Thanks, and a few humble suggestions

[jedidia]

First off, let me start by saying that I'm thrilled seeing star traders come to PC in a more complex format. I've been playing the android game off and on, and it's about the only mobile game that could keep my interest for any length of time.

Here's a few suggestions I have for consideration. I'm probably not the first one having them, but redundancy doesn't hurt (in this case, anyways).

1. A very minor thing, mostly just convenience and newbie friendliness: Start new players with a contact that offers missions for their chosen vocation. It's a bit of a drag wanting to play as one thing, but then having to play as another until you meet the right people. And just going freeform isn't the answer either, since many jobs will require the player to obtain a high-level trade permit before really becoming lucrative (also because of point 4 below).

2. Don't punish the player for being seen flying in his own faction space. This refers to the reputation system, of course. Don't get me wrong, I have always loved the "you can't get rich and famous without pissing off a whole bunch of people"-approach of star traders. It's practically a core mechanic. So that is fine. But if I mind my business peacefully inside my own faction's space, and a merchant from another faction happens across me, it's not exactly logical that I would lose rep with his faction. If I'm in their space and they don't like me much to begin with, fine and well, but in my own space... I can't see much logical justification for that. It practically makes you a bandit over time with any faction you're not actively kissing up to.
The signal jamer talent does a lot to alleviate this, but it's still somewhat annoying.
Alternatively, consider something like a "locator"-stat. If a vessel from a faction that has a bounty on you spots you wherever, it increases the chance of encountering a bounty hunter out to collect it, since they might hear where you are (and that could very well be inside friendly space). The more vessels spot you, the higher the chance of an interception, cooling down slowly after every encounter. Something like that.

3. Leveling... I'm pretty sure you're not hearing this for the first time, but I'll mention it anyways. It's kind of nice to be able to select talents for all your crew members, but it gets tedious rather quickly, considering the size of crews and the speed at which they level. It's one of those things that sound great on paper but then don't really work in-game. I'm not sure how to solve this best, but it can't stay this way. Either by streamlining crew-leveling or providing optional automatisation (what is my quartermaster doing the whole time? shouldn't that be her job?).

4. Accessing black market in a card game is fine by me... in a location or through a contact through which you've never accessed the black market before. But once you're in, there should be some consistency for future access of that particular market. Otherwise, black markets are only of marginal usefulness. I don't mind if there's still some risk of getting caught involved, but if I had full access to a black market, I should get full access there again the next time.

[Cory Trese]

Thanks for trying the next generation of Star Traders.

1. We will continue to look at making improvements to the templates for new players. They already expressing many different features and providing the best start experience that we have been able to design thus far. What Templates did you experience an issue with I can look at them directly to see if there is anything we can better document or explain. Thank you.

2. The Reputation is definitely something that new players will learn to work around. This is true of all games in the Star Traders series. Reputation management, and the impacts of it, are crucial skills to players who wish to explore the game. It is a core mechanic, as you say. The fact that you cannot move freely in any space is necessary for the game to function. We have been after this design for years now, and having worked through the balance variations over the past year of intense alpha testing I cam to report that we continue to make improvements in each patch.

I will definitely work tirelessly to incorporate your feedback into the a future patch. Thanks again!!!

We will add auto level ASAP. Please leave a positive review and hopefully we can build some momentum that lets us expand the game further. If you are appreciate the updates and would like to support us, it would be really great to have a positive review on Steam.

Thanks again!

[jedidia]

What Templates did you experience an issue with I can look at them directly to see if there is anything we can better document or explain.

I don't think it's a problem with the template per se. I just picked the standard explorer template for my first game, but now that you mention it, I didn't even check if I could have emphasised contacts more in a custom template.
For new players I think it would be very handy if they had one contact that hands out missions for their chosen vocation right from the start. As mentioned, I had a standard explorer, but no contact that could give me exploration missions. Knowing the general way the game works from the old mobile game I was able to work around that, but for somebody completely new this might have been frustrating. And I'll admit that it would have been convenient for me, too.

Thanks again!

Why, thank you! I'm having a blast with the game so far!

[Cory Trese]

Dec 18, 2017 19:12:17 GMT -5 jedidia said:

What Templates did you experience an issue with I can look at them directly to see if there is anything we can better document or explain.

I don't think it's a problem with the template per se. I just picked the standard explorer template for my first game, but now that you mention it, I didn't even check if I could have emphasised contacts more in a custom template.
For new players I think it would be very handy if they had one contact that hands out missions for their chosen vocation right from the start. As mentioned, I had a standard explorer, but no contact that could give me exploration missions. Knowing the general way the game works from the old mobile game I was able to work around that, but for somebody completely new this might have been frustrating. And I'll admit that it would have been convenient for me, too.

Thanks again!

Why, thank you! I'm having a blast with the game so far!

yeah that's absolutely intentional. No contacts will give a starting explorer directed difficulty exploration missions -- they're too hard.

[fallen]

Dec 18, 2017 16:35:47 GMT -5 jedidia said:

4. Accessing black market in a card game is fine by me... in a location or through a contact through which you've never accessed the black market before. But once you're in, there should be some consistency for future access of that particular market. Otherwise, black markets are only of marginal usefulness. I don't mind if there's still some risk of getting caught involved, but if I had full access to a black market, I should get full access there again the next time.

Thanks for the feedback. However, we won't be opening the black market for permanent use. Being a smuggler is a risky, illegal lifestyle.

However, in return you get ...
+25% higher profits than trading in the exchange
Hands down best Talents for trading (Black Market trumps Exchange)
Avoid Conflicts

Keep trying it, find the right network, make lots of money. Smuggling is not great for the early game without enough contacts, but it is very powerful once you become established.

[jedidia]

However, we won't be opening the black market for permanent use. Being a smuggler is a risky, illegal lifestyle.

Concerning this, I found out that what I was asking for is actually already implemented. I didn't realise that the chance for high-level access to a black market increases significantly with your influence. So that's just fine, then.

[fallen]

@jedidia - ah yes! Access level has a minimum set by your Contact, so you can get it up to Access 4. Also, Contacts can tip the risk / reward levels and BM becomes safer as you progress up their ladder.

[jedidia]

Contacts can tip the risk / reward levels

Yeah, about those risk/reward levels (in the card game in general, not just black market). Is there an equation somewhere that explains how exactly those are calculated and how they influence the drawing of the cards? All I see is percentages that don't add up to 100% that have a somewhat opaque relationship to stats and skills. I can tell that "high numbers in rewards == good" and "high numbers in risk == bad", but I can't really figure out how they work.
I have found some good articles in the wiki about the games dice mechanics, which helps a lot, but this particular mechanic would deserve an indept article of its own, I think.
Many people that will be playing this game will probably have some connection to tabletop/pnp gaming, because that's what a lot of the game mechanics feel like (which is a good thing in my book. It's possibly the closest any Computer Game has come to feeling like traveller, imho). And those people usually like to understand the rules.

[Cory Trese]

We will keep working on publishing the mechanics.

Ultimately it will be up to the players to figure out many of the hidden mechanics, as it is with most games

We will definitely collect feedback from users about which mechanics need to be fully transparent and which shouldn't be.

I think the strongest connection for these players will probably be to the Star Traders games rather than specifically some other table top system.

I take it you did not play the first game?

Thanks for you post!

[jedidia]

I think the strongest connection for these players will probably be to the Star Traders games rather than specifically some other table top system.

That's... actually, considering this game came into existence through a successful kickstarter, that seems reasonable. But I think you do have quite a potential additional audience here, because there's not many games with such a strong focus on in-character skills and complex rule systems. I think making the rule system more transparent could help with bringing these people aboard.

I take it you did not play the first game?

The star traders RPG? Yes I did. Not that much, because I don't play much on my phone, but it was definitely one of my favourite games on there. Not something I could sink dozens of hours into, though, it lacked the extra bit of predictable complexity that the new game brings to the table.

[Cory Trese]

Right on. We will definitely listen to our players about what parts of the game they want in-depth mechanics published.

Combat, ship stats and dice mechanics we will definitely publish in depth.

If you look at all the other successful games, you'll see they do exactly the same thing.

We hope that you like the game and leave a positive review.

Thanks for playing!

[despot974]

Bonjour,

J'aimerais savoir si une version française de ce jeu est prévu.

Merci

[Cory Trese]

Dec 31, 2017 5:55:12 GMT -5 despot974 said:

Bonjour,

J'aimerais savoir si une version française de ce jeu est prévu.

Merci

If enough people buy the game. Only two person development team.

[Alex Fury]

Dec 18, 2017 18:19:18 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Thanks for trying the next generation of Star Traders.


2. The Reputation is definitely something that new players will learn to work around. This is true of all games in the Star Traders series. Reputation management, and the impacts of it, are crucial skills to players who wish to explore the game. It is a core mechanic, as you say. The fact that you cannot move freely in any space is necessary for the game to function. We have been after this design for years now, and having worked through the balance variations over the past year of intense alpha testing I cam to report that we continue to make improvements in each patch.

I will definitely work tirelessly to incorporate your feedback into the a future patch. Thanks again!!!


Thanks again!

I have a potential suggestion for this #2.
Yes, the rep management is definitely a core mechanic. But I do understand the aggravation of losing rep with others (at least if there's not some kind of conflict) when you're still in your 'home' system as it were.

Perhaps a simple easy mod of x0.5 rep loss if in a home/friendly system and a merchant or such from another faction runs into you. (at least assuming you don't attack)
I suppose it could be seen that 'well XXX faction just doesn't like you because of the colors you fly'... But when you're ~just~ starting out, it kind of sucks to build up a sizeable negative rep with a faction you don't really have contact with (made FAR worse when your home system is practically surrounded by the other faction)

[Cory Trese]

Jan 16, 2018 9:56:41 GMT -5 Alex Fury said:

Perhaps a simple easy mod of x0.5 rep loss if in a home/friendly system and a merchant or such from another faction runs into you. (at least assuming you don't attack)
I suppose it could be seen that 'well XXX faction just doesn't like you because of the colors you fly'... But when you're ~just~ starting out, it kind of sucks to build up a sizeable negative rep with a faction you don't really have contact with (made FAR worse when your home system is practically surrounded by the other faction)

Like a dozen rule already do that!