im not convinced.
the concept sounds cool but every game feels the same. first its pirates, then its the path. the design poorly communicates what the player needs to do. resolution isnt always possible. and when it snowballs its WAY over the top. this single feature dominates the game and not in a good way.
Resolution is always possible. Maybe not if you mod your game but that's not the dev's fault.
The game straight up tells you how you can get the other side to stop being a pain. You can pay tribute to the local pirate boss, same for the path. PL and heg are both resolved in the same way, joining the league. Diktat is stealing their core. For tri-tach, you can raid them to death. For church you just talk to their leader and tell them to stop. And all of these (except tri-tach) are not including the major crisis solution which is combat.
a veteran of the game explaining a new player how to enjoy it is the antithesis of good game design tbh. If an individual like this, which there are many of, say the crisis system in its current form is too dominating, they are probably right. We are the ones with a bias. And we should probably try to understand their perspective more than enforcing our own.
I don't think that's an elitist thing, I'm far from a veteran and I didn't have any issues with the crisis system. So far anyway.
Most of the problems mentioned by OP seem to be largely self-inflicted.
You don't need colonies to "fund exploration", especially if you're running Nex and/or some exploration-focused mods. I'd argue that early colonies are more of a drain on resources and later on there's not much to spend that surplus on except more colony stuff. If you're focused on exploring you can just find most of the things you'd have to spend money on if you stayed home.
The various fleets roaming your system are usually only an issue if you do stay home. Otherwise pirates might put a bit of a dent on your profit margins but it doesn't stop you from progressing. As for the actual crisis attacks, they can certainly be a problem the first time you run into them but on subsequent playthroughs you know what to expect and can prepare. Or you simply delay colonies until your fleet can handle whatever is thrown at you.
That said, I agree that crisis fleets not being tied to the actual strength of each faction can feel pretty silly. I also wouldn't be opposed to an option to simply turn the whole mechanic off for players that want their colonies to stay perfectly safe and pristine at all times while they're out in the far reaches of space.
tbh, i just don't like the turn the game is taking. Too many scripted sequences can take away from the player's experience by forcing them onto the same path over and over. The best thing about Starsector was building up your empire. And the vague nature of NPCs made it so that every experience could have been interpreted differently. With the lore of factions being so ominous that everyone could think about them a totally different thing based on stuff like their patrol dialogue, planet descriptions and music. Music being the most important and one of the more beautiful parts of Starsector. Even if it's so short. And the crisis as well as recently added missions are kinda the antithesis of that. Why? Well, I need to explain if I already started. The academy quest is great, but it's also really optional. The way to encounter the academy is to interact with a specific event in a bar, talk with a fleet going somewhere, finding a thing on a planet and then bringing it to the academy, and then choosing to interact with whoever is in there. Also being able not to. Whereas the missions added recently work kinda differently. The Sindrian Diktat mission straight up attacks you in a bar. The LC's mission sneaks onto your selection menu by putting the option to go to a shrine where the bar should be... This feels like something Jehovah's witnesses would do. And the crisis system literally forces you into a series of missions. These things might feel entertaining at first for the first time playing the game and encountering them. But Starsector is a lot about replay value, climbing up, making a specific build to a specific fleet, winning... Gambling your savings. And going forward... Scripted sequences may ruin that experience. Therefore it was good that the Academy quest was so... To some extent hidden. Like in Dark Souls. And this is why imo it's bad for the Crisis to work the way it does now.
On the other hand, new players' frustrations are kinda different to mine. The thing about crisis is that it definitely feels like a threat worthy of an experienced player. But the game does not prepare you enough to said threat. Therefore it should be entirely optional of when that threat appears. And the player should have the option of encountering it the moment they feel comfortable with it. Otherwise it will just squash them, because the game's mechanics are exceptionally convoluted. And on top of that the game isn't like Dark Souls. If you die, you reload the save. But it's not like you can git gud. Most of the things in the game are about just completely shifting how your fleet is and what kind of skills you picked. So, it feels less like a skill check and more like a knowledge test. Therefore the appearance of sudden challenges isn't as interesting. And the game feels way more enjoyable when it just gives you... Options.
I feel like the crisis should be averted. And the old system of expeditions should be brought back, but toned down significantly. So that raids and expedition fleets are far more rare. And the crisis events should be reworked into their own missions. And they along the current Sindrian Diktat and LC one should be made as hidden as the academy quest. And the player should only be interacting with said quests if they choose to. Not because someone beat them up in a bar. And then teleported to Volturn the next day.
The only exception to this should be the Hegemony crisis. If the player actively chooses to use AI, it's their own fault they got the attention of the Hegemony. LC, Sindrian, PL, TT crisis however feel kinda forced... And I wish these factions were restored to their old state in which they seemed too busy doing their own shady business to notice you. With the exception of an occasional rogue political cell coming all the way to your world to make you feel miserable for no particular reason.
Author
Topic: I would like to disable colony crisis, is it possible? (Read 3220 times)