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[Megas]

The Pirates and the Pathers never stop harassing your colonies either. You can sat bomb every other faction into oblivion and pirate / pather bases will still spawn and harass you. AI inspections are just another kind of raid. I don't see what's so particularly worse about them.

Pather cells can be avoided, so that leaves pirates.  I have read that pirates do not raid if you are not hostile with them, but I have not checked.  You can still get pirate activity.

Warcrimes themselves are not the point, player's freedom to do as they wish (and reap the consequences) in a sandbox game is. Although it must be noted that it's the only way currently to get Hegemony and other competitors off your back permanently, which is also a factor. They never take the hint (= dozens and dozens of destroyed fleets) otherwise.

This is the main reason why I want to sat bomb them - to get them off my back.  Also, consequences of betrayal after I have protected their worlds for the umpteenth time from pirate raids because their systems have terrible defenses.

Now, I would like to sat bomb their worlds if I want to colonize and rule the entire sector if I want to travel the evil overlord path.  But if not, I do want my faction to lash out if I had enough of the core worlds' antics if all I wanted is to live comfortably in a new nation I built in the middle of nowhere.

[landryraccoon]

Pather cells can be avoided the same way AI inspections can be. Just don't use any AI cores. The Hegemony inspections have no effect in that case.

If you're using a ton of Alpha cores I don't think it's possible to avoid Pather activity even if you sat bomb every Pather colony.

Here's my hot take : Evil players already get literally *all the goodies* in this game. It's the peaceful traders that are totally screwed.

Peaceful traders: Pay tarriffs, low profitability, try to be friends with factions, nobody rewards you anyway.

Evil warlords: Do warcrimes, never pay taxes, traffic in drugs and human organs, starve colonies to make extra profits on food,  commit literal genocide all the time, get mega rich.

Maybe Alex can throw a bone to the players that want to roleplay being a nice guy once in a while? If I wanted to know all about a *** place where evil wins, I'd just read the news or look out the window.

[Megas]

Pather cells can be avoided the same way AI inspections can be. Just don't use any AI cores. The Hegemony inspections have no effect in that case.

It is not just Alpha Cores that raise interest, but also anything else that raises interest high enough (+7).

Most colony items give +4 interest, but Hypershunt Tap and maybe one other item gives +8.

Mining (+1), Refinery (+2), Orbital Works with nanoforge (+4 from item) chain on the same world will get a Pather cell.

Tech Mining can give a lot of interest if the ruins are big enough.  (Argeus in Arcadia has Pather cell problems because of their Tech Mining.)

But... Pather cells only appear on worlds that are size 4 or bigger.  If player wants lots of worlds with AI cores, yet avoid Pather cells, do not let them grow beyond size 3.

[m]

Here's my hot take : Evil players already get literally *all the goodies* in this game. It's the peaceful traders that are totally screwed.
...
Maybe Alex can throw a bone to the players that want to roleplay being a nice guy once in a while?

This is actually something I agree with. I have never considered satbombing the entire freaking Sector's military off the map until the last patch made bribes require story points, making them an unfeasible long-term option. The only way to coexist somewhat peacefully with the sector now is to defang it first. It's a chore either way, tbh.

[Supereor]

Here's my hot take : Evil players already get literally *all the goodies* in this game. It's the peaceful traders that are totally screwed.

Peaceful traders: Pay tarriffs, low profitability, try to be friends with factions, nobody rewards you anyway.

Evil warlords: Do warcrimes, never pay taxes, traffic in drugs and human organs, starve colonies to make extra profits on food,  commit literal genocide all the time, get mega rich.

Maybe Alex can throw a bone to the players that want to roleplay being a nice guy once in a while? If I wanted to know all about a *** place where evil wins, I'd just read the news or look out the window.

The issue here is, the world of Starsector is canonically and intentionally depressing, desolate, and morally abrupt.  I think it is actually by design that players who wish to be peaceful have a worse time, because with the state of the Sector, it's just genuinely harder and not as rewarding.  If this is intentional, complaining about this would get you into a discussion of whether or not games should represent their own narratives through their gameplay.  Maybe it feels lazy from a design standpoint and it feels like Alex just genuinely isn't putting in as much effort to allow "good" players to have fun as well, but I'm fairly certain that avoiding being a bad person is just supposed to be harder.

In terms of what you said before about why players want to be able to commit warcrimes so badly like this; no matter how you cut it, as other people have pointed out in this thread, there's serious narrative and gameplay issues here regardless.  My issue here is simply the game saying "nuh-uh-uh, not right now, you have to do this first."  Talking about the horrible narrative implications of bombing Chicomoztoc feels pointless because it ultimately isn't why the game prevents you from doing that in the first place; it's literally only to prevent players from softlocking themselves.  Once again, you can still satbomb Chicomoztoc as much as you want after the main quest is over, the issue is just that it limits the player's freedom and agency in a sandbox game where that's the entire point to begin with.  Yes, narratively, repeatedly nuking the most populated world among several other worlds is a terrible, terrible thing to do; but nobody is saying that it isn't, including the game itself.  There is a reason why multiple factions become instantly vengeful towards you when you satbomb any planet.  The issue is that it feels like there's a better way to go about this than just telling the player "no, not right now."

[Salter]

The issue here is, the world of Starsector is canonically and intentionally depressing, desolate, and morally abrupt.

I dont know, that credit number going up and flashy explosions in the star war gives the brain the feel good juice.

Jokes aside I wouldnt think about it too hard. Sure its probably frowned upon to sell drugs and guns to terrorists and pirates, but what are you gonna do about it when everyone else is doing it. Might as well get in on the action while its good.