1
Suggestions / Takeaways from a Weirdly Long Starsector Commentary: Omnirant of a Teased Game
« on: May 29, 2023, 04:26:23 PM »
I had the... fortune? of getting this video recommended to me by Youtube and thought I'd check it out.
It's very long, and a generally less rosy appraisal of Starsector than I'm used to seeing, so it was pretty interesting to watch. In my opinion a lot of the criticisms were from either a refusal to engage in game mechanics (loadout design, ship orders, the tactical screen somewhat), or in the vein of "I was expecting x instead of y and I think it should be x so the fact that it's y is bad", but I think there were a few good takeaways throughout it all:
- there should probably be a help pop-up for approaching coronas. I know there's the UI cues and sorta sound cue, but it seems new players often miss the cues and take significant CR damage as a result.
- some sort of autopause system when dangerous enemies are detected so you aren't jump-scared by enemies you can't dodge (a la SafariJohn's Hostile Intercept mod)
- danger stars in pre-combat dialogue. They're shown when mousing over them during the campaign, but if the player missed that it's difficult for new players to get a sense of how difficult an encounter will be (aside from loose indicators like the amount of difficulty xp being rewarded)
- better language about whether or not you can disengage without combat. It's not really clear that if your burn level is higher than your pursuer's then you can dodge the combat mostly without repercussions.
- there currently isn't really any decision making behind salvaging objects/fleets after interacting with them. There's very little associated danger or much interaction involved, you simply know/remember to press the ability or not. I guess this one is a holdover from when we could salvage multiple times per debris field but I think it could basically just be bundled into the first set of drops
- bump up easy mode by reducing supply and fuel use. It's not very difficult for veteran players, but beginning players could probably use a softer learning curve.
- more clarity on expedition sizes. keywords are provided, but I wonder if it wouldn't be too excessive to provide something like a list of notable ships like is done for bounties. Maybe that messes with the immersion
- kill rewards from commissions are kind of low. Most of the benefit from commissions comes from the passive income and there's actually very little incentive to fight on behalf of the commissioning faction since the rewards per kill are pretty low. I think Sundog's Ruthless Sector mod does a better job of scaling the rewards to incentivize fighting instead of AFKing (which sadly the video creator tended to do a lot of)
- more clarity on advancement of Galatia academy missions. I think there's a nudge to go visit the academy eventually, but it immediately flows into radiant quests from Sebastyen, with little indicator for new players that completing a certain number of those missions will advance into the At The Gates mission. Hence new players might be missing out on some key story elements. I think right from when you start receiving those radiant quests, maybe an intel item could be added to the Story tab on the intel screen indicating there's a goal behind completing the random quests.
- Some sort of mechanism for recovering from total losses, which happens to inexperienced players relatively often. Nexerelin uses ship insurance to recoup some of the value of lost ships, and I think this is a good avenue for introducing an additional mechanic to soften the blow of player losses which are rather asymmetric compared to the infinitely generating challenges created for the player. Probably a significant amount of overhaul involved but it seems fairly reasonable?
Anyways, just random thoughts I had from spending much too much time listening to someone rant about this game
It's very long, and a generally less rosy appraisal of Starsector than I'm used to seeing, so it was pretty interesting to watch. In my opinion a lot of the criticisms were from either a refusal to engage in game mechanics (loadout design, ship orders, the tactical screen somewhat), or in the vein of "I was expecting x instead of y and I think it should be x so the fact that it's y is bad", but I think there were a few good takeaways throughout it all:
- there should probably be a help pop-up for approaching coronas. I know there's the UI cues and sorta sound cue, but it seems new players often miss the cues and take significant CR damage as a result.
- some sort of autopause system when dangerous enemies are detected so you aren't jump-scared by enemies you can't dodge (a la SafariJohn's Hostile Intercept mod)
- danger stars in pre-combat dialogue. They're shown when mousing over them during the campaign, but if the player missed that it's difficult for new players to get a sense of how difficult an encounter will be (aside from loose indicators like the amount of difficulty xp being rewarded)
- better language about whether or not you can disengage without combat. It's not really clear that if your burn level is higher than your pursuer's then you can dodge the combat mostly without repercussions.
- there currently isn't really any decision making behind salvaging objects/fleets after interacting with them. There's very little associated danger or much interaction involved, you simply know/remember to press the ability or not. I guess this one is a holdover from when we could salvage multiple times per debris field but I think it could basically just be bundled into the first set of drops
- bump up easy mode by reducing supply and fuel use. It's not very difficult for veteran players, but beginning players could probably use a softer learning curve.
- more clarity on expedition sizes. keywords are provided, but I wonder if it wouldn't be too excessive to provide something like a list of notable ships like is done for bounties. Maybe that messes with the immersion
- kill rewards from commissions are kind of low. Most of the benefit from commissions comes from the passive income and there's actually very little incentive to fight on behalf of the commissioning faction since the rewards per kill are pretty low. I think Sundog's Ruthless Sector mod does a better job of scaling the rewards to incentivize fighting instead of AFKing (which sadly the video creator tended to do a lot of)
- more clarity on advancement of Galatia academy missions. I think there's a nudge to go visit the academy eventually, but it immediately flows into radiant quests from Sebastyen, with little indicator for new players that completing a certain number of those missions will advance into the At The Gates mission. Hence new players might be missing out on some key story elements. I think right from when you start receiving those radiant quests, maybe an intel item could be added to the Story tab on the intel screen indicating there's a goal behind completing the random quests.
- Some sort of mechanism for recovering from total losses, which happens to inexperienced players relatively often. Nexerelin uses ship insurance to recoup some of the value of lost ships, and I think this is a good avenue for introducing an additional mechanic to soften the blow of player losses which are rather asymmetric compared to the infinitely generating challenges created for the player. Probably a significant amount of overhaul involved but it seems fairly reasonable?
Anyways, just random thoughts I had from spending much too much time listening to someone rant about this game
