Trese Brothers Games (Star Traders: Frontiers and more)

Yeah thats my biggest gripe as well. Its like the universe is an ever shrinking number of systems you can visit and trade or even refuel at with very limited or zero ways to get out of the faction hate spiral. It needs to be retuned heavily imho.

The Trese brothers clarified this point in the forum.

  1. Checking the manual leveling ONLY affects the starting/creation screen
  2. In game, the officers get to choose what Job levels to increase and Traits to get
  3. The non-officers crew only have 1 job. so they will automatically increase that job. but you get to pick the traits.
  4. The officers gets to level up a job every level. The traits are unlocked at fixed intervals of the levels they are at.

I know Templar Battleforce is highly regarded. What do you guys think of Star Traders: 4X Empires and Heroes of Steel RPG?

I just leveled up some of my guys to level 8 and they have ability to loot without any negative reputations!

I’m having trouble completing simple fedex missions – I arrive at the planet where delivery is to be made, but I’m not sure what I do next. As in, how do I deliver an item and get paid off?

If you land on the right planet, there will be a box at the bottom left. That indicates that a mission completion interaction is needed.

Click on that. Then pick an option that will give best success/rewards possibility. Normally there is a trade off involved. You’ll be greeted with a completion summary screen.

Edit:

Once you have picked it up. You can access the waypoint/mission screen where you can see the next stop in your delivery route if it’s not the last stop. Set the waypoint and proceed.

I’m having a good run, building up funds and contacts by doing the quests.

I’ve upgraded my armoury to level 4 as advised in the Steam forums and is having a lot easier time fighting land battles.

I currently have about 100K of cash reserves. Anyone have any ideas what should I upgrade next? I’m aiming for survivability instead of just pure combat.

Ah, didn’t see that. Thanks!

To escape I just use abilities. I can know almost always leave combat if I want, heck the pilot level 10 ability is “skip the void” or something where you take damge but auto runaway, which is handy when you run into aliens.

My next actual ship upgrade after armoury was the cargo hold then the short range weapons that do extra damage effects. I figure more debuffs the oppo has the better :)

Wait, why are you apologizing to me? Is it not a roguelike and you’re playing it wrong, or are you calling me out for how I use the term? I’m very confused. Mainly because this game is in early access, so I won’t be playing it until it’s done.

But if it has the three P’s of modern roguelikes (Permadeath, Procedurally generated game world, and meta-Progression), I’m totally okay with you playing it like a roguelike.

-Tom

I didnt want to cause you angst. Now I feel I have. :(

Btw it wont be in Early Access for long. The stars await! :)

Templar Battleforce is a really cool game I mean to get back to, also because it can be played entirely with a trackpad since all its interface is based on left clicks.
Considering the somewhat low profiles of the brothers’ other games, what I am intrigued to know is why 1/4 my Steam friends list bought Star Traders: Frontiers on the day of its release!

I think the quantum leap in visuals from the previous games (as I remember them) makes them much more sellable with screenshots. It looks so much better. Is there a manual hidden somewhere? I tried it yesterday but could not figure out anything. What do all these symbols and icons mean, what are stats for what do skills do, why is the level of my credit important etc. I neither have the time nor inclination to figure this all out by myself right now. Never did to be honest, always have been an avid manual reader. So, anything like this out there? The game could use a proper tutorial or at least informative mousover popups for things.

If you go to the product page and click on “See manual”, it will take you to the Wiki. That’s all there is, I’m afraid.

Yeah, everybody has said that. They’ve said they’ll be adding it and more as EA goes along.

Is there a screen that keeps track of trading good prices / demand at the ports you visit, or am I going to have to break out pencil and paper to keep track of it like in the old days?

Wow, I didn’t know that. So basically, you get blacklisted in your home systems if you ignore the Prince? I wonder if that’s a design decision or a glitch. Doing one of his missions too early more or less ended my first game. Kept getting attacked by a hostile faction’s military ships since we were in a trade war with them.

I believe that as long as you do not actually accept a mission from the prince, you can just ignore him and go off and do other missions and then come back and accept it later whenever you want. At least that’s what I did. After you accept a mission the timer starts ticking to complete it on time and if you don’t you’ll get dinged for rep.

The game is designed to be played either as a sandbox or to complete the story, however you want to do it. If you want to just freelance it, then I’d suggest completing the initial mission to transport the Arbiter because that’s a quick, easy 10,000 credits. After that just don’t accept any offers from the prince and instead go off to other sectors and trade or do whatever you want. You can look at the missions the prince offers, just don’t accept any.

What does it mean to be “winning” a trade war or an alliance by x points?

Happily its not that bad, its just the Prince. His personal faction becomes -800 or whatever, your faction with the clan is not changed negatively.

Hmm. I THINK thats what I did, but maybe I just didnt even go talk to him after. I will try that netx character. Thanks!

I took a story mission that involved 4 hyper jumps there and back and boy I ended up in a lot of fights along the way. Since I didn’t get paid for anything on this one I went from about $45K to $6K by the end of it. I’m going to have to take some side mission for cash quick or I wont be able to pay my crew.

The hardest thing about the game for me is getting an understanding of where I stand in the various factions and what actions will do what to my rep with them. I wish they had a status screen just for that.