Tartarus: try going Tri-Tachyon -> ...
Thanks for the advice Orost, I am glad to hear that someone else does sort of see what I'm saying.
Afflictor is bounty hunter -> ship upgrade (should be accessible from any background).
Some of the starting options are probably noob traps, like the Hammerhead one (see this thread) and probably Lasher as well. Even Alastor is more difficult than it should be (ship is great, but 3x IR Pulse Laser is yuck once it starts chewing through your flux).
For the early frigate game there are often smugglers with 1-2 weak ships (Hound (D), Cerberus (D), shuttle) to pick on. Much safer than trying to fight the combat fleets.
For some reason, maybe having to do more with the amount of factions I have rather than SS+, pirate spawns are very hit or miss in my play-throughs. Many systems simply don't have any, and if there is a very large military presence between both pirates and the faction's military, both will end up only spawning very large fleets to fight eachother, leaving nothing for little 'ol me to fight.
I'd say go Wolf + weapon upgrade. It gives you a Heavy Blaster which is excellent for the early game. Then equip the rest of the ship like this:
2 Harpoon MRM for the small missile slots (to be used when their shields are down)
1 Antimatter Blaster for the forward energy slot
2 point defense energy weapons for the remaining two energy slots
Get the missiles rack upgrade ASAP and you'll be defeating most early game pirate fleets with no problems, just avoid the ones with cruisers. The other starts give you better ships, yes, but getting some effective weapons can take time. Antimatter Blasters are a common find in pirate fleets and the Heavy Blaster provided by this start is a real deal breaker.
A few months ago someone gave me great advice for how to fly the Wolf with the Heavy Blaster properly and I tend to use that, but I don't think I'd have any use for the AM blaster. The beam PD you start with with the advanced weapons are awesome though. I am not so skilled with missiles though as my harpoons routinely miss. I usually hold off on the missile racks. Thanks for the advice!
TBH, I find Starsector+ too easy. I always start with the Tempest, and I take on fleets as large as 2-3 destroyers and several frigates from second 1. If I start with bonus bounty, in 10 minutes I have 100k. I just grab a few haulers, keep at it with just the tempest, and sell the loot aswell. Then it's just easy from there.
When I say it's too easy, I mean there's no real challenge end-game. When you're level 40+ you can just steam-roll everything. I keep setting personal objectives to make it harder. Maximum 50 FP, all frigates, no missiles, all fighers (killing Templares with fighters only is probably the biggest challenge, because of Priwen Bursts that decimate 15 squadrons in one go), stuff like that.
I appreciate your look into the game- I consider that sort of thing to be more cheesey, but for my benefit, I'd love to know how you fly the Tempest and survive against so many destroyers before your battle readiness gets to 0 =P
For the record, I have no problem beating Pirate fleets with lasher + advanced weapons. You have to pick and choose your targets, which you have the ability to do because of your high burn speed compared to pirates which usually have (D) ships.
But then as soon as you take a ship that moves slightly slower, you are at huge risk to being caught out. You're forced to only use ships with high burn speeds, IE, never destroyers and god forbid anything larger. If you can even afford the fuel+supplies
. Anything I change to vmparams causes the game to simply not launch.