The Summer of Star Traders is coming to a close but fear not - this begins the long, cold, dark of winter. Expect the worst – freezing blasts of content, new ships flying like icy daggers, a veritable blizzard of new stuff for Star Traders. So, take the captains' chair, buckle up, get a warm space suit and let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Whatever Autumn, move over for the Winter of Star Traders!

Supporter's Badge DLC ($5)

First up, let us extra a huge THANK YOU to all the captains who have "badged up" to the new Supporters Badge DLC. We knew you liked the updates, but wow! Let's keep it rolling.

Since it is our first and only DLC for Star Traders: Frontiers, we're going to keep talking about it in the next few updates so that players who didn't see the original post can catch the news - we've added a $5 DLC to Star Traders: Frontiers.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3198060/Star_Traders_Frontiers_Supporter_Badge/

This DLC contains no additional game content, it only supports the many years of free content and features added to the base game since release. The Supporter DLC adds a small Supporter's Badge graphic to your main menu and ship status screen; no in-game effects, locked content or features, it's purely a way to support our studio and the future of Star Traders if you desire to do so.

Since Star Traders: Frontier’s full launch in 2018, we’ve been thrilled to keep the game growing with an ongoing stream of free content updates, more than 250 of them over 6 years (not counting the 90 updates in EA). We’ve often been asked about expansions or paid DLC content, but we believed making content available for free to everyone who bought the game is the better way to do it.

Now, with the game having more than twice (in some areas three times) as much content as it did at launch, some have suggested that we raise the price, but we don’t think that makes sense for keeping the Star Traders community growing.

New Planetary Artwork

First, the exciting stuff – thanks to everyone who is carrying a Supporter Badge – this update includes new artwork for planetary landings. This update brings 3 new custom-made art boards to add variety to Jungle outposts, Molten Urban and Desert wilds. These art boards will show up for all players immediately when installing v3.4.3, no map regeneration is required. Trese Brothers – always backwards compatible!

Zendu Relics in Exploration

Second, a new rare card that drops unique (one per game) S-tier relic gear. This new card appears in the Explorer game deck, most often on high danger worlds. This card, if drawn, will grant Experience, Traits and of course, a piece of Relic Gear. There are two groups with 4 unique pieces of gear each. Each of the 8 gear pieces will ever only appear once per Captain.

While we were adding these new pieces of gear, we discovered a rounding error that was causing a meaningful % of Relics to never drop in most saved games. While adding the new card we also fixed the existing Explorer card that grants Relics so that the entire range of intended rewards is available.

This adds about 20 relics that were not dropping back into the catalogs. Enjoy!

Ship Crippling Effects

This patch rolls up a number of balance adjustments we've been testing in ship combat for the past few weeks. All together they adjust Crippling Effects to increase their variation from each other and to make them each more impactful on ship combat.

Be warned – these more deadly effects can hit both your opponents and your own ship equally. Double check that your crew is ready with enough ship combat effect purging Talents to clear these if you get them.

This is the first of several balance adjustments for ship combat aimed at adding more variety to some elements that were too similar to others. For example, Electrical Fires and Hull Venting are now substantially different when compared. Depending on if you're trying to cook crew or burn out weapons, one or the other will be a better choice.

So get out there Captain and enjoy the last rays of this year's summer sun. Grab a cup of hot spice, take in some new planetary vistas and go relic hunting in the latest Star Traders: Frontiers update.

v3.4.3 - #355: Jungle Moon, Zendu Relic - 9/19/2024

- New Art! 3 New planetary images added – new Jungle Moon, Molten City and Desert Waste
- New ultra-rare, ultra-powerful "Zendu Relic" Explorer card and 8 new pieces of unique gear
- Revised Crippling Effects – 'Bomb' can now cause Secondary Explosions, 'Rocket' can now trigger cause Engine Failure
- Secondary Explosions (caused by Bomb and Missile) crippling effect received a damage boost
- System Blackout (caused by Energy Weapons) crippling effect now reduces Reactor Points by -2 (-1 previously)
- Crew Panic (caused by Mass Drivers) crippling effect now includes -10 Escape penalty
- Electrical Fires now cause +25% more component damage over time, and -10% less crew damage
- Venting Hull now causes +25% more crew damage over time, and -10% less component damage
- Fixed issue preventing certain types of gear (about 20) from dropping as relics