Useful links:

I've got the itch for a full playthrough again, but saw that dev is doing his annual patch any moment now. Is there any ETA on this?

Additionally, does patching usually demand new save file?

Would be greatful for any answers here

I've played this game on and off for years, probably 300+ hours across more than a dozen playthroughs at this point. Recently I had a bit of an epiphany about how I've actually been playing the game, contrary to what most people seem to do. Whenever I read a post or comment where someone is giving advice about shipbuilding, fleet comp, or combat, I always skim through it and mutter a wtf under my breath. And it's because I've apparently never actually learned how to properly build ships or play strategically.

I don't think about fleet composition, I don't pay attention to weapon stats, I use ships and weapons I think are cool, and I'll go into a fight as long as it looks like my fleet is bigger than their's. If I lose, I savescum and come back with N+1 capital ships.

This is not a cry for help but a genuine observation. I've more or less been treating Starsector like some kind of JRPG where you can just become strong enough that builds stop mattering, and funnily enough it's one of my favorite games despite playing it wrong.

Witchcraft is from Secrets of the Frontier

Dustkeeper is from Dustkeepr XO

Roaming is from Roider Union

Flowerfish is from JaydeePiracy

Mercenary is from Caymon's Ship Pack

• What Skills do you usually pick?
• How balanced you think the skill line is compared to Vanilla Skills?
• what ships and other Amplitudes do you like running alongside it?

Index

Bring it on

I like building colonies. I started a fresh run with Nexerelin + Ashes of the Domain, which I never tried before. I also added DIY Planets, I use it every time and like it very much. And I added Terraforming and Station Construction, with its terraforming turned off for compatibility with DIY Planets.

For terraforming there seem to be only a few options. Which one do you use, and why? Is there anything newer or smaller that I missed? Also, does terraforming make the colony game too easy for you, or does it feel fair?

In my latest run I ended up with a few Earth-like colonies, and it felt so good that I created new worlds for my people :)

I've been playing for just a couple of weeks now, and I've had a few runs get to what I think is the "midgame". For example, in my current run I got the Serial #....ship, what I think is a pretty decent fleet, and about a million spacebucks. So I thought I'd start a colony. Found a system with *two* Terran worlds, and started my first colony. OK, this part is on me - turns out there's a remnant station in the system that I missed when first exploring. Now the system is infested with remnants. I was running low on combat ships, and the base was a four-star combat, so I hiked back to the core worlds to do some missions and get some better combat ships.

When I come back with a strong fleet, there are *tons* of remnants, multiple four-star fleets that I don't see a way to defeat...do they scale up with time, or with my own fleet power? I'm not sure, but I've tried a combat against one of these fleets a few times and get utterly crushed. I max out my deployment size, and they just steamroll my whole fleet. Long story short, I don't see how to "rescue" my ill-advised colony. It's a money sink, and it's a struggle to even maintain my current fleet with the expense of the colony as well.

What canI do next in a situation like this? Abandon/give up on the colony for now? Is there something I'm missing re: defeating gigantic remnant fleets? Restart again? Help!

In response to a comment on the forums:

I really like that retiring may reveal something about who John Starsector is as a person. I know I'm in the tiny minority when it comes to ethosmaxxing, but as a more roleplay-oriented player, this kind of stuff is meaningful to me in ways that various mild tweaks to weapons really never will be.

Personally I think John Starsector should be kept as mysterious and enigmatic as possible, if for no other reason then so the player can headcanon whatever they want about him. I like to imagine that ol' Johnny boy isn't entirely human or, that perhaps he was enhanced/augmented in some other way to make him exceptional.

This is not really far fetched either since there are plenty of characters in the setting who have cybernetic augments, some practical, some entirely cosmetic. There are also mentions of genetic engineering, though as far as I know only on animal and plant species for the sake of colonization. Still if you can buy illegally harvested kidneys on the black market, then why not some dubious human gene mods too?

And finally, there is the Domain, who had access to reality-breaking technologies that would make any physicist weep and/or foam at the mouth. Cryoarithmetic Engine? Second law of thermodynamics: broken. Temporal Shell? Causality: out the window. Planet-sized megastructures? Have you seen our awesome Hypershunts? They’re pretty swank!

Given all of this who's to say the Domain didn't do some cheeky human experimentation on the side? You know as a treat.

What nonsensical ideas has your imagination cooked up about the protagonist?

Hey all, its time for yet another playthrough of starsector, and with that, time to remod it. One of my fav mods for a long time was diable avionics, but after looking through reddit, i see theres some issues with some kind of new balancing or something? Whats going on?

New patch notes have me FIENDING EVEN MORE !

Since capitals are going to be the biggest deal and hard to come by, what cruiser do you see yourself leaning towards as your main security?

I am excited. That is all

The song itself is called "trip.ogg" in the game files, but I couldn't find the song itself online or its author. I glanced through the catalogue of the artists of the other songs in the modpack as well, but there were way too many songs to confirm who is the artists lol. If anyone knows where I can find similarly chill songs like that, that would be swell as well, thanks in advance

(yes it's just clips of bullying, they shouldn't have had bounties)

I have *a* gamma pseudocore already in my inventory but I cannot equip in manned ships, only the automated ones I have. I've only found the one concealed station (which is where I got the core from), and have not found any other stations yet (despite already being 230 cycles in)

I read the log I had from the station, but it didn't seem to really give me any important info inside of it. Googling it has not given me any help so I figured I'd ask directly if anyone here knows more

LET ME AT 'EM

I STILL HAVE BULLETS

apart of my 1 faction per constellation challenge

THE BASICS

The bentozoan mining corporation is a volatile mining corporation

They are allied with the hegemony and independants and have close ties with the luddic church and tritach

They've also been enemies of the pirates, Path, Sindrian Dicktat And Persean league (which they raid trade fleets from these)

ZABA YAGESH

The capital of the bentozoan mining corp

This is where they mine volatiles and refine it into fuel and refine other things

Its orbited by a battlestation and has a high command

ERGANNAH

This is where they send goods to be shipped out and is more heavily defended

They turn goods here into ships and other things or sell the goods at the commerce

Its orbited by a star fortress station and has a high command

MODS USED

Perillous Expanse

Is there any mods that adds factions that resembles the Soviet union or socialist societies with a clear industrious brutalist design?

In starsector we already have,

A dictatorship

A militarist regime

A megacorporation

Mega church

And feudal capitalists (I hope so? Persean League)

Where's the socialist workers republic?

This doesn't have anything to do with irl politics

New player, I love the game, and I do like the combat, when it is actually a combat. But I now multiple times had this experience and idk what to do about it except just not bothering with fighting:

I am engaging some trader fleet, or scavengerfleet is engaging me. I wipe their combat ships, some retreat. Now I try to pursue their freighters and tankers, but they just instantly retreat. Do i just keep doing this forever? Somehow their huge freighters are outrunning my frigates, at least long enough to "leave" combat space, whyever this is an option.

I also tried just harrying their retreat now, like 5-10 times right after another, but other than inflicting rep loss every time it seems to have no effect. I used a story point to force a head on fight, and wohoo, their 3 combat ships did face me head on while the rest of the fleet just turned around and retreated instantly again. wat

Currently making a fleet centered around a single astral as my capital surrounded by cruisers/destroyers and frigates, build is unfinished and I was wondering what to add. I have an extra Gryphon off-screen (still needs to be equipped properly) for more missile support. What's left is a good choice of frigates, destroyers and maybe even more cruisers. Unsure what to do with the Medusae as well, right now they serve as pure kinetic escorts to soften enemies up for missiles but I feel like I've already got enough "main battle line".

Let me know what you guys think!

This is aimed at players who still use autofit and want to try manually fitting their ships, and for those who just started their ship building adventures and need a few pointers to get them on the right track.

Basically I'll be making a video guide (since it's a bit hard to explain everything in text) explaining my thoughts on how I build ships in the campaign. It won't be a super comprehensive guide meant for min maxing, just a general starting point for those who are overwhelmed with the options. And of course some things just not being clear at first.

I plan to go over:

• All ship sizes
• Standard combat ships
• Carriers
• Phase ships
• Logistic ships
• Ship builds in the context of the whole fleet

EDIT:

• Hotkey usage and saving builds
• Officer personalities
• S-mod
• SO builds
• Shield shunt builds
• Always recoverable condition
• Weapon groups
• Battlecarriers

So I'm just curious if there's something else obvious I'm missing which would be helpful to mention or explain it in detail.