Starsector - RT 2D indie space goodness

[Fedora Master]

The names in this game are as fuck. Just found a system called Vecna.

 

[Catacombs]

#ifithasnumbersitisanrpg

Aurora 4x? Space lord/Spreadsheet RPG?

 

[Catacombs]

- Having combat be on a separate map makes it tedious and annoying. Faction doesn't like you and you want to go through their space? Fight 10 meaningless battles. Massive letdown here. No grand chaos of space where you try to dodge pirate's missiles to get to port, instead if they touch you you are locked into a fight with them. Also falls into the same problem I have with Total War where you quickly max your fleet to the limit and never really get to appreciate small-scale maneuvers or tactics, it's all just about having a lot of ships and dogpiling in.
- The economy is basically irrelevant. Tariffs mean you can't make money off anything (at least not in a time-efficient manner). Combat isn't really much of a payoff (for some reason captured hulls are worth jack shit in this game despite them supposedly being super hard to replicate without blueprints and ancient technology). Instead all you do early on is fly around waiting to see missions that pay 75k-225k for 2 minutes of work.
- Almost as soon as you colonize a planet the economy becomes more irrelevant. Like, planets just print money. Build everything for infinite money. At least that's pretty much what happened to me. Factions all sent fleets to attack my planets (even though I had near-max relations with lots of them), but those fleets were then destroyed by my planetary defenses without me lifting a finger.

Definitely take these gripes to the game forum. Someone might be inspired to write a mod or the developers might help.

 

[Fedora Master]

You can't design your own station weapons layout?

 

[Damned Registrations]

You can pick which of the three layouts to use, but that's pretty much it. Might outfit weapons based on your known blueprints? I'm not sure, I very rarely end up defending a station and when I do I'm more concerned with it's shields than it's weaponry.

 

[Syme]

So I gave this a shot this evening and the strategic part of this game feels like Mount & Blade in space alright, but combat feels like everyone is a horse archer and always slightly faster than you.

 

[Average Manatee]

Definitely take these gripes to the game forum. Someone might be inspired to write a mod or the developers might help.

Well, #1 would require the entire game to be re-written from the ground up so that combat took place on the strategic map. #2 and #3 I chalk up to a lack of good balancing for a game in development which is really just something to be expected.

The game clearly needs a bit more development before its complete, so I'll try it again whenever it hits 1.0.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I like the seperation between battle and overworld. It allows for having a much bigger difference in ship speeds and mobility among the fleet.

 

[Haba]

Nexerilin is a wee bit broken.

Find a system that your faction will raid. Sneak in. Buy excess, sell on stations that have shortage. I was able to rake 1 million just by trading inside the system, sometimes with planets that were literally next to each other.

Got too greedy, eventually an enemy patrol caught up with me and vaporized my fleet.

 

[Average Manatee]

Anyone have a list of mods that are well-balanced or good difficulty enhancers? Nexerilin looks really cool, is there some way to configure it to be less exploitable?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Nexerilin looks really cool, is there some way to configure it to be less exploitable?

Yep. When you start a campaign, it'll give you a bunch of options. Random sectors have more exploit potential, but if you still want that, you can limit the number of bases in each system to avoid having a pirate base next door to a faction you can sell organs to or whatever. Invasions in general are easily exploitable though, it's too easy to take over a base and then you can sell off it's industries for a huge chunk of money. Probably just have to restrain yourself on that. Also, it includes options for some added difficulty, one of which (the 'spacer' optional start) adds a tax of 1000$ per character level per month. Helps extend the early game a bit.

I'd say blackrock and shadowyards are small difficulty enhancers since it adds a lot of pirate versions of it's ships as well. Though honestly if you want more difficulty I'd recommend getting a commission. It'll make combat more rewarding but you'll have to fight actual faction ships instead of just pirates and will be more restricted with where you shop.

I would like to see a mod that dials down the mission rewards though. Could probably cut most of them in half tbh.

Don't avoid other faction mods for the sake of balance though, I've yet to find anything as overpowered as the vanilla stuff for the most part. There's some superior high end freighters and other niche ships (Diablo has an uber frigate that is quite rare, but it's still just a frigate so it's not that good compared to piloting a fucking paragon or something., but overall it's very well balanced. I've actually made a rule for myself to not use tempests or paragons any more because I kept gravitating towards them even with all the cool stuff available.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

So I started this game and I've been doing well for a beginner (if i say so myself). Bought a couple of freighters and been running smuggle supply runs here and there and turning tidy profits. My question is, what else is there to do in this game? I know you can run missions for the factions and potentially start your own colony and install AIs... but what else?

 

[HeatEXTEND]

So I started this game and I've been doing well for a beginner (if i say so myself). Bought a couple of freighters and been running smuggle supply runs here and there and turning tidy profits. My question is, what else is there to do in this game? I know you can run missions for the factions and potentially start your own colony and install AIs... but what else?

If you're not into the fleet-fiddle/combat aspects you'll probably get bored real quick, it's the meat of the game..

 

[Commissar Draco]

So I started this game and I've been doing well for a beginner (if i say so myself). Bought a couple of freighters and been running smuggle supply runs here and there and turning tidy profits. My question is, what else is there to do in this game? I know you can run missions for the factions and potentially start your own colony and install AIs... but what else?

If your not into the fleet-fiddle/combat aspects you'll probably get bored real quick, it's the meat of the game..

Yes its not Space Rangers with its planet adventure so aside from tutorial and two quests its still fleet combat base, the smuggling and explorations are just means to give you more options to afford the expensive fleet so far.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Ah okay. I'll still play it a for a bit until i have a colony and stuff, but i thought there's way more on offer here at first (what's there is great, i just thought it has more story/event driven content).

 

[Commissar Draco]

Ah okay. I'll still play it a for a bit until i have a colony and stuff, but i thought there's way more on offer here at first (what's there is great, i just thought it has more story/event driven content).

Devs promises the story driven campaign since ages (I bought the game in 2011 IRC) but its clear how low priority for them campaign and quests are. You can always check if game will be completed in year or two though Comrade.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Indeed comrade Comissar.

 

[Norfleet]

So what happens after that, then? That's it? That's the end? You conquer 7 out of the however many and that's it? What do you do about the rest? Nuke 'em?

 

[Makabb]

It's not complete yet, judging by their development time, it will take 2 more years

 

[Haba]

All of the tools are there for "content mods", yet everyone focuses on adding more factions instead.

Those cool custom ships you got there?

Yeah, you'll never get to use them.

(that is a Freighter hull)

 

[Fedora Master]

I fucking love carriers.

 

[Riso]

The bloody tutorial miners are kicking my ass. I am clearly not meant for this game.

 

[hello friend]

 

[Haba]

So about that much lauded mod scene of the game... you guys do realize that more than half of the "top 10" mods were made by the same guy? Who still hasn't updated dynasector to the latest version, as an example.

 

[LizardWizard]

Speaking of mods

I fucking love carriers.

You would probably enjoy Dassault-Mikoyan Engineering