Okay. So the player is confused because, as he explains, the game gives him a lot of freedom.
Yet another player who's completely confused seeing all the pirates run away, when the tutorial clearly says you'll have to fight it out.
That's not how I read it.
Actually, the tutorial does not "
clearly says you'll have to fight it out". It's more like "rogue miner fleets are guarding both jump points, your task is to stabilise inner jump point, 2 fleets are guarding it, battle is expected". Neither the task nor the optional battle(s) are mandatory to play Starsector. Performing the task is required in order to progress in the tutorial.
You are the first to mention "
the pirates will just run away from you" in the reddit thread. The closest thing he mentioned is "
Fighting the pirates was completely optional". In my book "optional" does not imply "confusing". Maybe he was just surprised that the game did not enforce combat. Player with narrow expectations vs. large freedom allowed by the game?
He picked the Apogee start btw.
That's not how I read it.
You are the first to mention the Apogee in the reddit thread. When you asked him what start he did choose, he answered "
I chose the faster start option. Specifically, the scavenger one.". He never mentioned Apogee. Since "scavenger" start is start option 2 and is not tagged as "faster start" (start options 3 and 4 are the ones tagged as "faster start"), it is not really clear what was his starting fleet. Maybe he was already confused having so much options right after pressing the "New Game" button. My point being: that's just speculation until the player clarifies what his starting fleet really was.
Now that I think about it, tutorial already gives you free ships, makes no sense to have such big fleets when just starting out.
Isn't it precicely the point of a "faster start" ? It helps player avoid a few hours of grind using a small fleet, if they so wish. With the faster start, the game is much more open right at the beginning, it makes sense for a sandbox-type game. That's not how I play as I much prefer starting with a Wolf, but I like that the option is here.