Gaming Cogitohazards: Starsector

If it can consume hundreds of hours of my life it qualifies as a cogitohazard

Far into the future, in a sector of space hundreds of lightyears away, humanity clings to the scraps of its past glory. The stellar empire of humanity- the Domain- died not with a whimper or bang, but with a sudden, defining silence.

The gate system- an interstellar highway that connected the vast Domain of human civilization- simply ceased to be. The Collapse was upon us. The gates died, shattering the empire at the height of its power. The Church of Galactic Redemption claimed that it was God’s punishment for man’s hubristic transgressions- the violation of the natural laws of thermodynamics and causality, that enabled the vast stellar realm to exist. Their scriptures claimed that the hammer of judgment came as the prophet Ludd was arrested and transported through one such gate.

The Persian sector was stranded, just like all the rest of humanity. Logistics crumbled, terraforming projects broke down, miracles of engineering were left to rot, the engineers blessed with the knowledge of their construction and operation many light years away from the frontier Sector.

Piracy, political instability, and religious extremism consumed the Persian sector in a paroxysm of violence and chaos.

Deep on the fringes of space, the XIVth battle group arrived on the edge of the Sector just as disaster struck. Cut off from Command, they enacted desperate measures and protocols. Many thousands of crewmen were cryogenically frozen to conserve supplies on the XIVth’s long journey to the Persian Sector’s more developed Core Worlds. Along the way, many civilian vessels and colonies were stripped of their supplies wholesale, leaving a scar of abandoned or decivilized worlds in the XIVth’s wake. When they finally reached Chicomoztoc, the XIVth battlegroup declared themselves the only legitimate government of the Sector. The Domain was no more, and from its ashes rose the Hegemony. Order had come to the Persian sector.

In the power vacuum, some corporations such as Tri-Tachyon retained and reformed their chain of command. Others like Eridani-Utopia collapsed, its senior scientist selling off their precious knowledge to whomever could protect and shelter them.

Other groups emerged completely changed. For a time, the Mayasuran Terraforming Cabal build a veritable jewel of a planet, carefully nurtured weather patterns creating a paradise world where only dead soil previously existed. Three jewels crowned the world of Marriath. A trinity of orbital station-cities.

82 cycles after the Collapse, Luddic Path radicals would ram an anti-matter fuel tanker into one of these orbitals, crashing it into the planet below. The work of the Cabal was rendered into dust. The environment returned to the wasteland it once was, gale-force winds forever churning the ashes of the murdered world.

In the disaster’s wake came the Hegemony to destroy the weakened Mayasuran fleet and claim the system for themselves.

It is the 206th cycle after the Collapse. Humanity’s height is a distant memory- the silver spires rising from utopian paradise worlds have given way to cramped hab-domes, over-populated urban hives, and backwards religious farming enclaves. Many blueprints for critical systems exist only on quantum encrypted production chips. Impossible to copy and jealously horded by the powers that be.

Two AI wars have ravaged the core worlds, polities have been born and snuffed out, piratical warlords have risen and fallen, entire worlds have been extinguished by incomprehensible planet-killers.

Humanity is either consumed by ignorance and fear of its past works or possessed of a dangerous obsession with ancient knowledge.

None of that matters to you, however. You are a simple spacer commanding a small fleet of ships. Your destiny is in your hands, if you have the skill and ruthlessness to make it in these troubled times.

Will you facilitate trade between systems or hunt bounties? Explore half-forgotten worlds on the fringes of space or survey long-dead orbital habs? Pay for your conscience by accepting the crippling tariffs of the major powers or risk their ire by trading on the black market- transponders off and cargo holds full of guns and drugs?

The choice is yours- this is Starsector.

Overview

Starsector is a . . . hmm. Roguelike? Trading simulator? Fleet combat/RTS game? It’s a lot of things. All of them awesome. Perhaps it would be easier to describe.

You’ve got ships, see. You control them in real time from a top-down perspective. This is the over-world. Then you get into combat with other space-faring degenerates, also from a top down, 2d perspective.

You might be wondering why I spend so long recapping the backstory to this game. Is it because the gameplay isn’t worth talking about? Hardly. However, I find that this game’s atmosphere simply pairs so well with it that not giving the reader a taste of the lore would be a disservice. So, what actually is the game part of this game, anyway?

Exploration, fleet management and smuggling spare livers.

This can simply be summarized as everything that isn’t combat.

To travel through a system, you point your cursor around the map and your ships will move. You can reach higher speeds by using your burn drive at the cost of a poorer turn radius. You can shoot an interdiction pulse (the wide circular area in the image below) that temporarily fries the burn drives of all fleets in a radius. As you might be able to guess, this is a fairly mechanically dense game. Should you decide to play it, don’t sweat. There’s a great tutorial to ease you in.

All fleets have a sensor radius determined mostly by the size of the fleet. You can reduce it further by going dark, shutting down non-critical systems in return for moving at a snail's pace.

At any rate, you’ll have to spend supplies to keep your ships from degrading both in combat effectiveness and eventually in their ability to even stay space worthy. You’re also going to need fuel to travel between systems through hyperspace.

Running out of supplies means decreased combat effectiveness and eventually: hull breaches. Fun!

But what happens if you run out of fuel? Best case scenario- you’re in the Core Worlds and end up falling into a Gas Giant’s gravity well in range of civilization. Worst case- you’re in the middle of hyperspace 20 light years from the nearest gas station and you’ve just entered the event-horizon of a Black Hole.

These movement mechanics make for great drama- out maneuver patrols as you try and sneak your feel onto port and sell your illegal contraband, running from massive pirate fleets, piloting a single, high-tech ship with minimal sensor returns so you can covertly place a spy-satellite or desperately trying to get back home from the edge of space, because you lost track of your supplies and fuel.

Another favorite receptor-tingler of mine is managing to slip a patrol or a huge pirate fleet by directly jumping to hyperspace moments before the enemy can intercept you.

Then there is the process of managing your ships- those can be anything from super tankers, to mid-range haulers with shielded cargo bays, to bleeding edge warships that casually break the laws of established physics.

Your loadout page is where you can trick each of these ships out to fit the mission- extended cargo bays, slashed sensor returns, equipment for more efficient planetary surveys- you name it.

Making money in this game is extremely stimulating. You can accept ‘’quests’’ in various bars in the major planetary hubs or accept in real time via the intel screen if you’re close enough to a comms relay.

These can be anything- getting together a pack of marines to jailbreak a political prisoner (or, y’know- the regular, criminal type), transporting various goods, covertly placing spy satellites, sabotaging a rival faction’s spaceport and more.

Or you can simply trade. You’ll probably start out at the commodity screen, trying to figure out what to buy and where to sell it before the demand is plugged, and you might end up acquainted with the Core Worlds so intimately you’ll simply know by heart which planets produce what and where the demand will typically be. It’s shockingly satisfying to find your own golden triangle and make millions from novel trade routes.

On the other hand, massive shortages from pirate raids and faction conflicts are equally satisfying- racing against time to be the first to bring in a large relief package, and therefore racking in the most amount of dough.

That’s right- Star sector has a fully functional economy system where price fluctuates based on supply and demand.

You can even join that market by colonizing your own planet and industrializing it to produce goods and fill your coffers. Of course, you’ll need to find a worthwhile rock beforehand.

I talked about exploration before, and it’s one of my favorite parts of the game. Since all non-core worlds are randomly generated, there’s always excitement in going out into the cold, uncivilized reaches of space for in-game months. You might even be contracted to find specific objects or survey planets. This is a great way to find rare and valuable objects like habs and abandoned research stations.

Planets can be everything from dead, worthless rocks to habitable worlds covered in the carcasses of long-dead cities where the local populace battles for scraps. One particularly haunting world generated in my very first campaign. It was perfectly temperate if a little arid, with wonderful, rich soil. Vast ruins littered the surface and there wasn’t a single soul alive on it. I’d come across decivilized worlds on volcanic planets that somehow clung to life inside their decaying archologies. What could have possibly wiped out every living human on this temperate, food rich world? What happened here?

There’s something very eerie about exploring in this game and finding the works of your predecessors- towering monuments to power humanity might never reach again.

Speaking of which, these ruins often contain artifacts you might use should you ever start your own colony.

These range from advanced nanomaterial spools you can use to build a space elevator to a self-replicating bio factory that can grow consumer goods. . . they sell well too. I guess the citizens of the Persian sector don’t mind bone toasters that have a nervous system as opposed to circuitry. . .

Combat:

The other major portion is the tactical. This is where you obsessively trick out your various ships and their commanders and engage in large-scale space battles.

You can play this portion more like an RTS or you can take an active role in the fighting by piloting your flagship.

At any rate you’ll have to actually acquire and equip your ships. Whether your build ends up as a barely functional pile of floating space-detritus, or as a game-breaking battering ram smashing through the opposition . . .

. . . depends entirely on your knowledge of the game. If you’re looking for something casual to turn your brain off to while you listen to a podcast, you should probably search elsewhere. Then again, I do that but I have an uncomfortable number of hours into this virtual crack-rock of a game. Once you get familiar with the mechanics it can actually be very cozy.

What I’m getting at is that there’s a lot of depth and complexity to this game: all ships have a certain amount of hull and armor you need to get through before destroying them, shields and weapons draw from a common resource called flux. Fill up that meter completely and. . .

Some ship types, such as most high-tech types have poor armor, but great shield efficiency, meaning they can eat the same amount of damage as a lower-efficiency shield and generate less flux.

Some weapons are better at damaging one type of defense over another. For example, if you’re exploring the reaches of space: try this bad boy on for size.

Every ship has its own quirks, slots different weapons of different types and sizes, and has different ship systems to give them a lot of individual flavor. Some of these skills are unique to the ship class, such as the phase teleporter.

Meet the Hyperion. An extremely fair ship that has the size and speed of a frigate, the flux capacity of a heavy destroyer and the ability to spit in the eyes of God by violating Neutonian physics and teleporting directly behind an enemy ship before launching a literal AM-enriched nuclear torpedo into its engines.

And that’s just one (admittedly high end) ship. There’s dozens.

The combat definitely has a learning curve. You might find yourself getting stomped by the game for a while until you understand the nuances of movement with different ships, ship systems, weapon groups, ship mods, fleet composition. . . you get the picture. Once you do get going though. Oh, boy.

Sufficed to say, this game has a decently high skill ceiling with massive potential for player expression. Here’s some footage of an absolute psychopath destroying 30 ships with a flying flashlight that weaponizes Murphy’s law. Oh, did I mention you can name your ships?

Half the fun of this game for me is simply experimenting with different loadouts- both on the flagship and on the fleet level. Sure, it’s not hard to figure out that several high-quality ships like the Paragon and Champion make for a perfect armored fist, while agile frigates like the Tempest can easily secure your flanks. But as soon as you start restricting yourself to themed builds- only midline, only high-tech, carrier fleet, hell- a fleet made of entirely frigates- you start to see the immense potential for self-expression in this game.

In the beginning, you’re probably gonna suck at piloting. While simply micromanaging your ship's RTS style is easier, it has its own nuances. You can’t simply give infinite orders, for example. Issuing a command uses up a resource called command points. Run out and you’re stuck with whatever orders you’ve last issued.

Still, this is a perfectly valid way to play the game, so if you’re more of a control freak- don’t worry, you can now micromanage your employees at all times, and they won’t even complain! So long as your build allows for a rapid enough command point regeneration.

Builds? Is this an RPG too? Kinda. Both you, the player and special NPCs called lieutenants can level up. You can usually find those floating in 200-year-old cryopods. I imagine the post-thaw conversation goes a little something like this:

‘’Hey, civilization as you know it has ended. Here, pilot this floating deathtrap I bought for 500 credits.’’

As you play the game you can unlock useful skills for both you and your subordinates.

Colonies:

But let’s say you need a little break from all the violence and drug smuggling. What you need is a nice tropical vacation home to skirt Hegemony tax laws and relax. If you find such a tropical . . .

. . . paradise, you can colonize it.

You can watch your colony grow, build industry, establish an oil monopoly. . . legalize recreational meth.

Of course, having colonies isn’t all fun and games. Your trade routes will get raided. Other factions will target you for being more successful and Luddite terrorists will try and sabotage your industry because carbon-fiber scares them.

If you find an AI core and decide to use it to govern your colony instead of those expensive, inefficient meatbag administrators, you might find yourself visited by a Hegemony ‘’inspection fleet’’ because that’s apparently ‘’illegal’’ and ‘’a horrible abomination in the eyes of God that should be uninvented’’. I’m sure the visual artists in the audience would agree. Fortunately, I’ve decided to replace politicians with AI instead.

If all that wasn’t enough to tickle your inner base builder, there’s also an intricate threat system added by the latest update that measures how badly your colonies are affected by hostile actions.

Setting . . . yes, again.

The reason I’m circling back here is to touch on the potential this game gives you for a head-cannon and roleplay in regards to your captain and the decisions they make. All of this is informed by the various colorful factions that inhabit the Persian Sector and their various ideological leanings:

Religious Fascism, Fascism lite which implies the existence of Fascism heavy, Corporate Oligarchy, Semi-hereditary Oligarchy with elements of reality-TV powered monarchy, Radical Space Jihad, Anarcho-Kleptocracy with elements of immortal cybernetic warlordism and Libertarianism. . . with elements of non-consentual organ-harvesting.

And no, I’m not making any of those up. I’ll let the reader explore and confirm for themselves.

Every core world comes with its own backstory and description, allowing you to imagine where your character came from and how that’s shaped their decision-making.

Perhaps you’d want to roleplay as an honest trader always obeying the law? Perhaps you want to try restricting yourself to only getting your money from bounties? The possibilities are endless.

For example, for one playthrough, I decided to take a very hardline stance against pirates.

You see- ‘’people’’ and I use that term liberally- who cannot create inevitably try to destroy or steal. Pirates, Luddic terrorists and illegal ‘’expeditions’’ send by other factions to disrupt your Empire are inevitable. Now, if you have the patience, you might try and compromise with some of these sub-human troglodytes. With other factions, despite their clear envy for our superior way of life, you can negotiate.

For the Pather and Pirate, however, there can be no mercy. Sure, you can pay off a certain major warlord in the Core Worlds to leave your trade convoys alone if you don’t mind forking over a million credits and sacrificing your dignity, but I much preferred simply introducing these corsairs to the warm, gentle embrace of the vacuum of space.

Despite overwhelmingly poor chances of survival, they had the gall to taunt me. I would ask what sort of crack these pirates were smoking, but considering my market share in the chemical arts, I very much know the answer to that rhetorical question.

Also, if negotiations with the Hegemony, for example, don’t work out- keep in mind that there is no Geneva Convention is space. Sure, you might not have weapons that can literally crack planets at your disposal (anymore), but this is a setting in which the main fuel source can easily be converted into an anti-matter bomb.

So if you’re getting a little peeved at other factions for their continuous lack of cooperation, consider sailing to their capital with a strong fleet, wrecking their defenses and erasing their military and civilian infrastructure with destabilized anti-matter fuel cells raining down from orbit. Quick lesson on the use of WMDs- it’s not the initial blast that does the most damage to your enemies- it’s the fact that you’ve. . . made modifications to their ability to access power, food and medical care.

You see, this game isn’t just a space-sim, it also allows you to practice what I like to call moral creativity.

You can simply wait for a crisis to destabilize a system so you can profiteer off people’s desperation or you can ambush food convoys in deep hyperspace, stealing their cargo until the demand for food in system becomes so intense, they’ll pay any price for it.

One of the most profitable trade routes in the game involves supplying space Al-Qaeda with advanced weaponry or selling PCP to pirates. In fact, forbidding myself from trading with either was a significant challenge in the above-mentioned run.

A word on mods:

This game’s modding scene is obscenely rich and honestly deserves its own article, but if I can make a single recommendation for those having finished a vanilla playthrough- try out Nexerelin — a mod adding 4x features to the game allowing for a better fleshed out diplomacy and trade system, among other things.

In summary:

Starsector is a mechanically complex, story rich game that will reward mastery over its mechanics with a frankly absurd amount of entertainment value.

If you want to buy this game on Steam . . . you can’t. What you do is directly download the game here and then buy the CD key. Don’t lose it, because then you’ll have to bother the Starsector staff to get it a replacement. They’re very busy working on new updates and you wasting their time means they’ll be slower to feed my addiction to this game. Be considerate, please.

This begs the question of why it isn’t on Steam and the answer is that the Starsector Crew is apparently comprised of a bunch of deranged perfectionists that believe a game markedly better than 99% of products on the market and offering hundreds of hours of playtime still only qualifies as a beta.

That’s it. That’s Starsector. Go play it.