Star Traders: Frontiers

I think this is one of the best Space Trader and Combat Sims. i feel like it plays homage to all the old ones from the 1980s and 90s really well. A lot of heart put into this project over an insanely long period of time and i have purchased this game on mobile as well.

A truly excellent game with bits of Darkest Dungeon and FTL along with multiple card games and good story writing. It does have a learning curve but once you understand the mechanics behind starship and character building it is a lot of fun. There are many great guides on Steam and elsewhere to get you started too. I've just completed all the achievements/unlocks and I don't usually play a game long enough for that. Same for reviews... this is the first game I've liked enough to review! It's good !!

After it clicked it became an incredible experience that I wasn't able to put down for days. After all these years the devs still put out updates. I grabbed the Android version as well. This is one of those games you come back to again and again.

all replayability

Why NO SAVE slots that work??? Why do I have 4 save slots and cannot reload a previous save? 141 hours in I make a mistake and my game is ruined!!!!!

Nothing is explained. Enemies are heavily favored in combat—they are too often higher level, meaning you can't escape and you can't win. By defending yourself against pirates, you end up with every system except your home system hostile, and the crew deserts every time you land anywhere. Just a total mess. If even one mechanic in this game was explained it might not be so miserable.

Everything about this experience is unsat. Feels bad. Is bad.

I really tried to like this game, however I can't get into it
Main problem is balance. Game is too easy or too difficult. Nothing in-between. Battle skills are useless because in easy fights you don't need them and in difficult ones - they won't save you.
Also dice roll mechanic is complicated so it's barely understandable. Therefore the player doesn't know if one has high or low chances of success
Also in-game time flies so fast that I had feeling I barely done anything and decades already have passed.
Game is rich and interesting but game mechanics and balance fail hard. Also UI is a chore, but was mentioned million times so it's obvious now

I like space sims and I continually returning to this game from time to time.
P.s.: cannot understand recent negative reviews. Maybe they expect "3 in row" game or else...

It's Sid Meyer's Pirates, but in space, or a form of no-graphics version of a billion games like Elite: Dangerous. It's quite a bit bigger than either of those examples, and much like Templar Battleforce, you could probably spend hundreds of hours optimising your crew and ship.

That said, much like Templar Battleforce, it's not remotely clear why you'd really want to do that, and there's not much in game to help you figure anything out. It is very much a Trese Brothers game, and you will love it or hate it accordingly.

I'd suggest it's a good buy at $10. Play for two hours - just do the quest, but skip the dialog (or you won't get very far into it). It's likely you will die and not get much done, but it will give you a good feel for what the core gameplay loop is like as much of that is touched on in that first quest.

Great game, I had it on my phone so I decided to pick it up on PC. Yes the game can be brutal and there's certainly lots to do. That's the fun part. Low learning curve but high mastery.

Its just no fun at all, tons of things you can do but they all feel pointless and the UI everywhere you look is a nightmare.

rigged gameplay.

I always get bad results, or my officers aren't good enough, or my crew isn't, like get fucking real. Actual bullshit, unfair play, and no, it is not gameplay, fuck that.

This shit is excellent. It scratches an itch I knew I had while scratching things I never knew I needed. Love supporting quality indie devs. I am excited to try new runs and new captains but the OG commander, exo-scout, smuggler is going strong.

I will undoubtedly try Cyber-knights at some point.

Wow, I've played "Star Traders: Frontiers" for 144 hours over the last couple of years and I never realized that I never left a review of this great game. It's very interesting and a lot of fun to play, especially if you are a min/max'er, like space games, turn based combat, etc. The Trese Brothers are my favorite development team and they are still releasing updates for this game years after release. Check out their newest game, "Cyber Knights: Flashpoint", in (late Early Access) active development and join them on Discord (it's a lively community).

I bought this game because I wanted to trade and fight xenos. But I'm 30 minutes in and there is only info dump after info dump. A lot of yapping and no action whatsoever to the point that it looks more like a visual novel than a game. The game needs to be renamed Space politician, because is a more descriptive name.

Fantastic free world game,

Nothing humbles me more than playing for 149 hours and only having gotten 3 achievements.
I love this game.

need a phd to start playing. easiest unlocks/achievements have 20% and 10% completion rate.

Absolute garbage.
No tutorial, no learning campaign.
A myriad of options with no context and no guidance.
With that start it looks like a black hole of a time-sink, waste hours or days just to learn something that I 'might' like.
Asked for a refund after less than 30 mins trying to play.
Refund denied.
What a steaming pile ... quite contemptible ...

terrible

Very well done

Very good! There are often many ways to build your crew, accomplish mission objectives, and fulfill your own goals. Being able to change from dying all the time to dominating alien invaders feels very rewarding. The crew combat is amazing. There are times when the enemy will be much higher level, but good strategies will still allow you to destroy them. It is cool how your crew and the world changes based on your actions. Depending on who you help, you can get new contacts, powerful crew members, severely weaken your enemies, maybe even start full-blown faction conflicts that you can participate in to become a faction hero.

It is true that there are some parts that seem built for the phone, and some parts that are better on a bigger screen like a PC. On the PC, the jobs and talents interface is highly sensitive on trackpad scrolling, but the mid-travel skill tests are shown in full detail. On the phone, interfaces for ship management, crew management, and planet interaction have perfectly sized and positioned buttons, but can have problems being cramped when there are a lot of activated talents available. Still, if I am properly managing the time I play and planning what I do, then I enjoy the mechanics and story, barely noticing these things.

I enjoyed my 5hrs. I'd describe it as a deeper, more 4x version of Wildermyth. There are also elements from games like Galactic Civilizations, Out There, and Darkest Dungeon.

If you want to feel like you understand the mechanics and rules of this game then you'll need study a lot of in-game menus and statistics. Or watch YouTube tutorials.

Not a knock on the game, but at this juncture of my life, I'm not willing/able to invest that kind of time/focus. So I'm putting the game on the shelf for now.

There are an astounding amount of interesting mechanics in this game...buried under one of the most brutally obtuse and crowded user interfaces I have ever seen.

It's hard to tell what screen you're on, how to get back to the screen you were at, or what elements on the screen are even clickable. Parsing the state of the game (where your ship is, its status, what you can do) is spread across multiple screens, hidden underneath buttons that CHANGE the screen layout and require new buttons to return or go elsewhere. The fonts and colors are splashed so vibrantly that everything is competing for the attention of your eyes. Beyond that, some mechanics (especially the RPG crew leveling system) are bloated and presented so poorly that I'd rather they not be there at all.

This game needs a sequel that does a thorough and robust UI cleanup, as well as a systems fat trimming. If you're up for an amazing prototype for a deep and potentially satisfying space trading and exploration game, give it a go. However, it sucks to actually try to play and I would not recommend it to anyone looking to scratch their space trading itch. StarSector or Naev might be better options as of January 2025.

Very fun game to play in the background while studying/working/watching a movie etc. can tweak it to be as easy or difficult as you want and constantly updated w/o DLC except for one optional 'support the devs' option. Well worth the cost

A fun and unique take on a spaceship adventuring game - you have a starship and a substantial crew, so there are more layers than just your ship and a few character builds, while being less daunting than games where you're basically playing a database.

There is a bit of an upfront cost in learning mechanics all at once, but even then I muddled through my first run on vibes and still had a blast. Then I went back for round two having an idea of how to optimize things and fix my prior mistakes, plus engage with a pile of new content. Even years later there are still free updates and additions.

A great game by a very dedicated dev team! I think it's worth it at full price, and if it's on sale it's a fantastic bargain.

vewy guwd

Yeah, I only gave it like 5 mins of actual game play the rest was making classes/starts. It feels more like a mobile game and has far more admin work to do. Really didn't feel bothered to engage with it almost immediately outside of the character creation. I tried to read the dialogue, but got tired of it and started skipping everything just to do fetch quests as the actual game play with fluff text choices.

I'm not enjoying the opaque mechanics and RNG. In guides, when I read stuff like "you might want to restart the game a few times until you get a starting contact with 70+ influence"...that just makes me think....yuck?

It's not for everyone, but it has certainly grabbed me. Make sure to not piss off the majority of the other houses. That's the main thing I've learned.

This game looks like a mobile game and honestly i avoided it because of that - if you like space games with an emphasis on narrower career paths: this game is worth your time. If you want a very action heavy game - avoid.

I regret buying this game. The 2 hours are not enough to test the game. You need much more than that to get used to your team and UI.

That's why the game should have had a demo so you could test the game properly. It's almost impossible to make a refund because the 2 hours aren't enough to test the game. At the very least, you'd need 10 or more hours.

I have a lot of games but this is undoubtedly the one I regret buying the most.

Overall doesn't feel like a game, more like a simulator for an admin job as a middle (micro)manager at a space slot machine company. basically took the most uninteresting parts of sci-fi/star trek like crew management, recruitment, morale, paperwork, clerical administration, etc. and tried to turn it into a grinding ADHD simulator with too many moving parts. it can be an addictive game loop at times, but i found myself feeling exhausted after playing and wanting to uninstall it after every session. there is some drive to understand the complicated game mechanics and maybe that is the most addictive component of the experience, but I often found the barrage of events in the log making me feel like my crew was incredibly incompetent even at higher levels still experiencing all of these failures and issues.

I don't want to hate on this simulation too much, because there are a lot of interesting bright spots and some of the mechanics are similar to a lot of other games (not sure who invented them). I just feel like it is way too ambitious and focused on breadth and depth versus quality and actually being an enjoyable experience. Lots of reviews mention spreadsheets and I feel like this is accurate, there's just too much micromanagement that drains the fun aspect out of the game and some of the game mechanics feel fudged to fit in with the rules of the universe, but then break realism. If the breadth of the game was reduced by 50-75% and cleaned up it could be a fun experience, right now it feels like a huge base game that has been continually patched rather than designed correctly from its foundations. a lot of the factions seem like superfluous padding, halving the number of factions would reduce clutter, reduce contacts, and reduce the annoying trade permitting requirements.

The story is compelling enough with choices matter branching and a mix of cool missions, the crew combat can be fun, the trading seems deep, contacts are a cool idea, and if you are into massive management then this will be right up your alley. for me it tries to be too realistic in the crew/contact/ship management and then drops the ball on realism in other areas. the card flipping becomes a stale grind very quickly especially when there aren't great methods of improving rep once lost. appreciate having lots of dune inspired content that is almost too closely inspired sometimes, but hard to argue with that good of a source of inspiration. it feels a bit like post-scattering reunification in the dune universe and the arbiter unified government aspect is an interesting mission storyline, but i started with the faen storyline and did not enjoy the experience enough to try the other path.

Lots of the fun parts of the game are marred by too much content and too many things to manage. It just feels like a paperwork nightmare managing all the contacts, missions, quadrants, etc. and while parts of the UI/UX work well, some of it is horrendous and inconsistent so that you constantly feel overwhelmed. ship combat is the weakest imo, with such huge crews and so many talents if you want to defeat ships via boarding it can take forever and then the rewards vs the damage you suffer can make combat something you just want to avoid, but then the medical/repair rules systems almost force you to engage in combat just so you can heal and repair your crew/ship. any game aspect that moves the player to meta-game due to deficiencies in the rule set and mechanics should be redesigned.

gamebreakers for me: too much crew management, too many useless ship encounters result in developing retreat/escape ships, game mechanics like no background/in-transit healing/repair mean you engage in crew/ship combat to healing/repair which breaks immersion and makes no sense, UI/UX and overwhelming number of contacts and the grind to gain personal rep, climbing out of a hole of rep deficit is a grind, trade permitting, overly complicated game mechanics in every aspect create potentially airtight rules at the expense of a fun experience.

i think there's some really cool mechanics that just feel overly enginereed and some people will really enjoy the breadth of the game, but for me it felt like a job and the opposite of what i want in a game.

some ideas/refs/inspiration for improvement:

absolutely need a tutorial rather than a collection of outdated wiki docs created at various stages of development. choosing the base templates for the game it isn't made clear what the priorities mean and that you will be managing such a huge number of crew from the get go which felt like being dropped into a managerial nightmare rather than learning the ropes with a smaller crew first
map/mission handling: endless sky
ship component display/general UI: anything else-> endless sky, approaching infinity, ftl
crew combat: darkest dungeon
ship combat: overall weakest and most tedious part of the game for me, maybe crying suns, approaching infinity, ftl

EDIT: some spelling fixes and just want to say that i appreciate the devs' commitment and that the game isn't awful by any means. i must have just been in a rage quit mood and wrote this stream of consciousness, so hopefully suggestions are helpful and this doesn't just feel completely like an angry rant

Great world building that is implied far more than it is ever told.

I bought this game because I was quite addicted to Cyber Knights Flashpoint and desperately wanted to play something similar while waiting for full release, and that's kind of what Star Traders is. However, I really did not enjoyed the combat, neither the space nor the crew combat, so it's unlikely I will play more.

Still, I am giving a thumbs up for this game because I love this developer and while I did not loved the game, I love this type of game and I want the developers to make more in the future.

If someday they make a sequel to this game I will buy it day one because I did liked the non-combat part of the game and I trust these developers to listen to feedback and improve.

My friend recommended this game as the one game he always keeps installed due to its depth of gameplay and content. I feel that at 155 hours I'm still just scratching the surface of this game...

6 years later they're still pushing out more content.

Excellent game. Challenge, constantly changing, and punishing if you make mistakes. I keep coming back to it again and again.

Bonus, the devs keep updating! It is absolutely a labour of love game in my books.

Space exploration and adventure. It's like being with Kirk... but maybe you're the Red Shirt.

One of the best bang for the buck game ever. More than 6 years of FREE updates and it's still getting updated. The devs have a great track record of having long support for their games.

It was a hard to understand at first. I just followed the main story until I learned basic gameplay. It is like the mobile game Pirates and Traders, but more stuff and bigger. You can do different jobs to make money and gain reputation. I like how you can do character customization along with ship battles and land battles. It is hard to start playing because there is a lot but it is so fun it is hard to stop playing.

Fantastic little game with an amazingly dedicated dev team.

Steep time investment but rewarding systems. No tutorial is not great :(

One of best space games I ever played honestly. Just like most other Trese Brothers games.

Also absolute candidate for labor of love. Seriously, have you seen how many updates this has gotten since release? All for free? The only DLC is cosmetic only.

Doesn't work on mac OS despite being advertised as such. Tried the pinned workaround of using the macos legacy beta which forces the game back to 3.3.59, but that still doesn't work on mac OS 14 with an intel processor.

EDIT: Support from devs is timely and relevant. I managed to get it working on my macbook after upgrading to macOS 15. Will update review if/when I get more gameplay experience.

THIS IS NOT A NEGATIVE REVIEW, but red makes for a better warning. Steam really does need an "amber" or "conditional" stance.

Star Traders Frontiers is fantastic - ambitious, mechanically rich, rewarding of thought, and as far as I'm aware, pretty much unique in the breadth of everything it bundles together in its nicely unconstrained sandbox. RPG, ship-building, combat, party management, economy, survival. Price is spot on and on sale its a bit of a no-brainer.

Moreover, in my opinion, you're actually getting two games in one! Now comes the warning - which is mostly just a word in the ear of any fellow rogue-like enthusiasts. If you've ever felt the breath of the Wizard of Yendor down the back of your neck, this is for you.

On any difficulty below 'Hard', which is when perma-death kicks in, Star Traders Frontiers (STF) is an 8/10 Space RPG. I personally dock it one point for general UI frustrations and information presentation issues that start adding up after a while, and another to cover a short list of small gripes here and there, but that's it. Game is good. You should probably get it. Tell your story, mourn your favourite crew when they die, pick yourself back up, play strict and enjoy.

On 'Hard' and above, perma-death kicks in and the rogue-like gauntlet commences; the whole other 'second game' I mentioned. This is what caught my eye about STF in the first place - the main draw for me in fact - and the reason why I'm still flagging this review as a negative. If you *are* like me, you take negative aspects more into consideration that general positives. Money may also be tight for you too and the fiver you get this game for might matter enough to swing it. Not to mention the free time you might have to play.

STF as a rogue-like is an exacting experience. Mechanically speaking and without spoiling, there is an invisible, mid-game gate you have to pass that will check your build - and it will check it *hard*. If you don't get an outright game over then you may be allowed to limp on for a while before the rising difficulty finishes you off. Running missions, bringing up your crew, rolling with the punches and building strong is fun, but gets laborious and off-putting fast, knowing that stealthy bear trap SNAP of defeat is out there and *you may have already fallen too far behind to succeed*. It doesn't help that a good chunk of useful meta-progression is locked behind this higher difficulty level (not to mention the raw allure of achievements). Death in rogue-likes usually comes abruptly, many such games will kill you ten turns before you die, and gambling your time against getting wiped is a big (addictive, probably pernicious) part of the thrill. But when its married to the studious (even loving!) work of a management game, the severity of that whiplash leaves an especially sour taste. So sour, its actually been enough to cause me to sit back and question the time I've spent playing! Its hard to recommend a game that splashed me with moments of uncomfortable clarity like that, but again, this is just for those of you that might anticipate the same reactions in yourself.

So that's what this is a review-warning of really - not so much the product itself, but the emotional dish it might serve up if you're a gamer like me with similar tastes, addictions (and skill level!). 148 hours speak for themselves - I sure got my money's worth...but I got a bit more, if you know what I mean. I haven't really seen much of the game's latter third - your mileage will vary. I know I could if I dropped the difficulty, re-loaded some encounters, rolled ships and crew to hit certain checkpoints and unlock things prior, but I'm after the rush of the rogue-like, the surprise of encounters unspoiled by "practice" runs. In a sense, every run of a traditional rogue-like is a "practice" run, its just for my two cents, every subsequent run of Star Traders Frontiers has been far too much of a (star)trek.

Star Traders is intricate and complex, in a good way. The game allows a variety of play styles and difficulties to work together for an overall positive experience.

This is the most replayable game I own.

It's awesome!!!

Very much like old school Traveller RPG game.