STARSECTOR REDACTED PATCH
Right now you can follow along with the in-dev patch notes: Don't put an aggressive officer in your lightly armored support ship. Officer AI determines how effectively they will pilot certain ships. 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. Ship combat AI is ruthless and will eliminate a straggler, including you. 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. Combat readiness decreases per ship the longer a battle lasts, and this can cause issues like random engine shutdowns and weapon failures. Ship effectiveness degrades over time during combat. You must manage shield and weapon usage and know when to back off and when to go for the throat. When you over-flux, your ship temporarily shuts down and becomes a sitting duck. Flux is generated when firing weapons and by absorbing weapon fire with your shields. They also cost less money and command points to deploy. They can outmaneouver bigger ships and cause significant damage. There are also variants of these hulls that swap hard points around or swap out the special systems. There are many ship hulls in the game and each one has its own unique attributes, weapon hard points, and special systems. Why is this ship combat system better than anything available in the space strategy genre? Thematically appropriate factions with better fleet compositions and with officer qualities, behavior, and aggression appropriate for the faction. Make your faction the primary supplier for other factions by establishing waystations or engaging in piracy Manipulate supply/demand and the overall market availability of commodities.
STARSECTOR REDACTED INSTALL
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 Establish colonies and setup your own faction. What things are coming in the not too distant future? Survey distance worlds, investigate distress beacons, salvage derelicts, hunt down pirates and other criminals, uncover mysterious, and engage in the trade of legal and illegal goods Hire, level up, and assign skills to officers and then put them to work flying alongside you Build up an impressive fleet from a wide variety of ships each with their own unique special ability and attributes Strike out on your own or fulfill commissions proposed by other factions What types of things can you currently do in the game (as of 0.8a)? Soon, you will also be able to manage a faction and colonies. You always control and move a fleet of ships (Mount & Blade style) on the starmap. The official line is: "You take the role of a space captain seeking fortune and glory however you choose." (Currently) Only available direct from the publisher Updates occur infrequently (6 months - 2 years) and are large and feature packed
STARSECTOR REDACTED MODS
Modding community is robust and dedicated - entire new ship sets and even additional 4X conquest features have already been included in mods 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 Excellent 2D real-time tactical combat that does not require competitive RTS or arcade game skillsets Has 4X elements (which continue to grow), but is more of a 4X-like / RPG hybrid "Open-world single-player space-combat, roleplaying, exploration, and economic game" 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. Don't know bout vayra's effects though, but it's possible to become friendly in the base game already, without mods.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. Nexerelin makes this a lot easier and a lot faster due to making the remnant actively raid things and thus opportunities to join their fleets as they fight other stuff vastly more common. Accepting a Tri-tach commission will inherently swap them from being -50 to a flat 0 neutral which will allow you to gain reputation with them by fighting on their side in battles with factions you are both hostile to, and you will after becoming friends with them retain your friendly reputation even after no longer having the tri-tach commission. Sadly you can't invite them to an alliance even with the nexerelin mod, but you should be able to befriend them even in the base game. Yes, I've become 81 cooperative with them in one of my runs and built one of my cohabitation colonies with them and have a star fortress sitting next to their nexus.