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[whoopWHAT]

I think there might need to be some adjustments made to the start of the campaign. Even on Easy, the game is frustrating to start; even the weakest of enemies can kill you in short work. You start of with AT BEST a Wolf class, which is far and away one of the weakest frigates in the game. 2 lashers? Dead. 1 bruiser and a shuttle? Dead. 2 Brawlers? Ded. Even the weakest of fleets can crush whatever you have, no matter how skillfully you play it because you don't have a ship good enough to take them on.

Coupled with that is the fact that purchasing a new ship from a star-port is a matter of blind luck as to whether they'll have something decent for purchase. 70% of the time, they'll only have crap ships or damaged ships, or both, and anything decent is gonna be black market 100% of the time. Anything not damaged/legal is too expensive or requires faction allegiance to purchase off the bat. Not only that, but most stations have a crap supply of weapons for purchase, making refitting into a good spec for your ship a pipe dream.

Plus, no joke, but Jangala is kinda dull starting out. There's a lot of stuff going on, sure, but not a lot of ~interesting~ stuff, unless you have a good enough ship to start some fun stuff off on your own.
Just my thoughts on it. Starting cash seems fine, and the salvage mechanic is good(if a bit on the unrewarding side) you just need a better ship it seems. Hell even a destroyer or just a better frigate or something, I dunno.

Edit: Fixed 2 Cerberuses to 2 Brawlers because I am bad with keeping track of the names sometimes.

[TaLaR]

Starter Wolf is actually a decent ship, but it needs Heavy Blaster to be good. Which you are unlikely to have.
But even without it 2 Cerbers/etc are not a problem. 2 Lashers may be.

However, Lashers are the most common frigates, and one is usually available for sale. SO Lasher needs only commonly available LMGs + Annihilators/Swarmers and easily destroys anything pirates in Jangala can deploy.

[AxleMC131]

You start of with AT BEST a Wolf class, which is far and away one of the weakest frigates in the game. 2 lashers? Dead. 1 bruiser and a shuttle? Dead. 2 Cerberuses? Ded. Even the weakest of fleets can crush whatever you have, no matter how skillfully you play it because you don't have a ship good enough to take them on.

Umm.... I think you're doing it wrong. The Wolf is a great frigate: it's powerful, customizable, fast and has a versatile and forgiving ship system that you can use either to catch up to escaping enemies or jump out of a sticky situation. You should not be losing a fight to two Cerberuses as the starting Wolf, especially not on Easy mode. I hate to say it, but you may need to double check your combat skill.

There's genuinely no other advice I can give, and I feel a d**k for it, but you might be able to find specific assistance on the Discord channel. Also check out some YouTube gameplay of Starsector if you haven't already, and try ships in simulator mode to get a feel for combat.

[Histidine]

For easier early game combat, I'd do one or more of the following:

- "Companion" destroyer at start
- Steiner Foundation features: Insurance on ship loss; access to discounted military-grade ships without a commission for low-level players

[whoopWHAT]

AxleMC, I've been playing StarSector a lot longer than you have. A frigate with 2 swarmers, 1 pulse laser, a few PD lasers, and a phase jumper is only 'powerful' by 1v1 frigate standards. Any kind of fleet with any kind of bite can eat a wolf for breakfast. Also, I meant Brawlers, not Cerberuses(I'll making an edit fixing that shortly since it seems I've mucked up a bit there and gotten multiple people getting onto me about that.) Cerberuses are no problem, no matter their numbers(as long as its not enough to blanket the screen) simply because its lack of shield make it easy pickings for pretty much anything.

[Vind]

Wolf is the easiest ship to fly because of phase skimmer and can easily take down 2 lashers. MPL alone can down lasher as it cant tank its damage for long and a little bit of maneuvering will always block line of fire for second ship. Only concern is not to overload. Starting ship load out is pretty decent as it is works good vs any threat. If wolf start with heavy blaster ship will overload frequently and die as blaster is very skill dependent weapon. First thing of business on starter ship is to swap blast doors for hardened subsystems.

[AxleMC131]

AxleMC, I've been playing StarSector a lot longer than you have. A frigate with 2 swarmers, 1 pulse laser, a few PD lasers, and a phase jumper is only 'powerful' by 1v1 frigate standards. Any kind of fleet with any kind of bite can eat a wolf for breakfast. Also, I meant Brawlers, not Cerberuses(I'll making an edit fixing that shortly since it seems I've mucked up a bit there and gotten multiple people getting onto me about that.) Cerberuses are no problem, no matter their numbers(as long as its not enough to blanket the screen) simply because its lack of shield make it easy pickings for pretty much anything.

Ah, yeah that might be why I was so horrified by that. XD A pair of Luddic Path Brawlers (since those are the only Brawlers that will attack you in the early game...) are more than a match for a single early wolf. I apologise if I came on a little strongly there - I let my confusion get the better of me.

The Wolf is a good ship, no doubt, but you're right, if it gets surrounded and it doesn't have an opportunity to escape it will die pretty quickly.

[Serenitis]

The Wolf is a good ship, no doubt, but you're right, if it gets surrounded and it doesn't have an opportunity to escape it will die pretty quickly.

This.
The wolf is one of the better frigates due to it's flexibility and firepower. It's only real downside is that in order to use it at anything approaching it's potential capability demands a very specific playstyle that some people might not like, or even be capable of.
I love the wolf. But I am beyond horrible at flying it as it's simply too "twitchy" for me, and even a single mistake will hurt. I've still picked it every time so far though, so I can give it to a cautious AI buddy.

A greater variety of ship choices at the start of the game, each with a tiny bit of blurb describing a little about the ship might be nice to have.
And maybe allow a selection of lesser destroyers as well to allow a finer control of the difficulty in the event the tutorial is skipped.

It would also be nice if the ship graveyard in the tutorial could have a more randomised selection.
Some things would have to stay, such as the condor. But the hammerhead, wolf and kite could be a <select from list of similar ships> on spawn instead of <put one of these there>.

[whoopWHAT]

I think that having a selection of some of the lesser destroyers are the perfect middle ground. They aren't flattened by most starting fleets, they are by far the easiest ships to get used to in the game, and they pack a solid punch for any captain worth his salt. Starting out with a single paltry frigate ~as a bounty hunter~ makes it look like you're a pretty *** bounty hunter and kinda makes the early game into farming scavenging and surveying until you get the money to get a ship with a little punch.

Also AxleMC, I'm sorry if I came off a bit rude. It was uncalled for on my part. :/

[AxleMC131]

Also AxleMC, I'm sorry if I came off a bit rude. It was uncalled for on my part. :/

Don't sweat it. I misunderstood your original point, so I'm the one in the wrong.

[Gothars]

I think that having a selection of some of the lesser destroyers are the perfect middle ground. They aren't flattened by most starting fleets, they are by far the easiest ships to get used to in the game, and they pack a solid punch for any captain worth his salt.

There were destroyer start options in the last version (or the one before?), for exactly the reasons you describe. It didn't work out very well. Destroyers are weak enough that you still can get easily overwhelmed by pirates, but unlike frigates, they are too slow to run away. With a Wolf you can always turn tail when you're outnumbered, with a Hammerhead you're screwed.

And if destroyers are easier to pilot or not depends on player preference. They require more battlefield overview and thinking ahead, without that they can get easily swarmed by frigates and eaten alive. Frigates require more quick reactions.



(And yeah, you can take out two Lashers with a Wolf, but it's not trivial.)

[Argonaut]

I personally loved starting with a Centurion and the Kite in the previous version. Made for a really solid start without being too easy for a beginner. Really taught me the fun and importance of loadouts. The Centurion even has the same amount of small hardpoints as the wayfarer, so they "look" balanced as options.

[Serenitis]

Frigates require more quick reactions.

Which is itself a barrier for some people. Which is where choice is good.

With a Wolf you can always turn tail when you're outnumbered, with a Hammerhead you're screwed.

Enforcer. So long as it doesn't have degraded engines it will work fine. As it did in the accelerated start previously.
I really don't get why you'd say it didn't work very well, because it really did.

[Megas]

Back then, I think that was during 0.6x when Navigation gives lots of burn speed to frigates and little to everything else, the main reason destroyer start hurt was burn speed.  Frigates had much more burn speed, especially with Navigation.  With a destroyer, your fleet was too slow to run away from stuff - or catch small scouts - on the map.  Now, Sustained Burn fixes that weakness and frigate burn is not so much faster than everything else.

That said, destroyer start was great because starter Wolf back then had no PD whatsoever, but the Hammerhead did, and I stole the LR PD lasers from the Hammerhead and gave it to the Wolf, and stored the destroyer so that burn speed was not slowed too much.

Heavy blaster is powerful, but it is too flux hungry.  The speed in 0.8 is not there anymore.  Having a SO Lasher start can be nice.

With the gameplay changes, destroyer start may be viable.

[Cosmitz]

So my friend has the same opinion, that the game is brutally hard and you need to have numbers to win. He gave me a save, on Easy in the tutorial that he thought he was completely stuck in.

That was me winning with his save: https://streamable.com/6mi0q

At this point SS was never, in its entire lifetime, easier to start in.