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[filthycasual]

i do the main menu tutorials. i do a scavenger (for RP, i guess) normal start with the tutorial cause i figure even if i'm somewhat of an experienced strategy/4x whatever gamer, i dont know the game that well so the tutorial should hold my hand a bit and leave me in a decent position to play the actual game

i start in the galatia system and start doing basic missions for the local ancyra hegemony station.. survey, sneak a signal to an operative in a local pirate base, etc. loot all the free debris fields of course. next i have to destroy a pirate fleet guarding a fringe jump point, and since the tutorial knows I only have 2 starting ships it makes a derelict ship field for me to get ships from to take out the pirates. So i do the logical thing (since i dont know how much enemy i will face, and more is better) and try to recover as many ships as I can. Oops. I run out of supplies before I even get to the jump point. Reload save. Extensive googling about which of the ship classes are "worth it" so i recover just a couple and salvage the rest for supplies, fuel, etc.

Even then, i realize just heading out to the mission target will drain a bunch of my supplies. I go back to the station and used the bulk of my credits from the previous missions to buy more supplies (and crew for my new ships). I defeat the enemy fleet. I make the mistake of attempting to recover several of the pirate ships (as promoted to me, a new player). All supplies gone, game over. Oops. Reload. Defeat enemy fleet again, this time salvage all available pirate wrecks for supplies. Return to station for reward. Spend a bunch more credits on supplies, because i have to repair my ships from the previous battle and now have no more supplies. Informed that I now can attack all the other pirate fleets in the system for bounty credits.

So i figure the gameplay loop is "kill pirate fleets to get more supplies so you buy/loot more supplies and survive a bit longer". ok. but my remaining fleet isn't strong enough to take on the other pirate ships in the system, especially since I've now had to straight up scrap my more damaged ships due to the precocious supply drain . Decide to try leaving the system and trying my luck somewhere else in the galaxy - this requires reloading another save of course from where i was still at the station, as wasting a trip out to something where you wont get more supplies means you run out of supplies and its game over again. travel to the above mentioned jump point, have to defeat another small pirate fleet that spawned there. appear in hyperspace. All missions promising me credits for something 'easy' like surveying or salvage are extremely far away. Moving anywhere costs me more supplies, and possibly makes me take damage, which means more supplies gone. What am i missing here?

[intrinsic_parity]

As you discovered, recovering ships is frequently not worth it, especially pirate ships. Usually in the tutorial, I would only recover 2-3 ships (the hammerhead and maybe one or two others). With a few exceptions, most pirate ships are very weak, and not worth the supplies and fuel to lug them around IMO. I generally don't recover much from the pirate fleet guarding the jump point either. Definitely don't recover any ventures, they're way too slow for early game IMO.

In general you can't really grow your fleet beyond your means, you need to make money first and then add ships once you can support them. I also think it's better to focus on having fewer but better ships rather than lots of mediocre ships. Trying to get ships and make loadouts that will not take damage or die is a big part of the learning curve for the game. If you are taking lots of damage fighting the smallest pirate fleets, you might need to improve your ship loadouts. In general you should avoid fights where you would take lots of damage or losses.

Also, you should be burning like 1-2 supplies per day at most with a small fleet. Usually I am <1 supply per day for quite a while in the early game. Maybe check and see if any of your ships have d-mods that increase supply or fuel consumption. If so, get rid of those ships immediately, they are not worth using.

You also don't need pretty much any ships to do scan derelict missions. You can literally do them in a solo dram. You can put ships in the abandoned station in corvus if you want to keep them but not lug them around.

Also, just another note, you can mothball ships after you recover them which will set their CR to zero and but also makes them cost 0 supplies in upkeep so that you can transport them somewhere to repair them without paying upkeep on them on the way.

Another tip is that burn speed is very important. Going faster means you can avoid fights you don't want, and it also means you spend less supplies since it takes less time to travel. You should be able to hit 9-10 burn in early game. Don't drop to 8 burn until you are ready to fight cruisers. Also pay attention for d-mods that drop the ships burn, those can really hurt if you don't notice. I also recommend taking the navigation skill for +1 burn.

There are also skills that reduce supply and fuel consumption in the industry tree, so aiming for those might help. They aren't necessary but they probably make the learning curve a lot smoother.

[filthycasual]

thanks. i dont think 5 ships would be enough to win that jump point fight easily, i know git gud but if youre not = more damage = more supply cost after. i had a few more ships and after scrapping a few after that fight i have 6 - wayfarer, wolf frigate, hammerhead, cerberus, couple of shepard drone tenders and a mudskipper (figured good for salvage/cargo). if i spend all my money i will be able to repair their damage with about 40 supplies to spare and about -1 or -2 supply drain per day, but the fleet isnt enough to win against the pirate fleets in system that outnumber me

and where do i get scan derelict missions? the missions on the intel screens are bounties. and they are in other systems, which means going into hyperspace for which i do not have enough supplies to go anywhere

[vok3]

Mothball.  Mothball, mothball, mothball.

In your fleet, keep as active and actively repaired the ships you intend to use.  If you don't know if you want to use a ship you've recovered, mothball it immediately.  You can always stick it in storage and decide later.  If you are running short on supplies and have mothballed ships in your fleet, you can scuttle them for additional supplies to tide you over.  Or strip the weapons off and THEN scuttle it for supplies.

Also, a bit of a trick in the tutorial you may not have noticed:

When you get told about the pirate fleet guarding the jump point, and told to go salvage the derelicts to have enough to fight them - do that, but mothball all the derelicts immediately as soon as you get them.  Then you fly back to the planet, report in, and ALL THOSE DERELICTS GET FIXED UP TO FULL FOR FREE.

That saves you a LOT of supplies.  Doing that, you can salvage ALL the derelicts at that planet and have a nice little fleet for the fight and plenty of supplies in reserve.

(You might be short a story point or two if you want to get every single ship.  There's ways of gaining a little extra XP in the tutorial to get those extra story points - you get one SP every quarter-level - but it's not critical.)

[intrinsic_parity]

IIRC the tutorial gives you some supplies/weapons/crew in storage to outfit the ships you recover, did you take those? I remember there was a bug where they would not appear if the ships were mothballed, but I thought that got fixed.

Also, you can split the fleets at the jump point and fight them one at a time. You should also generally fight pirate fleets one at a time for the system bounty. If you can't do that, you probably need to look at your sensor profile. If it is bad (sensor profile >> sensor strength), enemy fleets will see you before you see them and gang up on you. In particular, check if you have militarized subsystems on your civilian ships. If not they have massively worsened sensor profiles. You can also use insulated engine assemblies on them if you have at least 5 other ships with better sensor strength (since that will only reduce profile and not increase sensor range, and sensor stats are based only on top 5 ships).

Also, 40 supplies should be worth like 4000 credits (100 credits per unit of supplies). The lowest tier of fleet bounties is like 50k credits for tiny fleets of like just a few frigates and maybe a destroyer (which should be doable for the started fleet you described). I think most system bounties are like ~1000 credits per frigate. It should not be that difficult to pull a profit in supplies doing those.

Scan missions pop up in the intel screen in the same place as survey missions, it's possible there were just none available when you checked. They do require traveling outside the core.

[300Stalker]

My general advice is to get some Shepard ships in order to make scavenging more beneficial for you ( I take about 3 of them). As for getting started and beating pirates, my advice it to get some good ships that can take on 2 or 1 destroyers, carries or cruiser (My advice is Tempest, wolf and lasher if you are good with last one) Tempest is bit pricy frigate but its perfect once you set 2 pulse lasers or lances on that thing.

Then after that just go out and search for research stations and other usefull stuff (Like small remnant fleets). I started doing that at like level 4 and it got me best things to keep rolling foward.

Like the sweet, sweet, SWEET PD assault conversiton mod that now made my Lasher essencialy an Orks dakka dakka dakka ship that tears even destroyers.

[Draba]

thanks. i dont think 5 ships would be enough to win that jump point fight easily, i know git gud but if youre not = more damage = more supply cost after. i had a few more ships and after scrapping a few after that fight i have 6 - wayfarer, wolf frigate, hammerhead, cerberus, couple of shepard drone tenders and a mudskipper (figured good for salvage/cargo). if i spend all my money i will be able to repair their damage with about 40 supplies to spare and about -1 or -2 supply drain per day, but the fleet isnt enough to win against the pirate fleets in system that outnumber me

and where do i get scan derelict missions? the missions on the intel screens are bounties. and they are in other systems, which means going into hyperspace for which i do not have enough supplies to go anywhere

Most of it was already mentioned, quick list:

• Use a small fleet to start out, something like 3-5 frigates. If you get some early destroyers look for: Hammerhead, Sunder and Shrike. All should be relatively easy to get, especially pirate shrike
• Keep your eye on burn level and sensor profile, 9-10 base burn and the sensor skill make it easy to pick good system bounty fights
• Once you can pick your fights system bounties are a good way to get started. Mostly Hound/Cerberus fleets are a safe bet, and give you a feel for combat

If you want to do scan/exploration missions a single ship is all you need, or a fuel/cargo hauler pair.

Yep, starting our in Starsector is a bit of "sink or swim", the tutorial does lead you into what I also think is a dead end.
Focus on getting fewer better ships, and good officers for them ASAP. Those can punch well above their weight without taking significant damage, and run away/hide from anything threatening.

[SafariJohn]

My Logistics Notifications utility mod (just updated!) can help with tracking supplies. It shows how many days you have left until you run out.

Really wish vanilla would show days of supply left instead of supplies/day. The latter is so misleading.

[Delta_of_Isaire]

Your experience is a good example of how unforgiving the learning curve of Starsector can be.

And specifically regarding supplies, it is easy to paint yourself into a corner where you have no good options left. Starsector has a lot of gotcha's like that, situations that lead to game-over unless the player is specifically avoiding them. No amount of general-purpose advice is going to prevent new players from hitting these situations and having to reload saves a lot, or even restarting the game.

As a point of comparison: if you know what you're doing and have good skill outfitting and piloting your flagship, you can end the tutorial with >200k credits banked, enough to buy yourself any starting fleet you like and start doing whatever you want.