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[SafariJohn]

Dwarf Fortress is actually rather easy once you learn it. The only problem is that stable forts are boring, so players tend to "accidentally" cause things to go wrong. Actual accidents are caused by people not paying attention, just like real life accidents.

Because DF was about doing more with less

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

[Megas]

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.

Sounds awful.  I do want to win, and I want to win as an unstoppable, all-powerful god of war.

P.S., I do not want the game to impose certain Sector collapse no matter what I do.  If I lose no matter what I do, I do not want to play.  I avoided Dwarf Fortress like the plague because I disagree with "losing is fun", usually.  (Watching the player die in games like Dragon's Lair, Thayer's Quest, or Shadowgate is amusing, although there is YouTube for that now.)  Winning at all costs and fun are one and the same for me.  I should lose the game (death or Sector collapse) only if I fight and lose or if I do something monumentally stupid.

[Thaago]

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.

Sounds awful.  I do want to win, and I want to win as an unstoppable, all-powerful god of war.

P.S., I do not want the game to impose certain Sector collapse no matter what I do.  If I lose no matter what I do, I do not want to play.  I avoided Dwarf Fortress like the plague because I disagree with "losing is fun", usually.  (Watching the player die in games like Dragon's Lair, Thayer's Quest, or Shadowgate is amusing, although there is YouTube for that now.)  Winning at all costs and fun are one and the same for me.  I should lose the game (death or Sector collapse) only if I fight and lose or if I do something monumentally stupid.

Ah, but what if playing as an unstoppable god of war is (just in the Starsector universe, not as a game playing choice!) a monumentally stupid act? The emergence of a tyrant could unite through war the limited resources and save everyone, or the wars could destroy so much that the situation is unrecoverable...

I don't know which way Alex will go. What I would love to see is if that kind of balance was done "randomly" before game start, as an emergent property of the procedural stuff. BUT, there would have to be sufficient information presented to the player so they could figure it out as they go.

I like shoot-em-ups a lot (and love playing the missions where the fights can be brutally difficult without sacrificing the campaign), but I really salivate at the idea of a game where strategy - Grand Strategy even - takes precedent. Some games, maybe rolling in with a huge battle fleet and stomping everyone is the way to stop the Sector collapsing. Maybe that way you can crush everyone without too much collateral damage and unite everyone. Then maybe there is a game where the opponents are too strong - yes you could destroy them, but the damage they would cause to you and that you would have to cause to their infrastructure to win, would in the long term lead to ruin.

Of course, for that to be satisfying there would have to be lots of alternatives than combat to effect things, which we don't have yet.

Sorry for the ramble!

[Steven Shi]

Why would I want to play as god of war or tycoon of the galaxy? If I know I'd win no matter what, I stop playing immediately. It's only fun when the win is hard fought and balanced on the knife edge.

That's the main pet peeve I have about sandbox games - once you start winning, you've basically won the universe. The usual mechanics are there for players to overcome but difficulty/challenge drops off the cliff after all the hurdles.

A well designed sandbox need to focus on giving player means to interact with the world and being robust enough for the universe to change organically instead of focusing on 'end-game' goals.

[Gothars]

There are some mechanics that can help to keep the challenge up in a sandbox game. For example, in the total war series, if you are too successful with conquering land, your AI opponents will start to team up and fight you together.

I guess something similar could work in Sector, maybe starting with bounties on your head and fleets that are specifically created to hunt you down.

[Megas]

Much of the game is focused on combat, and punishing the player for fighting at all undermines the combat part of the game.  That said, I do not mind times when combat is a bad idea.  For example, trying to fight much superior forces, betraying factions you are cooperative with (and you still need them), etc.  I hope the game eventually supports faction elimination like Risk or Exerelin.  I am tired of playing paperboy to the factions.

What I mean by "monumentally stupid act" is stuff like attempting to fight forces much stronger than you or other unwinnable fights (instead of fleeing), killing quest givers (and forfeiting unique rewards munchkins drool over), playing with a dangerous macguffin better left alone (e.g., Utwig bomb), attempting an obviously self-destructive action multiple times before the game (master) gives up warning you and lets you die or ruin your game.  The sort of foolish stuff an adventure game or game master would mock you for trying it and dying or making the game unwinnable.

I do not need to unite everyone if I can kill them instead (and I have to power and resources to do it).  I have puppets to command.  What I want to do, after I am tired of grinding levels, is fight everyone until I am the only one left.  At that point, I achieved my victory condition of sector domination (or annihilation).

Since missions are preset and give you unskilled ships (i.e., low-level play conditions), the main thing I want from the campaign is powered-up ships that can drive like greased lightning and can destroy enemy ships with ease.

Of course, for that to be satisfying there would have to be lots of alternatives than combat to effect things, which we don't have yet.

Oh sure, that would be good.  I just hope combat remains one of the most useful options.  Currently, food runs is the best way to progress, and that is much less fun than combat (aside from extra skills to play with when I do get to fight).

There are some mechanics that can help to keep the challenge up in a sandbox game. For example, in the total war series, if you are too successful with conquering land, your AI opponents will start to team up and fight you together.

Oh, yes!  I want that once I become an existential threat to all factions.  Just because I want to play god of war does not mean I do not want to fight other cosmic horrors.  I enjoy extremely high levels most in Starsector.  Low, unskilled levels are the least fun for me.

[harrumph]

Sounds awful.  I do want to win, and I want to win as an unstoppable, all-powerful god of war.

Well, you and I want extremely different things from the game! I want to play a small part in a bigger story—a story much more complex than "I was the best and I beat everybody."

Hopefully the final game will give both of us what we want (although that seems like a tall order right now). I do think it's going to be less combat-oriented in the long run; there's all that economic and industrial stuff in the plans.

[MindsEye]

Or there is uncharted space to explore which could lead to monstrously powerful space monsters and war with a super powerful alien race.

[Gothars]

Well, what we know about the lore at the moment presents us with two obvious questions: What caused the failure of the hyperspace gates, and how can they be re-established? Besides the whole economic downfall thematic, that seems like promising theme to keep the player oriented.

[NightfallGemini]

I could definitely see there being multiple win conditions, i.e. either become the warlord/trader junta of the Sector, or re-establish connection somehow, or simply forge a brand new empire among the rest and go from there.

I'd say an implementation of those kinds of things without explicitly saying "go do X, Y, Z objective" would be interesting and really give a sense of self to whichever goal the player decides to follow.

[Linnis]

Dwarf Fortress is actually rather easy once you learn it. The only problem is that stable forts are boring, so players tend to "accidentally" cause things to go wrong. Actual accidents are caused by people not paying attention, just like real life accidents.

Because DF was about doing more with less

I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Yes like you said, I mean you try to make everything efficient as possible, like killing whole fleets with medusa or something similar.

The problem with it was fun did not come from you trying your best, same thing with starsector, if I tried my best, I can get to lvl 50 without losing one ship and have 100 million stacked, or I can get to lvl 50 in the same time but with almost no bank. Even tho the former is more efficient, the latter is more fun no one would argue with that.

[RawCode]

as long as player not allowed to capture\destroy stations there is no point - everyone is immortal and everything is indestructable.

[Solinarius]

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.

My opinion has always been that there is no great need for an artificial end state. Conquering factions, stations, and/or territory, sure, because it's a feature that adds more freedom to the sandbox and is an obvious goal that a player might want to work toward. However, the ability to do something like that should not be taken lightly. Nor should the acquisition of power, for that matter.

Balancing a sandbox for consistent challenge is not necessarily impossible. If the idea has always been that the Sector was in a downward spiral, then this means that survival is not guaranteed, due to the opposing forces that will be ever-present.  For instance: if, from the get-go, acquisition and maintainment (yes, this is a word) of power (weapons, ships, crew, 'territory') and wealth (commodities, credits) were very difficult and the focus were on merely surviving in the chaotic environment that is Starsector, then the challenge is always there. Just think about how difficult it was for the crew of the Serenity to upkeep their basic needs using back-channels and dealing in shady business. That was in a stable space-faring universe. Losing ships and friendly relations should have greater impact on the player. I guess I'm kind of suggesting an ultra-hardcore sandbox mode, here .

[Megas]

My opinion has always been that there is no great need for an artificial end state.

You need an end state if the player can destroy all factions.  If you destroy them all, there will be no one left to fight, and no one left to oppose your faction from wielding absolute power over the sector.  At that point, the game should be over.

[Steven Shi]

If you become enemy of the universe, where will you buy supplies from? Will the planets you conquer have manufacturing facilities since the super-mega fleet would be limping on fumes and duct tapes after a few battles? Since we have just one fleet, we can't be everywhere at once; will there be a garrison mechanics? What fun things do we get from being a tyrannical ruler of multiple systems anyway? 

The potential of this game is only matched by the sheer complexity. Seriously, a Mount and Blade in space is the best we could hope for given the resources available.

Make it so the main faction fleets are almost impossible for 99% of players to challenge but make the universe interesting enough that we are happy just muddle our way through.