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[JimboM12]

I'm within spitting distance of 600k, but now i cant find a shipyard selling a legion.

Ah well, my fleet of 2 moras and 3 eagles is doing very well for now. But... I will have my capital ship.

[Frumple]

Well... if you really want it, ASAP, I'll just throw out there that the cash value is stored as a float. Just to make things a little quicker, should that make sense to you

[Urist McScoopbeard]

So past couple of pages have sounded VERY enticing. My only question is (I literally just have no idea) is there enough content to justify 15$???

[Aklyon]

So past couple of pages have sounded VERY enticing. My only question is (I literally just have no idea) is there enough content to justify 15$???

Its not a brand new EA game, if thats what you're asking. The combat is great, the new salvaging and exploration adds more to do. And theres plenty of mod factions to use if you want more than just hegemony vs tri-tachyon vs luddic path vs pirates.

[Shooer]

So past couple of pages have sounded VERY enticing. My only question is (I literally just have no idea) is there enough content to justify 15$???

Its not a brand new EA game, if thats what you're asking. The combat is great, the new salvaging and exploration adds more to do. And theres plenty of mod factions to use if you want more than just hegemony vs tri-tachyon vs luddic path vs pirates.

vs hegemony-lite vs hegemony-mk2

[zaimoni]

So past couple of pages have sounded VERY enticing. My only question is (I literally just have no idea) is there enough content to justify 15$???

If you want slow-twitch realtime space combat anchoring a very hard to master economic (midgame) and exploration (mid/endgame) subgames, yes.  We're approaching 6 years after first playable release.

Paraphrasing the master forum:
A number of mods are "pinned" by bugs in the modding API so a .81 is virtually guaranteed.  Note that each major version plays very differently (.8x plays differently than .7x which will play very differently than .9x).  The developers have openly stated consider their release cycle too slow for Steam, and are intentionally avoiding Stream Greenlighting as a PR management issue.

[Kanil]

So past couple of pages have sounded VERY enticing. My only question is (I literally just have no idea) is there enough content to justify 15$???

Probably, yeah. There's not really much to "do" in terms of like a campaign/storyline/whatever, you're just plopped into the sandbox and left to your own devices. There's a couple of different ways to make money, but at the end of the day there isn't really a goal beyond buying lots of ships and running into the biggest fleet you can find and blowing it up.

There's quite a few mods out there, and they help extend the game a bit. Mod factions add more ships, which adds variety to the challenge. Nexerelin adds a sort of "goal" in the sense that you can fight battles to conquer worlds and paint the map the color of your favorite faction, it's not especially in depth, but it's something.

Most importantly, blowing crap up is tremendously fun, so even if you do just go around trying to beat the biggest randomly spawned fleet you can find, you can probably get your money's worth.

[Majestic7]

A word of advice regarding fighter craft: pay attention to speed and weapon types. Speed is life for fighters and allows them to maneuver around enemy shields or even inside them. Weapon types are important regarding damage type, not only damage amount. Your best mix of fighters includes kinetics for pounding shields and HE for eating armor. PD lasers are good against other fighters and missiles. Torpedo bombers are, in my opinion, overpriced regarding OP cost. Better use regular or phase bombers. Khopesh is pretty good too, especially with an officer with the strike commander skill.

I've noticed a few people saying they use Broadswords; those are actually pretty bad for OP cost. Their only saving grace is the flare launcher that can distract point defence. So if you have nothing better, mixing one wing of Broadswords with bomber wings is an okay support solution. 

[Hanzoku]

Whoa, you killed a Remnant battlestation!?

What's your fleet composition, main weapons, and top skills?

My fleet consisted of:
1x Eagle Cruiser (Heavy Needler x1, Arbalest x1, Heavy Mortar x1, 2x PD Laser, 2x Sabot SRM, 3x Tactical Laser, 3x Pulse Laser)
1x Mora Assault Carrier (2x Typhoon Reaper Launchers, 5x Light Autocannon, 3x Broadsword wings)
1x Condor (D) Light Attack Carrier (1x Pilum, 2x Vulcan, 2x Broadsword wings)
1x Hammerhead Balanced Destroyer (1x PD Laser, 1x LR PD Laser, 2x Harpoon MRM, 2x Heavy Mortar, 2x Light Autocannon)
1x Medusa Attack Destroyer (2x Antimatter Blaster, 2x Sabot SRM, 2x Pulse Laser, 3x PD Laser)
1x Brawler Elite Gunship (1x Heavy Autocannon, 1x Harpoon (Single), 1x Heavy Mortar, 1x Atrophos-class Torpedo Rack)
1x Lasher Standard Frigate (1x Salamander MRM, 2x Light Machine Guns, not sure on the other three... they didn't survive being blown up.)

Officers:
Brawler - Level 6 officer focusing on combat endurance and gunnery implants
Mora - level 7 officer focusing on carrier command and wing commander
Hammerhead - level 7 officer focusing on combat endurance, damage control and power modulation
Medusa - level 8 officer focusing on combat endurance and a mix of other skills at levels 1/2
Condor - level 1 officer with carrier command

As for my personal character, the only combat-applicable skill he has is Loadout Design (3), and that comes into play at the design stage. He otherwise has absolutely no combat skills, as he's fitted out for exploration/salvaging.

[Frumple]

[snip]

I'll be honest, I've been enjoying just buying/salvaging every shepherd I can find and drowning the world in drones. Or at least distracting stuff while I do whatever. Their drones are free, near as I can recall, and you can fit a(n ammoless) salamander on them and call it a day. Better drones come later, but at least initially it's pretty nice, and doesn't have to deal with the whole crew loss thing.

... that said, OP cost probably isn't the best metric to use for fighters (if, perhaps, for no other reason than it would render talons rather impressive). You kinda' want to pay more attention to bang per fighter bay, since any particular carrier is going to have a lot more OP than it has bays. Can also depend on what you're intending to do with the things, heh. I actually kinda' like the slow, heavily armored stuff, just because they can tank more shots instead of having that damage hit my ships or shields. Hefty stuff that's good at shield stripping/flux overload tends to be my most desired, after stuff that's cheap on a per-battle basis (i.e. doesn't cost crew, heh), or otherwise specialized. If the enemy's primary defensive measure is down, they can't fire particularly consistently, and what they do fire gets caught up in the fighter screen, whether the fighters are good at other stuff is faintly irrelevant

[Majestic7]

There ships where bringing down shields isn't a priority, like Onslaughts, since they have plenty of armor. Plus I must say I certainly run out of OP on carriers. When you use hullmods, they easily eat OP together with the fighters. I simply see no point using torpedo bombers ever since I can get more bang for the same amount of points. Some fighters like Sparks are just much better than anything else (excluding specialist bombers for specific purpose), especially when they have no crew costs.

[EnigmaticHat]

I've noticed a few people saying they use Broadswords; those are actually pretty bad for OP cost. Their only saving grace is the flare launcher that can distract point defence. So if you have nothing better, mixing one wing of Broadswords with bomber wings is an okay support solution.

Broadswords fill the rare fighter-bomber role because they are equipped with PD style weapons but can add something to an attack.  My fleet has a lot of hurricane and salamander missiles so the broadsword enhances those as well.

You don't need very many bombers IMO.  A talon wing has between it 4 vulcan cannons and 4 swarmer missiles, which is equivalent to a poorly kitted out frigate.  But they'll beat a bomber wing handily and screen missiles with near 100% effectiveness if they aren't distracted by something.  Bombers tend to be limited by a lack of PD weapons, large OP cost, and small wing sizes.  Their range is great and allows you to slowly pick apart an enemy fleet with little possible defense.  But the supply/month cost of deploying bomber wings is not very practical.  Bombers generally mount missiles, yet the humble 4 supply/month lasher can mount 2 small missiles with the exact same stats as the ones bombers get.  So you get a 5 ballistic mount buzzsaw with weirdly decent base stats, AND you get about the same alpha strike for your cost as a condor kitted out with high end bombers.  The only advantage the condor has is sustain and long range safety, since the lasher will only get to use its missiles once, but on the other hand the AI is pretty good at waiting to fire missiles until they're likely to hit.  Lotta times a dagger going back and forth from a carrier the entire game will do less than the single hurricane barrage a frigate fires at exactly the right moment.

My personal carrier setup is condor (talon + wasp) condor (broadsword x2) and heron (longbow x2 + dagger).  The type of carrier matters; I put my bombers on the heron because of its greater OP pool and the fact that its active increases damage.  Condors are best for fighters because of their low OP pool.  My guess would be that slow but powerful wings like the warthog are best with the reserves active, but I've never tested that.  I prefer the longbows because they can support ships whereas the dagger needs support from ships.  The dagger wing tends to be either useless if the enemy is still kicking or massive overkill if it isn't; one dagger rounds out the fleet but I don't think that more on top of that would add anything.

If all you want is a single carrier, you should buy a cheap one and kit it out with nothing but talons.  They're humble but they're a great force multiplier, even if they do nothing but shoot down missiles the whole time.  Alternatively you can use wasps, they lack the frigate damaging punch that talons have, but on the other hand they don't have pilots so you can use suicidal wave tactics guilt free.  PD beams can take out any armor in the game... eventually.

[JimboM12]

I've noticed a few people saying they use Broadswords; those are actually pretty bad for OP cost. Their only saving grace is the flare launcher that can distract point defence. So if you have nothing better, mixing one wing of Broadswords with bomber wings is an okay support solution.

-snip-

I agree with the talons bit; they're cheap, surprisingly strong offensively, and with a commander built towards carrier command they're crazy effective for their price. The AI suffers when commanding them, however, as they'll use talons purely for support and use them to screen the nearest ship between them and the nearest threat. In the players hands, however, they're a death swarm.

AI with broadswords (so far as i've seen, i personally command one of my moras and let the ai handle the other) will send them for strikes against the nearest opponent while staying at near max distance.

Still can't find a legion in any of my nearby hegemony military ports, wtf.

Edit: oh, nvm, that was just the ai for the current ai captain i put in there. "cautious" and i just replaced them with "aggressive", now they're sending out the wings to attack and harass.

[Hanzoku]

Well, I think I've wrapped it up for the current game experience. I've personally explored about a quarter of the sector, seen strange and exciting vistas, and blew away enough drones and pirates to last me for a while.

I think my one and only complaint at the moment is this: single Remnant drones are happy little berserkers who will look at their dinky frigate ship-body, then look at your 114-CP war fleet of some of the most advanced ships in the sector, calculate their survival chance as being less then a snowflake on a volcano planet, then come charging in anyway. Only you're not allowed to hand the fight off to your 2nd in command, but you have to spend 30 seconds to 2 minutes each and every time killing the little kiting jerks. Honestly, I think the game should just compare the drone's combat power versus the fleet and have it get gunned down automatically rather then waste my time each and every time.

Other then that, I think I'll wait to pick it up again once outposts are in the game. The ability to build up either my own faction or my chosen faction will really extend the longevity of the game for me.

Finally, I think it would be awesome if we could post our own missions - like 'Drop off an Aurora at the abandoned station in Corvus for cost + 250,000 bounty. I'll pick it up when I get back from my latest expedition.' That and the Paragon are the two hulls I love the most, but I haven't ever seen either one in my current game.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I ended up picking Starsector up last night and WOW it's awesome! I'm really loving it. My first game has been a bit of a learning experience as I got my ass handed to me or lost important ships to pirates those tutorial rogue miners.