What is Starsector?
Starsector is a game of space fleet combat, management, trading, and role-playing. You pilot a ship and command a fleet in tactical combat while exploring, trading, battling, and leveling up through an open-ended sandbox campaign world set in a lost sector of the galaxy. Find adventure, glory & infamy, profit & ruin among the far-flung frontier of the Perseus Arm.
Game Modes
Missions vs. Campaign
Starsector provides a number of mission scenarios that allow you to jump directly into combat with a pre-set fleet versus against an enemy fleet. Players new to Starsector should try to beat a few of the easier standalone missions before attempting the full campaign.
Campaign Mode
The campaign places you in a simulated sector of space filled with fleets of starships, planets, stars, asteroid belts, and everything you’d expect to find in a gritty space-opera universe. These locations exist within a handful of star systems which are connected to one another through jump-points that lead to and from the hyperspace overworld map.
While navigating on the space map, if you encounter and engage an enemy fleet the game will proceed to the tactical battle map, a zoomed-in view on a separate smaller scale where combat takes place. (All standalone missions played outside of the Campaign take place on the tactical battle map.)
New players can start the campaign with a tutorial quest that introduces various gameplay mechanics, shows how to earn credits, and how to acquire ships.
Quickstart, Combat
An understanding of combat mechanics is essential to success in Starsector.
The most developed feature set in Starsector is the combat engine. It is important for new players to become familiar with the basics of combat and learn how to pilot their own starship effectively. Plus the combat super cool! Seriously, give it a solid go and your time will be rewarded.
Before starting the campaign we strongly recommend that you play through the tutorials available through the main game menu – they’re short, to the point, and you get to blow things up! From there, you should try out a few of the “easy ” and perhaps even “medium”-rated standalone missions. These are accessible through the main menu as well.
If you would like to read a basic combat guide / walkthrough of the first standalone mission, give the First Mission Combat Walkthrough a read.
Quickstart, Campaign
The in-game campaign tutorial covers most important lessons, so at least playing that will teach you much of what you need to know to get started.
Whatever you decide to do in the world of Starsector, you’re probably going to need money. Lots of money. Money in Starsector is measured in “credits”, as is only proper in our gritty space-opera future. There are several good methods of earning credits: combat, survey missions, salvage, and trade.
Combat
Combat requires sophisticated tactics and can be unforgiving to the uninitiated, so be sure to get some practice in the standalone missions and can win at least a medium-difficulty mission.
A combat career can be begun by simply flying around looking for trouble. Likely as not, trouble will find you in the form of small-time Pirates or Pather fanatics. Early in your career, it may be wise to stick close to friendly patrol fleets so that they can join your battles – or you their battles – so that you are certain to have overwhelming firepower against the enemy. You will however only be rewarded for damage you personally deal to the enemy, so pickings may be slim. The key to ensuring positive income is balancing the cost – in supplies – of deploying your combat ships versus the reward in loot and bounty payments.
Finding enemies
The most common enemies you will happen upon are Pirates (of the loot and pillage variety) and Pathers (members of an apocalyptic anti-technological cult). Both types of enemies like to raid merchant trade lanes, or can be found near Pirate Bases. Pirate fleets are identified by bright red circles while Pather fleets are identified by bright green circles.
Fleeing from enemies
It’s not the end of the game if you’re caught by a more powerful enemy force, or if a fight goes poorly. You can escape from the combat map and still gain valuable experience points even if you lose the battle!
If you initiated the battle, you can retreat by flying off the very bottom of the battle map. If you were attacked, you can retreat by flying to the very top of the battle map.
If you are unfortunate enough to be experiencing your own personal darkest timeline, you may even see your entire fleet destroyed. But it’s not game over, man! You will automatically re-start in a new ship while keeping your character skills as well as ownership of any cargo and ships you’ve stored in friendly stations — so even if you lose everything, you’re better off sticking with your game than starting completely over.
General Bounties
General bounties are offered to destroy any ships belonging to a targeted faction, usually Pirates or Pathers, in a given star system. You will be paid the bounty amount multiplied by number of ships destroyed and ship size. General bounties are collected automatically after you have destroyed an enemy fleet.
You can find out what general bounties are offered through the Intel screen, accessed by pressing E while on the campaign map.
Individual Bounties
Individual bounties are offered to hunt down an enemy officer in a particular ship hiding in a random system. You will be told their location. These are pirate leaders and brigand deserters; they are often highly skilled and can lead powerful fleets. Remember: you only have to destroy the ship being piloted by the bounty target to collect your due, and the bounty will be automatically transmitted to you after you complete it.
You can find out the individual bounties being offered through the Intel screen, accessed by pressing E in the campaign map.
Combat Readiness
An important concept for combat-focused players is that of Combat Readiness or CR. Think of this like stamina in a role-playing game: using your ships in combat will reduce their CR. It must be recovered by taking time away from combat and keeping your fleet well-supplied. If your CR is reduced to low levels through extended combat or lack of supplies your ships will malfunction, sometimes critically. You don’t want to be that captain who shows up to battle only to have your engines or primary weapon systems fizzle out!
Surveying
The Sector is full of uninhabited worlds ripe for exploitation by powerful factions. You can visit these worlds, perform detailed surveys, then sell that data on the open market (or the black market) for a great deal of money.
Performing a planetary survey requires a good number of crew and supplies. Certain planets may be too difficult to perform unless you have taken the appropriate skill: “Surveying”, which is found under the Industry aptitude.
To perform a survey, simply visit a target unsurveyed, unclaimed world. A dialog option will allow you to “go into low orbit” to assess the difficulty of a survey. Certain planetary conditions make surveying more difficult: extreme temperatures, large size, violent storms, unstable tectonics, etc. Some planetary conditions can make surveying easier, such as having a breathable atmosphere. If you meet the survey requirements, you can perform the survey for the stated supply cost and receive a Survey Data cargo item of variable value. The best way to get a feel for what makes a good survey target is to try it out.
Derelict Analysis
Major factions will pay you good money to scan derelict entities found outside the Core Worlds. The journey to the scan target will require plenty of fuel, but you can almost always count on there being valuable goods to recover nearby in addition to the cash reward for performing the scan itself.
To take on an analysis mission, visit an inhabited planet or space station, select “Browse comm directory and mission postings”, select “Missions”, then look over the list of available missions for an “Analyze Derelict” mission.
Once you accept a mission, it will appear in your intel tab. Press “e” to view intel. By default, an entry for the mission will appear in Log mode. Press the Map tab or “w” to view the location of the mission on the Sector map. From here, you can right-click on the target star system to automatically set a course to it, or you can left-click the system for more information (if any is available). From there, it’s up to you to find the target derelict in that star system and visit it with your fleet to complete the mission.
Salvage & Scavenging
During your travels you are likely to find debris fields that may contain valuable goods as well as derelict ships floating in space just waiting for a new owner willing to give them a loving home. These may appear anywhere in any system, but often stable orbits in uninhabited systems and among the Core worlds where space battles have been fought.
Debris fields look like a bunch of space junk floating in a blob; some pieces will have small square targeting reticles (see image below). To scavenge for valuable goods in a debris field, left-click to move to the debris field then press the “Scavenge” ability. This is set to the hotkey “6” by default.
To attempt to salvage a derelict ship, simply left-click to fly to the target and pursue your options through the interaction dialog. You may need special skills and equipment to successfully salvage a derelict ship. If you lack these, you are always given the option to “pound it to scrap” which will remove the derelict ship and create a debris field on which you can use the “Scavenge” ability, though for generally smaller rewards. Derelicts may be difficult to find because they’re small and can be anywhere. Adding more ships to your fleet will increase your sensor power and some skills may assist in detection range. Below is an example of a derelict ship; it will be surrounded by a grey circle once your fleet has identified it.
Trade
I bet you already know how this is supposed to work: buy low, sell high.
But it’s not so simple in the world of Starsector. Corrupt faction insiders have placed high tariffs on independent traders while giving choice exemptions to their colleagues. To make a profit through trade you’re going to have to take on special one-off procurement missions or evade tariffs entirely by smuggling.
Procurement missions
Sometimes a certain amount of a commodity is badly needed in a specific place at a specific time. This will be offered as a procurement mission you can take on which will ensure profits far above market rates for delivery of goods.
It’s simple: You must somehow acquire the amount of goods requested and deliver it to the person who gave the mission within a certain time limit.
To find a procurement mission:
- Dock at a station
- select “Browse Comms directory” (option 1)
- select the “Missions” category at the top (if there are any postings available
- select a likely-looking mission (be warned, missions in red are for pirates – profitable, but risky)
Key considerations:
- Make sure you have enough credits to purchase the requested goods before accepting the mission. Nothing is more embarrassing than promising you’ll have 100 units of Heavy Machinery at Eventide in two weeks if you can’t even front the cash for the shipment!
- Check the time limit of the mission vs. the delivery location. Are you able to easily make that trade run in time? Will you be able to avoid Pirates?
Smuggling
Tariffs are the bane of a trader’s bottom line, so why not avoid them entirely by smuggling goods? Sounds great! But you have to be careful: brazen smuggling will lead to investigations which may make major factions unkindly disposed toward you. So you have to be smart and you have to be sneaky.
- Smuggling is similar to honest trading in that you must consider the suppliers and consumers of a commodity and pay attention to trade disruption events. Everything is just a little more risky.
- As a very general rule, if you perform more trade value of legal transactions in a market than you do value of smuggling transactions, you’ll be safe from suspicion. Pay close attention to the black market tooltip; it will let you know if you’re starting to attract the attention of customs inspector.
- Avoid being scanned by official faction patrols by following transponder regulations and keeping out of trouble!
- (Then again, if you manage to dock at a market with your transponder off, you can get away with a lot more black market trading!)
Fuel, Supplies, and Crew
In Starsector’s campaign mode you need fuel and supplies to operate your fleet. If you run out of either, especially supplies, you’re going to have a bad time.
Fuel is used for travelling through jump-points to and from hyperspace, and through hyperspace itself. Fuel is not consumed by in-system travel.
If you run out of fuel in hyperspace, you will drift toward the nearest jump-point and automatically travel through it. If you find yourself stuck in a system without fuel, you can gain a small amount by scrapping ships in your fleet or attacking other fleets for salvage.
Supplies are used to maintain Combat Readiness and repair your ships if they become damaged. Ship maintenance requires only a small amount of supplies while repairs require a lot of supplies. If you’re low on supplies, it is often a good idea to turn off fleet repairs (via the F key to open the Fleet window). If you run out of supplies, your ships will slowly degrade in condition until they are useless in combat.
Crew is necessary to operate your ships and fighter wings, and is used to perform salvage and survey work. Combat and accidents will lead to loss of crew. If your ships don’t have enough crew then they will not be able to defend themselves so it’s important to hire plenty of extra crew when you visit port.
If you run out of fuel and supplies, all is not lost — you may activate your Distress Call ability (by default the hotkey is “0”, the number zero). Sooner or later another ship will come by to help. Probably. Sometimes they’re pirates. And other spacers might get annoyed at you if you’re hitting your Distress Call too often, so only use it when you are really in trouble.
Good luck, captain!
Upcoming Features
Although stable and filled with content, Starsector is not yet a complete game. Features to be added include:
- A construction/outpost system
- More events with greater effects that affect and can be affected by the player
- More dynamic factional conflicts
- More ships & weapons
- Endgame content
Our goal is to build upon the solid combat gameplay to give Starsector a dynamic campaign which, ultimately, leads the player to determine the future of the Sector based on their choices: on which factions they oppose and which they support, on what they build and what they destroy, and how they deal with the crises which threaten the future of humanity among the stars.
A Word On Inspirations
Alex Mosolov: “Star Control (1 & 2, glad they never made a third one), Master of Orion (likewise re: #3), and Mech Warrior are an inspiration. So is the more recent Mount & Blade, though in that case it’s less for mechanics (although, ironically, Starsector has been compared to it mechanically quite often) and more for being conclusive evidence that there is a healthy demand for purely single-player games of the sort I’d want to make.”
David Baumgart: “Master of Orion 1 & 2 are a primary influence on my approach to the art of Starsector, plus some Ascendancy; as a kid I even made a ship-design game for my friends where I’d draw their modular spaceships on a whiteboard and run it bit like a D&D game. In terms of writing, Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation Space novels are the most influential on how I approach Starsector. And I’ll talk about scifi literature all day if given half a chance.”
Stian Stark: “Like for many others, the Star Control and Master of Orion series had a huge impact on me as a gamer. The music of Starsector is in a way inversely inspired by those games, as I try very hard to create original works without resorting to outlandish instrumentation. I often set myself the challenge to convey some feeling with the music as well as some of the Star Control tracks did, without sounding at all like anything from Star Control.”
