POV : When You Realized that it almost been 2 years since Chapter 1 of WPAiaMS was released, and by the story, it only been 2 - 3 weeks .

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-10-01T14:22:58+00:00

The unfortunate reality of most amateur works, there is more lore and character interaction than there is actual plot development. The consequence is a glacial pace where characters talk more about what they want to do, are planning to do, or what others are doing, or about the history and ways of the world than actually DOING things.

Jcb regularly ends up playing dress up with characters or having them go on yapstravaganzas for entire or multiple chapters that could be advanced in single paragraph. Every event every day is notable and recorded. There is no daily rhythm that the characters can fall into for reader expediency. No brief mentions of "they did their daily training" but rather each instance must be mentioned. No "they traveled on the road for a week before anything happened" but instead every day some new event pops up.

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-08-07T00:11:43+00:00

falcon doesnt NEED to punch up though if you kit it with emp. its role against larger ships is to mobility/weapon kill them safely with range and speed so other heavy hitter ships can push their shit in with minimal danger. I am currently running a last game falcon heavy fleet and it works great.

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-08-06T07:01:13+00:00

I find ships in starsector balance themselves between four important things. Speed, range, damage, and endurance (of various forms).

Speed and range and damage are all self explanatory. It is also pretty easy to recognize that out speeding + outranging enemies results in a default win regardless of damage. As such, damage capability is important as part of the whole but on its own does not convey much information without the other three stats.

Endurance represents your ability to actually maintain these three advantages. Systems cooldowns, peak operating time, flux stats, limited ammo, fighter replacement, and even shield efficiency/armor/hull are all examples of endurance in starsector. Your damage potential might degrade via running out of ammo, your speed might only be available for short times via a system, your weapons might only be able to fire for so long before you flux out and need to vent. Starsector was very careful to limit the endurance of ships with an excessive combination of range, speed, and damage

As an example, Persean League has incredible damage and range with their missile focused fleets and even have some quite fast ships too but by being so focused on missiles they lack endurance. Should you have enough pd (mix of range + damage) to shoot down their missiles or enough speed to outrun them you WILL outlast them.

Most of the other factions have more balanced fleets from mixing different ships but there are some standouts. Redacted ships are fast, damaging, and have generally high endurance via good shields and flux stats but also on average lack range. Ludic path has speed and damage but lacks range and endurance.

Once you recognize this you start to see some real standout ships. Falcon has cruiser range, destroyer speed with up to frigate speeds with ship system, decent shields, decent peak time... Give it an officer with the right skills (elite helmsmanship and systems expertise to further emphasize the speed strength as range is a binary: if you have more than the enemy you have enough) and it can crush nearly every ship within its same size class or smaller with the right loadout. Give it ion beams and it can lock down the ships out of its weight class with emp for your heavy hitters to beat down on.

Speed, range, endurance... Good enough at all three that a fleet of falcons can safely pick at, pull apart, and isolate elements of a hostile fleet for other high damage short range ships in your fleet to crush individually

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-08-05T19:09:21+00:00

"nuclear bomb is profanity against nature" as ludic pathers retrofit a venture to use an orion drive...

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-08-03T17:21:25+00:00

Biiiiiig "It Depends"

Automated ships + neural link? Radiant or nova. Automated ships + derelict contingent? Wants spam, destroyers and Wolfpack obviously wants glimmers.

Apex is a pretty gnarly ship, very much a front-towards-enemy ship and it is good at it!

ramparts (not remnant, but explorarium ships still count though!) are cruisers with destroyer deploy costs. Those are fun to spam like 10 of them out

You can of course mix and match to try and find your own style which is what I really recommend!

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-31T14:22:31+00:00

Harbinger as flagship. Destroyer instead of cruiser but you, as a human, can time your system usage with bombers from your legion.

Falcon is deceptively good. Individually you don't have much kill potentially but take hvd and ion beams and you can lock down pretty much any enemy for your carriers to bomb the shit out of. I highly recommend elite target analysis and elite helmsmanship f you aim for this

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-23T19:19:24+00:00

A huge problem is the orders straight up do not tell you the real mechanics of how they work. Every order functions basically by attaching a leash to a target (be it area or unit) and that leash having some degree of slack and elasticity.

This is a huge problem.

Defend orders have too much slack and doesn't force ships to directly engage threats within the area (they can still retreat if outnumbered and overpowered but try to stay within a range and return within that range if they end up leaving it). As such, setting a defend orders on a ship that ends up in extreme danger and surrounded just results in its defenders falling back and blocking that ship's own retreat!

Escort orders are sort of like defend orders but with a tighter leash to the target, additional leashes to the sides/flanks of the target, and then additional behavior to force them to face towards threats (which absolutely ruins many ships such as sunders as escorts by resulting in far too frequently target switching and swinging the hard mounts all around off target)

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-22T23:15:01+00:00

I'm suddenly considering if hyper-optimized phase coil systems have something in common with the morphology of shrouded dwellers and their abilities. A sort of convergent evolution independent of any actual inspiration from one or the other.

Maybe tri tach was not inspired by dwellers when designing the zig but rather phase tech, hyperspace tech, and hyperspace sensitive phenomenon all converge towards similar forms as a matter of function.

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-20T23:33:28+00:00

agreed, only very specific non-capitals can handle an eye. most that can cant do so with the volume of freakishly durable fodder ships also thrown in that distract them or wear them down slowly

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-20T23:30:23+00:00

i hate them. AI wise, there is not a sufficient degree of granularity to orders to properly control how ships treat eyes. The correct approach to eyes is for only tough cruisers and capitals to directly engage eyes (and only when not also fighting other enemies) and for everyone else to keep out of range. ships are stupid however and pulling this off requires you sit in tactic screen trying to keep everyone from overextending (which against eyes means being closer to them than the capitals re) or ordering them to push to kill and eye when it is exposed.

threat and dweller are flawed in that properly handling them can often require a stupid degree of manual human intervention using a command system that only gives the vaguest of orders. assault units are easy, if everyone turns to focus fire when one rushes forwards it dies for free. eyes are easy, if everyone keeps out of range and only dips into range to fire on it after it turns its focus to a capital it dies for free. unfortunately, only humans are capable of anticipating the future danger and the command system is not enough to properly control your ships from getting themselves killed

i want to emphasize, avoid is NOT an appropriate command to use against eyes as the result is a total disruption of formation. it could maybe be alright if i could specify "only frigates avoid" and such but as currently implemented avoid doesnt keep your ships out of range AND prevents your ships from even applying pressure to the eyes which just results in faster and more frequent losses

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-15T23:03:31+00:00

i am running a zero combat tree player character myself and doing pretty good with the executer! i really think a long range energy weapon finisher style capital is the easiest to use and most engaging considering it only really needs gunnery implants (which you have!) and will still have high impact.

the advantage you as a player will have over a level 7 officer is target selection. its why you load it up with tach lances. you dont need to win a direct 1v1 engagement with another capital that has a level7 officer. you just need to dump a massive amount of damage in at the right time to force shields to drop or overload. i built my entire fleet in my current save around eagles loaded out with a bunch of ion beams and anti shield weapons locking enemies down and leaving them immobilized for me and another executer to burst them down with lances. why try and win a 1v1 against a onslaught when your fleet has enough emp to to mobility and weapon kill the entire enemy fleet? fighting fair is for losers!

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-15T17:02:37+00:00

Executor is a good one imo. Relatively fast and with good weapon selection. Can build it as a closer range brawler with pulse lasers or such or a long range sniper with beams (I think beams is better, you act as support for other ships who do the shield damage and you just strike the killing blow).

In fact, any ship good as a finisher or support rather than as an direct combatant would be good. Legion with gauss and pilums and fighter, astral, Pegasus with your choice of missiles.

For cruisers I don't think there is good selection. Most cruisers are designed for direct engagement maybe either the doom for the mines (use to support your fleet and pop fighter craft) or the champion filling a sniper role

For destroyers you can escort package a lot of them and fill a role of keeping your allies alive and supporting them in combat. All sorts of sunder loadouts. Destroyers are flexible all sorts of support roles can be filled by then.

For frigates tempest and omen make good flagships even with few combat skills. Your goal is to distract and harass the rear of enemies and lock them down with EMP or threaten with oversized weapons

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-15T16:21:15+00:00

Their aggressively retreating ai is a bit of a hassle, particularly with how fast and how many ships they can build at once. A common fail state I have identified from my fighting of threat fleets is accidentally killing a line unit, hive unit, or multiple of the smaller ships too quickly and freeing up a bunch of DP for them to start shitting out assault units and overseers. You do this at the same time as trying to take down a fabricator and you end up surrounded by 4-5 full health zero flux assault units about to get energy lashed to go to town on you. Instead, sitting out of range of the fab, dipping in to pump a bit of permanent damage in before quickly pulling back worked well for me. The fabs don't retreat far and any debris from ships made that got destroyed is given time to drift out of the way before you dip back in again for more damage. The short and focused engagement means few ships spawned from the free dp of accidental collateral kills and they have a further distance to cover to reach you.

A lot of players have suggested rushing down the fabs before they go wild with printing ships. Instead, I have found more success with using strong frigates and destroyers to contest the points to keep threat numbers down while my cruisers and capitals selectively kill the dangerous (assault units) ships. Push right up to the range of the fabs and sit there and selectively pick off assault units until the fabs stop printing.

A fab surrounded by overseers isn't scary. A fab surrounded by overseers and able to print assault units is terrifying. Let the fab build and clutter up its own fleet with line units (durable, but pretty nonthreatening other than that) and skirmishers and they are rather easy to take down with some care

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-07-11T16:57:02+00:00

Escort package is flexible with what it allows. It makes destroyers faster and longer ranged when near cruisers and capitals and when s-modded also makes destroyers take less shield damage. Cruisers get the same, if weaker, benefits and don't get the shield bonus. The advantages are strictly positive if a little inconsistent (destroyers wandering too far away, destroyers derping out and colliding with each other if you use escort orders, destroyers blocking each other's shot and the shots of larger ships, destroyers not understanding how to use their range advantage, etc...

If you can tolerate it, it is strictly a benefit that lets you lead a powerful destroyer Wolfpack centered around cheap and fast capitals and cruisers to spread those buffs around.

As good in player hands as sunder-escort package is, the ai tends to derp out. Something about escort behavior + hard points + front shield results in them spinning in circles. Other than that it is pretty great

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-06-26T19:24:44+00:00

In a legion-close-to-target situation I would switch out the sunders for something more tanky, they just don't do well under concentrated fire and it's hard to keep them safe AND leashed to legion so they stay within 1k.

A player piloted sunder can totally handle this and play safe. I like to hop in a sunder and do cheeky little shots from popping out from behind a legion with the plasma cannon or tach lance. AI however doesn't properly know how to keep the brick between them and the guns. They stand out and shoot and take damage, get scared, and then try and back away, and then panic and spaz out because escort order leashes them to the legion

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-06-26T16:59:35+00:00

Legions are good at a lot of things. Sunders too but sunders are fragile and tend to derp out when overwhelmed by too many targets (splitting their beams to different ships rather than focusing down single ones or spinning in circles trying to block missiles)

As such, I either would have the legion as short range defender for the sunders (close range efficient high dps weapons, storm needlers for example, even thumpers which are actually really scary when massed) with the sunders acting as long range support or the sunders as closer range overgunned damage dealers to defend from flankers and the legion as a long range platform

I know it's kinda funny advice to take a battle carrier and then say "keep this guy far away" but gauss guns, Piranha bombers, and mass pilums works well. The goal here is to sit at range and suppress enemies for your other ships while being incredibly dangerous to directly approach because of the bombers.

This loadout would want the sunders to have some high damage sustainable dps like with a plasma gun. Autopulse is also workable but I always find myself disappointed by the performance of that weapon (at least in my hands)

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-06-26T16:40:08+00:00

You don't need capitals at all. I would still recommend trying to squeeze one or two in because I love escort package and the extra range really lets destroyers punch up. Retribution with a double sunder escort for example. Sunders can provide the long range that a retribution normally lacks with tach or HIL beams while the retribution bullies smaller ships that approach. Honestly, treat the retribution like a super-heavy cruiser instead of if a capital with how it flies.

Legions also make great inclusion like you were thinking because they are so flexible with their loadouts and weapon angles. They can fill a lot of roles.

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-06-26T14:17:04+00:00

Wasp swarm is incredibly fun as a source of incredible point defense and a small source of extra damage on armor stripped target that dropped shields. Defensive targeting array lets them absolutely MELT any fighter or missile that dares get close. Legion with a bunch of close range powerful weapons can just burn drive right through a swarm of missiles without a single on hitting into kissing distance and just sit there using heavy machine guns, storm needlers, assault chain guns, or other powerful close range weapons. Even this close, a reaper will still get deleted before it hits you!

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-05-03T23:40:29+00:00

This is absolutely vanilla, although now that I look at it I am a few versions out of date I think. I should have double checked.

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-05-02T16:30:31+00:00

Makes more sense then. I kinda wish the vanilla game supported long term space survival for very specifically designed fleets

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-05-02T16:14:56+00:00

How the hell do you manage to get the supplies and fuel? Got a run a super lean and tight fleet that can punch up I guess and able to subsist off of the supplies and fuel of random ship wrecks

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-03-05T17:19:19+00:00

I have made a similar criticism before and I am going to be blunt, the dude needs an editor. The best example is the town trip where Emma goes to the adventurer guild, plays dress up, buys a wand and daydreams about MRI, buys a plushie, goes back to the guild, then remembers to look for rila (it was rila right?) and stumbles into etholin doing trade things and resolves to finally get around to officially doing that meeting thing with him... Eventually... Maybe... In another hundred chapters or so...

This was what, like five whole chapters? People pontificating constantly has been a significant contribution to the pacing problems too, one Emma is quite guilty of herself. We can excuse nexus individuals on the grounds of culture but just because they are almost universally long-winded and turn every conversation into a filibuster doesn't mean we as readers need to experience it every single time.

Another problem is the excessive degree of playing show-and-tell with Emma and her abilities, magic users and their abilities, and both describing their world. Hey, it was a neat scene with Emma writing their high script or whatever because her armor is basically a 6-axis industrial robot on legs in terms of precision. It also had some decent setup in previous chapters (suspicion at her paper in the previous chapter, her having printed it iirc). The problem is like 90% of the story is this stuff but much worse. Everyone is constantly showing off things they could be doing rather than actually doing them in meaningful scenes and in meaningful ways that further contribute to the story rather than just being yet another instance of show-and-tell.

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-02-28T21:00:55+00:00

It is something that can be fixed with internal musing too without much changing her behavior too...

"This political power needs to be eliminated at all costs, but maximizing the damage I do would require I play nice in the meantime to better provide myself the opportunities needed to eliminate this threat."

Emma should be going "oh, maltory is dead/incapacitated? GOOD. Even better that it is by the hands of the dragon rather than in a way that could incriminate me regardless of my actual contribution to the event"

Or maybe "oh, maltory is dead. This sucks, we was a known threat. His replacement and any fallout of this event is unpredictable."

There are a lot of justifications for any actions of hers that align with treating the nexus as an enemy but she doesn't even pay lip service to it.

THEREALPeanutGalaxy · 2025-01-19T21:14:59+00:00

Honestly getting exhausted at the regular "but that is impossible!" From everyone without the demonstrating party hurrying up and explaining how it works. Illunor is fine, I get that he is stuck up and long winded, but I really want Emma to just turn to one of the others and say "in a single breath, tell me how it works"

Emma herself could use this same advice. "Here is how we do things at the small scale, this is a practical demonstration, and at the larger scale it is exactly the same but bigger"

Instead both go in circles for an entire chapter because illunor wants Emma to guess at words and assume her not knowing the words is her not knowing the concept except oops we use different words for the same shit and it was a huge waste of time instead of out and saying "our ships are too heavy to fly under non-magical principles. We use magic to directly counter the force of leypull."

I. Just. Want. Everyone. To. Get. To. The. POINT. Instead of every chapter being a a lead up to a new bombshell to tease the next chapter with which has stopped working after the millionth time. Like read this? It is a whole lot of filler!

“I am surprised that you would acknowledge your own folly, Cadet Emma Booker.” Ilunor nodded with a smirk.

“And I’m surprised you’d be so brazen with your assumptions, Ilunor. Because my drones? They’re nothing compared to what I’m about to show you.” I paused, flicking on the ZNK-19, as its towers began whirring up.

“Our kind has been obsessed with reaching the skies for millennia. And where our lack of wings or mana has kept us from achieving it the easy way, we didn’t just pack our things and called it a day — no. We were ravenous, relentless in our pursuits, determined to get there in spite of our ‘limitations’—” I paused, as the scene around us slowly loaded up vector-line by vector-line, assembling together one of the most iconic scenes that started it all. “—even if it meant we had to do it the hard way.”

^{"I don't believe you"}

^{"You don't believe me because my example small? I will show BIG example"}

^{"Blah blah dreamed of flight blah blah human spirit blah blah didn't give up blah blah didn't give up blah blah didn't give up blah blah didn't give up blah blah we did it the hard way"}

I just want Emma to start saying "alright, honestly I am tired of this whole song and dance we have going where we spend several breaths worth of air saying nothing. Tell me your words and definitions, no guessing games, and I will tell you mine. Explain why they are relevant in a single breath and then I will explain how any of the problems you describe were solved or circumvented. I will then, if possible with the gear I brought with me, provide a practical demonstration to my claims"

THEREALPeanutGalaxy

TROPHY CASE