SplatterCatGaming checked out Star Traders: Frontiers:

Star Traders Frontiers - Open World Space Mercenary RPG

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Star Traders Frontiers gameplay with Splat! Let's Play Star Traders Frontiers and check out a game where you'll dive into a dystopian world of intrigue, alliances, betrayal, and blood.

The Grim Alliance has reviewed Star Traders: Frontiers:

Star Traders Frontiers Review. Worth the asking Price?

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Star Traders: Frontiers has received a major patch and is 45% off to celebrate. The update introduces the Scientist Job, a new Intel type and raises the level cap.

Scientist Job and Scientific Intel

Major Milestone CATALYST comes with a new Job, but not just any new Job -- the highest community requested, the venerable and respected Scientist or Science Officer, if you chose to promote. The Scientist is a powerful supporting character bringing Doctor, Explorer and Command Skills to the ship. From a Talent perspective, the Scientist can play in both Orbital Salvage and Explorer, knocking out and replacing risk cards or boosting results.

But where the Scientist truly shines is in the discovery and capture of a new type of data -- Scientific Intel. Startling observations, dangerous new concepts, recorded anomalies, encounters with the other can all produce Scientific Intel when cast through the lens of a trained eyed -- the eye of the Scientist. The Scientists Talents and 5 new cards added across Salvage and Explorer can impart this valuable and dangerous knowledge in the form of Scientific Intel.

Like espionage-based Intel, this Scientific Intel is highly prized by Contacts and 14 Contacts will now buy Scientific Intel, including 5 of the Starting Contacts. Mostly, these are a Contacts who did not previously buy Intel and now have a new angle through which you can increase their Influence and Rep, but a few are swap overs from Intel to Scientific Intel. The new rules and system have also touched on a huge number of Contact Traits that will recruit Scientists or prefer to purchase Scientific Intel if possible or will pay heavily (Cult Leaders!) for the secrets, often farmed directly from xeno encounters.

Scientists can be promoted or recruited during Academy Graduations or from Sage of Records, Medical Provost and Xenologist Contact Types.

New Level Cap 45

For those veteran captains still sailing the void after 70 years and reaching the level cap of 40, we've made a major lift with CATALYST to open the gates all the way to 45. This also includes a big uptick in maximum job level from 32 to 36. The job levels are especially exciting as they come with a solid chunk of Skill points which we've used creatively to fill gaps, catch up certain off skills, or double down on the primary skill. On top of the extra Skill points, the Captain and Officers both net a total of 2 Talents, giving you even more powerful build options.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

A new milestone for Star Traders: Frontiers sees the introduction of fighter wings and new art to go with it.

Update #141: Launch All Wings!

17 Apr @ 2:38pm - Trese Brothers

It feels very good to have come leaping over the INTERDICTOR milestone and finally be back to regular order -- constant, relentless improvement, new features and content. We dropped 2 hotfixes yesterday to address important issues with carriers and craft but now we're back to updates. Update #141 releases a wave of new awesome art for the craft you can get and starts showing off Faction-specific styles. It also adds a new Mass 3400 ship that isn't a carrier, rebalances and increases the counts of slots on the Basalt, Fallen and Harbinger Carriers. Finally, alongside the new art and content, we've got a raft of small balance changes to Talent cooldowns, Initiative costs, handling of missions in friendly territory, and more.

If you're just seeing this update, you should first check out Update #140 for the news of the major milestone INTERDICTION that introduces and details craft -- interdictors, bombers and shuttles!

On to the details!

New Craft Art and Fixes

With Update #141, we've introduced a wide variety of different craft visuals for shuttles, interdictors and carriers. On the component side, we've fixed the missing +Armor bonus of Reinforced Hangars.

We've also fixed all the reported crashes that came in, so please keep reporting and posting any bugs you find. We've added a protection against launching too many craft at a time on your side (4 max), fixed crashes when attempting to assign pilots and crashes that could sometimes happen when a craft was destroyed in ship battle. Also, we addressed the issue where sometimes "No Pilot" was being incorrectly shown in the Crafts tab of Ship Combat.

Also, a laundry list of Wing Tech, Leader and Bomber Talents all had cooldowns that needed tweaking or fixing. The Wing Commando "Knifework" Talent has been increased to 12 Initiative.

Wolf Vector

The Wolf Vector launches as an all new Mass 3400 option for those who demand extreme range from their spaceship. Optimized for fuel storage and speed, the Wolf Vector is perfect for a faction's high-value couriers and passengers ships. Sometimes outfitted as a secure luxury cruising yacht this craft is popular among Star Traders who appreciate a fast engine and only refueling rarely.

This ship is a variation of a design found in a player's saved game, submitted to our team. Cory played the game, fell in love with the design and modified it to create the Wolf Vector.

[...]

A big update for Star Traders: Frontiers sees many changes.

Update #138: Light of a Thousand Suns

16 Mar @ 6:16am - Trese Brothers

Captains, after an all-too-long drought, word is finally filtering down through the spice halls that Update #138 has arrived! The extended delay has resulted in an over-sized update, which we will get into detail below. We've improved the ship combat UI, added new animations, sped up play by adding new keybindings and tuning the orbital ops play loop, made balance changes to Rep from ship encounters with Smugglers and Explorers, tweaked 3 RP torps and the Dart Jammer ship, and made a host of small improvements and bug fixes to boot.

We also want to share an important change to the dev roadmap. The 14+ day delay between updates here was in preparation for a big move -- the upcoming release of fighters and carriers. For a number of reasons, we've decided to swap the 6th Era and the launch of Fighters from Carriers. So, while this update does not yet contain the major milestone, it is a huge prep step, especially in the changes to the ship combat UI. When are carriers coming? Soon :D



Once we get past the newly updated v2.4.x, we'll hit v2.5.x and there will be an extended period of adding Eras and vignette story arcs to the game.

But for now, on to the update!

Ship Combat Improvements

With Update #138, missiles finally go boom as they deserve! The new animation helps them stand out from the other types of weapons and helps give that split second warning so your officer can shout "missiles incoming!"

Also with Update #138, the ship combat UI is starting to get the needed stream of improvements that will prepare it for carriers and fighters release. In this update, we've made some changes to the main control scheme, added animation and improved player cues.

The biggest change is the shifting of the move and range change orders out of the center lists. These have now been promoted to a constantly available set of buttons on the left side of the combat HUD, giving the option to escape, retreat, advance or board. Their tooltips have been improved to be more dynamic and list RP cost as well as target range.

You can now get to these with fewer clicks as well as using the newly added keyboard shortcuts (default to Q for retreat / escape and A for advance / board). And of course, setup your own customization for the fastest play.

Finally, to match the weapon counter in the HUD tabs, we've added a checkmark to the Talents tab. If you've selected a Talent to run for the turn, the checkmark appears, so that if you return to your weapons tab you can still see that you've picked a Talent for the turn and are ready to go.

Ship Builder AI Update

In the last update, the enemy ship builder AI got a little carried away with itself. In the early game, it was gaining accessing to some components that were out of band. We've made another round of improvements to the AI, both softening up its access to more powerful components earlier but also helping it to be more focused in its ship upgrade strategy in the later game. Early game captains will probably see a bit of a reprieve from last update, while late game captains may find their enemies have upped their design game once again.

This update also ties the intelligence of the ship builder to game difficulty more closely which is a trend we'll keep pushing as we continue to make improvements.

Orbital Play Loop

In the endless quest to smooth out pace of play and reduce clicks, we've made an important change to how the orbital ops card games play. If you end up in a ship combat due to a card draw, after the encounter and or combat is resolved you now return directly to the orbital ops screen you were on, instead of the system orbit screen. It is a small change, but for those captains who rely on these operations in their career, it is a big one. Combined with the fast speed option, orbital ops now fly!

Medium Torps and Dart Jammer

After a great discussion on the Steam boards, we've improved medium slot Torpedos. These heavier torps are still best at softening up and crippling the enemy, but for their 3 RP cost they have gained additional points of Accuracy and more Void Damage.

The Dart Jammer comes out of the starport with one additional Officer Cabin and one less Mass Dampener, making it more ready to fly immediately.

As it seems to be a steady point of confusion, we have removed the languag "Boost Ship Skills" from components that increase ship Skill Pools. We've also fixed the install time on Defense Pattern Matrix 4.

Talents Oh Talents

With almost 500 Talents in the game, its a constant drum beat of fixes, rebalances and improvements. With this update, we've improved the rules for Diplomat's "Legal Pressure" Talent which now grants 20% + Intimidate extra when ransoming an enemy ship. The Talent description also warns of the chance to have a small Rep loss for using it.

To avoid too much use of the word "Scavenger" except for the job, we've renamed Mechanic's "Expert Scavenger" Talent to "Orchestrated Salvage". Bounty Hunter's "Red Badge" no longer incorrectly reports affect on xeno rep.

We've fixed a host of issues with Xeno Hunter Talents. "Puncture Points" no longer removes enemy debuffs. "Macabre Harvest" is now correctly counted toward boarding victory Talents. In addition, the Combat Medic "Toxin Terror" no longer remove the buffs from the character using it (what a weird little bug).

[...]

Star Traders: Frontiers has launched on Steam.

Update #88: Full Launch Status in 5 ... 4 ...

1 August - Trese Brothers

Tonight, Star Traders: Frontiers is rising up out of Early Access and into its full launch status on Steam. Throughout these 8 months, the community response and level of engagement has been phenomenal. We’ve worked closely with so many of our players to improve the game across the 88 Early Access updates. While we are thanking people who helped make the game what it is today, we can’t miss a chance to thank all of our KickStarter backers who supported the vision for STF from the very beginning.

Early Access may be over but this is far from the end. We will shut down the Early Access Dev Roadmap but will be spinning up a new one with any remaining feature copied over. If you know our studio and our games, you know that we love supporting them and updating them. Star Traders: Frontiers will be no different, so you can expect the updates and continual improvements to continue.

To celebrate the launch, Star Traders: Frontiers is 20% off for the week. There is no better time to tell a friend, leave a review or share the game with your neighborhood streamer, gamer or games community. Thank you as always for helping Cory and I get the word out.

Celebratory Hat
It wouldn’t be a real celebration without a free hat. So -- Update #88 has added a new military-styled hat to the mix.

We’ve also added 2 more environmental art boards to different landing zones -- a new radiation wilderness and a major urban zone that appears on either garden or jungle worlds.

Original Soundtrack

We are proud to announce the release of the Star Traders: Soundtrack as well. Thanks to Peter Venne from Viking Studios, the soundtrack includes 11 minutes of completely unreleased new music for a total of 33 minutes across 6 tracks. The new music will be coming to the game soon but for now you can check it out in the soundtrack. Thanks to everyone choosing to support our efforts and composer through this DLC.

Bounty Hunter Missions

Edict-bearing hunters gained 2 missions in the last update and now 2 more extended fugitive hunt missions have been added, featuring tracking down a target across multiple urban and wilderness zones. More Edict-specific missions will be rolling off the assembly line over the next few updates, so get your blood badge and get ready to ride!

Enemy AI Gains Ships

We always release new ships to players-only first in order to make sure there isn’t a lurking balance issue or problem that enemy captains and AI could unfairly use against your captains. With enough time for extra testing and metrics under their belts, the Aeternum Vindex and Palace Interceptor have now been handed off to enemy captains to use. Which also opens up a new possibility of getting one of these locked ships -- using a Prize Ship Talent to pick on up!

As always, a huge thanks to our community and captains for giving us such momentum and energy through Early Access. We’re carrying that energy forward into the next phase and onto the next dev roadmap!

We hope you’ll take a moment to press ‘F’ to leave a review or tell a friend.

v2.3.27 - 8/1/2018

- Star Traders: Frontiers launches out of Early Access!
- Released Original Sound Track -- 33 minutes across 6 songs
- Added new hat type -- military cap
- Added 2 new environment arts (radiation wild, garden or jungle urban)
- Added 2 new Bounty Hunter mission types -- multi-hop fugitive hunts among urban and wilderness
- Added Smuggler and Pirate AI that uses the Aeternum Vindex
- Added Bounty Hunter and Pirate AI that uses the Palace Interceptor
- Improved several Crew Combat sound effects for weapons and damage
- Talents "Menacing Demeanor" and "Red Badge" no longer incorrectly fires against Independents
- Fixed bugs in some unlocks not showing correct eligiblity
- Fixed bugs with Talent cooldown display

Star Traders: Frontiers is emerging from Steam Early Access this Wednesday 1st August according to the latest update.

Update #86: Penultimate + Save Slots

29 JULY - TRESE BROTHERS

Update #86 has brought us to the the final moments of this game's Early Access phase. It has been a busy 8 months and we owe a huge thanks to the thousands of Captains who have helped us improve the game. But -- we're not done yet!

While the game is coming out of Early Access on Wednesday this week, it does not mean that the content and feature expansions are ending. We don't plan to slow down or change direction. Exiting Early Access is a milestone on our larger roadmap indicating the game's readiness, stability and completeness against the goals we laid out for EA. Once we transition out of EA, we will be publishing the Dev Roadmap, looking out into the next year.

Save Slots
Update #86 deploys a major feature that we have been discussing and designing since of the start of Early Access. It took a few months but Save Slots are finally wrapped up, and we finished final testing this weekend. Now any game that does not feature Captain permadeath offers four save slots to store snapshots of your captain's career. These slots can be restored and played at any time and they store the entire game state. For example, you can start a template you love, do the first few Arbiter missions and then save your progress to one of your save slots. Then you can always come back there quickly from within that game. Or, as I tried in testing today, you could branch your save into 4 directions -- following Erik Faen, Zette Faen, Valencia and the Arbiter's storylines, each with their own save slot.

The new save slot system will help those players who are looking for ways to explore, try new things, backtrack on mistakes and explore the game in a non-permadeath setting.

[...]

To create save slot, open the game menu from within your save and choose Save Slots. Then pick slot you would to use to store your current game state. To restore a save slot, choose Load Captain from the main menu and then use the Save Slots button on the right hand side to expand the list of slots. Pick any to restore. Please take your time, because all save and restore actions are final and cannot be undone.

Talent Wrap Up
As now is the time to finish things, so we have finished the final Talents for the starting set of jobs that are not implemented. Pilot has picked up a new rank 11 Talent -- Wild Flying -- for when you are feeling like a leaf on the wind. Buffing defense and armor, Wild Flying also reduces Accuracy slightly does a small amount of Morale damage to your crew as the ship careens through the void.

For the Crew Dog, Engine Lockdown is the new rank 8 Talent which adds a unique ability. When Engine Lockdown is active, your ship's void engine is completely protected from damage. This lockdown effect does cost -2 RP, but it can be an important move to make at the clutch moment of battle when engine protection is critical. As an added bonus, locking down the engine frees up power to be rerouted to weaponry with a nice Radiation Damage bonus.

[...]
We've also added 11 new Talent icons and will be finishing the remaining 15 very soon.

Polish
We've also polished all of the new game screens, improved interfaces, spacing and positioning across the board. Typos and small bugs have died in droves. The forges are burning hot at Trese Brothers HQ!

If you love these updates, please leave a review for the game or tell a friend!

Or, join us on the Trese Brothers Discord[discord.com] server where both brothers are available, welcoming Captains and players of our games to come and chat. We're on there daily -- come share your stories, feedback and join our crew!

v2.3.23 - 7/28/2018
- Save and Restore from 4 save slots per Captain in difficulties without captain permadeath
- Added new rank 11 Talent for Pilots - "Wild Flying" defensive buff
- Added new rank 8 Talent for Crew Dogs - "Engine Lockdown" buff momentarily protects engines from damage
- Rebuilt New Game Skills page with more information and sliders
- Added Reset button to New Game Skills and New Game Attributes for quick changes
- Fixed all variety of refresh bugs in orbit screen (new contact, etc)
- Fixed issue with Trade Law not updating for Rumors in Orbit screen and invisible Quad Rumor bug
- Fixed issues with some ship Talent results such as healing or morale restore not appearing on screen

A new update for Star Traders: Frontiers talks about landing protocols and other additions.

Update #37: Landing Protocols

19 February - Trese Brothers

The proper landing protocols are needed now as we are coming into the final approach for the v2.1.x family of development. We're about to set this spaceship down in a big cloud of dust. Then our combat team is going to come piling out and lay siege to v2.2.x with gusto. We've gathered a combat team with Traits like Brute, Merciless and Savage to make sure that we get off to a great start.

This release includes a big blast of lore in the 30+ page lore book as well as a new set of Talents that finish every Job in the game except Pilot's last 2 Talents. It's an exciting milestone and opens the door to future jobs!

Wiki and Lore Book

With this release we've wired up the links from the in-game menu to the Star Traders: Frontiers Lore Book and the game's WIKI. For ease, the links are included below.

Lore Book[www.dropbox.com]

Wiki[startraders.gamepedia.com]

Engineer Talents

All the Rank 8 and 11 Talents for Engineers have arrived with Update #37, filling out a really interesting arc in this character's arc. A highly trained Engineer becomes a science and research officers in their later levels, gaining additional Experience for the crew as they encounter space anomalies (Radiation and Ion Storms), xeno and wilderness exploration.

Exchange and Black Market

For some time, there hare been issues in the Black Market and Exchange where Talents weren't firing properly when on cooldown. We've rebuilt the Talent processor in these screens and now your Talents will always fire, albiet only one per trade. Big $50,000 trade talents get a shot to fire first, and if they don't then the rest of your Talents get a shot. If a Talent like Market Confidant does not run (because it fails its 10% + Charisma check) then another Talent will still get a chance to fill in.

As a big buff for Smugglers, we've knocked Illicit Notoriety down to a Rank 1 Talent as well as adding a Slippery Trader Talent which helps Smugglers handle Trade Bans and Wars better than other, more above-the-board traders.

Missions Expire

If you ignore a mission for its entire duration twice over (31 weeks x 2 = 62 weeks ignored) then mission will now naturally expire. This kind of behavior is not a good way to make friends, and you will suffer Reputation loss with both your Contact and their Faction for failing to deliver.

Notably, this Reputation damage is worse than just fessing up to your mistake and Dismissing the mission yourself. You'll still take Rep damage, but its less.

v2.1.15 - 2/18/2018

- Link to Wiki and newly published Lore Book added to the in-game menu
- Added new Engineering Talent at Rank 8 - "Stormhunter" is superior Radiation Storm protection with XP bonus
- Added new Engineering Talent at Rank 11 - "Perilous Study" grants XP bonus when encountering xeno ships
- Added new Engineering Talent at Rank 11 - "Unforeseen Discovery" replaces Explore card with XP bonus card
- Added new Smuggler Talent at Rank 5 - "Slippery Trader" reduces Rep Penalty for trading into Ban or War Conflict
- Reduced Rank of Smuggler Talent "Illicit Notoriety" from Rank 5 to Rank 1 - Black Market boosted!
- Added note to Exchange screen including negative Rep threshold (-28) from Trade Ban / Conflict
- Fixed all issues with Exchange and Black Market Talents not firing when they should
- Added new wild environment artwork for ocean worlds
- Missions now fail after 200% of their deadline has expired causing Rep Loss -- Dismiss is better
- Improved ordering of Talents in combat encounter/victory screens, card games -- highest Job Rank Talents first
- Fixed minor UI bugs in crew detail when using next / previous
- Improved scaling for 1280x1024 resolution

A new update for Star Traders: Frontiers.

Update #28: Third Shot Vents the Hull

26 JANUARY - TRESE BROTHERS

We're firing off Update #28 tonight with another round of improvements to the starport, new stash visibility and fixes for Talents and a story arc.

Even though we are a small team of two, we are dedicated to a relentless pace of updates during our Early Access period. To achieve that, we focus on rapid iterative development -- meaning we do short-cycle updates and improvements, rarely focusing perfect completion of any given feature or content area but instead making significant forward progress with a willingness to come back and continue to improve. This gives our tiny team the freedom to move fast, constantly improve and get daily feedback from our players that matters. And since we're on a short-cycle, that feedback can find its way into the game quickly as well.

We are now in the process of closing in on finishing the v2.1.x family. With a few more upgrades to the New Ship screen, we'll finish the Starport overhaul. The final Faen family storylines are being translated from design into story events, and we're buttoning up the rest of the items on the list. It is exciting to look forward to v2.2.x!

A special thanks to all of our Captains leaving a review and sharing the game!

Lucky Third Torp
So it has taken 3 rounds with the Starport upgrade screens to get to where we really want to be. Naval cadets across the galaxy have some sayings -- "the third torp vents the hull" or as the Cadar say: "third torp always does the trick". For us, this was the case and we've put out another round of improvements to the starport upgrade screen that should help everyone move quickly through the filters. We've especially improved the size and prominence of warnings about upgrades, like those stating that a given barracks exceeds your ship's max crew.

Stashes Light Up
Previously, a stash icon was always shown over any wilderness zone. With Update #28, we've converted those stash icons to function like all of the other zone services icons -- only lighting up and showing when there is something there. This means that stashes can be seen visibly on the map only where they are and also appear lit up in the system atlas.

We've also double down on our fix to the Vytautas storyline and closed the last outstanding issue. We fixed a bug preventing Intel from Lucrative Wholesale from actually appearing and tweaked the rating displays for Exploration score on zones.

v2.0.71 - 1/25/2018
- Stash icons now only appear over planets where stashes are active in quadrant map / system atlas
- Improved display of warnings during starport component upgrade (barracks exceed max crew, etc)
- Added "Exact" filter to starport upgrade to allow quick compare of components of same type
- Upgrade Ship Weapon sorting improved
- Fixed issue where starport Upgrade Talents were not firing when upgrading ships in dry dock
- Further improved starport upgrade screens, filters and component compare display
- Fixed duplicate Zenrin prisoner story missions
- Fixed issues with Lucrative Wholesale Talent
- Fixed description of Exploration rating

A new major update for Star Traders: Frontiers.

Update #23: Trackless Space

15 JANUARY - TRESE BROTHERS

The relentless march down our dev roadmap carries on with tonight's major update. Over the last few updates, we've been putting cracks in the wall that is the starport rebuild, but this update knocks a serious hole through it. We're not done by far, but we've made the first major strides toward completing this dev roadmap item on the v2.1.x family.

As we round the corner to Update #23, we're excited to continue to tune balance, connect more systems, and improve the layering of politics, conflicts, reputation and all the rest.

Starport Revamp
The improved starport upgrade experience follows the same flow as before but allows you to compare components during replace, see the active list of filters on your list of components, get an exact price for the component you are trading in, as well as seeing the individual sources of discounts (Talents / Contacts) listed out.

In addition, we've rebuilt the display for ship components in generally, which you'll see in the starport and main status. Every modifier, bonus and stats for ship components is visible and listed and we've swapped a lot of the displays over to icon pairs to make them easier to scan quickly.

There is a lot more coming in this area before we can knock this officially off the dev roadmap, but we're on our way.

Encounter and Conflict Improvements
This release includes the first update to ship encounters -- changing the XP amounts granted for all types of ship encounters to clearly mark the incentives down the chain of options -- from victory as the best down to surrendering as the lowest.

We've also upped the Reputation granted by Solar and Trade Wars in ship victory to further reward chasing these conflicts and throwing your strength behind one Faction or the other.

Railguns were the only weapon sporting both Void and Radiation Damage, and we've simplified the weapon type down to just Void.

Mission Navigation
This release continues the work from last release including buttons to navigate and set waypoints for missions and the next mission steps quickly and easily as you move through them. You can now complete missions potentially without ever opening the Mission List which helps move things along and reduce overall clicks.

Whenever you recruit an officer from a Contact, they now recruit with Rank 1 in their primary Job, which gives you all the freedom to assign the rest of their ranks as you please.

v2.0.61 - 1/13/2018
- Improved Starport Upgrade experience -- compare components, see active filters, see trade-in price, discount sources
- Improved ship component display on all screens -- engines, weapons, skill bonuses, component damage
- More Starport and component upgrades coming!
- Officer recruits from Contacts only starts with 1 Rank in primary Job -- increased freedom to assign Jobs
- Rebalanced Experience rewards for all results in ship encounters -- Victory, Draw, Defeat, Surrender
- Balanced Reputation gained by defeating enemy ship in Solar or Trade Wars
- Mission Summary now offers an immediate Navigate Now button under valid step
- Mission completion now offers a Waypoint option for the next mission step
- Slight increase in Intel Record counts from Spying to help Trait / Talent / Component % bonuses make impact
- Fixed issues with Officer skill bonuses (Tactics / Command) in ship combat
- Increased cooldown for Makeshift Repairs to match Port Maintenance, clarified log message
- Fixed issue where ship combat was not correctly ending after striking down enemy Captain while boarding
- Fixed issue where some orbital missions were ghosting after completion
- Fixed issues where victory in ship combat from damage over time effects was delayed by 1 turn
- Removed redundant Radiation Damage from Railguns
- Prevented running Exploration with less than 6 crew
- Prevented running Orbital operations with less than 6 crew

Here's the New Year update for Star Traders: Frontiers:

Update #18: Political Strife

Happy New Year to all of our Captains! A new year is a great time for a new update. It will be a year of updates, new features, improvements, new story and more. We're hacking our way through the v2.1.x family of our dev roadmap and are looking forward to the next big steps.

This New Year, we are thankful for all of our captains who have told a friend, shared the game or chosen to leave a review. You keep us moving forward and hammering out updates!

Political Teeth
The benefits and consequences of your actions now flow across more political alliances.

Trade Permits up to Rank 2 are now honored by Factions in a Trade Alliance. If you hold Moklumnue Trade Permits and they are in a Trade Alliance with Rychart, you'll find your Permits honored at Rychart Exchanges.

Spy War Conflicts are now punching up the number of Intel records generated through ship victory Talents. Go hunting your Faction's enemies during a Spy War and you'll reap even larger Intel rewards.

Military Officers of Factions in Alliances flow any positive or negative Reputation changes to their allies. If Cadar is in an Alliance with De Valtos, if you encounter a Military Officer in space travel, any report or acknowledge result will end in Reputation also flowing to De Valtos, their ally.

Trade Planning
The system atlas now shows the demand and supply for every resource on the system's trading list. If you've visited a zone before, you can check its zone demand and supply based on its economic type and other factors at a distance. This quick trading guide will help you plot trades at a distance or while landed on another zone.

We've also added the number of Talents that have the same effect to the Talent screen, even when the Talents are provided by different jobs. Also, we've fixed and improved a ton of things so ... check out the full release notes! And leave a review!

v2.0.45 - 1/1/2018

• Trade Alliance Conflicts now offer reciprocity for Faction Trade Permits up to Rank 2
• Spy War Conflict boosts value of Intel Record extraction Talents (Ship Combat - Victory)
• Positive and Negative Reputation changes when leaving Military Ship encounters flows through Faction Alliances
• Added hovers for date in status to explain YYY.MM date format used by Star Traders
• Star Atlas now displays demand level (B+, etc) for Buy/Sell icon lists
• Displays count of similar Talents as well as specific in Talent Training Screen
• Increased Cost of "Sensor Array" Ship Upgrades
• Renamed "Defensive" Ship Components to "Structural"
• Fixed issues with crew combat uniform-name mismatch in enemy generators
• Wrote new additional Crew Barks and Event Log Results (Thanks Twitch!)
• Fixes issues with Xeno Captains (beware Xeno Captains)
• Fixed some rendering issues on Ship Combat Preamble screens
• Fixed issues that caused the waypoint destination marker to be invisible
• Fixed Ship Component Display bugs that hid bonuses like Accuracy and Shielding
• Improved mini-game XP listing for crew grants (total, counts, -1 crew fixed)

A new update for Star Traders: Frontiers called Silent Void seems like a big one.

As we're roaring into the weekend, we are excited to drop the Silent Void update -- its a mixed bag of great things. What's maybe most important is that it is a really big bag. Personally, I am excited at how many times the word "added" or "new" appears in this update! While we are still digging out from under bugs, story fixes and UI improvements -- our engines are starting to burn with a new light -- expansion! To the frontiers, Captains! Let's go!

New Contacts and Recruits

Across the quadrants, you'll now meet Prospectors and Academy Doctors both -- who will make it easier to gain access to Doctor recruits and now make Explorers recruitable for the first time. In order to make Pirates easier to find and recruit, the Warlord contact has switched over to recruiting these space corsairs instead of spies.

Story "Log Jam"

Some of your games may be suffering from a bug we are calling the "log jam" where one or two errant story events could cause a lot of other story events to get hung up. After this update, you MIGHT see a bunch of story events fire back to back as the jam clears. It maybe feel a bit crazy, but it will pass quickly.

Emergency Hyperwarp Behind Enemy Lines

Too many Captains have come to the sad end of being stuck in a hostile quadrant with a damaged hyperwarp. Without any local starports willing to repair the damage, you have been forced to resort to Patrol and Explore in desperate hope to make amends or get lucky with repairs. Even rich and powerful Captains could suffer this fate!

Now, you can make an emergency jump to escape the Quadrant. Watch out -- this is not good. Things will go boom! But, you can get clear of enemy territory and gain a chance to repair, refuel and recoup at a friendly port.

On the other side of this coin, hostile starports once again correctly implement the -30 Rep limit to stop selling you Water-Fuel. A bug crept in that made them generous. Their generosity has been revoked!

New Talents

Many of our Captains have been lobbing out great ideas for new Talents. We love it! And here they come! The Spy can now steal intel records when boarding an enemy vessel with Unauthorized Access. Crew Dogs got a Blockading Talent to match their Patrol Talent with Hawkish Siege. And the Zealot has gained Summary Execution to put an end to a mutiny with a ruthless execution of a low Morale mutineer.

UI and Tooltip War

We've improved the Atlas significantly as well as adding services, tooltips and more. There is more awesome coming in regards to trading and such, but for now -- check out the new awesome.

Ship combat display has been updated to show the Engine health at all times to help avoid surprise defeats. We are working on balancing out ship combat more, so thanks to everyone's patience while we improve!

The war of the tooltips continues. We've added another 40+ tooltips across the game, annotating Faction flags everywhere and hitting up icons that are feeling lonely and jealous of other better icons that got tooltips first. We won't stop until ever widget, icon and shiny thing in the game is annotated.

Please leave a review to help drive updates and improvements of the game! And tell a friend

v2.0.27 - 11/8/2017
- Added 2 new Contact types: Prospector and Academy Doctor
- Prospector offers Explorer recruits, Academy Doctor offers Doctor recruits
- Warlord Contact now offers Pirate for recruits instead of Spy
- Added new Spy Talent at level 5 "Unauthorized Access" steals Intel Records after boarding enemy ship
- Added new Crew Dog Talent at level 5 "Hawkish Siege" rerolls a card in Blockade
- Added new Zealot Talent at level 8 "Summary Execution" kills lowest Morale crew in mutiny to reset Morale
- Added Engine health for both ships to Ship Combat HUD to avoid unexpected defeat
- May now make Emergency Hyperwarp Jump even if HW Drive is severely damaged
- Combat crew selection and placement remembered and automatically assigned at next combat
- Fixed story "log jam" which was preventing new stories not to start in games
- Fixed bugs with correct resolution to Valencia Faen's storyline, Calagan now responds to resolution
- Improved Talent icons for all card games (Explorer, Black Market, Spy, Patrol, Blockade) to be clearer
- Exploration correctly blocks repeat explore when the territory is temporarily scoured
- Starport correctly blocks refueling when Rep is below -30
- Fixed issues with Retrain cost being properly displayed and charged
- Fixed issue with Sharp Counter Swordsman Talent being used from any rank
- Prevented missions from showing $0 summary even when steps hidden
- Fixed issue with odd waypoint to Arbiter personal objective
- Added 40 new mouse hovers for rules, Faction flags and icons
- Improved "Star Atlas" rendering and information presentation (more awesome coming soon)

The latest update for Star Traders: Frontiers sees some quality of life improvements and notably an improved HUD.

Update #7: Honing the Edge

Red, flashing, unmissable HUD warning for no fuel

Today's update is all about balance and quality of life for our Captains. We are getting so much valuable feedback every day, and we are working our way through it as fast as two brothers can ;) Update #7 delivers on a lot of the feedback we've heard right here on the forums -- so you have yourself or other Captains to thank for this great update!

We hope everyone will take a moment to leave a review on the game! Share it with a friend! Help us keep cranking out updates at a laughable pace :D

Travel Rebalance and Improved HUD

The balance of the health, component and morale damage done by traveling checks has been one of the hottest topics of conversation and consternation. We've made small adjustments with the first six updates, but this updates makes the first big change to down-balance the number of crew who can be hit in any given event. In our testing, it has had big positive impact, especially on failed tests like Electronics which could result in really big chunks of the crew taking hits.

Furthermore, we added a critical warning to the HUD to help address concerns about the "morale death spiral" while traveling. If your Ship flies without Water-Fuel, your crew will lose Morale constantly. The updated HUD is loud and insistent with a warning, flashing at the bottom of the screen in red. You can't miss it -- and you need to buy fuel quick. Operating your Ship's Void reactor without a Water-Fuel containment pool is dangerous and doing so increases the chance of severe crew damage, drains morale and forces crew members to perform dangerous reclamation exercises to keep the ship going. It's bad -- a good Captain never does it.

Control Scheme Improvements

First, this update has improved mouse support for the main map. Panning on the map is now controlled by your left mouse button while right clicking will move your ship. Separating move and pan has been requested by a huge number of players and we are happy to simplify the scheme for everyone and matches the control scheme of many other popular games. For our players who have put in tons of hours already, this might take a little retraining, but we know its for the best.

We've increased the speed of hovers by 100 ms so they show up faster. As more tooltips are coming with each update, this will keep helping the learning curve issues we have. Also, we've fixed the annoying bug where some hovers would get stuck on screen after a scene transition.

Talent Rebalance

With feedback from players, we've started adjusting a few more Talent cooldowns and rules. Any Talent that can discover new Contacts have been set to higher cooldowns. The recruiting Talents from Commander and Military Officer have had their randomness removed -- so they simply effect the first recruit made -- so if you are using these (amazing) Talents, be sure to make your most important recruit first when you land somewhere looking for new crew.

Of course, there is so much more! Long distant missions have extended timelines. The options menu is now available without returning to the main menu. We've fixed some boarding Talent bugs. The Raptor has been moved out of the starting ships list due to the amount of feedback we got about it. More ship components have been switched over to be Faction specific.

As we start to get a handle on the long list of UI / QoL improvements, we'll be turning out attention to story and content expansion. Help us get there by sharing the game with a friend and leaving a review!

The Early Access version of Star Traders: Frontiers (formerly known as Star Traders 2) has been released:

Star Traders: Frontiers

Command your ship and crew as a space pirate, merchant, bounty hunter, and more in Star Traders: Frontiers – an epic space RPG from Trese Brothers Games. Venture forth into a massive open universe, rich with adventure and the lore of the Star Traders. Choose your path by assembling and commanding your custom crew and spaceship in a constantly evolving galaxy torn by internal strife, political intrigue, and alien threats. Will you fly as a pirate terrorizing shipping lanes, join the solar wars as a military captain, or track targets across the stars as a fearsome bounty hunter?

Key Features

• Explore a rich, open universe: Discover endless procedurally-generated galactic maps, meet unique characters, and take on enemies to conquer the galaxy!
• Become an intergalactic captain: Take on the role of a spy, smuggler, explorer, pirate, merchant, bounty hunter, and more (21 jobs total)!
• Customize your own spaceship: Choose from more than 300 upgrades and build your very own vessel to venture across the vast reaches of space.
• Assemble and tailor a loyal crew: Assign talents and equip specialized gear for every spaceship crew member.
• Experience an ever-changing narrative: Decide to make friends or foes with other factions and influence political, economic, and personal vendettas.

Lore
First there was the Exodus – when survivors of a great war left the ruins of the Galactic Core behind in search of a new home in the stars. Scattered worlds were claimed on the fringe of the galaxy. Each pocket of survivors held on to an isolated set of worlds while trying to rebuild under the great law of Shalun. Three centuries later, technology has brought them back together again. Discovery of the hyperwarp has bridged what was once an unimaginable distance between far-flung colonies, long-lost families, and political factions.

With that reunification has come great economic prosperity. The hyperwarp reestablished the transportation of cargo, goods, and technologies between the quadrants – but it has also brought great strife. Political rivalries have been rekindled, blood has been shed in age-old feuds, and the fires of war have been stoked. Amidst the political infighting, a ruthless revolution is rising – and the fervent explorers of the hyperwarp have awoken something that was better left asleep.

Trese Bros
Our very first game, Star Traders RPG, took hundreds of thousands of gamers on an interstellar adventure. Star Traders’ success and overwhelmingly positive reception helped to launch Trese Brothers Games. It was the adventures of our community’s star-crossed captains that put us on a trajectory to share more of our worlds, ideas, and dreams.

We set out to capture the loneliness, bravery, and camaraderie of people living together in a spaceship sailing across the stars. It is with great pride that after releasing four other games in the Star Traders universe, we’ve created a sequel to the original Star Traders RPG.

Step onto the bridge of your starship, take to the stars, and create your own story in Star Traders: Frontiers.

Star Traders 2 will be available as Steam Early Access version in October 2017:

[...]

Next Step: Steam Early Access

As we knew it would be, the Alpha has been invaluable. It has given us a direct line into the challenges, wishes, and play styles of many Captains. Their insights have helped us zero in on the player experiences we want to further build the game around.

This is always how our small studio has always worked. From the original Star Traders to our latest title, Templar Battleforce, we are constantly working with and listening to our player community to drive updates, improvements, new content and better balance. If you’re on our forums or Steam discussion boards, you can see us there every single day, responded to basically every post. To fully realize Star Traders 2, we’ve decided to continue that tradition and launch the game into Steam early access.

When will the game go into Early Access?  

We have a date set in early October to release Star Traders to Steam early access. Following our studio’s process, the game was always planned to launch to Steam first, and then after we would complete the mobile port and UX modifications to better support smaller screens. If you would like to change your reward to receive a Steam key instead of a copy of the game on another platform, please just reach out to us. For those players on mobile, you’ll get the game as soon as the mobile port can be completed and launched. Realistically considering the holidays, that will be sometime in 2018.

Why Early Access?  

We plan to use early access as a platform to continue the two-way communication and feedback loop with a larger player community. The alpha has allowed us to work with hundreds of Captains playing the game, and early access will give us access to thousands of new data points to test the limits of the game’s balance, and we will use this input to further fine tune the political, character, and combat simulators. We know can be reservations about early access games, but we’re focused on releasing a well-built, solid and polished game experience right out of the gate.

What will be the state of the game at Early Access launch?  

Star Traders will be majority feature complete when we launch to early access. As a sandbox game, there is already an immense depth of exciting and fun ways for your Captain and crew to find their way in the big world. We are not plan to add many major new features after early access launch. The early access period instead will allow us to perfect balance the game’s ship and crew combat, improve the map generation, and further study and improve the economic and political simulation and the role that contact’s play within the larger galaxy. As we progress through the early access phase, different sections of the game’s story will also become available for play. That said, plans often change :P

Approximately how long will the game be in Early Access?  

Oh how many times we’ve regretted an ETA. We don’t know at this time, promising dates would be irresponsible. We expect it to be a number of months which can be counted on two hands (that is, 10 or less).

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?  

The game will offered at standard price during the Early Access period and we don’t anticipate its price to change after it transitions to full launch.

[...]

The alpha phase 2 for Star Traders 2 has started - here's Kickstarter update:

Alpha Phase 2 Begins

Backer-Captains,  

Thank you for your continued support and patience. Andrew and I could not do this without you. This update is so big it needs a table of contents!  

• Save 50% on Templar Battleforce  
• Phase 2 has launched!  
• Digital Soundtrack Reward Listening Party  
• Faction NPC Reward launches this weekend  
• Reward Status Review Twitch Schedule

So let's get started!

[...]

Phase 2 Alpha Build (v1.2.1)  

Phase 2 is going live tonight across all platforms! Phase 1 was 75 days long -- our longest and busiest alpha test phase ever. We’re so proud to be working with you to polish Star Traders 2 into a real gem. During the Phase 1 we put our focus on character creation, trading economy, missions, ship combat, and crew combat. In addition, we have been continually pushing forward in completing the creative rewards for our KickStarters (Legendary Captain, Famous Officer, Join the Lore).

In prep for Alpha Phase 2, we have shifted our focus to finishing and polishing advanced trade (Black Market, unique trade goods), operations (Exploring, Spying, Blockading, Patrolling), contacts and in later updates, Storyteller support.

[...]

The alpha version of Star Traders 2 will be available for $50+ backers next month:

Happy Holidays Update

Dearest Friends,

At this joyous time of the year we have a chance to reflect on 2016 and all the things for which we are thankful. High on the list for the Trese Brother’s team is you, our Kickstarter backers, loyal fans, family and close friends. We are so grateful for the chance to work with you on Star Traders 2. It has been an honor and a humbling experience for us.  

We wish you abundance, happiness, and peace in a new year filled with hope. May your torps strike true.

Happy holidays! This has been a very busy month, and not just for the elves in their workshops, but also for our development team. More than eggnog and hanging up decorations, December has been a month of hard work and crushing to-do lists.

Alpha Preparations Underway  

Progress continues at a rapid pace as we prepare the alpha, which is still targeted for release in January 2017. In fact, the next time you get a KickStarter update from us, it will be to officially open the alpha!  

The Star Traders alpha (which is a closed alpha, available only to $50+ backers) will be divided into three major phases. The first phase, which is the center of our final tasks, will be focused on captain creation, combat and the mission system (previous known as Contracts in ST RPG).

[...]

Here's the May progess update for Star Traders 2:

May Progress Update

Dear Captain-Backers, 

Here we are, a full month into the spring season, sending out another glorious Kickstarter update. We’ve had a very productive April and development progress continues to rip along. This month our top focus has been Missions, Contacts, Motivation Engine and filling out Ship Decks.

In addition to the development of the game, we’re also working on our Kickstarter Backer Rewards. We wanted to share another “thank you” to everyone who participated in the Naming Rights reward. We have received hundreds of very clever name suggestions and are adding them to the game. It is really a lot of fun to see our backer’s ideas in the prototype as we test and develop new features. If you did not receive the Naming Rights invitation through KickStarter, but believe you should have ($20 or higher reward), please email me at andrew@tresebrothers.com and I can help.

The next reward we are going to fulfill is Join the Lore ($100 reward) where we will gather the interesting facts about legendary Star Traders who came before and how their legacies have trickled down into the time of Star Traders 2.

As well as new features, we continue to deepen and expand the systems we already have in place. We’ve created newly revised maps of ship decks and decided to simplify the Slots from 6 sizes down to 3 -- Small, Medium, and Large. Now, Captains are able to flip through the ship deck viewer to see individual Slots, view damage levels and deck-by-deck breakdowns. We shown off a previous iteration of this screenshot in the April update and you can see how much progress we’ve made on these features. We’ve also expanded the catalog of ship Components to three times its previous size, with exciting additions like Fuel Tanks, Pilot Assist modules, Sensors, Armor upgrades and more. It is starting to get fun to upgrade, tweak and maximize your ship.

[...]

Here's the early March Kickstarter update for Star Traders 2:

Early March Progress Update

Backers and Captains, 

We have been making rapid progress on Star Traders 2 implementation tasks over the last two weeks. Our three-pronged attack against the game’s features continues and we’ve hit significant milestones on all three fronts.

In Character Creation, we’re now generating Traits for your starting Crew and Contacts, as well as placing your Captain’s friends and enemies into the game world during map generation. Character Creation now allows you to select your ship from a list of starting options. As you can see in this prototype screenshot, we are also now using the new ship artwork for Star Traders 2 as you traverse Quadrants.

On the Map Gen and View project, we are now generating maps with approximately the same complexity of Urban Zones as seen in the original Star Traders RPG (50+ Zones). We’re currently generating and exploring these maps and hyperwarp gate systems with the viewer. Of course, this is a Star Traders Map Viewer so it definitely kills your Crew while you are using it.

[...]

Thanks Eye!

Touch Arcade interviewed the Trese Brothers (they are real brothers!) about Heroes of Steel and their upcoming game Star Traders 2:

[...]

Back To The Future

SM: So, do you have anything else you'd like to talk about that our readers might enjoy hearing about?

AT: Our next game, perhaps? The development engines of Star Traders 2 are stoked and roaring along now. We're moving quickly to put the first component of the game into the hands of the Kickstarter alpha team. The game is an amazing mix of the best parts of the original Star Traders RPG and our new capabilities and what we've learned in the 5 years since we built the first one. Oh, and Firefly. Mix in a little Firefly for good measure!

If you loved Heroes of Steel, then you might want to hear about the sequel Legends of Steel. The storyline has been developed, as far back as when we dreamed up Secrets of Steel. It is on our list as a future game, based on the highest point of evolution on the Heroes of Steel engine - which is Templar Battleforce.

If you don't know, we are a family company - Cory, Andrew, and Martin, three brothers in that order of age. We're excited to share our visions and creations with you, and so thankful of your support that has allowed us the freedom to create huge, deep, and heartfelt games.

CT: We're always available on our players' forum, Touch Arcade, or on the Steam discussion pages for our games. We're always excited to talk to players, new and old.

AT: Something special that is coming up for me is that I am nearing my 20,000th post on our community forum. That's something like 4,000 posts, or 11 posts a day for five years. We are insanely active on our forum, and it is a great place. Check out our games, and come visit us. You can find Cory and I on there nearly every day, and you'll get a warm welcome.

[...]

Kickstarter update #45 for Star Traders 2 about character development:

Honored Captains, Backers and Friends,

We're hard at work on the first playable module of the game, and wanted to share some updates.

Character Creation Module

The character creation module is moving forward at a good clip here at Trese Brothers (once-again digital) HQ. Two weeks ago, we took the full presentation to the Executive Producers team and shared the plan. As always, we received top-notch feedback which has helped us see more angles on the challenges and hone the design to be even stronger.

We wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the ideas and progress with you. We are taking some extra time as we work through the character creation module, as this is our moment to lay a high quality foundation for everything that comes after.

We’re building a core RPG, so you’re going to see some familiar ideas in Star Traders 2 RPG -- Attributes, Skills, Traits. On top of that we’re layering a multi-Jobs system, a passive Talent’s system, and the really kicker is the mutation and growth of Traits through world events. Every character -- including your Captain, Officers, and every lowly crew member -- will be built up of these scores and different aspects.

In character creation, you’ll be able to prioritize and set all of these scores and qualities.  Or, there will be a wealth of fun template characters to pick from and play immediately. For purposes of good balance, these templates will just be characters built from the customizer.  When the module is released, we'll be ask you to help us come up with the best list of templates to load into the game.

[...]

Trese Brothers' Star Traders 2 will be out in summer 2016:

Schedule Update

Welcome honored Captains, Backers, and friends to the latest Kickstarter update with current progress, current schedule, and a few other announcements.

First of all, we recently passed the one year anniversary of the Star Traders 2 Kickstarter. While we have made a great deal of progress on the project, we are obviously behind schedule. We launched the KickStarter with a rough estimate of shipping the game in Q4 of 2015 and that no longer seems realistic.

We started Star Traders 2 with only the vision that we shared with you on KickStarter. Over the past year we have refined that vision into a completed game design, engineered tech demos, and selected and improved our game engine's major components in preparation for the tasks ahead. These steps have taken longer than we originally planned.

As a team of two, we have a limited number of staff to assign to each task. Both of us have experienced personal challenges this year, with moving across the country being at the top of the list. Our goal remains to deliver on the vision of Star Traders 2, no matter what. We want to thank everyone for their patience and we can’t wait to see what is ahead for this game.

As you have seen in the past few updates, we have moved past the design and prototyping phase and are now driving towards playable components. Our team is growing and we are expanding our talent pool as we ramp up into the production cycle for Star Traders 2. If you’ve played any of our other games, you know we’ve leveled up our animation, sound effect and music composition process -- a necessary step for us to deliver the rich and immersive gameplay we want for ST2.

A CNNMoney examination of the top 50 most-funded projects on Kickstarter found that 84% missed their target delivery dates and we have, with much shame, joined those ranks. Our current estimates put us roughly 6 to 7 months behind schedule. Our original ship date was winter of 2015 and we are now projecting summer of 2016.

We may be behind schedule but the scope and mission of the project have not changed. We are 100% dedicated to delivering this game with all the bells and whistles.

This week we have finished revising and updating our project plan. As you have seen in the previous updates, we have adjusted our plan to help mitigate the schedule changes. To get started on the alpha test as early as possible, we will release finished parts of the game as stand-alone alpha-test prototypes. This will mean that the alpha test will not be delayed as much, and we’ll be able to collect valuable feedback from our Backers earlier. The first of these components will be the character creation module.

Thank you for your continued support,  

Cory and Andrew Trese

Trese Brothers Games

Trese Brothers Games posted the next update for their funded RPG game Star Traders 2 with information on how you will run your own starship. Here is a short sample.

Honored Captains, Backers and Friends,

Happy New Year to all! What an exciting year it was, and we’re looking forward to an even better 2015.

Before we start laying down any serious coding, we are in a process of building out a detailed design across the entire scope of Star Traders 2. This means we’re starting at the level of gameplay concepts and driving to the details of data models, game terminology, and gameplay mechanics that will create the best possible experience. The result of this intensive period of effort will be a workable roadmap that is ready for implementation.

This is a very important part of the process, and we want to share it with you. During this phase, we’ll be posting updates with specific details about the parts of the game as we hammer out their design and prototypes. Our first update will focus on your ship, it’s Decks, Compartments, and Upgrades.

The next post-funding update for Star Traders 2 from Trese Brothers Games has news on reward deliveries, and mentions that 4X Empires is not available on the Mac.

Star Traders 4X Empires Released on Mac

We’ve just released Star Traders 4X Empires on Mac, via the popular Desura gaming network. For just $9.99, if you didn’t get this game as a backer - download and play tonight. Be sure to leave a review!

First Rewards Being Delivered

We have started fulfillment of the first two rewards types - the forum badges, and the digital add-ons for Heroes of Steel and Star Traders 4X Empires. We’ve completed the first 25 or so forum badges, and will let you know when we’ve finished them all. If you choose to include a digital add-on in your pledge, you will receive 1-2 emails about them over the next two days, providing the keys.

Please remember that Star Traders 4X Empires is not yet on Steam. If you chose Steam as your network on which you’d like to play these games, we are sending you a Desura key in the mean time. We will send a Steam key later, after we have Greenlit. Which is a great reminder to get over to our Greenlight project and vote Yes!

Contact with Questions, Concerns Issues  

There are 2 of us and 1,732 of you (counting PayPal pledges). We are sure to make mistakes throughout this process, so please contact us any time you have a concern, issue, or a question. Send me a message via KickStarter or a quick email to atrese@gmail.com. We promise a snappy response and a dedication to work through any issues!

KickStarter Surveys  

The KickStarter surveys are out and about 90% of our backers have completed them. Please complete your survey, otherwise we will not be able to deliver your reward!

Pledging via PayPal 

The PayPal pledge page for Star Traders 2 RPG KickStarter is still open. We’ve had new Captains slowly arriving to pledge and a few more pledge increases over the last week, so we’re going to keep the door propped for a bit longer. If you would like to make a new pledge, add to your pledge, or need to use PayPal to resolve a pledge issue with Amazon use our PayPal pledge page. The stretch goals for the project are still open and if we happen to cross them with PayPal pledges, we will announce that with great fanfare.

Trese Brothers Games is proud to announce that Star Traders 2 is now funded , and posted a new update with more information on what happens next.

Thank you

Honored Backer-Captains,

As we countdown the final hours of our Kickstarter, we are most grateful to all of you who made this possible through your support, excitement and generosity. We are eternally grateful.  

We look forward to your contributions to our community and game. We are delighted with the number of backers who shared in our commitment to make Star Traders 2 the best game it can be. Your pledges will go directly to the development budget and without your generosity we would never have been able to realize the vision for the game we are now setting out to build.

Something Special Extra

We owe you all so much and we cannot stand to go out without one last hurrah -- so we’re going to pile one more rewards on every single backer who pledged to the project. Andrew and I have been brainstorming for a week on what we could do that would be a really special and personal gift from us to you.

I am pleased to announce that all backers, at every level, will be granted access to a Kickstarter exclusive storyline hidden within Star Traders 2. A unique plotline that will be yours and yours alone. We’ve reached far back into the archives and found the perfect candidate: the first adventure module designed for the Star’s Edge pen and paper RPG! We will digitize that module’s plot into Star Traders 2 and provide you with a secret way to access it.

What’s Next

While our crowdfunding campaign is ending after months of planning, execution, and promotion the real fun is about to start. This will be our last update while the project is running, and then we are going to let the dust settle over the weekend. On Monday, we will put out a big update that provides details, estimates timing, and the ordering of reward fulfillment and next steps. Following that, we start send out backer surveys promptly.

Special Thanks

We would like to extend special thanks to the honorable Lord Gansai, Balgair the Magnificent (who is back in the town’s tavern), the Zendu Ten, Imphenzia, and to those veteran Captains who have been with us for 4 years running since the launch of the original Star Traders RPG.

Thank all of you for pledging. From the bottom of our hearts, we appreciate your support. We were ecstatic every time one of you pledged for our project. My brother and I smiled and high-fived for each and every backer who signed on. I’m tearing up a bit ... must be the Star Traders theme song playing in the background.

This is what Kickstarter is all about: the creative freedom to build something unlike anything that has been done before with a community that is as passionate about this game as we are. We are setting out to make the best Star Traders ever, and with your continued support I know we will.

The next update for Star Traders 2 announces the winners of the profession competition. and talk about the release another social reward for the game on Facebook.

Social Reward #3 Unlocked!

You've helped us get the word out to over 1,000 Captains who have climbed aboard, keen on making Star Traders 2 a success. You have now reached 1,264 shares on the project page, the Facebook post and on the project tweet.

This new milestone has unlocked the Star Traders Lore PDF. We don’t have a finished PDF to share because it is a resource that deserves a focused effort. It will be packed full of details, history, timelines and exclusive artwork. We can’t wait to share the Lore PDF after the project funds.

Please keep sharing the project with friends and family! There is still time to unlock the propaganda posters and to help bring hundreds of new Captains into our sector.

Profession Competition Results  

Captains certainly love their professions! The professions competition brought out a huge number of votes and second and third place were hotly contested. First place was taken in a landslide of 29 Explorer votes leaving all other professions far behind. Cory tried to claim that his Bounty Hunter vote was worth more than one point, but rules are rules.

With your help, the Explorer profession will be receiving a major bonus in Star Traders RPG. The Pirate, Bounty Hunter, and Star Traders professions all reached 15 votes and therefore will be receiving minor bonuses. These will rolled out over the next few updates, so feel free to make more suggestions as to what you think your bonus should be.

The latest kickstarter update for Star Traders 2 has a thank you to all those who helped with then matched pledges this week. Unfortunately the game still needs $20,000.

Thank you to our Pledge Matchers!

Dear Captains, Fans, and Backers,  

Today, we want to just express our thanks for you -- our absolutely amazing community and backers. As we have always said, the positive energy and excitement from the community drives us to make and update the best possible games we can.

We owe a special thanks to Balgair the Magnificent, the provider of the feast for the weekend. With his amazing generosity, he matched the first $1,000 in pledges as new backers piled onto the project and existing backers increased their pledges. Because we reached the $1,000 mark before midnight, he went the extra mile and added another $200 to his pledge match! In total, Balgair helped us make a $2,400 Saturday - raising 5% of the project’s goal in a single day.

How can we ever thank you? We will bake our “thank yous” into Star Traders 2 and make the epic game you’re all craving to play. And for Balgair -- he’s got a Quadrant, Legend, Famous Officer and Faction NPC to create. He’s got a lot to do!

So, let us again say thank you! Your support and love for Star Traders 2 and Trese Brothers games has helped put us over the 61% funded mark, and now we’re on our way to the next major milestone at 75%! We’ve got 12 days left in the project, so please keep sharing the word with your friends and gamer clans. Let’s make this happen together!

The Trese Brothers Games announce a new Pledge Match Campaign from Balgair the Magnificent who will match every pledge for Star Traders 2.

Pledge Match Campaign

With 13 days left in the KickStarter, we are excited to announce a major Pledge Match Campaign thanks to the patronage of Balgair the Magnificent! As a long-term fan and supporter of Star Traders, and a famous character in Heroes of Steel, Balgair has offered to match up to $1,000 in pledges added by the community.

If you have not yet backed Star Traders 2, join us now for $1 - Balgair will add $1! If you increase your pledge by $5, he will increase his pledge by $5! Help Balgair increase his pledge from the already lofty Design a Legend reward to the ultimate reward - Design a Quadrant! Every dollar you can add to the KickStarter is worth twice its weight!

Throughout the day, we’ll post updates on how far you've pushed Balgair toward reaching his full $1,000 match and with your help we will be more than 60% funded soon!

If you are interested in offering to match pledges as well, send us a message and we’ll arrange a match drive in your honor!

The Trese Brothers Games latest update for Star Traders 2 has new information on how character generation works, and mentions a new profession competition.

Character Generation + Profession Competition

Dear Captains, Backers and Fans,

This afternoon, we want to share the details of exactly how you will create your new Captains for Star Traders 2 RPG. Also, we are kicking off the second friendly competition - this time to find the most loved Profession! There are rewards at stake for Star Traders RPG, so don’t miss your chance to vote.

Creating Your Captain

Your Captains, and their adventures, are the heart and soul of the Star Traders saga. Star Traders 2 will offer you fine grained control over your new Captain -  from picking your profession to customizing your skills and talents, designing your ship, and building out your personality with character traits and flaws. 

We wanted to build a character creation system that was fun, easy and quick but also offered you total control over every aspect of your Captain, if you want it. If you want to play immediately, you can select one of the pre-made archetypes and go! These archetypes will represent typical character builds such as Syndicate Merchant, Clan Pirate or Independent Bounty Hunter and will follow all of the normal character creation rules to create a unique character when you pick them.

Creating a new Captain from scratch is where the excitement and balancing act really takes off. During Captain creation, you will use priority weighting to help you answer the question: What does my Captain excel at, and why? In identifying the areas in which you excel, you will in turn establish the areas where you are mediocre or weak.

The Trese Brothers Games latest update for Star Traders 2 talks about how alpha access will work, and shared the results of the faction competition.

Spotlight on the Alpha Access 

Alpha phases hold a very dear place in our hearts here at Trese Brothers. Our focus during an Alpha is to give you the game when it has reached a point of both stability and fun, but before it is finished. We love hosting these Alphas because we get to work so closely with the team members while they are playing the game, sharing their first experiences, and brainstorming with us on how to take the game to the next level. 

I wrote up a few questions and answers about the Alpha Access phase I wanted to share. We believe that a Trese Brothers Alpha Access phase is a very unique offering in the game development world. We have 90 Captains signed up already. We hope you will consider joining us!

The Trese Brothers Games latest update for Star Traders 2 goes into detail about how you can design your spaceship, and mentions a new faction competition.

Ship Design

In the years following the end of the great Exodus, the new colonies of the isolated quadrants lacked large shipyards. Most Star Trader Captains made do with heavily modified and upgraded vessels that were a hundred years old or older. Over the years, some of the quadrants found their footing and grew in power and wealth and they began to construct great shipyards to build the ships of the new era.

Your craft’s hull will determine its basic design and allow you to slot components of your choice into its modular structure. Your ship’s blueprint sets the layout of the decks, cargo bays, bulkheads, compartments, and primary engines. Each deck of a ship will have empty compartments that can be filled with upgrades of all kinds -- crew cabins, weapon magazines, gunnery pods, medical bays or hundreds of other options. With enough Credits, you can upgrade or replace every compartment to build your ship to your exact specifications. At capable shipyards, you'll also be able to pay for major upgrades such as improving the engines, outer armored hull and solar sails.

Faction Competition Update

The Faction competition is still roaring along with votes coming in every hour. I've totaled up the votes again before the last 24 hour push to Saturday at midnight (US, EST). Every Faction is still within striking distance of the 30 vote threshold to get the minor bonus in ST RPG and 4X Empires.  Thulun has pulled farther into the lead with 20 votes!  Get out and support your Faction!

If you’re interested in learning more about the 6 Factions of Star Traders RPG, read about them here in the original Star Traders RPG manual. The manual is 4 years old, but it has a great description of each Faction. Even if you’re a newcomer to Star Traders, check them out and then vote for the one you think you’d enjoy the most!

Star Traders 2 is a new RPG on kickstarter from developer Trese Brothers Games that is asking for $50,000 to get funded, Here is the usual video, and game description.

For four years, our players have asked us to break new ground and create a next-generation RPG in the Star Traders universe. It’s time for us to make good on our promises. Star Traders 2 will be, at its core, an RPG and trading game set in a completely open, non-linear universe. We've mingled inspirations from genre-defining series like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, books like Dune, and games like Mass Effect, Pirates! and Dwarf Fortress, but the heart of the project is inspired and driven by the original Star Traders RPG and our community's vision for ST 2. If you're new to the Star Traders world, we hope you'll join us as a backer and as a Captain. If you're already a Captain - here is the project for which you've been waiting, but we can't do it without you.