"Let's play: Starsector, episode 1" "Srarsector early game tutorial: smuggling" "Starsector early game tutorial: illegal AI cores and colonization" "Starsector late game tutorial: galactic civil war" This will spiral out of control very quickly
Just a heads up for anyone checking out this video, you can still sort of scum trade in the starting sector but they have patched the prices a bit and at most you will earn about 75k credits before the prices even out and you cant sell off the drugs at the pirate station anymore.
I voted for starsector and it really looks like a game I'll have to get into. Thanks for showing a bit more even though it didn't make the top of the list! I'd definitely be on board if you still decided to do a whole playthrough!
@@WeirdOne19142 That's factorios gameplay loop too and it's almost universally praised. You don't need to be such a negative nancy about it. You make Starsector fans look bad throwing around words like that :I
@@WeirdOne19142 you crap over other people's preferences then act like your opinion isn't offensive? Yeah dude whatever. Don't be so surprised that people don't like you. You also just described most of the games on this channel. Francis focuses on builders and engineering games. It should be obvious why people here would enjoy SatisFactory. If you hate those kinds of games so much, I have a hard time understanding why you are even here. I've seen other people make similar complaints about SatisFactory. It lacks endgame. But the game is also still in early access. So it's not like the game is even fully finished.
@@WeirdOne19142 They play on that meaninglessness in the game though. So many games take themselves too seriously. It's refreshing to find a game that just distills it down like that and doesn't try to be something it's not.
You took a really finicky and delicate approach to the game. I just slam my fleet full with as much firepower, cargo, tankers and some loot/surveryor ships and clean out whole star clusters until they are picked clean, and sweep like a swarm of locusts through the universe. You get so much stuff from that, the costs of fuel and maintenance don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Those remnant fleets drop juicy AI cores, would not let them live a happy life in their systems. Also you are not forced to dock "cloaked" on stations to sell stuff on the blackmarket. I always ignore that, sell stuff anyway there, and just live with the reputation hit. Those damn factions will come after you anyway when you build your colony, so why bother. Kill them all ;-)
you can also turn sustained burn off to instantly get your fleet to stop moving. if you turn it on again immediately after turning it on, you can accelerate in any direction. You could even make a complete 180. It's a great way to safely traverse hyperspace storms / avoid dangerous enemies.
I am not disappointed, you managed to present this game which I wouldn't have played otherwise via this tutorial in a really enjoyable way. I still wouldn't play it myself but I am hooked on how to progress with the next stage, so yes please, make the next! 👍♥️
That is awesome! I figured this game was off your list. I am pleasantly surprised you decided to go down the rabbit hole! I love the game for the same reason, it is a lot of challenge just to figure it out. This tutorial was excellent. I never thought to go down the sneaky path. I usually just keep building up my military to the point that I can take out most anyone. Once you find a Doom your golden as long as you spec your character and ships out. Funny you picked sad break up lady as your captain :D
I, for one, am terribly pleased with your "trip down insanity lane." If you enjoy playing the game, then play the game! I find that if *you* enjoy the game, I enjoy your product much more than if you were playing a game "for" your viewers. Your enthusiasm is contagious.
Best Starsector tutorial I've seen period. I'm so glad to see that you've taken an interest in this awesome game and have shared some of your keen insights with the community on a good effective approach go game play. Man what I would give to see you do a lets play campaign game of Starsector. I'm sure it would be awesome. Keep up the great work. Your by far one of the best content creators I've come across.
A few tips , for effective smuggling and exploration /sensor profile 0 / use phase ships , there is 1 called revenant 600 cargo 900 fuel capacity and has 0 sensor profile , you can add a few other phase ships for escort for the oh shit moments . Trytac sells the revenant and they are uncommon and you may need some rep with them , or there is usually 1-2 or a bit more around the core worlds in unexplored systems . Also trytec while officially bans ai cores in worlds and stations you can talk to the commanders and "sell" them for money and rep . In the tutorial system there is a station around the gas giant called the academy , its a main story quest hub sort of thing , but even if you dont want to progress the main story the first phase includes building up rep with them and for that you need to do mostly errand boy quest for decent money , mostly not worth doing them for just the money , but they are not time sensitive so if you pick all of them up and while running around you happened to be near the objective its free money . Also there is 2 storylike sort of quest that you can only pick up at random in bars , 1 is for trytec to get an aplha ai core and the other is the red planet , and both this quest and the academy quest line give some unique rewards . And yes it can totally suck ppl in especially with the quality mods from the official forum , decent quality of life mods, ai diplomacy and/or trade improvement and a lot more.
Revenants are good but also much harder to find, buy and upkeep than buffalos. And since you only really need two or three buffalos for an effective smuggling fleet, it's honestly better to stick with them over the revenants. Revenants do make really good survey ships tho since you can ignore remnant fleets while having enough crew and cargo capacity to make ruin runs very profitable and dead easy.
This is legitimately THE BEST guide to starsector for new players. I've spent SO MANY HOURS (around 2-3 days) looking for information and watching videos, and this man right here gives me all the info I wanted for early to mid transition. It's a shame you don't make more videos on Starsector... Thank you for this one, at least.
Star Sector is so interesting, when I got into it, I also played nonstop for a ridiculous amount of time every day and couldn't stop thinking about it in between.
Thanks for a little bit more of Starsector, even though it didn't win the vote. I did learn a lot more about stealth in this game, than I did before. I just tend to walz right in with a big fleet transponder on dealing on the black marked and should relations turn too sour I would do those local pirate bounties that give 1000 credits per ship to improve relations. Should you ever play a little more on your own, two things I did not see you do and may not be aware of. "Transverse" jump can also be used to jump into a star system near a planet (nascent gravity well). Abandoned mining stations etc leave a debris field after salvage which may contain rare drops like blueprints and ai cores (saw you skipping one of those fields in the outro).
As I have this game for almost 10 years, I can tell the easiest way of surviving early is flying a Auxiliary Hound with Safety Overrides to scout out potential first bases while fulfilling scouting/scanning missions. Sensors skill early can help when doing stealth missions, in addition to insulated engines to further lower the profile. Full stealth build is for shadow operations if you don't want to aggro too many patrols while the reputation is still fair enough.
Well I for one am super excited to see you spend some more time on this Francis, it was by far the most interesting game you played. Most of the other ones looked like stuff you've done before, this one looked more different! Thank you for how ever many videos you end up making!
If your passionate about it you make good content. I say go for it. Not my kind of game,, but now I kind of want to get it because of how exited you are about it. Cant wait for the next one.
Virgin Fleet Commander: Oh yeah if I want money at the start, I can strip and sell some of the beginning ships they give me. Chad Francis: Narcotics and organs, baby.
Good standard hullmods for line ships is hardened shields and reinforced bulkheads - the 1st for shield efficiency, 2nd isn't for combat endurance but for guaranteed recovery after battle, replacing good ships is too expensive otherwise. Cargo ships should get expanded cargo, tankers expanded fuel tanks, transports crew bunks, and militarized subsystems for each of these for built-in hullmods. If you build in dock-only hullmods, then it no longer counts toward the 2 hull modifications limit, though it takes a hullmod space, but you can have 4 hull type modifiers (or 5 with a certain skill that makes built-in mods cap to 3). I also try to fit solar shielding on all my ships, the 75% supply cost reduction from warp storm/solar damage is a HUGE savings, and the 20% energy damage reduction in combat is also incredibly important late game. This is the real power of story points, but you'll still want to keep a few SP free to use just in case.
Having watched a few other videos already, this one was packed solid with superb tips. I should have come here first; really useful. Thanks for posting it.
You have a Kryten thumbnail, how can I say no to a face like that. Time to break out starsector again, last I remember I was running a couple of small colonies.
I think part of the reason for the lack of tutorials etc is: 1. The long development time (2011- ); longer than Star Citizen 2. Self-publishing; it doesn't get the eyeball boost of being on a broad platform (such as Steam or Epic). I searched for it in the 'usual places' first before doing an open web search. It still hits my "I think I'll pick it up soon" list of unplayed games. There is an opportunity to weave this into story between your Rimworld playthroughs. Get wiped in Starsector > Crashlanded play of Rimworld > Escape into a new Starsector playthrough > repeat
You weee my first introduction to starsector, it looks fantastic and it’d be really interesting to see more. The game’s systems seem so varied and interesting
It's stupid o'clock right now because I watched this video. Worth every minute. Had a hard time not bleeding money in Starsector, I really should give it another try. Happy new year, by the way
Thanks for covering this. Just started playing, and your closing comments about a lack of info (and terrible wiki) is spot on. Makes you appreciate the RW wiki even more tbh!
this video is by far the best game tutorial I have seen on youtube, when i saw 40+ minutes i thought i was in for one hell of a slog to sit through but it went through everything fast and thorough enough so cheers, great tutorial, now i need one for colonies...
Awesome timing. I just picked this up and wondering how the hell to get started with it. Glad you're playing it and helping all us scrubs out. Thanks, FJ!
You are tempting me to play this game. Seems more fun than FTL. And this video makes a better proposition for a series in this game than previous video
Bro this is a great game with a very strong modding community. The vast majority of the molded in factions also feel very on point for what the game trys to accomplish.
19:50 You know, you can always go to hyperspace, line yourself up with umbra's outline (check the map to make sure you have the right planet), transverse jump, *hit 'go dark' right as you start to phase back to realspace* , and then trade. Much simpler than play 'hide the fleet' with the pirates.
But will the pirates not spot you almost instantly and attack you before you can get away? Unless you come in with an attack fleet in which case you can just high speed in so they can't intercept in time.
@@FrancisJohnYT Not necessarily. If they let you dock in the first place, no pirate fleet has detected you. Being pursued would deny access to the station. So, if you pause immediately after undocking, you'll be in a safe position and able to assess your situation. With only light traffic, you might be able to stay dark and slip away. Sustained Burn should get you away from any pirate fleets, assuming you got a Burn Level of 9, but it will take a moment to charge up. Emergency Burn will accelerate instantly, but it has a limited burn time and you might not get far enough away to shake off all pursuers, so you might still face one or more fleets of low-tech frigates (in case of pirates). Whatever you do, DON'T fight near a station, unless it says "undergoing repairs", in which case it's inactive. If you have to fight, it will probably deny you access to the nearby station for a while. If you want to be on the safe side, deposit all unnecessary ships and items at one of the abandoned stations in the sector (or pay rent for storage somewhere). Hound and Cerberus with expanded cargo and some good frigates for escort make a good early smuggling fleet. Quality wins over quantity, because you want to keep your sensor profile low. The pirate freighter variants come with Shielded Cargoholds, which you can't get anywhere else without a mod. This can save you a lot of trouble with smuggling illegal goods. These ships are everywhere, so you should have plenty of opportunity to salvage one with not-so-bad D-mods.
If you don't care about shielded cargo holds, there's a Buffalo, Hegemony design type. It comes with built-in militarised subsystems. No need to spend story points.
Interesting, might be a bit difficult to find enough of them early on though. I like to get cargo capacity up quick to take advantage of the early price differences.
Lots of great info here, one thing to note though is that field repairs no longer fixes d-mods, but later down the line towards the end is another perk that does.
Some amazing information in this one. I'm brand new to Starsector and never even considered making multiple fleets for these different purposes. Thanks!
Just played this game for 1 week. The beginning part is really helpful, I wish I could know that before I start my game. But about the exploration fleet build-up, I have a different Idea. I barely ran any smuggle trading. My main income is from Academy missions and exploration. I think that 5 Shephards with Apogee (or even 2) could help you to handle the low-danger beacon. Shephard's basic speed is 10 so it won't drag you down (It is the fastest ship in my fleet). It also has a low profile, good cargo hold, and fuel tanks. Its build-in Hull mod helps your salvages as well. Someone says 1 Salvage Rig +5 shepherds equals 3 Salvage Rigs. My exploration fleet includes 2 Apogges, 1 Salvage Rig, 5 Shephards, 1 buffalo, and 1 Dram oil tank. Cuz I started as a salvager, my flagship is a Wayfarer (If I knew better I should get rid of it). My daily maintenance is 0.85, and my top speed was only 18 cuz I haven't installed augmentation mods on my all ships (which I should.) But still, this video is really helpful.
Me checking out another in-depth indie simulation/colony/engineering/management game: "Let's see... oh, Francis John has already played it. And mastered it. And found all the secrets and easter eggs. And memorized all the optimal metrics. And mastered the full-overhaul mods." ONI, Kenshi, Rimworld, Factorio, Dyson Sphere, Starsector... It's a special kind of OCD.
damn i was really excited at the end of the video when u said military would be in another vid, and given it has been i month i thought Part 2 would be out.... i am saddened that it is not. BUT thanks for the save data!
Thank you for this, I recently bought this game and was honestly really struggling due to not knowing how to fit ships for purpose. I just ended up doing combat but felt like I was missing out on lots of content!
Just remember to store ships you are not using on that platform. It allows you to store up a bunch of fighting ships for later without having to pay ongoing maintenance costs.
@@FrancisJohnYT I’m confused, I did what you said buying drugs from first area, selling to mining base, and rinse and repeat, and I only came out with 30k? Don’t know what I could be doing wrong
@@FrancisJohnYT after doing it over again, I’m getting reminiscing returns, the highest I get as about 45k and then the more I do it I get an average of 39k
@@phalspar Just tested and it's still working. Are you buying and selling on the black market? Also don't keep doing it until the place runs out of drugs, you want to let the stockpiles build up a bit and do it in waves.
@@FrancisJohnYT I only did it through the black market and was doing it over and over until non stop, I didn’t know that was even a thing I had to worry about. What should I do In between, because every time I do this I end up with maybe 60k at most and my crew gets zapped down to 0% basically just losing ships
NGL I was laughing at you in the last video where you couldn't sus out the combat system and now you're showing off your dual fleets - surveying & smuggling.. I never put 2 and 2 together during my ~100 hours.. Thanks for showing :) going to reinstall this and become a space captain some more
When it comes to pirates, taking the biggest fleet you can (to deter attackers while you're hostile, though you can get them to neutral or even allied!) and dropping in from hyperspace as close to the place you're wanting to trade and away from other habitable places is best. Umbra is actually pretty easy to reach that way. EDIT: So, around 31:11 you talk about the Salvage Rig and how you've only outfitted it with an Augmented Drive Field, but this really is looking down at the sheer supply cost of Salvage Rigs in fleet; it's a prime target for having that be Built In and getting its supply cost reduced via ship mod (it makes you consume more when damaged, but it doesn't actually make you consume MORE more, it only repairs at a faster rate and consumes more supplies commesurately, so it consumes more for a much shorter time but the same amount of supplies as you'd need to repair along the normal timeframe of repair otherwise). Additionally, there's a hidden feature of D-mods; for every D-mod you have on a ship, its supply cost is reduced, to the point that having a Salvage Rig with 4-5 D-mods actually can be a net positive, assuming it isn't the fuel injector or increased maintenance d-mods. This all said, Salvage Rigs (and Shepherds, their Destroyer/Cargo Hauler equivalent_ aren't really worth it now, since the rare item salvage rates are unaffected, and they consume tons of supplies and fuel and crew for little benefit (Salvage Rigs, there; Shepherds are actually pretty solid dual-purpose cargo ships that can hold their own in the lower difficulty engagements you'll find early on, primarily).
I look forward to late game and other starsector ish things, and I'm enjoying the smuggling life- and I truly believe without your video I wouldn't have gotten into it as I have.
Being completely fresh to this game, and trying to follow the in-game tutorial aspect of this vid, I messed up BIG. Black Market isn't always default, even if that's the market tab open when leaving the stations, so I had about 4 runs back'n forth where I barely broke even. Guess I'll just have to start over. Two hours down the drain, but still it looks to be an awesome start.
Escape Velocity was my jam back in the 20th century :D I don't comment often but I'd like to express my gratitude for your usage of the word "malus". Hardly anyone ever uses it and it always gets on my nerves when people call the opposite of a bonus a "negative" or "minus" or something along those lines, my inner voice screaming "IT'S CALLED A MALUS". Thank you, Francis! Cool strats too, I generally have a big military fleet with me for both exploration and trading and ram my head against Remnants and pirates, but your economical approach makes a lot of sense, and I hardly mess with smuggling (am a good boy :^)). Also nice to hear your opinion on valuable ships, in Starsector the amount of choices can be paralyzing, especially for beginners, in fact I'm sure a tutorial / your take on "worthwhile hulls and weapons" would be appreciated by many. Maybe with an added spoiler section.
When you had to jump to the hostile sector for planet survey, I noticed that you didn't use transverse jump to pop in at one of the small gravity wells. In the version at the time of this writing, that skill allow you to drop out at any little purple cloud. So funny, every good tutorial video on this game has to be very long bc there is so much going on. A shout out to hitpoint inn gaming, if you don't mind, as he has a 10+ hour video going over literally everything in the game. Literally everything. Every single weapon, mod, everything. Honestly probably watch everything from both these dudes.
great tutorial, i'll be using some of the knowledge from this video on my run but i can't see myself playing like this. it might be the most efficient way to play but also the most boring, i want to actually have fun and not just grind for hours
Tachyon lances are vastly superior to any other large energy weapon. They do insane damage to both shields and armor because they're bugged. They also disable subsystems because of their emp damage. Insanely OP. Literally the only downside is the relatively high flux and point cost.
They arnt bugged. Energy damage does full damage to both armour and shields. As for if they are the best? On a pure energy ship, yes, but not because of their damage, but because of their range. You can kite with them. But on the Sunder specifically, which is both fast, and has other ways of dealing with shields HILs are better.
Tachyon Lances are not superior. Only for certain ships and even then, not even every build. Autopulses and HILs have many use cases where you wouldn't want a Tach Lance. Such as a hybrid ship that has slots for kinetic weapons, allowing you to use the more powerful HIL since shields are not an issue. Especially in a fleet formation, a ship may strictly be better off with HIL over Tach. Most ships can't even really make use of them due to the sheer strain on the flux system. Which is true of most large energies. That's why the Autopulses exist. A capital handling many small ships can pick and delete a ship but at great costs and only every so often relative to a Capitol that can get swarmed and whose weapons don't also strain their power grid, allowing them to rapidly manage many small threats with minimal escorts.
"Played to stupid-o-clock in the evening". By this statement alone this game should be on the list. There is a lot going on and a big THANKS for digging into some of the nuances that I could not find in any other channel. I say, keep playing. I would love for you to do a colony build guide. I found a terran world to get started on near enough to the core world zone, however I'm a bit lost on a build order to develop the next colony. I think a hot volcanic world... but not sure. The big concern with doing a tutorial video (keep old save files) is the game will change with updates, so you may need to tag this with the version you are running at the time.
Build as many colonies as you can afford and make sense in the system. rush getting whatever resources they have then build patrols to help with raids then heavy industry. After that just build what you like, you should be making good money and have a solid industrial base by this point.
@@CAMSLAYER13 Once a stable industrial base is up and running, you can use the ship blueprints and build them? I want some of the bigger ships, but have not been able to capture them... yet. So was looking at how to build them.
@@BusinessAnalyzer once you get heavy industry somewhere you can make whatever you have blueprints for. The better your colonys the more you can make each month, you don't actually have to pay for stuff you build but there is a limit
For anyone watching now a lot of this has been patched. Cant buy up fuel for cheap before hand and the exchange rates between the two stations will net 40k tops, I tried this many times in a row to see if rng was getting me.
don't forget to turn your transponder off in hyperspace. and when surveying, especialy if the system is hostile. it blooms your sensor profile if left on.
Personal preference, but I'd recommend getting Hegemony Buffalos over Pirate Buffalos. The whole point of a smuggler fleet is not getting caught with contraband, which means shielded cargo holds are only useful if you mess up. And even then, the more contraband you're carrying the smaller the chance you'll actually be able to dodge a search with no contraband detected, and you always want to be carrying a good amount of contraband to make trips profitable anyways. Hegemony Buffalos meanwhile come with Militarized Subsystems built-in, meaning they're always useful, not to mention easier to find than pirate buffalos.
I like to start with the sensor skill. Wich increases sensor range, decreases profil and gives you +3 to burn level when going dark. So you barely lose speed. Makes me able to smuggle even with a combat fleet XD
It function slightly different now,anyways... i finished tutorial after 4-5 hours and came out of it with 2,5million. it can be "exploited" for waaaaay more,wich is pretty good for players who want "skip" early game completly (not recommended for new players,there are quite some things you really should get familiar with in early game)
@@FrancisJohnYT Ya there was a few differences. But I made around 600k before moving on. Just need to get a pen and paper and write prices and go back and forth.
If you love playing a game I'm on board with you playing it for the show. I'm probably going to pick this one up myself, being inspired by your demonstration of the depth of it.
trading opportunities will not so much dry up as become intermittent, dont destroy pirate bases + wait for a lot of hostilities between factions and amazing smuggling trips will become available. or just destroy trade convoys yourself, but that looses you a lot of attitude points.
one piece of advice / quick note is that with an exploration fleet the shepherd drone tenders are your friend they help reduce the survey cost of planets hugely and stack to the point that everything only costs 5 supplies to survey even the gas giants.
I find Speoherds to simply always be worth it. Cost nothing, have 100 storage, sip fuel, and increase gains. They always pay for themselves and are completely expendable in combat, so it's not like it really matters if they grab a few d-mods. You just need them to distract for the real hard hitters. Even then, against smaller fleets, a handful of Shepherds can really annoy lots of frigates and keep things safe.
Easy early game alpha strike - get a medusa, max capacitors and 6 anti-matter blasters. Phase skim in, do 9K damage if all AMB's hit, phase back out. It's good practice for the end-game player ships you can use to singlehandedly beat My favorite general escorts/general line ships - the Fury. 2 heavy blasters or 1 heavy blaster and 1 ion burster, 1 medium size Sabot SRM, build in hardened shields and reinforced bulkheads (always recover ships when lost in combat), your choice of SO or max caps/vents, your choice of point defense.
sellings drugs and illicit organs without blinking an eye, Rimworld has trained you well
"Let's play: Starsector, episode 1"
"Srarsector early game tutorial: smuggling"
"Starsector early game tutorial: illegal AI cores and colonization"
"Starsector late game tutorial: galactic civil war"
This will spiral out of control very quickly
If I had more free time we would already be at civil war, unfortunately we are only at AI cores, colonization and raiding pirate bases.
Important mods Militarized subsystems, augmented drive, insulated engine assembly
Also shielded
3:00 first skills
8:57 buy salvage rig
10:18 colossus heavy freighter (900 cargo cap) civilian-grade hull
11:36 fleet view
11:42 pirate buffalo (shielded cargo holds)
11:58 buffalo refit - Militarized subsystems, insulated engine assembly
12:43 apogee refit - insulated engine assembly - capacitors down to 13
13:00 stealth explanation
15:52 2 ship fleet view (apogee + pirate buffalo)
22:25 fleet view (apogee, 3 sunders, 2 buffalo, and condor?)
22:35 augmented drive refit
29:51 storage fleet view + exploration fleet discussion (apogee, 2 colossus heavy freighters, phaeton tanker, and salvage rig)
37:40 recommend 3 colossus heavy freighters instead
40:59 selling exploration loot
42:48 mule vs buffalo discussion
30:08 colossus refit
30:38 apogee refit
31:05 salvage rig refit
31:15 phaeton refit
Just a heads up for anyone checking out this video, you can still sort of scum trade in the starting sector but they have patched the prices a bit and at most you will earn about 75k credits before the prices even out and you cant sell off the drugs at the pirate station anymore.
I voted for starsector and it really looks like a game I'll have to get into. Thanks for showing a bit more even though it didn't make the top of the list! I'd definitely be on board if you still decided to do a whole playthrough!
@@WeirdOne19142 That's factorios gameplay loop too and it's almost universally praised. You don't need to be such a negative nancy about it. You make Starsector fans look bad throwing around words like that :I
@@WeirdOne19142 you crap over other people's preferences then act like your opinion isn't offensive? Yeah dude whatever. Don't be so surprised that people don't like you.
You also just described most of the games on this channel. Francis focuses on builders and engineering games. It should be obvious why people here would enjoy SatisFactory. If you hate those kinds of games so much, I have a hard time understanding why you are even here.
I've seen other people make similar complaints about SatisFactory. It lacks endgame. But the game is also still in early access. So it's not like the game is even fully finished.
@@WeirdOne19142 yeah you made that painfully obvious
@@WeirdOne19142 And yet - you did. Bye darling. Enjoy your life!
@@DroCaMk3 I attacked a game. You attacked me personally.
I am so happy you kept doing Starsector even with everyone yelling Satisfactory for some reason.
saaaame
Satisfactory is so boring compared to it.
Satisfactory is a horrible title. It's central game mechanic is to produce junk so that even more junk can be produced. Kenshi hype train. Let's go.
I think the biggest problem with Satisfactory is that there is only one map.
@@WeirdOne19142 They play on that meaninglessness in the game though. So many games take themselves too seriously. It's refreshing to find a game that just distills it down like that and doesn't try to be something it's not.
You took a really finicky and delicate approach to the game. I just slam my fleet full with as much firepower, cargo, tankers and some loot/surveryor ships and clean out whole star clusters until they are picked clean, and sweep like a swarm of locusts through the universe. You get so much stuff from that, the costs of fuel and maintenance don't matter in the grand scheme of things. Those remnant fleets drop juicy AI cores, would not let them live a happy life in their systems. Also you are not forced to dock "cloaked" on stations to sell stuff on the blackmarket. I always ignore that, sell stuff anyway there, and just live with the reputation hit. Those damn factions will come after you anyway when you build your colony, so why bother. Kill them all ;-)
Starsector is such an amazing game, can't wait to see your playthrough of it
Dig in the game files, all the data is in spreadsheet format. For example: \Starsector\starsector-core\data\hulls\ship_data.csv
I'm glad Starsector has pulled you in, I ended up voting for both third-place runners in the polls lmao
You can hold "S" key before entering hyperspace storm to avoid fleet damage
that's a new thing for this patch, isn't it?
@@macelharen I think so. 2 years ago when I was checking out this game it only worked in the asteroid belts.
thats literally a game changer
you can also turn sustained burn off to instantly get your fleet to stop moving. if you turn it on again immediately after turning it on, you can accelerate in any direction. You could even make a complete 180. It's a great way to safely traverse hyperspace storms / avoid dangerous enemies.
@@macelharen nope been using that for a year at least...
I am not disappointed, you managed to present this game which I wouldn't have played otherwise via this tutorial in a really enjoyable way. I still wouldn't play it myself but I am hooked on how to progress with the next stage, so yes please, make the next! 👍♥️
That is awesome! I figured this game was off your list. I am pleasantly surprised you decided to go down the rabbit hole!
I love the game for the same reason, it is a lot of challenge just to figure it out. This tutorial was excellent. I never thought to go down the sneaky path. I usually just keep building up my military to the point that I can take out most anyone. Once you find a Doom your golden as long as you spec your character and ships out.
Funny you picked sad break up lady as your captain :D
I, for one, am terribly pleased with your "trip down insanity lane." If you enjoy playing the game, then play the game! I find that if *you* enjoy the game, I enjoy your product much more than if you were playing a game "for" your viewers. Your enthusiasm is contagious.
Best Starsector tutorial I've seen period. I'm so glad to see that you've taken an interest in this awesome game and have shared some of your keen insights with the community on a good effective approach go game play. Man what I would give to see you do a lets play campaign game of Starsector. I'm sure it would be awesome. Keep up the great work. Your by far one of the best content creators I've come across.
A few tips , for effective smuggling and exploration /sensor profile 0 / use phase ships , there is 1 called revenant 600 cargo 900 fuel capacity and has 0 sensor profile , you can add a few other phase ships for escort for the oh shit moments . Trytac sells the revenant and they are uncommon and you may need some rep with them , or there is usually 1-2 or a bit more around the core worlds in unexplored systems .
Also trytec while officially bans ai cores in worlds and stations you can talk to the commanders and "sell" them for money and rep .
In the tutorial system there is a station around the gas giant called the academy , its a main story quest hub sort of thing , but even if you dont want to progress the main story the first phase includes building up rep with them and for that you need to do mostly errand boy quest for decent money , mostly not worth doing them for just the money , but they are not time sensitive so if you pick all of them up and while running around you happened to be near the objective its free money .
Also there is 2 storylike sort of quest that you can only pick up at random in bars , 1 is for trytec to get an aplha ai core and the other is the red planet , and both this quest and the academy quest line give some unique rewards .
And yes it can totally suck ppl in especially with the quality mods from the official forum , decent quality of life mods, ai diplomacy and/or trade improvement and a lot more.
Revenants are good but also much harder to find, buy and upkeep than buffalos. And since you only really need two or three buffalos for an effective smuggling fleet, it's honestly better to stick with them over the revenants. Revenants do make really good survey ships tho since you can ignore remnant fleets while having enough crew and cargo capacity to make ruin runs very profitable and dead easy.
This is legitimately THE BEST guide to starsector for new players. I've spent SO MANY HOURS (around 2-3 days) looking for information and watching videos, and this man right here gives me all the info I wanted for early to mid transition. It's a shame you don't make more videos on Starsector... Thank you for this one, at least.
Star Sector is so interesting, when I got into it, I also played nonstop for a ridiculous amount of time every day and couldn't stop thinking about it in between.
Thanks for a little bit more of Starsector, even though it didn't win the vote. I did learn a lot more about stealth in this game, than I did before. I just tend to walz right in with a big fleet transponder on dealing on the black marked and should relations turn too sour I would do those local pirate bounties that give 1000 credits per ship to improve relations. Should you ever play a little more on your own, two things I did not see you do and may not be aware of. "Transverse" jump can also be used to jump into a star system near a planet (nascent gravity well). Abandoned mining stations etc leave a debris field after salvage which may contain rare drops like blueprints and ai cores (saw you skipping one of those fields in the outro).
As I have this game for almost 10 years, I can tell the easiest way of surviving early is flying a Auxiliary Hound with Safety Overrides to scout out potential first bases while fulfilling scouting/scanning missions. Sensors skill early can help when doing stealth missions, in addition to insulated engines to further lower the profile.
Full stealth build is for shadow operations if you don't want to aggro too many patrols while the reputation is still fair enough.
It's really cool to get a glimpse of all the intricacies of this game. Would love to see more of it on the channel.
Cool pfp
Well I for one am super excited to see you spend some more time on this Francis, it was by far the most interesting game you played. Most of the other ones looked like stuff you've done before, this one looked more different! Thank you for how ever many videos you end up making!
If your passionate about it you make good content. I say go for it. Not my kind of game,, but now I kind of want to get it because of how exited you are about it. Cant wait for the next one.
Brilliant tutorial. Cuts to what's important and leaves the chaff. The only thing that would be nicer would be topic indexes along the playback times.
Virgin Fleet Commander: Oh yeah if I want money at the start, I can strip and sell some of the beginning ships they give me.
Chad Francis: Narcotics and organs, baby.
Good standard hullmods for line ships is hardened shields and reinforced bulkheads - the 1st for shield efficiency, 2nd isn't for combat endurance but for guaranteed recovery after battle, replacing good ships is too expensive otherwise. Cargo ships should get expanded cargo, tankers expanded fuel tanks, transports crew bunks, and militarized subsystems for each of these for built-in hullmods. If you build in dock-only hullmods, then it no longer counts toward the 2 hull modifications limit, though it takes a hullmod space, but you can have 4 hull type modifiers (or 5 with a certain skill that makes built-in mods cap to 3). I also try to fit solar shielding on all my ships, the 75% supply cost reduction from warp storm/solar damage is a HUGE savings, and the 20% energy damage reduction in combat is also incredibly important late game. This is the real power of story points, but you'll still want to keep a few SP free to use just in case.
Francis John, "And we're back" is comforting to me at this point. I love you Merry Christmas
Happy Christmas and New year
Having watched a few other videos already, this one was packed solid with superb tips. I should have come here first; really useful. Thanks for posting it.
I love Starsector because I never see or heard of it before. Pleas keep going with this series
dude, please, please, PLEASE make another one with mid to late game content, this is the best
thank you
You have a Kryten thumbnail, how can I say no to a face like that. Time to break out starsector again, last I remember I was running a couple of small colonies.
@@FrancisJohnYT oh f*ck YEA
but to be fair, loving your videos, and i fell in love with this game
so thank you :D
@@FrancisJohnYT YES please a colony tutorial.
As a beginner this whole video is pure bruuuhhh
I think part of the reason for the lack of tutorials etc is:
1. The long development time (2011- ); longer than Star Citizen
2. Self-publishing; it doesn't get the eyeball boost of being on a broad platform (such as Steam or Epic).
I searched for it in the 'usual places' first before doing an open web search. It still hits my "I think I'll pick it up soon" list of unplayed games.
There is an opportunity to weave this into story between your Rimworld playthroughs. Get wiped in Starsector > Crashlanded play of Rimworld > Escape into a new Starsector playthrough > repeat
The development cycle and general under-the-radar nature of the game reminds me of Endless Sky, which is in the same sort of genre as Star Sector.
You weee my first introduction to starsector, it looks fantastic and it’d be really interesting to see more. The game’s systems seem so varied and interesting
It's stupid o'clock right now because I watched this video. Worth every minute. Had a hard time not bleeding money in Starsector, I really should give it another try.
Happy new year, by the way
Happy new year, don't forget to store ships your not using. So easy to bleed money in this game.
Thanks for covering this. Just started playing, and your closing comments about a lack of info (and terrible wiki) is spot on. Makes you appreciate the RW wiki even more tbh!
this video is by far the best game tutorial I have seen on youtube, when i saw 40+ minutes i thought i was in for one hell of a slog to sit through but it went through everything fast and thorough enough so cheers, great tutorial, now i need one for colonies...
I'm so happy you are playing Starsector anyway. It's such an underrated game.
Awesome timing. I just picked this up and wondering how the hell to get started with it. Glad you're playing it and helping all us scrubs out. Thanks, FJ!
I see that you have been playing a lot since the last video, love this game!
>fund space terrorists
>find paragon bp
>sell to pirates
>??????????
>Anarchy
>Sit back as Space Lord of War and admire my work
Thanks for making this video! Getting back into Starsector and was getting kinda discouraged until I found your video. Again, much appreciated 😄
I've had this game in multiple computers and never knew who other than the Pirates didn't care about the transponder. Thank you
You are tempting me to play this game. Seems more fun than FTL. And this video makes a better proposition for a series in this game than previous video
Bro this is a great game with a very strong modding community. The vast majority of the molded in factions also feel very on point for what the game trys to accomplish.
19:50 You know, you can always go to hyperspace, line yourself up with umbra's outline (check the map to make sure you have the right planet), transverse jump, *hit 'go dark' right as you start to phase back to realspace* , and then trade. Much simpler than play 'hide the fleet' with the pirates.
But will the pirates not spot you almost instantly and attack you before you can get away? Unless you come in with an attack fleet in which case you can just high speed in so they can't intercept in time.
@@FrancisJohnYT Not necessarily.
If they let you dock in the first place, no pirate fleet has detected you. Being pursued would deny access to the station. So, if you pause immediately after undocking, you'll be in a safe position and able to assess your situation.
With only light traffic, you might be able to stay dark and slip away. Sustained Burn should get you away from any pirate fleets, assuming you got a Burn Level of 9, but it will take a moment to charge up. Emergency Burn will accelerate instantly, but it has a limited burn time and you might not get far enough away to shake off all pursuers, so you might still face one or more fleets of low-tech frigates (in case of pirates).
Whatever you do, DON'T fight near a station, unless it says "undergoing repairs", in which case it's inactive. If you have to fight, it will probably deny you access to the nearby station for a while.
If you want to be on the safe side, deposit all unnecessary ships and items at one of the abandoned stations in the sector (or pay rent for storage somewhere). Hound and Cerberus with expanded cargo and some good frigates for escort make a good early smuggling fleet. Quality wins over quantity, because you want to keep your sensor profile low.
The pirate freighter variants come with Shielded Cargoholds, which you can't get anywhere else without a mod. This can save you a lot of trouble with smuggling illegal goods. These ships are everywhere, so you should have plenty of opportunity to salvage one with not-so-bad D-mods.
If you don't care about shielded cargo holds, there's a Buffalo, Hegemony design type. It comes with built-in militarised subsystems. No need to spend story points.
Interesting, might be a bit difficult to find enough of them early on though. I like to get cargo capacity up quick to take advantage of the early price differences.
Reeeeally glad for this video! Thanks a lot! btw, voted for it =)
Lots of great info here, one thing to note though is that field repairs no longer fixes d-mods, but later down the line towards the end is another perk that does.
Some amazing information in this one. I'm brand new to Starsector and never even considered making multiple fleets for these different purposes. Thanks!
Don't forget to store the one's your not using it saves you so much resources and fuel.
Just played this game for 1 week. The beginning part is really helpful, I wish I could know that before I start my game.
But about the exploration fleet build-up, I have a different Idea. I barely ran any smuggle trading. My main income is from Academy missions and exploration. I think that 5 Shephards with Apogee (or even 2) could help you to handle the low-danger beacon. Shephard's basic speed is 10 so it won't drag you down (It is the fastest ship in my fleet). It also has a low profile, good cargo hold, and fuel tanks. Its build-in Hull mod helps your salvages as well. Someone says 1 Salvage Rig +5 shepherds equals 3 Salvage Rigs.
My exploration fleet includes 2 Apogges, 1 Salvage Rig, 5 Shephards, 1 buffalo, and 1 Dram oil tank. Cuz I started as a salvager, my flagship is a Wayfarer (If I knew better I should get rid of it). My daily maintenance is 0.85, and my top speed was only 18 cuz I haven't installed augmentation mods on my all ships (which I should.)
But still, this video is really helpful.
I like the idea of spamming some Shephards they do look like a nice little ship for taking care of smaller dangers.
It's not the most interesting to look at (we are literally avoiding combat) but there's a lot to talk about, makes for an interesting listen
Me checking out another in-depth indie simulation/colony/engineering/management game:
"Let's see... oh, Francis John has already played it. And mastered it. And found all the secrets and easter eggs. And memorized all the optimal metrics. And mastered the full-overhaul mods."
ONI, Kenshi, Rimworld, Factorio, Dyson Sphere, Starsector...
It's a special kind of OCD.
i love this game to death, you are just scratching the surface! the game is just that amazing.
Your videos are amazing. Interesting , concise and informative .
Aaannnnnd we're back!
Love these!
Your tutorials are great! Literally the best for Star sector on youtube!
why this game is not on steam pr anywhere else other than one website?
Been watching this guide 4 times now haven't played the game yet but really enjoying your content
damn i was really excited at the end of the video when u said military would be in another vid, and given it has been i month i thought Part 2 would be out.... i am saddened that it is not. BUT thanks for the save data!
I'm actually really happy you did this. I just updated and had no idea
Thank you for this, I recently bought this game and was honestly really struggling due to not knowing how to fit ships for purpose. I just ended up doing combat but felt like I was missing out on lots of content!
Just remember to store ships you are not using on that platform. It allows you to store up a bunch of fighting ships for later without having to pay ongoing maintenance costs.
@@FrancisJohnYT I’m confused, I did what you said buying drugs from first area, selling to mining base, and rinse and repeat, and I only came out with 30k?
Don’t know what I could be doing wrong
@@FrancisJohnYT after doing it over again, I’m getting reminiscing returns, the highest I get as about 45k and then the more I do it I get an average of 39k
@@phalspar Just tested and it's still working. Are you buying and selling on the black market?
Also don't keep doing it until the place runs out of drugs, you want to let the stockpiles build up a bit and do it in waves.
@@FrancisJohnYT I only did it through the black market and was doing it over and over until non stop, I didn’t know that was even a thing I had to worry about. What should I do In between, because every time I do this I end up with maybe 60k at most and my crew gets zapped down to 0% basically just losing ships
NGL I was laughing at you in the last video where you couldn't sus out the combat system and now you're showing off your dual fleets - surveying & smuggling.. I never put 2 and 2 together during my ~100 hours.. Thanks for showing :) going to reinstall this and become a space captain some more
This guide is fantastic.
Thank you. Needed this, I'm struggling with the start and needed this.
Great video Francis. Glad you did another video on this title. Can't wait to see what you come out with next.
When it comes to pirates, taking the biggest fleet you can (to deter attackers while you're hostile, though you can get them to neutral or even allied!) and dropping in from hyperspace as close to the place you're wanting to trade and away from other habitable places is best. Umbra is actually pretty easy to reach that way.
EDIT: So, around 31:11 you talk about the Salvage Rig and how you've only outfitted it with an Augmented Drive Field, but this really is looking down at the sheer supply cost of Salvage Rigs in fleet; it's a prime target for having that be Built In and getting its supply cost reduced via ship mod (it makes you consume more when damaged, but it doesn't actually make you consume MORE more, it only repairs at a faster rate and consumes more supplies commesurately, so it consumes more for a much shorter time but the same amount of supplies as you'd need to repair along the normal timeframe of repair otherwise). Additionally, there's a hidden feature of D-mods; for every D-mod you have on a ship, its supply cost is reduced, to the point that having a Salvage Rig with 4-5 D-mods actually can be a net positive, assuming it isn't the fuel injector or increased maintenance d-mods. This all said, Salvage Rigs (and Shepherds, their Destroyer/Cargo Hauler equivalent_ aren't really worth it now, since the rare item salvage rates are unaffected, and they consume tons of supplies and fuel and crew for little benefit (Salvage Rigs, there; Shepherds are actually pretty solid dual-purpose cargo ships that can hold their own in the lower difficulty engagements you'll find early on, primarily).
Nice, glad you liked it! Now i can hope for an X4 play through!
I look forward to late game and other starsector ish things, and I'm enjoying the smuggling life- and I truly believe without your video I wouldn't have gotten into it as I have.
so many tips *eyes glossing over* I'm gonna need to watch this a few more times to learn everything :)
Being completely fresh to this game, and trying to follow the in-game tutorial aspect of this vid, I messed up BIG.
Black Market isn't always default, even if that's the market tab open when leaving the stations, so I had about 4 runs back'n forth where I barely broke even.
Guess I'll just have to start over. Two hours down the drain, but still it looks to be an awesome start.
Escape Velocity was my jam back in the 20th century :D I don't comment often but I'd like to express my gratitude for your usage of the word "malus". Hardly anyone ever uses it and it always gets on my nerves when people call the opposite of a bonus a "negative" or "minus" or something along those lines, my inner voice screaming "IT'S CALLED A MALUS". Thank you, Francis! Cool strats too, I generally have a big military fleet with me for both exploration and trading and ram my head against Remnants and pirates, but your economical approach makes a lot of sense, and I hardly mess with smuggling (am a good boy :^)). Also nice to hear your opinion on valuable ships, in Starsector the amount of choices can be paralyzing, especially for beginners, in fact I'm sure a tutorial / your take on "worthwhile hulls and weapons" would be appreciated by many. Maybe with an added spoiler section.
When you had to jump to the hostile sector for planet survey, I noticed that you didn't use transverse jump to pop in at one of the small gravity wells. In the version at the time of this writing, that skill allow you to drop out at any little purple cloud. So funny, every good tutorial video on this game has to be very long bc there is so much going on. A shout out to hitpoint inn gaming, if you don't mind, as he has a 10+ hour video going over literally everything in the game. Literally everything. Every single weapon, mod, everything. Honestly probably watch everything from both these dudes.
amazing video! I find very few game tutorials this good
I'll be buying a copy, thanks FJ! I played modded freelancer to the end, for instance. This takes me back..
Thanks! Just started playing and following your tips I had about 600k before I ended the tut ;) Great vid!
great tutorial, i'll be using some of the knowledge from this video on my run but i can't see myself playing like this. it might be the most efficient way to play but also the most boring, i want to actually have fun and not just grind for hours
9 min into this video and already flooded with knowledge :) thanks
When I found this game I sunk about 80h into it in 2 weeks. Can't fault you for the same.
Keep going man, I loved this game ... dying to find the time to play it.
Tachyon lances are vastly superior to any other large energy weapon. They do insane damage to both shields and armor because they're bugged. They also disable subsystems because of their emp damage. Insanely OP. Literally the only downside is the relatively high flux and point cost.
They arnt bugged. Energy damage does full damage to both armour and shields.
As for if they are the best? On a pure energy ship, yes, but not because of their damage, but because of their range. You can kite with them. But on the Sunder specifically, which is both fast, and has other ways of dealing with shields HILs are better.
Tachyon Lances are not superior. Only for certain ships and even then, not even every build. Autopulses and HILs have many use cases where you wouldn't want a Tach Lance. Such as a hybrid ship that has slots for kinetic weapons, allowing you to use the more powerful HIL since shields are not an issue. Especially in a fleet formation, a ship may strictly be better off with HIL over Tach. Most ships can't even really make use of them due to the sheer strain on the flux system. Which is true of most large energies. That's why the Autopulses exist. A capital handling many small ships can pick and delete a ship but at great costs and only every so often relative to a Capitol that can get swarmed and whose weapons don't also strain their power grid, allowing them to rapidly manage many small threats with minimal escorts.
Incredibly detailed and well explained video!
Thanks for the tip about transverse jumps and the sensors technology upgrade. I’ve played this game extensively and still didn’t know that!
i have 0 idea what's going on but i will still watch cuz i love francis
Thank you, awesome game and awesome tutorial. I want more =)
thanks allot Francis, very helpful guide, good teacher you are
"Played to stupid-o-clock in the evening". By this statement alone this game should be on the list.
There is a lot going on and a big THANKS for digging into some of the nuances that I could not find in any other channel.
I say, keep playing. I would love for you to do a colony build guide. I found a terran world to get started on near enough to the core world zone, however I'm a bit lost on a build order to develop the next colony. I think a hot volcanic world... but not sure.
The big concern with doing a tutorial video (keep old save files) is the game will change with updates, so you may need to tag this with the version you are running at the time.
Build as many colonies as you can afford and make sense in the system. rush getting whatever resources they have then build patrols to help with raids then heavy industry. After that just build what you like, you should be making good money and have a solid industrial base by this point.
@@CAMSLAYER13 Once a stable industrial base is up and running, you can use the ship blueprints and build them?
I want some of the bigger ships, but have not been able to capture them... yet. So was looking at how to build them.
@@BusinessAnalyzer once you get heavy industry somewhere you can make whatever you have blueprints for. The better your colonys the more you can make each month, you don't actually have to pay for stuff you build but there is a limit
Dood, how have I never heard of this game? I’m about to do a swan dive down this rabbit hole, thanks!
For anyone watching now a lot of this has been patched. Cant buy up fuel for cheap before hand and the exchange rates between the two stations will net 40k tops, I tried this many times in a row to see if rng was getting me.
don't forget to turn your transponder off in hyperspace. and when surveying, especialy if the system is hostile. it blooms your sensor profile if left on.
Personal preference, but I'd recommend getting Hegemony Buffalos over Pirate Buffalos. The whole point of a smuggler fleet is not getting caught with contraband, which means shielded cargo holds are only useful if you mess up. And even then, the more contraband you're carrying the smaller the chance you'll actually be able to dodge a search with no contraband detected, and you always want to be carrying a good amount of contraband to make trips profitable anyways. Hegemony Buffalos meanwhile come with Militarized Subsystems built-in, meaning they're always useful, not to mention easier to find than pirate buffalos.
I like to start with the sensor skill. Wich increases sensor range, decreases profil and gives you +3 to burn level when going dark. So you barely lose speed.
Makes me able to smuggle even with a combat fleet XD
It function slightly different now,anyways... i finished tutorial after 4-5 hours and came out of it with 2,5million.
it can be "exploited" for waaaaay more,wich is pretty good for players who want "skip" early game completly (not recommended for new players,there are quite some things you really should get familiar with in early game)
The starsector experience: take everything that isn't nailed down!
And take those things too because nails can be sold too.
Thanks for the video i really look at all of it , i really enjoy it a lot thanks !
I enjoyed this a lot! Really want to see more.
Great video! So good I bought the game too. I'll be trying to go the same path you went with smuggling.
Oh they patched this a few weeks ago so I think the skills page has changed a bit.
@@FrancisJohnYT Ya there was a few differences. But I made around 600k before moving on. Just need to get a pen and paper and write prices and go back and forth.
If you love playing a game I'm on board with you playing it for the show. I'm probably going to pick this one up myself, being inspired by your demonstration of the depth of it.
I love you! Starsector is the best.
trading opportunities will not so much dry up as become intermittent, dont destroy pirate bases + wait for a lot of hostilities between factions and amazing smuggling trips will become available. or just destroy trade convoys yourself, but that looses you a lot of attitude points.
one piece of advice / quick note is that with an exploration fleet the shepherd drone tenders are your friend they help reduce the survey cost of planets hugely and stack to the point that everything only costs 5 supplies to survey even the gas giants.
I find Speoherds to simply always be worth it. Cost nothing, have 100 storage, sip fuel, and increase gains. They always pay for themselves and are completely expendable in combat, so it's not like it really matters if they grab a few d-mods. You just need them to distract for the real hard hitters. Even then, against smaller fleets, a handful of Shepherds can really annoy lots of frigates and keep things safe.
ahh good ole starsector, bought this back in 2012 when it was still starfarer it's come a long way since then.
Easy early game alpha strike - get a medusa, max capacitors and 6 anti-matter blasters. Phase skim in, do 9K damage if all AMB's hit, phase back out. It's good practice for the end-game player ships you can use to singlehandedly beat
My favorite general escorts/general line ships - the Fury. 2 heavy blasters or 1 heavy blaster and 1 ion burster, 1 medium size Sabot SRM, build in hardened shields and reinforced bulkheads (always recover ships when lost in combat), your choice of SO or max caps/vents, your choice of point defense.