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

Author Topic: Questions before I buy  (Read 5496 times)

Sooner535

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Questions before I buy
« on: July 22, 2017, 02:38:57 PM »

Hello, I have just watched 2 videos of this game and have a few questions if I may (I spent about 30 minutes for joining the forums looking for answers, so I figured I would just ask) thanks in advance for any responses.

1. Will you be able to create your own faction and take over the universe?
2. Is space combat slow or fast (I have a real problem with modern space games, seems capital ships go down in a few seconds, if this is how the game is then is there anyway to change it via settings?)?
3. How big can your personal fleet be? Also can you have multiple fleets?

That is really it for now, cannot think of anything else at the moment. Again thanks in advance for any responses.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2017, 02:43:59 PM by Sooner535 »
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2017, 02:46:05 PM »

1. No idea, what we've got on to go by is what's on the front page.

2. Ships with a lot of armor and health, like capitals, tend to require quite the beating to destroy.  Combat is generally a bit slower when fleets are small, but gets a bit quicker as more ships are added because combined firepower can overwhelm shields much easier instead of the 1v1s normally seen with smaller fleet engagements.
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SapphireSage

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2017, 03:19:04 PM »

1. As of this current moment, this is only possible with a mod(Nexrelin) to the game and I am unsure if this will be a feature to be included in the base game at some point in the future. If you don't mind modding your game you would need to follow some steps on the thread links given in order to mod your game.
     Mod descriptions:
          http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11462.0
     Steps required to mod SS:
          http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=8726.0

2. Space combat pace varies depending on the stage of the game is in. Early game when you are only dealing with frigates/destroyers I would say is a bit faster pace due to the ships having less flux available for defense/offense and having much more speed and acceleration while mid/late game with cruisers and caps becomes much more slower paced and methodical battles due to the overall tankiness and firepower that some capital/cruiser ships can offer along with more officers with potentially defense/offense based skills being added into the mix.

If you don't mind having to dig through a text file to change a setting, there is a file called "settings.JSON" in the starsector directory under ".\starsector-core\data\config\".
The setting labeled "combatSpeedMult" that will make everything in combat either faster or slower.

3. Currently the max fleet size is 30 ships, though you won't be able to deploy them all at once in combat aside from an edge case. Otherwise the limit can be changed in the above noted text file under the name "maxShipsInFleet".

There is no way to have multiple fleets and I do not know if that feature will ever exist.
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Sonlirain

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #3 on: July 22, 2017, 03:25:10 PM »

1. Not in right now aside of mods. The inclusion of planetside operations and player owned industry hints that owning your own faction (or a subfaction of a larger faction) is planned which means multiple fleets will likely be in as well... in due time.

2. Ships from destroyer class and up are pretty durable but it varies with skills and how overwhelmed the ship gets so a duel between a Mule and Lasher will take quite some time but a mule accosted by a swarm of fighters that overloaded its flux capacitor with kinetic guns while 2 wings of daggers are approaching to get the kill then the fight will end in a hurry and the mules hull will likely break into several pieces.

3. 30 ships, as for multiple fleets... see point #1.
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Megas

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #4 on: July 22, 2017, 03:47:54 PM »

Combat is slow paced now because the enemy AI is as cowardly as a turtle player in a fighting game.  Before 0.8, skills were stronger and AI was more brave, and combat had a nice fast arcade-like pace.  Today, it is about as fun as trying to flush out a turtle or camper.

Overall combat speed, in terms of how fast ships and missiles move, is agonizingly slow (for me) at normal speed.  It is possible to speed up (or slow down) the game by changing a settings file.  (I set speed to double.  Would set it higher, but there may be problems.)  Other games are faster and feature toggles to speed up the game.

However, ships are fairly sturdy now (and skills are weaker than they were), it is hard for many ships to punch above their weight.  Currently in 0.8, carriers are more powerful than other ships, but few non-carriers are useful to defend carriers.  Carriers are wizards, and non-carriers are warriors.  Also, non-carriers can be given a flight deck to become a less efficient carrier - a magic knight.

There are time limits in battle.  Before 0.8.x, you would only see them if you tried to solo everything.  Now you see them frequently due to cowardly AI trying to outmaneuver and swarm the other side.

Maybe in the next major release, game balance can shift drastically like it had for previous releases.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2017, 04:07:18 PM »

1 Currently it is only possible in mods. However, it seems that Outposts shall be the next big annual update so we could be getting alot of 4X stuff next update. Or at least the start of it
2 Ships are much more hardy than they were before. And even then, most Caps last much longer than what they do in other games
3 30 ships is the max but fighters don't count.
Take note that the suggested Settings.json file has a TON of stuff that can help customize your game to your liking!
Also: Alex releases LARGE updates about every 12 or so months. These updates are more like free expansion packs. So the game develops slowly but it is WELLLLLL worth it!
« Last Edit: July 22, 2017, 04:42:43 PM by Midnight Kitsune »
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FooF

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2017, 05:02:24 PM »

#1 - Already been answered multiple times so I won't say anything more.

#2 - This is still an arcade-shooter, not a simulation. Capitals, are dozens of times as durable as the smaller frigates but all but a few will go down to concentrated fire in tens of seconds. We're not talking 10-minute long slugfests. With the right armaments, even the hardiest of battleships can fall relatively quickly. That being said, with some of the player skills/perks and having a small supporting fleet, a single battleship can easily outlast and out-duel even medium-sized fleets. Capital ships, in general, are meant to overpower, not outlast via defense, other ships.

I think the game is still plenty fast. It's slower than it was but prior versions had ships blowing up like pinatas because of how overpowered the player was. Once large fleets start clashing, the battlefield is pretty dynamic and chaotic. It's not a top-down shooter with bullet-hell elements but it's not EVE, either.

#3 -30 ships (of any size) with a bunch of fighters if you have carriers. I rarely max my fleet out by end-game because it becomes prohibitively expensive to maintain so many ships. But, it is theoretically possible to bring 30 battleships to a fight: you'll only get to deploy 2-3 at a time though.
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Squish Cat

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2017, 06:14:22 PM »

Everyone else has pretty much covered your questions, but I still strongly go by the ethos of "Seeing is believing."  So allow me to link you a video of the current on going (at the time of this post) AI tournament that should show you roughly how long the bigger ships can last in battle.

Normally you can control a ship and issue orders to your fleet, but this isn't a multiplayer game.  So what the players have done here in this video is set up a system where they submit loadout designs and they're pitted against each other fully under the control of the AI.  Since every other ship in your fleet is controlled by the same AI anyway, its still pretty fun to watch tournaments of these fights.  This fight consists of frigates, destroyers, and cruisers.  No battleships though, but the battleships are much more durable than the cruisers are for comparison's sake.  As you can see, the cruisers are pretty beast as it is, and even though destroyers are getting pummeled by cruisers, they can still take a decent amount of punishment.  Frigates are kinda fragile though, but their main benefit is their speed, not the durability.  Frigates can easily wolf pack larger ships and kill them, though.  Size progression is Frigate -> Destroyer -> Cruiser -> Battleship.  Light carriers are equivalent to Destroyers, Carriers are equivalent to Cruisers, and Supercarriers/Battlecarriers are obviously equivalent to Battleships.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keTMaaedtQs&list=PLi9_tXwdXOli9tHl6klcIBF1UvKjkr8dy&index=18

Fighter swarms are also really awesome.   :D
« Last Edit: July 22, 2017, 06:35:26 PM by Squish Cat »
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Sooner535

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #8 on: July 22, 2017, 07:58:52 PM »

Thanks a ton for the answers everyone, will be looking at the video :). Idc how long an update takes personally (wether it be 2 years or 2 days) and never really doubted the devs commitment to the game (as I scanned the updates list and it seems he is super invested in it) so 1 year patches are a-okay with me.
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Althaea

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #9 on: July 23, 2017, 03:58:18 AM »

One thing to add: while combat is slow in general now, ships can still die really, really quickly if caught in a bad place. Play the tutorials to see how shields and flux works in action. Be very careful to make sure you don't go over your capacity and overload, because missiles can kill anything pretty quickly if it's not properly protected.

In addition to the combat tutorials, make sure to play the campaign tutorial as well (offered upon starting a new game). You end up in a much better position that way.
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Megas

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #10 on: July 23, 2017, 06:54:42 AM »

Given the history of the game, it is about a year, give or take a month or two, between the last hotfix or minor update of the current release and the next major release, then about month or two for hotfixes or minor updates of the major release.
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AN7AG0NIS7

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Re: Questions before I buy
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2017, 01:37:48 AM »

I bought the game about 2 weeks ago. I can't say for others but it was the best $15 I ever spent..
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