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singlespace

Starsector

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Why is there no thread on Starsector? This is a crime:

http://fractalsoftworks.com/

 

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Basically a top down 2D space combat game that models the combat at a fine granularity. Weapons have fire rates, damage, type, velocity, cool down, thermal waste, accuracy, size, skew rate, damage curves, and sometimes even varies these based on how recently the weapon was fired and other such things. Damage is modeled to a similar degree with shields absorbing different types of damage to varying degrees before collapsing, armor being hammered where weapons strike until taking failures of your weapons and systems become a certainty. It even has supply levels and combat readiness per a ships, so there are battleworn workhorse ships that go from battle to battle with very little fuss and finicky high tech ships that need a steady feed of supplies and must undergo significant maintenance between fights less you enter battles with unreliable systems and weapons that refuse to go online.

 

What's interesting about having all this detail is that it gives combat a real sense of weight that most games that deal with similar subject matter never quite capture. It takes time to accelerate to speed, it takes time to change direction, it takes time to rotate your weapons into position, it takes time for your heavy rounds to reach their target. You often get into these situations where you're fighting to keep a situation under control.

 

The enemy is pounding on your shields which are converting all that damage into thermal waste and it's rapidly reaching the point where it'll overload your systems. You can't lower them because the armour on the front quarter of the ship is in shambles and you're having troubles maintaining fire because your weapons are also generating heat. Do you slowly bring your ship about so there will be fresh armour exposed but moving the enemy out of your main batteries firing arcs? Do you disable your ship and vent all the heat hoping that you can bring everything back online before the hull collapses? Maybe it would be best to just drop the shields so you're heat dissipation is high enough to fire as fast as you can.

 

The level of detail of all these interlocking systems really make the game. It has been described as Mount & Blade in space, and that's not an unfair comparison. It's definitely worth checking out if you're into this kind of thing, even in it's unfinished state.

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hey, I just started plinking away at this game recently! 

 

its been fun poking around: I've discovered there's a nearby pirate base that spawns smaller ships I can beat. I managed to scrounge up enough money to buy - and outfit - a second ship to watch my back, but that's about the sum total of my progress. I suppose I'll be able to build a small fleet and take on some of the bigger ship packs eventually, but it's fairly slow going, and I've been terrified to leave the starting sector.

 

one big criticism, and maybe my opinion will change on this with more time, but I am not a fan of the burn mechanic and overworld(space?) movement. It seems really binary. You are either higher speed and can catch fleets to fight, or slower and can't (and it often feels more like exploiting bad AI when you do).

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Yeah, the overworld right now is quite a great deal more rough than the combat, especially how simplistic the burn mechanic is. Another thing that's a bit odd is that in the combat model, all ships, regardless of whether you're controlling them or the computer is controlling them, are subject to the same rules, but in the overworld such is not quite the case. NPC fleets have infinite supplies, so there's no possibility of just running a fleet down and other such things which would be consistent with the systems in place.

 

When you get more space bucks it becomes a bit more interesting in the overworld because then it becomes a fleet composition problem. Do I build heavy and powerful, or fast and light? Should I go with a fleet that burn a lot of resources but is powerful, or one that consumes very few resources but is much more lackluster? But the basic nature of the chases doesn't change and the volume of meaningful choices still isn't so great.

 

If you haven't updated very recently, you might want to. 0.65 was released a couple days ago that includes the first cut of the trade and economic systems. I just checked on the boards and it seems that there has been talk to significant changes to how the overworld works along with fleets and fleet management, but the developer stated they wanted some of those changes to be driven by how the economic systems and such work, so it will be awhile before he gets around to working on the overworld again.

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rad!

 

any advice how I should progress in my game? I've got a little armada of Wolf-class frigates which seem pretty amazing (I messed around in a Hound at first - way more difficult), but I'm playing with permadeath, and I've been hesitant to leave the starting sector in case it consumes supplies (precious supplies) and there are no little pirate fleets to feed on.

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0.65 has bounties and what not, so you can make a good deal of funds just by patrolling a particular faction's space against hostile factions. Other sectors are not too much different, so feel free to explore, but just make sure you have plenty of jump fuel: if you run out while in hyperspace your fleet will be left adrift until it's slowly pulled into the closest gravity well. That can take quite a long time and can easily burn through an entire hold full of supplies. Other faction's systems might not have pirates, but the systems right now will have opposing factions within each system so you can prey on one while befriending the other.

 

I would work my way up to fielding a destroyer, like the Hammerhead, and then go head out of the system. Having a heavier ship gives you more flexibility with options to have higher burst damage with strike and assault weapons, good anti-fighter capabilities, area control with long range beam weapons, or fire support from long range missiles. It's also nice to have a larger ship that can hold up to sustained fire.

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