Starsector: Best space combat 13 years in the making - 0.96 out (2023 update)

Gotcha, need to get one of those built. And I don’t entirely mind killing pirates or their bases, the battles are fun.

Guess I could consider getting a fleet together to take on one of the factions. But I seemed to be limited in the size of the fleet and I run into fleets larger than mine. Is fleet size tied to your captain’s progression and I can recruit more ships at a higher rank?

There’s a default fleet cap of something like 30. But your total deployment value vs enemy total deployment value is the metric that determines how many ships you get to deploy vs how many they do, initially. This is obviously only an issue in battles that go over max deployment size. But later on you’ll want more larger ships to bring your total deployment values closer to parity with the massive armadas running around.

Your character level has nothing to do with it, it’s more of a matter of how large a fleet you can easily support financially, cause those supply costs and crew costs add up. Eventually you’ll want some colony income to field the biggest fleet possible.

Cool, thanks for the information. For the time being sounds like I need to replace some of my smaller ships with larger ones, but as you said support costs cannot be ignored, so need to get my colonies cranking.

I was simply wondering about fleet size in general because I’ve run into fleets that were larger than mine both quantitatively and qualitatively, going to keep an eye out next time I run into a big one, I could swear they’re going over 30, some looked quite huge.

This is making me think perhaps I need to think in terms of more than one fleet with each set up for it’s own purpose. Battle fleet, exploration and bounty or something like that. And store at the colony the one I’m not using. Flying the current jack of all trades doesn’t feel well suited sometimes, like for example I can’t really do exploring with this current fleet, it eats too much supplies/fuel.

Anyone else using more than one fleet for different tasks?

Fighters don’t count toward the limit but show up in the fleet mouseover display, so some of the really big ones look bigger than they are.

It’s a good idea to have multiple fleets, or at least a roster of ships you can sub in. I usually leave most of my capital ships at one of my colonies unless I’m planning on getting into a fight directly, and I have a bunch of exploration/salvage ships I plug in for expeditions. The big thing for really long-range exploration is to have a few large cargo ships and tankers on hand for supplies and fuel.

Any compelling reason to wait on playing this more due to it not being at 1.0? Does it feel pretty feature complete at this point?

In it’s current state it’s like Mount & Blade at release. There’s no real story arc. It’s a big sandbox fleet/empire building game. In that respect it seems very complete. The battle is top notch, and works for both people who like to pilot their own ships and people who like to play it more RTS style. The open world and economy and everything outside of battle is really well done too and feels complete.

If I build a facility to produce fuel can I then use it to supply the fleet at no expense?

If you build a waystation, every month it will store some supplies and fuel and crew for you for collection in your storage tab.

Not sure if it’s affected by your industrial buildings. But it sure is nice.

If your building produce stuff, you can buy it at market rate without tariffs, and you pay the bill later in the month.

Thanks man, time to build waystation!!

edit: duh, just looked, I’ve got one already.

I found a derelict station in a debris field, precariously near a black hole. It had a shit ton of goodies.

Including this thing worth a cool half million:

image

In all, I found items totaling more than 800K in the derelict station and surrounding debris field. I scooped up just about all of it and hightailed it back to the core.

But – what now? I’m not sure whether I should be selling this shit or saving it for base- and ship-building. I need the cash – I only have about 50K otherwise at the moment, with a strong fleet of eight. Advice?

I don’t sell battleship blueprints (like the Odyssey). Those things are rare and hard to find. In general, I only sell any blueprints that I have duplicates of (it will tell you if you’ve already learned it).

If you need cash I would sell the corrupted nanoforge. You’ll find plenty of those and what you really want is the pristine nanoforge to put in your heavy industry colony once you get one (you’ll get one from a main story mission, eventually). You can also safely sell the planet survey reports you get.

I right click on blueprints to learn them, do you have to actually hang on to them too in order to build them later on your colony?

Because I’ve really screwed up on that because I sell them if the game tells me I already know them.

Once you’ve learned them you know them forever. No need to worry.

Current state of my colony ambitions:

1000 former Luddic Path cultists: “Are we there yet?”

Commander Hector Summerstar: “No, we’ll be out of the core systems after we chase down this one last pirate fleet”

-time passes-

1000 former Luddic Path cultists: “Isn’t the world we were going to colonize in the other direction?”

Commander Hector Summerstar: “Yes, but there’s a system bounty just a few light years away”

-time passes-

1000 former Luddic Path cultists: “Are we there yet?”

Commander Hector Summerstar: “No, but we’ll be out of the core systems after we chase down this one last pirate fleet”

I look forward to hearing the next installment of their journey.

You know, I didn’t plan it this way. I just have a strong anti-pirate streak and when the opportunity presents itself to chase down a raider, or swoop in to save the day during a pirate raid, I can’t resist. However in retrospect constantly charging into battle against he lawless elements in the sector can’t be hurting my image to the would be settlers that I’ve been dragging along. They are fresh from the devastation of the cult world I saved them from. Watching my warships peel off to confront the pirates that seem to constantly threaten the civilian elements of the fleet can only inspire pride and awe. My people know all too well what dangers exist in this galaxy, and who constantly rescues them from those dangers. By the time we make planetfall I know they are with me.

With much in the way of salvaged supplies in tow we finally made it to the Lilith system. Seems fitting for starting a new branch of humanity’s family tree away from the infighting of the core systems.

We came upon the system many month ago while scouting the periphery of post-domain civilization. A gas giant orbiting a red star with three major moons. The furthest moon is a small Terran world with adequate farmland, abundant organics, and widespread ruins, signaling that we aren’t the first humans to find this system appealing. Its gravity is low, and while an obstacle to growth it is an advantage to accessibility from space. This world is called Kobold, and it will be the foundation of our new civilization.

The former cultists, now on a new path, are landed along with loyal elements of our crew to start the new colony. Building of a spaceport to keep the colony supplied is the first priority, sowing the usable farmland is next and then efforts are directed at establishing patrols within the system to protect the trade our nascent settlement will require to survive.


The closest moon of the gas giant Gren is an eccentric Terran world named Elgard. Unlike Kobold its gravity is normal, however it gets poor light from being so long in the shadow of the giant it orbits. It has poor farmland, but moderate deposits of ore and organics. It also contains evidence for former inhabitation in its widespread ruins. Once the colony at Kobold seems secure we establish a comm link in the system and scan the com-net for a world ripe with settlers we can recruit to inhabit Elgard.

Eventide in hegemony space must now seeing the effects of a baby boom. This populous and stable hegemony planet has an abundance of colonists willing to emigrate for little incentive. A quick trip back to the core worlds and a new batch of eager pioneers are on their way to Lilith.

Of course there are pirate battles on the way. I am going out of my way to find them at times, but I have to say these guys must be somehow well funded. The pirate armadas I sometimes shadow with my superior burn, waiting for some military force to engage them so I can come in and join the battle, are often huge. And they are everywhere. It makes me worry for what my emerging empire might face.


The backbone of the Summerstar fleet is a recently acquired Apogee. I’m trying to work out a good loadout for it to be the anvil of my fleet. I’ve got a plasma cannon + tactical lasers up front for now, and hardened shields to increase its tankability. My flagship is a Sunder with an autopulse laser and graviton beams. I use it to speed in deliver the coup de grace when opportunities arise. I have a couple of Hammerheads to escort me so I can back up and behind them if necessary, or order them to give a final punch. A recent acquisition I’ve grown fond of is a monitor frigate that does little damage but can take punishment. I set it to search and destroy so it distracts and pulls off part of the enemy fleet. I also have an omen which I use as an anti-fighter and missile escort. Since fighter support has become necessary as the fleet grows I’ve been acquiring Drovers. I have three now with slightly different setups of fighter or strike craft.


After patrolling for some time to make sure the two now inhabited moons of Gren are safe, the Summerstar fleet returns to the core worlds to fulfill a lucrative transport contract offered by a passing trader. The fact that such opportunities can now be found in planet-side bars in our small settlement seem encouraging.

I am not even halfway to my destination when notice arrives that a pirate fleet has been detected heading for my colonies. Thirty four days until the first test of or survival. There should be enough time to complete our contract and return home, perhaps also to shop for some ships to add to our fleet along the way.

Thanks for taking trouble to write up some more on your campaign! Good read.

I’m back for something more boring, yet another question.

Got a base Luddic base I’ve tried attacking that is the hardest I’ve run into (that upgrade to battle-station does indeed make a difference!), I couldn’t take it out, had to retreat in fact. I did a lot of damage to it, if I repair up my fleet and head in again is the damage from the last assault still there or do they do something cheesy and repair it all immediately?

Anyone taking more than one stab at a base?

If you are able to destroy at least some sections, you can order some of your damaged or low CR fleet units to retreat and new ships back in to join in the fray via the reinforcement button.

My late fleet consist of 2 Paragon, 4 Eagles, 4 Apogees and 1 Heron, 5 Tempest

It’s not possible to deploy everything, but I rotate them into battles.

I’ve been looking for paragons, haven’t found any, in fact I’m having a hard time finding much of anything. I wonder if I fire up heavy industry at my colony will I just immediately invite all the factions to come with the heavy stuff and take me out?

Got the money to spend, just nothing I can find to spend it on!

I got it destroyed btw, I took out the supporting fleet first, repaired, then took on the battle station by itself, still took some work.

I very much enjoyed destroying that Luddic Path base, I make a point of destroying their bases and pirate bases wherever I run across them. Even if there’s no bounty on them.

Paragons are produced by the Tri-Tachyon faction. If you take a commission with them, you can purchase them from their military worlds once your reputation is high enough. They won’t be constantly in stock, but chances are if you check the Tri-Tach military worlds once every couple months you’ll find them fast.

Alternatively you can just turn off your transponder and go to one of their systems and engage one of their defensive fleets and hope for some good salvage RNG.

The third option is to keep an eye on current events and when the Tri-Tachs are participating in an invasion as either the defenders or attackers, you can go to the relevant system and they’ll often lose high end ships you can salvage. This tip is just sort of helpful in general for the early game, but can be applied specifically if you are looking for certain harder to obtain ships.