How good is the combat compared to Starsector?

[Bellatrix]

There are countless open-world space RPGs out there, but the only one I've ever seen with good combat is Starsector.
Nothing else I've tried even comes close, they all just suck in comparison.
So on a spectrum from Endless Sky to Starsector, how good is the combat?

Or, some more specific questions:

-Is there a reason for the player to not pilot the biggest, strongest ship they can? In Starsector, it's often a better choice to pilot a fun smaller ship and let the AI handle your slow larger ships, since the AI handles cruisers/capitals extremely well. In all other space RPGs, the player is heavily encouraged to switch to slower, larger ships.

-Does it encourage savescumming? In a lot of space RPGs, you have to savescum to make any progress, since even if you have a stronger force than the enemy you'll likely take losses that would take a substantial amount of time to financially recover from. Starsector makes it easier to recoup losses, and good commanding can allow you to face a powerful enemy force without any expensive losses.

-How much comes down to piloting/commanding skill versus overall fleet power? Is it a sit-still-and-shoot-until-one-side-is-dead kind of thing, or is it actually fun?

[phoenix_54d]

Any size is completely playable here. The combat's much more fun than Starsector's I find, with less of a focus on logistics too. You can even go halfsies on large ships by having your rear turrets and the like handled by gunners, while those installed in what you want under your mouse can simply be set to manual controls so as to give their bonuses without trying to shoot for you.
So if you want a giant ship, not a problem, and with Star Valor too you don't have to switch to larger slower ships (which often in some of those games end up faster anyway due to the best outfits being that much more powerful).

Star Valor is also much more solo friendly. If you don't want a fleet, don't get one, it is not a problem. Fleets require quite the investment, and if you do put in the money and effort they become insanely powerful as you'd expect, BUT if you want to be a snubfighter taking on armadas, you can do it here. You even get, through the 'space pilot' knowledge track, bonuses when not in a fleet that add up to quite the performance upgrade.

Savescumming is... iffier here: you don't have to set permadeath or anything, but some things like random encounters and boss weapon layouts get re-randomized if you load from another sector. It's also possible to escape, and so can your fleet-members (not just if you're a carrier; there's also an emergency warp-out ability).
It's certainly possible to do so, but loading saves more often involves either your death (not much choice there) or you having screwed up like forcing a near-dead fleetmember to warp back into the fight where they then get blown up, or that sort of thing.

As for skill vs stats, that partly depends on your size: shuttles and yachts live almost entirely on your skill, but if you WANT it's also possible to just set yourself up in a giant brick of a dreadnought with the express intent to f-off for a sandwich while you and another dreadnought or two's auto-gunner seats do all the work.
Naturally I prefer the small end, where you can punch way above your weight if you can understand what you're doing even as little as I do.

[Avari3l]

I totally agree with you on Starsector's combat system being extraordinary motivating and diverse. Honestly I was expecting more from Star Valor. Having played only a couple hours, it's a much less tactical approach and much more focused on mechanical skill, which for me is quite tiring. Maybe it changes with bigger ships, but so far with the small classes I haven't had too much fun and am considering to return to my Starsector campaign. If compared to other games, I would consider something like a casual quite fast-paced ARPG (Torchlight II comes to mind), comes quite close to Star Valor, whereas Starsector would be more of an RTS for me. I'm sure, there's a lot of people looking for the quicker and "crispier" approach, maybe I have just become too old.. :-P

[Laious]

Originally posted by Avari3l:

I totally agree with you on Starsector's combat system being extraordinary motivating and diverse. Honestly I was expecting more from Star Valor. Having played only a couple hours, it's a much less tactical approach and much more focused on mechanical skill, which for me is quite tiring. Maybe it changes with bigger ships, but so far with the small classes I haven't had too much fun and am considering to return to my Starsector campaign. If compared to other games, I would consider something like a casual quite fast-paced ARPG (Torchlight II comes to mind), comes quite close to Star Valor, whereas Starsector would be more of an RTS for me. I'm sure, there's a lot of people looking for the quicker and "crispier" approach, maybe I have just become too old.. :-P

It changes a lot on bigger ships, when it gets more 'strategy' focused and less skill based. There is also the solo vs fleet style. Any is valid.

[phoenix_54d]

There may be a more RTS-style approach much later on for fleet work when stations become a thing and all that, but for now you'd probably have to see if you prefer life in a large battleship.

There's no denying in Star Valor that small craft (size 1/2 in particular) make things an action game. We dodge shots, find blind spots, outmaneuver and gun down targets far larger than ourselves with wild abandon.

With a much bigger ship, reflexes stop being a thing and it becomes more about basic positioning, like "who has the most guns in range and firing angles of the other guy" and "how many can fire at us at this time". There comes to be a far larger focus on your 'stats', tanking and dishing firepower out using your crew and a few main guns hooked to your mouse.

It might be better for you at those scales, but it's always going to feel a bit more action-oriented than Starsector, where the fighters aren't exactly something you fly a single one of against endgame fleets (something the top yachts are more than happy to do in Star Valor).

[Bellatrix]

I ended up trying out the game, and have an idea of where it lands on a scale from Endless Sky to Starsector.

Piloting is even more fun than Starsector. You really can go all the way into high-agility combat, and build a ridiculously expensive yacht-class ship brimming with power.
Problem is though that you can't see very far while piloting such a small ship, meaning that it's often only possible to see larger targets on the radar as it's not safe to get close enough to see them.

Fleet combat is as terrible as Endless Sky, having all the same problems. The AI is stupid, you have little control over what your ships do, and it's so much work and expense to acquire and outfit a ship that any loss is unacceptable.
I've found myself never ever deploying my ships because they'll almost certainly get themselves killed and it's so much work and expense to replace them that there's no way I'd be willing to take any losses.
Starsector at least makes it possible to sustain losses without too much trouble.

[WeaverSong]

With the 2.0 update your ships will always have time to warp out (even one-shot damage can't actually kill them, they'll still just emergency warp). So if you don't recall them until there's a safe time to heal you can guarantee that you'll never lose anything.

[Laious]

Originally posted by Bellatrix:

I ended up trying out the game, and have an idea of where it lands on a scale from Endless Sky to Starsector.

Piloting is even more fun than Starsector. You really can go all the way into high-agility combat, and build a ridiculously expensive yacht-class ship brimming with power.
Problem is though that you can't see very far while piloting such a small ship, meaning that it's often only possible to see larger targets on the radar as it's not safe to get close enough to see them.

Fleet combat is as terrible as Endless Sky, having all the same problems. The AI is stupid, you have little control over what your ships do, and it's so much work and expense to acquire and outfit a ship that any loss is unacceptable.
I've found myself never ever deploying my ships because they'll almost certainly get themselves killed and it's so much work and expense to replace them that there's no way I'd be willing to take any losses.
Starsector at least makes it possible to sustain losses without too much trouble.

Each of your fleet ships have a behavior panel where you can define their role, combat tactic, keys and when to dock for repairs (in case you have a carrier) or use emergency warp. They will never die, even suffering overkill damage, if they can emergency warp.
The thing is, they need to fully heal before being able to emergency warp again.

Also, it's important that the pilot you assign to the ship be at least a Gunner or Pilot. Ideally you want both skills on it. So if you add any crewman to fly the ships, they will do terrible. They will prioritize learning pilot and gunner though, if they are ship commanders.

[v4lexx]

well Star sector is alot and i mean alot more developed, in pretty much every aspect, be it gameplay and gameplay variety, combat, fleet management and control, economy, diplomacy, building, lore and wordbuilding and most importantly has starsector a ton of quality of life features that Star Valor just lacks. To be fair Star Valor is only out for nearly 2 years where as Star Sector came out in 2013.

[Nobukado]

I appreciate everybody's different perspectives.

Starsector and Star Valor are exceedingly different styles of games, which appeal to quite different types of players. Star Valor should definitely aim to keep its unique identity and should definitely NOT try to be a Starsector clone. We already have a Starsector, why would anybody want another one??

Starsector has a larger team and has been in development for much longer, so indeed it has more depth and deeper mechanics. I respect Starsector immensely. However it's not a game for everybody. I find it hard, punishing, frustrating; an obviously good quality product, one that I would definitely recommend to others, simply not the experience I was wanting for myself. Manually piloting a starship is a very difficult task in Starsector. I have yet to get comfortable with the controls, despite doing the Tutorials, trying the Missions, using the mouse steering option on, and reading dozens of piloting guides on forums. It is, of course, a deeper combat experience, awesome ideas about "hard flux," awesome choices about distinct weapon types, cool High/Low Tech ship roles, and faster ships have excellent roles to play in a fleet engagement. But I can't steer the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ship well so I don't pilot a ship at all and are forced to watch blips on a strategic screen while my officer piloted ships auto fight. If you don't have the skill to pilot a ship, then you are punished by not even getting to see the battle itself.

Star Valor's game mechanics are simpler, but they're simple to understand and easy to use. I've never had any problems piloting a ship in Star Valor, ever. I've therefore been able to play more of Star Valor, because I can actually play out all of the battles. It's great for players who want to pilot a solo ship. You never need to control a fleet, so I never bother.

Both games are great. I prefer Star Valor, but I respect those who prefer Starsector. They are very different games, and appeal to different kinds of players.

[Hathur]

Starsector is still in alpha, it's probably years from release. Might as well play this game instead, it's fully released and a very good game as well. Starsector will have changed a lot by the time it's released in several years or more, might as well enjoy other similar games like this one.

[Bellatrix]

Originally posted by Hathur:

Starsector is still in alpha, it's probably years from release. Might as well play this game instead, it's fully released and a very good game as well. Starsector will have changed a lot by the time it's released in several years or more, might as well enjoy other similar games like this one.

Starsector is in a far more complete state than this game, when they announce their release doesn't change that.
Starsector says it's in alpha despite seeing fairly little further development and feeling like a complete game in terms of features and progression. Most games would have announced a full release loooong ago in this situation.
Star Valor announced their release way too early, they're still working out some of the basic features and there's very little for the player to do.

[Last Dark Emperor]

Originally posted by Bellatrix:

Originally posted by Hathur:

Starsector is still in alpha, it's probably years from release. Might as well play this game instead, it's fully released and a very good game as well. Starsector will have changed a lot by the time it's released in several years or more, might as well enjoy other similar games like this one.

Starsector is in a far more complete state than this game, when they announce their release doesn't change that.
Starsector says it's in alpha despite seeing fairly little further development and feeling like a complete game in terms of features and progression. Most games would have announced a full release loooong ago in this situation.
Star Valor announced their release way too early, they're still working out some of the basic features and there's very little for the player to do.

i agree,was looking foward release of start valor thinking end game faction wars will etlist be ipmlemented correctly,but its yust bare bones,not even that.

[Jᴧgᴧ]

I wouldn't call SV bare bones at all. It's a pretty fun sandbox at this stage, stable and good looking. Overall balance isn't too bad, tweaks here and there to smooth things out as they go. But there do need to be more things to do in the long run - by comparison Starsector is ahead in that regard, at least from a "keeping you busy and interested" standpoint.

But the developer here stays very active and is always interested to hear ideas and feedback, which is one of the reasons I bought the game. Some of the things coming down the pipe in the future look really fun.

[Vin]

Originally posted by Jᴧgᴧ:

I wouldn't call SV bare bones at all. It's a pretty fun sandbox at this stage, stable and good looking. Overall balance isn't too bad, tweaks here and there to smooth things out as they go. But there do need to be more things to do in the long run - by comparison Starsector is ahead in that regard, at least from a "keeping you busy and interested" standpoint.

But the developer here stays very active and is always interested to hear ideas and feedback, which is one of the reasons I bought the game. Some of the things coming down the pipe in the future look really fun.

agree for the most part. balance once the enemies reach level 60 pushes fleet and other playstyles out.

imo why not have both. ill wait till the devs of starsector release on steam and get that one too.

[Nobukado]

I agree with Jaga and Vin. Starsector and Star Valor are two completely different styles of games. Starsector fans asking for Star Valor to be more like Starsector is no more fair than me asking Starsector to be more like Star Valor. Starsector is meant to a realistic difficult survival game that simulates the hardship of real life; Star Valor is designed with a clearly different philosophy. Me wishing that Starsector remove hyperspace storms or reduce tariffs or reduce supply expenditure rates or reduce Hegemony inspections does not make sense because these are what make Starsector unique; Starsector fans obviously want all of these difficult elements in their game. I personally prefer Star Valor over Starsector. I would not be happy if every space game had to copy Starsector, because that's not the style of game that I wanted to play. It is not desirable for every game to be a Starsector clone. In the same way that ARPGs should not all be clones of Diablo II. Some ARPG players don't want to play Diablo II clones, some of us want different kinds of experiences.

It'd be like trying to compare Star Trek to The Expanse. The Expanse should not aim to copy Star Trek, and Star Trek should not aim to copy The Expanse. It's a debate that misses the point.

I too acknowledge that Star Valor deserves to have further updates and improvements. But so did Starsector, in the first couple of years of its development. So did No Man's Sky. Frankly, so did Diablo II.