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[Arakasi]

The Problem
I've played through Starsector vanilla a few times up until I have explored the whole available sector and the game no longer has any challenges left. During the early/mid-game there is a very real sense of danger - getting intercepted by a larger fleet can have real implications in terms of damaging all that you've worked to achieve. You can lose progress, and this makes the game interesting and suspenseful, having this risk/reward. However, this all changes once you start a colony. I understand that changes have been made to the economy in the most recent patch to power down the advantage colonies bring - but I do not think it is enough. As it stands - the worst consequence you seem to be able to incur as a colony-owner is to have it be raided and temporarily cost more than it gains. This is little more than a time penalty in most scenarios. Once a colony can start to support your fleet costs, there doesn't seem to be much more left than to explore the universe, or make more money if you need to for colony upgrades. It is at this point that the game seems to lose a sense of danger - ships are replaceable, and there's little to no chance of losing so much money that you'll be in a bad situation.

Possible Solutions
In many ways this issue reminds me of playing Mount and Blade Warband. In the early game you have a 'fleet' that can be easily crushed by larger entities, you have to work hard to maintain them by doing things to earn money. In the mid-game you can start to acquire fiefdoms which you have to protect for them to produce you a small amount of income, perhaps just enough to maintain your 'fleet', but at the same time you also need to be doing other things to generate additional income or influence over lords, which creates an interesting tension. In the mid-late-game you get larger fiefdoms which need to be actively defended by a garrison of your own troops otherwise you can completely lose them, however these generate such advantage that you start to get a more permanent economic foothold and can more easily recover from defeat. It is only in the true late-game where it seems as though you have accrued enough advantage to never lose. The issue with Starsector, it seems to me, is that at no point in the mid-late game can you actually lose the advantage you have gained in the way you can in Mount and Blade. Battles feel meaningless when there is next to no consequence to rebuilding. I don't know if something more akin to Mount and Blade's system of actual conquering is better, but I think that some risk akin to this needs to be put in place.

[vorpal+5]

Use the Nexerelin mod then, where colonies can be conquered. This whole thing should be part of vanilla though.

Also to maintain tension, late game big invasion for the final showdown. Until you get to it, you never know if you are strong enough. Simple really! 

[TrashMan]

Mount & Blade is a great inspiration, because it makes the world feel so much alive. You have lords plotting, fighting. Your reputation matters, you can call in favors, lords can defect to your side or betray you.

[Arakasi]

Mount & Blade is a great inspiration, because it makes the world feel so much alive. You have lords plotting, fighting. Your reputation matters, you can call in favors, lords can defect to your side or betray you.

The odd thing is that there seems to be a lot of the back-end systems in place to make this sort of thing happen - you can get reputation with particular captains, you have reputation with factions, etc. It just doesn't seem to matter when there's little to no consequences for those systems. I mean, the game's obviously not done yet, so I don't know what is planned for these systems in the future, but at the moment they have little function by comparison.

[Megas]

With the colony limits, I do not see how player can conquer much of the sector short of sticking alpha core administrators in all of the extra colonies, only for the invincible pop-up Luddic Path tear it all to the ground.  At least Hegemony inspections could theoretically be stopped by destroying all of their worlds.  On the other hand, I except alpha worlds to eventually secede from your empire, but they do not.  They just want to be loved like a jealous and murderous girlfriend or yandere.

I am most annoyed with the constant babysitting and core's inability to defend themselves from piracy (and Pathers).  Right now, I consider babysitting mitigation skills more valuable than combat skill, even though I really want the combat skills.

Babysitting mitigation skills are all of the colony skills, so you do not need to rely on cores and attract more creeps like Pathers.  Also Navigation due to constant traveling to play space cop for core.

So far, I do not want to colonize far fringe worlds due to excessive traveling from there to core to play space cop or babysitter.

[Arakasi]

With the colony limits, I do not see how player can conquer much of the sector short of sticking alpha core administrators in all of the extra colonies, only for the invincible pop-up Luddic Path tear it all to the ground.  At least Hegemony inspections could theoretically be stopped by destroying all of their worlds.  On the other hand, I except alpha worlds to eventually secede from your empire, but they do not.  They just want to be loved like a jealous and murderous girlfriend or yandere.

I am most annoyed with the constant babysitting and core's inability to defend themselves from piracy (and Pathers).  Right now, I consider babysitting mitigation skills more valuable than combat skill, even though I really want the combat skills.

Babysitting mitigation skills are all of the colony skills, so you do not need to rely on cores and attract more creeps like Pathers.  Also Navigation due to constant traveling to play space cop for core.

So far, I do not want to colonize far fringe worlds due to excessive traveling from there to core to play space cop or babysitter.

I'm not familiar with how other players play Starsector, so I'll explain how I tend to play - since I tend to fall into taking the path of least resistance. I do quests or other tasks up until I have the utility to do any amount of exploration, then I systematically start exploring the sector. This more often than not yeilds enough loot to make a living off of - even without selling blueprints for things I haven't yet learned, and even without selling Synchotron Cores / Alpha cores / Pristine Nanoforges. When I find a good class 5 planet with a low hazard rating, even when it's pretty far away from the core worlds, I'll settle it, and it pretty quickly starts making me money, at which point I've basically eliminated all economic risk to my exploration. Once I've built a few defensive utilities it doesn't even require babysitting. The only thing to do from there is construct a Starforge and then I've eliminated all risk to my ships being destroyed - also, and due to the amount of exploration I do, this also vastly overpowers my colony's ability to defend itself given I tend to acquire rare and powerful ship blueprints early-on.

So to answer your response I'd say that I've never felt the need to 'conquer' the sector, given the threats other factions tend to pose to me are minimal if any once I've built a few defenses. Hegemony inspections are easily paid off, but even if they weren't their expeditions are not a threat, and I've never had an issue paying them if I want to remain in their good graces, given how much money I get from colonies, even in this patch. It is feasible that what this means for the balance of the game is that accessibility penalties need to be increased in some manner and that's the issue that's causing me to jump ahead easily - but this assumes that settling closer to the core worlds is more dangerous, and it might be, but I wouldn't know.

[Megas]

I would destroy the sector just to make them stop sending their expeditions at me, and to stop chasing pirates to save their cowardly hides.  Of course, that only takes care of majors, not pirates that go after me.  Pathers can be avoided completely if I have enough worlds (from Industry skills) to spread out the aggro industries and do not use cores.

The only way to get an empire (at least as big as all of core worlds) is to abuse alpha cores.  Without cores, player can only comfortably manage seven or eight worlds with all of the colony skills.  Enough for a new faction, but not enough to rule all of core worlds (let alone the whole sector) with an iron fist.  Only way to take over core is to destroy their markets then build new ones.

Hegemony is easily bribed, unless the warning is missed or player forgets about them and they steal cores because default option is to comply.  The worst part of alpha worlds would be the Pathers cells if their sabotage events were not bugged.  Currently, Pathers are bugged so that the worst they do if ignored is permanent -1 stability, because unless stability is 2 or less, sabotage checks always fail.

After playing many versions were I reloaded games due to losing rare ships and items, I like being able to build as much as I want, although that does not happen until close to endgame.  What is missing is being able to do more strategic things than simply build-up several colonies to form a new faction or destroy all of core worlds.

What you say about colony building may have been true last release, but with ships and colonies more expensive and slower to build, I need to babysit far longer before I get a strong enough fleet and my planets can repel expeditions.  Also, endgame enemies now use multi-capital fleets, with better attack power to crack defenses, and I cannot be certain my colonies can withstand that until they grow big enough and I acquire Planetary Shield.  Sure, a set of colonies can become self-sufficient like last release, but it takes much longer to get there.  With Growth Incentives massively toned down, growing big colonies take much longer.  Finally, some industries have much higher requirements than last release.  Low hazard Terran with five resources at -1 would have been enough back then, but not today.

Also, even if my colonies can repel expeditions, they now cost rep if they fail, and I need to farm bounties to rebuild rep.  Of course, there is bribing, but expedition alerts are frequent enough (with Free Port on) to consume profits (of about a million credits) from colony income per month once they hit a million per threat, unless I have many colonies through alpha overuse.

As for how I play.  My last game was mostly combat and raiding.  Did some smuggling and exploration on the side, but the main focus was being a pirate (by mostly targeting other pirates) or space cop.  I did more exploration later in the game when I could afford to babysit less.

As for accessibility, yes, there are many ways to boost it.  All it takes to crash that is for multiple factions to formally declare war on you and you will see that plummet.  So far, all they do is send their war fleets at you (under so-called expeditions) instead of at the pirates and pathers that are wrecking their markets.

[Alex]

@Arakasi:

Thank you for your feedback/suggestions! I generally see what you're saying, though it takes a bit after establishing a colony for it to really become a source of income and ships. But, right: the game doesn't have anything I'd call a proper endgame yet, so things are going to go off the rails a bit as you get to that point, that is, once you have a well-developed and defended colony or three.

The odd thing is that there seems to be a lot of the back-end systems in place to make this sort of thing happen - you can get reputation with particular captains, you have reputation with factions, etc. It just doesn't seem to matter when there's little to no consequences for those systems. I mean, the game's obviously not done yet, so I don't know what is planned for these systems in the future, but at the moment they have little function by comparison.

Yeah, I'm not sure what direction that'll go - as you say, there's little function for this right now. Keeping track of the relationship with a specific person isn't exactly a ton of backend work, right? Making that relevant, interesting, useful, and fit together into a cohesive whole is where the work would lie. But I'm not actually sure expanding the game in this direction is a good fit for Starsector.

Mount & Blade is different in that it makes a lot of sense for everything to be lord-centric. That's very thematic for the world it portrays and the lords are a core mechanic, from the ground up. Starsector is ... not like that.

[Arakasi]

@Arakasi:

Thank you for your feedback/suggestions! I generally see what you're saying, though it takes a bit after establishing a colony for it to really become a source of income and ships. But, right: the game doesn't have anything I'd call a proper endgame yet, so things are going to go off the rails a bit as you get to that point, that is, once you have a well-developed and defended colony or three.

Firstly, I'd like to say thanks for responding to my thread, I have already gotten more fun and enjoyment out of your game than any number of other 60 dollar games combined.

As for my responses:
Given how quickly the in-game clock progresses, and the ability to reasonably risk-free things to get lots of money (exploration is easy once you get the hang of it, even in certain places), I've found even just an amount of money to offset my running costs is enough to almost completely remove risk of loss - unless I'm stupid and repeatedly suicide my fleet. Perhaps it is just partly down to the monetary and strategic reward of exploration that I have had an easier time than I should.

The odd thing is that there seems to be a lot of the back-end systems in place to make this sort of thing happen - you can get reputation with particular captains, you have reputation with factions, etc. It just doesn't seem to matter when there's little to no consequences for those systems. I mean, the game's obviously not done yet, so I don't know what is planned for these systems in the future, but at the moment they have little function by comparison.

Yeah, I'm not sure what direction that'll go - as you say, there's little function for this right now. Keeping track of the relationship with a specific person isn't exactly a ton of backend work, right? Making that relevant, interesting, useful, and fit together into a cohesive whole is where the work would lie. But I'm not actually sure expanding the game in this direction is a good fit for Starsector.

Mount & Blade is different in that it makes a lot of sense for everything to be lord-centric. That's very thematic for the world it portrays and the lords are a core mechanic, from the ground up. Starsector is ... not like that.

Right, I very much agree that the exact Mount and Blade system is not the right fit, thematically, nor necessarily mechanically - but I think there are lessons to be taken from it in regards to risk/reward. I do think that the fact that you seem unable to lose planets your colonise takes a lot of any potential risk out of the game, and out of starting a colony. This said - I do not actually know what the war mechanics are like in Starsector as it is, having never incurred that much negative reputation from the other factions. I find that I only rarely incur penalties from factions for my colonies defeating their expeditions, and on occasion I get a blackmarket/contraband penalty, and this is usually offset somewhat for completing incidental quests for them, especially bounties I happen to come across while exploring. I'll have to try incur a faction's wrath at some point just to test the system (which seems odd to say, given I've had time to explore the entire sector in many play-throughs).

What I would perhaps suggest is something like an emphasis on a garrison-like system to complement battlestations, with the ability for factions to invade planets and take ownership of them. I think this might be a better route than the emphasis on mercenaries vs ground defenses at the cost of some temporary downtime on some industries (which is currently just a numbers game). Furthermore, instead of sending expeditions it might be preferable if factions got more jealous and declared wars of invasion based on their particular ideologies, and/or material interests, (say, if the Hegemony caught wind of you abusing AI cores, or you begun producing something that the Persian League covets) since expeditionary fleets tend to be easy to play-around, and aren't very interactive.

[Alex]

Firstly, I'd like to say thanks for responding to my thread, I have already gotten more fun and enjoyment out of your game than any number of other 60 dollar games combined.

Thank you! I'm happy you've been enjoying it.

As for my responses:
Given how quickly the in-game clock progresses, and the ability to reasonably risk-free things to get lots of money (exploration is easy once you get the hang of it, even in certain places), I've found even just an amount of money to offset my running costs is enough to almost completely remove risk of loss - unless I'm stupid and repeatedly suicide my fleet. Perhaps it is just partly down to the monetary and strategic reward of exploration that I have had an easier time than I should.

Hmm. As far as exploration, the game does generally tend to have better rewards require taking more risk (i.e. the warning beacon systems), but perhaps there are enough exceptions to that (say, undefended research stations) that this doesn't come through clearly in gameplay. Does what I'm saying here mesh with your experience, or is it something else?

(It does feel like at a baseline, "doing the easy stuff and not taking many chances" level, exploration should be decently profitable anyway; otherwise the game becomes too inaccessible for newer players as they're learning. Ideally, the more skill/experience you have, the more quickly and effectively you'd be able to explore - bigger risks/challenges, higher rewards. So ideally, it's sort of a dynamic, pick-your-own-difficulty system - I think that's the only way this sort of thing can work.)

Right, I very much agree that the exact Mount and Blade system is not the right fit, thematically, nor necessarily mechanically - but I think there are lessons to be taken from it in regards to risk/reward. I do think that the fact that you seem unable to lose planets your colonise takes a lot of any potential risk out of the game, and out of starting a colony. This said - I do not actually know what the war mechanics are like in Starsector as it is, having never incurred that much negative reputation from the other factions. I find that I only rarely incur penalties from factions for my colonies defeating their expeditions, and on occasion I get a blackmarket/contraband penalty, and this is usually offset somewhat for completing incidental quests for them, especially bounties I happen to come across while exploring. I'll have to try incur a faction's wrath at some point just to test the system (which seems odd to say, given I've had time to explore the entire sector in many play-throughs).

Right. It's actually possible to lose your colonies - either due to destablization from raids, or due to a punitive expedition bombarding the colony. The latter is probably too rare, though, as it requires at least two successful raids by the faction (and the faction being OK with bombarding things) for them to lose all patience and take that action. If you're successful in defending the ongoing expeditions, the "bombard" outcome would never come up.

There aren't any open warfare mechanics, btw (yet? maybe) aside from expeditions. Once more end-game things are in, content-wise, it'll make sense to fine-tune all this more as well.

What I would perhaps suggest is something like an emphasis on a garrison-like system to complement battlestations, with the ability for factions to invade planets and take ownership of them. I think this might be a better route than the emphasis on mercenaries vs ground defenses at the cost of some temporary downtime on some industries (which is currently just a numbers game). Furthermore, instead of sending expeditions it might be preferable if factions got more jealous and declared wars of invasion based on their particular ideologies, and/or material interests, (say, if the Hegemony caught wind of you abusing AI cores, or you begun producing something that the Persian League covets) since expeditionary fleets tend to be easy to play-around, and aren't very interactive.

Yeah, this sounds reasonable; instead of a "bombard" expedition, factions that either don't want to bombard or just want to take over could send invasions as well, with that being a bigger deal. I've got a TODO item to look at invasions as a mechanic, and it could be a good fit for this sort of thing as well. Have to see how it pans out, though!

[Arakasi]

Hmm. As far as exploration, the game does generally tend to have better rewards require taking more risk (i.e. the warning beacon systems), but perhaps there are enough exceptions to that (say, undefended research stations) that this doesn't come through clearly in gameplay. Does what I'm saying here mesh with your experience, or is it something else?

(It does feel like at a baseline, "doing the easy stuff and not taking many chances" level, exploration should be decently profitable anyway; otherwise the game becomes too inaccessible for newer players as they're learning. Ideally, the more skill/experience you have, the more quickly and effectively you'd be able to explore - bigger risks/challenges, higher rewards. So ideally, it's sort of a dynamic, pick-your-own-difficulty system - I think that's the only way this sort of thing can work.)

I think we are largely are on the same page with everything else, so I'll respond to this specifically.
What you are saying does largely mesh with my game experience, yes. This element of risk reward is in large part what has kept me glued to the game. But after I've learned how to abuse the game mechanics somewhat (especially going dark) even when I have a rag-tag low-cost fleet of fuel/storage ships I can rather easily escape from most enemies, and even when I can't do that because I make a mistake, the cost of losing what I have is usually pretty low. Basically put, while the risk/reward is definitely there for warning beacon systems, however the amount of resources I have to invest to explore them and salvage everything is minuscule compared to the rewards. IF you made it so that the rewards were more weighted towards defeating the things in those systems (especially the nexuses thereof) then the investment would have to be just as high. Or, if I had to invest more into a salvage fleet in order to get the better rewards, the same would be true. The Domain make a good example of this, actually, since you often have to engage defenses in order to salvage their tech - although I think they could use being marginally more difficult and have marginally better rewards, given I regularly don't even bother salvaging domain stuff if there is any cost because they usually just give strategic resources.

[intrinsic_parity]

I think it would make a lot of sense if top tier loot like nano forges/synchrotrons/alpha cores (and maybe some rare blueprints) came almost exclusively (and somewhat consistently) from remnant systems, while other loot like resources/blue prints weapons came more from basic exploration. I don't think low risk exploration loot should be the way to get the best stuff. I occasionally sneak into high ping systems before endgame, but I usually leave those almost entirely alone until I have a paragon at least. It really doesn't feel necessary to ever go to them since you can get whatever you want elsewhere. The only thing the remnant systems are really good for is remnant fighters and AI cores. If there was a guaranteed nano forge or synchrotron for defeating the full power remnant nexus and their drop rate was lower elsewhere, I would be a lot more interested in trying to kill it before super late game.

[Alex]

I think we are largely are on the same page with everything else, so I'll respond to this specifically.
What you are saying does largely mesh with my game experience, yes. This element of risk reward is in large part what has kept me glued to the game. But after I've learned how to abuse the game mechanics somewhat (especially going dark) even when I have a rag-tag low-cost fleet of fuel/storage ships I can rather easily escape from most enemies, and even when I can't do that because I make a mistake, the cost of losing what I have is usually pretty low. Basically put, while the risk/reward is definitely there for warning beacon systems, however the amount of resources I have to invest to explore them and salvage everything is minuscule compared to the rewards. IF you made it so that the rewards were more weighted towards defeating the things in those systems (especially the nexuses thereof) then the investment would have to be just as high. Or, if I had to invest more into a salvage fleet in order to get the better rewards, the same would be true. The Domain make a good example of this, actually, since you often have to engage defenses in order to salvage their tech - although I think they could use being marginally more difficult and have marginally better rewards, given I regularly don't even bother salvaging domain stuff if there is any cost because they usually just give strategic resources.

Thank you for elaborating! Hmm. I'd like sneaking around to be a viable way to approach these, so I wouldn't want to lock most of the rewards behind combat. But sneaking is pretty binary, unlike combat where you might sustain losses. And, sneaking is also not something that requires much investment - in fact it's basically better with less investment.

That's definitely food for thought; I wonder if there's an approach to making sneaking something that could be invested a bit more into. I mean, right now you can definitely improve it via hullmods/phase ships, but not really build up or invest in in the same way you would with a combat fleet. Not that you'd really want *that* level of investment, but perhaps more than now. Open to ideas here, btw!

I think it would make a lot of sense if top tier loot like nano forges/synchrotrons/alpha cores (and maybe some rare blueprints) came almost exclusively (and somewhat consistently) from remnant systems, while other loot like resources/blue prints weapons came more from basic exploration. I don't think low risk exploration loot should be the way to get the best stuff. I occasionally sneak into high ping systems before endgame, but I usually leave those almost entirely alone until I have a paragon at least. It really doesn't feel necessary to ever go to them since you can get whatever you want elsewhere. The only thing the remnant systems are really good for is remnant fighters and AI cores. If there was a guaranteed nano forge or synchrotron for defeating the full power remnant nexus and their drop rate was lower elsewhere, I would be a lot more interested in trying to kill it before super late game.

Yep, this makes sense.

I'll also add that I'd like to make synchrontrons/nanoforges more rare and (ideally) instead provide more high-value items that are useful in different ways. (I'm guessing that a lot of the low-investment income from salvaging comes from selling these, which you can do because they're relatively common, where for example high-value blueprints you might hesitate to sell - and so finding them wouldn't catapult you along in the same way. So if there was more hesitation to sell the other high-value items...)

[Arakasi]

Thank you for elaborating! Hmm. I'd like sneaking around to be a viable way to approach these, so I wouldn't want to lock most of the rewards behind combat. But sneaking is pretty binary, unlike combat where you might sustain losses. And, sneaking is also not something that requires much investment - in fact it's basically better with less investment.

That's definitely food for thought; I wonder if there's an approach to making sneaking something that could be invested a bit more into. I mean, right now you can definitely improve it via hullmods/phase ships, but not really build up or invest in in the same way you would with a combat fleet. Not that you'd really want *that* level of investment, but perhaps more than now. Open to ideas here, btw!

What I would recommend is making salvage and/or sneak gameplay require more investment for better rewards. There's a number of ways I think you could do this.

1. This is obviously difficult, since I can see you don't want to lock opportunities to get rare items behind having a salvage rig or two - but doing so might just be one of the better ways to make players invest. If you didn't want to make it so that the player is incapable of getting those rewards later on, you could have a system whereby you can only salvage part of, say, a research station, and you could return to it later if you got a couple of salvage rigs to finish the job and get the better rewards.

2. An alternate way to at least nerf sneak-salvage is to make salvaging take in-game time, and possibly even have it increase your detection range. This would make the patrols significantly more dangerous - although this could probably still be mitigated by luring them away from their patrol paths and then circling back (patrols in warning beacon systems are somewhat weak to sustained burn). This could also tie into the above suggestion somewhat, if salvage rigs reduced the amount of time it took in-game to salvage something then there would be an incentive to invest in them to reduce your vulnerability.

3. Another option, and this is reminiscent of the tug ship, is to nerf the radius of going dark on the whole, and then introduce a high-tech signal-dampening ship that can help reduce the detection radius of your fleet, at the cost of having it be expensive to buy/run. This could be pretty cool, especially for the impact it could have on smuggling gameplay also.

[TrashMan]

Yeah, I'm not sure what direction that'll go - as you say, there's little function for this right now. Keeping track of the relationship with a specific person isn't exactly a ton of backend work, right? Making that relevant, interesting, useful, and fit together into a cohesive whole is where the work would lie. But I'm not actually sure expanding the game in this direction is a good fit for Starsector.

Mount & Blade is different in that it makes a lot of sense for everything to be lord-centric. That's very thematic for the world it portrays and the lords are a core mechanic, from the ground up. Starsector is ... not like that.

I would argue that it's not that different.
After all, power lies in those with power and fleet admirals have the most power - enough that they can form their own empires (Lion of Sindaria). And given the state of the sector, a feudal-like structure seems pretty plausible.
You got pirate fleet and warlords, and a system that tracks reputation. Everything that's needed for a working politicking system.
All it requires is permanent (or semi-permanent) high admirals and the AI/interaction between them and the player. That said, that is a lot of work to make.