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[Wingflier]

As the topic says. Before I start, I *know* this is alpha and a lot of features are missing, and I know it's a sandbox game, so perhaps by the time it's released none of this will be a concern. However, I've seen enough games with promising concepts and incredible amounts of passion put into them fail miserably when I kept my peace, so it doesn't hurt anybody just to say what could probably improve the game the most while the developer still has time to implement it.

As it stands, the point of the game is basically just to grind. You start out, and you fight small pirate "fleets". Then you fight bigger ones. You buy some ships, maybe capture some along the way. Then you fight bigger pirate fleets. Then you buy more ships. Then bigger pirate fleets. On and on for eternity. It loses its novelty quickly and in the end, is rather shallow and pointless. Players will see through this and grow tired of it pretty fast.

Of course, 'bounty hunting' is not the only thing you can do. Trading of course, and smuggling. You can disrupt markets and even make enemies with a major faction (no idea why you'd want to though, there's no real benefit).

But the biggest issue with the game, as it stands, is that the player's actions have no real, long-term effect on the world. Everything you do can really only affects yourself. You can kill 100 massive pirate armadas and all that will happen is that 100 more pirate armadas will spawn to take their place. And of course, as I said, I know it's alpha, but I do hope that this isn't the final plan for the game.

Specifically, in addition to the procedurally generated maps for each new game, I'd like to see the different major factions have alliances and rivalries. But more than that, I'd like to see them actually be able to kill each other and take over each other's planets and solar systems. In fact, it would be really neat if the "armadas" that each faction spawned were based purely on their income from planets owned, market stability, and economic prosperity, so that killing said faction armadas, or attacking their planets, would have a massive impact on the universe. The player could choose to ally with a major faction completely, then work with them to wipe out another faction, or even pit them against each other in a form of deceptive subterfuge.

In other words, the groundwork is already in place to make this game great. The "battle portion" is already fantastic, but now you have to give the player a point past grinding a bigger and bigger fleet based on pointless and endless battles. Give them a "win condition" outside of the battle screen. Make their actions really count. Something like Drox Operative or The Last Federation. Then the game's replay value would be near infinite.

[Dri]

I too would like to gangbang across the stars with my homies the Hegemony, taking over system after system and seeing our worlds flourish. I agree that defending a certain factions territories and driving off pirates/rivals should help that faction to grow in power and begin fielding more powerful fleets for both defense and offense.

I'd also really like to invest in planets to drive up their market stability and see the planet then begin putting out major fleets to patrol it's territory, terraforming to increase it's population/QoL as well as assist me in battles/material gain.

I also agree that a planet shouldn't just be able to endlessly field fleet after fleet - it should be tied to its market stability and population which should both be things the player can change over time.

[Alex]

Hi! Just want to say that I'm very much aware of this, and, yeah, making the world something the player can affect is a major goal. A lot of pieces still need to come together for that to work, though.

[Steven Shi]

I don't think anyone has done a proper living breathing galaxy in single player yet - the programming and the mechanics the AI have to keep track of would be terrifyingly daunting...

X-series hid it well behind a laundry list of distractions while EVE let human players create the dramas. Elite is basically a 3D, MP version of Starsector atm and both games are suffering from the 'why should I bother' symptom.

It would be interesting how either games approach this issue - especially since SS doesn't have the MP crutch to lean on. It also makes the combat portion of the game seem like such a small cog doesn't it?

[MesoTroniK]

I don't think anyone has done a proper living breathing galaxy in single player yet - the programming and the mechanics the AI have to keep track of would be terrifyingly daunting...

X-series hid it well behind a laundry list of distractions

Try the Litcube's Universe mod, it is the closest I have yet seen

[Wingflier]

I don't think anyone has done a proper living breathing galaxy in single player yet - the programming and the mechanics the AI have to keep track of would be terrifyingly daunting...

X-series hid it well behind a laundry list of distractions while EVE let human players create the dramas. Elite is basically a 3D, MP version of Starsector atm and both games are suffering from the 'why should I bother' symptom.

It would be interesting how either games approach this issue - especially since SS doesn't have the MP crutch to lean on. It also makes the combat portion of the game seem like such a small cog doesn't it?

Check out Drox Operative or The Last Federation. Both are indie single-player games (well Drox is MP as well) that do a living, breathing galaxy pretty well. In other words, their "metagame" is very solid.

However, their microgame suffers as a result of it. Starsector has an AMAZING microgame (individual battles) but the metagame is underdeveloped. If the metagame could be as strong as the microgame, the overall experience would be incredible.

I personally believe the key is not only giving the player the ability to permanently affect to galaxy in meaningful ways, but also built-in win/lose metagame conditions that influence their progress. There are many different ways to approach this.

[Schwartz]

When you have a total sandbox, what makes it come alive is emergent gameplay. Cues can be taken from Crusader Kings 2 for example, one of the best cases of emergent gameplay I've yet seen. CK2 does it by having a strong social aspect, almost Sims-like, with developing characters, raising children, making friends and carrying grudges that may even lead into war.

What Starsector hasn't got yet - but I imagine it will at some point - is personalities. Ideally, at the start of a SS game, these would be shuffled to a certain degree. Maybe in one playthrough, you ally with the Hegemony and they're led by a small group of paranoid control freaks that jack up patrols everywhere and extend the territory of their police state. Their personality makes them give you predominantly missions for espionage, border security, smuggler catching, stuff like that. And because they're jackasses, they end up dragging their faction into a bloody border war. Another playthrough could be entirely different. But the main thing is that SS shouldn't have a set number of scripted things, but bank fully on its sandbox, extending into every area of the game. When done right, that's how you make it interesting and massively replayable. With checks and balances that make a game play out and evolve along a path that is partially random and partially driven by AI decisions and AI personalities. End-game goals are more difficult.

[Wingflier]

Well, the biggest reason to have metagame win/lose conditions is to regulate the difficulty. As it stands, there's just no reason to ever fight an opposing force that even challenges yours. You could technically spend hundreds of hours fighting enemies that are weaker than you, and never losing anything important. Ironman mode alleviates this a bit, but it's really only a band-aid to the problem. Even if you do somehow lose your whole fleet, you can just start over with a new ship in the same game. Having a purely sandboxy game, even one where your actions have huge influences on the galaxy, does not solve this problem. Sandboxing is fun, but I can promise you that most players are going to want a challenge as well. Even the most purely sandbox games of all time such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 had win conditions.

There's a few different ways you could tackle such a goal. You could start the player out with a small planet or base orbiting some outer rim star. The player would have to defend this base from pirate raids and enemy factions at all costs. The player could slowly begin to forge alliances with nearby factions who would offer protections, and the player could also begin colonizing new planets as well (none of this would have to be overly complicated, most of it would be handled by the AI). As the player became a dominant force in the galaxy, different factions would seek to destroy him, meaning that eventually, the player could unite the galaxy and destroy whoever refuses (or die in the process).

Another way is that the game could randomly assign you a faction to protect at the start of the game (protect the Hegemony), and then your responsibility would be to make said faction thrive at all costs. Defeating their enemies, helping them create alliances, and scouting planets for them to take over. The defeat of your assigned faction would cause a loss.

Of course these are just ideas, and there probably should be a purely "sandbox mode" option, where the player really did have no responsibilities or goals past just chumming around the galaxy, fighting inferior forces and messing around for hundreds of hours, but once again, I think you'll find that these 2D space shooters attract some pretty hardcore types, and they're going to get tired of that pretty fast.

[Gothars]

As it stands, there's just no reason to ever fight an opposing force that even challenges yours.

The player would have to defend this base from pirate raids and enemy factions at all costs.

That type of gameplay is was the planned outposts will supposedly offer, with the difference that you can found them where it suits you.


My hope for the game is not as much a main story line with a scripted ending (like Fallout/Elder scrolls/GTA/Just cause etc. sandbox games) but rather a dynamic player-influence on the development of the sector that can lead to different end-states.

I'd love story heavy sidequests though, just as other typical sandbox tropes like collectibles.

[Nori]

I don't think anyone has done a proper living breathing galaxy in single player yet - the programming and the mechanics the AI have to keep track of would be terrifyingly daunting...

X-series hid it well behind a laundry list of distractions while EVE let human players create the dramas. Elite is basically a 3D, MP version of Starsector atm and both games are suffering from the 'why should I bother' symptom.

It would be interesting how either games approach this issue - especially since SS doesn't have the MP crutch to lean on. It also makes the combat portion of the game seem like such a small cog doesn't it?

It is definitely a hard thing for a game to do.
One that comes to mind though is the the Prophesy of Pendor mod for Mount and Blade: Warband.

It starts off like Starsector in that you have just a small group of low level soldiers and your character is rather unskilled. But after working hard you can get a decent army going and you have a lot of options on what you can do.
Do you want to trade, be a mercenary, hunt bandits, join a faction? You can buy buildings and land to make passive income, hunt roving bandits and random horde like enemies, such as the snake cultists or something like that.

But the game is just starting with all that! Because you can eventually take over a city and found your own faction. That is when the options really open up. Do you ally with other factions or go it alone? You can wipe other people off the map entirely or simply engage in politics to ensure no one gets too powerful. Or maybe you'd rather just go questing for the best items and the favor of the elusive elves. You can do that too.

The game also allows you to upgrade your cities, train your soldiers, found knighthood orders and many other things.


So I guess those sort of ideas is where I see/hope Starsector is going. I think it is on its way there and just needs time to mature.

[Steven Shi]

I just want more ways to interact with the universe other than blowing things up or abuse the none-dynamic trade system. (AND, to have the effects of the said actions reflect tangibly in the game world)

M&B (+mods) in space is a good goal to aim for. =)

Personally, I don't feel SS has made any major advancement in gameplay since jumping from the combat simulation to the one-system free roaming back in v0.42(?).

[Protonus]

M&B (+mods) in space is a good goal to aim for. =)

Like Conquer the Space castles and Space cities, Save the Space princesses, Abuse the Space markets and Destroy other Spaceships in your wake.

Very spacy indeed.

[Steven Shi]

You forgot the space cow herding. 

[harrumph]

Even the most purely sandbox games of all time such as Oblivion and Fallout 3 had win conditions.

Those aren't pure sandbox games at all—those are linear, heavily scripted RPGs with some light sandbox elements. Pure sandboxes are things like the old Maxis games (SimCity, SimLife, the Sims) or Dwarf Fortress. Like Schwartz said, some of the Paradox grand strategy games, particularly Crusader Kings, are very sandboxy. None of these games has a win condition at all. The fun is just in experiencing emergent stories.

The trouble with a pure sandbox is that it's impossible to balance for consistent challenge. You either make it so hard and entropic that no amount of player luck and skill will keep everything from eventually descending into catastrophe and madness (Dwarf Fortress), or you don't, and the player is eventually able to completely master the game and faces no substantial challenges (basically everything other than Dwarf Fortress). If you ever played SimCity 2000, you'll remember that every city ended with you getting bored and just throwing every natural disaster down at the same time to see what would happen. Similarly, every singleplayer game of CK2, no matter how challenging a start you give yourself, ends with you conquering half of Europe and getting bored (unless you deliberately restrain yourself).

I believe the original vision for Starfarer (back when it was Starfarer) was pretty grimdark and Dwarf Fortressy. The Sector was doomed; your actions might accelerate its decline or delay it, but they'd never prevent it entirely. Personally, I prefer that approach to one where you eventually end up all-powerful and just quit out of boredom, but I know some people can't stand playing a game that imposes failure and defeat on them. I'm not sure what Alex's current plans are, or how the living, breathing universe is going to take shape.

Adding characters—faction members, NPC officers, enemy captains—would definitely make a big difference. There are names in the game right now, but no characters. Pirates and deserters just sit around, scaled to be an appropriate challenge for your level, waiting for you to come to them. It'd be very cool, and much more interesting, if they were unscaled and moved around of their own volition—if collecting a bounty meant finding a moving target, and some bounty fleets might be way too powerful for the player to handle early on. If there's a powerful pirate captain wreaking havoc in Askonia, maybe you just don't go to Askonia for a while.

[Linnis]

Dwarf fortress tough a great game, I don't think is how star sector should play out. Because DF was about doing more with less, in the last year all the discussion was in general against min-max doing more with less style of play.