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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Making (some) money should be easy...  (Read 757 times)

GrayingGamer

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #15 on: March 27, 2024, 07:43:35 AM »

I guess the bigger question is 'what kind of game is Starsector?'


Is it an adventure game (with sandbox elements) with a beginning, a middle, and an end? Something like the Starcom games on steam, where you play through the game, you explore the world and experience the story, and then that's it?

'Getting rich' is obviously not the end goal of a game like that, and if Starsector is that kind of game, then I can understand if some of my criticisms don't really matter. Getting money is a hurdle you deal with, in one or more of several different ways, and then you move on to more important things.


Or is it a more of a sandbox world that you play around in, but there's no obvious main end goal. There's 'late game,' but this could be a variety of different activities that are largely optional and also largely mutually exclusive from each (encouraging multiple play-throughs). There may be story elements, but these are not the main drive of the game... they just serve to give context and flavor to the sandbox world. In this kind of world, getting fabulously rich (and having things to spend that money on) could very well be one of the main late game activities.

On a recent playthrough I finally found the gate storyline and got the
Spoiler
Ziggurat... and the ship definitely feels like something from an adventure game (the kind of thing that's given to the player in the last 5% of the game), as opposed to something from a sandbox game. It's so incredibly powerful, it trivializes all other ships.
[close]
So anyway, that got me thinking that maybe I had pegged Starsector wrong, and it's more of an adventure game than a sandbox game. Or maybe it has a bit of an identity problem.

I hope it's a sandbox, with lots of different possible goals. The game is amazing, and I want more excuses to spend more time in it.
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Nettle

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #16 on: March 27, 2024, 08:06:58 AM »

When I first saw it, I also assumed Starsector was more of a sandbox akin to Mount and Blade or Cosmoteer. However, after playing for a while and engaging with the story, I've got the impression that it's more of an adventure game with sandbox elements. A lot of design decisions make more sense when you experience the game with this mindset.
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Lawrence Master-blaster

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #17 on: March 27, 2024, 11:33:51 AM »

Even when the game's storyline is finished, I doubt it will result in "you win, game over" screen. I expect it to be more of "Congrats, you finished the storyline, you got all your toys(i.e. gate travel), now you can still do what you want just better"
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happycrow

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #18 on: March 27, 2024, 01:35:50 PM »

I'm still (mostly) figuring out "how can I not go bankrupt if I
  • don't piratic/drug-dealing scum
  • don't sign on to be a faction's freelance mercenary

The answer is about one game in four I succeed really nicely exploring and performing Galatia missions, so I have lots of money to ruin trying to learn to manage colonies. And three out of four I bite the bullet and take a commission because otherwise even a mild increase to my fleet winds up running me into the ground on expenses.

tl;dr -- this game clearly plays out very differently as a noob than a veteran.
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ayckoster

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #19 on: March 27, 2024, 01:56:20 PM »

tl;dr -- this game clearly plays out very differently as a noob than a veteran.

That sums the situation quite well. It is very difficult to balance for both extremes and maybe the way forward are multiple modes like the existing iron mode.

An iron mode without Hull Restoration could be a solution to the money overflow. After every fight you need to buy new ships or repair your D-modded ones. Ship repairs would be a constant money sink, even in the late game.
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Selfcontrol

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #20 on: March 27, 2024, 03:34:02 PM »

As happycrow said, the game is different depending on your knowledge. Starsector is quite an overwhelming game when you first launch it and going bankrupt is very real threat for many hours when you first learn it. I remember very well my first few hours (it's an euphemism, it took me a lot more) ... I think I ragequitted at least 4 playthroughs because of bankruptcy ;D

Imo, credits are too easy to make when you are a veteran. I agree. But the beginner or even casual experience shouldn't be negatively affected. Hard mode or Ironman mode sounds like the perfect place to change a few things. For example, reducing the number of "random" contracts available in space and reducing their payout and instead giving "normal" contracts to Contacts is an idea I just had and I like it.
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Thaago

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #21 on: March 27, 2024, 04:22:00 PM »

tl;dr -- this game clearly plays out very differently as a noob than a veteran.

That sums the situation quite well. It is very difficult to balance for both extremes and maybe the way forward are multiple modes like the existing iron mode.

An iron mode without Hull Restoration could be a solution to the money overflow. After every fight you need to buy new ships or repair your D-modded ones. Ship repairs would be a constant money sink, even in the late game.

As others have said, it all comes down to experience. I play iron mode, never do dedicated smuggling runs, and never take hull restoration, and I'm still swimming in credits. I don't even particularly try to make money, but just take the good opportunities that are around me and do missions clustered in the general direction I want to explore. I consider hull restoration to be, for a veteran, the weakest capstone skill (and industry the weakest branch, again for veterans for whom managing logistics and money is easy). For someone who's not a veteran, the constant upkeep/fuel/officer costs, costs of repairing ships, etc, can be a serious burden that threatens to death spiral the game, so industry is a great skill branch for them.

As an example of an opportunity that might not be obvious: piracy of any convoy that has heavy armaments (and to a lesser extent supplies). If you see one flying, or see one pop up on the intel feed, taking a modest rep hit or a detour, then selling to either a perpetual shortage or possibly the one that was just made, will net between 250k and 750k (and sometimes more) for often a quite easy fight right in the core systems.
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GrayingGamer

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #22 on: March 27, 2024, 05:13:03 PM »

At this point I'm hoping that the game eventually has multiple modes:

1. The base game, which is a story driven experience with a clear ending/"I beat the game", and has at least the two current difficulty levels, probably another one or two.

2. A sandbox-survival mode that is tuned to be more difficult (possibly more than one difficulty level, too), with most story elements removed, and is instead injected with various pathways to 'late-game success'/long-term goals (whether that be helping the Hegemony establish dominance in the sector, or becoming a pirate even richer and more feared than Kanta, or establishing a thriving and dominant independent faction, or bringing about the next AI utopia (or apocalypse!), etc.).

3. A simulator arena that just focuses on combat - a fleshed out experience that improves on the simulator and the missions (the starting screen ones) that are currently available, with its own progression system and lots of challenges. If I've learned anything from these forums and the Starsector community, it's that lots of players really just like fiddling with fleet battles, which is no surprise, given how good they are.


The game is simply too rich to have it just be a story-driven adventure. There's a lot more meat on these bones - hopefully we get to sink our teeth into it. I realize it's a tall order, a ton of work... but the potential is absolutely there.
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landryraccoon

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Re: Making (some) money should be easy...
« Reply #23 on: March 28, 2024, 04:06:26 PM »

My two cents:

It's fine for money to be really easy to get, because money should only matter in the beginning and mid game. At the start of the game it feels like the only thing that matters is how much money you have, but in the endgame, the only things that matter should be things that money cannot buy, because money gets replaced by some new type of endgame progression.  If you're a beginner at the game, even managing the basic logistics of the game is difficult, so having some "easy" ways to get money is both fun and makes you feel like you're getting a lot better at the game when you master them. I don't really have an issue with certain types of trading or raiding breaking the (early) game, because that's fun. When you start a new playthrough you feel like you're a hero because you can skip past the early part knowing a bunch of tricks, and why not? The problem is if there's no endgame content beyond that.

In the end game, things that matter should be things that are earned through overcoming significant challenges in the game. Omega weapons, for example, seem to fit this perfectly. I hope that whatever end game ends up being, that there's a lot more stuff like Omega weapons - stuff that simply can't be bought for money, but must be earned by beating gameplay challenges.

IMHO, endgame starts at the point where money significantly drops in importance. Typically in my games this is when I get a profitable colony up to size 6. At that point money does not and more importantly should not matter, and that seems fine to me.
« Last Edit: March 28, 2024, 04:10:24 PM by landryraccoon »
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