The combat simulator in Starsector is essential to the experience – you need to be able to adjust your ship loadouts effectively, and being able to test out changes quickly is a key part of that. Imagine having to get into a real fight just to see how your new set of weapons performs! That simply wouldn’t do. This means that the simulator was added early on in the development process. This also means that it hasn’t quite kept up with the times, and was very much due for another look.

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This post is about the process of implementing scripted dialog content into Starsector. It’ll get technical toward the end and I’ll do a tutorial on how to implement a new piece of character interaction.

So! I’ve been given to understand that rules.csv is notorious among modders of the game – how unfortunate!

In response, allow me to present a spirited defense of this data file and its attendant content pipeline. I’ll talk a bit about what it is, why Alex made it the way it is, how I came to use it, and how it can be used in general.

(It’s probably important to explain what the heck a rules.csv is in the first place, isn’t it.)

The rules.csv file is the primary, but not only, means of creating dialog interactions within the game Starsector. This includes almost all situations where the player engages with an entity – a planet, fleet, or character – where a textbox pops up and allows the player to choose from a set of responses. After choosing a response, stuff happens, more text is displayed, and a new set of possible responses is presented. This interaction loop proceeds until the dialog is closed.

This system is the basis for conversations with NPCs, for most interactions with campaign objects (planets, derelicts, sensor arrays, jump-points), and nearly all of the missions and story events.

In short, rules.csv contains the data used by what amounts to a custom scripting language that hooks into the game code to drive almost all content which doesn’t involve the combat map or the campaign map.

It’s a big deal!

Though some may find it hard to believe, I do enjoy using rules.csv because, above all, it’s lightweight. Every step is fast, simple, and responsive. I’ll walk through how this looks in practice in the tutorial section of this post.

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One of the design goals for the campaign layer of the game is that it should present the player with opportunities for combat. This doesn’t mean that everything you do in the campaign has to lead to it, but it’s a good thing to always keep in mind, regardless – how does a feature of a mechanic give context (and meaning) to combat, or lead into it directly?

If you’ve been following the game, this is something you’ve probably read before. So, in brief: this post is going to talk about some aspects of how establishing colonies leads the player towards combat. This already happens in the currently-released version of the game, and the changes I’ll talk about here are about three things: cleaning up some of the rough edges of the current approach, creating a system that makes it easy to add a variety of encounters, and building some infrastructure that can be used for other purposes, in particular implementing the endgame.

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Technically, the next release was meant to be a “bugfixing and polish” release. It’s true that the skill system update already pushes the boundaries of that, but still, we’ve somehow ended up with some major new features, too, which will be discussed in this post. The short answer to “how did we get here” is “weeeeell, one thing led to another, and before you know it…”

I’d actually like to give a longer answer, too. The first thing I want to say, though, is that this is ok! Ultimately, it’s all stuff that was going to be in the game one way or another (though the specific form would depend on exactly how it happened), so as long as it’s added in a way that lets it fit into the existing mechanics nicely, it’s all good.

I could have held off on adding these until a later release – there’s something to be said for sticking with a plan. But also, I think it’s important to take advantage of inspiration when it strikes – and to occasionally, have some fun!
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Part one of this two-part blog post is here.

In this part, let’s dive into a few details about specific skills, and some other points note. I don’t want to go through every single change – just highlight some interesting tidbits, and a couple of the bigger changes.

Elite skills
One of the goals was to do a pass over the “elite” effects of the combat skills and make them more interesting/powerful/appealing. For example, Helmsmanship’s elite effect now – in addition to its original “0-flux boost at any level” effect – grants a flat +5 to top speed, making it a consideration for slower ships. Combat Endurance and Damage Control got some brand-new, fun elite effects.

Combat Endurance brings back the “repair ship hull during combat” effect from several versions ago – repairs up to 25% of the hull level, with total repairs not exceeding the higher of 50% of the hull, or, as of right now, 2000 points. With Combat Endurance being a skill that’s great for small ships, the elite effect is, too, because of the potential to repair far more than 50% of the hull over the course of a battle.

Damage Control’s elite effect grants a reduction to large hull hits – any hull hit above a certain threshold of damage has the portion above the threshold reduced by (again, as of right now) 60%. No-one plans on being hit by a Reaper torpedo, but still, neutralizing that much damage when things go wrong is going to have a lot of appeal. To make the skill not completely neutralize the strike potential of certain weapons, this effect only triggers at most once every two seconds.

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