Greeting everyone,
This post is mostly some thoughts about the new release of Starsector. I've tried several ways to play (neutral, PL-, Tri-Tachyon- and Luddic Church aligned, and currently a troubleshooter-smugglers-LP mercenary) with different set of skills and was thinking it was time to put on paper (or online) comments about the new game.
As a disclaimer, remember this is only impressions based on the way I play, and second I hope you will not find my writing agressive, sometime I fear that the way I write in english is harsh because it’s my second language :S. And maybe there is some things listed there that are in fact avoidable during play.
The Good
-The new panel of the game mixing colonization and exploration. I love Starsector for the lore (post-apoc decay) and the exploration aspect. The game has made immense progress in the way it convey the decaying in the sector, the filling of "it was better before" and that you may have insane amount of money but still have to find that blueprint for your lovely cruiser you always wanted. The immersion is really good with me, with always much more details added (the bar, the payroll of your staff)
-I've tried several style of play based on skill. Compared to the last version I found that there is much more viable combo: zombie fleet, lord commander, administrator, explorator, Captain Albator... And with everyone of them I rarely feel "I should have spent this character point elsewhere".
-The "surprises" took from MoO which gave me the same filling of "Oh my god my fleet is dead" the first time you encounter it
-Mechanics of colonization are relatively easy to understand, if not in the details and math, at least in the general aspect.
-The way that bounties now work. In 0.8 bounties were scaled to the player and immersion-breaking. Now you always have bounties you don't want to hunt because you will be crushed or you will never be able to catch them.
The Bad (mostly balance-related)
-The worst of all: so far, there is only one way to play colony: find low hazard rating planet, find core(s) or max the relevant skills to make the colony economically viable, get bored killing pirate station every month, get frustrated by LP insanity, start a new game. (the previous sentence has absolutly nothing to do with a rage-quit last night...). Don't get me wrong, all of these features are absolutly relevant to the game and interesting, but they are a little bit out of control and boring/frustrating so far. I guess with next version balance will be reviewed.
-In the same vein, obvious heavy industry (leading to obvious LP frustration) is not really interesting. There is no alternative: choose between Heavy industry or keep your poor fleet of junk. Considering you can import ships from other factions it would make sense to get ships from these factions. So all these aspect make all play feel the same. I would like to be able to get ships from other way than Heavy industry, but still with drawback, just to give several ways to play. Maybe light industries, allow producing only frigates, wings and small-medium weapons?
-A small feature in the continuity: I understand Starsector focus on combat and other features are sometime simplified when they are not related to combat, but available structures are too general for now. Several structures (mining, heavy industries) produce too much variety of good, once again leading to obvious choices. I like the small upgrade you can make on structures to focus their production. Maybe it can be extended to several other ones: deep mining for common and rare ore, processing plant for organics and volatiles, milirato-industrial complex for grounds weapons and heavy machinery... I could probably help make the colonies less similar and less blend.
-The passivity of factions. Really kill the immersion for me. Factions should be able to do what you can do in the game, at least in principle, but probably not in mechanics. An example: player can colonize, factions should do so too. But as Alex said somewhere, he doesn’t want a 4X game, which is okay. But maybe in rare moment, a faction could decide to colonize a small outpost somewhere, or build a big industry on another planet. To involve the player, others factions may want to disrupt this endeavour, and may want to hire the player to attack a specific convoy, or the player can help by protecting the new construction site, or providing supplies. So, something exceptional, story-driven, involving the player. Similarly, the terrible LP and pirate base can be the target of vengeance fleet once in a while, provided you tell them the location or provide assistance. I find weird that factions are stuck on the core worlds and that minor factions (the player, LP and pirates) have a magic wand to make appear colonies and station everywhere...
The Ugly (some details ticking me)
-Mining stations asking for ore, Volturn asking for Volturnian lobsters, etc...
-Goods: what to do with good once you have hundreds and thousands stockpiled in your colony? Most of the time, deficit in other colonies are only circa 200-500. Others ways to get ride of them could be nice: put them for sale to provide a little amount of money each month until depleted, “sacrifice” them to give a temporary market share bonus, or to build a structure a little bit quicker.
-IA. Nothing big, but I hate that carriers (like Gemini) want to it a battlestation at point blank range, and that my 3 dominator are afraid to come close (even with “eliminate order”), but not coward enough to take some distance, take a deep breath, vent flux, then attack again.
Okay, sorry for the wall of text. I hope there will be some usefull thoughts and suggestion in there. In the end, I think most of the details are somewhere on a to-do list of Alex, mostly regarding balancing. And probably that, as human, we see more what we wish than what we started with. V0.9 is beyond my expectation at the moment I bought the game and even during v0.8, and this is not tomorrow I will stop playing Starsector.
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Topic: Some (hopefully) constructive thoughts and comments on V0.9 (Read 3136 times)