Thanks all for the feedback and questions!
Here's a couple of early-morning answers for you.
Is the Scarab start next?
Haha, sadly no, and I've had a few people ask me the same thing in the Discord.
The reason is simple: I'm trying to keep the selection of start ships limited to fairly balanced choices. Okay, in the previous version of the game you could pick up the Scarab at the expense of reputation with the Tri-Tachyon, but it's still an insanely powerful ship, and I'm trying to avoid that.
It's also not a good ship for beginner players - it's incredibly hard to use well without some practise - and I'm also aiming to limit the selections to beginner-friendly vessels. Also, for the early game I don't want to give the player ships with massive logistical profiles (high maintenance costs). That's no fun. (It's the same reason I refused to add the Hyperion or any of the Phase ships as starters.)
Versant Beginning i would love
If I was working with Tartiflette and I knew how to make the option come up only when DA was installed, I'd be only too happy to give you the option! As it is, the selection is limited to vanilla ships.
How did you decide to put a Tempest as one of the starting options?
Possibly hypocritically with the above limitations, I wanted to include the Tempest for two reasons:
- It's an exciting ship that I've rarely flown and I feel it's one that is sometimes overlooked in campaign gameplay
- It's the most high-tech ship I would consider letting the player start with, and manages to keep the interesting but balanced start that something like the Hyperion or Scarab wouldn't allow.
The Tempest's key issue (to me at least) is that its shear speed can make it difficult to pilot with maximum effect, so the option to pick it is aimed at a more experienced player. Nontheless, its operation in combat is fairly low-brow, and I feel can be picked up relatively quickly. It's powerful weapons package is also balanced by a slightly higher maintenance cost than other options (6 supplies per month).
On the whole I'm trying to create a selection of ships that (unlike in the previous version of Starsector) are all mutually agreeable. There should be no option that the player sees as better than all the others, and similarly no option that the player would never pick. The point is to make your early-game scenario more varied without making it easier or harder in a huge way.