Ancient Frontier The Crew

Ancient Frontier: The Crew adds crew members who provide bonuses to the ships they serve on. You can recruit them through the store or earn them from missions, assign them to ships, and improve their stats by surviving combat and gaining experience.

Recruit and assign crew

The store has a Crew tab showing your current crew and those available to hire. All crew types can be hired from the start if you can afford them; they cost more than items, but do not increase deployment cost and provide a wider range of bonuses. Successful Simulator missions award one random crew member or officer, and several major story missions also award random crew members.

Assign crew through the Crew tab in Fleet Management by dragging an unassigned member into a ship’s slot. Fighter squadrons have one slot, escorts have two, regular capital ships have three and super heavy capital ships have four. Ship focus panes show each ship’s crew and equipment, and the magnifying-glass unit information view lets you inspect items and crew on your ships and, if present, enemy ships.

Crew gain the same experience as the ship they are assigned to, shown on the victory screen after battles. Their experience stays with them if they move to another ship, and their stat bonuses increase as they level up; a level 25 crew member gives its ship higher stat boosts than a level 1 member.

Campaign changes

The starting hero ships, Fury and Pandora, can now be used in optional deployments. They can also be deployed in Bounty missions, but a Bounty mission is lost if any Hero ship is destroyed, as in story missions. Later-game hero ships remain unavailable in Bounty missions.

Optional deployments have increased on every difficulty: Beginner (Easy) and Veteran (Normal) now have 3, up from 2, while Epic (Hard) now has 4, up from 3. This makes campaigns longer and increases the maximum experience and resources available over a full campaign.

Each campaign also has three new, shorter and easier missions in its starting sectors, Arx and Crosius. They take place on smaller maps and feature small groups or a single enemy, with fewer rewards. Regular missions remain available in smaller numbers, giving you more choice over the challenge at the start.

Balance changes

The Vor have been rebalanced. As player units, they cost less to buy and deploy, and their hit points have increased; enemy AI Vor also carry significantly more equipment.

Enemy ships can now equip items and crew, distinguishing ships that previously shared identical stats despite having different paint jobs. Outrigger ships are more likely to have better shields and deal more shield damage, while pirate ships have higher dodge, accuracy and critical-hit chances. Other ships also differ through their equipment.

The overall rebalance makes the middle and especially late game of the Alliance campaign easier, while making the Federation’s middle game tougher. Overall, the game is slightly easier.

Other adjustments

• Trade Goods drop more often as mission rewards.
• The critical chance cap is now 75%.
• The critical multiplier cap is now 400%.
• The Rhondo has a higher deployment cost.
• Super heavy capital ships now have 4 equipment slots, up from 3.
• Several broken turrets in the Federation campaign have been fixed.