KickStarter Star Traders: Frontiers - space sandbox game by Trese Brothers

[ERYFKRAD]

Is that okay with you

No.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

No.

Oh ok, I will curb my enthusiasm immediately then.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

What I like about the game is how easy it is to get into. The UI is very good and makes the game a breeze to paly, even though there's quite a bit of depth there. I'll have to check out Templar Battleforce as well sometime, although being completely combat-oriented might not fit what I want exactly, but if there's deep squad customization with loot and equipment, skills, etc., then it might be worth a look for me. Back to your regularly scheduled Codex posts.

 

[Jinn]

Picked this up on sale today and am liking it quite a bit. Really enjoy what I'm seeing of the faction gameplay and have pretty much been glued to the main mission, addictively moving from mission to mission. Will probably leave off on that for a bit here and try to get some bounty hunting in once I buy a new ship.

Speaking of ships, I find the combat, while fairly simple in execution, to actually be very enjoyable as well. I like how each crew member can end up playing an important part of it, and the use of boarding to essentially weaken your opponents ship from within is an equally strong aspect of combat. Putting the two together makes for an interesting system that is logical and fun.

Grabbed it on a whim today and didn't expect to get so addicted. Four hours flew by before I knew it. It reminds me of Battle Brothers, except much more full of content and minus the excellent tactical combat. Overhype could learn a thing or two from these brothers. I'll try to post some more impressions once the honeymoon phase passes.

 

[baud]

What I like about the game is how easy it is to get into. The UI is very good and makes the game a breeze to paly, even though there's quite a bit of depth there. I'll have to check out Templar Battleforce as well sometime, although being completely combat-oriented might not fit what I want exactly, but if there's deep squad customization with loot and equipment, skills, etc., then it might be worth a look for me. Back to your regularly scheduled Codex posts.

There's a free demo of Templar Battleforce on the Google App Store. I've only played the demo and it was fun, but my phone was a little on the small side for it to be really confortable.
There's no loot, all equipment is unlocked with a big upgrade tree, but at the end of the demo I had equipment and skill choices to make.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I am

Picked this up on sale today and am liking it quite a bit. Really enjoy what I'm seeing of the faction gameplay and have pretty much been glued to the main mission, addictively moving from mission to mission. Will probably leave off on that for a bit here and try to get some bounty hunting in once I buy a new ship.

Speaking of ships, I find the combat, while fairly simple in execution, to actually be very enjoyable as well. I like how each crew member can end up playing an important part of it, and the use of boarding to essentially weaken your opponents ship from within is an equally strong aspect of combat. Putting the two together makes for an interesting system that is logical and fun.

Grabbed it on a whim today and didn't expect to get so addicted. Four hours flew by before I knew it. It reminds me of Battle Brothers, except much more full of content and minus the excellent tactical combat. Overhype could learn a thing or two from these brothers. I'll try to post some more impressions once the honeymoon phase passes.

Yep, it was one of those games where the hours can fly by. Very addictive. I am enjoying the hand to hand combat a lot, too. Simple but effective. Once you learn the harder to find stuff, like how to equp new gear on your crew members (useful for your fighter characters) and things like that you'll start to see a lot of the depth in the game. The faction gameplay as you mentioned is great stuff, and the story missions are compelling. It's also fun to explore the card-based exploration system, where you can find interesting things on abandoned planet surfaces.

There's a free demo of Templar Battleforce on the Google App Store. I've only played the demo and it was fun, but my phone was a little on the small side for it to be really confortable.
There's no loot, all equipment is unlocked with a big upgrade tree, but at the end of the demo I had equipment and skill choices to make.

So it's on Android too, nice. Might be a good one to pick up for my Amazon Fire tablet with sideloaded Google Play.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

yeah this game is awesome as hell, extremely good value.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Might be vaguely nice to have an axe or two instead of a swordswor the time and some more primitive outfits, but eh, can't have everything. Considering that's currently my only gripe with the game, that's great, all things considered.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

btw bros;
Speaking of stellar Tactics; the squad ground combat is turn based.

But is the ship combat turn based too? This is very important to me.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

btw bros;
Speaking of stellar Tactics; the squad ground combat is turn based.

But is the ship combat turn based too? This is very important to me.

No.
Real time with pause and you only have one ship.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Huh? Ship combat is turn-based. "Phase based" I guess would be the proper term, where you give your inputs and then both sides act at the same time. But it's definitely turn-based. You have unlimited time to give your commands and you each take turns.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Huh? Ship combat is turn-based. "Phase based" I guess would be the proper term, where you give your inputs and then both sides act at the same time. But it's definitely turn-based. You have unlimited time to give your commands and you each take turns.

In case of Stellar Tactics its RTwP.
Example starts about 5 minutes in following video.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Huh? Ship combat is turn-based. "Phase based" I guess would be the proper term, where you give your inputs and then both sides act at the same time. But it's definitely turn-based. You have unlimited time to give your commands and you each take turns.

In case of Stellar Tactics its RTwP.
Example starts about 5 minutes in following video.

Alas, Hope wanes
while Despair reigns.

 

[Ironmonk]

I need to hire 2 Quartermasters and 2 Military Officers to complete my crew but I can't find the contacts that offers them as recruits, the Diplomatic Consul and FDF Commander.

The FDF Commander I know that there is a Unlockable as a Starting Contact, but it's not clear if him only appears in game after the quest. But what about the Diplomatic Consul?

And I got more than 100 contacts already, so I guess I should have got at least one of the 2 by now.

Did anyone managed to get them in game?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What I like about the game is how easy it is to get into. The UI is very good and makes the game a breeze to paly, even though there's quite a bit of depth there. I'll have to check out Templar Battleforce as well sometime, although being completely combat-oriented might not fit what I want exactly, but if there's deep squad customization with loot and equipment, skills, etc., then it might be worth a look for me. Back to your regularly scheduled Codex posts.

Templar Battleforce is highly underrated, I didn't expect it to be anywhere near as good as it is.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Heroes of Steel looks neat too. And I copped Star Traders Elite RPG on mobile for a few bucks. Their 4x game on Steam looks interesting too. They seem like really competent devs.

 

[Morkar Left]

Heroes of Steel looks neat too. And I copped Star Traders Elite RPG on mobile for a few bucks. Their 4x game on Steam looks interesting too. They seem like really competent devs.

The Star Traders 4x couldn't get my attention. It's too onesided for an 4x for me. Basically only one enemy - the xenos. They wanted to focus on the factions and infighting in your own group but the execution lacked. MAybe i didn't play long enough - only around 5 hours total. You can see some mechanics from the game in Frontiers (the faction conflicts).

 

[glass blackbird]

Heroes of Steel would be better if it didn't try to be funny. Self-aware comedy rpg could probably be good in theory but when it is bad it's intolerable

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

frontiers and templar are the 2 best trese bro games. others are just meh and so so.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Can anyone share a save/config file with all the unlocks unlocked?

I am extremely butthurt about spending nearly 70+ hours ingame and not getting those random unlocks.

 

[Ironmonk]

Yeah, these unlockables are bad implemented IMO.

I spent 69+ hours as well and only unlocked 2 quest unlocks and since most unlocks are related to new playthroughs, if you don't plan to restart several times, then they mean nothing.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Trese Brother's channeled autism strikes again!

Update #138: Light of a Thousand Suns
15 MAR @ 10:46PM - 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).

v2.4.91 - 3/14/2019
- Added new ship combat animation for firing missiles
- Improved Ship Combat UI: promoted Move Orders to their own space outside of the Talents/Weapons list to reduce clicks to complete orders
- Added new keybinding for Escape/Retreat or Advance/Board in ship combat (Q / A)
- Improved Ship Combat UI: weapons now display their damage inline where you can select them to fire
- Improved Ship Combat UI: checkmark added to the Talent's tab when a Talent has been selected for the Turn
- Added "Map Mode: Limited" option which prevents clicking from starting navigation
- Further adjusted enemy ship builder AI -- better balanced access to powerful components in early game, more focused component upgrades in late game
- Improved Accuracy and Void Damage for Medium Slot, 3 RP Torpedoes
- Improved ship encounter rules for Smugglers (will always take bribes but may cause Rep loss if not bribed) and Explorers (never force a fight)
- Improved repetition of all orbital ops after combat -- immediate return to card game
- Any trade, any quantity, always takes 1 Turn
- New Hyperwarp Trait Mutations - Negative Trait Chance on Fail
- Improved Dart Jammer ship configuration, replaced Mass Dampener I with Officer Cabin
- Improved "Major Setback" card in Orbital Salvage to be more clear affected faction
- Swapped starting Contact recruit types -- Spice Traders now recruit Merchants, Smugglers recruit Smugglers
- Improved rules for Diplomat "Legal Pressure" Talent which now grants 20%+Intimidate extra when ransoming with a chance to lose 0-2 extra Rep
- Renamed Mechanic's "Expert Scavenger" Talent to "Orchestrated Salvage"
- Fixed bug causing Combat Medics "Toxin Terror" to remove user's buffs
- Fixed bugs with Xeno Hunter Talent "Macabre Harvest" not correctly being counted toward boarding Talents
- Fixed bugs with Xeno Hunter Talent "Puncture Points" incorrectly removing enemy buffs
- Fixed bugs with Bounty Hunter Talent "Red Badge" incorrectly interacting with xeno missions
- Fixed overlapping hovers and UI elements in the HUD, hover for Docking on orbital zone
- Removed "Boost Ship Skills" description from Ship Components to reduce confusion
- Fixed install time for Defense Pattern Matrix 4
- Fixed bug in quad map causing indicator that crew need to level to stay present incorrectly

 

[Morkar Left]

The fighter update got delayed and instead story progression got pushed forward. It seems integrating fighters is a lot of effort. Anyway game is great!

 

[baud]

From https://steamcommunity.com/games/335620/announcements/detail/1730979046047360465, the relevant part on small crafts:

• The small craft design is completely additive. It introduces new ways to play, new utility Talents, new combat strategies, new jobs and exciting ship builds to explore. However, it not reset the bar for the best builds nor invalidate any of the awesome builds out there. It fits hand and glove with the existing game as a new way to play.
  
• However, even if you don't employ small craft yourself, you may face carriers in ship combat. All captains will need to adjust their strategies to have some defenses against enemy carriers, just as they need to consider the risk of enemy boarders or any other power strat. Weapons, Talents and special components will all be available to help defend against small craft swarms.
  
• Carriers and craft are new mid and late-game content due to their cost of craft and specialist pilots. Building and maintaining a fleet of bombers, inderdictors and shuttles will require a bank roll to support the additional investment, helpful Contacts, extra repair cost and possibility of a total craft loss.
  
• The small craft milestone will not require new saved games. It will not invalidate saved games. We never invalidate saved games, full stop.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

pew pew squad coming next update!