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[J3R]

After learning how to bait patrols away from major markets (thanks to some advice), I have been able to manage a full fledged trader/bounty hunter run with about +50 Hegemony rep points so I can collect some better weapons/ships.

I managed to bribe the TT and Askonian investigator officials asap while trading and taking the best missions available while traveling to them. Once the Luds finished their 2nd investigation I had over 1 million creds and all the Hegemony gear+ships I needed so I decided to bring my relations with them back down by trading with TT in Valhalla. I plan to go and raise relations with TT until I have all the weapons and ships I want off them while bribing my way out of investigations and trading. While trading often I'd trade half to the black market and the other half to the normal market to balance out suspicion. In shared systems I'd have to sneak around patrols and sell to the black market under the radar. Smuggling investigations get bribed as soon as I can duck up there pending large mission profit availability or general profits wherever I am.

Overall I'm impressed that once you learn the transponder game and become good at flying off the radar you can do so many sneaky things. You need a 9-10 burn rate fleet to accomplish this easily.

It seems getting rep up with a faction as high as possible until the 3rd investigation pops up then rush to get it back down again so that you can stay neutral is the best way to be a full fledged trader.

It seems like bounty hunting is only viable if you want to be more of a pirate/bounty hunter wrecking small fleets of anything with the transponder off but I'm not sure how much that ruins rep and whether it is worth it.

[TaLaR]

Bounty hunting becomes mostly unviable, very fast.
- Due to killing pirates everywhere you quickly get rep with everyone.
- Then all go hostile on you (guaranteed by 3rd investigation)
- You are stuck almost without bounties (hostile factions won't pay)
- And, in purely financial sense combat is not worth it in general, unless some bounty (personal or system-wide) is involved.

It seems getting rep up with a faction as high as possible until the 3rd investigation pops up then rush to get it back down again so that you can stay neutral is the best way to be a full fledged trader.

But is this repeatable? Or every consequent investigation is going to behave as the 3rd? (which I suspect is the case)

[Abradolf Lincler]

Yeah, The sindrian Diktat is now hostile towards me for having good relations with the Tri-Tach, AND THEY AREN'T EVEN ENEMIES WTF!?

[Sordid]

Bounty hunting becomes mostly unviable, very fast.

There's certainly a difficulty spike in the mid-game as you're forced to get in bed with a single faction (+ the independents, for what they're worth), decreasing the number of available bounties, and the bounty fleets ramp up in difficulty faster than you're able to acquire stronger ships. Mid-game battles were pure torture where the outcome depended entirely on whether some of my ships decided to suicide into an enemy deathball, and savescumming was the only way to success.

However, it doesn't stay unviable forever. Once I was able to acquire a Paragon by sucking up to the TT, the game has become incredibly easy. This one battleship is able to wipe out anything that comes at it. I run just the one Paragon for the actual battles, an Aurora, a Medusa, and a Wolf for chasing down escaping bounties, a couple of small freighters, and a tanker. My operating costs are basically nil (~2.5 supplies per day when at full CR), and because the Paragon barely ever takes any damage I don't have to pay out the ass for repairs either. I barely ever need to buy supplies or fuel, since big bounty fleets leave behind a lot in salvage, and I'm currently sitting on 2M credits, a spare Paragon, a bunch of other cool ships, and a huge stockpile of weapons that I bought just because. The game is very boring, though, as there are long stretches where I just sit and wait for a bounty to pop up that I can actually do.

But is this repeatable? Or every consequent investigation is going to behave as the 3rd? (which I suspect is the case)

Nope. The officials will start rejecting your bribes, leaving you no option to prevent conviction.

As long as your relation with a faction is not vengeful, you can briefly build your rep back up to inhospitable by performing their bounties 'pro bono'; you won't get paid but you'll still get the relationship increase. However, once you're back to inhospitable, a new investigation will be launched that will bump you back down to hostile.

[TaLaR]

Bounty hunting becomes mostly unviable, very fast.

There's certainly a difficulty spike in the mid-game as you're forced to get in bed with a single faction (+ the independents, for what they're worth), decreasing the number of available bounties, and the bounty fleets ramp up in difficulty faster than you're able to acquire stronger ships. Mid-game battles were pure torture where the outcome depended entirely on whether some of my ships decided to suicide into an enemy deathball, and savescumming was the only way to success.

However, it doesn't stay unviable forever. Once I was able to acquire a Paragon by sucking up to the TT, the game has become incredibly easy. This one battleship is able to wipe out anything that comes at it. I run just the one Paragon for the actual battles, an Aurora, a Medusa, and a Wolf for chasing down escaping bounties, a couple of small freighters, and a tanker. My operating costs are basically nil (~2.5 supplies per day when at full CR), and because the Paragon barely ever takes any damage I don't have to pay out the ass for repairs either. I barely ever need to buy supplies or fuel, since big bounty fleets leave behind a lot in salvage, and I'm currently sitting on 2M credits, a spare Paragon, a bunch of other cool ships, and a huge stockpile of weapons that I bought just because. The game is very boring, though, as there are long stretches where I just sit and wait for a bounty to pop up that I can actually do.

Actually it wasn't so much about difficulty for me - I continued to steadily dominate bounty fleets throughout the game (properly outfitted ships with Officers are OP as hell).
The real problem is late game boredom: I also do have endgame-worthy fleet, but there is pretty much nothing to do with it. Bounties are rare and non-bounty combat provides sustenance-level profits only. And due to bug with guaranteed 33% marine losses you can't even afford to capture anything but super rare ships like Hyperions/Tempests/Medusas.

By the way - repairs are free as long they happen simultaneously with CR recovery.

[Sordid]

Medusas are rare? The TT are offering to sell me three or four at any given time. I have five of the damn things in storage.

As for the difficulty I encountered, I suspect it's partly due to the fact that I chose TT ships exclusively, which meant going with the Odyssey before I got my hands on a Paragon. Flying in formation with AI is a nightmare, since the AI positions itself off to the side of you, not in relation to where your enemy is in relation to you. Since the Odyssey's big guns are on one side, I found it preferable to turn that side toward the enemy. Which means my escort positioned itself between me and the enemy, directly in the middle of my firing arcs. Just infuriating.

[TaLaR]

Medusas are rare? The TT are offering to sell me three or four at any given time. I have five of the damn things in storage.

As for the difficulty I encountered, I suspect it's partly due to the fact that I chose TT ships exclusively, which meant going with the Odyssey before I got my hands on a Paragon. Flying in formation with AI is a nightmare, since the AI positions itself off to the side of you, not in relation to where your enemy is in relation to you. Since the Odyssey's big guns are on one side, I found it preferable to turn that side toward the enemy. Which means my escort positioned itself between me and the enemy, directly in the middle of my firing arcs. Just infuriating.

Medusas are rare if your chosen faction is not Tri-tachyon. I chose Hegemony(most markets) and managed to buy only 2 before 3rd investigation by Tri-tach.

As for AI and escorting:
I'm mostly back to flying smaller ships (Wolf, later Medusa) in 0.7. And probably Hyperion, if I ever find one.
Due to officer presence the choice between piloting largest ship (to give it stat bonuses) and Medusa (because it's more fun and player-skill sensitive) doesn't default to largest ship anymore.
Then I just set my Fleet to escort AI leader and have free choice whether I want to directly support my group or act solo for a while.

[Kzanu]

Well, imagine me starting Starsector after 1 year:

- I try to farm some pirates -"Damn these pirates is sneaky. None to be found". Finally get a few and buy a Hammerhead.
- I get that small carrier/transport that look obscene and do some trading; getting a few wolves and officers after that. Alright!
- After buying a falcon, I feel like a big boy, and I start sucking up to Tachyon.
- When I did the trading/pirating hunt it was in a Syndicat sector.
- These investigations start from Tachyon, Hegemony and Ludd almost at the same time.
- No one was at war with Syndicate, so I'm like "OOk, maybe I traded something illegal, np, we cool bros". I keep kissing Tachyon ass, for the good stuff.
- Tachyon finds me guilty...OF *** WHAT SON?!?!?! and I lose around 40 or 50 rep. I barely had 20.
- "Ok let's bring the war to Tachyon". Find the next Tachyon detachment and engage. Get demolished at a level human decency does not exist- the tempest, phase and wolf frigate cheese is strong. My 5 lvl 15 officers fight like morons.
- "Ok let's find 6 dominators, fill them up with lrms then come back". Or better uninstall. Game increasingly not fun. Really really not fun anymore.

Btw. What bounties??? Pls explain the bounty mechanics to a guy who forgot everything.

[Voyager I]

The investigations are definitely a bit wonky and the sensor mechanic takes some getting used to (and probably also needs some tweaking so that the solo frigate start isn't virtually blind), but I'm not sure how you can be mad at the game that your modest fleet died after faceplanting into a proper faction military.

Bounties are the best way to make money through combat.  If you check the events tab (press E from the main overview) you will see two kinds of bounties; some are system-wide rewards for killing any ships hostile to the faction that posted the bounty (ie, Hegemony bounties will pay you for killing Pirates and Tri-Tachs), and others are large bounties placed to hunt down a specific fleet at a given location.

[Sordid]

Yeah, you basically have to select your faction at the beginning and avoid doing too many bounties for others, otherwise you can royally screw yourself.

others are large bounties placed to hunt down a specific fleet at a given location.

Not entirely accurate. Those bounties are for hunting down specific officers. You only need to disable the ship the target officer is on, killing anything else isn't required.

[Kzanu]

Just saying, if the complexity and the unexplained mechanics keep going up and being all sneaky and unintuitive, I'm not seeing this game being a huge hit with new players. It will be like "Oh cool space battles maaaaan, let's play that game". Then they stare at the screen and get blasted by frigs at lvl 1. Then negative review. Repeat. I don't really get the investigation mechanic. Why is it in place??? Why does it hit you with such a huge loss of rep? Why is it in place? Why does it punish you for having a good relation with a faction that no one has any beef with?!? Is the game just trying to get more complex just for the sake of complexity?

[Voyager I]

Just saying, if the complexity and the unexplained mechanics keep going up and being all sneaky and unintuitive, I'm not seeing this game being a huge hit with new players. It will be like "Oh cool space battles maaaaan, let's play that game". Then they stare at the screen and get blasted by frigs at lvl 1. Then negative review. Repeat. I don't really get the investigation mechanic. Why is it in place??? Why does it hit you with such a huge loss of rep? Why is it in place? Why does it punish you for having a good relation with a faction that no one has any beef with?!? Is the game just trying to get more complex just for the sake of complexity?

The stated design goal is to force you to align with one faction by the endgame instead of being best buds with everyone in the sector (and getting to mash all the coolest stuff together).  As it stands it's the first-draft of an alpha mechanic, so there are some pretty serious issues, both with the mechanic itself being only a basic outline and the fact that late game doesn't really exist yet.

The game was always going to be about more than just fleets smashing into each other.  Fortunately, it's also very easy to mod!

[Kzanu]

@Voyager I Thanks for the replies. I really don't have much time to read upon all the Starsector history. I can see the logic, but why isn't there a temporary ceiling (let's say you're worth over 1 or 2 million) before these investigations start?

[Sordid]

The game was always going to be about more than just fleets smashing into each other.  Fortunately, it's also very easy to mod!

Fleets smashing into each other is the fun part, though. Outside of that you have just these colored circles chasing each other, which is just boring and annoying. You click and then you wait while your circle veeery slooowly moves to your destination. Trying to catch other circles is no fun either because of the laggy feel of the controls due to your circle's inertia. The sensor mechanic just makes that even more annoying by hiding the other circles and forcing you to stop to reveal them. Combat's where the fun is.
 
I kinda feel like all this other stuff serves no real purpose other than to dilute the fun through completely arbitrary restrictions like CR. I hate CR. When my CR starts dropping during prolonged combat, it's basically the game's way of saying, "oops, you've been having fun for too long, better take a break now!" Just *** off with that.

The same goes for the heavy focus on fleets and AI-controlled allies. Early on you're flying a single ship, which is great fun! The further you go, though, the larger fleet you need. The tactical side of things is extremely limited even if you invest skill points into it due to the limited number of commands you can issue to your fleet (and the fact that the AI will outright ignore them at times). I mean, what is this? Do we have a limited number of messenger pigeons or something? It's completely arbitrary BS that kills any potential for actually playing a fleet commander as opposed to a combat pilot.

What you're left with is a Last Team Standing space shooter with a bunch of bots on both sides. This means that the further in the game you are and the bigger your fleet, the less the results of battles depend on your actions and the more they depend on what the AI decides to do. Which is a very bad thing because while the AI is really good at things like dodging shots and timing teleports, it's completely brain dead when it comes to basic tactics. The game basically starts playing itself and it does so very badly, and there's nothing more frustrating than losing through no fault of your own but rather because your AI-controlled ships decided to suicide into an enemy deathball one by one for no reason. This is also the reason why the game is basically unplayable in ironman mode.

Overall I feel like the developer is out of ideas, so he's just cramming in filler. He made the really fun part, the space shooter, and now he's padding it out with stuff that just makes it more annoying rather than more interesting and challenging.

[Kzanu]

Overall I feel like the developer is out of ideas, so he's just cramming in filler. He made the really fun part, the space shooter, and now he's padding it out with stuff that just makes it more annoying rather than more interesting and challenging.

It's kinda the feeling I had after 1 year or so of not touching the game. I always declared war to all but one faction, due to the huge awesome battles when I went up in power; but now is incredible hard to find some ships, it's incredible hard to make that faction sell the ship to you, boarding is useless, and INVESTIGATION. In my opinion either investigations should start ONLY after you hit like a 2 mil net worth, or only in the final version, that uses this mechanic.