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)

Poll

Is your standard Starsector playthrough an Ironman mode?

Yes
No

Pages: [1] 2

Author Topic: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)  (Read 7877 times)

Dri

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1403
    • View Profile
Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« on: November 21, 2015, 12:19:14 PM »

I know forum polls provide only data of a very dubious quality but I'm still curious and now that forums are hopping with activity this is probably the best time for a poll.
Logged

Serenitis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1458
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #1 on: November 21, 2015, 12:26:30 PM »

Never played an ironman game.
And given the choice, I never will. I don't see any point in trying to force a sandbox to behave like nethack.

Others will disagree, and that's what the little checkbox on the new game setup is for.
Choices are magic.

Logged

Cycerin

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1665
  • beyond the infinite void
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #2 on: November 21, 2015, 12:30:56 PM »

Most of the time when I play Starsector, I'm also testing something. Either something someone else has made, or my own content. So I rarely have the time to sit down for an Ironman run. However, it's by far the most immersive way to play the game. I think Ironman will be amazing when the game actually has a win condition.
Logged

Toranet

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 24
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2015, 12:47:45 PM »

Not even the end condition, I think it would be more and more interesting the more features to be implemented, and at the point when you would get possibility to capture stations and create your own faction iron man mode would give the chance to see just how far you can get by pure skill which would be quite interesting. Right now it is more sand box and no goal can be achived. What can you go for in iron man atm? Massive fleet or tons of money? Well, lets just wait for 0.9 or 1.0 for more features to be done.
Logged

BillyRueben

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1406
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2015, 01:07:08 PM »

I can't not play on Iron Mode. I need to feel like I have something to lose, or else I just get bored.
Logged

Euqocelbbog

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 49
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2015, 01:12:18 PM »

Ironman would certainly be the ideal way to play, but it's a pretty iffy proposition at this point in development. As incredibly solid as SS is, it's still in alpha and thus some issues will occasionally arise and especially so when mods are involved. I think Ironman will be really nice later on when there's more involved campaign-level stuff so that what occurs on the battlefield has an affect on more than just personal wealth.
Logged

Gothars

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4403
  • Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity.
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #6 on: November 21, 2015, 01:12:46 PM »

I'm either playing the game, then it has to be iron mode, or I just, as Wikitionary defines it: "To fritter aimlessly or distractedly, to procrastinate".
Logged
The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

SpacePoliticianAndaZealot

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 277
  • The Show Stopper
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #7 on: November 21, 2015, 01:25:12 PM »

99% of my characters are non-iron. I do save-scum, but reload only if I screw up royally. I swear!  :D
Logged

Dri

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1403
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #8 on: November 21, 2015, 02:41:37 PM »

This is kinda out there but back in the day I played (and loved) a RPG called Star Ocean 2. SO2 had a crafting system that had an element of luck so you'd end up buying/farming for the materials and then start the crafting sequence. Buuuuut, if you didn't get what you wanted due to the RNG... you guessed it, SAVE SCUM! :D It was really quite hellish as the load time of the game was rather slow.

Ever since then I've had quite the aversion to save scumming, lol
Logged

orost

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 436
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #9 on: November 21, 2015, 02:51:27 PM »

Ironman/permadeath is most fun in games where failure is a binary or almost binary event. You either die and have to start over, or you survive and are not much worse off than before, so you can continue. Starsector is different. If you get beaten up and lose half your fleet, you lose hours of progress - you keep skills and relation points, but your fleet is the most important property of your character, and you don't get the sense of closure and fresh start that you get from having a character die in a roguelike (very important!). It's tedious and not fun at all to lose in Starsector so I never play it in ironman.

I think this will eventually change, once our characters and progress are defined by much more than the fleet we carry around. If under your belt your have completed quest storylines, discovered blueprints, established outposts and who knows what else, losing even a large fleet might feel like just another day. But as long as what ships you have is the biggest factor in how far along in the game you are, I will reload a save whenever I take serious losses.
Logged

Gothars

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 4403
  • Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity.
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #10 on: November 21, 2015, 03:05:51 PM »

Ironman/permadeath is most fun in games where failure is a binary or almost binary event. You either die and have to start over, or you survive and are not much worse off than before, so you can continue. Starsector is different. If you get beaten up and lose half your fleet, you lose hours of progress - you keep skills and relation points, but your fleet is the most important property of your character, and you don't get the sense of closure and fresh start that you get from having a character die in a roguelike (very important!). It's tedious and not fun at all to lose in Starsector so I never play it in ironman.

Really? I actually enjoy clawing my way back to the top after some catastrophic mishap. It makes the game much more lifelike :) And I like that, even if you fail, you can influence how bad you fail and save a lot of your fleet. At least as long as the downfall was somehow my own fault in the first place, which was always the case up to now. Guaranteed end of game would be much more frustrating to me.

I think a major difference is if you play to reach a certain goal, in witch case setbacks are very frustrating, or if you're playing immersively "in the moment".
Logged
The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

megalon

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 15
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2015, 05:17:13 PM »

Non-ironman for me. Most games I go ironman. But for StarSector, the most fun I have in it is taking out fleets far out of my league with the odds stacked against me. I like to try a really hard battle a bunch of times (through reloading) to see if I can beat the odds and pull off a long-shot victory.

Besides that, in SS, every so often you'll get totally boned with coming out of fight and then immediately getting attack by another fleet when you have low CR.  Maybe Ironman though once I'm way more familiar with the game.
Logged

Hopelessnoob

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 354
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2015, 07:05:41 PM »

50/50. If I just want to have some quick fun I've got a save with console commands and non ironman galor. If I want to actually have a sense of accomplishment rather than just enjoying the wonderful combat mechanics I fly some Ironman.
Logged

StarSchulz

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 458
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #13 on: November 21, 2015, 08:07:55 PM »

with the new update i have decided that i would go full ironman, and go as far as i could, whether or not i lost my entire fleet. currently i actually lost my starting wolf in a sneaky pirate ambush and respawned with just a lasher and a measly 20k credits, but a few cycles later i have four destroyers, a heron and broadswords, and a backup lasher!

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Do you believe Starsector is best played Ironman? (poll)
« Reply #14 on: November 21, 2015, 08:30:11 PM »

I tend to do a quick exploratory game on normal just to get a hang of the new features, then make a 'real' game on Iron mode. I find the tension to make it much more rewarding, but as people have said its a personal choice

This is kinda out there but back in the day I played (and loved) a RPG called Star Ocean 2. SO2 had a crafting system that had an element of luck so you'd end up buying/farming for the materials and then start the crafting sequence. Buuuuut, if you didn't get what you wanted due to the RNG... you guessed it, SAVE SCUM! :D It was really quite hellish as the load time of the game was rather slow.

Ever since then I've had quite the aversion to save scumming, lol

OH MAN. I abused that crafting system so badly in that game! It was my first jrpg, so its my favorite by default.
Spoiler
You can get the Universe Sword ridiculously early! If I remember correctly you get the base sword right after the tournament on the second? continent. There is one of the mineral (orichalcum?) in the castle or something, and then there was a skill that when you level it up you get a random rare mineral. Savescum for your second orichalcum, save, then savescum till the first sword update, save, then again for the universe sword!

Its really funny because all those later fights that are scripted for you to 'lose' its quite obvious that without the scripting you'd murder everything.
[close]
Logged
Pages: [1] 2