It used to be called Starfarer. 2D RPG/Trade/Fleet Combat Game
I recently reinstalled Starsector to see what new features had been added (tldr: a lot, it's much more fun than when I first bought it in 2017!). However, every single time my Macbook Pro locks, either through afking or closing the laptop, the game crashes. I don't even get a "submit crash report" box or anything like that.
I turned off fullscreen, but it still happens (at least when my computer is closed for a while). I have no mods installed.
Any ideas?
I dont get it. To me, whether or not it fits into vanilla starsector doesnt matter to me. Hell, I'd take a Starcraft mod that has anime pfp's as long as I can pilot the Battlecruiser.
Hi, I want to make a personal character in an anime or anime-esque style. This character is going to be in a military uniform, and I have a fair number of references, so anyone willing to draw a good level of detail on a uniform is welcome.
I would like a full body piece, and my ideal price is $75, but I am flexible. I don't have any real timeline, but within 1-2 months is ideal. Please respond to this post with a portfolio if you are interested.
As a note, although this is a personal character, I might use it for a mod i'm making for Starsector, and as a result I would also like a version cropped to 128X128 pixels (in addition to the original)
(I honestly didn't expect so many responses, and I took time to look through all of your portfolios. I saw many great pieces, but (and it pains me to say this) I can only commission one person, and the request has now been closed.)
Hey guys could use a little help. So my starsector ui/hud is currently a dark red and i do know what mod it comes from (konturgas player faction mod) is there any way to change the color back to a the normal blue?
I looked at the mod files to see if there was a easy way to fix it but honestly i dont know what im looking/ looking at.
If anyone can hep that would be awesome. Thank you!
There will be two tiers listed for ships/weapons. The first one always showing how good something is in the hands of AI, the second one being for player control. If there is only one tier, then there isn't a noticeable difference in power between the pilot.
Tiers are relative, meaning something being C tier doesn't mean it's bad. It's simply niche and you can better choices available. There's almost no truly bad ships/weapons in Starsector so it would be boring to have a tier list consisting of maybe 3 tiers.
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SMALL-----
Antimatter Blaster: B / S-
Torpedo in the form of a gun pretty much. AMB has only 400 range but deals a ton of energy damage. Kind of niche due to such extreme strike nature, it's hard on flux on your own ship, so I'm not a big fan of giving these to AI ships often. Although there are places where even AI will know how to use it (like Scarab and Fury). For some reason it has 20 charges, which you probably won't spend until the big fights come. Very nice for phase ships especially. But yeah expect this to shine when a skilled player uses it, it's easy to end up in a sticky situation with a big flux spike.
Burst PD Laser: A+
Best energy PD, they even got buffed this patch. They work on charges so they're really good at stopping missiles, unless there's a barrage coming at you. Also really great versus fighters since the burst itself has good hit strength. Consider Expanded Magazines hullmod if your other energy weapons have charges, you'll get good value out of it.
Ion Cannon: B
If you don't have medium energy mounts, this will be your only form of EMP pressure, I can't call it bad. EMP is basically a win more tool but it can help a lot with fast pesky ships and fighters. Somewhat expensive at 6 OP for what it does. Much more useful in early game where enemies have weak shields.
IR Pulse Laser: B+
Standard pew pew assault weapon, not much to say about it. Good efficiency, good DPS, also your only source of consistent hard flux damage in small mounts. Damage per shot is on the low side so it does almost nothing to armour of destroyers and up.
LR PD Laser: B
As name tells, long range PD weapon that has an advantage over other options. It can actually destroy missiles that detonate at ranges outside of standard PD range (Sabots, DEMs). 800 base range is a lot so you could make a whole grid of PD lasers if you're up against a missile heavy fleet. One downside is low DPS so you'll need more than 1-2 on a ship. Thankfully it got buffed so it costs less OP, which was my main complaint before.
EDIT: Can also shoot over allied ships.
PD Laser: B
Half range of LR PDs, but has actual competent DPS, it just might kill a single fighter. Until you find Burst PDs, you'll be probably using this on your energy mounts.
Tactical Laser: B
Effciency buff was nice, I still think it's niche in a way where it only makes sense on ships going full disco mode with beams. One funny thing with Tacticals dealing 1000 ranged energy damage, is it keeping the AI's shields up, they don't like being painted on armour. So unless your ships has other long range weapons, it will just needlessly negate the 0-flux speed bonus. It's also not bad on carriers and other support ships which will stay away from fights, but might need something to deter frigates.
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MEDIUM-----
Graviton Beam: A
This one is a doozy with all the effects it has. So first, it's a 1000 range kinetic beam, so it might seem meh at first. But it's cheap and easy to spam since it's light on flux and cheap on OP. Then, it has the effect of increasing ALL shield damage a target takes while Graviton(s) is firing at it. Scales up to 3 Gravitons with 10% more shield damage. That's big considering even your other allies benefit from it, provided they attack the same target. Then it also has a special effect of slightly pushing things along its beam path. Meaning it can fling missiles away (not always though) and even some fighters. Not something you will rely on but nevertheless a neat thing to have. Guess the buff worked in the end. Nice option for midiline ships.
Heavy Blaster: B / A+
Large weapon in a medium package, HB has monstrous DPS potential at the cost of very bad efficiency. Please don't put this on AI ships that don't have enough flux for it. Each shot is damaging enough that it works as a quasi anti armour weapon. Pairs well with SO and/or Sabots.
Heavy Burst PD Laser: B-
First, I want to be clear and say this isn't a bad PD weapon. The problem is well, it occupies a medium energy mount, and all ships with those have plenty of small mounts for smaller Burst PDs. So no real reason to mount them despite the buffs it got (while losing the ability to ignore decoy flares). And same as small variants, great versus fighters and stopping missiles fast while it has more generous regenerating charges. Maybe it works nice on some mod ships, so far I haven't found a good vanilla candidate without sacrificing damage.
Ion Beam: B+
Getting a much needed flux cost reduction, it feels better now. 1000 range EMP beam is very nice for long range builds or support ships. It also has a nice shield pierce effect where it can deal EMP damage through arcs when the targets is at high flux. As other EMP weapons it costs a fair amount of OP.
Ion Pulser: A / S-
Charge based EMP weapon with short range but extreme burst potential. This will shut down a whole ass ship at once is what I'm saying. Great for strike builds where you could safely vent in the face of danger that is temporarily helpless. For an EMP weapon it's also not bad at dealing actual damage to hull, something that other options do not have. S-modded Expanded Magazines makes it even better.
IR Autolance: B
Cheap anti-fighter weapon, it's a charge based fragmentation beam with smart targeting system, meaning it will save charges for either fighters or when the enemy shields get dropped. It's a better Thumper in a nutshell. Nice on midline ships who won't have enough flux for everything. Only 8 OP and low flux usage, make sure you have plenty of assault firepower elsewhere before deciding on these.
Phase Lance: C / B
Almost everything getting buffs left Phase Lance in a meh spot. You have better ways to get through shields, you have better anti armour tools, and dealing with fighters is not worth the price if that's going to be your main thing for it. Burst damage is still nice, it didn't suddenly become unusable. You just have more efficient burst options. 1.2 efficiency and you deal soft flux is asking a lot. Although still decent on flagship strike builds, phase ships as well.
Pulse Laser: A-
Having the same efficiency as the small variant was a big deal. It is now the shield cracker option in most situations and smaller ships can actually handle the flux. Bring something for heavy armour though.
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LARGE-----
Autopulse Laser: A / A+
Pulse Laser but now with charges. Incredible burst capability and efficiency, and now its biggest weakness - sustained DPS - can be solved by s-modding Expanded Magazines. Excellent for dealing with shields, as far as high tech ships manage, damage per shot isn't crazy, you'll spend a lot of time cracking through capitals. One thing rarely seen is energy weapons not being accurate. Autopulse is much better mounted in hardpoints where that drawback gets nearly negated. As in turrets it will start to fire all over the place in prolonged burst, but it's not like you care much for hitting shields.
High Intensity Laser: A+
Better than ever, with 0.8 efficiency now and reworked Gravitons. HIL is basically death to anything that has their shields down. Melts through armour like butter, you only need to make sure you have enough kinetic damage to deal with shields. HE beam that is unlockable, perfect accuracy and mountstrous DPS at 1000 range will ruin the day of any Shield Shunted ship. Only reason it isn't S tier is because it's dead weight while shields are up, so you technically need to wait to use your big guns.
Paladin PD System: C+
Like Heavy Burst PD, asking to devote a non-small energy mount just for PD is a hard one. ESPECIALLY large energy mounts, which are the best in the game. I mean Paladin got reworked before, it melts missiles, it melts fighters with AOE fragmentation explosions, it does everything it needs. It's just niche at the end of the day, many ships that have large energies need them for damage. You could definitely make it work on a Champion or Odyssey, you'll just be sacrificing raw power.
EDIT:
u/Xeltar Made a good point about it being able to shoot over allies, same as LR PD Laser.
Plasma Cannon: B+ / S-
Best DPS in a large energy mount, and even good damage per shot, it's role is anti-everything. Pretty simple weapon but pretty darn strong. AI ships will be running hot, it's much better with a careful player knowing when to stop firing. Not the main role of it, a cool thing it does is having shots so powerful, they go straight through most fighters. So you can be attacking another big ship and completely unitentionally clear entire fighter wings.
Tachyon Lance: B+ / S
Sniper's wet dream, Tach Lance is Phase Lance on crack. 1000 range, incredible burst damage and a ton of EMP damage on top. And like with Ion Beam, its EMP arcs can hit through shields when the target is high on flux. Similar to HIL, it's smart to have a lot of kinetic firepower as well. With Tachyons you either want to overwhelm the target with as many as you can have, or fire them in the right moment. The enemy otherwise just dissipates soft flux and walks away. AI will sometimes fire at dumb shit but at least the shit will be no more. Only time it's not a great choice, is on fast ships that can easily get it, you're better of mounting something more efficient and hard flux.
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HYBRID-----
This patch "introduced" 2 hybrid weapons, which are just changed energy weapons from before. And they still work like that, all stat changing buffs such as skills and hullmods work exactly as if they were energy weapons. They can just be mounted in ballistic slots now.
Mining Laser: C+
Never in my life would I think of putting this little thing higher than D tier. But it happened, since it costs a whopping ONE OP. You still need a hundred of these to stop missiles and kill fighters, but at least it won't bring you to cry anymore. They're an okay alternative if you're really hurting for OP and you have a ton of unfilled small mounts. 4 of these have the same flux/second as a single PD laser, and same OP cost, but higher DPS and more range. So it's an actual choice now. They still get scrapped as soon as you find Burst PDs.
Mining Blaster: A-
Another blessing from the maker, this was F tier in my previous tier list... It got completely changed, it's another charge based weapon, but dealing HE damage that is is scripted (not reduced by armour). And like IR Autolance autofire AI is smart enough not to fire on shields. Absolutey amazing versus phase ships. Mind you it'll obviously always be worse than ballistics due to inefficiency. It just works so great on many speedy builds where you need burst armour cracking.
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SPECIAL-----
I'll be talking about some energy weapons you won't find in markets or just randomly as loot somewhere. So if you don't mind slight spoilers, go right ahead. Hint: They're LG weapons. Kinetic Blaster: A-
First thing we notice here is dogshit efficiency for a kinetic weapon. So why is it so highly ranked? DPS. It breaks shields faster than every other non-large energy weapon. Pulse Laser is barely a bit worse versus shields, and it deals energy damage. Time to break shields is just such an important tool in this game that the inefficiency isn't such a huge hit. Besides, this will be used on high tech ships which already use non efficient fancy weapons.
Gigacannon: C+ / C
I love this thing so much. It's basically a big Antimatter Blaster, not having that much higher damage, but it has standard range, amazing flux efficiency and doesn't use ammo. The problem is DPS. Among the large energy weapons, it has such lower DPS values. 200 is almost small energy tier. So this leaves it in a niche tier, where it's great on ships that don't have flux for DPS powerhouses, and just need something mounted. It also has a short chargeup animation, but when it hits, boy does it hit.
- If I missed something or made a typo, let me know. I can still edit the tiers in case I made a severe and continuous lapse of my judgment.
(I'll be borrowing Grievous69's certified Starsector Ship Rating System™. The first score is for a flagship and the second is for an AI ship)
Frigates
- Cerberus/Gremlin/Hermes/Hound/Kite/Mercury/MudskippeMudskipper Mk.II/Vanguard: garbage that only exists so you have easy enemies to blow up.
- BrawleCenturion/LasheMercury/Vigilance/Wolf: random crap you put in your fleet because it's common, cheap and you're apparently too lazy to look for actually good ships. You'll likely get rid of them faster than it would take me to review them all.
- Shepherd: your all-in-one exploration ship that you can bring into combat in a pinch.
- Brawler LP(A/A): everyone's favourite Support Doctrine spam ship. All but requires fighter(interceptor) support to work properly. Can serve you well into the endgame - you just need to keep getting more of them and start investing into S-mods - but eventually you'll have to start accepting some losses against large fleets or stations.
- Monitor(S/A): dumb ship for cheesing the AI with so you can pretend you're good at the game. Works best as "flagship", AI will need more Monitors for equal results. In its actual intended role of stopping missiles and fighters it's D/D and completely outclassed by the Omen.
- Omen(A/A): great ship in a role that doesn't actually exist - if you have problems with fighters or missiles put some PD on the ships you already have(or get some Wasps) instead of bringing another ship and hoping it will be in the right place at the right time. Surprisingly capable in real combat - the EMP Emitter is almost a free Pulse Laser damage-wise - to the point you can consider Support Doctrine spam, although it kills very slowly.
- Scarab(A/A): fantastic in early/mid-game, in late-game it will run into serious PPT issues because it's kind of like a phase ship without the massive PPT boost from Phase Coil Tuning skill.
- Tempest(A/A): fastest non-SO frigate around, unfortunately you'll want to SO it anyways because its base flux stats absolutely cannot support two medium energy weapons. At which point it's basically like Scarab, good only as long as you can end the fight before you run out of CR.
- Shade(A/B): like a worse Afflictor. AI has trouble understanding that EMP Emitter and phase cloak are mutually exclusive.
- Afflictor(S/S): hands down the best frigate in the game, at least as long as you take the Phase Coil Tuning skill. Even in AI hands it outperforms everything else thanks to its inhuman reflexes(ever dodged a Tachyon Lance shot? AI can) and always trying to get behind enemy ships.
- Hyperion: Take Scarab/Tempest then double their power but also their PPT issues. Two pump chump with a huge dick.
Destroyers
NOTE: In general destroyers become almost completely useless by the endgame. While (good) frigates justify their existence by being able to cap objectives, kill stragglers and generally be a distraction that in most cases is almost impossible for the enemy to kill, destroyers lack the speed to do any of this while at the same time lacking range, damage and tank to duke it out with cruisers and capitals.
NOTE2: Carriers(of all sizes) become progressively less useful as fleets get bigger because there's just so much ordnance flying around that fighters evaporate quickly even without any dedicated PD. And bombers don't change targets mid-flight which often leads to them charging right into enemy lines trying to fire on ships that have already retreated.
- Buffalo Mk.II: truly one of the ships of all time.
- Condor(B/B): best carrier deck/DP ratio in the game but you get what you pay for. It barely even has enough OP to fit bombers much less everything else. It's also extremely slow which can be an issue if you actually want them to contest air(?)space at the start, since chances are good the Condor won't arrive until the battle is already well underway.
- Drover(A/A): like Condor but good.
- Enforcer(A/A): five medium slots but you'll only have flux to fire three of them. Combined with four small missile slots that's usually enough hovewer. An SO version is probably close to S tbh.
- Hammerhead(B/C): here's a ship which runs into an unusual problem: it doesn't have enough mounts. If you put kinetics in both, you do nothing to armor. If you put explosives in both, you do nothing to shields. If you split, you have firepower of a frigate with none of the advantages of one. If you try to solve the problem with missiles, you better have EMR and Missile Spec. Overrated.
- Hammerhead LG(A/B): this might be the only case where an LG ship is better than the base variant. With Pulse Lasers or Ion Pulsers you don't have to worry about damage types and you still get a damage boost shipsystem.
- Harbinger(A/C): extreme one trick pony: use shipsystem, unload, slither away and wait for shipsystem to be available again. AI is kind of bad at it. You're both better off with an Afflictor.
- Manticore(A/A): the large mount seems great but flux limitations mean that in practice you're looking at the Hellbore and something to break shields, i.e. a Railgun. Still, it's a combo that works well and you still have two medium missiles. Also works as a more generalist alternative to the Sunder for exploration.
- Manticore LP(S/A): imagine a Brawler LP with a Hammer Barrage/Cyclone Reaper Launcher. Less PPT issues but more ammo issues.
- Medusa(S/B): the first in line of high tech ships that work extremely well in player hands but are extremely disappointing in AI hands. Unlike other destroyers Medusa has the speed to remain useful even in late game, but only if you're the one piloting it.
- Shrike(A/B): baby Medusa. Less everything but more common and cheaper.
- Sunder(S/S): arguably the only destroyer which can remain useful in late game in AI hands. Large energy mount and extra 200 range with Advanced Optics means it can keep itself out of trouble while still packing a punch. It's also the best destroyer for exploration as it basically hard-counters the entire Derelict line with a High Intensity Laser. In player hands you can do silly things like put SO on it and then just Autopulse your problems away.
Cruisers
- Apogee(A/A): technically an exploration ship, you will never use it for the role because you will see only two in the entire campaign. Large missile mount for 20 DP is nothing to sneeze at, sadly it has very little to follow up on it. The OP is tight. No, not the good kind of tight.
- Aurora(S/B): the final in line of high tech ships that only work as long as you're the one piloting them, Aurora is a strong contender for the best flagship in the game as it is basically a prefect ship for the hit-and-run playstyle the player excels at.
- Champion(A/A): essentially a fixed Apogee: two ballistic mounts for extra HVD oomph, 25 more OP and a ship system that actually does something. 25 DP though.
- Colossus Mk.II: "Who appointed me? Ludd did. Who appointed you?"
- Dominator(A/C): one of the best examples of how AI cannot handle ships with hardpoints because it changes targets so often it ends up not firing at anything half the time. Shame too, as Dominator has a lot of potential - two large ballistic mounts is solid on its own and you also get two mediums and a generous compliment of missiles.
- Doom(A/C): another one trick pony, you will spend most of the time just spamming the shipsystem key. Sadly, this actually works. Note that while Systems Expertise obviously helps a lot with mine spam, you can theoretically fly the Doom without any combat skills whatseover and still meaningfully contribute - a rarity among flagships. You don't need the Phase Coil Tuning for it either.
- Falcon/Eagle(B/C): I am lumping them together because they have exactly same issue as the Hammerhead: not enough mounts. Eagle was recently buffed but it didn't get any more mounts so the changes were irrelevant. Player can fall back on SO nonsense, the AI cannot.
- Falcon P(A/C): the Aurora-before-Aurora, zoom in, delete something with torpedoes then zoom out. Obviously AI can't hope to replicate this.
- Eradicator(A/A): now here's a good lad, a bit on the glass cannon side but the best defense is a good offense as they say. For a flagship you should also strongly consider Eradicator P.
- Fury(A/B): baby Aurora. Less everything but more common and cheaper.
- Gryphon(A/A): strong but strictly a support ship as it lacks speed or tank to serve on the front line. Please note that linking Squalls with Harpoons/Breachers is banned by the Geneva Convention. Whatever that is.
- Heron(A/A): a quintessential carrier, it carries things, it's fast and it has a ship system that makes the things it carries better.
- Mora(B/B): remember that one time when your carrier ended up on the frontline and you had it tank? Me neither.
- Venture(B/B): a dedicated exploration ship hugely let down by the civilian-grade hull which gives it a sensor profile larger than a capital and which means none of the combat ship only skills apply to it. And if you militarize it, you're stuck with the awkward(for exploration) base Burn of 8.
Capitals
- Astral(C/C): in most cases you're better off with two Herons(or even Moras) simply to have two sets of fighters which can be in two different places - assuming you need that many fighters in the first place. Like Doom, Astral can work well as a flagship even without any combat skills - not that there are any carrier combat skills anyways - you just shoot things with Squalls then send Daggers at them.
- Atlas Mk.II(B/C): proof that sometimes offense is not in fact the best defense. Forget glass cannon, this thing is a wet toilet paper roll howitzer. The player can keep it safe behind the front line and not fire the main guns most of the time because AI ships will keep getting in the way.
- Conquest(A/S): the best capital in AI hands - no hardpoints, maximum range, mobile in every direcion, omnishield, decent PD all around. On top of that it features a staggering array of weapons for only 40 DP. The shield efficiency is terrible but that is partially compensated for by its monstrous base flux stats. I am actually giving it lower flagship score because almost everyone uses turn-to-cursor which doesn't work with broadside ships.
- Executor(B/B): a great ship let down by its abysmal flux dissipation which forces you to put some of the lowest flux/second weapons in every mount. Which is a shame because other than that it has a good mix of missiles and large energy mounts, it's the fastest battleship by a quite large margin, has strong shields and a useful ship system.
- Invictus(B/C): the flying brick meme ship, Invictus basically has the same problem as the Paragon in that its extreme range doesn't mesh with its extreme tank at all. The fact that you will have to vent after every LIDAR use also drastically decreases its effective DPS. At least unlike the Paragon it gets ballistics and large missiles. The logistics footprint of it is hilarious.
- Legion(A/A): Onslaught's other half, it performs worse as a flagship because Sarissas/Xyphos necessitate getting closer to enemies to blow them up. On the other hand AI does better with it because it's all turreted(I assume you will do a long range/regular fighter build for the AI) I won't make distinction between regular and XIV, the latter is slightly better but they both work in their own ways.
- Odyssey(A/A): your second best pick after Conquest for AI use, largely because it costs 5 DP more but it's hard to justify why. Plasma Cannons cut the range and AI does weird things with Plasma Burn sometimes. Also, since all Odysseys are inherently left-sided, this will cause all of them to drift towards right side of the map as the battle goes on. Score deduction for broadside still applies.
- Onslaught(S/B): everyone's favourite battleship modeled after the hairline of a certain famous Twitch streamer. Extremely effective in player hands, the AI as usual has problems focusing on a single thing to shoot. Although in case of the Onslaught it's less of a problem because the downtime at least lets the ammo in TPCs regenerate. XIV is a straight upgrade.
- Paragon(B/C): possibly the most overrated ship in the game, Paragon brings measly four large energy mounts for a whooping 60 DP while its flux can barely support four Tachyon Lances. It also brings Fortress Shield which it will never use because it outranges everything in the first place. And if caught - which usually only happens to enemy Paragons - the AI is bad with Fortress Shield, often interrupting its own guns.
- Pegasus(S/B): two Squalls and two Hurricanes, as well as a generous array of medium ballistic mounts make Pegasus a "gentleman's choice" compared to the caveman Onslaught. I wouldn't call it better though, especially at 50 DP. Funnily enough AI is about as bad with Pegasus as it is with the Onslaught as it will gleefully waste all of the Hurricane shots with Fast Missile Racks long before Squalls run out, leaving you with a ship that can't finish anything off.
- Prometheus Mk.II(C/C): while Atlas MK.II sucks in a radical way, Prometheus Mk.II sucks in a boring way. It actually has some tank, and more sensible weapon layout, and even some fighter bays, all in a crappy civilian package with not enough flux.
- Retribution(B/D): and to think that for 5 DP less you could have an Aurora. Retribution is a battlecruiser cosplaying as a cruiser, which takes all the battle out of it. Damn that was good. Basically what I'm saying is that it has weaknesses of both and strengths of neither.
- Ziggurat(B/D): the mosquito broccoli is simply not worth 75 DP, not even when used by the player. Maybe give it one rank up if you fit it with omega weapons or something.
AI Ships:
- DefendePicket/Sentry/Warden/Bastillon/Berserker: trash.
- Rampart(B): green brick with a lot of gun for 15 DP.
- Guardian: overpowered with a lot of cheats built-in, you can't get them.
- Fulgent/Scintilla/Apex/Brilliant/Nova/Radiant: whether or not these ships are good is irrelevant as they're all let down by Reckless core AI limitations...
- Lumen(B): ...unless you fit a ship with all 1000 range beams and slap Advanced Optics on top of that which all but negates said AI limitations. Lumens are cheap and flimsy but fast and slippery. You can bring more of them into the fight than Glimmers but they're still less effective per DP.
- Glimmer(A): speaking of, here's arguably the second best AI frigate in the game after Afflictor. And yes, I am talking about Graviton Beam/2-4 Tactical Laser Glimmer, not the SO version. While they're usually not the first to reach the third objective they can reliably push enemy ships off of it and then hold it until it's capped. They do not count towards your officer limit, do not require Phase Coil Tuning to work, provide decent amount of ECM from elite Gunnery Implants and unlike most other premium frigates have amazing PPT. Sure, one or two may blow up occassionally(especially against Persean League and their Hydras) but they're machines, not people, so who really cares?
Logistic Ships:
Valkyrie/Phantom/Colossus Mk.III: not much to say, Phantom is best. Although it should be pointed out that for getting undercover agents out of Pirate/Pather space stations all you need is Valkyrie and 100 Marines, anything above that does nothing.
Nebula/Starliner: you will literally only use these for creating colonies. Why am I writing this. Nebulas are rather common as wrecks during exploration so you can save yourself some money just by keeping any you find for later. Wow.
WayfareGemini/Mule/Tarsus: the "combat freighters", well except for Tarsus but I didn't have anywhere else to put it. Needless to say you should never bring a freighter into combat so only two ships here stand out. The first is Wayfarer which somehow packs 150 cargo space into a frigate hull with no civilian sensor profile penalty and which has OP to spare for Insulated Engine Assembly making it an early game smuggler's best friend. The other is Gemini which is wise enough to stay the hell away from combat, as a freighter should.
Dram/Phaeton/Revenant/Prometheus: unless you really really need sensor profile below 30 without S-modding then Phaeton completely obsoletes the Dram. Revenant exists as a more fancy Phaeton which also doubles as a cargo ship and makes it easier to keep your fleet's sensor profile low which means you can bring larger ships on your smuggling trips. Prometheus is completely pointless, you will never need this much fuel.
Buffalo/Colossus/Atlas: which ship to use will vary depending on your skills(Bulk Transport), desired base Burn, desired sensor profile and how much SP are you willing to spend. From endgame perspective Atlas is a clear winner, being most efficient by just about every metric. With S-modded Insulated Engine Assembly you can get its sensor profile down to that of a frigate(!), hovewer it will have base Burn of 8 - either with Bulk Transport or Augmented Drive Field - which is usually not enough for early game or exploration. Colossus gets to Burn 9, Buffalo gets Militarized Subsystems instead to lower its sensor profile without S-modding, etc.
Salvage Rig: put three of these in your fleet and stop whining about supplies/fuel.
Ox: with the massive bonuses logistics hullmods got when S-modded in this patch there is even less reasons to not use the Ox. Or two.
Am I the only one who having this problem or have Pirates become less and less of a real threat and more of just an annoyance in recent updates? I started playing Starsector in 9.1 and one thing I've noticed was how much of a problem pirates could truly be, but as time has gone on and the game has been updated I haven't seen the mass pirate armadas I use to see back then in 9.1 when a pirate raids could include massive fleets that could number in the double digits in one system. Now I only see one or two fleets every now and again even when I sell them blueprints and nanoforges they never seem to amass in huge numbers any more. Even in 9.1 when I didn't sell them blueprints and nanoforges they would still hit systems with huge numbers of fleets enough to overwhelm defenders. But now when I see them raid a system there are only 1-3 small fleets with only frigate, destroyer, and now pirate "armadas" will often at best only have one cruiser. No more mass amounts Atlas Mk.IIs just a single eradicator and a handful of frigate. Is this just me am I losing my mind or is it the mods because I didn't start moding tell 9.5. I ask all this because of the new hostile activity event that tells us how dangerous the pirates are even as the system wide raids they launch barley have ships enough in them to equal a single fleet of 20 ships.
I have been playing Starsector for a while now.
And making my own mod is something I have always wanted to do but I don't know where to start.
I am confused with the Starsector guide to modding in the wiki.
Any help?
I'm dying to get back into starsector but a lot of the mods I want to play with haven't been updated yet.
I've been hesitant to manually update them for fear that I'll discover my game is cooked halfway through a playthrough because the mods need more than an updated version to be compatible.
For those of you that have done this, has it generally been fine for you?
I'm back into Starsector after a few years and obviously i've got right into modding the crap out of it, but unfortunately, it seems many mods are not working anymore. Out of 9, just 3 are working. Thus my question - what are some of the best mods that will work with the current game version? Bonus question, is there some mod updateloader like KSP or DSP have? Would be super useful. And to all the modders - you make a great game even better. Thank you for your work!