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[Farce]

I got this a version or two before the name change, I think.  I didn't get to an end-gamey state then, but I had one of the energy-weapon-heavy faction's cruisers loaded down entirely with beams, then.  It was pretty amazing.

Downloaded this again and grabbed some mods - specifically, the one that adds jump points and sorta factional warfare, I forget what it's called - and goddamn, I couldn't do anything.  Starter-ships being total crap, pretty much equivalent to the occasional pirate frigate you find, -except- that they have like 2 of them, plus fighters.  Them being so few and far between in that mod on top of roughly about as strong or stronger than you, and it was like... man.  'How do I play this??'  That's not even counting paying upkeep or repairs - loot from blowing up one fleet was like, barely covering that, IF that.

Tried instead to invade some other factions, and they just were already vomiting out fully decked out fleets.  Ugh.  Probably didn't help that the guys nearest were the... Zorg, I think?  Some mod-faction with hilariously huge guns and armor.  My dinky little frigate didn't even have enough punch to break through one of their ball-o'-shields fighter's shields, either.


Whatever, I'll have to give it another whirl, vanilla this time.

[puke]

Well, with the recent "release" of Starpoint Gemini 2, I find my self feeling the itch to play a space trading game.  A real one.  Even if it isn't ready for release yet.

I am remembering all the cool dev logs about this Starsector thing, and how much I liked all the good ideas in there.  So fine, take my $10.  Lets see what it's got.

I've got high expectations here, despite the low investment.  Perhaps EMOTIONAL investment is the more significant currency in play.  I hope to be back in a few hours to sing the praises of this thing.

[Aklyon]

But the trading isn't there yet, its in the next update.

There are however, a lot of mods of pretty interesting quality for the combat, and a few that mess with the stations.

[WealthyRadish]

Trading is pretty nonexistent in the current build (you sell the stuff you loot off of dead pirate ships and buy new stuff with it), though it looks to be getting beefed up in the next release with the addition of smuggling and trade opportunities. Where it's really solid right now is the combat, with the persistent and growing fleet, good fleet customization, and frequent battles. I'd say it's worth the $10 now, but in like a year has the potential to be one of the best games around (outposts, multiple fleets, exploring, artifacts, officers, trading, creating a faction, modding is already a priority, etc), and I'm usually a cynic and scrooge when it comes to buying games, especially alphas.

[Nelia Hawk]

"project ironclads" is a pretty solid mod to start, if you (people who are new to the game) want a look into mods.
ironclads is not too difficult to "learn" how it plays... compared to some other mods like "vacuum" or "exerelin", that i would count as harder ones to learn and do well with.

(links:
ironclads: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=431.0
vacuum: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=4292.0
exerelin: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6053.0
)

[miljan]

They really need to release this game on steam and hire more people to work on it. The development is going extremely slow.

[puke]

But the trading isn't there yet, its in the next update.

You know, it does not mater.  I can see what is there now, the attention to logistics and ship management with regard to crew quality and readiness, the character centric aspects combined with the fleet management aspects, and I can see that this will be the game to play.

It crams in a bunch of detail, but does not make it feel like you're flying a spreadsheet.

If the economics work like the dev blog describes, then based on whats here now I think it will come together well.

Emotional investment: increased.

[Aklyon]

"project ironclads" is a pretty solid mod to start, if you (people who are new to the game) want a look into mods.
ironclads is not too difficult to "learn" how it plays... compared to some other mods like "vacuum" or "exerelin", that i would count as harder ones to learn and do well with.

Vacuum, most certainly is more difficult. it changes the weapons, the combat, the everything, essentially. It makes full use of its Total Conversion marking, but wasn't Ironclads also a TC mod last I'd checked? That was mostly the reason why I hadn't tried it at all yet, I'd expected a second TC mod to be as hard to start out in as another.
Exerelin isn't exactly difficult, it just gives you a different map every time depending on the setup. Afaik it has no significant combat changes. (its also not a TC-marked mod, so you can throw a dozen factions at starsector at the same time if you want and have the RAM for it, and it'll add those), for the most part it just limits what ships are available depending on your rep with that faction and (it seems like) time. Also, it lets you start out as any faction it supports you have active, which is nifty and nicely shortcuts the 'Find that faction's station you wanted to use and make enough credits to buy the frigate you wanted to start with and sell whichever vanilla ship you had'.

Uomoz's Sector on the otherhand, is not a mod you want to start out with. It is pretty neat, and its got a lot integrated in it as opposed to Exerelin's need to download all the factions you want individually, but supplies are more expensive (which has all sorts of early-game problems for me), among other things.

And then theres Starsector+, which is kinda middling. Not as extensively compatible as Exerelin (but less likely to have errors if its not updated for ages because of that), not as full of changes as the TC mods, not a modpack like Uomoz. It does mess with the levelups though, so its not quite as simple as vanilla-with-mods-active.

[Fikes]

I played recently, maybe in the last month or so and kept ending up with corrupted quick saves while using Uomoz's. Any idea what that was all about?

[Aklyon]

I played recently, maybe in the last month or so and kept ending up with corrupted quick saves while using Uomoz's. Any idea what that was all about?

Would you happen to be using the default vmparams settings or the 32-bit jre Starsector comes with? You tend to run into issues with those, since they use more ram than vanilla, and bad things apparently happen if the game can't read the entire savefile. The exerelin OP has a number of links for the issue.

Also, recent Uomoz also needs both LazyLib and ShaderLib. Make sure you've got those.

[Fikes]

I remember having to change some vmparam from like 256 to 1024 or something. I didn't spend a bunch of time looking into it and I know at the time other people were having the problem. The work around then was "don't quick save."

[Aklyon]

The general trend for that sort of problem now seems to be more towards 'Replace the jre folder with the 64-bit jre folder if you have 64bit java installed, or set vmparams to either 1024 or 2048'

I did both just to be double sure exelerin wouldn't crash, although I set it to 5G instead of 2048 because I have plenty of ram here.

[Fikes]

I'll have to look into it. The game IS fun and HAS BEEN fun since I got it way way back in the day before there was even a sandbox mode. The onlything I dislike about this game (and Mount and Blade actually) is the importance of world map speed. You have no way to setup an ambush so if you have a big fleet you can only ever catch other big fleets.

[Majestic7]

New version should be coming out in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to it; lots of changes.

[lastverb]

I'd say it's worth the $10 now, but in like a year has the potential to be one of the best games around (outposts, multiple fleets, exploring, artifacts, officers, trading, creating a faction, modding is already a priority, etc), and I'm usually a cynic and scrooge when it comes to buying games, especially alphas.

I would certainly say it's worth $10 but mainly because of mod support. I gave up on "potential" when i heard almost same things 2 years ago.