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[RustyCabbage]

I had the... fortune? of getting this video recommended to me by Youtube and thought I'd check it out.


It's very long, and a generally less rosy appraisal of Starsector than I'm used to seeing, so it was pretty interesting to watch. In my opinion a lot of the criticisms were from either a refusal to engage in game mechanics (loadout design, ship orders, the tactical screen somewhat), or in the vein of "I was expecting x instead of y and I think it should be x so the fact that it's y is bad", but I think there were a few good takeaways throughout it all:

- there should probably be a help pop-up for approaching coronas. I know there's the UI cues and sorta sound cue, but it seems new players often miss the cues and take significant CR damage as a result.
- some sort of autopause system when dangerous enemies are detected so you aren't jump-scared by enemies you can't dodge (a la SafariJohn's Hostile Intercept mod)
- danger stars in pre-combat dialogue. They're shown when mousing over them during the campaign, but if the player missed that it's difficult for new players to get a sense of how difficult an encounter will be (aside from loose indicators like the amount of difficulty xp being rewarded)
- better language about whether or not you can disengage without combat. It's not really clear that if your burn level is higher than your pursuer's then you can dodge the combat mostly without repercussions.
- there currently isn't really any decision making behind salvaging objects/fleets after interacting with them. There's very little associated danger or much interaction involved, you simply know/remember to press the ability or not. I guess this one is a holdover from when we could salvage multiple times per debris field but I think it could basically just be bundled into the first set of drops
- bump up easy mode by reducing supply and fuel use. It's not very difficult for veteran players, but beginning players could probably use a softer learning curve.
- more clarity on expedition sizes. keywords are provided, but I wonder if it wouldn't be too excessive to provide something like a list of notable ships like is done for bounties. Maybe that messes with the immersion
- kill rewards from commissions are kind of low. Most of the benefit from commissions comes from the passive income and there's actually very little incentive to fight on behalf of the commissioning faction since the rewards per kill are pretty low. I think Sundog's Ruthless Sector mod does a better job of scaling the rewards to incentivize fighting instead of AFKing (which sadly the video creator tended to do a lot of)
- more clarity on advancement of Galatia academy missions. I think there's a nudge to go visit the academy eventually, but it immediately flows into radiant quests from Sebastyen, with little indicator for new players that completing a certain number of those missions will advance into the At The Gates mission. Hence new players might be missing out on some key story elements. I think right from when you start receiving those radiant quests, maybe an intel item could be added to the Story tab on the intel screen indicating there's a goal behind completing the random quests.
- Some sort of mechanism for recovering from total losses, which happens to inexperienced players relatively often. Nexerelin uses ship insurance to recoup some of the value of lost ships, and I think this is a good avenue for introducing an additional mechanic to soften the blow of player losses which are rather asymmetric compared to the infinitely generating challenges created for the player. Probably a significant amount of overhaul involved but it seems fairly reasonable?

Anyways, just random thoughts I had from spending much too much time listening to someone rant about this game

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

I had the... fortune? of getting this video recommended to me by Youtube and thought I'd check it out.


It's very long, and a generally less rosy appraisal of Starsector than I'm used to seeing, so it was pretty interesting to watch. In my opinion a lot of the criticisms were from either a refusal to engage in game mechanics (loadout design, ship orders, the tactical screen somewhat), or in the vein of "I was expecting x instead of y and I think it should be x so the fact that it's y is bad", but I think there were a few good takeaways throughout it all:

- there should probably be a help pop-up for approaching coronas. I know there's the UI cues and sorta sound cue, but it seems new players often miss the cues and take significant CR damage as a result.
- some sort of autopause system when dangerous enemies are detected so you aren't jump-scared by enemies you can't dodge (a la SafariJohn's Hostile Intercept mod)
- danger stars in pre-combat dialogue. They're shown when mousing over them during the campaign, but if the player missed that it's difficult for new players to get a sense of how difficult an encounter will be (aside from loose indicators like the amount of difficulty xp being rewarded)
- better language about whether or not you can disengage without combat. It's not really clear that if your burn level is higher than your pursuer's then you can dodge the combat mostly without repercussions.
- there currently isn't really any decision making behind salvaging objects/fleets after interacting with them. There's very little associated danger or much interaction involved, you simply know/remember to press the ability or not. I guess this one is a holdover from when we could salvage multiple times per debris field but I think it could basically just be bundled into the first set of drops
- bump up easy mode by reducing supply and fuel use. It's not very difficult for veteran players, but beginning players could probably use a softer learning curve.
- more clarity on expedition sizes. keywords are provided, but I wonder if it wouldn't be too excessive to provide something like a list of notable ships like is done for bounties. Maybe that messes with the immersion
- kill rewards from commissions are kind of low. Most of the benefit from commissions comes from the passive income and there's actually very little incentive to fight on behalf of the commissioning faction since the rewards per kill are pretty low. I think Sundog's Ruthless Sector mod does a better job of scaling the rewards to incentivize fighting instead of AFKing (which sadly the video creator tended to do a lot of)
- more clarity on advancement of Galatia academy missions. I think there's a nudge to go visit the academy eventually, but it immediately flows into radiant quests from Sebastyen, with little indicator for new players that completing a certain number of those missions will advance into the At The Gates mission. Hence new players might be missing out on some key story elements. I think right from when you start receiving those radiant quests, maybe an intel item could be added to the Story tab on the intel screen indicating there's a goal behind completing the random quests.
- Some sort of mechanism for recovering from total losses, which happens to inexperienced players relatively often. Nexerelin uses ship insurance to recoup some of the value of lost ships, and I think this is a good avenue for introducing an additional mechanic to soften the blow of player losses which are rather asymmetric compared to the infinitely generating challenges created for the player. Probably a significant amount of overhaul involved but it seems fairly reasonable?

Anyways, just random thoughts I had from spending much too much time listening to someone rant about this game

An error occurred. Please try again later. (Playback ID: eoIEi8MNvkMu1j_s)
Can you post a direct link or the name of the video?

[RustyCabbage]

An error occurred. Please try again later. (Playback ID: eoIEi8MNvkMu1j_s)
Can you post a direct link or the name of the video?

Whoops. Edited. Direct link:

Code

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8_1TAQB18o

[Grievous69]

I'll edit my comment or add another when I /if I watch the whole thing. But what's with Starsector videos where people make multiple hour commentaries, edit your video jeez. In the very beginning he's talking about tank controls and explaining the obvious, all while in a tutorial piloting a single ship. If one is willing to post a 5 hour critique of a game, one can also play that very game a fair bit, he'd definitely know why tank controls are important.

Almost 8 minutes argumenting a single point, god this will be impossible to get through.

EDIT: To any unfortunate soul firing up the video, increase the playback speed, you'll thank me later.

EDIT 2: Bro literally doesn't understand the point of Deployment points and compares it to scam mobile games. This is my problem with "critique" video, 50% of the time the person is so clueless they're making points about something that's clear to anyone who played the game more than a couple of minutes, 40% of the time is spent by ranting about game mechanics because the user clearly expected a different game, and is now "ranting" about things they personally don't like. And then you're left with maybe 10% when something useful is actually said. So I suspect this video will have half an hour worth of valid points and suggestion, while I'll be getting *** off for 4 and 1/2 hours because boo hoo the game doesn't tell me what to do.

Just imagine playing Elden ring for the first time again, and being told what to do, uncovering every little secret the game has to offer, just so the player doesn't feel "lost".

EDIT 3: I REAAAAALLY want an in game pop up that will scream at the player "yo this isn't an RTS, AI is smart, let it be and enjoy the ride while you learn the controls". The amount of players that understand orders aren't orders, yet still act like they're in Command & Conquer is too damn high. The game could be more clear that you aren't meant to slap orders all over the place, unless something really bad is going on or you're trying some specific strat.

EDIT 4: Someone that keeps yapping about game balance, doesn't understand that maybe it's not the smartest idea to deploy your whole fleet versus a small one, randomly clicking on the map and damaging ships, then going "hmmm does the developer even want fights to happen?". And the remark about ship speeds and how going backwards is cheap. Ah yes sure, I'd love another space game where a capital ship goes forward and destroys every single thing with no risk. Frigates would be useless apart from the Monitor. Again, this is something you easily notice by just playing the game, not making an ultra long video essay based on a tutorial.

LAST EDIT: I gave up on 40 minutes. I'm now convinced this is rage bait. Like who makes a 5 hour video about a game, where at the same time they're refusing to learn anything. Maybe there is a good suggestion hidden somewhere in this slog, but I wouldn't even care when 99% of the video is ranting about nothing. Funny how that mobile game comparison looks right now, doesn't it.

[AcaMetis]

For what it's worth:

- there should probably be a help pop-up for approaching coronas. I know there's the UI cues and sorta sound cue, but it seems new players often miss the cues and take significant CR damage as a result.

"Flying into a sun is bad" seems fairly intuitive, that said I think the tutorial has one or two instances where a direct route from location to next destination would send you right over Galatia's star, so that could be a good place to insert a "by the way, auto-navigation doesn't navigate around stars and flying into stars is bad for your ships, so keep that in mind" if one is needed (with maybe a pre-emptive warning about Neutron Stars?).

- danger stars in pre-combat dialogue. They're shown when mousing over them during the campaign, but if the player missed that it's difficult for new players to get a sense of how difficult an encounter will be (aside from loose indicators like the amount of difficulty xp being rewarded)

Maybe also at least a rough breakdown of why the game thinks that a fleet is only 2/5 stars, because I'm assuming there's more subtle things being taken into account than just "big fleet > small fleet". Than again with experienced players taking out max +xp% fleets such information could end up being unintentionally hilarious. Imagine your tactical officer chiming in before each fight, going "we're outmatched, outgunned, outskilled, outnumbered...basically the only out I can't see right now is ours" on a max +xp% fight and the player achieves a clean victory anyway.

- more clarity on advancement of Galatia academy missions. I think there's a nudge to go visit the academy eventually, but it immediately flows into radiant quests from Sebastyen, with little indicator for new players that completing a certain number of those missions will advance into the At The Gates mission. Hence new players might be missing out on some key story elements. I think right from when you start receiving those radiant quests, maybe an intel item could be added to the Story tab on the intel screen indicating there's a goal behind completing the random quests.

I thought when you first meet Provost Braid she mentions that she had plans for you, but wanted to first establish a bond of trust and funnel credits so you could upgrade your fleet to her standards? Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't remember that encounter leaving the impression of "here's some random jobs, but I'll never have anything more for you" at any rate.

[Ruddygreat]

- more clarity on advancement of Galatia academy missions. I think there's a nudge to go visit the academy eventually, but it immediately flows into radiant quests from Sebastyen, with little indicator for new players that completing a certain number of those missions will advance into the At The Gates mission. Hence new players might be missing out on some key story elements. I think right from when you start receiving those radiant quests, maybe an intel item could be added to the Story tab on the intel screen indicating there's a goal behind completing the random quests.

this one sticks out to me in particular because it's really wierd that there's nothing special highlighted about the mission that gets the story started; I've seen loads of people think it was an extra radiant quest and put it off, assuming that the story would start later.

[Grievous69]

I think the game is complex enough so it warrants the use of your head here and there, that having the pop up "don't fly into a star" is imo needless clutter.

But fair point about getting a message when a fight is too hard objectively. It could have some nice fluff text in the fleet dialog section.

[Megas]

Flying into a star should be bad in general, but not all games enforce this.  In some games, stars are harmless and can recharge your ship's power if they have solar items and are close enough.  Stars in another game also absorb gunfire and can be used as a safe zone by parking inside of them.  Also, in Starsector, loot (research station next to neutron star or black hole) and/or quest or other notable objects (especially hypershunt) can spawn very close to the star, and let us not forget that the easiest way to cross pulsar beams is through the neutron star during e-burn.  So sometimes, get too close to stars is useful or required.  Of course, flying near a black hole can get you killed, but doing so is one way to dispose of the planetkiller.

Normal fleet bounties do not pay enough to cover the cost of losing a ship (aside from a small ship in a huge bounty).  I only kill bounties I can totally crush or have an Industry capstone to mitigate d-mods.  Base bounties are terribly low, and I only kill them if they directly threaten my colonies (with Hostile Activity).  Otherwise, they are more useful to me alive.  Contact bounties are more reasonable.

Player should get all the loot from research stations and similar objects in one go.  Fleets, I can understand leaving a pile behind in case a third party killed the fleet, and player picks up the leftovers.

[SCC]

For what it's worth:

- there should probably be a help pop-up for approaching coronas. I know there's the UI cues and sorta sound cue, but it seems new players often miss the cues and take significant CR damage as a result.

"Flying into a sun is bad" seems fairly intuitive, that said I think the tutorial has one or two instances where a direct route from location to next destination would send you right over Galatia's star, so that could be a good place to insert a "by the way, auto-navigation doesn't navigate around stars and flying into stars is bad for your ships, so keep that in mind" if one is needed (with maybe a pre-emptive warning about Neutron Stars?).

This reminds me of the plasma gun in Wh40k Boltgun. I knew about plasma guns overheating both in the lore and on the tabletop, but since the majority of times I dumped the entire magazine into something was when I was fighting something tough and dangerous, I assumed any damage I took was from this enemy or other enemies attacking me. I'm not sure if there's feedback on the plasma gun, but if there is, it can be missed in the heat of the moment.

[BaBosa]

Spoiler

I had the... fortune? of getting this video recommended to me by Youtube and thought I'd check it out.


It's very long, and a generally less rosy appraisal of Starsector than I'm used to seeing, so it was pretty interesting to watch. In my opinion a lot of the criticisms were from either a refusal to engage in game mechanics (loadout design, ship orders, the tactical screen somewhat), or in the vein of "I was expecting x instead of y and I think it should be x so the fact that it's y is bad", but I think there were a few good takeaways throughout it all:

- there should probably be a help pop-up for approaching coronas. I know there's the UI cues and sorta sound cue, but it seems new players often miss the cues and take significant CR damage as a result.
- some sort of autopause system when dangerous enemies are detected so you aren't jump-scared by enemies you can't dodge (a la SafariJohn's Hostile Intercept mod)
- danger stars in pre-combat dialogue. They're shown when mousing over them during the campaign, but if the player missed that it's difficult for new players to get a sense of how difficult an encounter will be (aside from loose indicators like the amount of difficulty xp being rewarded)
- better language about whether or not you can disengage without combat. It's not really clear that if your burn level is higher than your pursuer's then you can dodge the combat mostly without repercussions.
- there currently isn't really any decision making behind salvaging objects/fleets after interacting with them. There's very little associated danger or much interaction involved, you simply know/remember to press the ability or not. I guess this one is a holdover from when we could salvage multiple times per debris field but I think it could basically just be bundled into the first set of drops
- bump up easy mode by reducing supply and fuel use. It's not very difficult for veteran players, but beginning players could probably use a softer learning curve.
- more clarity on expedition sizes. keywords are provided, but I wonder if it wouldn't be too excessive to provide something like a list of notable ships like is done for bounties. Maybe that messes with the immersion
- kill rewards from commissions are kind of low. Most of the benefit from commissions comes from the passive income and there's actually very little incentive to fight on behalf of the commissioning faction since the rewards per kill are pretty low. I think Sundog's Ruthless Sector mod does a better job of scaling the rewards to incentivize fighting instead of AFKing (which sadly the video creator tended to do a lot of)
- more clarity on advancement of Galatia academy missions. I think there's a nudge to go visit the academy eventually, but it immediately flows into radiant quests from Sebastyen, with little indicator for new players that completing a certain number of those missions will advance into the At The Gates mission. Hence new players might be missing out on some key story elements. I think right from when you start receiving those radiant quests, maybe an intel item could be added to the Story tab on the intel screen indicating there's a goal behind completing the random quests.
- Some sort of mechanism for recovering from total losses, which happens to inexperienced players relatively often. Nexerelin uses ship insurance to recoup some of the value of lost ships, and I think this is a good avenue for introducing an additional mechanic to soften the blow of player losses which are rather asymmetric compared to the infinitely generating challenges created for the player. Probably a significant amount of overhaul involved but it seems fairly reasonable?

Anyways, just random thoughts I had from spending much too much time listening to someone rant about this game

[close]

I think a large part of why starsector isn't particularly beginner friendly is that it is still or only just stopped rapidly changing. This last update is the only one that hasn't significantly changed a fundamental part of the game but there is still the command tab promises and possibly other large changes still coming so it hasn't been and might still not be worth focusing on difficulty settings and clarifying niche information just yet.

A simple warning when your autopilot path goes through a star would be nice or just your fleet tries to go around on it's own.

Increasing commission bounty and decreasing the passive income would be cool and easy though. In the future, being able to talk to a commission officer who acts like a contact would be cool as well.

I think that how you recover from a total loss currently is right for a normal playthrough as you should avoid fights or retreat before losing everything which is much easier now anyway with SP. Having your commission faction or independent benefactor give you a fleet depending on your level or something would be good for easy mode though.

[Grievous69]

I think a large part of why starsector isn't particularly beginner friendly is that it is still or only just stopped rapidly changing. This last update is the only one that hasn't significantly changed a fundamental part of the game but there is still the command tab promises and possibly other large changes still coming so it hasn't been and might still not be worth focusing on difficulty settings and clarifying niche information just yet.

Not really. It just never was (well maybe way back) and never will be beginner friendly. The game is just complex and has many parts you have to think about, while game knowledge is also a huge part. You can't just give someone game knowledge in a tooltip or something. Trial and error baby.

Some games are like that and that's fine. Not every piece of media is able to be condensed in a tutorial.

[CapnHector]

The autopilot thing is weird. It's when your car or phone can navigate a city but your fantasy sci-fi starship with hyper-advanced technology suggests that you drive directly into the sun. It's not like it's particularly challenging or fun for the player to be constantly aware of this and manually plot routes around stars one million times, either.

I didn't actually click on the video, if I had 5 hours to focus on Starsector would play it myself, so no idea what other points were made. I'd appreciate it if the creator uses the time to write it in article form.

[BigBrainEnergy]

He does make many suggestions that to me are signs the game just didn't properly communicate some mechanics. The one running theme that irked me though was him complaining that supplies and fuel are prohibitively expensive to the point that missions barely cover the costs of traveling. Like, what??? And he really genuinely does not want to budge on this point, it's so strange.

[Grievous69]

There's only so many times you can yell at a player "do this, go here, pay attention to this". From watching only a part of the video I can immediately tell he straight up skipped reading some help popups and tutorial messages. Barely used sustained burn to travel, and acted like ships are free.

Like I said, classic "critique" video.

[Grievous69]

- Some sort of mechanism for recovering from total losses, which happens to inexperienced players relatively often. Nexerelin uses ship insurance to recoup some of the value of lost ships, and I think this is a good avenue for introducing an additional mechanic to soften the blow of player losses which are rather asymmetric compared to the infinitely generating challenges created for the player. Probably a significant amount of overhaul involved but it seems fairly reasonable?

I forgot to talk about this point. Wasn't the whole "get jumped by Pirates" problem completely solved by story points? As long as you have 1-2 story points saved, you can escape anything, unless you decided to sleep in a black hole. From the footage we often see him flying around zoomed in completely with 2x speed. It's not the game's fault when the inexperienced player doesn't pay attention. It's like me playing a first person shooter looking at the ground and moving forward, then malding when I get headshot by enemies.

EDIT: Also in every single game that allows you to save whenever you want, and then load, you'd be dumb not to take advantage of that. If you lose your fleet, it is legal to load a save. Unless he was playing in ironman...