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[Stormy Fairweather]

suggested this a few years back, but figured it was worth bringing up again. always struck me as odd that for all the things you can do in this game, and all the ways you can play it... you MUST play as a ship pilot. my idea; create a new 'slot', possibly in the empty space on the right of the fleet view, where you can assign yourself as admiral (perhaps rename the role tactical officer if you assign someone other than yourself). some new fleet skills for officers to make use of this might be an idea.

and while you are in the admiral slot you cannot directly control any ship, you can freely hop your viewpoint around to any ship in your fleet, with the full information for that ship displayed at the bottom as though you were piloting, you can freely select any hostile ship to see all available information on it (same readout as when you are piloting and have a ship targeted), and an increased operations point regen rate.

honestly, this is pretty much how i play it already, but i really dislike how you dont get the information readouts for the ships you arent piloting even while using their cameras, and the inability to see enemy details without interfering with the autopilot. basically, my idea takes space combat from being tactical to being strategic. and if nothing else, might present a different way to play (and a new challenge for those who can pilot well enough to dance circles around the AI).

[Grievous69]

suggested this a few years back, but figured it was worth bringing up again. always struck me as odd that for all the things you can do in this game, and all the ways you can play it... you MUST play as a ship pilot.

How is it odd to pilot a ship in a space RPG that started as a bunch of combat scenarios? If anything it's odd not piloting your ship because the entire game is built around that:
- combat skills
- orders that aren't really orders
- limited command points
- smart enough AI which is designed to follow the player's movement and actions in combat

I know it's basically a meme to say "You're playing the game wrong", but I firmly believe it's a sin to play Starsector without ever once trying to pilot your flagship. And I know a ton of players play like that and then express their frustrations online. The game just wasn't designed as an RTS in mind, that's the fact. And any amount of trying to cater to that playstyle will actively hurt the game design, as again, it was originally built as a pew pew shmup with AI comrades.

Just like how you can play through the entire Elden ring playthrough without ever once swinging a sword, doesn't mean that you should. You're free to prefer a certain playstyle, but sometimes you're just robbing yourself of game mechanics and gameplay that you just can't have if you're ignoring a big chunk of it.

Sorry for going so hard on a simple suggestion, I just want to actively cut any RTS ideas because that's asking for an entirely different game, and the development plus final product would be greatly hurt with it.

BUUUUT you bring up good points about more information when viewing your ships. It is bit of a hassle to check the status of each ship while looking around the tactical map.

[Stormy Fairweather]

ive piloted my own ships plenty. there are two main reasons this is my preferred playstyle; ai is impressive in this game in straight up fights, aye, but since it is still ai it can still be cheesed. and if you are piloting it is pretty hard to resist the temptation. and second, i like to smoke a bowl while watching the pretty explosions XD.

edit - i do want to point out though, my suggestion wouldnt change anything for those who pilot their own ships. except the 'tactical officer' slot suggestion, which i think would be a neat addition regardless, or could as easily discarded as superfluous to the main idea. which basically comes down to, as you noted, more tactical information and better ways of seeing it.

[SCC]

You don't have to deploy your flagship in combat, even if you have to have a flagship in the campaign. Just place yourself on a freighter or a tanker.

[Nettle]

You don't have to deploy your flagship in combat, even if you have to have a flagship in the campaign. Just place yourself on a freighter or a tanker.

This. You don't have to be deployed for the battle to play out. And even if you do want the CP bonuses from leadership, you can just deploy in a OC Kite and remain stationary.

[Stormy Fairweather]

honestly, you guys seem pretty hostile towards something that literally would not affect you if implemented and ignored. especially since, as noted, the PRIMARY CONCERN is having additional data available about ships you are not targeting and piloting. 'admiral mode' is just my suggestion for how to get to that point. but all i REALLY want is to be able to select enemy ships to see their data without targeting them, and to see my ships readout while not piloting them.

two things that, frankly, always baffled me in their absence.

[SCC]

I have no comments on the rest of your post. I don't care if the game adds some admiral mode, it's not the way I play. I said that you don't have to deploy your flagship because it alleviates one of your issues, that the flagship has to be deployed.

[Alex]

The "targeting" idea gets a bit iffy implementation-wise because, well, it *is* targeting - it's not just selecting an enemy ship to get extra info on, it's a state change for the ship doing the targeting that affects a lot of its behavior (missiles, autofiring weapons, some other things), so it's not something you can just do in a vacuum. Obviously possible with some kind of parallel implementation, just not as trivial as it might seem! Hmm.

(Possibly worth saying that "playing without controlling a flagship" - it's absolutely great that it's possible, but it's also a bit of a happy accident that it is, rather than specific design intent. So that's just... going to have rough edges. I'll give this (the "targeting but not really" idea) some thought, it might be a nice addition regardless, though; I could see it being useful when you're piloting and just switch views to a different ship to see how it's doing, etc.)

[Stormy Fairweather]

awesome, alex. glad to hear you took note of this, whatever you opt to do with it.

silly story for ya, but i reinstalled yesterday after not playing for a long while. so i kinda went on a crazy spree on the mod forums and grabbed fifty-two, FIFTY-TWO!, mods mostly faction and ship packs, but plenty to add entirely new mechanics. and just unzipped em all at once, then lied to the mod manager about what versions they were XD (tbf i did check the thread for each to make sure people had them running in the current version), and launched the game.

it works. no conflicts. no overlaps. no issues i've seen in some ten hours of playing. over fifty mostly random mods from mostly random authors bashed together without testing... and it WORKS. i honestly dont think there is another game that can do that. none. full stop. this game is a *** marvel. /salute

[Alex]

Honestly, a testament to the modding community!