Update #364: The Admirable Grav

Welcome to the New Year, captains. The year of Star Traders (again)!

Pull up a chair in the spice tent and let's sit down over another update for your favorite space captain simulator. We hope you had a good holiday break and found some fun new games during the Steam Winter sale. As for Star Traders: Frontiers, updates are resuming for 2025! With Update #364, we've added a new contact type, 5 new relic armor and weapons, adjusted the rules for cloaking and Xeno Artifacts (you can't hide from the xeno!), improved the maintenance cost of mid-level Interdictors and reduced drop rate for the Uncover Contact Network card in Explorer.

Thanks to every captain playing and leaving feedback and reviews!

[h2]Actually It's the Year of Cyber Knights![/h2]
So many of our updates for Star Traders are based on feedback from you all. But there are limits to what we can do in a game 6 years after its release. Our new tactical heist RPG, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, is evolving fast in Early Access and will be releasing later in 2025. It still has plenty of room for content ideas and shifts in gameplay based on what you, our very best players, are finding fun.

Join us to make this game another one you’ll be enjoying for years to come.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

[h2]Admirable Retired Consul[/h2]

This update adds a new type of Contact that can appear in your faction zones. The Retired Consul is an influential new Contact type that prefers high Government and Economy zones and offers Missions, Sells Rumors and provides high quality Recruits.

[h2]Added 5 New Relic Armors and Weapons[/h2]
Based on player feedback and insatiable demand for moar gear, we've expanded the armor and weapon catalog to include some fan-requested variations. There are 3 new Armor with very high Hardness values, and two new blades that counter them with high Penetration. Good luck finding them, Relic Hunters!

[h2]Cloaking and Artifacts[/h2]

We're keeping a very close eye on the new cloaking rules and the awesome impacts they are having on the ship meta. A lot of new ship designs have spawned out of these new components. However, we have found that they are too powerful for certain types of smuggler builds and playstyles. Be ware - ship encounter rate reduction no longer have any impact on the penalty for carrying Xeno Artifacts in your ship's cargo hold. The clarion call of these cursed things cannot be disguised and the Xeno ships will not be fooled by cloaking. The effects of cloaking still apply to all regular ships, to regular chances to meet xeno in the void, but simply do not protect you if your hull is full to bursting with Artifa cts. As another note, the cloaking reduction still does apply to the increase chance in meeting Military and Bounty Hunter ships that you can gain for carrying Xeno Artifacts.

[h2]Small Craft Maintenance[/h2]
Some maintenance costs for Small Craft (the actual fights, and some launch bays) have been adjusted to be more linear in growth. This should make some high end small craft setups more expensive while making introductory small craft slightly more efficient to own early in the game.

[h2]Contact Network Drop[/h2]

The Contact Network card you could draw in Explorer is very powerful for that operation, and we've reduced its rates of appearance to ensure it stays rare enough to play.

[h2]v3.4.23 - #364 - 1/9/2025[/h2]
- New Contact Type: "Retired Consul" (Influential, Court Missions, Sells Rumors)
- New Gear: 3 new high-Hardness Armors and 2 new high-Penetration Weapons
- New Salvage Relic Weapon: Slazah Warblade (Main Blade)
- New Rare Relic Weapon: Ki-Karat Siazah (2nd Hand Blade)
- New Rare Relic Armors: Cryoseal Mesh + Warden Stalker
- New Salvage Relic Armor: Voidshard Carapace
- Cloaking no longer reduces encounter penalty from Xeno Artifact transport
- Balanced maintenance costs for Interdictor (Class 4-8) Small Craft
- Reduced drop rate of "Uncover Contact Network" (+5 Explorer Card)
- Improved processing efficiency in political simulator, better performance
- Fixed Reported Bugs