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[Alex]

Ultimately, I'd like solo ships, small fleets, and large fleets to all have a place. That doesn't mean they have to be equally good at everything, though. I think we're going to need more high-level campaign mechanics/gameplay to be able to differentiate campaign playstyles effectively - right now it's more or less about combat.

One thing to note is that the only two aptitudes reasonably fleshed out with skills are combat and technology, which combine to give you a very strong flagship. Leadership is lagging very far behind, so a "large fleet" playstyle that'd be enabled by leadership + tech or leadership + (nonexistent) industry is working at a disadvantage from the get-go. Officers will enter the picture at some point, too, altering the balance of flagship-vs-allied-ship strength.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's too early to draw any conclusions about how these relative styles are shaping up. The stuff that's currently in place (and, perhaps more importantly, the stuff that's *not* in place) favors flagship play in a lot of ways.


(As far as a skill revamp: some of that *might* come with officers, but I wouldn't necessarily expect it. I think I'd rather hold off on it until industry and such; less chance of having to redo it again. The current skills definitely have some issues, though. Some bonuses that are too strong, major bonuses that are clumped into the span of a level gain or two, skill levels gained that don't mean much, etc. I'm looking forward to addressing all of that.)

[Silver Silence]

you are playing them wrong then[/size]

Don't tell me I'm playing anything wrong in a singleplayer sandbox game. Just don't.

[Sabaton]

 This play stile was encouraged by the fact that most modders gave their factions a cutting edge skill demanding frigate.
 For example: The Imaginos, Stimphyan Bird, The Excalibur, The Venom X, The Maximus, The valkirian telleporting frigate with a big ass main gun, the improved and more versatile Wolf from Interstellar Empire, etc.

 Why bother with destroyers and such when these beasts kick ass and take names if piloted right?

 And yea, another issue is the scarcity of the mechanics, combat and limited trading. YOU have to obtain everything you need its not like you have mining operations and factories to deliver supplies to your fat fleets a la Skyrim courier style.

[Megas]

I play with full damage.  Full damage should be default, not half.  When I first played the game, I wondered why I only got 50% from missions, then I found out about half damage setting, which I was unaware of.  If I want to cheat, I rather do in other ways.

The game encourages you to solo fleets with the flagship for the following reasons:

• 20 Logistics worth of ships is not enough to kill system defense fleets or equivalent as a fleet, but is enough if you chain-flagships.  (I ignore Leadership until level 38.)
• Even with 100 Logistics, trade fleets is the way to powerlevel, and it is best to cram more Atlases (or Prometheus in case of fuel) and as few warships in your fleet as possible.
• Less CR and supplies consumed.  If you want to fight multiple battles in quick succession, but you have a small fleet, you cannot deploy everything lest your ships break down.  Also, less CR drain means less supplies consumed.
• Minimal combat drops.  You can live off of them if you can solo the enemy with a small ship and not take too much damage.
• Many ships and weapons are rare enough to not be easily replaced.  You can exploit things the AI cannot, letting you outlive the AI.  To minimize casualties beyond your control, you do not let the AI pilot your ships, and you deploy only your flagship which you control.
• EDIT:  Sometimes, you need a very small fleet so that enemies do not run away, and you cannot pursue thanks to threat of Vengeful relations; or you need said fleet that can kill patrols before you can sneak into a hostile base.

[Dri]

But Megas, you and probably quite a few others, don't play Ironman. What does full ship damage matter when non-Ironman players simply reload and try, try again when they make a mistake?

Be honest, those that don't play Ironman, how many times do you save scum when your super frigate flagship (Hyperion-likes) is blown up? Can you honestly say the "super powerful but super frail" trope has any relevancy when you simply reload a battle over and over till you come out the easy victor?

Be honest.

[Silver Silence]

One could find it highly insulting that you debase their commentary based on preferences of playing ironman, non-ironman or bronzeman.

[Dri]

One could find it highly insulting that you debase their commentary based on preferences of playing ironman, non-ironman or bronzeman.

Mhhm. I knew you'd pop up before I even hit the post button.

[CrashToDesktop]

One could find it highly insulting that you debase their commentary based on preferences of playing ironman, non-ironman or bronzeman.

Well, Alex did say that the Iron Mode is the way the game is supposed to be played in the future, e.g. it's going to be on, permanently at a certain point.  It even says it in the tooltip.

And if you haven't noticed already, Megas is the munchkin of the forums.  He does what gets him to the top the quickest and most efficiently.  So pretty much anything you say has no effect on what he does, unless it can help get higher faster.

[Silver Silence]

Totally fine with that, myself. I hope also that half damage will go away. It does enforce the flagship style even more when your flagship flatout takes -50% damage before bonuses like the half armour damage perk. It'd be an effort in futility to try and balance a game with the assumption that the player will savescum. That said, currently, you might as well be playing X and suffer a complete game over if you really get rolled in Starsector. If you die outright, you respawn in something like the Dram and have to try and scrounge together a new ship. If you live, wham, enjoy your 10x over cargo/fuel limits because your cargo gets compiled into the one or two escaping ships, crippling them with Burn 0.

[Megas]

And if you haven't noticed already, Megas is the munchkin of the forums.

Guilty as charged.  Shameless and unapologetic, too.

All Ironman would do for me is block certain ships (e.g., Hyperion, Tempest) and weapons (e.g., light needlers, some heavy weapons) from usage because they are too rare, provided I do not get fed up enough to simply savescum to bypass that nonsense if the game does not take steps to punish those who try.

If I wiped catastrophically, in Ironman, it might as well be "GAME OVER", and I would need to restart a new character.  I do not have time or patience to grind a new character for weeks or months, and I do not want to spend all of my free time grinding a character in Starsector.

[orost]

I just don't think ironman and Starsector's kind of sandbox mix well. With ironman, the optimal choice is always the safest choice, and because the player has so much freedom in SS, the safest choice available is very safe and very, very boring. If I played ironman, I'd be constantly forced to choose between having fun and making reliable progress. This is not the kind of decision that I play video games for.

Ironman works great with games where the player is heavily restricted by their situation, where survival is challenging and where playing safe comes naturally. Roguelikes, roguelites, XCOM - in those games you do your best to survive and it is challenging to do so. In Starsector, doing your best to survive would mean trouncing weak pirate fleets for hours on end, never choosing to engage anything that has the slightest potential of doing harm to you.

[Dri]

Ironman should be big risk for a big reward - but most seem to just play small risk for small reward. Boring.

Non-Ironman is just reward - toss your fleet at whatever you feel like. The only risk is having to reload and do a sub 5 min battle over again or just move on. Weak and unbalanced.

How to fix this?

[Megas]

Ironman will encourage those who prioritize survival above all else to be craven, prey on weak targets, avoid pointless combat, fight dirty when combat is unavoidable, and stack things in his favor as much as possible.  Any and every exploit in game is to be ruthlessly abused.

Without Ironman, player can afford to make mistakes and be silly.

Ironman should be big risk for a big reward - but most seem to just play small risk for small reward. Boring.

Boring is how you live.  If you take risks, you will die sooner or later.  Risk elimination is how you win in permadeath games like Angband.

[Tartiflette]

What need fixing? It's a matter of playstyle, not a game mechanic flaw: you want risk then just attack big fleets. "Fixing" it might just make the game too hard for most, frustrating, or encourage even more grinding in iron mode.

[Dri]

Oh, I pit my Ironman fleet against combat 10 bounty fleets all the time - lost most of my ships that way. I get a thrill when I ram my green circle into an equally large (or larger!) red circle and pray I don't lose dozens of my hard to replace elite crew. But apparently I'm not like most in that I still take risks.

Whatever though. I think I stated earlier in this thread that its probably too early to get deep into balance discussions when there is still so much of the campaign thats not ready yet.

Time (and balance passes) changes everythiiiiiing!