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1

Discussions / Re: Slipways

« on: September 30, 2022, 08:54:13 AM »

Yes, yes! This game is basically "Build the Domain"! (But maybe a little more nicely.)

I've had some fun with this one! Also I am really bad at it.

2

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Dassault-Mikoyan Engineering v.1.6a - Update for 0.95.1

« on: September 21, 2022, 06:05:04 AM »

.... I was literally laughing and saying dead over what you said to the guy on page 10.  Definitely not saying the mod is dead - it's verifiably not.  I should have clarified however, were I in your shoes I'd likely take my commentary that way as well.  My mistake.

Alright! I'm glad to hear that was your intent, but yeah, it did not come off well.

I agree, both tone and context is easily lost online. Whatever your intent, the worst interpretation of ambiguity is 100% how a comment like this is going to be interpreted (especially in light of the issue of "gamer culture" in general declaring things "dead" when they don't deliver weekly updates and etc).

I'll stop gumming up the mod topic with this business now.

3

Mods / Re: [0.95.1a] Dassault-Mikoyan Engineering v.1.6a - Update for 0.95.1

« on: September 21, 2022, 04:07:46 AM »

dead lol

Hey- you're being a jerk. Don't do this. It sucks. See rule #1, "Remember that Everyone Here is a Human Being", and rule #2, "No Toxicity".

If you make a pattern of this behaviour, you will be removed.

4

General Discussion / Re: How much of the old lore is still valid?

« on: September 16, 2022, 04:34:21 AM »

My outlook is this:
1. Gameplay is always the first consideration when it comes to Starsector's design.
2. The latest released version of the game should speak for itself; it is the intentional 'work of art'.

5

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.95.1a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: September 09, 2022, 10:31:13 AM »

Alex, David, a question that came up when I was working on the wiki:

Can we make "the Starfarer" be the official byname of the player character? (like the Warden in Dragon Age: Origins or the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas)
It'd certainly sound nicer/more impressive/less fourth-wall-holey than "the player character".

"The Starfarer" does sound really cool, but it lends the player a more mythic-heroic aura than we'd ever intend. Like, you're not the Chosen One in a fantasy game, you're just some person and what happens in the Persean Sector is what you make of it.

So I'd never call the player that, but hey, the wiki can do whatever it wants. We don't make the rules there!

6

General Discussion / Re: MesoTroniK Donation Drive

« on: August 31, 2022, 06:36:43 AM »

Sorry but you should really use a proper service for this as currently there is absolutely no way to remotely ensure this is a legitimate donation. The fact that this is the top post on the main page here is concerning.

Not qualifying for government support and then not even mentioning the reasoning why is shady.

Are we allowed to start threads here for donations? I would really think this would be against forum rules unless some sort of exception is being made here.


Anyway, thanks for being transparent with how much you are getting from donations and for showing proper receipts (Not just price quotes)

I consider Meso to be a solid guy who has done some good work and carried himself honestly in every interaction I've had with him. I advocate for his integrity.

Your post fits the definition of concern trolling to a tee, and it being your very first post here doesn't help your credibility. If your intent was to be helpful, then you should seriously reconsider your approach. To implicitly accuse him of scamming so lightly, without the courage of conviction, over such a small amount of money is unseemly. If he was truly scamming, there are far better ways to do it that don't involve him baring his situation to the world like he has - which, by the way, takes a lot of bravery and humility to do.

If you don't want to help, then you don't have to. That's all there is to it.

7

General Discussion / Re: A Starsector Review; or How I Brought about the Second Collapse.

« on: August 22, 2022, 07:20:11 AM »

8

Modding / Re: This needs addressing.

« on: July 29, 2022, 04:35:56 AM »

I'm locking this until another moderator can have a look and level a precise ruling. A one-post account throwing a drama bomb in the forum isn't a good look, however.

A quick initial response:

Game mods with either malware or which are pornography or which can be construed as supporting hate speech/bigotry are not allowed on this forum. This is in the rules, which you should review. That's the extent of control FractalSoftworks exerts over the modding community.

If you find any of these things in modifications linked here, please report them to the forum moderators and it will be taken care of.

9

Bug Reports & Support / Re: The Typo Thread

« on: July 27, 2022, 08:23:33 AM »

Shouldn't be... I'm using Captains Log, Combat Chatter, Console Commands, Starship Legends, Adjustable Skill Thresholds, A New Level of Confidence, Lazy/Magic Lib. Mostly just QoL and skill stuff.

The game in question is also an import from earlier 0.95 versions.

The import from 0.95 shouldn't be a problem, that dialog only really cares if Andrada has the id "andrada", and that's been consistent.

If I had to guess, I imagine something to do with a mod altering how some dialogs return to the conversation root is running afoul of how I kept the dialog from actually bringing Andrada in. "Starship Legends" maybe? Sounds like that adds some general-purpose interactions. I couldn't say what all the mods are, I don't actually use them.

... Unless anyone else has seen this w/o those mods?

10

Bug Reports & Support / Re: The Typo Thread

« on: July 27, 2022, 06:58:14 AM »

Fixed all the above in-dev! Except...

It's a little bit more than a typo, but in the conversation on Sindria, you first talk to the Executor's aide and then he turns into the Executor himself who you're not supposed to be able to talk to.

The same kind of ambiguous thing happens when you select the petition option.

I can't reproduce this. Do you happen to be using a mod which alters interactions with Andrada? And/or can you tell me exactly how to make this happen? I started a new game, selected Andrada in the comm directory, got Balashi, then selected the petition option. It all seems to work correctly.

11

Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path

« on: July 26, 2022, 04:04:08 PM »

I was thinking, some of factions as they are currently are more of a reflection of current and past times than they are of the future, barring the spacefaring part.

I would not disagree!
In fact I'd argue that most, probably all, science fiction is in some way a commentary on the present (or exists within the cultural zeitgeist of the present and is consciously or not a commentary on that)... especially when it veers toward pulp, like I think Starsector might.

And besides, Starsector is not a narrative-driven design. That is, when it comes to designing what the game is, an idea of gameplay came first and visuals and narrative followed.

Speaking from a strictly practical point of view, Starsector appears to me to be focused on entertainment. Now it's possible that we will see some narrative experiments from David, but afaik those can easily alienate the audience that isn't looking for them. Therefore I expect the writing to be complementary to gameplay, even if potentially competent on its own.

... Ah dang, couldn't have said it better myself.

TBH the amount that the narrative can "break" the mold of existing gameplay is pretty limited - and limited in large part by the cost of implementing entirely new features to make a "gotcha!" work within the mechanics. We obviously have done this (and to a fairly large degree in a certain case), but it's a clear limiting factor.

I'm always reminding of how Deus Ex put the world-shattering player decision at the end of the game in terms of which of three buttons you pressed. If they made a game that followed through on each of those decisions, the development cost would be ruinous. So to some degree this comes with the territory- unless a game is sufficiently low-fidelity that it can blow your mechanical expectations away with every turn of the narrative, such as it is, eg. Frog Fractions.

All that said, Alex is very supportive of indulging in new features in support of narrative, so we'll just have to see how far we can take it

12

Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path

« on: July 24, 2022, 05:40:59 AM »

Alright guys, let's cool it down. Let me try out the mod voice:

1. This isn't a place to discuss what group is more pious than what other based on their architecture, or what their religion means. Please don't do this.
2. We (the devs) both don't wish to be addressed with a disrespectful tone - I think that's clear - but we also don't need pitchforks coming out to self-police here. We'll handle it through moderation from here.
3. Talking about cool religious architecture and speculating about it in a scifi context is good and really interesting! Again, just don't go attacking RL groups while doing it.
4. You are allowed to object to my artistic choices. I ask that you do so respectfully, and with the understanding that I might not listen and might not wish to take the time to respond. The only one I really owe answers to is Alex - and he owes answers only to himself, so don't feel you should bother him overmuch either.

TLDR: kindly drop the back-and-forth accusations and keep it on-topic.

FWIW I guess I should be happy that people are so, ah, passionate about the subject!

13

Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path

« on: July 21, 2022, 04:50:23 PM »

Might be better to add a bank somewhere in the background that's printing money to continue old Domain economic policies, and the other factions are tolerating it because that continues the status quo.

(Ooh, I was toying with the bank idea purely in my head a few years back. It was going to be called "The Human Trust" or something along those lines for maximum ironic set-ups, but it just kept coming back to being a bit too esoteric for this kind of game.

Similarly, what the heck is a "credit"? Fans have called it "space bitcoin", but... credits are actually useful and stable. I'm not answering anything at all besides "scifi money".)

14

Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path

« on: July 21, 2022, 01:59:45 PM »

For a person that usually doesn't care much about lore posts, this was very interesting. I really like where the game is going, having a world where each corner of the sector has a unique feel to it.

Well, thank you!

Oh, a quick question, David: Can the more overlooked Independent worlds like Eldfell or Cethlenn expect some uniquification identity upgrade, too? Being Independent is a downgrade in appeal by itself, but colonies like Nomios and Maxios manage to leverage the faction theme to feel peerlessly unique. Agreus got its little spotlight in the Gate campaing; can we expect more of these in the future?

Ah, answering is outside the scope of this blog post. (But, ahem, the logical conclusion of the approach thus far described is to emphasize unique interests of various underserved locations.)

Mayasura is the one that got "colony dropped" not long before the game start, right?

I want to say yes to troll everyone, but no.

Though I do wish more about how the politics work got more detail.  It kinda sounds like the Persean Sector almost still operates as a polity under Domain law?  Maybe the courts operating in different star systems still use the same body of law, but interpret it differently?  Because while the Hegemony is fine as just an army, how a corporation exists without a government to define it boggles the mind (a corporation is literally a limited legal exemption from liability if you spend money how government tells you).

Yeah, my model is (perhaps obviously) the post-Roman Empire. Everyone appeals to (or against) a formerly shared source of legitimacy (or illegitimacy) but is starting to drift in their own directions.

(What's a corporation whose 'parent' state has withered away? Maybe just another state with a peculiar theory of legitimacy and rights/responsibilities that probably resembles feudalism in some way? Just speculating off the cuff here; talking about Tri-Tachyon is, alas, outside the scope of what I want to get into here ... )

I dislike the high elf architecture, the luddics are meant to be highly pious and humble, not these extravagant high towers and ***.
...
Luddics have so much potential please do not *** this up so bad

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

While I think there is a compelling point at the core of your post, you've managed to botch it by coming off as a huge jerk in how you've said it. Please take a moment to review the forum rules, particularly the first rule. If you want to persuade people of anything through writing you are going to have to seriously re-think how you're expressing your thoughts here.

I'm feeling charitable today, so here's a reply: I think there's an argument to be made for the architectural style of "solarpunk-gothic", but I actually don't love that a lot of people immediately think "Rivendell", so... I'll think about how to better visually express what I'm going for.

15

Blog Posts / Re: The Pilgrim's Path

« on: July 20, 2022, 05:39:22 AM »

I really enjoyed the blog post. I've always been fascinated by advanced civilizations and their relationship with religion especially ones where the ramifications of faith are really explored.

Thanks! And same, particularly as I get older. I wasn't raised with any kind of religion so it's always been strange, and my attitudes when much younger were self-assured and highly dismissive, which I think is common among young science fiction fans. I mean sure, it's easy to write deluded people who believe crazy things very shallowly (and tbh these can be found just about everywhere), but doing something that takes itself more seriously? It's a fascinating intellectual and, like, sympathetic challenge.

What I appreciate about the Church in Starsector is that it's not the joke faction (that belongs to the Diktat and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth...

(Well: huge disagree in terms of what I/we are actually doing. But people have built up this idea so much with the Diktat that there's no point in talking about it anymore. So: the game will speak for itself!)

Fascinating stuff. Though, I have to ask... "look out for cliffracers"?

Morrowind. *thousand yard stare*

One thing I've idly thought about re. Luddics is how different persons in the faith might react to meeting an AI character in a social context or similar (there's a few such characters in the modiverse, I wrote one of them). Could they hold a civil conversation with it? Would they be metaphorically warding off the demon every half-minute, or start hurling accusations of various evils? Would they try to destroy it immediately after, assuming they possessed the means to do so?

The setting rather demands that question, doesn't it?

I like it, can't wait for the release btw

Thanks, same