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[Killer of Fate]

that's not really that much better... Bounty hunting is literally a job of non-trial serving of institutions by taking money without asking any questions to gun down some people you know nothing about. For all we know Sindrian Diktat deserters could have been the good guys, but the player is so absent-minded they just walk up to them, beat them up. Take the paycheck and leave.

Killing AI fleets is kinda vague, cause we can assume the player is stupid, or the AIs are like really weird. But Alpha and Beta cores are supposed to be human-like in intelligence, and I could imagine that even if there was a peaceful option, it's more profitable to just gun them down, and re-enslave them. Like put yourself in the shoes of a gamma core. You're piloting a ship. Just hanging around in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing. Like harvesting minerals to repair yourself by using some like sentient chainsaw or whatever. And then suddenly a giant armada waltzes over into your system. Which is like 1 in 200 available. Or considering how huge space is. Like 1 in a 10^6 or whatever. And then this guy just walks up to you and beats you along your friends mercilessly till everything is dead. Harvests you and then either sells you or keeps you for themselves. To employ you to make miners use less anti-depressants when working. Like??? What???

And consider the fact that even though the player is supposed to be so enlightened or whatever to the issues of the sector. Its poverty, its greed, its militarism. When they get to make a colony, they choose to replicate the exact same system, and recreate the exact same nonsense that probably ruined their life and forced them into a war-themed career. Except this time, the player puts themselves on top.

Like??? Huh!?

Every single option you get in the game involves murder, theft, lying, breaking the law, slavery... Like the player is like... A freaking bad guy. In fact they're probably the worst person in the entire sector. Like Andrada has nothing on them. Because that guy was at least normal at some point, and the player is we assume, born evil and will die evil. Motivated solely by profit and need to prove themselves the ultimate being capable of defeating any foe in the sector. Like Ash Ketchum, except with murder. And starships.

but eh, whatever... I mean maybe Galatia quests tries to cover up those themes of the game, of replicating the system... Maybe I should play that, I'll get to it as soon as like... I'll finish doing some modding. Or at least stop feeling burned out by the gameplay loop.

[Megas]

Re: PC, the classic RPG murderhobo.
The philosophy has been hashed out, so I do not need to pile on about it in general.  However, I like to mention the Lion's Guard, namely their hardware.  You cannot buy it or find it, and you get very few of the weapons from the Usurpers.  Lion Guard's secret tech pushes the player into acting more like a greedy and murderous villain, even if the tech is not good enough to be an overly used meta choice, they have their uses.

I have no qualms attacking and killing LG fleets out of the blue for their ships and weapons because that is the only way to get a renewable source of their ships and weapons.  If their blueprints were at least as accessible as the Pathers', I would be visiting bars to see flashy pirate guy for the blueprint hunt missions.

Whereas stuff like Heron, Drover and Astral are true carriers

Drover can a good battlecarrier for its size.  It has enough weapons, flux, and shields (and fighters) to brawl other destroyers like Legion can against capitals, and Drover's PPT does not tick down when a single frigate appears.  It is still a carrier though, just like Legion is because it has enough bays for its size to be considered one (1 bay for destroyers, 2 for cruisers, and 3 for capitals, probably legacy from old releases).

[Killer of Fate]

I honestly kinda hate the idea of Drover being a battlecarrier and prefer if it were just a typical support carrier. With reverted b-deck and with the old reserve deployment thing. But eh, I guess that was boring.

The issue is that there is no point for it to get close to an enemy. There could be for Heron if it was able to run its weapons, but Drover doesn't have any weapons. It has missiles. And it has 2 small mounts. I mean, what are you going to put there? 2 Railguns and 4 Annihilators? It gets close to do nothing... But I dunno, this is purely theoretical. Maybe there is like a top secret Drover build that reveals its potential. With like 2 needlers and a bunch of atropos, and then like a bunch of fighter nonsense. Of like claws.

I honestly would have preferred if Heron was made a battlecarrier, with like a nimble aspect of supporting its fighters, rather than laying in the back. And then Drover took its role as just a spammy high quality carrier with precision strikes in mind, and the ability to appear at the right place at the right time. And then this would contradict against the Condor which is a cheap destroyer that is meant to deploy spammy fighters that usually focus on countering enemy fighter presence. And the Condor also being immobile.

But now it's just... Heron is a standard carrier. Mora is a slow battlecarrier. Condor is the destroyer carrier. Drover is ??? And you know...

Also the fact that Heron has a universal slot, but the fact that it usually can't afford to be tanky or having an ITU, the ship is just always stuck having like a medium missile. I remember people telling me that I'm stupid for putting like a Heavy Blaster there, for the fun factor (which was stupid, yes), but nothing works there. Cause the ship won't move in closer, cause it's not a battlecarrier. And putting ITU is too expensive. And you need flux, but you don't have flux. Cause you don't have op. And usually fitting it out with cheap fighters and then having a good weapon with ITU and some flux is a way to go, but the ship is set to escort, so it won't get close to fight. So everything... EVERYTHING JUST FALLS APART...

[Megas]

I honestly kinda hate the idea of Drover being a battlecarrier and prefer if it were just a typical support carrier. With reverted b-deck and with the old reserve deployment thing. But eh, I guess that was boring.

The issue is that there is no point for it to get close to an enemy. There could be for Heron if it was able to run its weapons, but Drover doesn't have any weapons. It has missiles. And it has 2 small mounts. I mean, what are you going to put there? 2 Railguns and 4 Annihilators? It gets close to do nothing... But I dunno, this is purely theoretical. Maybe there is like a top secret Drover build that reveals its potential. With like 2 needlers and a bunch of atropos, and then like a bunch of fighter nonsense. Of like claws.

Two railguns plus missiles are good enough against other small ships for Vanguard, and good enough for Drover too, although Drover can use fighters for HE.  (I use Warthogs.)  One railgun and one LAG is usable against small ships too.  For missiles, I use four 1 OP Atropos on Drover.  If I wanted to rely on missiles more, I probably would use Breach instead.

What few small light mounts means is Drover has to use elite weapons for kinetics.  Drover cannot stack a bunch of cheap weapons such as light autocannons other ships with more mounts can do.

My quick-and-dirty Drover loadout I used before endgame:
Capacitors: 8
Vents: 12
Weapons: 2x Railgun, 4x Atropos (single)
Fighters: 2x Warthog
Hullmods: Ballistic Rangefinder, Integrated Targeting Unit

I honestly would have preferred if Heron was made a battlecarrier, with like a nimble aspect of supporting its fighters, rather than laying in the back. And then Drover took its role as just a spammy high quality carrier with precision strikes in mind, and the ability to appear at the right place at the right time. And then this would contradict against the Condor which is a cheap destroyer that is meant to deploy spammy fighters that usually focus on countering enemy fighter presence. And the Condor also being immobile.

Heron used to be the fast battlecarrier when it was first released, and yes, it could use Heavy Blaster with the overpowered combat skills of the day.  Not anymore.  Well, I could make it support the heavy blaster with all skills dedicated to it plus two s-mods, but it does not look worth it.

I wish Heron could be built as a battlecarrier more easily.  It needs a little more OP and get the combat carrier tag to get rid of PPT countdown when inferior opponents show up.

[Aeson]

that's not really that much better... Bounty hunting is literally a job of non-trial serving of institutions by taking money without asking any questions to gun down some people you know nothing about. For all we know Sindrian Diktat deserters could have been the good guys, but the player is so absent-minded they just walk up to them, beat them up. Take the paycheck and leave.

One, you don't need to accept every job that's offered - nothing in the game prevents you from playing a 'moral' bounty hunter who only goes after pirates and Pathers or refuses to work for dubious factions/contacts or whatever other restrictions you need to let you justify your character's actions in whatever moral framework you want to use.

Two, I don't believe that the available evidence really supports the idea that deserters are ever the 'good' guys, even when they're deserters from morally-suspect factions like the Sindrian Diktat. Deserters more or less universally command faction-style fleets primarily composed of combatants, which calls their innocence of their former faction's potential crimes into question - you don't become a highly-placed officer in a military organization without putting in the time, following orders, and developing connections even when that organization holds closely to the meritocratic ideal, and even the commander of the lowliest patrol formation you can see in the game is reasonably a fairly senior officer given the nature of their command - and isn't exactly a positive indicator for their peaceful intentions; hide out in the fringe rather than taking shelter with any major faction other than the one from which they deserted, or even an independent/pirate world, which suggests that no one in the Core was willing to take them in even when we're talking about a faction that has no real need to fear reprisals from the deserter's former employer, as for example would be the case with the Hegemony and a deserter from some random independent world's military; and act like any other pirate when given the opportunity (e.g. attacking independent scavenger fleets that just happen to be in the area). Maybe these were once honorable and upstanding citizens of civilized space who left their former factions when they could no longer reconcile their consciences with what they knew of that faction's activities, but more likely they're amoral/immoral opportunists with just enough charisma to drag many/most of their subordinates along with them when they saw a chance to turn pirate and took it, or possibly even tried (and failed) to become the next Leonis, Loke, Kanta, Andrada, or whoever.

[Killer of Fate]

yeah, but you don't know that. That's just your interpretation of their actions, and a very surface one at that. The player could find out who they are, what they do, and not deal with them in a violent way. Maybe the reason they attack scavengers is cause, cause they know that scavengers will report their location... I mean, if you walked into a bandit camp and these bandits were like hiding out there. They would stop you from leaving, because they would know that you were going to snitch on them, probably. I mean, sure. They could be diplomatic about it. Like Red Dead Redemption 2 style, where you have the mission where you chase a guy and in the end he falls down a cliff, but he's still hanging down. And you can save him. And he goes like "okay, sir, I will not snitch on you". And then you trust him, even though you have no idea if it was the right thing to do.

The game throws us onto the path of least resistance every single time, a path of least resistance that ends up with us gunning someone down. This is most likely just a gameplay loop thing, but it does end up portraying the main character as a soulless psychopathic murderer. Especially considering we never bother to recover survivors of shot down ships.

Like, think about it. Plenty of ships, for example Conquests of Persean League have blast doors. Which means that if we destroy them, most of the crew is probably still alive, at least half of them. And yet, the player is always like "screw you!" and just leaves them to die. I mean, it is a behaviour other factions practice. And it is probably just a mechanic thing with the developer of the game still thinking about maybe making some kind of a system later on. But you see what I mean? Like those little things look really awkward in the long run.

I don't think it's intentional to make the main character look like a warlord who just murders everyone in their path. But it's just that the game's most important aspect is combat. And without a story, you need some sort of a gameplay mechanic that causes combat. And when you fight without a reason, you fight for fun. Then... Like... You murder for fun. And if you think about it. The fact that Starsector is about murder being fun, than the story makes the main character feel like a... Freaking... You know... Freaking evil... Like... Evil murder dude from space.

[landryraccoon]

yeah, but you don't know that. That's just your interpretation of their actions, and a very surface one at that. The player could find out who they are, what they do, and not deal with them in a violent way. Maybe the reason they attack scavengers is cause, cause they know that scavengers will report their location... I mean, if you walked into a bandit camp and these bandits were like hiding out there. They would stop you from leaving, because they would know that you were going to snitch on them, probably. I mean, sure. They could be diplomatic about it. Like Red Dead Redemption 2 style, where you have the mission where you chase a guy and in the end he falls down a cliff, but he's still hanging down. And you can save him. And he goes like "okay, sir, I will not snitch on you". And then you trust him, even though you have no idea if it was the right thing to do.

The game throws us onto the path of least resistance every single time, a path of least resistance that ends up with us gunning someone down. This is most likely just a gameplay loop thing, but it does end up portraying the main character as a soulless psychopathic murderer. Especially considering we never bother to recover survivors of shot down ships.

Like, think about it. Plenty of ships, for example Conquests of Persean League have blast doors. Which means that if we destroy them, most of the crew is probably still alive, at least half of them. And yet, the player is always like "screw you!" and just leaves them to die. I mean, it is a behaviour other factions practice. And it is probably just a mechanic thing with the developer of the game still thinking about maybe making some kind of a system later on. But you see what I mean? Like those little things look really awkward in the long run.

I don't think it's intentional to make the main character look like a warlord who just murders everyone in their path. But it's just that the game's most important aspect is combat. And without a story, you need some sort of a gameplay mechanic that causes combat. And when you fight without a reason, you fight for fun. Then... Like... You murder for fun. And if you think about it. The fact that Starsector is about murder being fun, than the story makes the main character feel like a... Freaking... You know... Freaking evil... Like... Evil murder dude from space.

This is all your choice in how you play and your personal head canon isn't it?

I don't chase down the support fleet after I've won a battle. I assume those ships picked up survivors from the defeated fleet and ran off with them, besides for which, generally they're the ones attacking so I'm acting in self defense.

By far the most rewarding thing in terms of loot is exploration missions and finding research labs and mining stations. I don't see how that's evil.

Bounties I pretty much stumble upon by accident, and bounty targets always aggressively attack anyway, so I had no choice but to defend myself.

There's no reason in the game whatsoever to ever bombard a planet except to be intentionally evil, so maybe just don't do that.

Also - you haven't played the Galatia quest line? That's the main story quest for the entire game in vanilla. How can you say that the player is always evil when you literally admit you haven't even played the main story? It sounds like playing an evil character is something you clearly chose to do for yourself.

[Killer of Fate]

because Starsector is an open world game, and 90% of the game's content isn't the main quest. I mean, I get that you could say that it's like GTA IV logic, but like... Even GTA doesn't pretend the main character is a good guy. It says that they're the bad guy (or in case of RD2 a somewhat redeemed bad guy) either way, just slightly reducing the effects of the open-world mechanics consequences.

Plus, yeah... Going after abandoned stations and harvesting them doesn't sound so bad, until you realise that what you're basically doing is scavenging Persean Sector's legacy, taking it for yourself. Utilising colony items that could be helping hundreds of millions of people. And then using them to build your own little empire in space, to economically exploit everyone else. And then you like upset the original balance. There is a bunch of wars. And then you use the technology you scavenged to manufacture warships...

It's all the same, man... Smokes weed. Trust me bro. It's all the same. It always leads to the same thing. Starsector is about a crazy controlling jackass... That's what the game is about... I mean, you could say like "oh, in Galatia quest you got to give a penny to an old lady", but that doesn't change the fact that every single aspect of the game is about going around the galaxy, fighting like... Homeless people...

I mean, the excuse with the bounties. Like you come into a system in the middle of nowhere with a large fleet, then approach the fleet, and then you're like surprised they attack you? Like why would you be there, to sell them flowers? Of course they're going to attack you. Besides, they were programmed to attack you, cause the game didn't want you to feel too bad about killing them. But in reality... And the general thing is that. You are probably a morally grey character at best. And the game is directing you onto a route of pure evil. Being good in Starsector rewards you with nothing. There is absolutely no reason to be good. Because we are in the head of a mindless sociopath, who chooses to interpret the world this way...

See, it's like a theme... I guess. But whatever, I'm sure it just looks like that on accident. But art is always an accident.

[Nettle]

because Starsector is an open world game, and 90% of the game's content isn't the main quest.

Open world games can be story focused. Also how you came up with that estimate without doing MQ once?

[Killer of Fate]

because Starsector is an open world game, and 90% of the game's content isn't the main quest.

Open world games can be story focused. Also how you came up with that estimate without doing MQ once?

I did the Luddic Quest and Sindrian Diktat quest. And these felt a certain way that made me not really want to pursue the main one (I did like them though, they were cool little stories). Cause I felt like it would just kinda disappoint me in the long run... Besides Galatia Academy feels too much like a...

Cough... Cough... Kinda... Cough... Boring good guys faction from a distance. And I hate the Alviss Sebestyen meme. I did a bunch of quests for them. The side ones that are supposed to get me to the top. But they all felt kinda predictable. Like... Oh you get somewhere and then do it, and then nothing comes out of it. And then it just ends. Sometimes you get attacked by Pathers or like have to murder a bunch of scavengers. Which you can solve in peaceful ways, but why bother, when combat is meant to be the only fun thing in the game. And you've already done the peaceful way on your previous playthrough of this quest. The only time I bother doing peaceful solutions is when I'm too weak to fight them. Cause you're always supposed to be fighting to get that sweet XP gains. After all, we are playing as someone who values death and destruction over human life, because they can always make themselves better at death and destruction.

I wanted to play the Galatia quest soonish, but I was burned out on the game from playing it so much, and now I got myself involved into modding the game to make the pirates stronger or whatever... And also revamping its randomly generated planets and stars, and such... But yeah. I'm reviewing the game based on non-Galatia questline experience. It just kinda didn't interest me. Probably cause I *** hate independents for being so smug. (the last sentence is somewhat of a joke)

I honestly just feel like the aspects of true evil of factions is more interesting than generic independents, unless they are not generic like Nortia. And I was also interested in making stupid Dominator + Heron (warthog) builds back in my prime. Nowadays I kinda regret it. I will eventually play it. And then maybe my opinion on the story will change. But I doubt that.

I have spent like... 400 hours playing the open world. Which probably is very little for most Starsector players. Note that this is only vanilla though. And I feel like Galatia quest can't be longer than 20 hours long. This is why I assume it's less than 10% of the game's content.

[Nettle]

Understandable, fetch quests got to you. They have their moments, but the main part comes after you built the raport. It's not 20 hours of content, but the actual MQ missions is where most of the Starsector's narrative power lies.

[Aeson]

Once again: There is nothing in the game that requires you to go after deserters if you don't want to do so or cannot justify it to yourself or whatever. If you feel that going after deserters is evil and you don't want to play an evil character, then don't pursue deserter bounties.

I mean, if you walked into a bandit camp and these bandits were like hiding out there. They would stop you from leaving, because they would know that you were going to snitch on them, probably.

Why are you so desperate to make up excuses for the behavior of the deserter fleets? Scavengers rarely run stealthy fleets, so a typical deserter fleet should spot a scavenger at about the same time that the scavenger spots them, and the two fleets should be able to determine one another's composition and identity at about the same time a little later; the only thing that the deserter should need to do to avoid being reported is to just leave the scavenger alone and maybe maneuver to avoid contact if the scavenger decides to investigate the large mobile unidentified contact instead of being smart and leaving it alone. What are they going to do, report that they encountered an unidentified contact in (system) about a month or two ago and avoided it?

Also, the "moral" way to deal with this is simply to avoid contact - that's perfectly normal behavior in the fringe, where pretty much nobody is running around with their transponder active and you don't know if that contact's friendly or hostile. You leave it alone, you hope it leaves you alone, and you run if it starts coming for you without identifying itself unless you're willing to risk a fight. Attacking other fleets is quite possibly the worst way you can go about remaining hidden - one of the victims gets away and reports that a fleet of such-and-such a composition attacked them in (system); someone else in the area sees the engagement and reports it; an automated distress beacon goes off; the victims' friends come looking for them, see you, and get away with that information; whatever - and maybe just move on if they're that concerned about it. Attacking people just for coming within sensor range calls attention to your position, and on the whole probably makes it more likely - not less - that someone will come after you.

I mean, the excuse with the bounties. Like you come into a system in the middle of nowhere with a large fleet, then approach the fleet, and then you're like surprised they attack you? Like why would you be there, to sell them flowers? Of course they're going to attack you.

You have as much right as they do to be there, there's several in-game reasons (surveying, scavenging, Galatian Academy missions, possibly hyperspace topography scans) for you to be there that have nothing whatsoever to do with the deserters, and if they just avoided contact what would you have to report? "An unidentified contact avoided us a month or two ago over in (system)?"

Attacking anyone who comes near is about the least moral and stupidest way to go about remaining hidden, especially when there's nothing to keep you in that position after you're spotted. People aren't going to go out of their way to report a fleet that left them alone while they went about their business; they're much more likely to make noise about a fleet that attacked them without provocation, even if it's only to let their buddies know about the danger, and a faction-style fleet playing pirate will draw even more attention from exactly the people that the deserters presumably don't want to come looking for them.

[Killer of Fate]

Understandable, fetch quests got to you. They have their moments, but the main part comes after you built the raport. It's not 20 hours of content, but the actual MQ missions is where most of the Starsector's narrative power lies.

I'll do it and I'll probably love it, but I've done so much Starsector in the recent year that I am having Starsector dreams about going to gas giants that are small contained black holes. I see strange crystal planets with gigantic tunnels that lead to infinity. Sindrian Diktat industrial platforms orbiting around gigantic stars. Today in my dream the star turned orange and gigantic from all the research I was doing to mod the game. And you know...

I need some time to rest my brain, so that Galatia quest doesn't trigger too few neurons for me.

[R4dioS1lence]

Not to detract from the story-related and gameplay ties to mechanics discussions that emerged naturally from just talking about availability of Lion's Guard ships (showing how good the game is on several aspects)... but at the end a Lion's Guard fleet was probably the most effective and fun fleet that I figured out, planned and realized.

Executors being piloted by Aggressive officers carrying only 6x Ion Pulsers and 2x Autopulse Lasers can kill fast (or make enemies retreat half dead) while being safe with how much shield damage they can tank and how the Ion Pulsers will EMP enemies really fast. Wasn't using Autopulse because I had Reinforced Bulkheads and Insulated Engine Assembly (for campaign and extra safety), but putting them was way better, since the AI uses them effectively. They pester the enemy from the extra distance with Autopulse (and barely increasing flux by controlling fire) and then switch to using the Ion Pulsers at close range (or firing everything if they have enough flux capacity left). Gearing them well for venting makes them extremely aggressive, since they will often force a capital to vent at weapon range (due to the EMP burst and being fast, I think), keep firing, and then start venting at the exact moment that will make them finish venting together with the enemy, exiting vent with reloaded weapons and zero flux. The flagship Executor has built in High Resolution Sensors instead of Resistant Flux Conduits (becoming a normal hullmod), and removes Flux Distributor, but otherwise are the same as the others (having visual range makes the AI behave so much better).

Flagship Build

[close]

Executor Build

[close]

Sunders being flown by Cautious officers carrying only a High Intensity Laser and two Graviton Beams can destroy or pressure away any small/fast ship (and larger when in groups), and if geared for highest range and being ordered to defend the Executors will stay under them while being a thorn to anything nearby. If maximized for flux dissipation, they will fire all beams all the time at any target, and since they are already fast, they will retreat under the Executors really well (and the Executors are going to finish anyone silly enough to follow). Sometimes one will be taken down, since the AI does tend to let them get nudged out, but more often than not any battle finishes without a single one even taking hull damage. Also, you need to stagger their launch to only after the Executors reach near the range of station battles, otherwise Sunders rush too fast if they were dropped together with them.

Sunder Build

[close]

It's a fleet that I can go against a 350k bounty fleet, command each Executor to Defend, Seek and Destroy (hit D and S), and do nothing else, ending the battle with no loses. Not only that, it has the lowest Supply consumption overall including repairs and not needing to slow down against hyperspace storms because of damage thanks to s-mod Solar Shielding (without losing one of the other 3 slots), a hullmod that's still critical for the fleet (Executors become more tanky, and Sunders are able to survive riskier engagements). It's a fleet that I can send from bounty target to bounty target without stopping to repair or buy supplies (I'll run out of fuel before supplies, from 7k fuel and 3k supplies). Oh, and it's a 238 combat point fleet, just 2 points under the soft cap for most related skills, with 11 ships (no ships without officers). Tight.

...and being able to fly around like this made me question: why does the Diktat cower inside the Core worlds, and only in one system? They have the largest fuel production of the Core, allowing them to travel around anywhere, and they also have the ships most capable of traveling the system fast and safely (no pirate is going to run full speed into a storm). And yet, they satisfy themselves staying on a single system inside the Core. I get being a totalitarian regime they don't want to spread themselves a lot to keep unity. Still, they are the most capable faction to be able to set colonies outside the Core AND function well, while also being the least likely to. Such a disparage between capability and reality. Now I have a newfound appreciation from them, even if it comes from being salty over ship availability and baffling unrealized potential.

[Bungee_man]

That's certainly an interesting fleet. It's a bit of a meme that the Executor can only take HILs, so it's always nice to see another build do well. I remember Hector's build, with gigacannons on the sides, and the resulting extra flux being used to spam pulse lasers. S-modded expanded magazines, APLs, and ion pulsers is definitely an interesting approach, though I might have used autolances instead, saving the extra flux for some kinetics up front. How well does it do against Ordos?

Sunders being flown by Cautious officers carrying only a High Intensity Laser and two Graviton Beams can destroy or pressure away any small/fast ship (and larger when in groups), and if geared for highest range and being ordered to defend the Executors will stay under them while being a thorn to anything nearby.

Wait, does defend give different results than escort? I was playing with a fleet that used Sunders to supplement Onslaughts, and they had a habit of wandering too far forward with the Escort command. I had settled on having them guard points below the Onslaught line.

...and being able to fly around like this made me question: why does the Diktat cower inside the Core worlds, and only in one system? They have the largest fuel production of the Core, allowing them to travel around anywhere, and they also have the ships most capable of traveling the system fast and safely (no pirate is going to run full speed into a storm). And yet, they satisfy themselves staying on a single system inside the Core. I get being a totalitarian regime they don't want to spread themselves a lot to keep unity. Still, they are the most capable faction to be able to set colonies outside the Core AND function well, while also being the least likely to. Such a disparage between capability and reality. Now I have a newfound appreciation from them, even if it comes from being salty over ship availability and baffling unrealized potential.

That part's actually pretty well-explained - the Supreme Executor is effectively dead, so nobody's at the wheel to organize an effort against the easy targets, let alone the hard ones. Also worth noting that their strength comes from force density - a pair of size 7 colonies in the same system, a pair of additional large (if badly configured) fleets alongside them, and a pair of high commands on the same planet, all funded by their fuel production and a relatively stable sector. Macario, the spymaster, has ambitions of expanding outwards, but it's implied that he doesn't quite understand what this would entail.