Star Traders: Frontiers Update #91: The Great Cycle

[fallen]

A few days have passed and the team here at Trese Brothers HQ has been busy on another big update. We're soaking up feedback from the community, crushing crashes (80% down over the last 2 releases) and fixing bugs as fast as we can. We're also prepping a new public roadmap which will give better visibility into everything that is coming down the pipe.

We are very excited and honored to have Rock, Paper Shotgun publish a review this morning! If you haven't picked up the game yet, you should check out Fraser Brown's review -- he's smitten, you might be too
steamcommunity.com/news/post/2454911758740334309

Story Tuning

When we set out to create Star Traders: Frontiers, we decided to take a different--if not almost unique--approach to the story. To achieve a dynamic and evolving galaxy, we knew that the storylines must move as well -- not to wait for you, not to pause for your presence. This design decision has been a cornerstone of the stories we've told so far in the game and will continue to be.

However, we've had a lot of feedback over the last 8 months and especially in the last week that the story deadlines are unclear and sometimes don't provide enough time to do anything but the story. So, with this update we've made some significant tuning to the timing of the story as well as the visibility of story objectives and deadlines to help encourage the mixed play of sandbox-and-story that is so key to Star Traders: Frontiers experience.

First up, the Faen and Arbiter storylines have both been repaced to be a little more relaxed -- generally about 25% more Turns. We have no changed the core principles -- they are still in motion and you can still get left behind if you don't stay involved, but there is more time built into their progression to allow you to trade or pirate, upgrade your ship, get lost in a spice hall, do some side missions or whatever you please. To assist with this, we've added story objective deadlines throughout these two first critical arcs -- now you can see how long you have. We've also improved dialog and give some story justification to why you would know these dates.

We'll be working timeline tuning and story objective deadlines in the other vignettes and eras throughout the game, but needed to start here.

We've also done work to tune the plague era, tweaking dialog to help players have an easier introduction to the story as well as making the plague score rewards more generous.

Quality of Life and Balance

On top of the story work, we've hammered out a ton of bug fixes and quality of life improvements. To help players avoid dumping cargo, the button been recolored red. Mutually exclusive Traits like Malcontent and Reveres Authority can longer appear in any Trait mutation scenario. If both ships try to retreat in combat, it always succeeds. If you board a ship without damaging a single component, you will get properly paid.

The list is long, be sure to browse the change log below!

v2.3.35 - 8/9/2018

- Increased Story Objective timers across the board for Faen and Arbiter storylines, at least 25% more Turns
- Displaying Story Objective deadlines throughout the arc, including end of the legal case
- Aligned story objective and mission timelines to be more clear about timing requirements
- Improved some dialogs and discussion between characters during these arcs, more timing and story state specifics included
- Increased duration of all basic missions timers by about 10%
- Simplified rule set for ship combat when both ships are trying to retreat - always succeeds
- Improved dialog at start of Plague Era to make Dr. Kaera Gouldbern easier to find
- Increased plague score boost for selling medicines to end rumors and completing plague-related missions
- Boarding xeno properly counts toward score of crew combats versus xeno
- Improved visual color of "Dump" button to avoid tossing cargo accidentally
- Fixed bug with mutually exclusive Traits appearing (Reveres Authority + Malcontent)
- Fixed issues with salvage values from completely undamaged ships (you boarding monsters!)
- Fixed bug with Bootleg Profits not applying price change to purchase
- Fixed bug with all gear showing unavailable from Contacts
- Fixed issues with hanging Story Objectives
- Fixed issue with rumor-triggered Pirates not being hostile
- Fixed issue with Quadrant's owner flag and reputation hover being incorrect after hyperwarp jumps
- Fixed logic for detecting Pirate I, Pirate II and Pirate III Awards
- Fixes some issues with main map keybindings
- Fixes some issues with swapping and selling ships in Dry Dock
- Fixed missing SFX on some UI elements

[Brutus Aurelius]

If you board a ship without damaging a single component

People board ships and leave them intact?

That's like half the fun of boarding.

[fallen]

Aug 9, 2018 23:24:12 GMT -5 Brutus Aurelius said:

If you board a ship without damaging a single component

People board ships and leave them intact?

That's like half the fun of boarding.

Then ... destroy them and salvage.

It takes all kinds

[Brutus Aurelius]

I guess it's more cost effective than burnign it out with torps

[athios]

Hmm, on that topic, from a lore perspective, when I am raining death upon a defeated ship and blowing it to smithereens, how exactly is that accomplished?

Does my ship just sit there and keep "strategically" shooting until their hull fragments in salvageable chunks? What if all my weapons were knocked out from the ship combat, or like some of my ship builds, I plain didn't have any ship weapons to begin with? 

I think my pure boarding captain would really love this update if he weren't dead already.

[fallen]

However you'd like to imagine it.

[Bariel]

The way I rationalise this is that I send over some of my crew to attach scuttling charges to the outside of their ship to do the job. As the other ship has effectively surrendered due to captain death, being unable to manoeuvre, etc, they can't really do much about it.