End-of-Month Wrap-up: The Winner, Honorable Mentions, and Next Month’s Challenge...

(Original challenge description below, skip to it?)

Congratulations to the Away Team challenge winner: bogboy3!

After three runs of the challenge, bogboy3's Captain Blanca White Shirt proved the most successful, even at Impossible Difficulty. Completing 143 expeditions, her team fell at last while using their talents to avoid conflict with other scavengers… only to run right into a Xeno nest. There were no survivors. Farewell, away team. 1,961.25 pieces (points) to beam up.

Honorable Mentions

Zer0winds, the first to fall. Her Captain Alice Stratos, of the independent research ship Aurora, set the tone for all of us in this challenge with her short but wonderfully written expedition logs, ending with the famous last words, “this expedition seems to be going well.”

Shad1902, whose exploration ambitions were well underway before getting side-tracked (as plans made in this universe so often do), by an adventure offered to the Star Trader too enticing to pass up.

And last but not least, thanks to all of you who chimed in with challenge strategies, tips, and encouragement.

If you couldn’t quite get to this challenge in November or wrap it up over the Thanksgiving holidays, no worries! You can still post a run report for doing the Away Team challenge (or any of our previous challenges) at any time on the Steam forums or in our Discord.

We’ll always consider notable runs (impressive gameplay, fun screenshots / edits, fan art or stories) for a share on our Twitter or Facebook.

The December Challenge is coming tomorrow!

Get ready to celebrate a Star Trader tradition as old as Father Time, with a community challenge twist (or shake, or stir) we’ve never done before.

The Away Team Challenge!

We're kicking off a new run of brand new community challenges for you! This one’s for the explorers, the wilderness seekers, our Captains whose journeys through the void are to seek out strange, new worlds… and see what valuables might be hiding on them. 😁

Choose an “away team” of 3 crew members -- it can include your captain or officers but must include at least one regular crew member. No other crew members may have more Exploring card game Talents than any member of your away team trio at any time. This includes both Talents that remove or replace risk cards and Talents that passively increase Explorer rewards. We want to see who can explore the most while keeping the same consistent away team alive and kicking.

Away Team of Only 3
Whenever you encounter a crew combat while Exploring, you must include your entire 3 character Away Team in the battle, regardless of their condition. The fourth position in your combat squad is yours to fill as you see fit and is not a member of the Away Team This 4th character is completely up to you, does not need to be the same character between fights, can be crew/officer/captain and does not need to have any Explorer Talents. If you encounter a combat outside of Exploring, you can send anyone to the fight you want and have no requirement to use the Away Team but you may chose to do so.

Your Away team MUST include 3 characters:
> 1 crew member
> 1 officer, captain or crew member
> 1 officer, captain or crew member

Ends if Away Team Member Dies
If you lose a member of your away team, your run has ended. Regardless of how your Away Team member dies -- killed in an Explorer combat, killed in a non-Explorer combat, dead by torpedo, lost in an airlock accident -- at that time, use the scoring rules shown here to total your score. However, after totaling your score you may start a second run of the challenge by selecting a new away team from your crew. For your second run, select a new away team of 3, but:

• Only one member from your previous away team may be part of your second away team. Traumatized by the death of their close companion, if the other member is surviving they must be dismissed or retrained to have fewer Explorer Talents than the new away team trio.
• Any unsold Scientific Intel must be sold before starting a new run. This Scientific Intel counts toward the score of your first run.

The second run scores just like the first except that your second score only includes points earned after you’ve formed your second away team. If your second run ends with an away team member death, you may start further subsequent runs with the same rules and scoring requirements.

The rule requiring that no other crew member has more Exploring Talents that any member of your away team increases the difficulty of the challenge. You must build an away team who is both skilled in crew combat as well as exploring. Or you can run light on Exploring Talents on the away team but that means the entire crew has to run light.

Scoring Rules

Points awarded for:
1 point per exploration expeditions without losing an away team member (running the explorer card game, not explorer-based combats)
5 points per Scientific Intel sold to contacts
20 points each for up to 3 wilderness zones you include in your report, with at least three sentences about your adventures on the surface

Bonus points:
+0.25x points per difficulty level above basic
2x points for surviving 100 crew battles started from exploration
1.5x points for including a Scientist Captain in the away team

Note the bonuses are multiplicative. Therefore, at maximum you would get the calculation:
(Base Points) x 1.5 (for Scientist) x 2.5 (for Impossible diff) x 2.0 (for 100 explorer battles)

Counting Explorer Talents
No other crew member or officer may have more Exploring Talents than any member of your Away Team trio at any time. Therefore, your Away Team member with the lowest number of Explorer card game Talents sets the maximum for any member of the rest of your crew. If your Away Team each has 1 Explorer card game Talent, then any member of your crew may have 1 Explorer card game Talent but no non-Away Team member may have 2 Explorer card game Talents.

Only Talents that modify the cards or rewards of the Explorer card game are counted. Therefore, Exo-Scout's "Scout's Intuition" Talent which automatically saves a failed Explorer save does not count as it does not change the cards or their rewards. On the other hand, Exo-Scout's "Persistent Search" increases the rewards of Explorer cards and therefore is counted. So is Exo-Scout's "Keen Senses" which rerolls a risk card.

This rule also allows for you to play an entire crew that has no Explorer card game Talents. This would allow your Away Team to have no Explorer card game Talents and focus solely on crew combat Jobs.

Screenshots:
At the start and end of a run, the required screenshots are of:
Ship Status > Captains Log > Stats showing the “Traveling Far” section which includes exploration count and crew combats from exploration
Your away team members at the start of the run, any survivors at the end of the run.

Tasteful black-and-white “in memoriam” screenshots / memes of any dead members are optional.

Winners will receive internet fame and leaderboard-backed bragging rights, but honorable mentions await those who display creativity and effort as well.

Alright captains, ready your away teams. It’s wild out there, don’t get munched.

Previous Challenges

You can also check out some of the awesome community challenges that have been run before:

• Firefly Tour travels the galaxy with only your officers
• Underworld Renown tests Smugglers
• Legendary Hunter challenges Bounty Hunters
• Small Ship to Prize Ship can burn even the best combat captain