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1

General Discussion / Re: Why do fighters in the setting still use pilots?

« on: November 30, 2022, 10:52:52 AM »

I dunno, I've found some pretty nice places whilst exploring across my various games - a lot of them once even having been inhabited, just abandoned or decivilized. But the Powers of the Sector are too busy squabbling to send colony expeditions of their own it seems - perhaps they fear that launching and supporting such an operation would require enough resources to weaken them and leave them vulnerable to an attack from their neighbours?

I think that the big factions are, generally, also afraid of running afoul of REDACTED (who, not being the player, the factions have every reason to treat as an impossibly powerful foe). The tech you find on these abandoned or decivilized places could also be deeply destabilizing to the power structures that be, reducing the desire to wholesale invest in recolonizing.

Factions, even friendly ones, can and do send expeditions to try to knock your colony down a peg. Player characters generally have the ability to defeat this expeditions, but I imagine down the road that the Event system will make it more of a challenge to maintain prosperous colonies that eat up other factions' precious market share. Part of the other thing is that, as you get at, the player is a special mover and shaker in this universe, seemingly uniquely positioned and capable to affect the gamestate of a Sector that seems very stagnant.

As for the "rule of cool" explanation: well, yeah, they're there because it's cool. I just think that they can also work thematically as part of the setting, as well, by emphasizing how callously and/or cavalierly the Sector's factions treat human life even when there's not all that much life to go around.

2

General Discussion / Re: Why do fighters in the setting still use pilots?

« on: November 29, 2022, 08:23:57 PM »

Life can be treated cheaply even when it's actually rare. Limited resources can be extracted beyond any reasonable point, or in ways that cost a society more in externalities than they produce in actual value.

The Sector is decaying. Dying, even. There aren't a whole lot of people around, sure, but there also isn't a whole lot of new places to move if the population *was* expanding. There are precious few inhabited places where you can breath "free" air. The technology to improve anything substantially belongs to a lost era. This is a perfect recipe for people to be treated as disposable.

If matters don't get sorted out with the Sector soon, the last two people alive might just die ramming their Talons into each other.

3

General Discussion / Re: Should there be a culture system to better flesh out the various factions?

« on: August 17, 2022, 11:29:43 AM »

Their purpose is still pretty much the same.

Functionally, yes, but the universe itself has changed significantly since those early days. I'd like to see the game move a bit away from that structure and begin to treat pirates more interestingly.

4

General Discussion / Re: Should there be a culture system to better flesh out the various factions?

« on: August 16, 2022, 10:36:42 AM »

Interesting idea. As I said in the OP pirates are a very diverse bunch. Piracy isn't a religion or even a profession you have to dedicate yourself to, it's an activity. It's entirely possible for a starship captain to commit only one act of piracy but otherwise perform legitimate work, does that make them a capital P pirate?

Some of the more established pirate factions like Kanta or Kapetyn may not be very shy about advertising their identity since they have a fairly large military and industrial base to back them up. Some pirate factions such as ARC may not even see themselves as pirates despite engaging in piracy, and thus wouldn't feel any need to conceal their identity. If you're talking about Pathers then they certainly wouldn't care about keeping their identity a secret.

But some random murder hobo who may not even be affiliated with a pirate faction would probably want to keep his identity and intentions unknown until the last possible moment.

Kanta, the ARC, and the Pathers would still all appreciate the ability to blend in as "Independents", if only to allow them to do piracy more effectively. Pathers in particular seem to spend a lot of their time trying to hide in plain sight before striking, at least when operating as cells.

Lore-wise, it's a bit funny that you can just immediately recognize a pirate once you get within sensor range whether or not their transponder is on; it'd make more sense in general for the player to work on the same premise of patrols, where a ship without a transponder remains unknown unless it chooses to reveal itself and you're forced to react based on that knowledge. Smugglers kinda work this way already, but it'd be interesting to see pirates and Pathers as merely suspicious looking fleets when not actively engaged in piracy rather than as clearly identifiable targets. This would require some retooling of the system to basically make such elements work like the player does when transponders are off: no one knows your identity, but once you do something suspicious or illegal in a system then word of who you are spreads.

I think a lot of how pirates currently function, however, is a remnant of much earlier days of Starsector where pirates were needed as targets for players in the starting (and only) system. Now the fact that they basically function like MMO mobs feels out-of-place in the much more fleshed-out Starsector of the 2020s.

5

General Discussion / Re: Expanding upon ship crewmen

« on: August 16, 2022, 10:26:43 AM »

Crew is in an awkward place where it's just not that interesting right now, but also most of the potential additions are going to step on the toes of existing mechanics. As others have mentioned, CR basically already covers morale and crew competency in an abstracted way. Breaking those out into additional meters doesn't seem like it would add too much to the actual experience of Space Admiral Simulator.

There's basically three real "crew moments": you salvage a larger ship than your fleet currently has, you lose a lot of ships/fighters in a battle or series of battles, or you need to found a colony. The latter only happens at a point where there's no economic challenge, so basically the only thing crew does currently is force you to mothball ships or have low CR on rare occasions while you return to quickly load up on crew. . And neither of the remainder add any gameplay, really; if you're losing that many ships or need to put a large ship into service, supplies are more frequently your limiting factor and a much more impactful limiter at that.

I don't think that crew experience actually added much to the game, though, so I don't think that should make a return. Splitting off pilots from crew wouldn't add much of anything, either, besides some extra bookkeeping. Getting rid of crew altogether feels like an unwelcome abstraction. So I guess, unless Alex has some plans that will surprise us (entirely possible), we're stuck with crew As It Is. Small balance shifts like increasing price or changing availability might make it a little more interesting in the early game, alongside the previously-discussed change of Blast Doors and Recovery Shuttles into something that has more of an actual impact to make them separately more appealing.

6

General Discussion / Re: What do you think the game needs before release?

« on: July 29, 2022, 01:34:35 PM »

I think these are generally pretty interesting criticisms! I want to focus on the salvaging one.

Salvaging after interacting with research stations and survey drones/ships does feel pretty rote in a non-rewarding way. I think it's one of those things that feels tuned for an extremely hypothetical "early-game explorer" playstyle, where you want to use your salvaging skills/gantries to really maximize returns on supplies and other goods; in practice, though, the player's power curve ramps up far too quickly for those to matter all that much. In practice, it just feels like a button you need to remember to press just on the off-chance there's another AI core or blueprint in the salvage remains.

Agreed that salvaging in that way also doesn't make much lore sense.. research stations and the like should probably just be given an "unexplored/explored" state and remain on the map rather than just inexplicably disappearing into a pile of trash you need to sift through. An interesting option might be to make the player actively choose to destroy the station to salvage the remnants, but that would require some purpose for an undestroyed station which obviously does not exist currently.

Salvaging after battles is, I think, a meaningful choice because salvaging as a separate action requires not having a hostile fleet tracking you. This runs into the same problem as before, though, where the player's power grows so quickly that there's a very limited window where there's a real gameplay impact.

7

General Discussion / Re: My personal vanilla Starsector ships Tier-list

« on: September 03, 2020, 07:28:46 PM »

Can we talk more about the Conquest being F tier? It's probably my favorite ship: obviously can't beat a Paragon 1v1, but I'd take it versus an Onslaught or a Mora due to its maneuverability. Battlecruisers rule: it's got DPS that punches super high while maintaining the maneuverability to keep you safe.

I also just think the asymmetrical design makes it one of the most fun ships to play as. You can basically slice yourself a free flank off a loose enemy formation by just using your flak side to keep yourself safe from missiles and pop any low DP ships while keeping your actual target on the heavy gun side.

8

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes

« on: February 18, 2019, 03:21:30 PM »

Attempting something more challenging without the risk of loss doesn't make the game itself more challenging, imo. If the only outcomes of the more challenging fight are "I reload and then try again or avoid the fight" and "I win and get more bounty/loot/etc. than I would have otherwise", the broader game hasn't become more challenging. The only possible path for your character is steadily onwards and upwards if you're going to save-scum every setback. Sure, you're almost guaranteed to eventually get there if you keep trying, but a game "story" that involves some setbacks represents more challenge imo.

I guess it depends on whether you consider the game to be "a campaign map that gets you from battle to battle" or not. I like the campaign layer just as much as the battle layer, personally, so maybe I have a different perspective than others. I do agree that the campaign layer could be made to push characters more towards risks, as you're rarely "forced" into battles where you're sure to lose something once you have the map mobility skills (unless you're defending a colony, I guess) to dictate if a battle happens. Having greater operating costs or some other economic pressure would be a decent push in the direction of giving the player a sense of urgency, and either toning down player mobility or otherwise giving enemy fleets even a chance to entrap you, would be a great direction for the game. The "super hard mode" start that Alex has added seems to be something that gets more in that direction, even if it just makes the early game more challenging.

Megas: I don't think Starsector is a roguelike or should be played like one. You were the one who brought up roguelikes! I'm thinking more "iron man" in the sense of XCOM, which I believe is what Alex also intends—the game isn't meant to be started and restarted constantly (although a game can get really screwed up to the point where you restart) even if the game contains some random generation on start, but you're also meant to take some consequences and setbacks on your path to victory. The effect of actually feeling some losses makes for better challenge in both layers and makes for a more interesting storyline for your save.

EDIT: I also find it interesting that we've both had the game about as long, Megas! I assume we've both played every release, although you seem to have gotten much more into posting than I have. It's interesting to talk to someone with such different takes on the game.

9

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes

« on: February 16, 2019, 06:29:15 PM »

The game is objectively less challenging if every loss or mistake is wiped away by a reload. I certainly save-scum myself sometimes when something really wonky or buggy happens, to be sure, but the effect on the difficulty and power curve is obvious. Your roguelike analogy actually reinforces my point, in my opinion: it'd be one thing to reset a crippled, unwinnable game, but simply save-scumming in that same scenario would obviously defeat the whole purpose of a roguelike! Ditto for Starsector and "the way it's meant to be played".

Reloading every time you encounter any setback of any note is basically just playing with cheat codes on. Asking Alex then not to develop new features for players who want the intended experience because you'll save-scum is, therefore, a bit silly imo.

But, like everyone has said: officer death could easily be just a part of the "iron man" mode or just simply a tickable option, leaving players who don't want that additional level of difficulty out of the equation.

10

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.9.1a (In-Dev) Patch Notes

« on: February 16, 2019, 03:38:50 PM »

Officer death would be more tolerable if you weren't always pretty limited on officer count (even with skills). If you could have, say, six or seven officers at base level, occasionally having one top-tier character die due to a stupid decision would be more tolerable because you'd probably have some at-or-near level 20 officers to move into their place and could pick up a new one to train up on smaller vessels. Granted, I'd be fine with officer death with the current system. As it stands, the power curve in this game for competent players gets to "basically unbeatable except by high-level [REDACTED]" within a cycle or two at most. Officer death way to keep the player's effectiveness down without the more blunt tools of economics would be welcome imo.

As for everyone's "I'd just save scum"—that's a personal choice you're making that makes the game less challenging and interesting. If Alex were to balance around things that frustrated certain players enough to make them save scum, the whole game would suffer.

11

General Discussion / Re: What is what?

« on: January 15, 2014, 04:55:08 AM »

I prefer to simply think of flux as a three-dimensional manifestation of one's own suspension of disbelief.

The thread was finished here, guys. Question now has a definitive answer.

12

Suggestions / Re: 2 submarine inspired phase cloak suggestions

« on: May 12, 2013, 04:31:40 AM »

Alex had initially considered "depth charge"-like weaponry to attack phase ships iirc, but then determined it didn't make sense. Shields don't have a hard counter besides "build flux until they don't work", which is precisely what happens when a ship phases. An additional mechanic to attack them directly would be very difficult to balance.

13

Suggestions / Re: Self-repeairing hull

« on: May 11, 2013, 02:42:39 AM »

I'm not saying that the armor would be equivalent to a rocky asteroid in terms of resistance to damage/bombardment, I'm just pointing out that the amount of physical force needed to shatter an asteroid into dust in a few volleys is.. considerable.

14

Discussions / Re: Giveaways

« on: May 10, 2013, 01:57:19 AM »

aethelbrandt is my Steam -- I'd love a Dota 2 key! Thanks in advance

15

Blog Posts / Re: Starsector Sketchbook

« on: May 10, 2013, 01:55:40 AM »

Enjoyed the art -- I like the aesthetic present in both your design and style; will definitely add a bit more diversity to the world.

40 artist-hours for the first one, could maybe get it down to 10-20 artist-hours

This begs the question, what's the conversion rate of artist-hours into man-hours?