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[Macarthaig]

Hi all. First thing I want to ask is why do I get constantly ripped by oversized fleets that appear out of nowhere right when I finish a battle. It's very frustrating, and many times when I start out the game I'm immediately attacked by a larger fleet and the game ends right there. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but more then not ive been put in situations where there is just no way out. Supplies and fuel run out extremely fast at start, leaving few options to make money(no I'm not overloaded or understaffed). Ive read in other posts to salvage other wrecks of battles but ive just not found any of these, and derelict ships I salvage provide very garbage ships that sell for less than 100 credits. Then you look at the same ship on sale for the ai and its listed at 6000 credits. I mean, I almost feel like your trolling the player. If this is intended and your making the space sim version to Dark Souls then job well done. I'm just not seeing anything positive in my play through's. I don't understand if this is they way the game is or if I'm doing something wrong. Ive been trying to play this game for the last two weeks and have yet been able to leave the starting system. 

Second, and forgive me if this is posted somewhere I haven't seen yet, what other content if any will be added to this game. I'm starting to regret getting this game due to the disappointing gameplay thus far. Is that all there is going to be to this or are we at least getting the ability to colonize planets or set up bases on a planet? Ive read where we can survey planets that haven't been explored yet, would be nice to add the ability to colonize or set up a base there.

Sorry if I sound like I'm ranting, just really concerned about the game play. I realize I'm in the minority and opinions don't count, but would still like some answers for the above.

[Sy]

welcome to the forum! sorry to hear you're not having fun. the game is meant to be challenging, but not to a point where it becomes frustrating. unfortunately, it's just not a newbie-friendly game, due to how much there is to learn, so many players struggle at first. :/


have you played through the campaign tutorial? it should teach you the basics of how to avoid fleets you don't want to fight, and provides an opportunity to get a sizeable fleet of d-ships (ships with permanent damage hullmods, but still useful) before you leave the tutorial system.

recovering damaged ships to sell them is not worth it, you're better off just salvaging them for a few supplies and fuel. there are also industry skills that make recovering damaged ships and sending them into battle more worthwhile. it's a good choice if you're struggling while still learning the game, since those ships will be cheap and easy to come by, which makes losing them much less punishing than losing ships you bought in pristine condition.

alternatively, a good way to progress in the early-game is exploration, since the enemies you'll be fighting there are not too much of a challenge, and don't roam the map in fleets (just avoid systems that have warning beacons next to them in hyperspace!). only the core star systems are inhabited, most are either empty or filled with some old derelict ships and stations that you can salvage. you can find some missions that send you to scan a specific derelict, which rewards some credits directly, and guarantees you'll at least find something in the destination star system. but it can also be profitable to just look through random systems on your own -- just remember to bring a good amount of supplies and fuel, so you won't be screwed if you need to search for a bit until you find something of value.


regarding future features, yes, setting up your own outposts/colonies, and managing them to be profitable, will be a thing -- most likely as the main part of the next major update! development cycles of this game are slow though (there's only a single developer working on it full-time), so it will still take a few months at least until that is released (no specific date though).


lastly, we have a lively discord server where you'll almost always find someone who can give advice on how to deal with a specific problem, get tips on how to customize your ships, etc. :]

[FooF]

Some additional information would be helpful (to me) so I could provide suggestions:

Are you playing the tutorial? If not, I highly suggest it. If so, after ending up in the Corvus system with your ragtag fleet of junkers, use what available funds you have to get fuel/supplies and find the nearest bounty target that is in the 50k credit range. If you can survive that, you'll have a much bigger credit cushion to absorb ship, fuel, and/or supply losses.

What are you trying to do at the beginning? Run trade missions, fight pirates, hunt bounties...? There are some things that are incredibly difficult to do early that gets easier as your fleet is better equipped.

Another tip would be to do some of the missions before heading to the campaign. Not mentioned anywhere in particular in the tutorial is that you're going to have to be able to fight while outnumbered. Getting some practice as a Wolf or Lasher and taking on multiple Hounds, Cerebri, Mudskippers, etc. will pay huge dividends. Once you can reliably fight 2-3 frigates solo (or with an additional frigate ally), you'll find the early game to be much easier.

As far as getting chased down by larger fleets, there's not a lot you can do about that besides run. If you're using frigates, you should be able to retreat out of a forced battle without a lot of trouble. The only factions attacking you in the early game are pirates and they don't have particularly fast or dangerous ships and you can evade them in-battle relatively easily. You will lose some supplies due to the CR hit but it's better than losing your ships.

Selling D-mod ships is not supposed to be lucrative. Like, at all. The design is for you to use them or let them drift, not take them back to port. You'll lose far more supplies/fuel hauling them around than you will for selling them. So, unless you plan on using a ship, salvage what you can and let it go. Getting new ships that aren't clunkers will take some time, but not that much time. After your first bounty, you can afford another frigate and armaments.

If you take on trade missions or survey missions, use as few ships as possible to achieve the mission. Survey missions in particular, pack light and fast. You'll likely need to pick up a Dram tanker to provide enough fuel to get there and back, unless the mission is really close by. Surveying can be profitable but it won't net you anything besides credits. In upcoming patches, yes, you will be able to colonize planets with outposts but that has not been implemented yet.

This game does have a pretty steep learning curve but it is doable. Getting the hang of what you can and can't handle takes awhile as does equipping your ships in such a way that they're maximizing their potential.

If all else fails, and I don't recommend it until you learn the "hard way," is get the Console Commands mod and cheat yourself supplies/fuel. I wouldn't recommend cheating anything else in until you get the hang of it otherwise the mod will be a crutch you have real hard time weaning yourself off of.

[AxleMC131]

Welcome to the forum! Let's see if we can help you out here, since it sounds like your being given a really hard time by the game.

Before anything else though, just two things I want to confirm, since these are sometimes done wrongly by early players:
- Have you played the campaign tutorial?
- Are you currently using any mods that seriously affect gameplay (like Nexerelin, Dynasector, or any faction mods)?

First thing I want to ask is why do I get constantly ripped by oversized fleets that appear out of nowhere right when I finish a battle. It's very frustrating, and many times when I start out the game I'm immediately attacked by a larger fleet and the game ends right there. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but more then not ive been put in situations where there is just no way out.

This is fairly strange. What sort of fleets have you been attacking in the first place? Just pirate raiders and the like? If so, you should easily be able to outrun most bigger fleets with your starting ships. If you find yourself in a tight space, you can use Emergency Burn to out-manoeuvre a chasing fleet, or Sustained Burn to outrun them (once you've gained enough distance). I'd be interested to know what your usual procedure at the start of a game is - do you immediately spend all your money buying more ships, or do you take a mission and go exploring, or what? Some career choices carry more risk than others.

If you're finding yourself constantly outnumbered and outmatched though, try to stick by some non-hostile fleets. The Hegemony start off with a positive relationship with you, and if you encounter a battle near one of their fleets chances are they'll help you out in the combat! Even better, if you see a Hegemony (or other friendly faction) fleet in a battle themselves, you can join in to help out - you'll earn credits, loot, and reputation depending on how much you contribute to the battle, while being able to fall back on the allied forces for support if you need. Neat!

Supplies and fuel run out extremely fast at start, leaving few options to make money(no I'm not overloaded or understaffed). Ive read in other posts to salvage other wrecks of battles but ive just not found any of these, and derelict ships I salvage provide very garbage ships that sell for less than 100 credits. Then you look at the same ship on sale for the ai and its listed at 6000 credits. I mean, I almost feel like your trolling the player.

Trying to sell ships on the market is a common mistake, but nothing to feel ashamed of. The game deliberately makes ships you try to sell way cheaper - especially if they're damaged, ie. have D-Mods on them, in which case they become worth basically nothing. However, there is good reason to recover such ships! Damaged ships you recover from derelicts often come with D-Mods, and while these negatively affect a ship's performance, they also make it much cheaper to use in combat - specifically, the number of supplies it uses up when you deploy them in battle is greatly reduced. If you still can't see yourself using these "junker" ships (and some people don't like it, that's fine!) you can always "Scuttle" ships you recover instead of salvaging them to gain some extra supplies - though I believe that Salvaging a derelict gives you more reward than recovering and scuttling. It all depends how much you want the ship.

Speaking of salvaging, post-battle debris fields are fairly common in locations where rival factions have big wars and leave equally big messes behind, so if you hang around some big military bases (Honestly, Jangala always seems to be under siege by pirates to me!) you ought to find some tasty wreckage.

Second, and forgive me if this is posted somewhere I haven't seen yet, what other content if any will be added to this game. I'm starting to regret getting this game due to the disappointing gameplay thus far. Is that all there is going to be to this or are we at least getting the ability to colonize planets or set up bases on a planet? Ive read where we can survey planets that haven't been explored yet, would be nice to add the ability to colonize or set up a base there.

Believe it or not, outposts and bases the player can set up are something being worked on very seriously for upcoming versions of the game! If you ever want to check out updates or see what the Devs are thinking about, you can hop on over to the Starsector Blog ( http://fractalsoftworks.com/blog/ ) and read up some of the fun stuff talked about there. The latest blog post in fact is all about Outposts and the game's economy, so you might find something to your liking in there!


In addendum, if you're still finding the game difficult, you can start a campaign in "Easy" mode (which alters a few stats in your favour). You can also try some mods that make the early game less punishing - which, admittedly, it rather is. There's a mod called "Steiner Foundation" ( http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10398 ) which adds a number of features that allow you access to better ships and weapons early on, as well as in-game tutorial hints and boosts in several forms.

While this can't cover everything (I'm very sure I've forgotten no less than seventeen things, haha!) I hope it helps nonetheless.

[Sy]

haha, seems there were 3 of us typing out long posts with about the same content.

[AxleMC131]

Hehe, so it would seem!

[FooF]

No kill like overkill...

At least we were all pretty consistent!

[Macarthaig]

Thanks for the advice and info. Ive been playing the missions and they do help. I guess ill keep after it. Maybe playing on easy a bit before I try normal. Looking forward to the updates. Thank you again.

[Sy]

you're welcome. ^^

playing on easy until you get the hang of things is a good choice, yeah. doing standalone missions to practise combat can be as well, just keep in mind that many of them are tuned to be a challenge even for experienced players.

[Macarthaig]

 Well I think ive had it with this game. No matter how many missions I complete, if the ai blatantly just screws me then there is nothing I can do. Point in case, still getting immediately attacked when starting a new game. Even if I manage to win a fight, often there is a second fleet that just pops up and attacks me before I can even escape due to my ship being unfit for combat and all that crap. This game could be great and again obviously I'm in the minority here in the forums, but it just seems like the game is rigged to really troll the player. Ive still yet been able to leave the starting system because some larger faster fleet with 4 capitol ships just come blazing at me from nowhere. Ive tried mods to see if it may balance things out but to no avail. Nah, absolutely not fun.

[xenoargh]

4 capital ships?  In Vanilla, no mods?

That isn’t right; I’m really wondering what’s up.  I can totally understand that getting jumped the moment you hit Hyperspace isn’t fun when you’re not ready.

We should write a Spoilered newbie guide for Vanilla.

[FooF]

Yeah, I can't say I've ever been attacked immediately upon start. Are you hunting pirates and getting ganked from pirate raiders hiding in asteroid fields or something? Are you attacking the Hegemony patrols and making them hostile toward you?

The only enemies that should be attacking you at start are pirates, unless you provoke other factions by attacking them. If you head toward the Barad region, you'll get attacked for sure. Either avoid that area or follow Hegemony patrols up there and join their fights.

[Sy]

like the others said, if you get attacked by fleets with capital ships in the starting system, there's definitely something wrong. that doesn't (shouldn't?) happen in vanilla. pirates rarely ever have any capitals at all, and certainly not in fleets flying around vanilla corvus at the start of the game, let alone 4 of them in one fleet. and no other faction should initially be hostile to you.

could you maybe give a few more details about what you're doing and seeing? like what faction the fleets in question belong to? if it's Hegemony who are attacking you, you must have done something to provoke them -- probably by attacking one of their fleets first. they wouldn't attack you for something minor like a bit of smuggling or being caught with disabled transponder, for example (at least assuming you agree to turn on the transponder when they then tell you to do so).

if you're using mods, it might be that one of those causes the issue(s). if you give us a list of mods you currently have installed, we might be able to help in that regard as well.


to put it in another way: if there were huge death fleets immediately attacking my starting fleet right at the beginning of the game with little or no chance to avoid them, i'd not find the game fun to play either. but i've never seen that happen in the hundreds of hours and many campaign runs i've played.