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

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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Pope Amole II I do not understand why they are different in regard to crew size?
From my understanding spying and exploration are quite sameish - different skill pool used and ship vs crew fights.

Nah, far from the same. Spying is much safer. During it you almost never have to fight - you meet some pirates? KK, let them loot your empty cargo hold. You meet some hostile military or bounty hunters? Well, that's your fuckup as everyone is supposed to like you when you're playing peacefully, that's the way. So you can afford slower ship with bigger skill pool.

With exploration, on the other hand, sooner or later you'll have to handle terrox artifacts. And there comes the fact that you want to have a really, really fast ship for this - as the more outrageous your cargo is, the more attention you do attract.

Another thing is that these two have different approach to the combat. Spying build is a late bloomer so you'll need a big ship with lots of plating, commanders and doctors to go into combat. Exploration has some serious boarding potential and boarding with anything but a fast ship is not a sane proposition.

And escape is not exactly reliable on hard difficulties - honestly, even your 27 speed Scout Cutter with 2 early escape buffs can fail and fail and fail it over a speed 15 ship. Fucking cheatin AI. So when you escape, half your crew is dead and you're facing a 25k repair bill.
 

SausageInYourFace

Angelic Reinforcement
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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
And escape is not exactly reliable on hard difficulties - honestly, even your 27 speed Scout Cutter with 2 early escape buffs can fail and fail and fail it over a speed 15 ship. Fucking cheatin AI. So when you escape, half your crew is dead and you're facing a 25k repair bill.

RIP, basically all of my captains so far. :negative:
 

Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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Well, just now I was trying to do a vid and got wrecked in the middle - level 4, I have a scout with 27 speed, they have a rustbucket with 13 speed. Change range rolls? 13 vs 38. A total fuck you, in other words.

Unless your crew is combat oriented (a shit-ton of piloting-navigation-tactics-command) you should forget about escaping and just surrender to looting/inspection.
 
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Development Roadmap
18 August - Trese Brothers
6d0c72cd3c432d38afe3c47f237a32b369820894.jpg

With the help of thousands of new captains, Star Traders: Frontiers launched out orbit in early August. However, this is only the beginning -- we've got an ambitious roadmap to grow this already massive space RPG into even more of a behemoth. We're sharing this dev roadmap to give clear insight into the big things coming down the pipe.

Relentless Update Schedule
As we've said before -- the void is merciless and so too will be our update schedule. During the Early Access period, we worked constantly to engage the community, improve the game and crank updates. Now that we have gone to full launch status ... the plan has not changed! All the work we did in Early Access has created a very stable, multi-layered and deep game onto which we will be piling a relentless stream of updates. This powerful foundation will allow us to focus more on story and content, UI quality of life improvements and just exciting features.

Let the update rolls!

Major Version Milestones
We’ve broken the Dev Roadmap down into major version milestones, starting with v2.4.x. We'll be working our way through each major version milestone one after another, knocking out all the sub-items before marching on. We are working on a fast-iteration style of updates, so there will be no 3 months wait for mega updates. Updates -- and these milestones -- will be falling continuously.

Content Expansion Goals
In addition, we have listed our long term content expansion goals, indicating how much more content, story and visuals we want to add during the game's time in aggressive update mode. For example, we’re working on doubling the number of character uniforms (+100%) and working to triple the available set of ship hulls (+200%). These content additions will be a constant drip of new, fun stuff to enjoy, see and try.

In closing, we’d like to give a big shout out to all of KickStarter backers who supported us and pushed us to create Star Traders: Frontiers! We could not have gotten here without you!

5774db546987ef049b04351674d3021f84d5b32f.jpg


Eh in that case i will wait a while. just lost my military officer boarder to butthurt bounty hunters who hit and run :(
 
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Guise the guardian interceptor is a very good boarding craft. not the fastest but durable enough not to screw you with a couple of unlucky rolls in ship combat like the scout cutter. especially when your crew is leveled up.


I used the starting Guardian Interceptor (which u can get as a B priority ship and built on that)
Get a4 weapon locker asap; dump all the small weapons and get defensive modules like void shield, defensive matrix and armored blkhead. for the one free small slot you could have a range 1 autocannon maybe for 1 ap range 1 fire while next. but i like to have a prison cell for them crew combat bounty hunting missions.

as for medium guns keep the default range 1to3 lance and range 5to4 torpedo.

captain and officers prioritize command skill (i.e. Military officer or Commander) for multiclassing if a slot is free.

boarding assualt with them gunners. a couple of engineers with brace for impact. target locking, enemy debuff,perfected approach and the mechanic talent which purges crippling effects and repair components is good to have too. Throw Wrench mechanic skill is good too.

with a crew size of 30 and total of 5 officers;
the captain us a military officer x/combat medic. x wields pistol in crew combat slot 2/3. 3rd multiclass slot free

doctor x/combat m 1/m. off x is 1st officer. wields pistol in crew combat slot 2/3. a level in combat medic just for esuture and cleansing purge which works very will with the doctor levels.

quarter m. x/zealot x is 2nd officer. wields blades in slot 1. intimidate bully guy for intel via rough interrogation and zealot melee skills. 3rd multiclass slot free

engineer 5/mechanic 5/m officer. x is 3rd officer. he isnt combatant but repair/upgrade skill monkey.

bounty hunter x/exo scout x is the remaining officer . uses sniper rifles from 4th slot. rapes xenos in crew combat with the exo specific wpn skills. 3rd multiclass slot free.

To end their started with a scout cutter loyal to caedar on hard for them Priority A stats and Priority B skills. Lots of grinding via no combat quest and trading till full crew/officers was lv 6 ish and lv4 weapon locker was affordable. maybe should have started in another faction for easier jewgold at start.

Captain was level 25ish and did a lot of crew combat boarding/rough interrogation for intel and looting ships/trading for getting jewgold to upgrade to GI with the top tier components.

but apparently destroying pirates and salvaging after victory causes a lot of butthurt for factions. Well good thing that patrolling (lv5 gunner with supermacy of firepower and lv5 military officer with commanding sweep really helps with patrols) eases the butthurt of factions a lot. so that i can actually refuel/repair/heal/Spice at ports other than my starting faction.

Myabe another specialized ship can do a better similarly low risk (during ship battles) boarding better; but GI fits for me. But has to start with scout cutter cause stats and skills important.

PS: i didn't do much exploring outside quests but got around 40 units of xeno terran artifacts and nobody wants them; not even in blackmarkets when i succed a few times. where do i sell the xeno artifacts shit for the sweet sweet jewgold?
 
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Trash

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Played it for a bit. While the hidden mechanics, writing and sometimes presentation are allright the actual gameplay are sorely lacking. The ship to ship combat is lame and the glorified card game that constitutes a large part of the rest of the possible actions gets boring quickly. They really shot themselves in the foot when they ditched the boarding action. The reasons they give are bullshit, it was simply cutting dev time. Without them really sprucing up the various gameplay systems I really don't see this one becoming a genuine good game. And despite their great reputation for support and expansion I just don't see them doing that. Most likely some more questlines, uniforms and perhaps a few modules and ships. Like they've been doing for awhile now. Missed chance.

Perhaps their next game will become truly great. These guys have been improving steadily.
 

LordofSyn

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im toying recently with idea of middle sized ship but I lack some information.

For example, how important base armor and shields are? Guardian interceptor got those values low while hull is decent. Actually base vaues are so low that i wonder how useful armor upgrades are there.
Im trying to min-max here which ship gives best protection at ranges 5-4 and possibly 3(this is due single boarding attempt ). Does it matter or just give up since only crew skill pool is important.
Are you trying to make the GI into a boarding beast?

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Guise the guardian interceptor is a very good boarding craft
im toying recently with idea of middle sized ship but I lack some information.

For example, how important base armor and shields are? Guardian interceptor got those values low while hull is decent. Actually base vaues are so low that i wonder how useful armor upgrades are there.
Im trying to min-max here which ship gives best protection at ranges 5-4 and possibly 3(this is due single boarding attempt ). Does it matter or just give up since only crew skill pool is important.
actually the base armor can be boosted by dumping the additional redundant weapons (just two medium 3 ap weapons to cover all the ranges are enough) for armored bulkheads, pulse boosters, defensive matrices etc. with that setup 40%+ armor and shields you get. Still good to have a couple of doctors with Life Saver perk for those buttrapey Xeno ships, which always seem to hit on 1st turn even with evasive maneuvers and assorted buffs.
 

LordofSyn

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to be clear what im trying to do:
spy/scout mission runner that will mostly run away but being capable of board some vessels.
Not necessary GI. Im still toying with idea of using bolt raptor for example. Of 30crew size ship GI got nice number of space but very low armor values


Yeah but GI got this armor very low. For example bolt raptor got twice that. As such those armor components are less effective.

While on topic: Ive seen people claiming that medical component is mandatory. Why is that?
Some ships do have a med bay stock, but it is not always required. There is a later era where a med bay (plus stockpiling medical supplies in wild zones) will be very worthwhile.
The other reason for having a med bay installed is so that you can buff your Doctor skill pool and make better use of Medical Talents overall. Especially the Med Talents tied to ship combat.

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LordofSyn

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to be clear what im trying to do:
spy/scout mission runner that will mostly run away but being capable of board some vessels.
Not necessary GI. Im still toying with idea of using bolt raptor for example. Of 30crew size ship GI got nice number of space but very low armor values


Yeah but GI got this armor very low. For example bolt raptor got twice that. As such those armor components are less effective.

While on topic: Ive seen people claiming that medical component is mandatory. Why is that?
As for your armor values, while very important, having a great Nav and Piloting skill pool. (133-150%) is more beneficial early on. Not getting hit is better than getting hit and having to soak that damage.

Since you are looking to build a Spy / Scout ship...make sure that you also get your Electronics pool to that sweet spot as mentioned above for Piloting and Nav.

Spying uses Electronics as one of the main skills. As you will be doing your best to prevent combat or, at least preventing as much damage as possible should combat be unavoidable; it might be wise (regardless which ship you decide one) to swap out the R1&2 weapons for Piloting, Nav, Spying modules, etc.

Hope that helps a bit. The Guardian Interceptor is one of my fave ships, but it may not be the best ship for your needs and play style. May the Void be merciful to you and your crew, Captain.

Next round of Spice is on me, tell 'em Syn sent you if you also choose to go to the Trese Brother's Discord for additional assistance.

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Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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While on topic: Ive seen people claiming that medical component is mandatory. Why is that?

Because your doctor in-combat skills won't be healing much without their multipliers. There's a big difference between healing 3 and 15 crewmembers, you know.


As for the boarding ships - best choices seem to be Callus Freighter & Dart Jammer. They have 24 speed/agility engine (which in the upgraded form will be 24/29) and they have 30 crew and 5 officers. Seems to be the best combination possible. In combat all your rolls are multiplied by the division of your speed/their speed. Or your agility/their agility. Depending on the range. So while the heaviest ship possible will have 40% more crew and 2 more officers than you, you'll be having this 100% multiplier that should be evening these things out. And that's at the very least - if they're having longhaul engine, it can be 400% difference instead.

I'm not sure if that's capped or whatnot (because the combat log is amusingly sparse in commentary, unlike the crew combat one). But that's how it's supposed to work. It's all about finding the best crew to speed/agility ratio. Components are also important, ofc, but in boarding build you literally don't need cannons. And armor & shielding are capped at 60% anyways. So it's not that difficult to assemble.
 

LordofSyn

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usually have those at 250% as its a must for spying. as for rest Im good with spying and how to make it work.
Problem for me is still choosing right ship as ship battles mechanic is elusive to me.


im still trying to decide between 24 and 30 crew as such im comparing everything to bolt raptor, which got comparable space but better armor.

thats the most important piece of news I didnt know.
Finally found page describing it. Initially I understood it as 60% bonus cap but it actually is 60% dmg reduction at armor 25. With 12 base armor one needs 108% bonus... Which is achievable. Getting cap with half that base not so much.
I consider getting that cap important through ship means as talents need to offset enemy debuffs.
Now about shielding: if enemy torpedo is fired at me, do i first get armor reduction, then shielding reduce dmg to components and my crew? Or do I read it wrong. Since that one reaches cap at 50 its harder to reach... if not impossible in non huge vessel. Components provide lesser value than armor and you need over 200%. Would need to do the math but you can probably reach cap on armor and half the cap on shielding with small/medium vessel.


why do you chose agility over speed? Speed is used in long distance and to escape. I considered it no brainier as once you get in distance 3 its game over after single boarding.

How are pilot/navigation used in calculation? Is it total score or that displayed percentage of what you need to man your ship?
Any skill pool over 200% is wasted. Period. You do not get any further bonuses or buffs for 250%.
The sweet spot, mechanically, is 133-150% for all skill pools. This has been proven throughout Pre-Alpha to current. I have been play testing since Pre-Alpha.
This has also been confirmed by Cory himself.

Shielding refers to shielding for the electronics and such. They are not like Star Trek (as an example) shields.

Speed is important, but so is Agility. Nav and Speed are used for ranges 4 and 5, Pilot and Agility for all other ranges.

Yes, I am sorry that the Wiki does not reflect the max Armor and Shields for ships being 60. That will be amended shortly.


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Pope Amole II

Nerd Commando Game Studios
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im still trying to decide between 24 and 30 crew as such im comparing everything to bolt raptor, which got comparable space but better armor.

Well, Bolt Raptor is also a nice bird. It's not even about the armor - it has scout bridge and that means you're wasting much less space on the officer cabins. And while you're losing 6 crew members from it, it's not a question of crew size only - it's a question of how big can you raise the ship's requirements. Given that even lvl 14 pilots are already providing you with 9 pilot each, it's not like you need that big of the crew to reach for the mark of 50, for example. So as a pure combat vessel Raptor is probably better. On the other hand, 30 crew ships will still get better economy. But this is a game of specialization so eventually you'll have a ship for this, a ship for that. Decent fighter costs couple of millions anyways so yeah.

Now about shielding: if enemy torpedo is fired at me, do i first get armor reduction, then shielding reduce dmg to components and my crew?

Yeah, it seems like the armor is being applied first and then shielding takes action. So, as long as you have good armor, having tons of shielding seems to be less of priority.

And there's also the fact that you're only getting damage if you're being hit. So it's a big question whether you should invest into small armor/shielding modules or into Defense Pattern Matrix modules. Having 5 of the latter means 25% defense bonus and, on a piloting-focused ship, that can net you 30 or so standard dice.

why do you chose agility over speed? Speed is used in long distance and to escape. I considered it no brainier as once you get in distance 3 its game over after single boarding.

I play with boarding crews mostly. That's much easier than gunfighting - you don't have to waste any space on those pesky cannons and you're getting nothing but defensive modules instead. The sword is mightier than the gun.

How are pilot/navigation used in calculation? Is it total score or that displayed percentage of what you need to man your ship?

Basically, the lower number (at which you are 100%) is the strong dice. Anything above and up to 200% is the basic dice - to put it simply, it's half of a strong dice. So having min piloting 50 at 100% is 50 defense. Having min piloting 30 at 200% is 45 defense. The min is very important and you're raising it by installing compotents that boost your skill pools.
 

LordofSyn

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Standard and Strong dice both roll D10.
Standard success is any 8+ rolled.
Strong success is any 6+ rolled.

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Pope Amole II

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what i meant is that from my experience you dont need agility. Once you reach agility range you can perform boarding followed with throw wrench twice. This more or less disables enemy ship firing capacity.
As such speed seem to be better as it both protects you from getting hit by the time you reach 3 and to close that distance.

Depends on the difficulty, really. Thrown wrench is a bit of a luxury on Impossible. And you need to have 2 gunners to board from position 3. Whereas you could've had 2 Military Officers or Commanders instead of them.
 

Pope Amole II

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I find odd not having 2 leveled mechanics on board. Also one engineer. Throw wrench aside they help with spying so I can see it being a bit of special case.

Oh, so those don't have to be part of a boarding crew to be available? I thought that they need to be 1 of the 4 and that's why I was talking about luxury - sparing 5 ranks for a noncombat profession is difficult.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
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deterministic system > RNG
 
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