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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!  (Read 11455 times)

Sovereign108

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I am struggling to earn any money! Bounty hunter is hard and I stand no chance with pirates so I thought trading is the way to go but still trying to figure things out. Any tips?

Also even in Hyperspace there are pirates that catches up to me and eventually I won't last. The start seems quite difficult in my opinion but I am a n00b.

I came to Starsector as it resembles Escape Velocity series and that was great experience back in the days :)

The thing is what I would do in the Escape Velocity series is just ferry passengers and trade until I have enough cash. I'm still trying to figure out the trade in this game and trying to escape the pirates at the same time.

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated! I have googled guides but there doesn't seem to be anything that helps.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 02:35:19 AM by Sovereign108 »
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HELMUT

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2015, 02:51:48 AM »

You'll probably find a few advices here :

http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=9808.msg169126#msg169126

Starsector is game that usually need a bit to time to get right. After a while, you'll start to understand how the whole thing works.

Also, if you're not confident in your pilot skills, the missions are an easy way to discover and experiment with all the ships.
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harrumph

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2015, 07:09:15 AM »

One simple piece of advice if you just want to trade at the start of the game: don't fight, even if you're attacked. The fastest ship the pirates use (generally) is the Wolf (D), with a top speed of 150. If all your ships are at least that fast (Cerberus with Safety Overrides, Hermes with Unstable Injector, unmodified Hound, etc.), they'll never catch you.
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zenstrata

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2015, 08:07:38 AM »

I am struggling to earn any money! Bounty hunter is hard and I stand no chance with pirates so I thought trading is the way to go but still trying to figure things out. Any tips?

Also even in Hyperspace there are pirates that catches up to me and eventually I won't last. The start seems quite difficult in my opinion but I am a n00b.

I came to Starsector as it resembles Escape Velocity series and that was great experience back in the days :)

The thing is what I would do in the Escape Velocity series is just ferry passengers and trade until I have enough cash. I'm still trying to figure out the trade in this game and trying to escape the pirates at the same time.

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated! I have googled guides but there doesn't seem to be anything that helps.

Hi Sovereign108!  Welcome to starsector =)  I have been playing this game for a while, and the early game has gotten a good bit rougher with the latest patch.  The options you pick starting out will make a difference when deciding which path to take.  

I like the combat path, so I pick the following choices:
1st Choice - 3. A Bounty Hunter
2nd Choice - 2. Acquired some high-end weaponry
3rd Choice - 1. Easy (more salvage less powerful enemies)
4th Choice - 2. Learned with some thought toward the future (assign your own skills)

This will start you out in a Wolf-Class frigate with a Heavy Blaster (rare energy weapon) in your inventory.

very first thing, assign your skills! Put your aptitude points into the Technology Tree and spend your skill points on Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering.
You are aiming for the following upgrades initially and long term, - Stabilized Shields, Front Shield Emitter, Hardened Shields.
This will give you the ability to outfit your flag ship with decent shields which are much easier to keep up and use to mitigate incoming damage.  Also long term when you get into better ships, you will be able to mod the shields to be very good.

Next go to the closest planet or space station and Refit your ship.  Remove the Harpoon MRM missiles, replace your Pulse Laser in the front with your Heavy Blaster, on the right side get rid of Blast Doors and put on Stabilized Shields and Unstable Injector, and put two more points into your ships Capacitors.  Then click on your Weapon Groups and make sure your Heavy Blaster is on weapon group 1 and your Point Defense Lasers are set to auto-fire on weapon group 2.

Now for fighting you will let your point defense lasers auto-fire at things while you control the Heavy Blaster.  Raise your shields and use your ships special skill of short range teleport when needed to avoid enemy fire or chase things down, or to get away to give you time to vent flux when needed.  Try not to get surrounded and take enemies out one at a time - which should be doable as your ship will be faster than most enemies due to your upgrades, and you will have decent shields.

Next you want to move to the Magec System.  The reason for this is one of your next goals is to get yourself into a better ship, I prefer the Tri-Tachyon ships and weapons (mostly energy in nature) so fighting pirates in their system will help you raise your reputation with them and get access to better ship hulls and weapons.  Use the Maxios Jump point in the Magec system and use planet "Maxios, Barren World" as your primary base of operations.

Longer term goals are to get yourself into better ship, The next fighting class hull you should work toward is the Medusa Class Destroyer hull.
I outfit the Medusa with two Heavy Blasters and 1 or 2 of the cheapest missile launchers I can find, "Harpoon MRM single" work fine here.
On the Medusa I put: Hardened Shields, Front Shield Emitter, and Extended Shields.  I also use Safety Overrides.  The remaining points put into Vents.
This will leave many of the Medusa hardpoints unfilled and empty.  This is a Good thing!  You will be using those points elsewhere and the heavy blasters are beastly weapons capable of doing a ton of damage provided you can manage the flux levels.  Safety Overrides and the other suggestions I made for this ship build will help significantly.
-----------
Medusa Class Destroyer
Hardened Shields, Front Shield Emitter, Extended Shields, Safety Overrides
1 single Harpoon MRM (Assign to weapon group 1 and have selected in combat, so your ship can auto-fire the weapon group you do not have selected)
2 Heavy Blasters (assign to weapon group 2 and set to auto-fire)
-----------

This leads to my long term battle strategy - I prefer to let my ships auto-fire at things to get kills and I concentrate on movement and shield management.  The reason for this is the computer AI is better at managing your ships weapons through auto-fire than you could ever do yourself.  When entering combat, I raise my shields and select my missile weapon as my active weapon, and leave my heavy blasters on auto-fire in the Medusa.  The heavy blasters will then proceed to blast whatever you are near to bits while you concentrate on keeping your ship alive and in a good position to fire.  The safety overrides and the extra vents turn the Medusa into a beast which will chew through almost anything (within reason) even the biggest Cap ships are vulnerable to this beast once your have leveled up your captain properly.

As you level concentrate on skills which will give you more command points and raising your shield defenses.  Next put some points into skills which help with managing your flux dissipation.  Then work on your energy weapon skills to raise their range and damage.

My end goal is to get to the Aurora, this ship is my end-game ship, Here is a link to the build I use for it and the strategy I use when fighting with it.
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7914.msg134099#msg134099

With that Aurora and a good skill setup I can smash through any fleet in the game with that 1 ship, usually I am around level 50+ once i get to that point, so it does take a while to get there.  I keep a couple of the base level Buffalo-class freighters to carry loot and such around with me.  They have very small crew compliments and they can carry a decent amount of loot back to sell allowing you to travel around squishing enemies and collecting items and weapons.  

The Aurora is very difficult to find however and may require you to capture it from someone who already has one.  I spent a huge number of hours hunting around for the ship I wanted, then I spent even more trying to build up the economy of the system where my ship was commonly sold so it would appear, then I gave up and flew around till I found someone who had one, then I saved the game and fought the guy over and over till I was finally able to capture it.  Aurora's are incredibly rare!

To do this successfully, you may need to find a fleet which has one in it, then destroy every ship except the one you want to capture.  Then run away from the battle.  Then save as soon as you get out, then attack the lone aurora over and over (reloading the save repeatedly as needed) until you are able to capture it.  The odds are you will need to do this, because they almost never come up for sale anywhere.

Well that's it!  Other strategies work well, but this is my strategy.  I ally myself with Tri-Tachyon and fight other factions and enemies to level up and gain loot and income.  Tri-Tachyon is usually enemies with the Luddic Path, Luddic Church, Hegemony, and of course the Pirates.  So don't fret if you lose faction with those other groups, eventually you will be anyway, and you can only ally with one group usually.  The independents will love you because you will be smashing pirates, so you should always be able to find a port in most systems.

Also one other thing, The Maxios jump point is VERY USEFUL.  I think Magec is one of the best systems in the game because that Maxios jump point will always pop you out right next to the planet.  I strongly suggest paying for storage at that planet early on and using it as your base.  You will be able to sell your loot there for good prices, and since that jump point is always right next to the planet, you can easily hop into hyperspace and hunt fleets there if you want, then pop back and sell and store whatever you find.  This is the Only jump point in the game I have found which is like this.  Other jump points tend to wander around their systems, and you will have to do a bit of traveling to get to your chosen port through other jumps.

Good luck! And enjoy the game!

((More Random Advice - When selling loot be sure to keep the following weapons for outfitting ships! - antimatter blasters, srm swarmers, heavy blasters, Burst Point defense lasers, and Heavy Burst Point Defense lasers.  These are very useful weapons and I tend to use them on most of my builds.))
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 03:55:18 PM by zenstrata »
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Weltall

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2015, 12:17:53 PM »

Because I felt like you when I first tried 0.7, give a go on 0.65.2a. It feels much easier than 0.7 and thank god it was perfect for me to learn how to play the game. Definitely 0.7 feels really hard. On my first game I felt lost and did not know what to do to survive.
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ChaseBears

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2015, 12:24:38 PM »

Basically you're only going to make money off trading by smuggling or exploiting events (using exploit as a positive word here.). There are sometimes exceptions: you can find one area with really high price for something, and another area with really low price.  Fuel and supplies are the most common culprits here.  I've taken to buying up both whenever i find really low prices and opportunistically offloading them when I find really high prices.
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Plantissue

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #7 on: December 14, 2015, 01:56:15 PM »

I am struggling to earn any money! Bounty hunter is hard and I stand no chance with pirates so I thought trading is the way to go but still trying to figure things out. Any tips?

Also even in Hyperspace there are pirates that catches up to me and eventually I won't last. The start seems quite difficult in my opinion but I am a n00b.

I came to Starsector as it resembles Escape Velocity series and that was great experience back in the days :)

The thing is what I would do in the Escape Velocity series is just ferry passengers and trade until I have enough cash. I'm still trying to figure out the trade in this game and trying to escape the pirates at the same time.

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated! I have googled guides but there doesn't seem to be anything that helps.
Bounty hunting at the start of the game requires burn speed 10 so you can chase and run away from other fleets. Don't use other ships till you get used to both. If you get chased or want to chase, there is a boost button and with burn speed 10, you should never be caught. In starsector, you can't repeatedly do mundane treading brainlessly to "level" up as easily. You have use exploit events. Though usually one of the Barad moons usually sell ore at rock bottom prices that you can repeatedly sell to jangala, but even then you will need to avoid pirates and turn on and off your transponder or avoid fleets. I think your main problem is that you are approaching the game as if it is a clone of another game, rather than a game with its own unique gameplay.
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Aeson

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #8 on: December 14, 2015, 03:02:56 PM »

I outfit the Medusa with two Heavy Blasters and a couple of the cheapest missile launchers I can find, Harpoon MRM single work fine here.
On the Medusa I put: Stabilized Shields, Hardened Shields, Front Shield Emitter, and Extended Shields.  I also use Safety Overrides.  The remaining points put into Vents.
Be aware that the shield flux generation reductions granted by Stabilized Shields and the Front Shield Emitter stack multiplicatively. This means that if you already have a Front Shield Emitter mounted on a Medusa, adding Stabilized Shields is only going to reduce shield flux generation by 30 points. You could achieve about the same effect by putting 3 extra points into vents (or 1.5 points with Safety Overrides), and yet you spent 6 points on Stabilized Shields (and the reduction in flux generation from Stabilized Shields is only in effect while shields are up, whereas the increased flux dissipation from vents is always active). Now, if you're already maxing out or close to maxing out vents and don't really have anything better to spend points on, that may not be terrible, but I'd question whether or not it was worthwhile, especially with Safety Overrides doubling the dissipation rate (including that from vents), and moreover it's 20 points to max out vents (if you don't have the doubled maximum vents perk) + 30 points for Safety Overrides + 6 points for Frontal Shield Emitter + 8 points for Extended Shields + 12 points for Hardened Shields + 24 points for a pair of Heavy Blasters = 100 OP (+ some more for the missiles; can shave off a few points if you have Ordnance Expertise 10). Chances are, you're not maxing out vents even if you skip the Stabilized Shields, and since with Safety Overrides and a Frontal Shield Emitter Stabilized Shields is out-done by merely two vents, I'd suggest skipping Stabilized Shields and spend the points elsewhere.
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zenstrata

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2015, 03:19:35 PM »

I outfit the Medusa with two Heavy Blasters and a couple of the cheapest missile launchers I can find, Harpoon MRM single work fine here.
On the Medusa I put: Stabilized Shields, Hardened Shields, Front Shield Emitter, and Extended Shields.  I also use Safety Overrides.  The remaining points put into Vents.
Be aware that the shield flux generation reductions granted by Stabilized Shields and the Front Shield Emitter stack multiplicatively. This means that if you already have a Front Shield Emitter mounted on a Medusa, adding Stabilized Shields is only going to reduce shield flux generation by 30 points. You could achieve about the same effect by putting 3 extra points into vents (or 1.5 points with Safety Overrides), and yet you spent 6 points on Stabilized Shields (and the reduction in flux generation from Stabilized Shields is only in effect while shields are up, whereas the increased flux dissipation from vents is always active). Now, if you're already maxing out or close to maxing out vents and don't really have anything better to spend points on, that may not be terrible, but I'd question whether or not it was worthwhile, especially with Safety Overrides doubling the dissipation rate (including that from vents), and moreover it's 20 points to max out vents (if you don't have the doubled maximum vents perk) + 30 points for Safety Overrides + 6 points for Frontal Shield Emitter + 8 points for Extended Shields + 12 points for Hardened Shields + 24 points for a pair of Heavy Blasters = 100 OP (+ some more for the missiles; can shave off a few points if you have Ordnance Expertise 10). Chances are, you're not maxing out vents even if you skip the Stabilized Shields, and since with Safety Overrides and a Frontal Shield Emitter Stabilized Shields is out-done by merely two vents, I'd suggest skipping Stabilized Shields and spend the points elsewhere.

Ahh! neat! I had never done the math on that, so I did not know that the points would be better spent in vents.  The game doesn't really give you exact figures for that (or I just never noticed the figures and so never did the math..), so it is hard to gauge properly.

Also keep in mind, my playstyle focuses on creating 1 super-ship and an energy weapon layout.  I do not do any trading because I do not find that interesting.  I also dislike having a fleet with me because I really dislike managing many different ships.  My suggestions will lead you down one specific path which I found I enjoy.  I have already played and experimented with practically every ship and load-out possible and the suggestions I gave reflect my personal interests.

This game can be played many different ways, some people fly around with large fleets of ships, others do trading with super-freighters and earn piles of credits very quickly.  Weapon styles vary drastically, some going for missiles, or energy, or ballistic, of varying combinations.  Some players use packs of frigates.  One of the neat things about this game is the variations which are possible when playing it.  So go out there and try things =)

((Also, I am aware this may seem like double posting. . because it kinda is >.>   I thought I had misposted the prior post earlier because I was typing out my reply in a notepad and ended up posting my suggestions in a couple threads!  But it worked out, because both the players are basically new and were interested in hearing some strategy stuff))

Other New Note! - I tried the suggestion of removing the stabilized shields and putting in more vents, and it made a Huge difference!  The medusa gained a very large amount of flux dissipation capability!  Very cool.  So the new good Medusa layout would be:
Medusa Class Destroyer
Hardened Shields, Front Shield Emitter, Extended Shields, Safety Overrides
1 single Harpoon MRM (basically so you have a weapon to select so your ship can auto-fire the weapon group you do not have selected)
2 Heavy Blasters
Spare points in vents

Thats it =D   I chose the harpoon single because it only costs 1 point, but you could easily put on a single mining laser or something if you wanted too.  But later skills which reduce costs of weapons will take those harpoon singles to 0 point cost to mount, which makes them a good freebie.  Also flux dissipation and letting your weapons autofire is very key to making this build work, so I pick something that costs 1 point and generates no flux.  (basically i'm an autofire guy for the most part, I let the computer target and fire at stuff, and the only way I know of to do that is by selecting another weapon)
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 11:07:49 PM by zenstrata »
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Dri

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #10 on: December 14, 2015, 06:05:06 PM »

I honestly just chill in Corvus for a good long while hunting pirates, looking at Jangala and Asharu for easy, profitable missions and hoping for some named bounties to spawn in Corvus. Jangala and Asharu both usually sell supplies at a reasonable price and Jangala has decent priced fuel.

So long as you don't fight right near the two Barads, you can transponder off and dock with them for access to even more goodies to buy and sell. Very early on for me one of the Barads had a massive demand for fuel and I ended up making a good 30-40k just running fuel from Jangala to Barad (do bear in mind you'll lose rep with Hege but with transponder off it'll only be like 1-2 points and thats really easy to make up early game).

Don't go into hyperspace too early! It can be really dangerous and it costs fuel and even supplies if you get caught in a storm.

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Euphytose

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #11 on: December 14, 2015, 09:15:00 PM »

First off, choosing to play as a bounty hunter is a lot easier than trading.

Pick bounty hunter, starting money, and then play on normal, you will find easy to be way too easy and boring quickly.

The Wolf frigate is incredibly good. Try to kill the small pirate fleets with it, it's not that hard. Your first objective is to buy another Wolf frigate. From then on, you can take out every pirate fleet you encounter near Corvus at the beginning. If possible, outfit the second one with graviton beam and 3 tactical lasers, it's a great support ship.

Then you can make easy money by buying a small crew transport ship like http://starsector.wikia.com/wiki/Mudskipper and buying marines in the 0 stability markets at about 200 currency per marine, which is absolutely nothing, and then selling them back in normal systems at 900 currency per unit.

And then just buy bigger ships.

Try and look for "Steady" officers.
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icepick37

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #12 on: December 14, 2015, 10:01:17 PM »

It's a little gamey, but if you want to juice up your fleet immediately, go to the abandoned station in corvus and ditch ALL your stuff. Take out that crap shuttle and fly around a bit until you die, then you respawn (hopefully with wolf #2  ;p  and go back for your original stuff. You can do this several times if you want, but it starts to suck the fun out of things after that first death. (when I say you can do this multiple times I mean you have to buy your own crap shuttle to keep doing it, just so I am clear)

You can do the same tactic without exploiting the suicide restart by just banking your cash in ship hulls or weapons you like. This way you run around with little cash. You can afford to take risks since you'll come back basically as you were, but with a fresh wallet of money and whatever you banked in the abandoned station and relations you have built up.

I actually had a runthrough where I must have died ten times taking risks. Finally something paid off and I upgraded to a destroyer.

Now I can usually leverage a good start without dying too much.

The other thing to remember is try and be sneaky when you can. Dying to pirates sucks and so does running away, so avoid them if you can.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2015, 10:04:12 PM by icepick37 »
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Achataeon

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #13 on: December 14, 2015, 11:28:26 PM »

Skill also goes a long way (when in combat). You'd want to be decent with a frigate, especially in the early game. You can practice in the refit simulation to get your bearings right. It's also good to be conservative in combat. Getting wrecked simply because you were too aggressive is pretty freakin' aggravating.

Essentially this means that you should:
  • Engage combat in the greatest possible distance. It's better for you to slowly wind up the enemy's hard flux then going in for the kill. When their flux levels are high, (about 80% of their capacity) close in and wreak havoc. (especially with high explosives)
  • Keep your flux as low as possible. VENT. You'd want your vent times to be less than the amount of time for Harpoons to reach you.
  • Know your priorities. It's usually good to destroy armor-less ships first, then move on to the shielded ones. Being in a fast frigate would come a long way in helping you with this.

After some time playing Starsector, the skill in playing just comes. It's just a shame the learning curve is a tad too steep (read: you might as well scale a mountain side)
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Euphytose

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Re: Can't get started with this game as it seems steep - what am I missing!
« Reply #14 on: December 15, 2015, 12:17:57 AM »

One way to solve the learning curve would be to create a starting system, that once left, cannot be rejoined. A tutorial zone of some sort with easier enemies.
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