Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Anotikonti on November 26, 2014, 03:09:00 AM

Title: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Anotikonti on November 26, 2014, 03:09:00 AM: Just got back into the game. How do you guys play the game in 0.6.5.1 or 0.6.2?

So I played Starsector way back before combat readiness was a thing (I would say 0.5 ish). And I pretty much became addicted to downloading all the mods I could, and I collected capital ships and would try weapon setups and other such stuff. I just loved the feeling of decimating an entire fleet with my one ship. Unsung or Banshee in Neutrino mod. Blackrock Shipyards mod with its incredibly fast frigates (with the system cannon) and the like... This game filled a hole in my soul that was left over when I had to leave WoW for university.

This game used be a spaceship/ space fleet simulator. But now, and it's awesome that is has, the game is expanding its exploration and trading and star systems to become a fully-fledged space sim. I honestly felt like game had perfected the space combat, and every mod was made to add more content to this perfect combat system. It made the combat flashier, more entertaining, and I felt Starsector could do no wrong. A combat system that was deep enough and complex enough for a good challenge no matter what. The best feeling would be having the one capital ship, and playing it so well that you could wipe out the enemy against incredible odds because you played it well. The enemy AI is by no means a push over, you really have to be good to win.
Starsector in 0.5 was like Fractal Softworks was giving out free crack cocaine. It was plain awesome. And now we get to explore, and there are reasons to explore? Awesome. Things can only go uphill from here right?

I stop playing SS for about 2 years, and I come back... And I'm some sort of space farmer/accountant. This game has become a farming simulator for me, and I'm really heartbroken. My entire experience of this game in 6.5.1 has been calculating enough fuel til I arrive and drop off food. If the pricing and event system wasn't so random, I'd be making spreadsheets for all tradable items by now. Do people even use capital ships in their fleets? How do you even maintain your fleet? How much money should I have on hand if I want to maintain just one capital ship?

I want to be a ship captain (not an admiral or space general or commander), and explore and fight and just wipe out the enemies that stand up to me. And I want to do that with one ship, make a profit off of it. I don't want to manage a fleet and I don't want to worry about pre-battle deployment and all that 'noise'. It's fun don't get me wrong, but I wanna feel like a BADASS (and I don't trust the teammate commander AI with my life let alone a bunch of virtual spaceships). But with CR, I don't know what to do... I don't even look to refitting my ships. I just look at the cargo to see if I have enough space to buy more things to trade.

My recent 50 hours with this game, has been running between two systems and dropping trading when I need to. Its become the most efficient way for me to make money in the game. I only buy enough fuel to get me close to the other half of the trade run while in hyperspace, and then drift the rest of the way to other system. That's how bad it has become. The reputation thing has stopped me from getting any awesome ships. I'm still in favourable with a majority of factions, I've got a lot more flying too and fro until I get access to a capital. But when I do get the capital and throw my freighters and cargo away, and all the frigates and fighters... I can only fight like 2 battles before I'm starved of supplies and money. And then I lose everything... No money means no supplies, and supplies have exorbitant prices. No supplies means dead crew. No crew means a ship that won't ever be combat ready, and so my existence in the game is an extremely beautiful, heavily armed, drifting ghost ship that died off from two to four battles. My journey hasn't even begun, and I've lost the game. And it feels really wrong to me. I love the reputation system, and I love the market system, but for me, that is all a means to a peak, but whenever I get there, it's all over. Am I going to fly back and forth for the rest of my space farmer life? Remember how I talked about the game was like crack cocaine for free? Well the CR system is so punishing, that I feel like I'm working for my crack now, and it's just not fun. I don't have to massively profit for each battle, in fact, I expect it to be a loss. But I'm losing EVERYTHING, just to wait 5 minutes til my ship is comabt ready, when I had played it so well that my hull isn't even scratched. I don't mind that I have to pay supplies to keep my crew members eat, sleep, and poop and all that jazz. But I didn't lose the battle, I didn't even suffer for it at times, I don't know why my ship, after flying around for a space month that after 2 battles it decides to implode on the third scuffle.

How do you guys play the game? I'm sure you have different tastes to myself, and I'm sure some of you all get bored with having an unstoppable, undefeatable ship. But it's something I dream of, and Starsector 0.5 gave that to me in all its glory. I just don't enjoy this game after jumping back into it, but I feel like I'm playing it wrong.

TL;DR: The game was crack cocaine for free. Now I feel like I'm working for my cocaine AND, I'm feeling the awful side effects.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Cosmitz on November 26, 2014, 03:14:04 AM: I actually think it's easy, even without broken trading. Bounties, frigate bounties give a decent bit of XP for a frig fleet, and named bounties can be done with some destroyers or a good cruiser or two or just a single cap.

You may get overwhelmed by all the changes, but they don't get in the way of fighting, just provide more layers for when to take battles and under what circumstances. Get a good enemy aside from pirates and you'll actually have guys to fight with your huge fleet, but if not, pirates and bounties rarely pose enough threat to toss a huge fleet at them.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Anotikonti on November 26, 2014, 03:18:32 AM: But I don't want a fleet, I just want ONE ship.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: ValkyriaL on November 26, 2014, 03:19:09 AM: Id say large fleets are perfectly viable, if you have the cash for fuel.

Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/JTM3BSz.png)
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Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Anotikonti on November 26, 2014, 03:26:14 AM: How much money are you making compared to the fuel you spend? Can you keep fighting constantly, or do you have to stop every now and then?
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Tomn on November 26, 2014, 05:55:48 AM: If you want to never have more than one ship, ever, at any point in time, it might be hypothetically possible, but it isn't going to be anywhere close to easy.

If you're willing to compromise a bit, though, a fleet of two or three Wolfs with a Gemini and two fighter squadrons is way more than enough to kill you enough in bounty money to outfit the ULTIMATE CAPITAL SHIP, after which you can sell off all your escorts if you want. Plus side is that you'll earn enough in goodwill to actually be allowed to buy the big ships, too - by the time I started thinking about upscaling to cruisers, I had 600k+ in credits.

The key thing is to always go after bounties. Generic "1500 per ship" bounties may not sound like a lot, but given that pirates tend to have a minimum of six ships per sizable fleet, if not more, it adds up. The named bounties also offer a decent payout, and if they're in a system that's also offering generic bounties, that's just gravy. It's not at all difficult to end up with almost literally more money than you know what to do with just by chasing bounties. It's also worth noting that the size, deadliness, and profit of the bounty fleets scale up as you level up, too, so you're provided with more more excitement and more money to keep your increasingly dangerous fleet afloat.

Now if you really insist on flying nothing more than a single Conquest (or an Onslaught or a Paragon, I suppose, if you're uncivilized), I do strongly recommend that you bring a couple of non-combat support ships as well - a tanker, a freighter, and a tug to help manage your loot and keep spare supplies and fuel on hand. You don't need to fight with them, just have them around to ensure that your big ship gets the cargo bays it needs.

I've yet to actually find a capital ship worth using yet, so I can't speak to its cost-effectiveness and whether it's possible to fly using only the capital ship, but I can say that it's entirely possible to have way more money than you could conceivably use, which would be pretty much perfect for allowing you to play forever with a giant supership. If it ISN'T cost-effective and you start running out of supplies and money, you could always mothball it, drop it off on an abandoned station, and use a smaller fleet to build up the cash needed for your indescribable rampage of terror later.

If you intend to fight literally everyone with that supership, though, then yes eventually you're going to run out of money. But that's true even if you ran a fleet of frigates - combat fleets NEED bounty payouts to survive.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: WKOB on November 26, 2014, 06:50:00 AM: I think it might go without saying but 1-3 Tempests is godly. It's pretty much how I played my whole Vanilla game and I had few issues.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Linnis on November 26, 2014, 07:29:18 AM: lvl 30 char with one onslaught and a few freighters for supply and fuel (you never deploy) can destory any AI fleet in the game.

So yes, you can still do that
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Megas on November 26, 2014, 07:44:10 AM: I store bigger ships at planets near stargates or gas giants (where bounty fleets spawn). I roam the stars with frigates, and pick up bigger counter ships from storage when necessary.

My fleet has been two Hyperion, three Tempests, plus whatever ships I need from storage. Ships from storage vary from three dozen more frigates (among Cerberus, Lashers, Vigilance, and Wolves), a few cruisers, or one to three battleships.

Due to bounty fleets featuring flagships with max Combat skills, plus improved missiles, Missile Specialization 10 is a MUST to solo fleets, at least for those who want to solo fleets with a frigate.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Gothars on November 26, 2014, 08:05:49 AM: Quote from: Anotikonti on November 26, 2014, 03:09:00 AM
I'm some sort of space farmer/accountant.

I want to be a ship captain

You can just do that. It's pretty straightforward, really. Just go to where the bounties are. They are easily high enough to pay for supplies, fuel and new ships. And it's not even difficult to stick with one ship at a time if you are decent pilot. My last playthrough was just that, with Wolf->Sunder->Onslaught.

It's actually much more comfortable than before, thanks to bounties you don't have to worry about bringing loot home anymore.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Megas on November 26, 2014, 08:54:30 AM: Quote
How much money are you making compared to the fuel you spend? Can you keep fighting constantly, or do you have to stop every now and then?
Before v0.60, player can munch fleets like popcorn, and that was fun. Since v0.60, you cannot chain-battle fleet after fleet anymore thanks to CR, among other obstacles.

In v0.60. CR was awful. (My opinion, which is likely in the minority.)

In v0.62, CR was tweaked, better for combat ships with elite crew (but worse for those with green crew). Loot was increased enough that one battle can yield more than most fleets can take. Overflowing with loot was a bigger problem than CR.

In v0.65, Loot was cut. CR is worse for ships that take hull damage, but there are rarely many enemy fleets to fight in quick succession if you hunt only pirates. Eventually, you go from one named bounty to the next, and you will have opportunities to fix your ships along the way. Also, pursuit is obsolete - Vengeful relations hurts too much. Barad (pirate base) is useful for cheap ore and storage base. No pursuit means no more double CR costs for each enemy fleet.

At endgame, I go on the sector tour, clockwise from Jangala(->Arcadia)->Magec/Achaman->Eos->Askonia(->Valhalla).

Food and supply runs are much more profitable than bounties. I hunt down bounty fleets and take advantage of food shortages and trade disruptions along the way. While I like combat most, I gladly take advantage of huge rewards from trade opportunities. Thanks to trade, I can push my leveling cap up to twenty levels more. Even at level 70, I still do not have all of the skill points I want, and the skills available are incomplete!

Quote
You can just do that. It's pretty straightforward, really. Just go to where the bounties are. They are easily high enough to pay for supplies, fuel and new ships. And it's not even difficult to stick with one ship at a time if you are decent pilot. My last playthrough was just that, with Wolf->Sunder->Onslaught.
In my case, it went from Wolf -> 3 Wolves -> Medusa -> Hyperion -> 2 Hyperion. If I take a huge reputation loss due to smuggling conviction, I may go back to a lone Wolf and beat up stray pirates (who may run away from a lone Hyperion).
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Dri on November 26, 2014, 11:30:51 AM: You can have one big ships like an Onslaught or a Paragon but you ARE going to need some frigate/destroyer size freighters/tankers - you don't ever have to deploy those into combat though. Oh and a tug for your big, slow capital ship would be a good idea too.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: MidnightSun on November 26, 2014, 01:02:05 PM: My fleets usually revolve around one big ship (I generally hate piloting frigates), so this is entirely possible. I usually dump the starting frigate/destroyer as quickly as possible and pick up an Enforcer, then move to a Dominator, and then an Onslaught. I have a few support ships, usually one or two Gemini with 2 fighter wings to capture points, and a medium tanker (eventually looking for an Atlas, but they're remaining elusive in my play-through).

With the Tech speed boost perks, I find tugs to be unnecessary as well, since there's no point chasing small fleets that don't have good payoffs anyway. I'm always raking in more money than I can realistically spend through bounties and the occasional highly-profitable trade run.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Cosmitz on November 27, 2014, 02:00:05 AM: The issue, but not exactly an issue-issue, with Starsector is that you need to match numbers, even if on a one-to-three ratio. The enemy fleet needs something else to shoot at aside from you. Even a Paragon with hardened shields and that L10 perk that allows you to drop hard flux WILL be overwhelmed if enough firepower gets on it, and to be fair, it's mostly always been this way.

Nowadays, even its combat rating factors into shield flux/damage efficiency, so that Paragon if it's on its third battle in a short timespan, it will be weaker than if not. Again, even tossing in a Medusa or two or an Enforce will mitigate a lot of damage off you and that will make mostly-solo playing viable.

On the other hand, as you said.. mods do end up with some ridiculous things, and some of them aren't vanilla-balanced. So there's that if you want to be a godking of the universe.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Punchclock on November 29, 2014, 09:23:24 AM: Hammerheads are very easy to use for me. Load them with needlers and explosive missiles and you're set, surprisingly flux efficient too thanks to the time between bursts.

You won't be able to take on absolutely everything with it but it works pretty well for smaller scale bounty hunts/escorting.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Jmdelrio on November 30, 2014, 06:32:34 PM: Chase bounties my friend, and consider some designated chasers and cargo support craft.

(http://imageshack.com/a/img904/8825/QODps8.jpg)
Title: re:
Post by: Alysa on December 01, 2014, 04:59:12 AM: Have you ever taken any bounties ?
Maybe if you haven't they stay at 10000 credits (do they ?), but as soon as you start getting named bounties, the new bounties get higher and higher (hundreds of thousands of credits) and the opposing fleets and commander get better and better (You also end up finding high tech bounty fleets).
This way, maintaining your fleet is not a problem anymore. You will at most need a carrier to put your loot in and a tanker to fuel you wherever you want to go.
Actually, this works pretty much as crack, on me anyway ;)

Some bounties are clearly better deals than any trade you can make... And they give a great boost to your reputation with the faction posting the bounty, get better weapons, etc. (I won't say good ships because they are hard to get, but some common good ships yes...). You just need a stop and go at some large planet (The capital ones such as Jangala) to repair and get supplies every few battle.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Megas on December 03, 2014, 04:11:57 PM: Quote
I want to be a ship captain (not an admiral or space general or commander), and explore and fight and just wipe out the enemies that stand up to me. And I want to do that with one ship, make a profit off of it. I don't want to manage a fleet and I don't want to worry about pre-battle deployment and all that 'noise'. It's fun don't get me wrong, but I wanna feel like a BADASS (and I don't trust the teammate commander AI with my life let alone a bunch of virtual spaceships). But with CR, I don't know what to do... I don't even look to refitting my ships. I just look at the cargo to see if I have enough space to buy more things to trade.
Back to the OP...

This is doable at the endgame, after accumulating enough skills and resources to store, but it is hard! With the right flagship, it can be sustainable, but it is nowhere near as rewarding as other income generators because you will be forced to leave most loot behind.

I tried out some ships by themselves, with no other ships in the fleet. (Exceptions: Odyssey and Heron got fighters as long as fleet had less than 40 DP.) I roamed the sector from bounty to bounty to see how long I can last. In any case, you have so little capacity that you can only loot supplies and fuel. Low capacity also means you cannot waste time chasing things other than your destination before supplies run out.

Of frigates, only Hyperion has a chance to solo nearly any fleet, but it cannot carry enough supplies to fix damage and recover CR. Hyperion will need to go to stations to buy supplies and repair damage and CR. Hyperion is great as part of a fleet, but terrible by itself. You will lose money with a solo Hyperion.

None of the destroyers (except maybe perfectly piloted Sunder) are powerful enough to destroy every possible bounty fleet. Medusa cannot handle high-tech capitals with Combat 10. Sunder might, but it is sluggish and has poor point defense, which means fighters backed by carriers can be a major problem. Enforcer and Hammerhead have limited ammo. However, destroyers can handle some bounty fleets, and they can loot more than they consume if they do not take too much damage. Just be prepared to avoid fleets your destroyer cannot defeat.

Cruisers might be the best option, and of all the cruisers, Aurora with Missile Specialization 10 and lots of Reapers is probably to the easiest cruiser to solo the game with. About the only ship it might not be able to kill is a max Combat Paragon (which I did not fight yet with solo Aurora). As long as the cruiser does not take too much damage, it can loot a bit more than it can use. However, one bad fight where your ship takes much damage and you can kiss your accumulated profits from previous battles goodbye.

Onslaught and Paragon can solo fleets, but they eat too many supplies to be sustainable. At best, a battleship might be able to barely come out ahead, but if it takes damage, you will need to go to a station to buy supplies and repair. They also cannot afford to pick on smaller fleets because they may not generate enough supplies to loot.

Carriers with fighters are not as efficient as dedicated warships. Heron with few fighters is incapable of soloing every possible fleet. Odyssey can solo fleets without a max Combat battleship, but not as efficiently as others.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Silver Silence on December 03, 2014, 06:22:14 PM: Quote from: Jmdelrio on November 30, 2014, 06:32:34 PM
Chase bounties my friend, and consider some designated chasers and cargo support craft.

Spoiler
(http://imageshack.com/a/img904/8825/QODps8.jpg)
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Offtopic, but what are those blue ships? I don't recognize their shapes or those red exhausts. The two big ones are Mimirs from SHI.
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: MesoTroniK on December 03, 2014, 06:29:25 PM: Scy (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8010.0)
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Silver Silence on December 03, 2014, 06:52:36 PM: Yet more mod factions for me to catch up on. ::)
Title: Re: How do I live out my fantasy of building the ultimate ship? (New guy problems)
Post by: Jmdelrio on December 04, 2014, 07:54:47 PM: Yeah after I got used to the new changes I started again with a good number of mods to keep me going for a bit. Since I often find myself chasing, and in combat movement is king, I chose these over the paragon.
And needless to say I love beams!