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[Dostoevsky]

Spent some time with it last night, can recommend. The contact system and the much greater availability of bar missions gives a lot more structure and early credit-flow, while the revamped skill tree is more consequential. Some of the ship packs and QOL mods are already updated, too.

[AVE]

Eagerly awaiting Steam release. It is time.

[George_Chickens]

Are patrols a lot more aggressive? Seems like they're pulling me over a ton more often.

[JimboM12]

Are patrols a lot more aggressive? Seems like they're pulling me over a ton more often.

it seems like it. used to be they only got interested if your rep was negative or if you traded on the black market but it seems the authorities are taking a stronger hand against smuggling. trading in black market goods did used to be kind of easy so im down with the change; no more escaping patrols with drugs littered all over my mega carrier.

[The_Explorer]

I'm still on the previous version, but I bought the game a couple days ago. Someone linked where can download the older one so I can use mods. Tbh, I bought the game years ago but I dunno how to get the key again I lost all that info and it was on my old PC that wasn't playable at all even without mods. Its fine though, game is pretty cheap.

Either way, now playing with a bunch of mods (I like the chinese ported ones) and straight up 60fps.

As for gameplay. Started with appro, and took over a pirate base/planet. It was easy since no ship defenders and looked like a new pirate colony. Luckily it was in same exact system as appro's capital. Appro took it over once I got it, but then I bought the planet with all the stuff I looted from it by buying the governor position (which paying to be governor made me laugh lol)

[Majestic7]

The changes and additions are all excellent (yay storypoints!), save for one...

I really dislike the way the new skills work. The way they scale just plain sucks. Instead of getting better with time, you get worse, since the fleet-wide skill boni get worse with a larger fleet. This kneecaps admiral playstyle, while boosting single ship playstyle. As the fleetwide skills boost your only ship the most, flying alone with all the fleetwide skills allows your pesky frigate do +200% damage or the like and so forth.

So yeah, that is really a disappointment, since I've enjoyed playing an admiral. I always even increase all max fleet sizes (AI and player) far beyond the default, plus make the battle max size as big as the game can take without crashing. Fleet battles is where the battle-centric fun is for me.

I hope someone mods the shit out of those skills soon, now they are antifun.

[Mephansteras]

Oof. I also prefer admiral playstyle. Hopefully we get good mods for it soon.

[Kanil]

I think you're being a little overdramatic here. One Paragon with +10% weapon damage isn't stronger than just bringing two Paragons or whatever, and those two Paragons are still getting like +8% weapon damage.


... and you sure as hell aren't getting anything like a +200% damage frigate or what have you.

[Majestic7]

There is an extreme example here http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20065.0, but the basic gist is that the fleet skills are almost useless with a large fleet. I find design that punishes the player for advancing in the game and choosing a certain playstyle (getting a lot of ships) pretty poor.

[Kanil]

Nearly all of that bonus damage is coming from things that aren't exclusive to large fleets.

+20% to capitals works regardless of your fleet size.
+20% to anything bigger than a frigate works regardless of your fleet size.
+50% to energy weapons at high flux works regardless of your fleet size.

+10% flat damage for everything is limited by your fleet size.

Also, what exactly do you consider a large fleet, anyway?

[Mattk50]

I still tend to feel starsector would be a better game without any skill system at all. Quoting the blog: https://fractalsoftworks.com/2019/07/08/skills-and-story-points/

So, what are the goals of the skill overhaul? First and foremost, the skill system should increase the replay value of the game – that is, depending on what skills are picked, the player should be able to explore new ways to play the game.

But starsector absolutely does not need to limit the player to create that replayability, it already has it in spades, in what the player chooses to do moment by moment and the path you chart in progression. If anything the only thing the skill system does is remove stuff from your playthroughs and limit you to specific choices of paths because you can't transition freely.

And even worse, it badly interferes with combat balance, making ship performance feel random and inconsistent on the field. I really preferred the pre-skill system battles more. There was a lot more mastery/planning to it, you couldnt just overpower equivilent class ships by having +%s on everything from range to speed to damage.

[Dostoevsky]

You can respec now - costs a story point, so not completely free but not atrociously expensive. There are a few skills that are permanent thanks to their effects, though. I also feel like some of the more 'out there' skills like +10% OP have been reined in while the new 'out there' skills like Derelict Contingent and [REDACTED] are situational instead of gimmes.

Additionally, most of the heftier combat bonuses being tied to individual officer-ships makes it easier to tell which ships are going to be overtuned.

That said, I personally always preferred the smaller fleet engagements so I do have a bias here.

[motorbitch]

can somebody try to sell this game to me? i generally like games of this kind, and i tried quite hard to like this one. but so far, i dont.

my issues are that combat seems so clunky.... but aside of that, i just dont seem to get it.
i made it through the tutorial to the point where i should do some mumbo jumbo to reactivate a jump point or whatever. i am supposed to take out two miner fleets. i do have 3 combat ships, two wolf frigate one hammer head cruiser, and two civillians that are mostly useless in combat.
the issue is the rouge miner fleets outnumber me more then 2:1, and even if i engage them alone as i am told, they just annihilate me. i tried a few times, tried to give the frigates the order to escort me or to act on their own, i tried with or without shield, the result is the same all the time. i get stun locked and blown up in very short time.
i dont see what to do here. i spend all the money i had to outfit my ships as well as i could with my money and the aviable weapons, but it does not seem to be anywhere enough.
maybe i was supposed to claim more ships from the graveyard? i took all combat ships i could without spending story points, and as they all where pretty fucked up i decided not to spend very rare ressources on them.
if so, this is another really big issue i have with this game. at the point i made this decssion i had no knowledge what i needed later and simply had no means to make a qualified decission. i realy hate this kind of game design. am i supposed to own a glass sphere to divinate what i am supposed to do?

so... from the fact that this game is discussed so much i take it it cant be as bad as it seems to me now. but at the very least it seems to be very inaccessible. i dont know. get the feeling i wasted enough time, but well. maybe i just miss something obvious.

[Mephansteras]

Hmm. Quite frankly, I don't like the tutorial all that much. You might be better off just spinning up a normal game and starting off with a good combat fleet. From there you can run around and do missions, which aren't necessarily going to have things stacked against you. Even just being a heavily armed merchant or explorer can be good. And if you keep your fleet fast (9+ max burn on everyone) you can outrun most fights that would be more than you can take on.

[Nirur Torir]

I suggest practicing with the combat missions from the main menu until you've figured out the combat system, and then jumping into the main game.