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[orost]

IMO there's nothing to fix. Not every game needs to punish the player with permanent consequences. The point of a sandbox game is to allow the player to do whatever they want within the constraints of its world, permanent loss of progress is counterproductive. Not making any progress is sufficent punishment for failure.

[Silver Silence]

There is nothing to fix. Until the day that Alex enforces Ironman, it's entirely player preference. As is playing with one single ship, a fleet of frigates or a hodgepodge of whatever you've scrounged together. It's a singleplayer sandbox game.

[Pushover]

I think there is a 'problem,' and it's that there are not as many options available to some styles of play as there could be. Since a sandbox game is about freedom and options, not having as many options is a 'problem.' It's not a problem that a player is playing in a certain way, but it is somewhat of a problem that his options are more limited than playing in another fashion. Using chain flagships is just as effective as using a big fleet, only chain flagships offers lower supply usage, less time investment, etc.

It's not that players are playing the game 'wrong,' it's that the game is not offering as many options as it could to a player.

[Thaago]

Like I said earlier, I'm playing a 'no skills that effect the player ship only' game right now. Its ironman and I take on every bounty (currently up to 200+ k and level 10's). Yes I lose ships, but never enough to not make a profit on a fight. In fact, I'm often breaking even or better just on the supplies I salvage. Only once have I gotten really beaten, and that was when I underestimated a level 10 Doom flagship. Since it didn't have many escorts, I decided to save money and not send my Onslaught in (baaad idea). Instead I sent my destroyer screen and escorts - 4 Enforcers, 2 Shades and 2 Wolves. Bloody thing popped 3 of my beautiful Enforcers in like a minute (including the one I was flying) before I ordered the other 1 to retreat and had my phase frigates harass it until my Onslaught came in and dealt with the situation.

This was NOT a case of bad AI. It was a case of me misreading the power of the enemy forces and not playing accordingly. While the AI does occasionally do stupid things, it doesn't do them any more often than a decent player does. Almost every time I lose a ship its my fault for sending it into a bad situation.

I still made a profit on the fight with 3 ships lost. And after it was all over it took me very little time to find more enforcers and decent weapons. Its almost as if how good a ship is depends in part on its availability and cost...

Earlier in the game I bought a Tempest. Damn thing cost as much as a cruiser. I decided "what the hell" and bought a Shade at the same time. The Tempest got popped the very next battle, but the Shade is still going strong. Freaking amazing little ship. Anywho, the point is that I lost the Tempest but didn't care one bit because when all was said and done it is actually a bad ship for fleet combat. It has a narrow shield so is extremely vulnerable in cross fire situations and it has short range weaponry, so is going to need to fly close to enemy destroyers or cruisers to engage. Not a good combination, to be honest. It captures points very effectively, but not more effectively enough to warrant using it over a wolf or shade.



Ironman is a absolutely wonderful and you can play in an extremely risky way, taking on all of the large bounty fleets, without a problem. You just have to actually consider taking losses and how to deal with it. On the campaign side, save up a few ships and weapons to act as a seed if disaster truly strikes. When making your fleet, weigh in the fact that ships might die and take that into account. A pair of destroyers costs about the same as a Tempest and is a far, far better investment. If you really are averse to losses, invest in field repairs. Maybe to avoid taking ship losses, invest in fighters to screen your ships.

Inside combat the way to do hard fights and avoid losses is to identify trouble spots before they happen and avoid them with orders. If the enemy has powerful ships that will pop frigates, perhaps don't deploy your frigates until they are engaged, or keep them back. If the enemy has a huge concentration in one place and a few stragglers elsewhere, pull back one place and strike the other. If a ship gets moderately damaged, retreat it or put it to use in the back lines defending an objective. If things are going badly, maybe even order a full retreat!

[Dri]

Why stop there, Silver?

With your "Its a singleplayer sandbox, to hell with balance and satisfying progression" viewpoint I'm kinda shocked you haven't been pushing for console commands. You'd probably get a real kick out of being able to spawn 10 Paragons for yourself midbattle! Remember those videos of Skyrim's console commands where some guy spawns 50,000 cabbages into a river? With something like that you could instantly give yourself 100 of every ship and weapon in the game from the start! The possibilities!

Okay, that was probably a bit mean-spirited but it seems like we're polar opposites when it comes to playstyle...

[Solinarius]

The point of a sandbox game is to allow the player to do whatever they want within the constraints of its world, permanent loss of progress is counterproductive.

I'm afraid that's the point of a casual sandbox game, something that Starsector is not (although you can obviously forego Iron Mode). For this game, it's the thrill of its sci-fi space combat. Starsector's sandbox is to give players an abstract experience of fleet management, space exploration, and realization of the vision of the narrative.

Iron Mode serves to same purpose as the M&B equivalent, to give extra challenge. I feel the only problem with Iron Mode is that there's no PC death (as some pointed out, you may as well have died, at times). A dice-roll hardcore mode would be nice .

[orost]

Starsector's sandbox is to give players an abstract experience of fleet management, space exploration, and realization of the vision of the narrative.

I agree, but I also don't see how ironman mode helps with any of that. Losing half a fleet in Starsector, as it currently is, means nothing more to me than that I will have to spend time rebuilding it, which is not a fun activity and I might as well skip it by reloading.

I haven't played an open-world sandbox game where ironman mode would be satisfying to play and I think those two concepts are fundamentally at odds, so I'm skeptical Starsector can pull it off. All that said, of course, as far as I am concerned. I'm sure some people enjoy playing sandboxe games in ironman, good for them.

[Dri]

Ironman is a absolutely wonderful and you can play in an extremely risky way, taking on all of the large bounty fleets, without a problem. You just have to actually consider taking losses and how to deal with it. On the campaign side, save up a few ships and weapons to act as a seed if disaster truly strikes. When making your fleet, weigh in the fact that ships might die and take that into account. A pair of destroyers costs about the same as a Tempest and is a far, far better investment. If you really are averse to losses, invest in field repairs. Maybe to avoid taking ship losses, invest in fighters to screen your ships.

I really like what you are saying here, Thaago. Ironman can be as exciting as you want it to be and I feel it forces you to, as you said, DEAL with loss and recovery which should very much be a part of the game. Cutting out the loss and the planning that goes into perventing loss is like hacking away a fair portion of the game's core.

And I'm sorry, but losing a 3 minute battle and having to reload is NOT near enough punishment for poor, reckless play. But we better stop this now, Thaago, because it's gonna turn into a sh**storm...

[Pushover]

I think the problem can be summarized as people feel that there are not adequate loss recovery mechanisms in the game. I think most people find chasing down the less common hulls to be a tedious problem. I think most of us want to be able to use some of the less common ships as part of the core of our fleet. Thaago avoids this by only using the 'safer' less common hulls (Phase Cloak ships tend to be very safe since they can evade most enemies if needed, and are not vulnerable to torpedoes and heavy missiles), and by using replaceable ships such as Enforcers.

I really would like the Industry (or perhaps add a new tree or rename the tree) to be about recovering after a fight. Move the Field Repairs skill to it, add skills that increase the chance for crew, ships, and weapons to be salvaged, add skills that increase speed of CR recovery, etc. That way, losing several ships in a fight is not as painful as it is now, if you have planned your character around it. Your flagship is not amazing if you haven't invested points in combat, your fleet is not amazing if you don't have points in leadership and construction, so why should your fleet recovery be amazing if you don't have points in Industry?

[orost]

I reread my previous posts in this thread and thought they're not very clear, so I'd like to sum up what I think about ironman in SS for the final time.

I'm not at all saying that ironman in Starsector has no value, I totally see how it can increase the stakes and make the game more exciting. But I think there are reasons why it shouldn't be considered the gameplay model for this game, the way that ironman/permadeath is the model for games such as classic roguelikes, modern roguelites and various games such as XCOM.

The difference lies in that all of those games have a concrete goal which is possible to fail, and this is a core aspect of their structure. A Nethack run can be successful or not, an XCOM campaign can end in victory or loss.

This is important because it gives meaning to the player's failures. Messing up in Nethack and having to spend precious resources on escaping reduces your chances of ultimately succeeding. Losing a mission and having soldiers die in XCOM makes further missions more difficult and the eventual victory less likely. In those games, you have limited time and opportunity to gather resources and build your strength, and failing at something robs you of some of that. Even if the player manages to recover from their mistake, the course of their game will have been permanently altered.

In contrast, in Starsector, there is no ultimate goal. There is no time or resource limit or a looming threat that needs to be dealt with. Any loss can be fully recovered from given enough effort from the player, and complete return to the previous state is possible. When the player recovers, they are simply back where they were before they took the losses, with nothing significant having changed in the meantime. It's nothing more than a delay, and delays are boring. That's why I think the consequences of failure in Starsector, or in sandbox games in general, are not worth dealing with and merit a save reload, and that's why I think Starsector doesn't need to be fixed to make ironman desirable for most players. It should be an option, but Starsector just isn't the type of game where ironman mode is the way to play.

anyway, I'm shutting up now, I'm sure everybody's sick of hearing me yap about this.

[Solinarius]

In contrast, in Starsector, there is no ultimate goal. There is no time or resource limit or a looming threat that needs to be dealt with. Any loss can be fully recovered from given enough effort from the player, and complete return to the previous state is possible. When the player recovers, they are simply back where they were before they took the losses, with nothing significant having changed in the meantime. It's nothing more than a delay, and delays are boring.

Ah, but there is a goal. Survival. It kind of ties into the narrative. Non-Iron Mode actually robs the campaign of this "ultimate goal", in my opinion. Even Iron Mode is not hardcore enough. There should be a chance of permanent death.

[orost]

But survival is trivial. You're only ever at risk if you choose to put yourself at risk. It really doesn't compare to games that actively try to kill you.

[Solinarius]

But survival is trivial. You're only ever at risk if you choose to put yourself at risk. It really doesn't compare to games that actively try to kill you.

I'd chalk that up to the campaign's unfinished state and a much needed skills pass. I'm still a fairly inexperienced player, but many times I find myself struggling to survive the early game. I've yet to play past level 30. I take substantial risks and I roll dice after a defeat to determine if my PC survived the destruction of his ship .

[shingekinolinus]

a single, god-like flagship is basically endgame. it is the "zen" which most players pursue, a state where you can engage any fleet regardless of size, without losing a single ship. with combat 10 + some rare weapons, you can kite the larger ships forever while vaporising the frigates and fighters

a while ago, infinite ammo is introduced, along with reloadable missiles, which even further increases the solo capabilities of high-end ships.

I think that harder enemies should be introduced, after destroying 10 or so bounty fleets, increase the difficulty by spawning larger fleets (with greater perk).
There should also be a cap, so that fleets don't grow infinitely, but this limit needs to at least make it impossible to beat with a single ship.

[Sproginator]

Having been around a while, I'd like to give my opinion on this tricky subject.

In previous interactions of Starsector, the primary focus was to flush out combat in such a way that makes each ship very distinguished. Whether it be the wolf's speed and range, the lovely phase cloaking ability or the devastating armor of the Onslaught. Since the combat had proven to be extremely enjoyable and feature rich, the focus has shifted to develop the fleet interaction and management system. Gradually, we are gonna see a much greater dependancy on having a strong backbone of supporting ships in a fleet. Be it fighter support, tugs or freighters.

There's no bones about it as of now, some ships are more overpowered than others (Here's looking at you, paragon) but nothing can stop a fully formed battle fleet. Unless you go into the realms of modding.

My advice, stick around! The game has changed dramatically in the last 2 years I've been following it and it's going to change again!