What makes Starsector so special is that I've put a few hundred hours in and I've barely even experimented with combat. I've been enjoying my time as a smuggler and explorer. It really is a game you can play however you like.
i think my favourite part is also you can do combat the way you like the game world campaign, like i seen youtubers playing as they mainrole as the flagship and others that prefer being frigate pilots while doing major dmg to the enemy, i also seen some prefering to play as phase ships and doing hit and run tactics and others that like play as carrier commander, our be like this guy and put all your points to be a admiral and focus on strategy of the overall battle rather than being a pilot, there so many ways you can do combat and its truelly amezing
$15 might not get me a good bottle of whiskey, but it's enough to get another game. I blame Francis for making me dip into my whiskey fund to buy this game.
I'm really sorry about the whiskey, that is a tough hit. On the bright side you are about to enter a time warp and soon it with be time for the next budget.
I literally bought the game because of FJ and I just mess about in game waiting for new FJ video. Francis please start piloting. Even if you are just driving the missile boats around.
To be fair, you could have saved your whiskey money because there are a couple places you can get a free key, and im not talking about piracy. Game developer is a cool dude that just wants ppl to play his game.
This fleet comp still works like a charm in latest patch. I've tuned it up a bit, but overall similar setup - ridiculously tanky cruisers with battlecruisers spamming the pain behind them. Hold the line and destroy, when enemy is thinned go full assault. Drink beer and enjoy the fireworks. Thank you Francis for the awesome guide!
Newer player here! I am curious how you tuned the fleet, would you be able to share? Thanks! Game is amazing, there’s just SO MUCH to learn even without mods😂
00:00 The Basics 08:00 Officer Skills 12:00 Eradicator Fit 14:00 Deployment Pimping 15:30 Battle Tactics 20:30 Capital Ships (errata on the errata: at first i thought he was wrong when he mentioned deployment points when capturing a flag, but that's old thinking. new thinking is you get more deployment points for capturing a flag like that so yay) 23:30 Com Relay Cheese 26:30 "The worst type of bounty" 30:00 Francis Cries Havoc *errata: "eradicator" he meant to say "conquest" in the context of "it doesn't run out of missiles"* 31:50 Conquest Fit *errata: "picking officers up at the bar" he meant to say the comm menu instead.* would be neat to recruit from the bar, and cooler if someone made that mod. 38:00 Atlas Fit (poor man's conquest) 38:50 "Finally" 40:48 next episode teaser
Francis, a big one you didn't talk about (maybe because you didn't know) is that system bounties are actually SUPER lucrative; you get tons of cash even for cheapo crap ships and light things like frigates, while larger ships actually offer an even greater reward than the listed value; that's the base, minimum value you get, and a quick run around a sector wiping out the enemy ships (assuming they're actually an enemy for you) can get you tons of easy money, especially early on.
Tried doing that in a sector recently and pulled in about 80k-100k over the course of the bounty without leaving the system. Nice little money maker for early on.
@@FrancisJohnYT it can be even better if you use friendly fleets as meat shields, I crawled out of a hole created by starting my colonies with 1 mil that way
To anyone trying to be a bounty hunter, try the wolf class frigate. Not only is it a good ship, you can use the run simulation on space stations to learn how to use its special ability to 'Joust' enemy ships and get a good understanding on ship controls, abilities and Flux. I haven't finished the video yet so sorry if he mentions this. Great for early game bounty hunting.
@@siluda9255 Once I get my first good ship building colony with a nanoforge, I spam wolfs. Not many things can handle a woldpack. I also play with a mod that allows for larger fleets dependind on DP size. "Fleet Size by DP"
This was an immensely helpful tutorial despite the hodgepodge of flux explanatory metaphors. Flux gets too high is really bad. Shields being up generates flux. Shields being hit generates flux. Firing weapons generate flux.
Flux is heat, is really all you need to know. Then it's just a matter of figuring out what generates heat and what doesn't (which is fairly intuitive).
Thank you! I've spent a ton of time in this game since you started the series and even just trying to do the same things you've done has been incredibly frustrating. When I first started playing ONI I found your tutorials which were a big help so every ONI playthrough you do there are already guides out there and you still take the time to explain anything new or complicated. The first few episodes of this series was a bit of a stream of consciousness let's play. I hope that as you go you fill in the blanks with more tutorial episodes like this. There are of course other guides for this game but many are out of date or just not particularly well organized - or I just prefer your content.
In my playthrough this fleet composition is one of the most effective I ever flew. Thanks for sharing. Amazing composition with it's tradeoffs. Eradicators + Conquests just dominate and you can fly whatever you like in-between.
I am kind of surprised their are not more fleet guides out there. All the ones I could find were single ship designs or how to pilot a ship to take on huge fleets. Could not find any general all purpose fleets.
This tutorial helped me a lot. I went and got this when this series started. Currently just puttering around smuggling lobsters and heavy armaments. Got a pair of 14th fleet battlecarriers mothballed in the terraforming station untill I figure out what to do with them. How could I not steal them from their storrage dockyards when I receive a proposition from a shady individual?
I hear ya, those 14th battlecarriers can mount two large missile launchers, I'm looking forward to putting them in the field once I figure out how to do fighters right.
Glad to see you playing this game. Its one of the greatest sandboxes out there and gets hardly recognition because its not on the Steam store, because the devs don't want to put an unfinished product there.
> because the devs don't want to put an unfinished product there. If other companies followed that principle, there would be about 7 games on Steam. The great thing about Starsector is how you keep discovering you can do more things, that in other games would just be background systems (or pure RNG). Wait, I can change the loadout of my ships? Wait, I can colonise planets? Wait, I can build factories on my planets and manufacture my own ships and ammo? Wait, my planets can have defence fleets? Wait, my planets can have orbital fortresses? Wait, I can take over my grandfather's farm, fight ghosts in mines and marry one of the villagers? Okay, that last one is actually from Stardew Valley. For now.
I love that their is an actual market in game. Their are only about 7 planets that make fuel and the big boy is the Sindrian Diktat, if you start making your own fuel and raid the Sindrian Diktat production facility you can cripple supply and get more market share. Of course if you start making fuel they might send a little fleet your way to mess with the new player on the market. It's little things like that, that suck you into the game.
About pursuing a defeated foe personally... You are able to deploy frigates toward the top of the map (Deploy Left and Deploy Right) by clicking on a ship two or three times in the deployment phase, and they will be able to destroy or at least slow down some fleeing ships, and thus the heavier fast ships at the bottom might be able to catch up and bring their guns to bear. I do think the second in command option is broken and overpowered. There's no risk of ship damage unless they're critically low in CR, and as you said, ships can catch up to the fleeing ships even if they couldn't do so on the tactical map.
The officer training trait in the skills looks like the meme of the woman trying to calculate the mathmatical equation lol. Thanks for the run down on the ships. I have been fidling with this for a couple of days and my lack of general sci-fi knowledge has really made it difficult but this is one the most fun games ive played in a while.
Looking at the setups on your Eradicators, I've built mine pretty much the same, with one major exception: sacc some vents to have two Salamanders. If they hit, the Eradicators will have the speed, and definately the firepower, to chase anything down for a quick notch on the dashboard. Salamanders also cost no flux, while not being a limited ammo. At the start, in the sims, I also got cured of my addiction to Dominators. Been favoring those ships for a long time, but think I'll start fazing them out, atleast as a fleet-wide size-inflator. (While manually flying the Doms, activate the Burn Drive, then launch a missile volley. Enjoy the fireworks 😉. This is why I love them, though the AI don't use it, atleast not effectively )
Figured I had to try it: The previous Dominator tip works really nice for Eradicator (P) aswell, so the ammount of them on the market is actually a bit useful 🤣 Switching my piloted ship to an Eradi (P) instead of Dom from here on 😁
I love making carriers in this game in the late game... Astrals with some smaller screening ships in front and some missile boats just great fun just swarming the enemy with bombers.
The Astral (50DP/6 Hangers) can be mighty in player hands with a loadout of Daggers, but it's wasted DP in AI hands IMO, since the AI is pretty meh at properly using its special. For AI carriers, bring Herons instead (16DP/3 Hangers). 3 Herons bring 9 Hangers for 2DP less than 1 Astral.
Hey Francis. Love the vid. Was hoping you could do an in depth weapon, ships and hull mods guide separately someday. It's pretty hard to find a reliable tutorials for Starsector like this and I recently just played the game
There's a pretty comprehensive wiki. And googling "starsector fits" will turn up several guides and forum posts (older ones might be slightly outdated, since ships / weapons get rebalanced now and then).
I still don't think I know enough to do that yet, I have read the wiki and gone over the weapons, hulls and consumed every guide I can find. Knowing stats does not equal knowing what to build, even the best guide I found does not really cover things the way I would like. There is a difference between building a good ship and building a good fleet. I need a bunch more experience before I can make a good general fleet building guide. docs.google.com/document/d/1d3Xvnw9-rcedZpP7e7lChHSvMUnTyDL7o08dlVPTvuE/edit#
it's weird how you highlight the value of range so much but ignore the sensor jammer waypoints the comm-relay thing is something i totally overlooked, good hint!
A Gryphon flagship is a nice addition to this fleet. We totally don't waste ammo and time on small ships we cannot even hope to hit. We just have some great fun behind the titanium line.
If you want tanky ships, the tankiest ship in the game is the monitor, its just a small frigate, but because of its special ability, with some hull mods, it can tank, like, multiple capitals at once.
Absolutely! And it's a PD beast, with the built-in flak cannons. I use Monitors to basically soak and distract excess enemies, even [REDACTED] and [EXTREMELY REDACTED]. I found the latter to be nothing but frustration until I used a couple Monitors, and suddenly, easy sailing.
I have seen their annoying damage soaking first hand, I'm thinking they are way to good at it. Seeing a frigate soak all the fire power of a capital ship and then run of to vent is a bit crazy.
@@FrancisJohnYT Also, I don't know if you've discovered this yet, but when you go through stormy nebulas in hyperspace, if you hold S and go slow, you don't take any damage.
I'm not a fan of the Hurricane, personally. It's amazing for an alpha strike, if you wanted to save it for the moment when a target starts venting, for example. But if your goal is _missile pressure_ I think the *Locust* is hands-down the best option. The only disadvantage it has in comparison to the Hurricane or even the Squall is their short range. But a lot of the fights you showed in this video, you ended up closing to pretty short range anyway (and the AI often will because it wants to try to bring it's guns to bear on the target too). In addition to doing a lot of damage to big ships purely on volume of missiles, Locust has the 'side benefit' of shredding any fighters between you and your target, opening up options to diversify your ballistic slots rather than needing to focus on flak.
Hurricane is not great for pressure, but for finishing it's AMAZING, and they already have another missile pod for pressure (they don't need tons of missiles for pressure, just a constant stream to stop active venting and keep shields engaged). I will give you that Locusts are great for shredding enemy fighters, though.
What I like about the Squall MLRS is the length of the volley, it tend to prevent venting. Throw in the Hurricane on top of that and it's nasty. I used to run twin Squall MLRS but it lacked finishing. My issue with the Locust is that it's fragmentation damage, so for shields and armour you have to reduce it's damage to 25%!! That puts it's DPS below the Squall for shield damage. Never mind armour. A smart enemy could just drop shields and let it bounce off the armour, well the bigger ships anyway and a few of the heavy cruisers.
People tend to be dismissive of Locusts until they are on the receiving end while the armor is breached and in danger of overloading. Not as effective vs capitals but it really helps in downing smaller ships as fast as possible to avoid them being encircled.
in warship combat battlecruisers are fast heavily gunned big cruisers or small battleships that are supposed to counter heavy cruisers and smash light cruisers. its weird that it isn't the case in this game
I though battle cruisers were big guns and light armour for speed. Basically a heavy cruiser with the armour removed to make it faster. They can run down and kill most things smaller but can outrun things the same size or bigger. A Battle cruiser vs a Heavy cruiser the heavy would win due to better armour was my understanding.
Not a bad guide. My own personal strategy has been using Onslaughts with Wolves. Most fights are 2 stages. The initial fight and then when you pursue. Use Onslaught for stage 1 the big guys go down quick and the little guys are fast enough to get away. Stage 2 use Wolf frigates, often you can stage them left or right as well allowing you to encircle before the fight begins. Hit Full assault in both cases and let the AI sort em out. Wolf Frigates are plenty fast and hit much harder then their class.
The most-impressive bounty hunting fleet I've ever made was nothing but Wolf frigates with reapers and ion pulsers. Just deploy all and full assault. Ion pulsers from a swarm of wolves followed by a volley of reapers turns entire fleets into fireworks displays.
3:10 - It's neither your ammunition nor your health. Hull (the lower bar) is your health. And only (some) missiles / torpedoes / bomb launchers use ammunition (those won't generate flux or care about how high your flux is). Flux, as you correctly said earlier, is heat.
Your videos are entertaining, you should try the burn drive version of the eradicators. Same basic weapons load out you suggested but add a converted hanger and a interceptor squad. They cover the distance rappidly and survive insane fights.
Given the outtro music for this series. Havong played EVEOnline years ago I can say....from experience....don't space pirate drunk. It....doesnt end well
I like makeing a Luddic Path Eradiactor. A lot of close range rapid fire ballistics and hammer torpedos. Close the distance and take their shields down and use the torps on them
have lots of fun with that build. currently trying to upgrade with Pegasus and Dominators as they seem like stronger versions for little more Points. Pegasus: 4xLargemissle +10Points & Dominator: +2Large -1Medium Ballistic +3Points any advice on their loadouts? Especially the Dominator LargeBalistics? thanks
The Pegasus was introduced after this video was released and it looks like a beast of a ship. All those missiles make it a beast of a ship and a great addition. However I would advise against the Dominator it's more of a get in close and brawl ship, it uses it's burn drive to get in close and unload masses of damage. It also tends to rely on it's armour so it can use it's flux to output more damage. Don't get me wrong it's a good ship but it's not designed for the long distance combat of dipping in and out it's got less than half the speed of the Eradicator. But then again maybe with the right weapons you can make it work so don't put to much faith in what anyone tells you unless you have tested it yourself. I mean if you could squeeze on a couple of Mjolnir Cannons it's would be pretty beastly at hurting everything though you are going to want to invest heavily in vents to afford the flux costs.
I love this! I'm having a lot of trouble with bounties, I always take so much damage that it makes them cost neutral. I'm still not clear on how to level up officers though, I'll have to do some research. thanks!
If officers are involved in combat they gain experience. So put them in ships and take them into fights. Do be aware that all exp is shared equally even if the officer is maxed, so maxed out officers will soak/waste exp that could go to still levelling officers.
Personally, I try to get my hands on a Sunder ASAP. Put a Plasma Cannon and a couple Phase Lances on it, and it's a fantastic little glass cannon in player hands. Later on, get a Doom with Phase Anchor, Expanded Magazines, Expanded Missile Racks, Antimatter Blasters, and Sabot SRM Pods, and I'm a happy little facepuncher. Yes, the Doom was heavily nerfed from 0.91 to 0.95, but it's still the Doom, it's still stupidly powerful, and it's still capable of grinding down entire fleets on its own. Don't give it to the AI, unless you enjoy friendly fire.
I don't think Francis has much experience piloting ships manually. A lot of these fights where he just grinds the enemies down slowly from range could be finished in a matter of seconds even by a (manually piloted) Hammerhead, let alone a Doom.
I only did a little piloting, I figured learning to pilot the lower level ships while fun would eventually be a wasted skill. So hold out until we got to the bit boys, but now I find the pilot skills are really important. I'm going to have to pick something pilot I think.
@@FrancisJohnYT - Get good with a Hammerhead (in actual fights, not 1-vs-1 in the simulator, that's kind of useless) and you'll have mastered ship combat. It's not what you'll be piloting in the endgame (that will most likely be a Doom), but it's the ideal "learning" ship. Then there's station assaults (where you might want to switch to a dreadnought for the final push), but that's comparatively easier (i.e., it's just smart tactics, there isn't much piloting skill required)..
Baetis in the Eos Exodus system regularly has Conquests for sale. Well for me at least. Must say I'm rather enjoying following along by playing too on each new series.
You know that some ships are much better with built-in mods? For example, Onslaught benefits greatly from Expanded Magazines and Advanced Weapon Mounts.
Built in hull mods were introduced in the next update I believe. The game has had a bunch of additions since this was released. I think the fleet still works but I might have to go back and test it.
In my limited experience aircraft carriers are best at hunting pirates. Little shits can't outrun a fighter wing and excape, and big dumb brutes can't break your valuable ships if they are busy being swarmed. Just don't forget to add some destroyers to screen, something fast and tanky.
you always end up teaching me something new, thanks for another a great guide o/ taking down chicomoztoc '-' but that's their main planet... lore-wise this is a crazy idea hahaha good luck with the ensuing diplomacy (or bribing)
Being friendly with pirates is great to have, since they are a lot easier to make bank with, and will leave you be while they wreak havoc in a pirate raid, and just raid Chicomoztoc in the ensuing aftermath of several armadas taking on a star fortress.
Your fleet composition is an affront to my high-tech sensibilities... Your ships will now be picked apart by swarms of AI-piloted fighter craft, EMP armed phase frigates, dozens of anti-matter blasters, plasma cannons and long-ranged tachyon lance fire. This has nothing to do with any insecurity about our cardboard space-armor. Nothing at all.
Is it worth commanding a combat ship if you have no combat skills? I usually put myself in command of one of my freighters. Also, do you need good relations to buy the Luddic Church Eradicators?
I don't think it's worth commanding a ship unless you have practice piloting ships, even with no skills you can do good work with some of the ships. But if you are not a great pilot either practice for fun or leave it to the AI if you prefer. So long as you are not hostile you can buy from the Luddic Church, also the independents military planet sells them it just so happens to also be in Luddic Church space.
I dont quite understand the first half of this video. It seems odd to take a rangemaster ship, fully bonused and with specialized captain, compare it to a naked brawler and then go "Look, its winning".
Naked ranged vs naked brawler and the brawler won, the second part was demonstrating the value of a dedicated captain configured for the ship. I don't know about you but first time I started playing I just kept whatever captains I found and did not custom build any. When building a ship be aware of what you are trying to do and build a captain to match.
so missile conquest better than a mid range gunboat? had same setup as yours except didn't have the Mjolnir cannons as I only had 1 instead I had the Hephaestus Assault Guns and Locusts in the missiles and why only one side has weapons? is that to fit the mods? oh and I agree with the worst type of bounty couldn't break that one no matter how much I tried with 4 conquests, altered the files so I could have massive battles, regretted it 5/6 Onslaughts death balling with officers all on steady
I found that the conquest is not really a ship of the line, it's shields take extra damage, and it's armour is weak sauce. It's best in a position it can dish out damage without taking return fire or in crushing cruisers or smaller. It just did not have the movement to do that well. But put some eradicators out front to soak damage for it and it can slug away as long as the eradicators do.
@@FrancisJohnYT thanks for the advice 👍 yeah I will definitely give the eradicators a go, I've been looking for cruiser that could soak up damage and stay alive, your right the conquest cant handle brawling close up and once it shields are gone if it cant retreat, its practically dead, seems to do better at longer ranges where it wont get bullied as much 😊
I always wonder how you get all this information in such a short time. Bought and installed the game after your first video (this series, not the last one) and i'm just lost & thankfull for your guides :D probably never played a game where it was that annoying to get information. // also looking through the comments - the devs probably should pay you for all the games you sold ^^
When I play a game I tend to get a little obsessed, I have gone through the wiki way to many times. Watched god knows how many videos and read several hundreds of pages of forums. But nothing beats just lots and lots of testing.
So, for people struggling with finding Evictors, they're only present in the 0.95.1a-RC6 or later version of the game. I was playing the 0.95a-RC15 (yeah, do you see any difference? It took me a while) and it doesn't have evictors and the skills are all different. I'm on cycle 212 with my 2nd Evictor now, and a lot of debt. Starting again in 3 ... 2 ... 1...
Eradicator [P] us just fine and several people even prefer the Burn Drives over the Ammo Feeds because these thing put out such a ridiculously high amount of damage on their own it's almost trivial. Save for maybe absolute, end-game BS fleets loaded with things you just can't have yourself, I have yet to find anything that can stand up to just 8 Eradicators constantly bombarding it with machine-gun fire and Sabot missiles. These things are cheap and either version of them hit well about their weight-class. That being said, it is a shame I have yet to find anything that even comes close, because it would be nice to have more variety.
@@FrancisJohnYT I've found out that there was an update for the game some time ago. Earlier the only variants I could find were LC (ammo feeder but no 4 facing small ballistic mounts). Now after I updated the game I've found 3 in one system xD thanks for the reply though. Your fit is really amazing
I must have got very lucky in my game. Still flying starter ships and I have found a pristine nanoforge and soil nannites (in the same survey!) only 10LY from spawn.
Excellent video. Very informative. I think OP means Operation Points. A rig only has so much energy to expend to make it operate, like big guns. Mods don't quite fit that perspective but the name still makes sense to me.
A lot of this gameplay looks either as an example or is late game. What would you need to grind out money/credits for if you can make a fleet like that?? xD
Grind up money to fund your capital ships, to afford ships that allow you to finish end game enemies form some of the quest lines, farm AI cores for boosting your colonies. Maybe you want to build up a few planets? I find Starsector is a bit like Minecraft, ONI, Rimworld, Kenshi, Factorio and Satisfactory the destination is not the point. It's the dumb ideas you decide to try along the way for fun that really matter.
Use story points sparingly, but try to use them on things that either a) give you 100% xp return (so you'll earn enough extra xp to equal the story point you spent) or b) are permanent upgrades that you never want to remove, such as with captains or your own skills, colony upgrades (which get VERY expensive very quickly, but can massively upgrade various aspects of colonies; best to use them either to fix a massive deficiency or to increase a perfect world to beyond perfection), or your absolute final fleet ship built-ins, which can free up an amazing amount of OP (and if you always make sure they have Integrated Bulkheads mod, they are always recoverable).
The only points I would 100% spend is on mentoring you captains and using them to occasionally get out of fights you know you can't win. If you spend them on ships they are actually recoverable in a way, because if the ship is lost or scrapped you get an exp bonus out of it. Though remember it's a "bonus" so while you will eventually get all the exp back you will first have to earn an equal amount of exp, usually killing things. I still have over a million exp bonus I'm still trying to earn back, at one point I was owed over 4 million in bonus exp. Outside of that I'm still holding off on spending them until I'm a bit deeper into the game and know where I need the help the most.
I ripped it out later so it would angle the shield better and used "Stabilized Shields" instead. Edit* only had a couple of weeks with the game so there are still some basic mistakes I'm making, but I figure it's a pretty decent guide all things considered.
Great video. A question about your current fleet; what is your fuel consumption? I've been running a similar fleet but I threw in a Legion XIV and my fuel use skyrocketed enough that I ditched it.
This comment is rather late, but I hope you can still see it. I love your guide videos on the game, but I've always been wondering - How do you battle against stations?
Depends on the station but the eradicator fleet with Conquests can take all the stations I have went up against. Just form a line at max weapon range from the station and pound away. The station will focus one ship, that ship will pull back out of range to regen flux so the station will switch targets. This will repeat until the station has been pounded to ash. If the enemy has defenders it's best to lure them away first, taking a station with more than a few defenders is difficult.
Officers don't contribute to DP! Both fleets share a common DP pool, configurable in the options (max battle size). Your fleet size ("composition", left on the fleet screen) is compared with the enemy and the larger fleet gets up to 60% DP. Holding objectives during battle will give you a slight DP boost. "Support Doctrine" will lower DP costs for ships without officers.
I'm not sure what part you mean can you provide a time stamp? If it's the green lines on the combat map screen that is just regular orders. As in select the ships and then right click on a location.
Francis - you need to put up affiliate links or something when you dive into new games. A lot of us buy them because of your instructions and if you can get a small amount becouse of that it would only be fair.
Francis you absolute tutorial beast, could you do a in depth remnant hunting tutorial? been trying to build a fleet to farm Alpha Cores, but im struggling.
Basically, there's a lot of ways to do it, depending on how you play. I can give a couple examples for flying your own flagship. My RTS game is unfortunately rather weak in Starsector. My personal strategy: get a Doom (35DP) and learn to fly it. That's not a knock on you - it will be a learning curve! The phase mines are the key tool, here, as you can use them to wipe out entire fighter wings at a time. They're also useful for picking off frigates, and for getting Radiants to drop their shields or move them away from where the rest of your ships are shooting from. You'll want an Antimatter Blaster/Missile (a lot of people swear by Typhoon Reapers; personally, the greater ammo capacity and synergy with other ships of the Sabot Pods makes them my own choice) loadout with Heavy Armor, Expanded Magazines, Expanded Missile Racks, and the Phase Anchor. Flux capacitors are more important than vents with this build, due to how Phase Anchor works. Built-in hullmods are a must, focusing on the highest OP costs; Phase Anchor cannot be built-in and needs 30 OP. The rest of your fleet needs a mix of durability and punch. I like a pair of Monitors (6DP each) with Hardened Shields, Front Conversion, Solar Shielding, and every scrap of flux dissipation I can find. I also give them officers with defensive skills; the shield skill must be elite. They're set to harass Radiants or, if there are none, Brilliants. A pair of Herons (16DP each) kept to the rear with Broadswords or Sparks help mitigate the fighter swarm. For the actual killing, I've been using Conquests and Onslaught (XIV)s. A single Conquest with Integrated Targeting Unit and Ballistic Rangefinder provides a lot of dakka when fully loaded, and can sit back while doing it. A Mjolnir and Mark IX per side in the long range slots, with a mix of longer-range ballistics in the small and medium slots. The Onslaughts use Hellbore Cannons in the large slots, Thumpers in the mediums, and Light Needlers in the smalls. Medium slots not pointed forwards get Dual Flaks for massive PD. Missiles are Breach Pods. Heavy Armor, ITU, and BR are must-haves again. If you use built-in mods, you can easily max out vents, get 30+ caps, and still fit Hardened Shields and a couple other mods. Yes, I'm fighting [REDACTED] fleets with a couple frigates (12DP), a couple cruiser-size carriers (32DP), a Doom (35DP), and 3-4 capitals (40DP each). I give minimal orders, typically setting the carriers to escort the Conquest and Monitors to the Onslaughts. Ships are rarely disabled, and since I can put an officer on each, disabled ships are generally straight recoveries with no issues.
Example two, fly a Paragon with a boatload of long-range cruisers and a couple Monitors. The Paragon is there to tank stuff and occasionally snipe something that your other ships have overloaded. Advanced Optics and a bunch of Tachyon Lances work wonders for that.
Thanks for the vid I really appreciate it but what I don't understand is how do you make bounty hunting profitable when traveling the distance required for bounty hunting with any sizable fleet can end up costing you way more than you make in supplies and fuel
Eradicators are pretty fuel efficient, additionally we bring along a couple of salvage rigs. Also helps if you do multiple bounties in an area, bring along 100 transplutonics and build comm relays in all the systems you stop in to find any new bounties that have shown up. Also maybe do the Galatea academy mission line, it requires you to get 50 relations with the contact there.
Mobe quick? Mob quick maybe? Generally your ships mob the enemy when they are winning the Flux war, as in they do so much damage to the enemy they can't keep their shields up and try to retreat. If you do it to most of the enemies they can squashed up in a ball and destroyed.
Pristine nanoforge probably doesn't spawn in outer rim, only some exists in core industrial centers (one in kazeron and one in chicomoztoc as far as I know)
What makes Starsector so special is that I've put a few hundred hours in and I've barely even experimented with combat.
I've been enjoying my time as a smuggler and explorer. It really is a game you can play however you like.
i think my favourite part is also you can do combat the way you like the game world campaign, like i seen youtubers playing as they mainrole as the flagship and others that prefer being frigate pilots while doing major dmg to the enemy, i also seen some prefering to play as phase ships and doing hit and run tactics and others that like play as carrier commander, our be like this guy and put all your points to be a admiral and focus on strategy of the overall battle rather than being a pilot, there so many ways you can do combat and its truelly amezing
$15 might not get me a good bottle of whiskey, but it's enough to get another game. I blame Francis for making me dip into my whiskey fund to buy this game.
I'm really sorry about the whiskey, that is a tough hit. On the bright side you are about to enter a time warp and soon it with be time for the next budget.
I literally bought the game because of FJ and I just mess about in game waiting for new FJ video. Francis please start piloting. Even if you are just driving the missile boats around.
At least video games are better for your liver 🤣
Man I feel you. This game is so addictive.
To be fair, you could have saved your whiskey money because there are a couple places you can get a free key, and im not talking about piracy. Game developer is a cool dude that just wants ppl to play his game.
WE'RE GETTING OUT OF THE CORE WORLDS WITH THIS ONE💣💥💥💯
This fleet comp still works like a charm in latest patch. I've tuned it up a bit, but overall similar setup - ridiculously tanky cruisers with battlecruisers spamming the pain behind them. Hold the line and destroy, when enemy is thinned go full assault. Drink beer and enjoy the fireworks. Thank you Francis for the awesome guide!
Newer player here! I am curious how you tuned the fleet, would you be able to share? Thanks!
Game is amazing, there’s just SO MUCH to learn even without mods😂
00:00 The Basics
08:00 Officer Skills
12:00 Eradicator Fit
14:00 Deployment Pimping
15:30 Battle Tactics
20:30 Capital Ships
(errata on the errata: at first i thought he was wrong when he mentioned deployment points when capturing a flag, but that's old thinking. new thinking is you get more deployment points for capturing a flag like that so yay)
23:30 Com Relay Cheese
26:30 "The worst type of bounty"
30:00 Francis Cries Havoc
*errata: "eradicator" he meant to say "conquest" in the context of "it doesn't run out of missiles"*
31:50 Conquest Fit
*errata: "picking officers up at the bar" he meant to say the comm menu instead.* would be neat to recruit from the bar, and cooler if someone made that mod.
38:00 Atlas Fit (poor man's conquest)
38:50 "Finally"
40:48 next episode teaser
Thank you!
Added to description thanks for the chapters.
@@FrancisJohnYT yw. it's pretty easy to do it while i watch one for the first time...the difficult part is focusing enough to remember to do it. lol
Francis, a big one you didn't talk about (maybe because you didn't know) is that system bounties are actually SUPER lucrative; you get tons of cash even for cheapo crap ships and light things like frigates, while larger ships actually offer an even greater reward than the listed value; that's the base, minimum value you get, and a quick run around a sector wiping out the enemy ships (assuming they're actually an enemy for you) can get you tons of easy money, especially early on.
Tried doing that in a sector recently and pulled in about 80k-100k over the course of the bounty without leaving the system. Nice little money maker for early on.
@@FrancisJohnYT it can be even better if you use friendly fleets as meat shields, I crawled out of a hole created by starting my colonies with 1 mil that way
To anyone trying to be a bounty hunter, try the wolf class frigate. Not only is it a good ship, you can use the run simulation on space stations to learn how to use its special ability to 'Joust' enemy ships and get a good understanding on ship controls, abilities and Flux. I haven't finished the video yet so sorry if he mentions this. Great for early game bounty hunting.
just remember, wolf is called wolf for a reason, it works best in packs
@@siluda9255 Once I get my first good ship building colony with a nanoforge, I spam wolfs. Not many things can handle a woldpack. I also play with a mod that allows for larger fleets dependind on DP size.
"Fleet Size by DP"
This was an immensely helpful tutorial despite the hodgepodge of flux explanatory metaphors. Flux gets too high is really bad. Shields being up generates flux. Shields being hit generates flux. Firing weapons generate flux.
Flux is heat, is really all you need to know. Then it's just a matter of figuring out what generates heat and what doesn't (which is fairly intuitive).
Thank you! I've spent a ton of time in this game since you started the series and even just trying to do the same things you've done has been incredibly frustrating. When I first started playing ONI I found your tutorials which were a big help so every ONI playthrough you do there are already guides out there and you still take the time to explain anything new or complicated. The first few episodes of this series was a bit of a stream of consciousness let's play. I hope that as you go you fill in the blanks with more tutorial episodes like this. There are of course other guides for this game but many are out of date or just not particularly well organized - or I just prefer your content.
In my playthrough this fleet composition is one of the most effective I ever flew. Thanks for sharing. Amazing composition with it's tradeoffs. Eradicators + Conquests just dominate and you can fly whatever you like in-between.
I am kind of surprised their are not more fleet guides out there. All the ones I could find were single ship designs or how to pilot a ship to take on huge fleets.
Could not find any general all purpose fleets.
imagine how good the next RimWorld series will be after the wait, oh yeah (luv all you content btw) :D
This tutorial helped me a lot.
I went and got this when this series started. Currently just puttering around smuggling lobsters and heavy armaments. Got a pair of 14th fleet battlecarriers mothballed in the terraforming station untill I figure out what to do with them. How could I not steal them from their storrage dockyards when I receive a proposition from a shady individual?
I hear ya, those 14th battlecarriers can mount two large missile launchers, I'm looking forward to putting them in the field once I figure out how to do fighters right.
@@FrancisJohnYT I look forward to that toutorial.
Glad to see you playing this game. Its one of the greatest sandboxes out there and gets hardly recognition because its not on the Steam store, because the devs don't want to put an unfinished product there.
It's a gem I never knew existed and I can't get enough...getting my Gazillionaire fix :D
> because the devs don't want to put an unfinished product there.
If other companies followed that principle, there would be about 7 games on Steam.
The great thing about Starsector is how you keep discovering you can do more things, that in other games would just be background systems (or pure RNG). Wait, I can change the loadout of my ships? Wait, I can colonise planets? Wait, I can build factories on my planets and manufacture my own ships and ammo? Wait, my planets can have defence fleets? Wait, my planets can have orbital fortresses? Wait, I can take over my grandfather's farm, fight ghosts in mines and marry one of the villagers?
Okay, that last one is actually from Stardew Valley. For now.
I love that their is an actual market in game. Their are only about 7 planets that make fuel and the big boy is the Sindrian Diktat, if you start making your own fuel and raid the Sindrian Diktat production facility you can cripple supply and get more market share. Of course if you start making fuel they might send a little fleet your way to mess with the new player on the market. It's little things like that, that suck you into the game.
@@FrancisJohnYT Nachiketa is probably the best planet for bulk cheap fuel.
About pursuing a defeated foe personally... You are able to deploy frigates toward the top of the map (Deploy Left and Deploy Right) by clicking on a ship two or three times in the deployment phase, and they will be able to destroy or at least slow down some fleeing ships, and thus the heavier fast ships at the bottom might be able to catch up and bring their guns to bear.
I do think the second in command option is broken and overpowered. There's no risk of ship damage unless they're critically low in CR, and as you said, ships can catch up to the fleeing ships even if they couldn't do so on the tactical map.
The officer training trait in the skills looks like the meme of the woman trying to calculate the mathmatical equation lol. Thanks for the run down on the ships. I have been fidling with this for a couple of days and my lack of general sci-fi knowledge has really made it difficult but this is one the most fun games ive played in a while.
I appreciate the "tutorial" as I know nothing about this game :) It will make watching other episodes more enjoyable !
Looking at the setups on your Eradicators, I've built mine pretty much the same, with one major exception: sacc some vents to have two Salamanders. If they hit, the Eradicators will have the speed, and definately the firepower, to chase anything down for a quick notch on the dashboard. Salamanders also cost no flux, while not being a limited ammo.
At the start, in the sims, I also got cured of my addiction to Dominators. Been favoring those ships for a long time, but think I'll start fazing them out, atleast as a fleet-wide size-inflator. (While manually flying the Doms, activate the Burn Drive, then launch a missile volley. Enjoy the fireworks 😉. This is why I love them, though the AI don't use it, atleast not effectively )
Figured I had to try it: The previous Dominator tip works really nice for Eradicator (P) aswell, so the ammount of them on the market is actually a bit useful 🤣
Switching my piloted ship to an Eradi (P) instead of Dom from here on 😁
I love making carriers in this game in the late game... Astrals with some smaller screening ships in front and some missile boats just great fun just swarming the enemy with bombers.
The Astral (50DP/6 Hangers) can be mighty in player hands with a loadout of Daggers, but it's wasted DP in AI hands IMO, since the AI is pretty meh at properly using its special. For AI carriers, bring Herons instead (16DP/3 Hangers). 3 Herons bring 9 Hangers for 2DP less than 1 Astral.
Vortexs I find are great in ai hands and enmasse. Fill me with fighters and their ability is pretty damn crazy
Again....huge huge thank you from a very new player of Starsector. I've only recently "discovered" this game, so be rightfully jelaous of me.
Francis my man always finding me nice new games to sink my weekends into.
Hey Francis. Love the vid. Was hoping you could do an in depth weapon, ships and hull mods guide separately someday. It's pretty hard to find a reliable tutorials for Starsector like this and I recently just played the game
There's a pretty comprehensive wiki. And googling "starsector fits" will turn up several guides and forum posts (older ones might be slightly outdated, since ships / weapons get rebalanced now and then).
I still don't think I know enough to do that yet, I have read the wiki and gone over the weapons, hulls and consumed every guide I can find. Knowing stats does not equal knowing what to build, even the best guide I found does not really cover things the way I would like. There is a difference between building a good ship and building a good fleet. I need a bunch more experience before I can make a good general fleet building guide.
docs.google.com/document/d/1d3Xvnw9-rcedZpP7e7lChHSvMUnTyDL7o08dlVPTvuE/edit#
@@FrancisJohnYT Thank you. Regardless, keep up the vids. Really nice to see some Starsector.
As soon as I finish factorio, I'm trying this game. Thanks Francis.
it's weird how you highlight the value of range so much but ignore the sensor jammer waypoints
the comm-relay thing is something i totally overlooked, good hint!
yeah, baby! railguns and hypervelocities rule! heavy maulers are great too. i just can't get used to the Eradicator myself.
A Gryphon flagship is a nice addition to this fleet. We totally don't waste ammo and time on small ships we cannot even hope to hit. We just have some great fun behind the titanium line.
If you want tanky ships, the tankiest ship in the game is the monitor, its just a small frigate, but because of its special ability, with some hull mods, it can tank, like, multiple capitals at once.
Absolutely! And it's a PD beast, with the built-in flak cannons. I use Monitors to basically soak and distract excess enemies, even [REDACTED] and [EXTREMELY REDACTED]. I found the latter to be nothing but frustration until I used a couple Monitors, and suddenly, easy sailing.
I have seen their annoying damage soaking first hand, I'm thinking they are way to good at it. Seeing a frigate soak all the fire power of a capital ship and then run of to vent is a bit crazy.
@@FrancisJohnYT
Yea I think they're probably unbalanced. It is highly amusing though.
@@FrancisJohnYT
Also, I don't know if you've discovered this yet, but when you go through stormy nebulas in hyperspace, if you hold S and go slow, you don't take any damage.
I really love your work! best new sub I've made! Thank you.
I'm not a fan of the Hurricane, personally. It's amazing for an alpha strike, if you wanted to save it for the moment when a target starts venting, for example. But if your goal is _missile pressure_ I think the *Locust* is hands-down the best option. The only disadvantage it has in comparison to the Hurricane or even the Squall is their short range. But a lot of the fights you showed in this video, you ended up closing to pretty short range anyway (and the AI often will because it wants to try to bring it's guns to bear on the target too). In addition to doing a lot of damage to big ships purely on volume of missiles, Locust has the 'side benefit' of shredding any fighters between you and your target, opening up options to diversify your ballistic slots rather than needing to focus on flak.
Hurricane is not great for pressure, but for finishing it's AMAZING, and they already have another missile pod for pressure (they don't need tons of missiles for pressure, just a constant stream to stop active venting and keep shields engaged). I will give you that Locusts are great for shredding enemy fighters, though.
What I like about the Squall MLRS is the length of the volley, it tend to prevent venting. Throw in the Hurricane on top of that and it's nasty. I used to run twin Squall MLRS but it lacked finishing.
My issue with the Locust is that it's fragmentation damage, so for shields and armour you have to reduce it's damage to 25%!! That puts it's DPS below the Squall for shield damage. Never mind armour. A smart enemy could just drop shields and let it bounce off the armour, well the bigger ships anyway and a few of the heavy cruisers.
@@FrancisJohnYT That said, fragmentation tears apart hull, so once the armor is down, it will shred. I've actually used flak cannons in that manner.
People tend to be dismissive of Locusts until they are on the receiving end while the armor is breached and in danger of overloading.
Not as effective vs capitals but it really helps in downing smaller ships as fast as possible to avoid them being encircled.
This man is doing the Lord's work
I have never thought about front-shield Conquests before
It was not my best idea, I took them out in later versions as they are better off being able to angle their shields.
in warship combat battlecruisers are fast heavily gunned big cruisers or small battleships that are supposed to counter heavy cruisers and smash light cruisers.
its weird that it isn't the case in this game
I though battle cruisers were big guns and light armour for speed. Basically a heavy cruiser with the armour removed to make it faster. They can run down and kill most things smaller but can outrun things the same size or bigger.
A Battle cruiser vs a Heavy cruiser the heavy would win due to better armour was my understanding.
Not a bad guide. My own personal strategy has been using Onslaughts with Wolves. Most fights are 2 stages. The initial fight and then when you pursue. Use Onslaught for stage 1 the big guys go down quick and the little guys are fast enough to get away. Stage 2 use Wolf frigates, often you can stage them left or right as well allowing you to encircle before the fight begins. Hit Full assault in both cases and let the AI sort em out. Wolf Frigates are plenty fast and hit much harder then their class.
Mind...blown
*Fires up Starsector*
I have a degree in Computer Science - this game needs all my brain cells to be at 100% and I love it.
The most-impressive bounty hunting fleet I've ever made was nothing but Wolf frigates with reapers and ion pulsers. Just deploy all and full assault. Ion pulsers from a swarm of wolves followed by a volley of reapers turns entire fleets into fireworks displays.
3:10 - It's neither your ammunition nor your health. Hull (the lower bar) is your health. And only (some) missiles / torpedoes / bomb launchers use ammunition (those won't generate flux or care about how high your flux is). Flux, as you correctly said earlier, is heat.
Your videos are entertaining, you should try the burn drive version of the eradicators. Same basic weapons load out you suggested but add a converted hanger and a interceptor squad. They cover the distance rappidly and survive insane fights.
Stealing a space elevator, now that's a heist for the ages.
Your style of play using slow heavy ships benefits greatly from salamander missiles. Try adding some vigilance
Given the outtro music for this series.
Havong played EVEOnline years ago
I can say....from experience....don't space pirate drunk.
It....doesnt end well
Pirate first THEN drink!
Didn´t you build a battleship like two episodes ago from a black market trader?
he said he tried it out but it didn't work out in the comments last episode
@@tetrikitty1686 Ahh, thx. Didn´t see that comment.
I like makeing a Luddic Path Eradiactor. A lot of close range rapid fire ballistics and hammer torpedos. Close the distance and take their shields down and use the torps on them
have lots of fun with that build.
currently trying to upgrade with Pegasus and Dominators as they seem like stronger versions for little more Points.
Pegasus: 4xLargemissle +10Points & Dominator: +2Large -1Medium Ballistic +3Points
any advice on their loadouts? Especially the Dominator LargeBalistics?
thanks
The Pegasus was introduced after this video was released and it looks like a beast of a ship. All those missiles make it a beast of a ship and a great addition.
However I would advise against the Dominator it's more of a get in close and brawl ship, it uses it's burn drive to get in close and unload masses of damage. It also tends to rely on it's armour so it can use it's flux to output more damage. Don't get me wrong it's a good ship but it's not designed for the long distance combat of dipping in and out it's got less than half the speed of the Eradicator.
But then again maybe with the right weapons you can make it work so don't put to much faith in what anyone tells you unless you have tested it yourself. I mean if you could squeeze on a couple of Mjolnir Cannons it's would be pretty beastly at hurting everything though you are going to want to invest heavily in vents to afford the flux costs.
I love this! I'm having a lot of trouble with bounties, I always take so much damage that it makes them cost neutral. I'm still not clear on how to level up officers though, I'll have to do some research. thanks!
If officers are involved in combat they gain experience. So put them in ships and take them into fights. Do be aware that all exp is shared equally even if the officer is maxed, so maxed out officers will soak/waste exp that could go to still levelling officers.
Personally, I try to get my hands on a Sunder ASAP. Put a Plasma Cannon and a couple Phase Lances on it, and it's a fantastic little glass cannon in player hands. Later on, get a Doom with Phase Anchor, Expanded Magazines, Expanded Missile Racks, Antimatter Blasters, and Sabot SRM Pods, and I'm a happy little facepuncher. Yes, the Doom was heavily nerfed from 0.91 to 0.95, but it's still the Doom, it's still stupidly powerful, and it's still capable of grinding down entire fleets on its own. Don't give it to the AI, unless you enjoy friendly fire.
I don't think Francis has much experience piloting ships manually. A lot of these fights where he just grinds the enemies down slowly from range could be finished in a matter of seconds even by a (manually piloted) Hammerhead, let alone a Doom.
I only did a little piloting, I figured learning to pilot the lower level ships while fun would eventually be a wasted skill. So hold out until we got to the bit boys, but now I find the pilot skills are really important. I'm going to have to pick something pilot I think.
@@FrancisJohnYT - Get good with a Hammerhead (in actual fights, not 1-vs-1 in the simulator, that's kind of useless) and you'll have mastered ship combat.
It's not what you'll be piloting in the endgame (that will most likely be a Doom), but it's the ideal "learning" ship.
Then there's station assaults (where you might want to switch to a dreadnought for the final push), but that's comparatively easier (i.e., it's just smart tactics, there isn't much piloting skill required)..
Baetis in the Eos Exodus system regularly has Conquests for sale. Well for me at least. Must say I'm rather enjoying following along by playing too on each new series.
You know that some ships are much better with built-in mods? For example, Onslaught benefits greatly from Expanded Magazines and Advanced Weapon Mounts.
Built in hull mods were introduced in the next update I believe. The game has had a bunch of additions since this was released.
I think the fleet still works but I might have to go back and test it.
Keep playing!!!!
Conquests can be front line ships that can easily take on Eradicators. but then you need to build them diffrentky and invest in built in hull mods.
In my limited experience aircraft carriers are best at hunting pirates. Little shits can't outrun a fighter wing and excape, and big dumb brutes can't break your valuable ships if they are busy being swarmed. Just don't forget to add some destroyers to screen, something fast and tanky.
you always end up teaching me something new, thanks for another a great guide o/
taking down chicomoztoc '-' but that's their main planet... lore-wise this is a crazy idea hahaha
good luck with the ensuing diplomacy (or bribing)
Being friendly with pirates is great to have, since they are a lot easier to make bank with, and will leave you be while they wreak havoc in a pirate raid, and just raid Chicomoztoc in the ensuing aftermath of several armadas taking on a star fortress.
@@Aereto you're going to hegemony jail for this comment
Your fleet composition is an affront to my high-tech sensibilities... Your ships will now be picked apart by swarms of AI-piloted fighter craft, EMP armed phase frigates, dozens of anti-matter blasters, plasma cannons and long-ranged tachyon lance fire. This has nothing to do with any insecurity about our cardboard space-armor. Nothing at all.
Is it worth commanding a combat ship if you have no combat skills? I usually put myself in command of one of my freighters. Also, do you need good relations to buy the Luddic Church Eradicators?
I don't think it's worth commanding a ship unless you have practice piloting ships, even with no skills you can do good work with some of the ships. But if you are not a great pilot either practice for fun or leave it to the AI if you prefer.
So long as you are not hostile you can buy from the Luddic Church, also the independents military planet sells them it just so happens to also be in Luddic Church space.
How do you manage to get that many weapons for your many, many, many Eradictors? And you have double the amount i have.
I check every shop I stop at, you are only on the look out for three weapon type and I found railguns were the hardest to source reliable.
I dont quite understand the first half of this video.
It seems odd to take a rangemaster ship, fully bonused and with specialized captain,
compare it to a naked brawler and then go
"Look, its winning".
Naked ranged vs naked brawler and the brawler won, the second part was demonstrating the value of a dedicated captain configured for the ship.
I don't know about you but first time I started playing I just kept whatever captains I found and did not custom build any.
When building a ship be aware of what you are trying to do and build a captain to match.
OK sold, you convinced me to play this game lol.
Edit: Ok, maybe not, the game is still in development.
Just play it. its already more and better than most AAA titles.
so missile conquest better than a mid range gunboat? had same setup as yours except didn't have the Mjolnir cannons as I only had 1 instead I had the Hephaestus Assault Guns and Locusts in the missiles and why only one side has weapons? is that to fit the mods? oh and I agree with the worst type of bounty couldn't break that one no matter how much I tried with 4 conquests, altered the files so I could have massive battles, regretted it 5/6 Onslaughts death balling with officers all on steady
I found that the conquest is not really a ship of the line, it's shields take extra damage, and it's armour is weak sauce. It's best in a position it can dish out damage without taking return fire or in crushing cruisers or smaller. It just did not have the movement to do that well. But put some eradicators out front to soak damage for it and it can slug away as long as the eradicators do.
@@FrancisJohnYT thanks for the advice 👍 yeah I will definitely give the eradicators a go, I've been looking for cruiser that could soak up damage and stay alive, your right the conquest cant handle brawling close up and once it shields are gone if it cant retreat, its practically dead, seems to do better at longer ranges where it wont get bullied as much 😊
I always wonder how you get all this information in such a short time. Bought and installed the game after your first video (this series, not the last one) and i'm just lost & thankfull for your guides :D
probably never played a game where it was that annoying to get information.
// also looking through the comments - the devs probably should pay you for all the games you sold ^^
When I play a game I tend to get a little obsessed, I have gone through the wiki way to many times. Watched god knows how many videos and read several hundreds of pages of forums. But nothing beats just lots and lots of testing.
So, for people struggling with finding Evictors, they're only present in the 0.95.1a-RC6 or later version of the game. I was playing the 0.95a-RC15 (yeah, do you see any difference? It took me a while) and it doesn't have evictors and the skills are all different. I'm on cycle 212 with my 2nd Evictor now, and a lot of debt. Starting again in 3 ... 2 ... 1...
I'm dying for this game to finally get finished
Eradicator [P] us just fine and several people even prefer the Burn Drives over the Ammo Feeds because these thing put out such a ridiculously high amount of damage on their own it's almost trivial. Save for maybe absolute, end-game BS fleets loaded with things you just can't have yourself, I have yet to find anything that can stand up to just 8 Eradicators constantly bombarding it with machine-gun fire and Sabot missiles. These things are cheap and either version of them hit well about their weight-class. That being said, it is a shame I have yet to find anything that even comes close, because it would be nice to have more variety.
The limit on deployment is whatever you set it at.
I can't seem to find those eradicators. LC version is different than the one you've got and there is no other version present
The only places that sell them are the luddic church and the independents, the independents military planet is in luddic church space "Eos Exodus".
@@FrancisJohnYT I've found out that there was an update for the game some time ago. Earlier the only variants I could find were LC (ammo feeder but no 4 facing small ballistic mounts). Now after I updated the game I've found 3 in one system xD thanks for the reply though. Your fit is really amazing
I must have got very lucky in my game. Still flying starter ships and I have found a pristine nanoforge and soil nannites (in the same survey!) only 10LY from spawn.
Nice, keep that map seed number. Always nice to have a know good map seed.
Excellent video. Very informative.
I think OP means Operation Points. A rig only has so much energy to expend to make it operate, like big guns. Mods don't quite fit that perspective but the name still makes sense to me.
A lot of this gameplay looks either as an example or is late game. What would you need to grind out money/credits for if you can make a fleet like that?? xD
Grind up money to fund your capital ships, to afford ships that allow you to finish end game enemies form some of the quest lines, farm AI cores for boosting your colonies. Maybe you want to build up a few planets?
I find Starsector is a bit like Minecraft, ONI, Rimworld, Kenshi, Factorio and Satisfactory the destination is not the point. It's the dumb ideas you decide to try along the way for fun that really matter.
31:15 it would be more than enough to make up for what you lost... if you actually remembered to take any 🤣
Yeah... messed up a little there.
ty for the vid francis, little question, on what option should players use their story points?
Use story points sparingly, but try to use them on things that either a) give you 100% xp return (so you'll earn enough extra xp to equal the story point you spent) or b) are permanent upgrades that you never want to remove, such as with captains or your own skills, colony upgrades (which get VERY expensive very quickly, but can massively upgrade various aspects of colonies; best to use them either to fix a massive deficiency or to increase a perfect world to beyond perfection), or your absolute final fleet ship built-ins, which can free up an amazing amount of OP (and if you always make sure they have Integrated Bulkheads mod, they are always recoverable).
The only points I would 100% spend is on mentoring you captains and using them to occasionally get out of fights you know you can't win.
If you spend them on ships they are actually recoverable in a way, because if the ship is lost or scrapped you get an exp bonus out of it. Though remember it's a "bonus" so while you will eventually get all the exp back you will first have to earn an equal amount of exp, usually killing things. I still have over a million exp bonus I'm still trying to earn back, at one point I was owed over 4 million in bonus exp.
Outside of that I'm still holding off on spending them until I'm a bit deeper into the game and know where I need the help the most.
front facing shield on a broad siding qonquest? thats a bit silly
I ripped it out later so it would angle the shield better and used "Stabilized Shields" instead.
Edit* only had a couple of weeks with the game so there are still some basic mistakes I'm making, but I figure it's a pretty decent guide all things considered.
I can't find any Eradicator at all ... not even on my Game's Codex ... :(
starsector.fandom.com/wiki/Eradicator?so=search
... and then your colonies start earning money for you and you start flying everywhere with ten pandemoniums (Diable Avionics) :D
great info! thanks!
Great video. A question about your current fleet; what is your fuel consumption? I've been running a similar fleet but I threw in a Legion XIV and my fuel use skyrocketed enough that I ditched it.
Not sure of the number but I can hold 4k fuel and go from the centre of the map to the edge and back again on one tank of fuel.
Thank you so much for this!
Legend
This comment is rather late, but I hope you can still see it. I love your guide videos on the game, but I've always been wondering - How do you battle against stations?
Depends on the station but the eradicator fleet with Conquests can take all the stations I have went up against.
Just form a line at max weapon range from the station and pound away. The station will focus one ship, that ship will pull back out of range to regen flux so the station will switch targets. This will repeat until the station has been pounded to ash.
If the enemy has defenders it's best to lure them away first, taking a station with more than a few defenders is difficult.
2:08 hmm, flux capacitor, where did I ear that one, hehehheheheheheh
Do the officers need to be in ships or combat ships for them to count towards DP or can just having them add to DP?
Officers don't contribute to DP!
Both fleets share a common DP pool, configurable in the options (max battle size). Your fleet size ("composition", left on the fleet screen) is compared with the enemy and the larger fleet gets up to 60% DP.
Holding objectives during battle will give you a slight DP boost.
"Support Doctrine" will lower DP costs for ships without officers.
Man, if Stellaris had this kind of combat...
Every update Nexelerin gets this game gets closer to the 4X game I've wanted to play my entire life.
And when both the base and Nexelerin hit 1.0, the Java Runtime Engine is going to be pushed to its limits.
What button do you press to make that green combat line/indicator?
I'm not sure what part you mean can you provide a time stamp?
If it's the green lines on the combat map screen that is just regular orders. As in select the ships and then right click on a location.
@@FrancisJohnYT Sorry around 15:45
@@anthonyreyes2554 That is a right click move command. It should be set to right click by default.
the speed up mod messes with some missile patterns, be careful with them
Francis - you need to put up affiliate links or something when you dive into new games. A lot of us buy them because of your instructions and if you can get a small amount becouse of that it would only be fair.
Can't be doing that, I might start getting addicted to getting paid :)
“Once your heat gets too hot …”
Why don't you use gates to travel long distances?
Have not done the missions yet, going to have to activate the gates at some point.
19:48 - You don't know what I want. You can't tell me what to do. You're not my real mother!
Francis you absolute tutorial beast, could you do a in depth remnant hunting tutorial? been trying to build a fleet to farm Alpha Cores, but im struggling.
Are you doing RTS-style, like Francis, or flying your own flagship?
I'm going to have to figure out how to hunt the remnant myself first. I tried using a full star fortress and luring them in.... it did not go well.
Basically, there's a lot of ways to do it, depending on how you play. I can give a couple examples for flying your own flagship. My RTS game is unfortunately rather weak in Starsector.
My personal strategy: get a Doom (35DP) and learn to fly it. That's not a knock on you - it will be a learning curve! The phase mines are the key tool, here, as you can use them to wipe out entire fighter wings at a time. They're also useful for picking off frigates, and for getting Radiants to drop their shields or move them away from where the rest of your ships are shooting from. You'll want an Antimatter Blaster/Missile (a lot of people swear by Typhoon Reapers; personally, the greater ammo capacity and synergy with other ships of the Sabot Pods makes them my own choice) loadout with Heavy Armor, Expanded Magazines, Expanded Missile Racks, and the Phase Anchor. Flux capacitors are more important than vents with this build, due to how Phase Anchor works. Built-in hullmods are a must, focusing on the highest OP costs; Phase Anchor cannot be built-in and needs 30 OP.
The rest of your fleet needs a mix of durability and punch. I like a pair of Monitors (6DP each) with Hardened Shields, Front Conversion, Solar Shielding, and every scrap of flux dissipation I can find. I also give them officers with defensive skills; the shield skill must be elite. They're set to harass Radiants or, if there are none, Brilliants.
A pair of Herons (16DP each) kept to the rear with Broadswords or Sparks help mitigate the fighter swarm.
For the actual killing, I've been using Conquests and Onslaught (XIV)s. A single Conquest with Integrated Targeting Unit and Ballistic Rangefinder provides a lot of dakka when fully loaded, and can sit back while doing it. A Mjolnir and Mark IX per side in the long range slots, with a mix of longer-range ballistics in the small and medium slots. The Onslaughts use Hellbore Cannons in the large slots, Thumpers in the mediums, and Light Needlers in the smalls. Medium slots not pointed forwards get Dual Flaks for massive PD. Missiles are Breach Pods. Heavy Armor, ITU, and BR are must-haves again. If you use built-in mods, you can easily max out vents, get 30+ caps, and still fit Hardened Shields and a couple other mods.
Yes, I'm fighting [REDACTED] fleets with a couple frigates (12DP), a couple cruiser-size carriers (32DP), a Doom (35DP), and 3-4 capitals (40DP each). I give minimal orders, typically setting the carriers to escort the Conquest and Monitors to the Onslaughts. Ships are rarely disabled, and since I can put an officer on each, disabled ships are generally straight recoveries with no issues.
Example two, fly a Paragon with a boatload of long-range cruisers and a couple Monitors. The Paragon is there to tank stuff and occasionally snipe something that your other ships have overloaded. Advanced Optics and a bunch of Tachyon Lances work wonders for that.
Doing kiting right the Terran way.
Thanks for the vid I really appreciate it but what I don't understand is how do you make bounty hunting profitable when traveling the distance required for bounty hunting with any sizable fleet can end up costing you way more than you make in supplies and fuel
Eradicators are pretty fuel efficient, additionally we bring along a couple of salvage rigs. Also helps if you do multiple bounties in an area, bring along 100 transplutonics and build comm relays in all the systems you stop in to find any new bounties that have shown up. Also maybe do the Galatea academy mission line, it requires you to get 50 relations with the contact there.
Flux is just reverse mana got it
That's certainly a better analogy than saying "it's your health", "it's your shields" and "it's your ammo" (when it's none of those). :-P
more more more
Do these ships have flux... capacitors? >_>
Let loose the Hogs of war
>Dogs!
What-EVER farm animal of war Lana!
as i like to say
get the high flux and you about to be fluxed
so these ships are pretty much the T-34 of starsector ?
Pretty much, spam them like crazy and everything dies.
@@FrancisJohnYT yeah, i just started playing like, rn and as watching a few videos to have an ideia what to do
👏🙂
How do you think the Falcon compares to the Eradicator ?
The P Falcon looks crazy good, well in a players hands. I would be interested in doing some testing with it.
How the hell do your ships Mobe quick?
Mobe quick? Mob quick maybe?
Generally your ships mob the enemy when they are winning the Flux war, as in they do so much damage to the enemy they can't keep their shields up and try to retreat.
If you do it to most of the enemies they can squashed up in a ball and destroyed.
My bad 4 bad grammar I ment to say move
@@damemer2415 oh could be two things, I installed a time speed up mod for fights and the smaller brawlers have system overides in installed.
where can i get conquests?
Pristine nanoforge probably doesn't spawn in outer rim, only some exists in core industrial centers (one in kazeron and one in chicomoztoc as far as I know)
I hear it is possible to spawn out there, it just appears to have a very low drop rate.
I wonder if you could run the same tank ships that you have and some smaller more nimble ships to be annoying, but their still well armoured.