Star Traders Reviews

Really fun game, lots of complexity, challenge, and replay-ability. My main gripe with these kinds of games is that to play optimally, it requires some very tedious save/reloading to roll good crew, missions, etc.

I’d give this a 4, maybe 5 star review if it weren’t for the User Interface (UI), which was clearly made for a PC with a keyboard+mouse and a large screen. Many buttons are super small and hard to click on, font sizes are super small, and accidentally selecting the wrong item due to an errant finger swipe, getting a phone call, etc. is a very real possibility. This last point can be especially brutal considering the permanent and brutal consequences of single actions in-game.

Would have been nice if the developers had made more optimizations for the mobile app UI when they ported this over, but I get it, time is money and this a way for them to make some bonus cash from a game they already developed…I just wish it didn’t few that way.

Steep learning curve leads to several scrapped starts as you ease into this game. I give the devs credit for the massive amount of freedom players have in this game. My only fault with it, is that it lacks excitement. The daring ship is massively capable of blowing anything out of the sky that you might meet... it’s just a redundant tap, tap, tap, wait, tap, tap, tap, wait (rinse, lather, repeat 8x) til combat finally ends. I’ve played it about ten hours and just don’t have the drive to put in another then to see if it gets better.

It’s a good game, don’t get me wrong, and it’ll hold your attention for a while unless you are a drooling moron who needs a hand holding tutorial just to know which side of the toilet paper to use. But, without SOME form of excitement/action/meaningful progress, it doesn’t make my top 100.

Really great turn-based game with so much randomization it keeps you guessing, plotting, cussing, making notes, restarting, honing lol... I would give this 5* if it was a free game; since it has kind of a high price tag I think it could use a few improvements:
1) still no retirement button for captains that have been out there awhile? I saw a few threads online from a couple of years back mentioning this, and so far I haven’t come across an end-of-career option so what gives?
2) when I’m flying my Sword Battlecruiser around, why am I still attacked by spies, bounty hunters, zealots and the like flying ships that I can just chew up, spit out and be on my way? I know there are components I can add to my ship to reduce random encounters, but why would these insects be attacking something that can so obviously stomp them? Even if they’re extremely hostile, they should just be hurling strong language at me from afar.
3) could definitely use an art upgrade. I’m not expecting cutting-edge graphics but the character art is just a bad joke.

Anyway, still enjoying the game, and I *do* think it’s worth the price, especially given that it’s still being actively developed. Just would like to see these 3 things improved :)

The game plays well and seldom crashes.
Very dense storyline at first.
A couple things that I think would improve the experience:
1- not dropping you into the prince missions so early in the game, that is, give people some trade routes to run, simple missions that don’t cause reputation loss.
2- on the same subject, reputation loss when you’re doing a spy mission, or secretly dropping off a passenger should not be a thing. If you didn’t get caught, why are people bashing you!?
3- further stat distance between ship upgrades.
Why bother to buy anything but the best weapons/armor? They’re comparatively cheap.
4-allowing story characters that come aboard to change into your ship’s uniform.
5- missions to get “level 11” gear, explicitly.
6- ships that don’t require mass dampeners to exist. It’s annoying to have them there, although I understand the usefulness at times.
7- if you carry an edict, and you’re doing legal work for a prince, I don’t think you should be concerned about rep loss, maybe that goes along with “getting caught”.
I have other ideas to make the game a bit more interesting, but those are the big ones.
Eagerly awaiting the ability to rank my character past level 40!

I took a chance on this one, even though there was no demo, because I’ve been looking for a good space sim that lets me move about freely and choose my own career path. After looking into the game online, reading/watching reviews, etc., I bought the game. It has not disappointed. I’ve been having a blast with it! There are so many choices, and the universe goes on no matter what you do. I chose to ignore some of the main story to follow my own path, and events unfolded without my involvement. Now I want to replay it to see if I could have affected the outcome. I chose to play as a spy my first time through, avoiding combat as much as possible. I’ve been largely successful, except for one crew battle where I lost two of my best soldiers and was forced to surrender to spare the other two. I’ve got one faction so mad at me, that their ships attack me on sight, and their planets deny me all fueling, medical, and repair services! Thanks for the fun game. Well done!

I’m downright amazed that StarTraders is as good as it is. While it’s a bit hard to get a grasp on initially, I’ve sunk so many hours into this thing and I’m still not bored of it. Even after like 15+ games I’m still finding new stuff I didn’t even know existed previously. The game is surprisingly complex and has a lot of options, there’s a lot of play styles available and a massive amount of replay value. I could go on about this game for a long time but I’ll spare everyone the wall of text- If you like sci fi, more complex RPGs, and don’t mind something of a learning curve at the start, odds are you’d like StarTraders.

I have played a huge amount of mobile games, and I typically don’t review them, but in my opinion this is one of the two best games I’ve played on StarTraders Store, (the other being Severed).

The only issue I can see some people having with the game is complexity, the number of things that can happen in this game is amazing, and the strategy is deep and convoluted, I’ve had this game for a while and I still have only a fraction of the knowledge in strategy needed to master this game. Personally, this makes it even better.

The game includes elements of trading, conflicts between factions, ship combat, character combat, exploration, diplomacy and much more.

If the description of the game sounds interesting just go ahead and jump right in. There is a lot to learn but the game kind of eases you into it. It’s not completely overwhelming from the start. This is the space/4x game I’ve been looking for. It does everything right. I couldn’t wait to share StarTraders Store link with a couple of friends that are into sci-fi/ 4x games. This game is well worth the price. After putting a couple hours into the game I would say that it is 💯% with the price. Only minor complaint is it needs to have iCloud save so I can go from phone to iPad. Other than that, Easy 5 stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I always have doubts about mobile games because most are crap. This game is NOT one of them. It is detailed, in-depth, and engaging. The learning curve isn’t that bad, but once you learn the menus, it’s all gravy. It’s surprisingly complex for a mobile game; for instance, I had no idea you could equip your captain, officers, and crew with items until a contact offered to sell me military equipment. Fantastic game! Trading is easy and fun: once you land on a planet you can look them up in the Atlas and see what items they sell or buy, and see if their prices are better or worse then others in the system. No regrets here! Thank you Trese Brothers for making a great game!

I am impressed by the sheer depth of Star Traders Frontiers. It is easily the most full-featured iPad game I’ve played, with lots of replay value and countless strategies to try. The developers keep supporting and updating it, with the iPad version never too far behind the PC.

Like others, I have my gripes with the RNG and difficulty setting based unlocks, but I am having fun despite these personal misses. Reading the forums it seems the Trese Brothers listen to their customers, so I expect my enjoyment will continue for some time as features continue to be added and balance issues are addressed.

Highly recommended to anyone looking for an in-depth strategy gaming experience!

This game is so deep and amazing. There are layers upon layers of strategy. The lore in this game is fantastic as well. Buy and fly a ship, manage crew, land on a multitude of planets, spy, battle, become a merchant or a pirate. The are endless ways to play. I’m just scratching the surface. On top of all that, you’re buying a game from some of the most talented developers who are heavily involved in the gaming community. Have a problem? Write them an email and they’ll respond to your concerns within the day. They are my most trusted team of concerned game-makers. This is a labor of love by people who know how to make games and who care about gamers. Thank you Trese Brothers. Can’t wait to see what the future holds in terms of updates.

I’m not a big rpg fan. But I LOVE this game.

Pros:
- Open-world. Do what you want.
- Great Crew Battles
- Great ship battles

Cons:
- Tutorial isn’t that great. Confusing at first.

My best advice is to look at your first few plays as just learning all the systems. There’s a lot that the game doesn’t tell you. The wiki and lore help a bit.

Needs work:
- Better tutorial about various screens and systems.
- Is there a way to retrain “Jobs”? I know you can retrain “Traits” but didn’t see anything similar for “Jobs”
- When you are picking your Crew Battle team, if you open a window to look at each person’s equipment and try to scroll, you end up clicking and changing stuff on the screen in the background (I.e. the Crew battle position screen). I notice this also happened when I was looking at factions with the galaxy map in the background.
- Is the Xeno Hunter class not available for iOS? Or do you have to open it up in-game? I don’t see it as a starting class but all the online info says it’s supposed to be a starting class (at least on Steam).

Overall, great job. I highly recommend it.

Edit: they just added Xeno Hunter. Amazing!

“Is this seriously a mobile game?” was what I first asked when I first booted it up. This game is big and I mean big. At first it’s a lot to take in, you start off with like 30 crew members in your ship and they all play a part in your experience from passing skill checks, helping in blockades, patrols, and spying they also help in combat (space and ground). Then the contact and faction system is just woah(can’t even put into words atm). Every choice felt like it mattered and it also felt like the galaxy changed around me from those choices. This game is truly a diamond in the rough for mobile Gamers and is highly recommend it, if you like rpgs this game is for you. I’ll see you among the stars traders. Another plus is the fact that the developers are constantly communicating and updating the game. Like seriously I feel like everyday I check for updates star traders is the first thing to pop up on what needs an update.

Good game, takes a little learning but it’s good.

There is one issue: starting ship seems like it’s too good.

Granted I’m only playing on normal, but I think we’re too well equipped. Furthermore, system upgrades /customization doesn’t really make much sense either. I looked and the starting ship I have is worth 400k, the best ship I’ve found is 1.3 million, and it’s a battle cruiser.

It doesn’t seem like it’s that hard to get to the battle cruiser at all.

Also the ship upgrade system isn’t that great, there seems to only be a handful of ship modules to buy and they’re pretty consistent from planet to planet. Many times it’s a sideways swap instead of an upgrade.

It’d be way more cool if each planet could randomly generate the modules they offer for upgrades and the respective stats with each module or maybe each planet specializes in certain kinds of modules or offers a rare perk on theirs.

Buying a laser cannon in two different parts of the galaxy: you’re not going to get the same style of laser, period. They’d be different in at least subtle ways.

Either way, I like the game. It just needs to go a little bit further with the ship components I think.

I’ve bought a lot of games on StarTraders Store and some greats like bards tale and Stardew. But this is by far the most addicting. It’s a really good steam game that you can play on the iPhone (I have 10s). I’ve had it for a few days and can’t stop playing it.

The story I’ve only dipped into but it’s clear player choice matters and is core to the game. There is a infinite amount of depth but I chose a custom difficulty this first play through to get acquainted. You could just stay at an easy difficulty and just play the game for the story and as a progression rpg or play something as hard as FTL while managing the complexity of EVE online.

Like I said been a few days but this might become my all time favorite game on iPhone. (Stardew holds the title right now)

This great indie company treats StarTraders Store like Steam with frequent, substantive post-release updates & improvements. Think along the lines of successful free-to-play titles (eg, a consistent money-maker about clans clashing) that have taken over StarTraders Store but better because the Trese Brothers don’t hold anything back or hide content behind paywalls. Star Traders Frontiers raises the bar for premium experiences on iOS because you get all of that plus a phenomenal experience. Check the Steam reviews or Rock Paper Shotgun for in-depth feedback regarding the UI and gameplay. Spoiler: it’s an exceptional experience. Thanks to the Trese Brothers team, and I hope this one sells millions of copies. Be prepared for years of continued support for STF. Templar Battleforce Elite, which was released in 2015, just received yet another meaningful update in late January of 2019. That’s the gold standard.

I love this game; it reminds me of the old "Starflight.". I've pretty much been playing it non-stop for months. But it's not perfect, which sometimes leads to some frustration. I'll cover these below:

Pros: The ability to customize evetything! Your Captain, crew, ship, equipment.
The totally open nature of play; you don't have to do ANY of the story missions.
Absorbing main story lines.
Great ship and crew combat; stylized and simple in mechanics, but detailed in options and customizable to suit your style.
The talent system and faction rank/permit system that allows you to avoid most hostile encounters as time goes on (see below).
Developer support; updates, great online boards with developer presence!

Cons: The card games! These are ridiculously biased towards bad events, and talents for replacing/removing cards don't increase the probability of mission success, they only remove or alter a negative. This is a major frustration since EVERYTHING requires the card game.
The random encounters actually seem to increase as the game progresses, making it more and more difficult to perform routine tasks like flying around. This frustration is mitigated by the talents you get and your faction rank/permits, so isn't as much a frustration as the card game (though a xeno or hostile bounty hunter can still ruin yor day!).

I don’t often write reviews, mostly because I don’t often come across an iPhone game that is impactful. This game though...
This is definitely the best space game in StarTraders Store and in contention for best overall. (Stiff competition from Stardew valley) So, what would this game need for me to view it as the greatest of all time? If the player had the ability to run his own faction and own a quadrant. Where she/he could build their own orbital stations, farms, lux pops, refineries etc. If politics played a role in that and you could have your political allies/ factions join in building stations and cities on planets. If you could be a king/queen governor governess what have you... this game would be the greatest of all time. That being said, I do not want to take away from the developers accomplishments. This game is absolutely amazing and I appreciate the love they put in it!! It will always be a favorite

The game has a fair amount of depth mechanically, both in and out of combat, and whether you’re a smuggler, pirate, or bounty hunter, there are a ton of ways to make money. And it’s getting constantly updated and bug-fixed, so it’s nice to see how the game is updating weekly. The narrative elements that are in the game are interesting.

But the narrative experience is a bit hollow and the world is devoid of charm. There’s not much to really grind towards - no bases to build, fleets to run, and the allies you make are little more than glorified fetch-quest givers - though that’s all you’ll be doing. The difficulty is also wonky, you’ll quickly be hunted by other factions unless you play extremely neutral (which is all but impossible) and on bigger maps this makes getting around a real pain in the rear.

The game has a lot of potential, I’m excited to see where it goes. Will update later.

This game is basically Freelancer (Discovery Mod) as a turn based, menus driven game...and it excels at it in every imaginable way.

My only issue (it’s both minor and yet not) is that I replaced my medical bay with an advanced medical bay in order to free up an officer’s quarter (since it comes with one) and replace that with something else. My ship details show (4/4) officers and hull size 5 officers, but I can’t remove one of the quarters. I keep getting a warning that I need to release the officer...I don’t really want to lose any officers. They are all above level 15. I’d love to be able to kick my doctor/combat medic officer to the medical bay.