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Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.96a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: September 21, 2023, 05:42:18 AM »hey are there any new updates for the game? been awhileThere was a blog post 3 weeks ago.
Fractal Softworks Forum
- September 23, 2023, 12:59:54 AM
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News:
Starsector 0.96a is out! (05/05/23); Blog post: Wormholes and Sundry - Getting Around the Sector (08/31/23)
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Suggestions / Re: More and useful info before and after battles so the player can learn the game
« on: September 21, 2023, 05:00:17 AM »
The problem is people use autofit but sometimes they won't have everything that it needs (weapons, hullmods, fighters) so they end up with bad wonky builds.
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Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.96a (Released) Patch Notes
« on: September 20, 2023, 10:09:20 AM »
Worth noting is that minor polish updates have lately become a bit more meatier (Alex likes to introduce/rework some things to test them for the future, and in a minor update you get more focused feedback), so those initially had maybe 3-4 months delay after the big one, but now it's more like 6-9 months.
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Suggestions / Re: More and useful info before and after battles so the player can learn the game
« on: September 20, 2023, 06:12:02 AM »
You could also make it flavourful in game by paying a small fee to gather more information about the target (officer levels, loadouts), I kinda like not knowing everything before the actual fight but I get that might be cruel for some.
Unfortunately, I do not see how the game could tell you what to improve after a battle. Unless it's something stupidly obvious like get more officers, you honestly don't learn much if the game told you "you need better weapons, your ship loadout isn't optimized, get x hullmod for this fight" etc. That is all meaningless without the WHY behind those tips. That is just something you have to learn for yourself or by watching or reading enough about the game. Can't really expect the game itself to manually refit you a whole fleet ship by ship.
And even with damage stats, kills and such, what is a newb supposed to do with that information? They don't even have an expectation for each weapon/ship. Many can even be misleading like beams or missiles. I feel like there's no elegant way to go about this without introducing another layer of confusion.
Besides the topic, but how did you manage to play 270 hours and not once make it to end game? Every single new player topic or rant I read focuses on early game and how it's too punishing. This is the first time I hear someone passing through the hardest part of the game yet struggling later.
Unfortunately, I do not see how the game could tell you what to improve after a battle. Unless it's something stupidly obvious like get more officers, you honestly don't learn much if the game told you "you need better weapons, your ship loadout isn't optimized, get x hullmod for this fight" etc. That is all meaningless without the WHY behind those tips. That is just something you have to learn for yourself or by watching or reading enough about the game. Can't really expect the game itself to manually refit you a whole fleet ship by ship.
And even with damage stats, kills and such, what is a newb supposed to do with that information? They don't even have an expectation for each weapon/ship. Many can even be misleading like beams or missiles. I feel like there's no elegant way to go about this without introducing another layer of confusion.
Besides the topic, but how did you manage to play 270 hours and not once make it to end game? Every single new player topic or rant I read focuses on early game and how it's too punishing. This is the first time I hear someone passing through the hardest part of the game yet struggling later.
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General Discussion / Re: Why not put it on Steam Early Access?
« on: September 11, 2023, 11:55:59 PM »I think the extra revenue that Alex would gain from steam right now is probably enough to hire a part time developer to fasten up the work or for simply mainaining the steam sales, probably even more.This has also been discussed to death and it's well known that hiring another person at this point would actually take more time to get to 1.0 and the dev team might lose focus, not to mention extra costs. The game is in a late stage of development and you'd need to catch up that person so so much where you'll waste half of a patch time just so another dev can join the team. You also then lose time on communication and organization that didn't exist before.
Only thing I could ever see them getting is extra help for PR stuff. If somehow the game explodes in popularity once again before 1.0, and this forum gets many new users, that would take a lot of "free" time from Alex. I know how he likes being personally involved here so hopefully it doesn't come to that, but that honestly the only thing I could see that gives a net positive on time saved.
Good thing there's a ton of knowledgeable people here so most questions get answered by forum users, and pretty quickly. Alex needs to come in here and there to clear up confusion but I like to think we help out a bit on the forum hours side.
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General Discussion / Re: Manual Piloting vs. Autopilot
« on: September 11, 2023, 12:58:17 PM »Tbh in a 1v1 between two comparable ships randomized, I'm not even sure the human pilot has any real advantages against the AI.That almost never happens in a real fight but let's entertain that scenario for a second. The things human can do which AI either can't or can't well enough:
- Take advantage of target's blind spots
- Use system in non obvious ways (most common with burn abilits and using it to outflank a ship or avoid fire=
- Spam missiles (AI is conservative)
- Much better timing with strike weapons (I'd honestly say this one is the biggest difference)
- In general, using weapons non optimally, such as wasting a ton of HE dmg on shields, or low dmg kinetic on armour
- Aggressive vents (doable with AI but nowhere near perfect timing as the player)
There could be something else but yeah, AI is reliable but can't think ahead and pilots safely, which it should be doing don't get me wrong.
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General Discussion / Re: Hypershunt Taps
« on: September 10, 2023, 10:16:29 AM »I have never used a hypershunt tap. It comes too late, even if colonies themselves take too long to take off.Same, I legit even forgot what the effect does.
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General Discussion / Re: Why not put it on Steam Early Access?
« on: September 10, 2023, 09:04:29 AM »
You reminded me of another thing, Starsector is fairly niche. When people see an action roguelite in EA, they mostly know what to expect and how will the game look like in the future. Not to mention most of the upcoming things will be content. Here, even the devs can't tell you what's going to be in the next patch until it's imminent. And for someone not following the game's development for a while, it's quite hard to tell what you can expect.
I mean maybe at this point it's fairly easier than in the past (full story, end game, polish) but who knows what Alex and David still have in store for us.
I mean maybe at this point it's fairly easier than in the past (full story, end game, polish) but who knows what Alex and David still have in store for us.
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General Discussion / Re: Why not put it on Steam Early Access?
« on: September 10, 2023, 03:29:08 AM »I think older forum users are actually just afraid of the change and the influx of thousands of new players. With all their concern they are subconsiusly gatekeeping the game.What kind of world do you live in where you think users on a forum dictate Alex's thoughts? What a ridiculous claim.
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General Discussion / Re: Why not put it on Steam Early Access?
« on: September 10, 2023, 02:39:22 AM »
I often see people make the mistake of cherry picking examples to prove a point. Ok so Project Zomboid also has a glacial update cycle and it does ok on Steam. For that one game, there's at least 50 more of the same quality that are lost to the void and nobody talks about them. Just imagine the amount of posts on steam forums about bugs and then seeing that the last update was a year ago. Obviously not everyone is an impatient toxic prick but you can understand why it might be smarter to just wait a bit more since the game already came so far.
Let's say the current version is put on Steam right now, I personally think that wouldn't be a bad thing for the game. Yet I completely understand how Alex feels about this and respect his decision to make the big entrance once the game is feature complete.
Imo the biggest problem with EA games (not that I find them problematic in general) is burnout. Show the game to enough people right now and they'll probably like it a lot. And you bet some won't be so eager to play 1.0 if they don't get hooked or sold on the premise. Show the game when it's done and the reception will be even more positive, plus you don't have to worry about update cycles and responding to a ton of Steam users giving feedback and reporting bugs.
The unofficial "Steam release" was Sseth's video, in a way. It brought a ton of attention to a hidden gem which was then kinda developed. Early days of YT coverage showed a more basic Starsector experience. Now imagine we didn't get Sseth's vid before, but after 1.0 came out. The result would be even more insane that the one we already seen. Hopefully this puts things into perspective a bit more clearly.
EDIT: Hypothetical scenario
If I was Alex and was hurting for cash and more eyes on the game, I'd put the game on Steam and charge 20 bucks for it, but keep the current price of 15 if you purchase it through the website. So those that only trust Steam and want the game badly there can have it + more visibility, and also keep the original way of getting the game if you don't care about Steam for a lower price. I know some devs do this and it seems like an elegant-please-all solution. Of course as I understand there's no need to do this, unless the development takes a nasty turn.
Let's say the current version is put on Steam right now, I personally think that wouldn't be a bad thing for the game. Yet I completely understand how Alex feels about this and respect his decision to make the big entrance once the game is feature complete.
Imo the biggest problem with EA games (not that I find them problematic in general) is burnout. Show the game to enough people right now and they'll probably like it a lot. And you bet some won't be so eager to play 1.0 if they don't get hooked or sold on the premise. Show the game when it's done and the reception will be even more positive, plus you don't have to worry about update cycles and responding to a ton of Steam users giving feedback and reporting bugs.
The unofficial "Steam release" was Sseth's video, in a way. It brought a ton of attention to a hidden gem which was then kinda developed. Early days of YT coverage showed a more basic Starsector experience. Now imagine we didn't get Sseth's vid before, but after 1.0 came out. The result would be even more insane that the one we already seen. Hopefully this puts things into perspective a bit more clearly.
EDIT: Hypothetical scenario
If I was Alex and was hurting for cash and more eyes on the game, I'd put the game on Steam and charge 20 bucks for it, but keep the current price of 15 if you purchase it through the website. So those that only trust Steam and want the game badly there can have it + more visibility, and also keep the original way of getting the game if you don't care about Steam for a lower price. I know some devs do this and it seems like an elegant-please-all solution. Of course as I understand there's no need to do this, unless the development takes a nasty turn.
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General Discussion / Re: Manual Piloting vs. Autopilot
« on: September 09, 2023, 06:15:54 AM »
Don't worry about it, most of the fancy videos you see are from people playing the game for a very long time. I remember when I just started playing I constantly kept dying in my flagship to lame pirates. It's just a matter of getting used to the combat and watching for that flux meter.
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General Discussion / Re: Manual Piloting vs. Autopilot
« on: September 09, 2023, 03:30:20 AM »So at least from what I've seen its virtually impossible for most players to outperform ai in the pure mainstay flux war type combat that most of the game revolves around, but specialist weird stuff is obviously better in player hands?No, not even close. AI often makes little mistakes that leads it to death. Refusing to drop shields, overcommiting, not commiting enough, poor ship system usage. It's not hard to be smarter than AI when managing flux, especially with flux hungry weapons. Only thing AI does very well is shield flickering, and even that isn't perfect.
Not sure what fighting Paragons with a Kite has to do with the rest of the post.
You can take any ship with a mobility system or lots of missiles and make a big impact on the fight, doesn't have to be a "broken" ship.
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General Discussion / Re: Tell me, where did we go so wrong? [Story spoilers]
« on: September 09, 2023, 03:26:14 AM »
Ok if you guys are going to act smart then listen to this: If we ignore all frigates and glass cannon destroyers, and Paragon, that still leaves you with 35ish combat ships that can be of good use. I say "ish" because if you count all the variants like Eradicator(P), Falcon(P) and such, that number goes even higher. No way in hell does that demand "very specific ships and tactics".
Literally roll up and give every single ship an Eliminate command, I've done that with 5 vastly different fleets already (none of which were 240 DP strong, and only in 2 did I have a single capital, rest were cruiser fleets), so what's more probable, me developing schizophrenia but only when fighting Zig, or you not being good at the video game? And don't take that personally, not everyone is good at everything, someone does things first try, someone else may need to put more effort. Don't need to yell about it.
Also that fight isn't harder now, it's easier ever since the phase mechanics got reworked because before Zig was actually mobile, now you surround it and it just dies. Sure the phase AI is less dumb now, but if I was able to beat it easily before, there's no way you can't do it now if you give it a good try. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if you could just chuck a bunch of Enforcers at this fight and win with pure spam now that DEMs exist.
So yes, a plethora of options exist, provided you don't keep your eyes closed in the refit screen and randomly click on the screen.
Literally roll up and give every single ship an Eliminate command, I've done that with 5 vastly different fleets already (none of which were 240 DP strong, and only in 2 did I have a single capital, rest were cruiser fleets), so what's more probable, me developing schizophrenia but only when fighting Zig, or you not being good at the video game? And don't take that personally, not everyone is good at everything, someone does things first try, someone else may need to put more effort. Don't need to yell about it.
Also that fight isn't harder now, it's easier ever since the phase mechanics got reworked because before Zig was actually mobile, now you surround it and it just dies. Sure the phase AI is less dumb now, but if I was able to beat it easily before, there's no way you can't do it now if you give it a good try. Hell I wouldn't be surprised if you could just chuck a bunch of Enforcers at this fight and win with pure spam now that DEMs exist.
So yes, a plethora of options exist, provided you don't keep your eyes closed in the refit screen and randomly click on the screen.
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General Discussion / Re: Tell me, where did we go so wrong? [Story spoilers]
« on: September 09, 2023, 01:12:40 AM »Well we can see the OP's fleet and they even said they went back to rework the whole fleet specifically for this fight. Yet out of the whole fleet there's maybe 3 ships I'd bring to a phase fight. Frigates pop like flies and destroyer glass cannons won't do much. And I can't think of a worse capital than Paragon to fight Zig. You waste 60 DP on a ship that can't even approach it since it's so slow.What cheese? This isn't even a hard fight, you can beat it with a plethora of different ships, you don't even need a capital.
I don't know what people expect, to breeze through the whole story without ever struggling a bit in combat with their rust bucket fleet. Just because someone uploaded a solo win versus the Zig doesn't mean it's a cheese fight.
Rust buckets? You don't even know what I'm using. Odyssey and Furies; a composition that in my experience, doesn't lose to anything else in the span of the whole game. No one can even fire torpedoes if they are disabled the whole fight. Nevermind all the discussion about tactics specifically for dealing with Ziggurat.
I didn't mean literal rust buckets, more like in a methaphorical way how people put together random ships, don't even pay attention what weapons and hullmods they equip, and then go "game brutally hard".
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General Discussion / Re: Tell me, where did we go so wrong? [Story spoilers]
« on: September 08, 2023, 11:35:05 PM »
What cheese? This isn't even a hard fight, you can beat it with a plethora of different ships, you don't even need a capital.
I don't know what people expect, to breeze through the whole story without ever struggling a bit in combat with their rust bucket fleet. Just because someone uploaded a solo win versus the Zig doesn't mean it's a cheese fight.
I don't know what people expect, to breeze through the whole story without ever struggling a bit in combat with their rust bucket fleet. Just because someone uploaded a solo win versus the Zig doesn't mean it's a cheese fight.