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News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Poll

What sector age to you usually play with?

Young
- 2 (1.3%)
Balanced
- 16 (10.1%)
Old
- 25 (15.8%)
Mixed
- 100 (63.3%)
A bit of everything
- 15 (9.5%)

Total Members Voted: 158


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Author Topic: What sector age to you usually play with?  (Read 28607 times)

Tartiflette

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What sector age to you usually play with?
« on: March 24, 2019, 02:48:50 PM »

While the option is there, I don't think I ever played with anything but Mixed... And I'm wondering if that option is necessary at all in the end. If most player end up playing like me, maybe it would be more interesting to have a different set of options, like a choosing between larger and more isolated constellations of start or smaller more numerous ones for example. Or setting the amount of Derelict/remnant presence.
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Alex

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2019, 02:51:31 PM »

Yeah, I've actually got a couple of options in mind to replace these :)
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Tartiflette

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2019, 03:18:22 PM »

A slider between uniform repartitions of stars and large isolated constellations would something I would love to play with (especially the later)
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Alex

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2019, 03:46:26 PM »

That could be interesting, yeah. But what I'm thinking about is moving the settings away from the physical characteristics of the Sector and more into directly gameplay affecting things. For example, if say a global "Sector Decay" rating was a thing, then choosing the starting level of that could be a combination difficulty-and-feel selector - I think that sort of thing is more impactful and a more interesting choice that someone might want to play around with and select different values for on different playthroughs.
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SCC

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2019, 03:49:35 PM »

I played with mixed for some time... Then I realised I don't care about non-habitable planets at all and switched to old stars.

goduranus

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2019, 08:26:43 PM »

I think the Old Sector option gives you the most research stations for salvaging tech

Cyan Leader

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2019, 04:28:17 AM »

Maybe having sliders for the amount of findables and the danger of the sector?
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Tartiflette

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2019, 05:19:13 AM »

That could be interesting, yeah. But what I'm thinking about is moving the settings away from the physical characteristics of the Sector and more into directly gameplay affecting things. For example, if say a global "Sector Decay" rating was a thing, then choosing the starting level of that could be a combination difficulty-and-feel selector.

If you want to push things a bit further, there could even be a timeline of fixed major events and you get to choose when you want to start the game. Events like
Third AI War
Great AI Plague
Great Black Plague
Sindria/League war
Anti-Remnants Crusade
etc, that would change the "decay" of the sector, but also the factions relationships and markets allegiances, as well as the prevalence of derelict/remnants.
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Morathar

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2019, 06:38:16 AM »

I switched to using Old Sector in 0.9 because it's supposed to increase the number of habitable planets. Based on my experience so far, this option does give me the best chance of having a few useful systems (relatively) close together to create my budding star empire.
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Alex

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2019, 09:32:26 AM »

If you want to push things a bit further, there could even be a timeline of fixed major events and you get to choose when you want to start the game. Events like
Third AI War
Great AI Plague
Great Black Plague
Sindria/League war
Anti-Remnants Crusade
etc, that would change the "decay" of the sector, but also the factions relationships and markets allegiances, as well as the prevalence of derelict/remnants.

Hah, as much as that sounds interesting, it also sounds like an amount of content work that would be more in tune with something like "an expansion" rather than "a Sector config setting" :)

... I do really like the idea of getting historical, though, hmm.
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Tartiflette

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #10 on: March 25, 2019, 09:45:43 AM »

Oh yeah for sure! But you could look at it as a way to get a ton of fresh replayability for comparatively little new content required. It would require new descriptions, some tweaks to the core systems that could mostly be done using existing assets for the visuals, tweaks to the sector generation, and at least a few unique quests. Certainly not an insignificant amount of work, but I'd say it would be some very cost effective work in term of new gameplay offered.

If the changes are large enough, it would certain fit the bill for some post launch content.
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Vayra

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2019, 09:50:50 AM »

I found I was never getting habitable planets on Mixed -- we're talking tens of systems surveyed without anything below 150% hazard, and tons of completely empty systems as well. Everything seemed to work much better on Old, though it sort of swings the other way (too many habitable worlds!) especially with Unknown Skies active.

Edit: Ah, Unknown Skies doesn't modify world habitability distribution -- must have just been RNG messing with me then.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2019, 11:19:15 AM by Vayra »
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Kadur Remnant: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6649
Vayra's Sector: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16058
Vayra's Ship Pack: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=16059

im gonna push jangala into the sun i swear to god im gonna do it

Tartiflette

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #12 on: March 25, 2019, 10:45:20 AM »

Unknown Skies doesn't change the repartition of any particular biome. It just makes more planet types available to each existing biome. Ie there will be the same number of lava, habitable or barren worlds generated regardless of US presence.
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Megas

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #13 on: April 15, 2019, 06:31:21 AM »

All of my serious games were played at default settings, I think Normal and Mixed.  If I was inclined to change settings, I probably would pick Old for better planets.  (Habitable planets have the best hazard ratings and can still have all of the resources.)  Balanced seems like another Mixed variant, and Young seems to imply lots of useless high hazard death traps (although good habitables can still be found).  As for Sector size, in theory, I prefer bigger sizes because of more planets and more loot, but fringe systems are a pain to explore when there is not much time to explore between colony threats, especially if the best colony world I claim is far in the fringe for a given seed, and the quests are at the opposite sides of the sector.  Because of babysitting annoyance, smaller sector seems useful to bind maximum travel time and distance to places.
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The2nd

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Re: What sector age to you usually play with?
« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2019, 02:19:12 PM »

Hah, as much as that sounds interesting, it also sounds like an amount of content work that would be more in tune with something like "an expansion" rather than "a Sector config setting" :)

... I do really like the idea of getting historical, though, hmm.

Oh yeah for sure! But you could look at it as a way to get a ton of fresh replayability for comparatively little new content required. It would require new descriptions, some tweaks to the core systems that could mostly be done using existing assets for the visuals, tweaks to the sector generation, and at least a few unique quests. Certainly not an insignificant amount of work, but I'd say it would be some very cost effective work in term of new gameplay offered.

If the changes are large enough, it would certain fit the bill for some post launch content.

Oh yes please, mark this somewhere with three red explanation marks for after 1.0 (if you plan post launch content at all ofc)

I love the idea. A combination of more refined player starting options together with sectors time/status options would be very neat indeed. With unique starts for certain time periods and maybe a different prevalence of certain ship types during different times ect.  ;D   

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