam Cruiser had to be increase a few hundred grand and finally we clarified some text in new game Templates around who can use gear (some crew!)

While we've got a really nice update here, there is a lot more work going on behind the scenes to finalize the mod support in each of these updates. If you're enjoying the pace of updates, be sure to tell a friend and leave a review!

- Zone stars now appear on the quadrant map when sailing the void
- Improved depart messages from ship encounters for Merchants, Smugglers and Explorers
- Fixed "Wild Revelations" XP card in Explorer to reward 12 or more crew
- Fixed price issues with Neutiquam Cruiser
- Improved note about Contacts offering weapon/armor/gear in New Game Template

Update #274 arrives with a bevy of community requested improvements, new features, content balance and minor tweaks. A huge thanks, as always, to the big community surrounding the game, posting feedback, suggestions and reviews. As Update #274 goes live and modding is just around the corner, we're hitting our 3 year launch anniversary for the game and looking back to marvel at all that has happened. We've been busy, hitting an average update every 4.8 days if you include the 8 months of Early Access before launch.

If you've enjoyed the massive expansions and constant improvements to the game, we hope you'll take minute to leave a review and tell a friend -- there is no better way to thank us!

Also, we're celebrating a major milestone -- 3 years since launch and nearly 300 updates! -- this Sunday, August 8th, on Twitch if you want to join us for a live stream party.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/335620/view/3003324016167573939

But speaking of 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


With this update, we've added a new section to the Talent Manifest to cover the wealth of options within Mission Talents. There are over 13 different variations listed here, each with their own angle or bonus. It is an immediately useful section in our playtesting and helps to highlight all the ways you can build out your crew to focus on mission success.

This also gave us a chance to look closely at all the rules for the different mission Talents and we did uncover one bug. The Military Officer Talent "Power Play" Talent has long been using the wrong Attribute, relying on Resilience instead of Charisma for its Reputation bonus %. Now fixed!

The discount offered for Starport Boosted Rumor is now clearly codified into the game's Rumor list as well as displayed prominently in the starport when you're shopping. It's a solid 10% off, so you want to know in cases where that is saving you thousands of credits!


This one came off the presses just too good! We've removed the Armor bonus for the Tactician's Annex.

- Added Mission Talents to Talent Manifest (13 variations)
- Corrected bug with Military Officer Talent "Power Play" which was using Resilience instead of Charisma
- Improved Starport Boosted Rumor listing to clarify 10% discount on component upgrades and make visible in starport
- Improved ship encounter bribe text for Merchants, Explorers Zealots and Bounty Hunters to be more specific
- Removed Armor Bonus from new Tactician's Annex component
- Fixed issue when enemy crew uses On Init debuff Talents such as Sniper's "Target Acquired" text printing in wrong side of screen
- Fixed issue when enemy Wing Command users "Ripcord" Talent messing up the combat order

It’s a crazy summer, but we didn’t want to let this milestone pass unnoticed. It’s been 3 years since Star Traders: Frontiers launched on Steam!



This Sunday, at 8pm EDT, join us on Twitch for a community party! Join us (Andrew, Cory, and a whole bunch of you awesome players) to...

• Look back at some of the biggest changes to ST:F in the nearly 300 free updates we’ve made to the game.
  
• Showcase some of our favorite player creations & achievements. (If you have fan art or screenshots of your favorite captains / crews / achievements you’d like to share, post it in our Discord!)
  
• Get a preview of the upcoming Steam Workshop mod support.
  
• Talk about what’s still to come for Star Traders, both in Frontiers and (potentially, some day, purely hypothetically), the next Star Traders game.
  
• Hang out, meet some cool people from the community, celebrate being a part of making Star Traders and Trese Brothers Games better and better (10+ years 🎉)!

We’ll see you on https://www.twitch.tv/TreseBrothers at 8pm Eastern, August 8th!

Update #273 launches from the starport with 2 new powerful options for officer's annex in the medium slot, a major upgrade to Smuggler's ability to flaunt Trade Conflicts in the Exchange, better duration for all Intel gathering missions, Talent icon upgrade and improved error handling for new game templates (thanks mod team!). If you're enjoying the pace of updates and new content, remember to tell a friend and leave a review!

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/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/


Smugglers have always been the kings and queens of the Black Market, but their ability to break the law in the Exchanges has been limited. Now, we've upgraded their "Slippery Trader" Talent to enable it to completely remove any Rep loss from trading into a Trade Conflict, where before there was a minimum of -1 Rep loss always. Knowing the right things to say, the right people to find in any Exchange, you can feed the economic demand and avoid your dings. Merchants on the other hand can continue with "Bold Statements" to lawfully trade and gain Rep bonuses with the faction they are supporting.


Two new officer annex have been released in Update #273 giving even more ways for you to hybridize your officer space into other duties as well. Both Annex are medium slot components which provide a single officer living space along with another set of powerful bonuses.

Sold only by Steel Song, the Warden's Annex includes a small prison cell for 1 prisoner who needs to be closely watched as well as minor boosts to Armor and Medical Rating.

Sold only by Thulun, the Tactician's Annex can provide a ship with powerful offensive and anti-craft capabilities, with +10% Accuracy, To Hit Craft and Damage, as well as +10% Craft Evasion. It's perfect for a Gundeck Officer, Commander or other military-minded officer. The presence of such a hardened position on the ship also helps reduce Morale loss.

While many types of missions receive different levels of duration boosts, thanks to come of the modding creators in the beta, it came to our attention that that the Intel gathering missions -- faction, Conflict and Science -- all lacked an appropriate bonus. These self-directed missions can take a lot more time than a normal mission and often don't have the type of mufti-step traveling requirements that buoy many mission durations. With Update #273, we've added a healthy bonus to the duration of all of these missions and will keep an eye on them to see if more is needed.

This Talent is now appropriately colored to match with other Talents that destroy the enemy ship, as this is a key choice that removes other options like refueling and conscription.


Thanks again to the mod team, we've found and fixed some error handling holes in the New Game template system. Malformed template files, invalid template files or those with professions that are not in the game (added by mod, removed by mod) could all cause crashes or strange behavior in the system. We've hardened this component now in prep for mod release and for anyone sharing templates with friends!

- Improved Smuggler Talent "Slippery Trader" to be able to completely avoid Rep loss in Trade Conflict, used to preserve minimum -1 Rep
- Added Steel Song-made Warden's Annex, new medium slot component that holds one officer and one prisoner
- Added Thulun-made Tactician's Annex, new medium slot officer cabin granting accuracy/defense against capital ships and craft
- Clarified bonus for Engineer Annex, maximum Engine Safety Bonus is +6 no matter which components you get it from
- Increased Mission duration for those missions related to gathering Intel of any type
- Updated icon from "Orchestrated Salvage" icon to match ship destruction color schemes
- Improved error handling with New Game templates is JSON config file is missing or contains invalid syntax (hand-edit)

Update #272 rolls out a nice set of small polishing improvements to the core game and another set of improvements to help the mod creators working on everything from story to new ships. With Update #272, we've improved the balance of how often the new missions appear and added new logs and hovers to ensure that Medical Rating is given its full due.


The mod creator's beta has been chugging along for almost two months and we are now closing in our early August launch date. Modders have cooked up some amazing things that will get featured in the first weeks -- rebalance mods, changes to ship design, new ships, flying xeno ships (!!!) and the first story mods are now under development! If you want to join the beta and get something in under the deadline to get featured in our mod launch celebration, now is the time. All the steps to join up are posted on the Steam group, so sign up today and let's create together.

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/

Medical Rating can be very helpful on a ship as a supporting stat for your Doctors and Combat Medics, but it is used in unique ways compared to many of your other ship stats. Its important role in traveling events was not clear enough in the game, so with this update we've improved the hover in Ship Status describing Medical Rating and also clearly labeled its effect on Doctor Skill travel events in the travel log. We'll even included it here -- each point of Medical Rating adds +3 Standard Dice to your Doctor Skill traveling tests, where your crew and officer's Doctor Skill adds +1 Strong Dice per point. For ships of any size, Medical Rating is a big help to pass these tests, especially for larger ones.

For all the rest of Medical Rating's far reaching effects, check out the wiki:
https://startraders.fandom.com/wiki/Medical_Rating

The missions added in Update #271 were using the new system available to the modders. We have now rewritten that system to be more flexible and also rebalanced it to prevent these missions from appearing too heavily in the rotation. Specifically, in this case, "Nomadic Defender" and "Mercantile Negotiation" will appear less often, especially in the early game.

We've cleaned up 2 small logging issues -- where Spice Hall would mislog the Morale bonuses for Libertine Trait and where a Contact would fund a Spice Festival Rumor but the log would report it was Mercs. A huge thanks to everyone watching the game's simulation so closely and reporting these minor, but important, issues! Every bug must die :D

- Improved mission weighting of new mission "Nomadic Defender" and "Mercantile Negotiation" to be more in line with other similar missions
- Improved log for Doctor traveling events to highlight the value of Medical Rating for saves
- Improved tooltip on Medical Rating, stating that it adds exactly +3 standard dice to Doctor travel saves per point
- Fixed spice hall log issue with Libertine Trait printing incorrect Morale bonus
- Fixed Zone News log issues misreporting a Contact funding a Spice Festival Rumor as a Mercs Rumor

Update #271 focuses on a batch of changes to the economic simulation, reworking some of the game world economy to the supply and demand chain of raw to refined to manufactured goods stronger and more clearly hungry for supply. Mines mine more, refineries want more metal and refine more, and industrial zones produce more. While we've been working to update other areas of the game, we've been completing a cycle of study and analysis on the game world's economy and Update #271 puts the resulting changes into action.

This one also has a big chunk of update for the modders -- enabling full proc-gen mission, story mission and storyline support!

Our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is under development. Set in a different universe than Star Traders, we think much of what you all love about STF (a lore-rich world, many ways to play, strong independent spirit, lots of RPG depth) is shared within. Learn more about the Cyber Knights setting on its Steam page, or check out this video showing a ton of art and discussing the game design.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/
In general, the differentiation between supplies and demands are more extreme and more diverse now within the raw material and manufactured goods markets. The production of ores has been increased for Mining zones and the demand for ores in turn has been increased in Refineries. This flows down the chain, with the output of refined metals increasing at those Refineries and finally, Industrial now demands more raw and refined materials than ever before

The production output level of all Industrial zones has increased, making Industrial worlds capable of being a larger profit center for a Star Trader, better fulfilling mission demand, and possibly able to serve and exhaust the demand in multiple nearby zone markets.

In a small but important tweak, the Duke Contact Type can now offer up to grade 3 Permits instead of only grade 2. As a local zone nobility, the Duke has a lot of interest in all areas of operation, not only limited to military and the navy. Their economic clout deserves to drive negotiations at a Permit 3 level.

- Re-balanced Supply and Demand Hydrogen Fuel, Methane Fuel
- Increased Trade Value of Hydrogen Fuel by 40%
- Re-balanced the trade of Ores, Metals and Alloys
- Increased Production output of all Industrial Zones
- Base Permit Level available from Duke Contact increased to 3