Trese Brothers Games (Star Traders: Frontiers and more)

Uh, the link was only good for about a week. However, I forgot about it and emailed them when I realized what had happened and one of the brothers got back to me and got me access for my free ipad version. You might need to do the same.

If not, simply contact one of the Trese brothers by e-mail/twitter/discord or something else. I guarantee they’ll get back to you about this; they’re extremely responsive.

Captain Dog Jr.? You were well ahead of the curve when you selected that name.

Whoa, look at Vic Davis dropping some serious Star Frontiers wisdom! That’s a tsunami of great advice, Vic.

-Tom

His wisdom is literally the reason I just reinstalled and will try to tackle the game again (in addition to the fact that every time I see you returning to a game on-stream when there’s nothing new or exciting out, it seems to be Star Traders–making me think I’m overlooking something about it). I last played 12 months ago.

This was great info, Thanks Vic! Outside of the main story missions, there isn’t a win scenario here is there? Seems like a “play until you’re over it” kind of thing.

Not that I am aware of. I’m pretty sure it’s open sand box. They are apparently adding more “eras” but I’m still working on the “Unification” one right now which is very early on.

There also seem to be story vignettes that you can stumble on. I’ve had crew members join me or contacts pop up wanting me to do stuff like get rid of pirates.

I’ve had to be careful though because playing on hard means you can’t misjudge a mission. If you get blown up or wipe on a crew combat battle, it’s game over (unless you make a death save on the ground combat I think). That would be something that would be nice if they added actually: some type of mission difficulty rating i.e. number of skulls. My big worry right now is that my A team for crew combat isn’t keeping up. It’s hard to train up the youngins when you don’t know how bad the LZ is going to be.

This is a fantastic game. I’ve had a really great time trying to master it. Still working on it. Up to level 18 now on my bounty hunter. Just had my star crew assassin desert. I stupidly did not pick the talent that prevents that thinking I would use the spice halls to keep the crew happy. The beatings will now continue until morale improves.

What difficulty do you play on-stream? I’ve been watching the archived playthroughs (RIP kerzain Kerzain), and because your decisions are so much more deliberate, spending miserly, and actions meticulous, I wondered if it was a reflection of the game’s level of challenge. I might need to bump up my difficulty.

I think it’s called “Challenging.” It’s definitely boosted up from the default, and it’s the difficulty level required to unlock some of the ships and whatnot from the unlockables screen. Unlike too many other designers, the Trese brothers know how to incentivize difficulty levels!

But that is one of the great things about the game. You can just cruise through it and enjoy the narrative, or you can turn it into a brutal optimization spreadsheet, or pretty much anything in between.

-Tom

I just finished a challenging run (by “finished” I mean I ran across 2 Xeno in a row at level 16 or so, barely won the first battle (go go boarding crew) and got obliterated by the second one and decided to reroll) and re-started on the difficulty just below it.

This game has grabbed me super hard. I bounced off it last year when I wasn’t in the mood for all the text and stats (I was in a button-mashing mood), but now I’m even considering picking it up on my tablet so I never have to be away from it!

My only complaint is on a technical level, combat (ship and crew) makes my screen flicker and it gives me a headache. None of the solutions I’ve seen work for me (windowed mode, vsync, trilinear whatever, updated drivers), so that also played a part in my decision to scrap my last run, as my crew were the ultimate Boarding team. And ship combat takes longer when I have to board over and over, meaning more flicker during crew battle. But overall this is a minor complaint since I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

What a great find.

I think I finally have Hard down and will be giving Brutal a try with a carrier ship after I have some more fun with my current Bounty Hunter and Boarding Build. I have a really good ship and crew now although I could have min maxed my officers better for crew combat. I’m about to go on a 24 jump mission to save the galaxy from a plague so wish me luck. I’m going to need it since three of the factions have me as kill on sight. I love quadrants where you only have one or two refueling ports. Quite the challenge. I managed to survive one by pirating fuel. Here is my current Sword Cutter the Lucky Lucy.

I really want to love this game, but it’s not happening so far. It ticks a lot of boxes – spacey space for the spacing, nonlinear procedural derp, low system reqs, runs smoothly in windowed mode, totally turn-based. It just feels so abstracted; I think I like a sense in space games of somehow being ‘in’ a place, even if it’s in a 2D overhead sense. I keep clicking the next refuel spot or mission stage, but more automatically than with pleasure, and when a ship encounter pops up I sort of sigh. Crew combat feels so mushy and uninteresting compared to its Darkest Dungeon progenitor; but I have to admit I have only played on Normal and the game mechanics are probably pure slush at that level.

I’m really interested in procedural open worldy Sid Meier’s Piratesey Battle Brothersy designs, so I commend the Trese brothers on their approach. This one just… isn’t coming together for me, and with 20 hours /played I don’t think I’m gonna give it much more of a shot.

Before you give up, you might want to sample a couple of different careers. One of the strengths of the game is how a bounty hunter plays differently from a pirate who plays differently from an explorer who plays differently from a military officer.

-Tom

I rolled a pirate, but it feels like the game wants me to be a spy/courier/royal intriguer anyway*, and the inconvenience of low rep makes me want to ‘patrol’ rather than ‘blockade.’ I’m sure I can push past all that, but the game seems to want me to play a certain way.

*I suppose I could just ignore the whole Prince Faen storyline thing.

Incidentally, the naked casino-ness of Patrolling makes me gravitate toward it. Whoda thunk rep grinding would be my favorite part of a game?

For the record, most of the guides I’ve seen explicitly say you should totally ignore the story line on your first few playthroughs.

I’ve had some good luck playing the pirate but the key is having one or two faction enemies that you don’t mind having -200+ rep with. For me it’s always Song and Rychert for some reason. Usually I think because I start with Cadar and it’s always one of those two that get the Princess Chaer story line.

But if you go after just those nemesis factions then you can have some success and work on building rep with everybody else.

Also you need repair talents or you will not make a profit. There are talents that let you repair after a battle. Use those and smart fightly and then ransom the ship and you can make money. It also helps to get the talent that gives you a discount when you repair at a star base.

There is also a Zealot talent which lets you get intel after a vcitory and you can use that with contacts.

Best to come up with an attack plan that relies on boarding. I use a talent to get in close right away either from the main menu or in combat (Twitch Surge) and then use plasma and boarding with a well coordinated crew combat team. Bounty hunter captain with Plasma Grenade is OP. :)

When playing the card game for patrolling, spying, exploring, etc. other than playing a trait to replace or reroll a card, is there some other way to influence the outcome of a hand?

I assume the cards are controlled by RNG but I played a while last night and the outcome did not seem random. Several times I drew a good hand with only one bad card and yet that bad card would be the remaining card too often to seem random.

For spying there are some talents that let you replace a threat card with an intel or credits card.

The remove risk card lets you improve your odds. But I too have noticed some suspicious some times strange stuff that makes me think it isn’t a 1 in 5 chance for any given card. But I use that to my advantage by choosing the -5 card or the -3 distress signal card. That one always seems to get picked. Of course it could be that it is just pure rng and my superstitions are unfounded. Knock on wood :)

Other than Talents, it’s a matter of weighing the two values that determine which five cards you draw. They’re called, I think, Danger and Risk. Is that right? I remember not quite understanding what they each meant until I read the wiki.

Also, in case it’s not obvious, you can always walk away from a draw.

-Tom

As far as the draws for your hand deal goes, I think your reputation with the faction that controls the zone (planet) also is a factor. I’ve noticed that when I have a really high rep with somebody, the spying is never as good even if the risk of the quadrant is high. But yeah, like Tom says, there is a panel for looking at the risk and reward draw cat percentages. Plus, I think the hand draws gradually get worse the more you work them but that might just my imagination.It is the case for the exploration game though. You will eventually deplete the zone and not be able to draw more.

As far as what happens when you actually pick a card, I think it is random 1 in 5 except for the games where a mission card is in play. Often you will see a percent chance on the mission success card. But I wonder if there are weights in the other games too? Like I said, I have seen some strange things.or maybe I’m just paranoid. :)