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[RustyCabbage]

First off, love the new ships and the new weapons, both art- and design-wise. In particular, four large missile slots and Fast Missile Racks on the Pegasus gave me a laugh - truly nothing is off the table.

with the availability of drone-missiles reducing the value of additional missile weapons a bit, this should leave the ship with more viable and varied loadouts.

minor quibble with this: the marginal value of missile weapons increases the more missiles you have - it compounds. :p
Still, it seems like it'll be interesting to see, although I'd like to see more than one ship class with the Energy Bolt Coherer to feel a little less gimmicky (then again Monitor uniquely has Flux Shunt, so it's probably not an issue)

Surprisingly, I have to say that design-wise the ships I view most positively are actually the Venture skins. They seem like genuinely curious and interesting sidegrades. Four medium ballistics with the Venture's respectable (as far as low tech goes) flux profile, plus a large medium missile seems like a lot of fun. And the LP version having a mobility system definitely feels unique (if only we had medium Hammers!), and in any case medium missiles for Luddic Path fleets are a welcome addition.

Alas, the reveal of the Lion's Guard skins are resultingly a little disappointing. I understand and honestly quite like the lore/thematic reasons behind it (amusingly, I was reading some twitter threads about very similar issues popping up in current events when the blog post dropped), but as with the 4000 skeleton crew for the Invictus last blog post, it feels like the sort of thing that's cool and reasonable in-lore but annoying/disappointing gameplay-wise. Pretty & unique ships shouldn't be strictly worse than their standard counterparts (something, something aesthetics/resonance matters). Making them a slight, reparable downgrade as you mentioned considering in some of the later posts is okay, I suppose (better than the blog post version, certainly), but I'd much prefer unique side-grades than flavorfully bad with an option to pay to be average if better at a cost isn't an option. XIV ships already are more or less direct upgrades (maybe Falcon as a possible exception) from their base hulls and it hasn't felt like it meaningfully diminished the originals.

Some dumb ideas I thought of off the top of my head, as examples:
- Different systems like the LP Cerberus/Brawler
- Give Solar Shielding a downgrade (maybe shuffle over something from Special Modifications, even), so that it being built-in for free isn't an issue
- The above, but also make Solar Shielding non-modular. Diktat engineers invented the hullmod; if it stayed in-house it wouldn't be too out of place I don't think.

(also very minor aside: can Special Modifications have a more unique/flavorful name, like Andrada's Modifications, or something? Just thinking about how it'll sound a little plain compared to say, admittedly whackier modded hullmod names, plus there's not really a good shorthand for it that doesn't conflict with "s-mods", etc...)

I don't hate the new direction of the Diktat as described, but I do think it'll feel disappointing without new story additions involving them carrying a lot of weight (which I am nonetheless optimistic about).

[THEASD]

Just kinda feeling weird about the name "Apex"
I mean, the other remnant ships' name concern about "light" or something "shiny", but Apex seems not that bright?

[Embolism]

Just kinda feeling weird about the name "Apex"
I mean, the other remnant ships' name concern about "light" or something "shiny", but Apex seems not that bright?

I thought this as well. Feels weird to break the light theme.

[Rain]

I also never quite caught on to the depths of the dictatorial madness of the SD and Andrada in particular, but after reading up here okay, I get it and I can dig it. Anyone trying to raise the problems with his attempts at defining military doctrine being decried as traitors and sent to disappear long before he even has a chance to hear about the complainer incident(s) works for me. Less "Supreme Executor, someone raised issues with your proposed improvements yesterday and we told them to shut up." and more "Supreme Executor, we neutralized three more traitors in engineering yesterday."

As for the meat of the content upcoming, flying big miserably vulnerable capital ships without a mobility system makes me want to die so I'm not being caught dead in a Pegasus, but I'm curious to try it out for my AI buddies, and as a connoisseur of high tech space magic I'm definitely interested in pewpew-missiles as well as stealing some Gigacannons. I never really got into many scuffles with the SD as is, particularly for being such a convenient central fuel depot (I guess that's Andrada's leverage depicted in game mechanics?), but as has been noted, there may be a lot of sudden fleet disappearances to unidentified, suspicious third parties...

[Grievous69]

Now that I've thoroughly read the post again, I can continue the feedback. First when I read everything, for some reason I thought only the Gigacannon is locked behind killing Executor speficially in Lion's Guard fleets but it seems Kinetic blaster is the same. You're telling me the only kinetic energy weapon is not available anywhere, and I must precisely kill a capital and hope to RNG that it drops? That's extremely disappointing. At least the smaller ships can have it, like Eagles and Falcons. I doubt weapon dealers in bars will ever give you those but that's my last hope.

Also super random thought, I expected we would get new fighters, either human ones or Remnant.

I'm not that upset about Sindrians like others, but I understand where they're coming from. ESPECIALLY since XIV variant ships contradict the very quote from Alex where he said even slight upgrades would make players more inclined to acquire those ships. Well XIV would still be comparatively better than free Solar Shielding but ok. I'm sure you can think of something to make it look less like "shiny looking pirates". Give them half the OP of the hullmod, Special modifications can have a single upside, along those 3-4 downsides, albeit small ones. I honestly don't care too much but if they're only good for killing and looting their weapons, there's not much thought process when playing. Give their ships something not completely ass and the player would actually have to decide if recovery would be worth it. I'm sure all of us here want varied gameplay and interesting decision making.

Executor being a literal recolor with 2 different mounts is very peculiar to me. We got a plethora of new ships, some factions got TWO, and then here's a faction having a single capital, one that looks exactly like the original. Doesn't matter that it's a minor faction, it still seems weird to an average player. Not a big deal since we're getting a bunch of content, just mentioning the incoming feedback this would probably get.

Lots of folks saying Nova is a Retribution in high tech form when to me it's literally an upsized Brilliant, now that it's changed. Of course I don't see that as a bad thing or anything, I'm all for varied enemy fleets. But I'm much much more interested in Apex (agree with others on the naming, I propose "Twinkle"), it has 2 cool things going for it and having another Remnant cruiser is super beneficial for Automated ships, since I'm not a huge fan of adding 10 or so frigates for spam.

You know what's the biggest bummer in the whole blog post? God danged Ventures... Pirates finally got a cool cruiser to fight and now we get another brick that takes a bajillion years to penetrate. The variants are cool and got me interested, but I'm honestly not looking forward to fight a boulder with guns that has duct taped adamantium plates all over itself. I'm probably overreacting btw.

Can we know the DP values of new ships? Ones that you're open to talk about of course.

P.S. Sorry for the negativity, I absolutely love everything else I haven't mentioned here so if I included that, this post would probably hit the character limit (if there is one).

[GrandLabyrinth]

I notice the Derelicts don't have anything new, not even a different kind of drone cruiser. Any particular reason, or is it because their identity is already solid enough as it is? (I mean, shieldless, extremely rugged, mass-produced drones is pretty unique to begin with, but it was a thought that occurred.)

[Amoebka]

Extremely upset over Diktat ships being inferior recolors. They look cooler than base midline, which makes me want to use them, but they are just bad instead.

Derelict probes could certainly use some of that newfound remnant love. A proper destroyer to bridge the 6-15 dp gap would be nice.

I'm going to buy the biggest stack of kinetic blasters the moment I see them on the market, btw.

[Grievous69]

I'm going to buy the biggest stack of kinetic blasters the moment I see them on the market, btw.

Unfortunately that seems impossible since both Kinetic blasters and Gigacannons only appear in Lion's guard fleets thaf have an Executor. And then you have to get lucky so the weapons actually drop after battle.

[Amoebka]

Really? I thought the blog implied TT has access to those also?

[Igncom1]

It'll be fun praying on the Lion's Guard for their technology while avoiding the tactically competent and experienced officers of the regular Diktat navy! 

And I think Solar Shielding is a fine enough upgrade! Not too flashy and keeps them safe at home. The penalties to their ships is no big deal really to me. Perhaps if the SS didn't take away the max OP pool of the ships as they have the special modifications penalty instead? It's all in the numbers I suppose.

[flanker37t]

Extremely happy with the described changes, new weapons and ships - thank you, Alex and David!

The Diktat though... Gonna chime in and say that I strongly dislike the "straight downgrade" idea.

I gave the blogpost a thought and finally found the part that didn't work for me: the Supreme Executioner didn't order to "install plates". He order to "install plates to improve crew survivability". And it would make sense for him to ask later: "how much did the plates installed on my behalf improve crew survivability?"

So yeah, i think the D-mod should have all the current negatives, BUT at least somewhat improved crew survivability.

Also, I really like the idea of removable solar shielding.

[Draba]

My nitpick about dictat LG ships is that gameplay-wise they add very little, wouldn't take much effort to make them different(and IMO interesting) with the same theme.
Change some mounts to hybrid, change S missiles to ballistics, add an extra M, whatever mixes it up a bit.
Also make the downside substantial enough for them to be overall worse-ish/sillier than standard variants if that's the goal.
Mixing up slots keeps lore fluff the same, but also adds some gameplay content for players like me who are only interested in that.

[Amoebka]

Yes, minor slot changes can add a lot of interesting decisions in loadout designs, as Shrike demonstrates.

I also find the "intentionally bad" excuse strange and inconsistent. We just had a bunch of pirate ships buffed to make them balanced instead of "intentionally bad", and now the same issue is introduced for a different faction?

Each new ship sprite is VRAM my potate has to load, it better provide some meaningful gameplay.

[Delta_of_Isaire]

This is going to be the best Starsector update ever. Release when?


Alex after introducing DEM missiles for PL: "Between all these, we have a missile lineup that covers all the bases."

Me: But what about anti-fighter?

Alex: "[IR Autolance] wipes out most fighters easily."

Me: That... that makes a lot of sense actually.

Overall I'm pretty excited about the Persean League. They make Midline feel special in a way it wasn't before. I can see two wrinkles though:

> Energy-damage missiles (looking at Gorgon, but also Hydra) are not finishers - they are openers. It's either free hard-flux on the enemies' shields, or a gash in their armor, particularly with how PD-resistant these missiles are.

> There are relatively few Midline ships with Medium Missile mounts to fire Gazers and stuff. There's Conquest, Gryphon, and... Vigilance? At least it's cool that the Vigilance is useful now. But there's a niche here for, say, an Elite Midline Destroyer with medium missile capability.

We'll have to see how this pans out in practice.


The Sindrian Diktat ship skins are a bold move, but I'm with you on this one. It is good for lore, and cosmetic-only ship skins already exist so nothing new there. Aside from D-mod (that can be repaired with cash, so whatever) and the forced Solar Shielding. Well, I put Solar shielding on 100% of my ships anyways, so having it forcibly build-in doesn't look like a downside to me.

As for "base hull is bad": It kind of already feels that way to me because of XIV variants. Their only downside (aside from acquisition) is speed, but for all XIV ships besides *sometimes* Falcon the speed drop feels insignificant. I mean, I would never even consider using baseline Onslaught or Enforcer, for example.



The Remnant Nova Battlecruiser genuinely frightens me. It has a high potential to suddenly kill one of your ships if you aren't super-careful with orders. Same applies to a lesser extent with Plasma Burn Brilliant. Given how expensive and reload-inducing ship losses are, there's some rage-inducing potential here. If only the default ship AI was a little better at positioning and timely retreats...

Regarding Fulgent: it has the same speed as Hammerhead but generally lower weapon range. That implies a heavy reliance on dual Sabot pods for the Fulgent to achieve anything. Fulgent is also comparable to Sunder, trading a large energy mount for better shields. That's a mixed bag trade. From a long-range energy beam perspective 3x Gravitons + HEF is ostensibly good, but the Sunder can top that by trading one Graviton for a Tachyon Lance. So we could pessimistically say the Fulgent can't brawl as well as a Hammerhead and can't do beam support as well as a Sunder. More optimistically, we might say the Fulgent is the perfect use-case for the Energy Bolt Coherer.

[Amoebka]

XIV skins being (mostly) upgrades is also an instance of questionable design, but at least they follow the expected "more expensive/rare = better" logic. Diktat skins are both more expensive (over double the price because of the restoration), more rare, AND they are worse than base ones.

You will sometimes use base Enforcers because you haven't found enough orange ones yet, but you will literally never use purple Hammerheads.