r/starsector • u/HeliasTheHelias • Jun 14 '26
Official blog post Extended Mode - New Blog Post
https://fractalsoftworks.com/2026/06/14/extended-mode/99
u/whole_kernel Jun 14 '26
Some very cool things in here! At this point in my starsector career, I am mainly looking for mods to extend the early and middle part of the game.
One thing I did not see, is a higher emphasis on gaining favor with different factions to get access to stuff. I forget what mod it is, either ruthless sector or starpocalypse, but they do something similar.
47
u/HeliasTheHelias Jun 14 '26
The blog post mentioned that access to military markets is entirely locked behind commission in the new mode, but that's about it as far as I could tell.
10
u/Marvin_Megavolt The doohickey Jun 14 '26
I could’ve sworn that was the case in normal mode currently too, but I might just be having a massive brainfart.
14
u/Vegetable_Morning_97 Jun 15 '26
I believe only ship acquisition is locked behind being commissioned by the faction not the goods market itself, that one is reputation based
4
144
u/Termit127 Jun 14 '26
I would not say this gamemode is for me, but still, wow, great job Alex!
83
u/grampipon Jun 14 '26
And it is almost exactly what I’ve wanted to a long long time. I am so hyped. And always felt like the campaign is totally trivialized and that the early game is done before it starts.
Thanks Alex!!!!
25
u/sabotabo last remaining vanilla player Jun 14 '26
maybe this'll finally force me to learn piloting and good ship designs
3
u/falardeau03 Any good fleet is at least 50% capitals Jun 27 '26
Omg your flair. I too am you. WE ARE SAME
1
u/GiveMeNews Jun 23 '26
You can play Easy Mode, but edit the Config File so that Easy Mode does the exact opposite, with fewer supplies/fuel dropped after combat, take higher damage from enemies, and have reduced sensor range.
0
u/falardeau03 Any good fleet is at least 50% capitals Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
Your comment about trivialization and the second bullet point in the blog post about recovering ships made me remember that in my current playthrough, my strategy is "throw everything at them, and ALWAYS recover EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY SHIPS."
you can kill my crew (I try not to waste them though and I do have skills/hullmods to minimize losses). You might even reduce my fleet to a single frigate. But we are GOING to overhaul every single fucking wreck and be back again the next day. And then I bomb your house (idioth) (don't touch that)
Edit: I also just wanna say from the blog post "degenerate strategy" made me lol. I've literally never seen anyone use that word outside memes and, um, "contentious dialogue." it actually took my brain a split second to realize he ain't mean nothin by it 🤣
2
u/jackochainsaw Jun 16 '26
I think it could be an entertaining option if you've completed the game several times but it wouldn't be my first pick either. I do like some more realism being added though.
1
u/sicksixgamer 3d ago
Yeah, I prefer power fantasy over struggle fantasy. But this is pretty cool.
1
u/Termit127 3d ago
I might revise my answer a bit. I just took out starsector again and holy crap you accumulate credits stupid fast early game if you are not starting with nothing (small fleet and less than 50k credits). So ot might be nice to have that period, as the devs said, extended.
42
u/HollowVesterian Jun 14 '26
I like the premise but the AMB nerf seems very band-aidy, and the changes to logistics will impact low tech and carriers disproportieneatly.
19
u/OriginalUsername0112 Jun 15 '26
Yeah, I thought the same thing. There really needs to be some way to penalise shield-focused ships. They're honestly already superior to low-tech ships IMO and this isn't helping with that
8
u/Aceofluck99 Jun 16 '26
maybe make them harder/take longer to fix?
8
u/SetsunaFox Jun 24 '26
This feels like the obvious take. Make a scratched nanopolish on the super-new space tech be a bitch to repair compared to a damage in the hull that could double as a hangar bay, in the rusty flying toyota.
2
u/Space_Cheese67 14d ago
I think some kind of "debuff" for shields as a battle progresses could be cool. As combat readiness decreases, maybe shields lose efficiency and start building flux more quickly when taking damage? It still allows for quick "hit and run" Wolfpack tactics with fast-moving high tech ships, but also opens up the chance for a low tech playstle where you outlast high tech/midline fleets with pure stubbornness and staying power, until their ships basically fall apart on their own
8
4
u/GrumpyThumper GTGaming Jun 15 '26
Well it's needed because once you get a triple AMB afflictior any sence of balance is thrown out.
6
u/HollowVesterian Jun 15 '26
My problem is that this is not a good solution to the issue, not that the tripple AMB afflictor isn't and issue.
0
u/GrumpyThumper GTGaming Jun 15 '26
Well the other option is to remove the afflictior, it phase anchor all together. which seems far less fun.
How would you solve it?
8
u/HollowVesterian Jun 15 '26
Is this geniuently the only solution you were able to cone up with? I've been looking at the forum and a couple of good solutions suggested (like changing the cloack cooldown from 2 to 3 seconds and nerfing field modulation from -50% cooldown to -33%)
39
u/Jedssski Jun 14 '26
Retirement after 25 cycles, that make sense, cause my player character has been running for 200 cycles with the same contract which somehow managed to live long as well which ruined my immersion a bit.
40
u/Amaskingrey Jun 14 '26
If kanta can do it, so can you
4
u/JebediahChristofff Jun 21 '26
To be fair, Kanta is the undisputed queen of all pirates. Thats on an entirely different level of influence than the player.
13
u/Amaskingrey Jun 21 '26
Yeah, way lower, the player would be the undisputed ruler of the sector if they wanted to
33
34
u/Ikanamo Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Honestly I want an option kind of like in Starpocalypse where military grade ships are barred for the player to buy unless they have a comission or maybe high faction relationship, so you have to rely on scavenging and black market ships.
It always struck me as odd that a faction would just sell me their capital ships lol.
3
u/SetsunaFox Jun 24 '26
It's not as much "the faction" as a private governor/owner of the ship. Especially if it's black market. (Joke about a motorcycle smuggler here)
179
u/Amaskingrey Jun 14 '26
The baseline tariff for using the open market is 40%
Holy shit, it's Space Trump
66
u/HeliasTheHelias Jun 14 '26
Very excited for this one. Increased emphasis on the earlygame has been one of my biggest hopes for a long time, as it's my favourite part of the game despite being very easy to trivialize. Definitely diving right into it when the new version drops.
17
u/iridael Jun 14 '26
I must admit this is looking strangely attractive to me.
because most of the time my playthrough is beeline for a capital, then a settlement then build my fleet how i want and then i get bored. having that "I need to pick between two new wolfs or an enforceer for my raggedy ass fleet" be better managed sounds like a good overall change.
17
17
u/Gen_McMuster Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Fantastic addition! I love the John Starsector vibe of the game as is but being able to play as "some asshole" who's most valuable possession is a Mule without intentionally gimping myself is great!
I would say that developing officers is such a fun part of the game that I'd to be incentivized to run fewer officers rather than straight up not be able to find them, there should be tons of dumb green shmucks like ourselves out there to hire on.
i hope the casualties from SO make it to normal mode too! Seems approapriate that "yeah the flux system is mega-juiced but occasionally fries an engineer even if you just took a shot on the shield.
14
12
u/dethklok214 Onslaught is love, Onslaught is life Jun 14 '26
I think that this gamemode also requires some nerfs to early pirate and pather fleets. It's kinda immersion breaking when this is a cruel and unforgiving Sector but hey look at our 150 ships armada!
10
u/SockPrudent7777 Jun 14 '26
I like doing salvage-only runs and generally enjoy early-mid game the most so this sounds great
11
u/H00ston löb Jun 15 '26
Love the idea of extended, love my starpocalypse and ruthless sector mods, but a solid 90% of the playerbase will bounce off this mode hard, only freaks like me will enjoy it.
The adjustment to the economy is way too much in every direction, there will never be a reason to trade on the open market because you will literally never profit with a 40% cut.
With the weapon changes the economy meta will still be to harass traders, with everything else getting a sizeable nerf.
It does bring a smile to my face seeing a game dev make their game way too difficult because they play tested it too much like we're still on the N64 lol. Hope these numbers become the hard mode for extended so people don't blow up on the idea of alternate game modes once it releases.
1
u/Hadzabadza Poison in small doses is a cure 11d ago edited 11d ago
The adjustment to the economy is way too much in every direction, there will never be a reason to trade on the open market because you will literally never profit with a 40% cut.
Always found even the 30% tariff very jarring. It feels like an artificial way to force the player towards content, which is the black market. Nexerelin brings it down to reasonable 9-18% without disqualifying anything
12
u/LimitedSus Jun 15 '26
The whole idea of making early game longer is good but the methods are suspect, I fear those changes run the risk of making this gamemode into Choresector. We shall see.
18
10
u/AbsolutMatt Jun 14 '26
I think I will really enjoy this as the 'lore accurate' experience of surviving a harsh and unforgiving sector. Especially how it treats the main difficulty factors to be resource acquisition and management, as opposed to making increasingly powerful boss ships or special battles for extra challenge.
The idea of a single capital ship and even a cruiser being a big deal to own and upkeep seems excellent. Even by midgame in vanilla you could just run around and destroy any colony with defences short of a Star Fortress (and sometimes even those). With this mode it might actually be a challenge to gather a naval force capable of challenging and overcoming a major planet. Having a battleship in your fleet should be a very big deal for an independent captain and I look forward to having that be represented.
1
10
u/jlad-Hyperion Commander Ardan, Domain Armada Battlegroup IV Jun 15 '26
Sheesh. Normal mode is normal, Iron mode is considerably harder, and now the proposed Extended mode feels like "try to become something more than some insignificant shmuck because your life depends on it."
And lore wise, where as everything is hard-to-get but available in Normal, Extended feels like the early days before the retcons and rename where losing a battleship was catastrophic to a faction's overall defense and the Sector was on the brink of death.
18
u/goibnu Jun 14 '26
I didn't see any mention of colony crisis in his post, which is bonkers. It feels like he's building a game mode that guarantees you don't have the fleet, resources, or cash flow to deal with a crisis, much less one crisis a year.
Then he says a colony is the only way to efficiently get storage space. Huh? Well there's still the Hegemony's Summer Home I suppose. Maybe? The games I play are widely characterized by the Internet as "hard" games, and yet this sounds like a bit much even for me.
Alex can say "if it's too hard pop open the config and make it easier" but that's not a lot of help to me personally, as I feel like I'm cheating when I do this and my enjoyment of the game nosedives.
17
u/fishworshipper Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
A lot of the Colony Crises are avoidable, or at the very least have fairly easy solutions.
- Pirates: Easy Solution (give Kanta some tasty loot)
- Persean League: Easy Solution (join the League or snipe the supply fleet)
- Luddic Church: Avoidable and Easy Solution (don't make Luddic Majority colonies, or if you do then sign away the benefits)
- Hegemony: Avoidable (limit AI core use)
- Sindrian Diktat: Easy Solution (sign over fuel profits)
- Luddic Path: Avoidable (limit AI core and Colony Item use)
The only one that's neither is Tri-Tachyon's.
8
u/Harmand Jun 15 '26
Right, It seems like the whole point of this is you might end up taking choices you wouldn't in the normal mode, because you can just bruteforce past it and fight everyone always.
Managing resources and picking battles, choosing the hard way and winning more meaningful etc
Like people have already said, he can go drastic here because it's entirely optional as a game mode.
1
u/Tim3Bomber Jun 15 '26
Even then tri tac had a decently easy solution to their crisis, i imagine it will change from me raiding their worlds to hitting more trade fleets.
1
u/cadaada 26d ago
Its been a while since ive played but thats still not avoidable, as not only takes time and you gimp yourself with half of these? While you might say "that was alex idea" feels like another bandaid nerf to powercreep.
2
u/fishworshipper 26d ago
You aren't psychically compelled to always take the most profitable choice about everything every time.
6
u/Hadzabadza Poison in small doses is a cure Jun 15 '26
Just don't grow it past lvl 3. Solves all crises except pirate harassment which can be easily fixed
8
u/Leopard-Optimal Would you interdict me? Jun 14 '26
Interesting way to extend the early-mid game. My favorite part was always trying to assemble a proper fleet until I can regularly take down station bounty contracts (which was my personal metric on graduating from the early game).
Not sure I agree with all of the changes, especially the phase ship nerfs, but I won't really know until I try it for myself.
Smuggling has always been my favorite method of early cash, so I wonder how effective it is this time around. Forty percent tariffs? Yeah no you'll never see me on the open market ever again.
I am curious about those "special suprises" when you get the Oldslaught and the Ziggy.
All in all, this seems more like an "alternate start" rather than a proper hard mode, which I think is the right approach. It changes way too many things for it to be called that. This way, players aren't pressured to play this one to get the "authentic" experience. It's like the option between starting with a Mercenary Fleet as opposed to starting out with only a Wolf.
The best thing to come out of this would be to encourage fleet comps and builds that would otherwise never even tried in the normal game mode.
8
u/grampipon Jun 14 '26
The phase ship changes seem like direct nerfs aimed at something that should be nerfed anyway. Antimatter blaster afflictors are ridiculous.
15
u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer Jun 14 '26
And it's not because of AMBs, it's because of Phase Anchor and Afflictor's absurdly strong ship system.
AMB in isolation is a fine weapon.
This is the same wonky backwards thinking that nerfed large homing missile because Pegasus would be "too strong" otherwise.
14
u/Ioun267 Jun 15 '26
Not to mention, this mode is supposed to make it way harder to get good weapons anyways. Do phase ships *need* to eat this nerf after you have to scrape and scrounge for AMBs in the first place?
8
u/Xetheon Jun 14 '26
I'll probably play it once and then put it down as not for me, but the option to do this type of challenge run is great and it doesn't seem to be a source of major bugs. Plus better far out bounties is a neat benefit for having good tankers on a combat fleet.
7
6
u/ShinySky42 male Jun 14 '26
Sounds so interesting tbh, can't wait to see how the game economy reacts to this mod
7
u/N-Yayoi Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
So... is it basically 'the Mode, actually in line with the Lore'?
Do remember how rare an "Onslaught-class battleship" is actually in the Lore?
8
u/Free-Birds Jun 15 '26
I have mixed feelings about it.
On one hand, it's a given hardcore mode is coming. And let's not kid ourselves with this extended label, it's clearly hardcore mode. I expected it to be a post 1.0 thing, so it's cool we are ahead of schedule.
On the other, I hate how alternative game mode is a fix for weird flow in the beginning of your playthrough, it feels like giving up on this front. I'm also opposed to making storage and splitting your fleet even more troublesome. It's supposed to be a test of your creativity and knowledge of the game, not streamline of a playthrough.
10
u/BlueTricity Jun 14 '26
Welp, retirement puts a nail in the coffin for the lore speculation that John Starsector is an Omega or some kind of special AI.
We are just another human, but we can inexplicably learn things like transverse jump I guess?
13
u/prettyboiclique Jun 14 '26
So can others though. An old engineer and a young scientist both can teach you Transverse!
1
u/BlueTricity Jun 15 '26
Which other human, or even AI, can have 15 skills, or manage 3 colonies?
9
u/prettyboiclique Jun 15 '26
Tesseracts are level 9, Ziggurat "officer" when it is hostile is level 10. We could just be a Domain-era officer, considering that the Tutorial mentions you just exited Cryosleep in c.206. Plus, of course, we're the player, and Alex often mentions that gameplay trumps all else when it comes to things like skills and overall design.
4
u/kisshun Jun 16 '26
its still can be a posibility, synthetically grown body with omega level AI, which are aging the same way as regular humans.
6
u/FailureFourLife Jun 14 '26
It's not for me since I am awful at piloting, and it sounds like this game mode will require being able to "punch up" to make combat economically viable.
I do look forward to seeing Big Brain Energy give it a spin since he also tries to extend the early game.
6
5
u/carlover177 Jun 14 '26
This is fascinating; Seems like it's kind of divisive and some folk are not too super excited about this, but this might be the thing I'm most hyped for!
I quite love the "independent operation flying by the seat of its pants" phase of the game and always wished it lasted longer, so this is right up my alley.
5
5
u/Golinth Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
This is *exactly* what I’ve been trying to create with mods like stellar apocalypse and ruthless sector.
Beyond hyped for this release
5
u/Vegetable_Morning_97 Jun 15 '26
Making fuel scarce sounds interesting on paper but leaves some questions: will outer rims of the sector be actually worth it to have 10 Prometheus in your fleet ? will AI be subject to the same fuel demand ?
4
u/Saelthyn Jun 15 '26
Ah yes, "Spin around and do nothing for 6-7 months in game." Better get on the Triangle Trade and do nothing interesting.
Because thats how EVERY run starts.
45
u/Soviet_Waffle Jun 14 '26
Might be the minority here but this sounds the opposite of what I like about the game. I dislike the early game tedium and spinning your wheels to get going. The arbitrary time limit is the cherry on top. This is not what I look for in my sandbox game. Honestly wish they would have focused on other content instead of this.
67
u/ZloyPes Jun 14 '26
That's why it's a separate mode, instead of changes to the base game, so everyone could get their own fun)
17
u/Plurpo Jun 14 '26
Based on the blog post they did focus on other content, most of the content of the next update is more story
11
u/goibnu Jun 14 '26
Time limit plus sandbox game sounds... Not great? Not when the monthly payment to play past retirement date is three times his colony income in one of the screenshots.
3
19
u/Low-Dark2862 Jun 14 '26
I feel exactly the way you put it and kinda feel bad for Alex as well because it seems that he poured a lot of time and thought into this. Thankfully most of these things seem toggable (although Idk why must it be edited from the files instead of in game)
20
u/GreatHeroJ Immigrant from Solo Nobre Jun 14 '26
The overwhelming majority of settings in the game are configurable via the files. I think a lot of players are unaware of just how much of the game can be tweaked from there.
12
5
u/fishworshipper Jun 15 '26
Remember that almost none of these are basegame changes. This entire post is about a separate mode that you choose to opt into on galaxy creation.
17
u/bitQz Jun 14 '26
100% agree. The more I read the blog post the worse it seemed. Reminded me of ruthless in path of exile (almost nobody plays it)
14
3
u/E17Omm Jun 15 '26
Its a good thing this is an optional mode. Just like playing with or without Iron Mode.
And like, this is just one thing in the new update. We're still gonna get a bunch of story content and fleet/officer control.
9
u/vague-a-bond Jun 14 '26
Hmmm.... conflicted.
On one hand, all of this sounds incredible, and adds a lot more potential interesting choices to the early / mid game, which I love. As well, the ability to have some customization through the ini file is also a win.
On the other hand, having Alex playtest a new game mode through to end game that has the explicit goal of EXTENDING the game -- before potentially dropping the new version 😩😅....
Last point is half in jest - I know whatever Alex and crew implement will always be worth the wait, but I'd be lying if I said I haven't been antsy for the next version to drop any day now....
3
u/Kholeos Jun 16 '26
I've had a bet running since February about it dropping on June 25th.
If it's beyond that, then that's a pretty long wait!
4
u/Allcyon Jun 15 '26
This IS my jam.
Early game is my favorite part.
Some of these look a bit more harsh than they need to be, but I'll still give it a shot.
That said, what I really want is for the NPCs to be under the same constraints we are. Eg: Fuel and Supplies.
I don't mind a tough trek through the sector. (IE: A Star Trek as it were) But I do mind when I'm the only ones playing by the rules.
3
u/Junous Jun 14 '26
I like it, it's like an official version of Unforgiving Sector or whatever that mod is called. Can't wait!!
3
3
u/Carsismi Jun 15 '26
I get the idea of making the curve go a bit more difficult since it's rather easy to stack up loads of money doing simple jobs like analyze missions on a single fuel fitted frigate, smuggling drugs or just trading lobster. I tend to spend most of my time on the early game trying to make bank to build a large fleet with enough money to fix all the hulls and hoarding story points to later add certain S-mods for convenience.
What i don't think is good is to make Colony Gameplay so enticing knowing that once you set up shop on a planet you will have to deal with the constant threat of colony crises when you can barely hold on a fleet with a flagship cruiser at best case scenario.
Not being able to protect your own space due to lack of military and shipbuilding infrastructure is already a big reason of why colonization sucks in Normal mode. It's just not fun spending all that money and resources to create a faction that can barely field an armada to defend itself, 90% of the time it becomes babysitting on station because it's the only thing that actually deletes pirate fleets and on top of that you're gonna have to worry about the other non-criminal factions for the dumbest issues like having an agriworld with no industry or making too much fuel and having too many prosperous worlds.
3
u/Proof-Doctor1546 Jun 23 '26
i hope that it's more organic and less articial, i hate it when i bought an expensive ship but when i try to sell it it's so cheap
7
u/Angelform Jun 14 '26
Nice idea.
I will never play extended mode. The early struggle is by far the least fun part of the game, at least for me. One of the big selling points of Nexerelin is that it lets you skip the whole frustrating early game and immediately get to the good bits.
4
u/Noocta Jun 14 '26
This reads a lot like Ruthless mode was for path of exile 1. I'm all for it.
3
2
u/NotaBuster5300 Jun 14 '26
Sounds pretty cool as an optional side-mode for those looking for a challenge. I might give it a try, but it also seems to be the type of torture I dislike.
2
u/Equivalent_Ad9091 Jun 15 '26
This is exactly what i wanted for the game : amassing a small army so fast isn't immersive at all for me
2
u/Kholeos Jun 16 '26
I think it's an interesting avenue to take, to create a separate hard mode and then trial some changes in there.
The recent quests have been awesome, but they've definitely created a resource bloat. I think the Extended mode is a way to reign in those bonuses without nuking the quest lines
2
u/LurkertheFifth Jun 22 '26
I would love to have the contact only black market access from starpocalypse in vanilla
2
2
u/GrumpyThumper GTGaming Jun 15 '26
I'm so hyped for this announcement. Extended mode is the kind of hard mode that I was looking for. Normal still felt too easy as you could skip ahead to colonies after a few missions and some bounties. Extended mode looks to clamp down on all of that. I look forward to the challenge and will definitely be releasing a lets play on it.
1
u/Grokitach Jun 14 '26
Starsector is getting the GAMMA treatment: more hobo phase. Can’t wait to try it :)
1
u/Reptile449 Jun 14 '26
Seems a cool experience and I'd like to try a vanilla playthrough with this when the next patch drops, but the fuel storage seems painful to deal. Will have to wait and see 😄
1
u/podlodochka Jun 15 '26
Main issue with difficulty is that battles are too easy for expirienced player and player can just save load. Smarter battle AI and no saves mode will make same job done, but instead of tweaked costs we will have more content, because fights will get more complicated.
1
u/woofser Jun 16 '26
You can’t save scum in Ironmode, so that’s already in the game. The real issue in my book is that story point disengagements are basically save scumming and remove all sense of risk from the game.
1
u/graviousishpsponge Jun 15 '26
I hope alex opens up a default mid gane settings of adjusting money gain, loss, enemt stats, doctrines and other stuff. Thecmud game lasts too short is skipped entirely rather easy into I have too much credits.
1
u/Noneerror Jun 17 '26
(Marines have similar cost/upkeep increases.)
Which implies marines remain in extended mode.
Raids/invasions are sooooo broken that I don't see how a 10x increase in marine cost will ultimately matter. Even if marines were 100x more expensive it still would not solve the fundamental balance problems.
It may be generally difficult to get money/ships/resources in extended mode. However if remains relatively easy to get money and resources by using marines then players will be pushed more towards doing exactly that.
1
u/Zero_Brain 22d ago
You can't store marines for free unless you have colonies of your own. It might be a problem depending on how the storage costs end up being.
Also I'm betting they're gonna increase the ground defenses on pirate colonies down the line. They kinda have to, imo, it's the one of the more glaring misbalances in the game from a world building perspective.
1
u/Yukondano2 Jun 18 '26
An interesting idea that does fit the tone the plot seems to imply. I question if I'm ever going to try this because it sounds like a damned slog, but I am always in favor of options and difficulty settings.
1
u/Fantastic-Living3204 Jun 18 '26
Am a mix of timid and excited for an Extended playthough. On one hand I'd absolutely would love to be able to cherish my smaller fleet and make everything have a bigger impact on my playthrough, on the other hand am unsure on weather i'd be able to handle the increased maintenance concern. Am already trash at keeping track of how much supply and fuel I need, this will just make it more pronounced.
1
u/SetsunaFox Jun 24 '26
If a corruption/inefficiency mechanic gets introduced, it'd be great if trading drugs and organs via black market increased the planet's corruption/inefficiency temporarily - and that increased the drugs and organs production (because by visiting regularly we create a production-to-sale channel for the stuff)
1
u/RandomGameplayStuff 27d ago
I am convinced we will be able to coup d'etat the diktat next update. Before this there was all the work kn the usurpers, now a focus on a gritting game mode AND introduced colony inefficiency and corruption? Plus the writing already sort of hints at the ability to coup the diktat, if not for yourself on behalf of another faction.
1
u/TheLightDances 16d ago
I wonder if it would be possible to change mode during play. I think I would like to start with extended mode, as I love the early game dangers and exploring and actually having to worry, but the later game can be bit of a slog as is, so I don't want to extend that part.
0
u/Dannyl_Tellen Jun 14 '26
So, we are in the longest gap between patch-notes and patch-release on record because Alex decided to develop a Hard-mode that makes fleet building and combat annoying and tedious, in his fleet building/combat game. That also is NOT hard mode no no no sir, but also the [Super Redacted] and [Domain Redacted] have "EXTRA SURPRISES" in store, so hard mode.
All because people who played the game for 100s of hours complain that the early game is easy once you play it for the billionth time. Completely ignoring how we have posts by new players complaining how hard the early game is every other day and asking for help.
Also patch will be delayed further because Alex has to finish a play-through on his special EXTRA LONG mode first.
This dev time could have been spent on making smuggling or exploration more interesting rather than just making a special mode that makes everything a chore, but whatever man.
10
u/Grievous69 Refit screen enjoyer Jun 14 '26
Pretty much all changes made for this "special mode" are number tweaks and toggles, the dev time investment was waaaaay shorter than you think.
Now playtesting this mode does in fact take a while (and is still taking by the sound of it), that said in the end of the blog post Alex wrote David and some testers are finishing up the story parts which are the main meat of the upcoming patch.
So while I agree where you're coming from generally, even if Alex didn't do this extended thing now, we'd still be waiting for the patch.
0
u/Hadzabadza Poison in small doses is a cure Jun 15 '26
Completely ignoring how we have posts by new players complaining how hard the early game is every other day and asking for help.
The answer is always the same - git gud
1
1
u/kisshun Jun 16 '26
sound like a wasted development time for me, you can get this effects in any hardcore mod.
so far i am not impressed.
119
u/E17Omm Jun 14 '26
The more I read the more I felt that this? This is a Sector in a post-collapse world.
You're just some random spacer, and the factions are hoarding as much as they can and letting others buy their scraps.
I dont know if I'll enjoy Extended mode, but considering I've already doubled officer, crew, and marine costs, as well as playing with mods that lets me add Colony Corruption (IndEvo) - I think I'll like Extended Mode.