Starsector (formerly Starfarer)

.95a patch is out.

Just discovered this game. I'm watching a YouTube playthrough right now to learn the basics but I'm sure I'll be pulling the trigger soon. Seems like a great game, especially if there are good mods for it.

Well, the mods are great, but I advise you to do a play-through with no mods. I installed a lot of great mods, then I started make a small mod with 3 ships, then I was too OP, even though I modded just the slots and the sprite for the ship. It was a blast, but I regret not playing the unmodded game first.

the update of course broke a ton of mods anyway.

nexerelin was one of the best. game changing. but, is quite broke.


(also have been a number of minipatches since the update, if you didn't keep checking back in.)
not exactly a "hotfix"... if you need to download the installer again to get it..


we are on .95a -RC12 atm.

I bought it this morning and I can confirm combat is harder than it looks haha. I've had to reload a few times when I suddenly ended up way too deep in enemies and destroyed instantly.

yeah, combat is quite tough. very rewarding if you get good at it. I am still shit. and just set on auto pilot, then play command general, issuing orders.

Some keys to self piloting. largely maneuverability and top speed is king. its like every FPS you've ever played. the PLAYER in those games is always MUCH MUCH faster then the NPCS. In this... by default you aren't. your ships will often feel sluggish, and you'll get into situations you can't get out of.

So, you'll see most players swear by "safety overrides". Burn in fast. unload an alpha strike, get out.

with that, some key ships. Hammerheads, sunders, dooms. wolf frigate. Possibly gryphon.

The A.I. is also an issue. its.. robust.. but also very finicky. its almost too complex, and results in choice paralysis for the A.I. you'll find it FAR too often, pulling back, when any player would be pressing the advantage for a kill.
passive officers, get right the fuck out. steady even are bleh. Aggressive is the best. Reckless.. is actually a bit suicidal. (situationally useful)
When fitting your ships you need to be careful for the A.I. like a mix of long range/short range.. the A.I. may sit back and max range and never fire the short range stuff.
or, if the A.I. is swarmed by frigates, it'll never really get the idea to focus fire and burn em down.

carrier/bombers/fighters are much better at this. Far less choice paralysis for them in terms of attacking vs flanking vs retreating, etc. the fighters/bombers just go all in, while the carrier's hold back.

like, heres a dude SOLOING an entire fleet of [redacted] with a single doom. that my current fleet could not beat.. spoilers on [redacted].. skip if you don't know what that is yet.

Nexerelin .v010 is out.

Nexerelin is quite good and adds a ton of complexity for the game. Almost too much for a new player though. keep going with your previous for a while. maybe after you get a successful colony going, consider restarting with Nexerelin.

and one more, just to generally talk about .95.

all around great update. A++ on most of the stuff.
new ships, new enemies. are fantastic.

Story points are great. Being able to upgrade colony stuff. being able to add mods to ships permanently for "Free". (not story points slow down after max level greatly, don't use them willy nilly.) being able to recover unrecoverable ships. great. got an Onslaught from that last night.

Capturing beacons in fights, gives bonus deployment points. a nice change.

Agent system is meh. haven't had much luck with that, over regular global mission prompts, or bar missions. or the new storyline missions.

new storyline missions are good. biggest issue is they don't actually send you to Galatia academy? I stumbled over it by chance.
so, spoilers on that, go to the Galatia academy in the Galatia system, to start the storyline.

New items for colonies. pretty great. could be slightly better. They largely just shift what is the "best planets". and now the best, are very much not obvious. and, creates a newbie trap, where you could start your colonies on what looks like solid planets, then find the items later, which give bonuses based on other specific characteristics...
It would be better, if they negated BAD characteristics, instead of applying flat buffs.
Example. soil nanites. +2 to farming. can not be used on planets with transplutonic ore, or volatiles.
so, if you have a planet with bountiful farmland, and no transplutonics, or volatiles. you have +4 to farming.
what it SHOULD do is just +2 farming to poor or adequate farmland, to increase those to +1 or +2.

or like the space headquarters item. +50% fleet size on hot worlds, +100% on extremely hot ones. You want your high command on an extremely hot world. and you wouldn't really know that, unless you find that item first.

ships
revenant is a new phase freighter/tanker in one. a new king for smugglers/pirates. I haven't done the math on efficiency. but that they also combine fuel and cargo in one, may make them viable for fleets hitting the 30ship cap too. although 600 cargo probably is just too small for that mid/endgame fleet.

Fury: a new high tech light cruiser. a high tech falcon basically. fast as hell, powerful shields. 1 med energy, 1 med synergy, 1 med missile. I have not found the perfect combo yet. currently have 2. one is double ion pulsers, +breach missles. powerful suppression. but not much of a burst killer. other is 1 ion pulser, and 2 missles. (with extend missle racks) much the same, not much of a killer even with 2 missiles. (wiki mentions it can be used to ram due to high speeds, and its shields)

champion. midline heavy crusier. looks cool. don't have one yet. can't actually comment. large energy, large missile. high energy focus. like a midline version of the apogee.

Legion XIV blueprints can now be obtained. not clear if its a bug. new bar npc interactions can sell directions to all derelicts, or blueprints, including legion XIV. and, now the derelicts are spread out. not all in the same system.

Hyperion frigate redesigned. I overlooked this, but just saw a reddit post saying they are OP. looks interesting.

[very redacted]


My seed this run is rough. explored a good 50% of the galaxy, found very few contenders for home system. the two "best", which were not great in the first place, BOTH were Red [Redacted] Systems. Said fuck it, and settled one of them. plan A, was to start the colony, and clear out the [redacted]. but, when I tried, I swear the fleets upgraded from 2 star to 3, and 4 stars... so I now have 10+ 4-5star fleets that annilate anything that moves in the system. I have to transverse jump in and out. since the simulation is not pure. if I go to the system, they attack me, my stations, and any trade ships. and cause disruptions. if I DON'T go, trade occurs. Which happens in reverse for pirates, inspections, etc. they DON'T help kill pirates, unless I am also there. (which just cuases them to nuke my stations, and fleets, and trade) it's... been a struggle to get the colonies profitable. and fighting pirates.


Storyline is not complete yet.

That video is pretty crazy haha. It's cool to know that there's a high skill ceiling in this game.

Another patch today. a good chunk of bugfixes and skill/fleet rebalancing.
RC14

Picked this up, was curious after seeing it mentioned in Kenshi thread. Starting out, reminds me of a 2D Freelancer 2, although I realize theres far more to this game. Graphic style doesn't bother me at all, although I am curious, does ship movement get better? Feels like I'm flying a faster version of the Apollo CSM around at the start, in combat.

It depends on what kind of ship you are piloting. Wolf is fast and agile, big ship has all the firepower but slow and hard to maneuver

none of the ships are really super fast. depending on the start you did. frankly most likely ships are just going to get slower. the game is more "tactical" then most action games, where the PC is 100% faster then everyone else.
Learning how to pilot is one of the toughest things to do.

There are fairly fast ships. ships with teleports/afterburners. you can mod ships to increase speed, and/or maneuverability.
Most people mod their ships with "safety overrides".

you'd need to specify which start you did, and which ship you are piloting to get a better idea where it stands.

Caliane said:

none of the ships are really super fast. depending on the start you did. frankly most likely ships are just going to get slower. the game is more "tactical" then most action games, where the PC is 100% faster then everyone else.
Learning how to pilot is one of the toughest things to do.

There are fairly fast ships. ships with teleports/afterburners. you can mod ships to increase speed, and/or maneuverability.
Most people mod their ships with "safety overrides".

you'd need to specify which start you did, and which ship you are piloting to get a better idea where it stands.

Click to expand...

Uh forget, 2nd I think, with the combat freighter and drone ship. I only did the tutorial for combat so far, just felt like a remote control hockey puck to handle. If learning to control ship is part of game, that's fine, thought maybe it was just noob ship with crap engines/thrusters.

combat freighter iirc is about middle of the line. there are much faster ships then yeah. capitals, etc are going to be much slower.

The game does have psuedo Newtonian physics for movement. if you are moving up, then turn. you are going to keep going up at the speed before, until you apply opposite force.
so yeah, its always going to be like playing on ice.

Just threw me off, so used to scifi type ships in games turning/moving on a dime so to speak, even with some realistic physics thrown in. No complaint, it just throws in a bit of gameplay similar to old shooter games, like 1942, asteroids, can't remember the names of the other space ones lol

The scenarios do a good job of giving you challenges to learn how to pilot.

Or, you can use the "simulation" from the fleet drydock, to practice flying ships without any penalties.