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1

General Discussion / Re: Endgame Factions All Lose to the Same Build

« on: May 11, 2025, 02:54:17 PM »

The comparison isn't fair.

The Soul series of games are part of a well-known genre of action-rpg games and were available on popular gaming platforms. Once the editor gained traction (and it almost took a full decade for it to happen, Demon Soul was a niche and largely unknown game and Dark Soul 1 was not big hit at first), it allowed the games to be largely covered by most of the mainstream medias. Also, the very style of the game (in which the player controls a single avatar, and the player's performance dictates 99% of the results obtained) has enabled the game to benefit from the emergence of modern internet gaming (with its famous faces, death/rage compilations, etc). All this helped popularize the games and the style of these games (to the point were we now have Souls-like games).

On the other hand, Starsector is a an independant game with a top-down view with mostly 2D graphics were you control a fleet, which dilutes to the weight of the player's actions (making streaming it a lot less appealing to a modern crowd), made by 4 people. This genre of games hasn't been popular for decades and it is highly unlikely to become popular again in the foreseeable future. And on top of that it is not available on Steam.

While I do think that Starsector is already a cult classic, like many cult classics, it will always be very niche. Many people know some cult classic movies by name, but never watched them.

Making the game way harder overall isn't a good idea. Many people (just not here) already find it hard enough as it is.

2

General Discussion / Re: Endgame Factions All Lose to the Same Build

« on: May 11, 2025, 02:23:42 PM »

Main reason the core fleets is weak because they run really subpar builds. I wouldn't mind them upgraded a bit.

Remnants builds are also subpar. They just compensate this weakness with overpowered officers and ships with better stats overall.

Anyway, we shouldn't forget that most people here are veterans of the game and we probably spent way too much time playing it. The average player, who doesn't spend as much time on it and/or is unwilling to spend time figuring out builds, might have a considerably different experience. The devs have to strike a middle ground between encouraging the player to engage with the ship building part of the game without making the game so difficult that only a fleet of min-maxed ships can win.

I post here and I lurk on Reddit. The player level is absolutely not the same. Most of the builds I see on Reddit fall in-between 2 categories : "very bad" and "average". I'm not even talking about the quite large crowd of people who admits using the autofit feature and nothing else. And these people do find Ordos & Threat to be very hard and non-pirate human fleets to be challenging.

3

Suggestions / Re: Ziggy dp cost

« on: May 11, 2025, 05:49:39 AM »

It's not hard to get the ziggy. And it's far more powerful than the MK1.

4

Modding / Re: [0.98a] Treasure Hunt v0.1.0

« on: May 10, 2025, 03:54:39 PM »

That's quite an interesting idea !

I'll be following the developpement closely

5

General Discussion / Re: What made me quit this run.

« on: May 10, 2025, 02:26:56 PM »

nanoforge contact doesn't offer enough cred limit to buy a capital ship, I think

Depends which one we are talking about. The Arms Dealer has a 1M budget and the only capital ship too expensive to buy from him is the Invictus (unless you get him/her as a contact, then you can buy an Invictus from him).

6

General Discussion / Re: What made me quit this run.

« on: May 10, 2025, 08:05:57 AM »

Mmmmmh I don't understand the critics about finding Legions ? If you have a Hegemony commission, you can buy plenty of them on their commissionned markets.

7

General Discussion / Re: Unloved and Forgotten - Dominator

« on: May 04, 2025, 05:52:13 PM »

Regardless of its actual power, the Dominator suffers mostly from being a baby Onslaught. The Dominator is a big fat brick with lots of hull, armor and 3 medium missiles. The Onslaught is an even bigger fat brick with even more armor, hull and medium missiles. Its role is too similar to the Onslaught's role whereas other cruisers fill a unique niche even inside their own tech line (although there's a case to be made for the Fury being a baby Aurora).

No amount of buff will fix this unless you buff it so much that it starts becoming some sort of "super cruiser". And I do find your proposed buffs to be quite extreme (especially the increased maneuverability).

I think there's room for buffs though. Probably a bit more Flux Capacity ? Flux Capacity is always nice and the Dominator struggles a bit with Flux since the nerfs to Ordnance Expertise.

Gauss Gun.
Everything is simpler here. This weapon is rarely worth mentioning - a gigantic flux profile against the background of suboptimal DPM completely bury it not only on the flux-starved Dominator, but also on other ships (people in 10 out of 10 cases simply take Mjolnir). With all the other disadvantages (long warm-up, terrible turn speed that does not get better with hullmod) its cost monstrously limits its use, literally making it impractical.

After testing it a bit more (thanks to the guy here that outlasted a Threat fleet using them), I find the Gauss Cannon to be ... weird ?

I think it's the only weapon in the game your fleet should be built around. I honestly had good results with Gausses by sprinkling them among quite a few ships in my fleet. The more Gausses you add, the better they become overall. But a single ship or even 2 ships armed with Gausses tend to be dead weight.

I don't know what to think about them anymore. The Gauss Cannon is a simple weapon, but also a really weird one.

8

Mods / Re: [0.97a] LOST_SECTOR - Exploration and Quest content

« on: May 01, 2025, 10:42:30 AM »

Updating the modinfo file works. I've been doing the quest and I haven't encountered any bug.

9

Modding / Re: [0.98a] Combat Background Enhanced v0.2

« on: April 30, 2025, 03:37:29 PM »

Yep, this mod can rarely cause a crash. Also got the same log.

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Mods / Re: [0.98a] Hazard Mining Incorporated (DEBLOATENING!? Ed., 0.4.0)

« on: April 27, 2025, 06:17:47 AM »

Hi. Thank you for updating your mod. HMI and Brighton have been must have mods for me for a very long time !

I'd like to share with you a couple of remarks and suggestions if you don't mind.

1. Unique HMI Industries :

a) Red Water Distillery / Nevermore Fuel Production => lore wise, those industries are technological abominations. The Nevermore Fuel Production is the result of a Synchrotron going wild, while the Red Water is of dubious origin. It would make sense for both of these Industries to attract a very high Pather interest (which they currently don't). My suggestion is to modify both industries so that Luddic Path cells spawn on both markets.

b) Enriched Extractor => this industry is a bit OP and makes Volatiles shortage and Fuel shortages quite rare (especially Fuel when you take into account that the Nevermore Fuel Production exists). I suggest reducing both Volatile and Fuel production by 1 unit (I tested it and with Pather cells occasionnally causing disruption at Nevermore it works nicely).

1. Mercy system :

a) Samiel => for a such an important place to HMI, I found Samiel to be underdefended. It only has a population of 4 (making their fleets smaller) and it is now surrounded by both the Luddic Path and the Luddic Church. It is very often under attack and it very often loses. I suggest upgrading its Orbital Station to Battlestation to make it a bit stronger.

b) Soul => this is now a Luddic Church market and it has a High Tech Battlestation. Because the Luddic Church has almost no energy weapons (only Mining Lasers and Mining Blasters), it makes their battlestation incredibly weak because it can only uses 2 weapons and has to leave all Large slots empty. I suggest to turn it into a Low Tech station and also to reduce its power a bit by downgrading it to an Orbital Station so that HMI has better chances against it.

2. Opuntia system :

Cactorum should also attract Pather interest since its whole raison d'etre is to process destroyed Mess ships and various debris. I noticed it only has 2 industries when it could have 3. Since it has the Vast Ruins condition and since HMI loves using tech mined technology, I suggest adding it the Tech Mining industry. This would be enough to attract Pather interest and boost a bit Cactorum (it does need it since it spends its time under attack by Mess fleets !).

3. Obsidian system :

Galena also has only 1 industry when it could have 2. I suggest adding it the Refining industry to boost it a bit, especially since it is now facing competition from both the Hegemony and Tritachyon in the same system.

11

General Discussion / Re: Can we talk about the game's art and spritework rq?

« on: April 25, 2025, 11:52:47 AM »

Agreed. I just love the sprites in this game !

12

General Discussion / Re: 0.98 impressions

« on: April 23, 2025, 05:09:23 PM »

I see conquests die to ships like radiant jumping in on them and they can't get away fast enough.  This can be mitigated using avoid orders or baiting the radiant with careful orders until it's more isolated, but it's certainly still dangerous.  While AI-controlled invictus has severe limitations, player controlled should win quite a few 1v1 trades against radiants before it runs out of armor and its > 150k effective hull points.

And why is it a problem that the Conquest cannot a survive a Radiant which decided to jump on it ? The Radiant is the only battleship in the game that also has insane mobility thanks to its system. Of course the Conquest, a fragile battlecruiser, designed to maneuver around the battlefield and to use its superior (but conventional) mobility is gonna die. But it's not the Conquest's fault.

But anyway, I still don't see how that means the AI cannot play it. Even if I were to pilot a Conquest myself, there's little I could do if a Radiant decides to rapidly close the distance by using all its Phase Skimmer charges in quick succession.

13

General Discussion / Re: 0.98 impressions

« on: April 23, 2025, 04:23:05 PM »

Falcon and Medusa: how is Falcon 14 DP and Medusa 12 DP? Lmaoooooo. Manoeuvring Jets were a mediocre system before Systems Expertise was added and now it feels like you're forced to fly a worse ship whenever manjets are off cooldown.

The Falcon fulfills a very weird and extremely annoying niche. It's an undergunned cruiser, but it's fast on top of having a mobility system and it can both medium ballistic and energy weapons, which means HVD / Graviton / Ion Beam / IRAL and range, range and range. A Falcon can be incredibly infuriating to fight if its loadout is focused on long range weapons. I don't like it, but I think it deserves to cost 14 DP. It's not gonna kill lots of things, but it's gonna last a very long time.

Invictus: it only has large mounts, yet it has HBI. Why? To nerf Ordnance Expertise on this ship? Because large ballistics still aren't good enough that people would rather downsize? Yes, I am late, I haven't really used it previously.

I have no proof, but I think the Invictus has HBI so that it can be given a very small amount of OP for its class and DP and to encourage the player to still fill most weapons mounts. Anyway, it works.

HMD: I'm paying 15 OP for a better HAC? Come on, Alex, give it more DPS! In general I wish for more elite medium ballistics.

We are talking about a 200 kinetic DPS weapon (more than HVD) with 200 damage for 140 flux/sec and perfect accuracy (which matters a lot when installed in a turret). It's a very, very good weapon. The increased damage also means it can actually contribute to killing larger hulls while the HAC, with its pitiful accuracy and only 100 damage, contributes next to nothing against hull. At 13 OP, the HMD was a no brainer compared to the HAC because even though the HAC was costing less OP, you had to invest a lot more into flux vents to support it because its flux efficiency was considerably worse. Now the HMD is still very good, but unless you have quite a few OP to spare, you need to pause and think. Which is fine since the HMD is supposed to be more of a sidegrade to the HAC.

Threat phase ship: you aren't adding a Remnant phase ship for whatever the reason. Well, maybe then it would be worth it to make a Threat phase ship? I would prefer if Remnants got one, but I'll take anything.

Lore-wise, AI hates p-space for an unknown number of reasons. AI goes insane when in p-space. This is why the Grendel, which was supposed to be an automated ship, was retrofitted to accomodate crews instead. I heavily suspect that p-space, hyperspace, AI hating/going insane when in p-space, Omegas, the Dwellers and the Music are all connected somehow (Ziggurat is connected to p-space as are the motes according to the discussion you get after scanning it during the Project Ziggurat quest and motes also appear in hyperspace). Hence why Alex & David haven't made a phase Remnant ship yet and why we never see AI ships in hyperspace (except for the random ghost sensor which spawns a heavily damaged Remnants fleet and I think the fact it is heavily damaged is a clue about what's going on in hyperspace). There's a reason for that.

I would like to see Assault Chaingun go back to having 700 base range and Heavy Mortar get buffed to 800 range. ACG isn't bad, but it's SO-only for no particularly good reason.

I'd rather want the ACG to get 600 range so that it can be paired with Elite PD and HMGs for aggressive but non-SO builds. The Heavy Mortar being the super cheap anti-hull option is fine (I'd still would like it to get as much damage per projectile as the Hephag though). Overall I agree, it's kinda sad to see how the Heavy Blaster can be used outside of SO build on high tech ships while the ACG is stuck as a SO weapon :/

Falcon, Eagle, Conquest all suffer from same AI flaw - it doesn't understand how to kite even when it has clear speed + range advantage. Unless said advantage is to truly ridiculous degree, unreachable in practice against any non-joke opponents.

I see this claim everywhere, especially on Reddit, and I still don't understand why people are saying that. Eagles and Falcons are the safest cruisers I've ever added to my fleet, way safer than non SO high tech cruisers. The Conquest can be derpy at times, but asymmetric builds almost entirely fix that and since I've discovered the magical power of putting each side in its own weapon groups, even symmetric builds are working very fine. I lose more Onslaughts and Invictuses than I lose Conquests because of how more maneuverable they are. Like Eagles and Falcons, I can give it very few orders and it will be fine while I always need to keep an eye on my Onslaughts to avoid them being surrounded and killed by lategame threats.

14

Modding / Re: [0.98a] Combat Background Enhanced v0.2

« on: April 23, 2025, 10:39:37 AM »

An outstanding mod that adds a lot of flavor to battles ! Thanks

15

Announcements / Re: Starsector 0.98a (Released) Patch Notes

« on: April 22, 2025, 03:10:44 PM »

Idk, Assault Units are a pretty straightforward DPS check.  You will eventually get attrited to them by them if you can't either destroy them immediately or have the ability to press in on the fabricator.

Yeah, but it's one specific ship and its aggression meter depends on its ship system being active or not. Meanwhile, the whole Remnant fleet tries to hug me, all ships at once.