Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Author Topic: Morale, mutinies, prisoners, relationships and the human factor in Starsector  (Read 2248 times)

Snapshot

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 16
    • View Profile

Suggestion:

Add some social and psychological aspect to space combat and traveling. For example, low morale from constant combat, losses, casualties, and low readiness or taking unnecessary risks for low rewards, pushing the men in your fleet can increase the chances of mutinies or ships leaving the fleet. (perhaps even a small group of ships leaving the fleet under the command of one of your capable officers to set off on their own if morale is too high as well)

Get to know your crew, officers, and perhaps other people in the game like leaders, spies, contacts and other fleet commanders.

Ships run from combat under low morale and fight to the death with high morale.

Maybe romance? eh... having a family? the main point being fleshing out the human aspect of the characters and nameless masses in-game and it affecting your playthrough and decisions.



EDIT:
The people that have made this game seem to be quite good at designing and implementing game mechanics that add quite a lot of depth while remaining rather simple, keeping the tediousness and chory-ness of those mechanics down to a minimum when you compare them with other titles, while remaining just as impactful, interesting and compelling. It's no wonder it's such an addictive game.

My point is I'm not suggesting adding complexity, I'm suggesting adding "human elements" in the game. I think it would be possible to implement it in a simple way that adds a lot of depth, just like other aspects of starsector, while remaining straighforward. What that would look like, I don't know. I'm no expert in good game design. The examples I gave was just to help get my point across, certainly don't put in anything that I've mentioned in the game, they were more or less verbal diarrhea. If there is a way to add simple mechanics that touch on those human elements, it might further make the game more interesting.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2020, 03:37:43 PM by Snapshot »
Logged

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile

I'm not against adding more layers to the game but this seems...a bit much.

If Morale has tangible effects on combat (i.e. low-morale ships will turn tail and run), then all of a sudden the player has even less control over their allied ships then they currently do, which isn't a ton to start with. While it makes sense that crew and officers might become disgruntled if they were chronically under-supplied and/or underpaid, taking control away from the player seems like the wrong direction to go in. Could a Morale system be implemented that works? Of course, but the question I have is what value is it adding to the overall "fun?" If it's another stat to babysit, no thank you.

As for personal relationships, I think more should be done that makes player-decisions more long-term but individual officers/crew having their own personalities, dialogue trees, motivations, etc. seems like a lot to ask for an arcade-style shooter. Not to mention that even if you hand-crafted 50 unique individuals (which is a feat), it would become repetitive after only a few play-throughs.

The "human element" is, in my mind, intentionally vague because this is set in a dystopian society where the individual really doesn't matter that much. Millions live and die in squalor while a few elites have sovereignty over entire planets. Thousands die in most large battles. The game treats crew as a consumable/renewable resource that can be bought and sold like commodities. To put the microscope on a few individuals (even the player character!) kind goes against the conceit of the game where fleets smash against each other and whole planets can be nuked from orbit.
Logged

Mordodrukow

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 275
    • View Profile

Quote
I'm not against adding more layers to the game but this seems...a bit much.
I agree. We have CR already.
Logged
Spoiler
[close]

Terethall

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 157
    • View Profile

Paradox-style events focusing on your crew and with medium-duration impact on fleet or ship stats, with you as commander having to make some choices once in a while. I'm telling you guys. That would be enough to placate those of us who installed Starship Legends as our first mod and constantly ask for crew morale and faction to matter. We just need a way to express our personality and the storytelling aspect of the game.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile

I kind of like the way crew are just... there as the virtual tokens that they are because my character can be a cruel or horrible monster and get away with it.
Logged

Serenitis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1458
    • View Profile

Not a fan.
This level of complexity and involvement is the sort of thing you'd expect to see in one of the inumerable "map games" that are out there. None of which I'm a fan of due to said complexity and involvement, and the micromanagement this requires.

The different crew skill levels have already been removed from the game because they were just a chore to deal with while not adding anything worthwhile.
Why does that need to be re-introduced and then doubled down on?

Keep things as simple as possible imo.
Logged

Terethall

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 157
    • View Profile

...complexity and involvement, and the micromanagement...

Keep things as simple as possible imo.

Why not remove crew entirely? And fuel and supplies and credits? And the campaign layer? Would be much simpler if the game wast just building a fleet and fighting sim enemy fleets. People enjoy the story elements and context the campaign and logistics management provide. But in real life introducing a human element makes logistics challenges more interesting. It creates more constraints under which to optimize, which is half of the game in Starsector.
Logged

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile

Megas actually hits the nail on the head...crew are virtual tokens. I said it previously, but the human element is extremely abstracted in Starsector because the moral/ethical ramifications of buying/selling thousands of people like chattel or genociding entire planets isn't something that Alex really wants to get into (I'll try to find the post but I do recall it).

@Terethall

That's a bit of a non-argument (reductio ad absurdum). Yes, you could simplify the game even further down (which it was long, long ago) but no one is actually advocating reducing in complexity the stuff that already works. The crew system works as-is and adding another layer to it didn't work in the past (i.e. crew levels), or should I say, it didn't add much to the game. When crew levels were removed, the most common complaint wasn't the drop in combat effectiveness that Veterancy gave, it was the loss of "progression" that people wanted. It wasn't that we even cared about the crew, per se, it's that leveling up the crew gave a sense of accomplishment.

I like Starship Legends but it doesn't need to be part of the Vanilla experience. It adds a whole lot of complexity that a new player would be hard-pressed to understand and even experienced players, like myself, kind of get bogged down in the details. I, personally, don't get a lot of satisfaction from managing the pros/cons portion of advancing the officers/ships because it's another thing to min/max (and that I don't have direct control over). So, if "people" enjoy the logistics management of it all, I'm not one of them.
Logged

SCC

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4112
    • View Profile

I liked crew levels. They gave me the satisfaction of fleet getting better along with me.
Crew really could be removed entirely without much issue. You only have to have enough of it and that's it. Buying a ship means you'll almost certainly buy crew and weapons for it as well, or take it to your weapon stash. Recovering ships in the field is either done opportunistically, where you don't have enough crew, but also not enough weapons or supplies to outfit it, so it's not going to be operational for two different reasons; or you prepare for it, which means taking additional crew, supplies and weapons. And it would stop the farce of low-tech ships being more expensive than seemingly higher maintenance ships, simply because 10 required crew is equal to 1 more maintenance in most situations.

I don't think relationships with non-space people will ever appear. Starsector is pretty focused and people who don't make ships, man them or supply them might as well not exist. Officers could perhaps get some more interaction than they already have, but what for? To make choosing skills less RNG dependent? They could be unique and give quests and have unique benefits, but there's too much risk of big optimisation bias towards certain officers, making playthroughs more similar to one another. More easily I could see simple relations with colony rulers, to get special benefits there (one-time military market access, preferential prices, whatever).

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile

I do not bat an eye sat-bombing Chichomoztoc, the size 8 Hegemony capital, or all of the core worlds for that matter, off the map in an instant.  If anything, I feel relief or glee when I destroy them after enduring endless expeditions or inspections sent after my colonies, or saving the core worlds from yet another pirate raid that would devour them, before I say "ENOUGH! DIE NOW!".

What would I care about crew if I do not flinch on the megadeath on bits and bytes after a planet killing?
Logged

Terethall

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 157
    • View Profile

What would I care about crew if I do not flinch on the megadeath on bits and bytes after a planet killing?

An atrocity of this scale cannot be hidden.
Logged

Snapshot

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 16
    • View Profile

Not a fan.
This level of complexity and involvement is the sort of thing you'd expect to see in one of the inumerable "map games" that are out there. None of which I'm a fan of due to said complexity and involvement, and the micromanagement this requires.

Keep things as simple as possible imo.

I agree. I didn't really word my suggestion well. The people that have made this game seem to be quite good at designing and implementing game mechanics that add quite a lot of depth while remaining rather simple, keeping the tediousness and chory-ness of those mechanics down to a minimum when you compare them with other titles, while remaining just as impactful, interesting and compelling. It's no wonder it's such an addictive game.

My point is I'm not suggesting adding complexity, I'm suggesting adding "human elements" in the game. I think it would be possible to implement it in a simple way that adds a lot of depth, just like other aspects of starsector, while remaining straighforward. What that would look like, I don't know. I'm no expert in good game design. The examples I gave was just to help get my point across, certainly don't put in anything that I've mentioned in the game, they were more or less verbal diarrhea. If there is a way to add simple mechanics that touch on those human elements, it might further make the game more interesting.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2020, 05:07:35 PM by Snapshot »
Logged

shoi

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 650
    • View Profile

While the focus on starsector is clearly on combat, a lot of people seem to forget that it's also intended to be a roleplaying game and not some weird 4x domination game, and in that regard it is pretty lacking. It's closest counterpart, mount and blade, has more compelling elements that could be adapted in some shape or form.

I'm all for mechanics like character relations and stuff. Probably not as micro level as interacting with crew, but with NPC fleet commanders, officers, etc.
It'd take time to add, (definately not as complex as ppl seem to think tho, but it COULD be resource intensive with having to track persistant fleets and such) though, and if im still alive when starsector 1.0 is out i'll probably try my hand at doing it if it ends up being ignored
« Last Edit: May 19, 2020, 07:08:08 PM by shoi »
Logged