Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mvp7]

I'm a new player to Starsector and have now played about 100 hours of normal-difficulty campaign without mods. I learned about Starsector from Sseth's review although I'm pretty sure I have seen the game mentioned years ago but completely forgot about it until now.

First of all, I'd like to congratulate the devs for making such an excellent game. Rarely have I seen games of this scope with such thought through and consistent design that avoids both oversimplifying and needless bloating. I'm especially impressed by the countless pitfalls of similar games that Starsector avoids with innovative solutions and great balancing. Here are just few of the things I really like:

In strategic layer the economy and trade have enough complexity to keep the world lively and to give it depth, while not going overboard with detail which would make it harder to grasp. The rules of supply, demand, tariffs, black market and trade missions make the trading very enjoyable, dynamic and impactful. Very few games of this kind have ever enticed me to bother with trading or to learn about the overall economy of the world but Starsector succeeds in that by offering constantly changing opportunities for great profit and actually discourages monotonous grind on established trade routes.

At the same time the world is still predictable enough and I know that Askonia is a good place to sell metals, transplutonics and volatiles and to buy supplies while various Luddic Path and Pirate planets/stations are often great places to get more crew and for large amounts of cheap fuel there's no place like Nachiketa (as long as you don't eradicate the pirates who are the main reason for the oversupply).

The combat and ship equipping is similarly masterful concoction. Balancing with the ordnance point costs, maintenance/deployment cost, flux stats, shield stats, armour stats, hull mods and damage types makes the ship designing incredibly varied with countless viable possibilities and approaches for setting up both individual ships and the fleets. This variety elevates the very solid combat to whole another level and I think it's safe to say this is some of the best tactical space combat in any game.

I really enjoy the overall speed of progression in the game as well. It's not too fast so that it would take the player to endgame too fast but it's also not so slow and meticulous that it would become boring long before the endgame. For comparison, these both were major issues to me in Mount & Blade: Building a top tier military force and getting the best gear was pretty fast but going from there to building a kingdom or getting into position of power in some faction took several times that much time. I could never be bothered to play so long that I would have anything more than a village under my control. There never seemed to be a next interesting milestone waiting in the near future.

In Starsector these were never an issue, just when I was happy with my fleet composition I would be ready to mix it all up as I would be ready to advance from inner system mercenary work to exploration and long range bounties to building and expanding my colonies.

In my campaign I first ended up building a cheap mercenary fleet, made of affordable and damaged destroyers and frigates, range and utility was of little importance compared to best bang for the buck as I was purely operating in the inner systems.

When the money started pouring in my fleet slowly evolved into more focused and flexible fleet with cargo and fuel ships hosting sensors and surveying equipment. Being able to pick my fights and supply/fuel efficiency became extremely important so I maintained a burn level of 9 and insulated engines whenever necessary at the cost of combat performance.

After exploring the galaxy had made me incredibly rich, I colonized a good star system and soon after salvaged several XIV Legions I had found earlier (but left untouched because using them in my exploration fleet at the time was not viable). As the colonies grew and monthly expenses turned into monthly profits, the economy became less important factor so my fleet evolved into slower and far more maintenance heavy battle force that no longer really needed to be particularly stealthy or run from almost any threat in known space. I would still use that heavy fleet for exploration and long-distance military strikes because I now had the economical backing necessary for such expensive operations.

Through the campaign, the question was never what is the biggest and most expensive ship or best weapon that I could find and buy, but rather what served me best in the current situations and what I could actually afford to use. This gives the game so much more depth than just having to get the next better thing without any downsides to consider.

Looks like this is turning into really long post so I'm breaking it to multiple parts...

[mvp7]

PIRATES

The thing I would most like to see in the game is overhaul of pirates with way more interaction options (I know it's been discussed but here you go anyway):

Currently the "Pirates" in the game feel more like religious fanatics than the Luddic Path. They engage in a tireless total war with all the factions, pouring insane amounts of ships into seemingly hopeless invasions that last until the pirates are killed to last man.

What I would expect from nonaligned pirates is small groups hanging around in hyperspace and disorganized star systems where the authorities have been bribed and/or threatened into ignoring them as long as they don't get too close to the important areas.

Receiving a reasonable toll for safe passage should be their first goal and seizure of cargo the second if they are not paid, with battle being something to avoid as it is expensive and needlessly dangerous. Importantly, paying the toll or handing over part of the cargo should be real options for the player, not just pseudo options that turn even the most lucrative trading mission into complete loss. Player should also be able to demand similar tolls from other fleets (including pirate fleets).

I would only really want the pirates to use large amounts of ships to suppress the law enforcement in systems where they are taking over, or to protect their safe havens. Massive military operations with seemingly no other goal than destruction should be a big no-no for pirates.

Paying the "toll" to pirates should also allow (relatively) safe passage to pirate stations and it could replace the tariffs and the open market that don't really make much sense when dealing with pirates. Either you pay the toll to roaming patrols and deal on the inherently black market, or you sneak in and deal on the very same black market. A pirate stations operating in lucrative area should grow and offer increasingly large business opportunities, both trade and other missions.

Pirate activity should generally be a local threat, with the pirate settled nearby the systems they are affecting, rather than their fleets travelling dozens of light years (sometimes straight through the inner systems) to reach their selected victim.

In general, I think both the pirates and independents would greatly benefit from further decentralization. Pirates should be fighting each other over territory (like the independent scavenger fleets sometimes do) and the reaction of pirates and independents to the player should depend more on the players recent actions in the local star system rather than by relations to "Pirate" and "Independent" factions as if they were some uniform entities (The same goes for Persean League to a lesser extent). The clear division between Pirates and Independents is also a bit artificial although understandable for mechanical reasons.

[mvp7]

FACTION INTERACTIONS

Another major area of the game I would most want to see developed further is the end-game colony management loop and especially player faction's interaction with other factions. Enhancing the endgame is probably on the to-do list but here are some of my suggestions anyway:

Rather than simply sending expeditions, there should be other ways for major factions to harass the growing player faction. They could demand that player pays part of the profits as taxes/tariffs/tithe or demand that player limits his production of certain goods. If player does not cooperate the faction could first hire pirates to target the player or stop trading in some materials that the player needs. Paying part of the colony profits to another faction should be viable option for a player who cannot yet defend the colony.

Expeditions should be much rarer but more damaging. Rather than being (often grievously undersized) direct attacks on player system, they should focus on disturbing trade fleets or maybe even target less defended player colonies to disrupt in-faction trade and supply. A direct attack on player worlds should be the result of major degradation of relations between the factions, not a minor tantrum over diminishing market shares.

Speaking of limiting exports, it would be great if manufacturing was a bit more varied and adjustable. Ores, organics and food are very varied thanks to the planetary modifiers but if you look at the global (galactic?) production of refining, light industry and heavy industry there's no real variety, it's just the same planets in the same orders with the same relative markets shares for metals/transplutonics, supplies/weapons/machinery/ships and goods/luxuries. There should be more variables to mix the productions up a bit.

Focus of the industries could be changeable. Maybe heavy industry could stop making weapons and produce more machinery and supplies instead. Maybe light industry could focus more on luxury goods or produce a small amount of supplies at the cost of other goods productions. This kind of options would mix the market a bit more when applied to AI factions and they could play nicely with the expanded faction interactions.

Interaction with Pirates and Luddic Path could also be made less predictable and repetitive. Player should be able to offer bounties on systems and stations to attract mercenaries. The player could pay the local pirates to leave the system alone, to defend the system from other pirates/threats, or to target some other system instead. Player could also openly or discreetly send his own fleets to disrupt trade in other star systems to manipulate the market. Player could pay off the Luddic Path but at the same time make it more powerful in the long run.

I think that's all I'm going to write for now. Thanks for making this great game! I'm impatiently looking forward to the future updates!

[Alex]

Hi, and welcome to the forum! Thank you for your feedback; read through it just now. Happy you've been enjoying the game

As far as pirates, factions/expeditions, and the endgame - yeah, as you surmised, there's still a lot of work to do on the endgame. Pirates and expeditions are kind of the main thing that's there now, so their role is expanded to fill the available space, if that makes sense. I think both would benefit from there being more endgame content, which would allow these to be scaled back and become part of a varied set of challenges rather than the main thing you deal with past a certain point.

That's not to say they wouldn't be adjusted in other ways, too. As to the specifics - I'd like for the endgame stuff to be more filled in before deciding exactly how to fine-tune this. Some of your suggestions could certainly work; it'd just be more clear what the best way to go is once the endgame picture is more clear. (E.G. I have some fairly vague plans about pirates in the endgame, but...)

[mvp7]

Thanks for the reply! I have no doubt the end-game will turn out great.

Here are couple smaller subjects I also meant to write about yesterday:


Jumping to stars

It took me embarrassingly long time to realize that I don't need to jump into a star to enter a system. Seems like I'm not the only one who makes this mistake as Spiffing Brit was doing it every time in his video as well.

I think this is something that should be specifically mentioned in the tutorial as it's not obvious to new player. It would also be convenient for older players if setting a star system as destination on starmap did not direct the fleet into the star but one of the jump points instead.


Ion cannons on fighters

I find ion cannons of fighters insanely overpowered combo. Especially Thunder class fighter is in my experience the single most overpowered craft in the entire game.

They have great range, great speed, decent initial survivability, incredible long term survivability, only one pilot, incredible set of weapons that makes them effective against any opponent from a fighter to capital, and the ludicrously low cost of just 8 ordnance points.

Their missiles and mobility make up for the lack or shields and armour when fighting other fighters, after they survive the initial approach against any larger ship (where their speed helps more than any shields or armour could) it's only a matter a seconds before they start knocking out weapons and engines, effectively stun-locking their opponent indefinitely with most of their weapons and engines down with no chance of recovery or reprisal.

You don't even need to use these fighters in massive numbers for them to be effective. Initially I only had two wings of Thunders on one Drover (another insanely powerful ship) but even that was enough to turn pretty much any fight around.

I would take on ion cannon on fighter over torpedoes or other heavy hitting weapons any time and Thunder puts that ion cannon into cheap and convenient package that turns even the toughest fight into target practice. In my opinion, only expensive single ship fighter squadrons should have ion cannons.

There are also some wider balance issues with carriers and fighters/bombers but I imagine that's something that will be re-balanced in near future anyway so I'm not writing more about that here.

Keep up the great work !

[Alex]

It would also be convenient for older players if setting a star system as destination on starmap did not direct the fleet into the star but one of the jump points instead.

Actually in the dev build already!

Ion cannons on fighters

I do agree they're strong, but the Drover is extremely overpowered as it is, so I think any perception based on using it is going to be skewed. I think ion cannon fighters also tend to fall off a bit when there are more ships on the field - they tend to be fragile, and stun-locking an enemy both means less and results in a lot more fighter losses when they have some other ships backing them up.

(And, yeah, carriers/fighters in general are a bit much right now; I think the upcoming skill changes will rein them in to a better place - not necessarily nerfing them directly, but reducing the effectiveness of massing them...)

[Megas]

I agree with Alex that EMP fighters are not that overwhelming.  Thunders are fragile, and I would not want to rely on them alone.  After Ion Cannon became high delay for Claws, they are only good for EMP.  They do too little damage to kill anything significant before the carrier's peak performance expires or ticks down too much.  Xyphos is chained to the carrier, good only for brawlers like Odyssey.

[mvp7]

It might be partly due to the overall state of fighters/carriers but I only ever used one Drover with Thunders in my 30 ship fleet and they still were the main player in every battle they took part in.

Later I just equipped two XIV Legions (commanded by carrier captains) with Thunders in all 4 slots. With even just one carrier deployed, I don't remember the last time I had to fight a Capital that wasn't disarmed and engines down from the moment it had to drop shields for the first time. Every fighter/bomber other than Thunder in my fleet has been purely a variety token and I have never had more than two Thunder equipped carriers and three carriers total in my fleet to not make the fights too easy. I think that's pretty moderate level of carrier use in the current patch.

The decent armour and hull together with the incredible speed of the Thunder let's them directly approach even Onslaughts protected by heavy anti-fighter weaponry and fighter support. After some of the thunders get past the initial flak those anti-fighter weapons start dropping fast. Swarm missiles, dual machine guns and Ion blasts together with the incredibly maneuverability help Thunders deal with any fighters they face and soon the capital is floating toothless without engines. Of course the Thunders never attack ships completely alone, it's always part of a larger engagement and there the 360 EMP-saturation does the most damage.

I did extensive testing with various fighters and bombers when equipping my Legions and the Thunders were far more effective than any other fighter or bomber in the game against every target. Every craft that had top speed under 300 was pretty much useless, typically dying before getting in range. Missile and torpedo bombers rarely managed to hit even the shields of their targets but they were almost invariably wiped out on every approach. Some faster fighter type ships could get close to the enemy at first but they would be quickly destroyed by point-defense weapons and have little practical impact on the operating of the capital ship.

I find it hard to believe that I'm the only one who has found Thunders this overpowered. In my campaign they have had consistently superior performance and massive tactical impact in every battle with no other fighter/bomber coming even close to comparable effect. I'm not even speaking about smaller ships here which the thunders catch, stun-lock and destroy with casual ease anywhere on the map with negligible travel time. At very least 8 ordnance points is way too low cost. I would probably use them even if they cost 16 ordnance points.

[Alex]

Hmm. I'll make a note to have another look at Thunders; this is really the first time that I can recall they're coming up as being that OP. They're supposed to generally be in the "anti-smaller-ship" category, in terms of combat performance - and also very long range support, so they can be focused on a target more easily.

(Giving it a quick try now - unskilled Legion w/ 4 Thunders vs an Onslaught - they seem to get swatted aside while disabling one or two weapons...)

[mvp7]

Hmm. I'll make a note to have another look at Thunders; this is really the first time that I can recall they're coming up as being that OP. They're supposed to generally be in the "anti-smaller-ship" category, in terms of combat performance - and also very long range support, so they can be focused on a target more easily.

(Giving it a quick try now - unskilled Legion w/ 4 Thunders vs an Onslaught - they seem to get swatted aside while disabling one or two weapons...)

For me, in 1-vs-1 no-commanders between XIV Legion and Onslaught about 5-7 out of 8 Thunders make it through the initial burst of flak and disable about as many weapons which further extends their survivability, reduces the DPS of the Onslaught a fair bit and lets the Legion gain an advantage. A new swarm of Thunders is ready around the same time the Onslaught's last weapons get back online.

The Onslaught will be stuck in high state of flux while the Legion gets a breather during every swarm. After few swarms the high flux will force the Onslaught to Drop shields, limit weapons fire and then the Thunders will really start taking out weapons and engines while the Legions pounds the Onslaught's with little resistance.

Compare this to pretty much any bomber, which require far more OP and should technically be fairly effective vs capitals. They will rarely manage to even generate hard flux thanks to the point defense while getting wiped out in fraction of the time the Thunders survive. Any other fighters might make it through the initial burst, make meaningless amount of hull damage and nothing else while getting quickly wiped out by the unhindered enemy flak.

I attached a picture of my Legion XIV build that I test on autopilot against the first simulator Onslaught.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[mvp7]

Just now I ran the simulation 5 times. Legion wins every time. There were couple close calls, couple clear wins and once it wiped out the Onslaught without even taking armour damage thanks to lucky EMP. In my opinion the Thunders' contribution is imperative.

My fleet is currently not in a port where I could test with other fighters/bombers but based on my earlier testing the odds get substantially worse for the Legion with any other fighter/bomber.

[mvp7]

Here's a picture of typical state of Onslaught after the second or third assault by the Thunders.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[mvp7]

Here's the typical swan song of the Onslaught. In a state of high hard flux it can't prevent the Thunders from disabling most of it's weapons. For some reason the onslaught AI also often drops its shields for a moment just as the Thunders approach it which lets them hit its front facing weapons even more than one would expect. The disabled weapons help Legion win the hard-flux race while the Onslaught is forced to keep its shields online most of the time.  If the Onslaught dares vent during the battle is will usually not have any working weapons left when its finished venting.

It's also worth noting that Legion takes most of the damage as both AIs start the battle by Burn Driving right next to each other. The Onslaught's rocket pods provoke the Legion to vent where it gets most of the damage. For the rest of the battle the Legion just drives the high-flux Onslaught back, rarely going in with burn drive and using its Hammer torpedoes which would end the battle even faster.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Alex]

Hmm, yeah, the Thunder is pretty good in that situation. The Longbow seems to do fairly well, too.

The thing to remember, though, is this is a 1-1. If the Onslaught has any escorts, those Thunders will get shredded while swarming around it - in a 1-1, they are relatively safe once past the initial approach, but that wouldn't hold up.

The simulator Onslaught is also extremely heavy on PD, so it makes sense that it has an easier time countering missile-based bombers, since it's basically built to counter them. If it had some better anti-fighter weapons mounted, it would have a much easier time against the Thunders - even as-is, the tipping point to where they don't do much doesn't feel far off.

And, finally, in a fleet situation, various higher-damage bombers will have more value in being able to quickly eliminate a vulnerable target; something the Thunder really just can't do vs anything other than a frigate, and even that can take a bit.

So: yeah, great in this specific situation! But I don't think that makes it overpowered, it's just a good situation for it.

[TaLaR]

One thing about simulator is that AI always commits same mistake of over-using mobility systems at very start. Using Burn Drive to meet Thunders with shields down doesn't help at all.