Captains, we are calling you back to the spice hall for another Update! This notch is another on the long time to legendary Update #400 - so let's see what this has in store for us. With Update #371, we've added new contact features in the simulation to promote more behaviors with other friendly contacts, added 3 new contact types, and buffs the Trobaritz contact type to have the same option but on a local scale. As always, we are working to keep up with the highest priority bugs reported by the player based, so we've fixed a few issues, especially around Cloaking components and Cloaking vs. Jyeeta.

If you are enjoying the game and the (now, 8+ years in, occasional) ongoing updates, we hope you will consider leaving a review and sharing this space captain simulation RPG with a friend!

New Contact Types

Update #371 centers around 3 new Contact Types that will begin appear in game simulation after this patch. They're powerful brokers and manipulators, capable of boosting other Contacts who they have positive relationships with and enabling the dangerous schemers around the galaxy to put their plans into action.

These new Contact Types are the Spice Broker (who is a connected dealer operating out of the Spice Hall), the Spice Acheotech (who is a risky seeker looking for new opportunities and investments) and Trade Emissary (who is a politically motivated operator who takes action through Trade).

The 3 newly added contacts provide combinations of mission, recruits, discounts and services that have not been seen together in any previous contact, and shore up places where the contact catalog was unnecessarily limited.

Further Simulation Improvements

We will be working to improve the balance and targeting of these new ally actions, where one Contact can help enable another Contact to take a big action and boost their Influence in doing so. Another friendly action that has been added is the ability for a Contact to buy a friendly Rumor that will benefit their ally - such as a Smuggler might get sent a Spice Festival from an allied Spice Broker. So while the Spice Broker did not directly boost the Smuggler's Influence, he dropped a Rumor on his world that will. The negative case of this, where a Contact buys a negative Rumor on an enemy's world has been supported for the lifetime of the game, but this new angle lets allies play better together.

The Trobairitz contact type which was previously added was also tagged into this capacity, however they are limited to being only able to use these new Contact actions in the simulation on Princes and High Princes who are in their local quadrant, so they are still powerful potential allies for your favorite contacts, but only a local scale.

We're rolling these changes out slowly to reduce the risk that the changes excessively disrupt the simulation and rumor economy upon which so many Captains depend for their livelihood.

We expect this update to kick off a series of contact, contact simulation and black market system updates. As always, we look forward to hearing your feedback.

Cloaking Fixes

With this update, we've fixed a few issues with how the ship cloaking bonus was stacking with multiple Cloaked Boarding Assault components. We've also fixed a bug that made Cloaking incorrectly nerfed during the Jyeeta era.

Our new squad based RPG is launched!

We took everything we learned from Star Traders: Frontiers and poured it into Cyber Knights: Flashpoint, upgrading the game's systems, evolutionary contacts, character traits and more. The next generation of Trese Brothers RPGs has now launched out of Early Access. From the 1,500+ reviews, we can recommend that players who like XCOM, Shadowrun, Invisible Inc, Cyberpunk and/or Phantom Doctrine may all find Cyber Knights: Flashpoint to be your dystopian tactics jam.

This is big news for Star Traders as well, as every bit of success we get from Cyber Knights helps our studio continue to grow, keeping Star Traders: Frontiers alive with updates and a strong possibility that our next game will be a new title in either the Star Traders or shared-universe Templar Battleforce series.

v3.4.39 - #371: Dangerous Connections - 7/21/2025

- New Contact Simulation Features: Better Rumor buying, faster processing, new friendly inter-contact behaviors

- New Contact Type: Spice Broker (Connected dealer)

- New Contact Type: Spice Archeotech (Dangerous Seeker)

- New Contact Type: Trade Emissary (Political Trade Operative)

- Improved Trobairitz Contact Type behavior in simulation (with local Prince)

- Fixes issues with Cloaked Boarding Assault components

- Fixes issues with Cloaking and Jyeeta Era rumors