Star Traders: Frontiers - FAQ for Beginners

This is a quick and dirty FAQ for beginners.

Comprehensive FAQ

Сrеdit gоеs to Tomcat!

How should I create my character?
There are character guides but if in doubt, just make sure your command and tactics skills are maxed. Play a Military Officer and leave your Contacts as D and Experience in E. Some people say that a larger ship is harder to use but in reality, it’s alot more easier to play until you finally understand the command and tactics which is how people even play small ships for a good portion of the game (command and tactics will get a quick explanation later).

What faction should I play?
De Valtos is the easiest since Falfallen Rim is in every map seed. De Valtos dominates that sector. If you wanted to be a merchant, being De Valtos just lets you have more trading worlds once you do your tutorial missions and get your first faction’s trading permits.
Map seed? Yes, don’t play on default map. Make a map that is small and dense. When you are in the game, you can find a way to show the network of universes. You want something that looks like a web and not one long road. It will make your beginner game much easier. Plus you are probably focusing on unlocks anyways.

I blinged out my small ship and I can’t escape or change range. I keep getting owned!
So anyone who does their homework will know about ship stats. But something that isn’t that intuitive is two stats that isn’t really put in your face and it matters. They are command and tactics. They come from crew which is why people always say to hire a ton of military officers or Commanders. Your other ship stats are capped by devices and are maxed at 200% but what makes your ship better than another ship of the same build is command and tactics. Command is mostly defensive and tactics is mostly offensive. Like I said before, Bigger ships are easier to use because the dice pools are large enough where you don’t really need to care about command and tactics (unless you are playing impossible) but small ships need as much command and tactics as possible.

So why don’t I just fly a plane full of Military officers?
You need at least one set of fighting crew and the other jobs to help with skill saves. You need your ship stats to be at least 100%. You can dodge great in ship combat but you will get hit with alot of space parasites and crashing into asteroids. If you go into combat with a damaged ship, you probably going to lose those stats that matter in ship combat.

Why am I getting so much ship ops damages reports when traveling?
You are flying in a sector with radiation storm. Or…
Your engine has a safety of less than 100%. Larger ships have more safer engines. Or…
Your ship ops stat is below 100%.

Wow large ships are great. How come they are the same price as some of the mid-range?
Because large ships are slow. They take extra turns to travel. The sword battlecruiser has so much component space that you can totally dominate everything when built right. But you’ll find that time passes alot more when using bigger ships. I’ve failed all the big era based missions using a Sword Battlecruiser.

Can I just take a small ship all the way to end game because I hate being a manager?
The developer introduced hanger bays with wing fighters which I believe uses a different stat to hit and evade. You’re going to have to ask someone else about this.

How do I make quick money?
I personally like running missions. The default prince lets you make one faction really mad so he’s pretty save to grind money off of. There’s other ways to make money but most of you who play an MMORPG are probably doing quests and are not the few who join an MMORPG to merch and control the economy. So missions is where the money is at. Buy up ranks.