Starsector

Starsector (formerly Starfarer) is a top-down single-player indie role-playing game developed and published by Fractal Softworks for PC, with the Alpha released in 2011. Set in the year 3126, the player commands a fleet of spaceships and engages in trade, exploration, and combat in a procedurally generated world.

Starsector
Developer(s)	Fractal Softworks
Publisher(s)	Fractal Softworks
Composer(s)	Stian Stark
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS
Release	April 26, 2013 (Early access) (last update: February 17, 2024 (0.97a-RC11))
Genre(s)	Action role-playing game
Mode(s)	Single-player

Reviewers praised the game on release and have continued to do so on every update, calling it a sort of "Mount & Blade: Warband in space". Fractal Softworks have continued to regularly update the game with new ships, weapons, missions and gameplay features.

Gameplay

Starsector is an open world single-player space combat role playing and exploration game, with a procedurally generated map. The player is able to interact with and join one of 7 factions, remain as an independent, or become a mercenary. At the start of the game, the player is given the option to choose their portrait and spawns in the world with a small fleet of ships. After an extremely short series of tutorial missions, the player is given complete freedom to do whatever they desire. Movement of the player's fleet in the game is controlled by the mouse, or can be set on autopilot. The player can either travel freely through space or select a destination to travel to on the map. There are various faction-owned colonies where the player can purchase materials, such as supplies for maintenance and fuel for interstellar travel. The player can also hire new crew members, purchase ships, and conduct trade at colonies. As of the 0.9 patch, the player is able to establish their own colonies and manage their own faction.

Missions are offered as the player flies through space or goes to colonies, and will disappear soon after, as transmissions travel in real time. Completing these missions rewards you with credits, the universal currency in the sector for conducting business. The game sports a real-time simulated economy on every colony, with an open market (subject to a tariff of 30 percent) as well as a black market, where one can purchase and sell illegal goods without a tariff. Which goods are illegal vary between factions; for instance, "The Hegemony" bans the purchase and sale of recreational drugs, human organs, AI cores, and heavy weaponry.

All ships in the game are customizable through the "refit" feature, and the player can equip different weapons, perks, and special abilities to every ship. These perks/abilities ("hullmods") have a wide range of different effects, such as improving the ship's travel speed, improving the armor/swivel speed of the ship's weapon mounts, or making the survey of planets cheaper.

Combat

Combat occurs when one fleet intercepts another in space. The game interface then changes and the player is able to take control of a ship directly. The player is also able to control all other ships with commands such as "avoid", "escort", "move to position", "attack" or "full retreat". Different weapons do more damage against different types of targets (shields, hulls, etc.). The game uses tank controls (using A and D to turn), with the option to change to standard WASD (turning towards your mouse). A ship generates "flux," a fictitious waste product similar to waste heat, when it fires weapons or absorbs damage with its shields. Flux has to be rejected into space (either passively or actively) lest the ship experience an "overload," rendering the ship totally nonfunctional for a brief time.

Victory provides the player an opportunity to scavenge the remains of the enemy ships or restore them to add to their fleet. Failure means they may attempt a full retreat. If they fail at the retreat and their fleet is destroyed, the player will not die, but will escape and be given a minuscule fleet in order to start over again. Combat rewards players with experience, which they can use on their character to gain more skills.

Plot

The game itself has minimal plot, and the player is involved in very few story moments. The player is instead intended to create their own story. Lead developer Alexander Mosolov has stated that the player is intended to uncover lore as they travel throughout the world.

The game takes place in the year 3126, after humanity developed faster-than-light travel using transport gates. For many years, this method of travel created a golden age for humanity. However, exactly 206 cycles prior to the game's start, all transport gates abruptly ceased to function and humanity was plunged into a Dark Age where piracy went rampant and splintering factions began to form and exert their influence. This event is referred to as "the collapse". In the sector, there are various different factions that have taken hold and reached a strategic stalemate, with no faction being able to win. These factions are:

• The Hegemony, a martial state that believe that they are the true successor to the galaxy. In-game, the Hegemony is the largest faction with the most colonies. They mostly use low-tech ships (ships which have only ballistic weapons) with heavy armor and inefficient shields.
• The Persean League, a faction whose sole purpose is to revolt against what they believe to be the illegitimate martial law enforced by the Hegemony. They mostly use balanced "midline" ships (ships which have both ballistic and energy-based weaponry) and control many markets on various worlds.
• The Tri-Tachyon are the remnants of the Tri-Tachyon corporation, one of the most powerful corporations in the sector before the collapse. They make and sell most of the technology found in game, and use high-tech ships (ships which have only energy weapons), fast and with powerful shields.
• The Sindrian Diktat, a faction founded after a revolt against the Hegemony. They are considered by the sector at large to be a military dictatorship. They are the sector's largest producer of antimatter fuel, and use mostly midline ships.
• The Luddic Church, also known as The Church of Galactic Redemption, is a faction inspired by a martyr named Ludd. They blame technology for the downfall of humanity and seek a return to a simpler time. They use simple, low-tech ships. They are named after the Luddites, an anti-technology group active in Britain in the early 19th century in turn named after Ned Ludd, a legendary British weaver said to have broke two stocking frames after being put out of a job.
• The Luddic Path is an extreme sect of the Luddic church that claim to have a truer interpretation of Ludd's teachings. They believe that only through extreme violence will humanity return to a simpler age. The Luddic Path is hostile to every faction except the Luddic Church and pirates.
• Pirates are a loose faction of mercenaries, bandits, looters, and terrorists. Bounties are often put on pirates' heads, and collecting said bounties is a popular way to earn money. Pirates are hostile to every faction except the Luddic Path.
• The [REDACTED], also known as the Remnant, are a collection of AI-controlled high-tech ships left over from the AI Wars, which will engage anyone on sight.
• The Independents are a loose group of neutral planets, stations, fleets, traders, mercenaries, and more. Their fleets primarily consist of midline ships. They have no central structure but are more-or-less unified by their lack of affiliation with any major faction.

Development

Starsector was made entirely by Fractal Softworks, led by indie developer Alexander Mosolov. Mosolov cited Star Control II as a "major" influence on the game's development, as well as Wing Commander: Privateer, Sid Meier's Pirates!, and Solar Winds.

The Alpha Version of Starsector was released on April 29, 2011, with six missions and a tutorial, as well as some basic modding tools. Starsector is written in Java using LWJGL, and has been receiving steady updates for over a decade. As of January 3, 2021 the game contains 14 missions, 3 combat tutorials, the steadily-updating campaign mode with several major gameplay systems (an economy that easily scales-up, planetary colonization, exploration and salvage, factional reputations, bounty hunting, player and non-player colony raiding). These systems are well-integrated with the core combat gameplay and some are expected to be expanded or improved upon, such as expanding the player's options in raiding colonies.

The game is currently available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Notably, the game is not currently available on digital distribution platforms such as Steam. A release on those platforms is planned in the future, when the game is more "ready".

Reception

Since the Alpha version of the game, the game has received critical acclaim, most notably from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, who said in 2012 that the game was "already top-notch stuff". Eurogamer also previewed the game in 2013, saying that "even now there's a lot to relish", while expressing optimism about the game's expansion. That same year, Kotaku recommended it as a successor to Star Control II and The Ur-Quan Masters. Cubed3 previewed the unfinished game in 2017, explaining that Starsector "has a way to go as far as hammering out balance ... which is a massive annoyance to an otherwise promising space sandbox game." Rock Paper Shotgun noted that the game was still unfinished in 2018, but recommended the game as "more than worth the money already".

External links

• Official website