Starsector - It's Worth the Wait

[aReclusiveMind]

I consider Starsector to be either the best indie space game people don't know about or the best indie space game people here aren't talking about. Since there's no thread about it, and since the next release (0.9a) is poised to add more 4X-like elements to the game, it seemed like a great time to bring people up to speed.

Summary:

- "Open-world single-player space-combat, roleplaying, exploration, and economic game"
- Has 4X elements (which continue to grow), but is more of a 4X-like / RPG hybrid
- Excellent 2D real-time tactical combat that does not require competitive RTS or arcade game skillsets
- Balanced deployment system and combat mechanics requires tactical use of various ship sizes and styles rather than just using the heaviest battleships available to you
- Modding community is robust and dedicated - entire new ship sets and even additional 4X conquest features have already been included in mods
- In development since at least 2010
- Updates occur infrequently (6 months - 2 years) and are large and feature packed
- (Currently) Only available direct from the publisher


What is the basic premise?
The official line is: "You take the role of a space captain seeking fortune and glory however you choose."
You always control and move a fleet of ships (Mount & Blade style) on the starmap. Soon, you will also be able to manage a faction and colonies.


What types of things can you currently do in the game (as of 0.8a)?

- Strike out on your own or fulfill commissions proposed by other factions
- Build up an impressive fleet from a wide variety of ships each with their own unique special ability and attributes
- Hire, level up, and assign skills to officers and then put them to work flying alongside you
- Survey distance worlds, investigate distress beacons, salvage derelicts, hunt down pirates and other criminals, uncover mysterious <redacted>, and engage in the trade of legal and illegal goods


What things are coming in the not too distant future?

- Establish colonies and setup your own faction. Manage the industries/structures, hire administrators, set up colony defense forces, install hull and weapon blueprints for manufacturing, and use AI cores to boost your colony
- Manipulate supply/demand and the overall market availability of commodities. Make your faction the primary supplier for other factions by establishing waystations or engaging in piracy
- Thematically appropriate factions with better fleet compositions and with officer qualities, behavior, and aggression appropriate for the faction.


Why is this ship combat system better than anything available in the space strategy genre?

- There are many ship hulls in the game and each one has its own unique attributes, weapon hard points, and special systems. There are also variants of these hulls that swap hard points around or swap out the special systems.
- Small ships never become unusable. They can outmaneouver bigger ships and cause significant damage. They also cost less money and command points to deploy.
- Flux is generated when firing weapons and by absorbing weapon fire with your shields. When you over-flux, your ship temporarily shuts down and becomes a sitting duck. You must manage shield and weapon usage and know when to back off and when to go for the throat.
- Ship effectiveness degrades over time during combat. Combat readiness decreases per ship the longer a battle lasts, and this can cause issues like random engine shutdowns and weapon failures. This helps balance ships out as certain higher tech ships are deadly but degrade quickly in prolonged engagements compared to more mid and low tech ships.
- Ship combat AI is ruthless and will eliminate a straggler, including you. On that same note, your friendly ships will help cover you if ordered and can allow you a timely retreat to recoup and vent your flux.
- Officer AI determines how effectively they will pilot certain ships. Don't put an aggressive officer in your lightly armored support ship.


I'll update this when 0.9a is available. Right now you can follow along with the in-dev patch notes: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13445.0
Also check out the blogs: http://fractalsoftworks.com/blog/
Mods here: http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?board=8.0

[Gregorovitch]

I'd council play it as soon as you get the urge for a bit of this sort of stuff 'cos it's totally fleshed out and stable, far more stable and thought through than the average released game. Better from that point of view than what you'd typically expect after three or four major post-release patches in most titles and that applies equally to the content.

It's a bewitching experience and it's got cult classic written all over it. If ever you feel a bit jaded gaming with your usual diet this is highly likely to cure your malaise in short order. Enthralling.

[Kursah]

It's more stable and more finished than Astra Exodus for a "finished, but not really finished" game example. This one is definitely worth playing during EA. For $15, one can get a lot of enjoyment out of it well before diving into mods IMHO.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von aReclusiveMind:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Kursah:

Agreed! I'd love to see more coverage for this game and feel it would fit within eXplorminate's list of monitored games. Or its fringe enough it can be justified.

It has been a while since I've written a review... :-)

I do appreciate the request, but truth be told my free time is a bit taken up with design work on another space game at the moment. Unfortunately, I don't have the time I'd like to play Starsector, let alone properly review it at the moment. Also, it could be seen as a conflict of interest even though the game isn't really a direct competitor.

Thanks for the response. I totally understand, but would still love to see it someday. Maybe when you're done with your current project, which I hope is going well BTW! :)

[Gregorovitch]

For those interested, these were my thoughts on my time with Starsector I posted on their board:

I have thoroughly enjoyed the last three weeks or so with Starsector, a total blast. Obviously I loved the combat/fleet mechanics, as everybody here already knows it's extremely good, and I felt the sense of danger was excellent. It's terrifying for the new player. I particulalry liked the structure of the game which I would say is pretty unique, unlike any RPG, open world or strategy game I've played which I would say has the following stage structure:

1. Initial survival and establishment - the main objective being to assemble a fleet capable of...... (rating: excellent in every way)

2. Full survey of inner ring systems - the main objective being to identify the best system to colonise (rating very good as I felt there is an element of repetitive grind about this stage owing to the difficulty of finding the perfect single system to colonise)

3. Colony system bootstrap - main objective being to make enough money to pay for three/four planets worth of industrial and military development (rating: excellent in every way)

4. Financial independence and military supremacy - main objective being a colony income of say 200k+ per month after fleet/staff costs and a fleet of 6-8 top of the line capital ships plus a selection of high quality support ships. (rating: good but I felt the attrition from Pirates, Path and factions was somewhat contrived, mechanical and repetitive, too easy to deal with by simply paying them off or blowing up their bases, and the lack of any alternative responses)

5. What now? - the main objective would be to find something else to do given you are now master of all you survey. It's not fair to give this a rating 'cos I guess this stage hasn't really been fully developed yet.

So getting to stage 5 is really a sort of ending the game with a whimper rather than a bang for me. This may be 'cos for me fighting is always a means to end in games, not an end in itself. To give three genre examples of my favourite games they would be Distant Worlds: Universe, Pathfinder: Kingmaker and XCOM2. All three have excellent combat aplenty but they also have clear reasons for that combat in terms of ultimate objectives and win conditions, in the first two cases multiple win condition options.

In Starsector at the moment I can see no point in beating up the Hegemony, the Diktat or the Church just because I can and it seems eradicating the Pirate and Path menace is technically impossible. Nor can I see any point in colonising more planets/new systems since there is no reason to make more money and all it would do (as I understand it) is double the aggro from factions, pirates and path alike.

So I guess what I would be looking forward to in future Starsector releases is a stage 5 scenario to match the first four. It feels like it needs to go either in an RPG direction in terms of narrative or a 4X direction in terms of faction diplomacy and warfare with win conditions attached. One space game staple that could potential answer to both descriptions of course is the sudden external threat, Space monsters from hell via wormhole or long hidden Dominion survivors complete with death stars and storm troopers led by a Darth Vadar clone.

One last comment on a couple of things I think is questionable about the current game design:

* the overlapping and stacking properties of planetary defenses makes settling colonies in a single system an overwhelming no-brainer. I feel this is possibly over-restrictive going forward. Making space based defense capability system rather than planet based would change that equation I would think leaving players free to colonise multiple systems in practice as well as in theory.

* The one-fleet-per-player restriction would I feel impede any further development of what I was referring to as a stage 5.

[ESonix]

Thanks for the detailed write up, definitely sounds like you did a pretty deep dive!

[Bou]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Gregorovitch:

For those interested, these were my thoughts on my time with Starsector I posted on their board:

Based on what version?

[Gregorovitch]

Latest one AFAIK. 0.9.1a-RC8 is what the zip file says it is.

[Gregorovitch]

Come across an LP of Starsector I quite like. It's a bit a of a riveting watch actually if you like this game (or maybe just the sound of this game) because the dude knows how to play very well and he's playing about as hard a start as there is so you get to see a lot of nitty-gritty details of how to get off the ground and survive in this game but done swiftly, no Das-style OCD stuff here.

Secondly he's playing ironman so he get's into a number of seriously squeaky bum situations which is fun to watch. He's also a gready min-maxer and it's fun to watch him wrestle with his own greed on camera (spoiler alert: greed frequently overcomes good sense but somehow he manages to get away with it, most of the time)

Anyway I suggest a look at this for anyone interested in this game (which I'd say you probably should be if you're a space cadet). Nearest equivalent outside space genre would be Battle Brothers I'd say. Very similar in many ways.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeN2w4mIzUWXUUOYz53KqDqioRTbCuOiM

PS: Everyone says play vanilla first then get the Nexerelin mod (and a few extra faction mods). Watching this after my own experience with the game I'd say nah. The Nexerelin mod turns it into more of a 4X game and it's got a lot of tasty stuff in it and I don't see that makes it that much more difficult TBH. I'd say go for Nexerelin out of the gate.

PPS: If you haven't played this yet, Nas, I'd wager this is a strong candidate for dealing with your Battle Brothers addiction.

[Nasarog]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Gregorovitch:

Come across an LP of Starsector I quite like. It's a bit a of a riveting watch actually if you like this game (or maybe just the sound of this game) because the dude knows how to play very well and he's playing about as hard a start as there is so you get to see a lot of nitty-gritty details of how to get off the ground and survive in this game but done swiftly, no Das-style OCD stuff here.

Secondly he's playing ironman so he get's into a number of seriously squeaky bum situations which is fun to watch. He's also a gready min-maxer and it's fun to watch him wrestle with his own greed on camera (spoiler alert: greed frequently overcomes good sense but somehow he manages to get away with it, most of the time)

Anyway I suggest a look at this for anyone interested in this game (which I'd say you probably should be if you're a space cadet). Nearest equivalent outside space genre would be Battle Brothers I'd say. Very similar in many ways.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeN2w4mIzUWXUUOYz53KqDqioRTbCuOiM

PS: Everyone says play vanilla first then get the Nexerelin mod (and a few extra faction mods). Watching this after my own experience with the game I'd say nah. The Nexerelin mod turns it into more of a 4X game and it's got a lot of tasty stuff in it and I don't see that makes it that much more difficult TBH. I'd say go for Nexerelin out of the gate.

PPS: If you haven't played this yet, Nas, I'd wager this is a strong candidate for dealing with your Battle Brothers addiction.

Good good, now I have something to watch again.

[TheDROCK]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Gregorovitch:

no Das-style OCD stuff here.

OK, this made me laugh out loud.

[Naselus]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Gregorovitch:

PPS: If you haven't played this yet, Nas, I'd wager this is a strong candidate for dealing with your Battle Brothers addiction.

Advice roughly equivalent to recommending cocaine addicts kick their habit through liberal use of heroine.

[ashbery76]

Is this ever coming to steam.

[Kursah]

Love this game, been a while since I've played it. Just watching part of the first LP has me re-installing. Wishing we had the next version since the current one's been out since May 2019 (https://fractalsoftworks.com/category/releases/) . But this has been a sloooow burn of a game, though what's there is sweet becasue of it.

Been a longer time since I tried the Nexrelin mod. This game has always been a good go-to for satisfying my combat needs too. I just never really checked out the 4X aspects in the mod as much.

Resistance is futile now. This has become shiny, as such must be played. :)

[Nasarog]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von ashbery76:

Is this ever coming to steam.

With workshop support... One would hope.

[Kursah]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von ashbery76:

Is this ever coming to steam.

This answer was from about 3 months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/starsector/comments/jjf6j4/will_we_ever_see_a_steam_release/

Pretty much what he's been saying for some time, maybe when it hits 1.0 and if its something he feels is worth his time. I bought this game directly from him years ago, and if it releases on Steam I'll likely buy another copy. I really don't mind it not being on Steam at this point, but I bet it would really help with visibility, even more-so with workshop support and save syncing.

[Gregorovitch]

Yeah, the mod thing with this makes you realise what Steam is worth. It's not difficult to install them, you just chuck 'em in the mod directory and unzip them, but every modder hosts in a different place and you got to keep tabs on what you've downloaded and what you got to copy where etc. 15 min job I guess for half a dozen mods. Especially if your out of practice doing it all manually.

Just to put the top hat on it you got to mess with the memory allocation params on the JVM launch command line. Like messing with autoexec.bat and config.sys back in DOS days. Memories, eh. We're so pampered and lazy now, lol.