For new players, it is highly recommended to play through the in-game tutorials and to read about the Game Mechanics. The campaign beginner guide by HELMUT provides additional tips for what to do after the player has completed the campaign tutorial (this guide is now quite outdated unfortunately). The unofficial Discord server is also a good place to look for help. For help with fleet combat, read Mid-game Combat.
Important game mechanics[]
Combat[]
Campaign[]
Other notes[]
Autofit/Fitting Together Ships[]
Often when you get ships they come with no weapons and without some experience, setting them up yourself does not end well so a good idea is to press the autofit button on the refit screen, pick a style and try that. Once you get a feel for it try modifying. However it should be noted that autofit makes some very questionable decisions when it comes to certain ships. You should eventually learn to fit ships on your own and not rely on autofitting every ship.
Here are some tips when it comes to making your own modifications:
Make sure your guns range are either the same range, or have a small gap. It's not a good idea to have a ship whose main guns have long range but the rest of its weapons are very short range. You generally want your guns to have a small as possible range gap. Note that "Point Defense" weapons need not be considered in this process.
Make sure your guns don't cost too much in flux so your ship can have room to use their shields and take hits without the weapons using up all their flux. Your weapon flux generally shouldn't go beyond double your ship's flux dissipation.
After putting guns on your ship, you will usually have leftover OP for capacitors and venting. A general rule is to max out venting first then capacitors. However this is reversed for phase ships where you should always max out your capacitors first then your venting systems. However you could use some of those caps instead for hullmods to give a boost to your ships stats.
Ship Tech[]
Starsector features different ship tech levels that generally operate differently from one another. They all use the same mechanics but have differences in stats or specific ship features that offer incentives to be used in different ways. A Ship's tech being low or high, does not affect whatever or not the ships themselves are good or not.
Safety Overrides needs special attention as it can drastically alter a ship from the norms of its tech. The massive speed boost can enable Low Tech ships to catch up to practically everything. The massive boost to flux dissipation can enable High Tech ships to cycle a brutal rate of damage. Ships using Safety Overrides can be distinguished in combat by their distinctively different engine colors, which take on a harsh white glow.
Low Tech[]
Low Tech ships tend to have a reddish hue, high armor & hull. They use mostly ballistic weapons, are slow and have average to bad shields.
Low Tech ships are able to get away with dropping shields mid-combat or even venting while in combat. Try to stay engaged in combat, dropping your shields when flux is high.
The Lasher is a stereotypical Low Tech ship. A common early build is Safety Overrides with Light Machine Gun, although very short range. Stay very close to the opponent, use its Accelerated Ammo Feeder ship system with (F) to increase firepower dramatically. The Lasher & Machine Guns combination are commonly available and the "Safety Overrides" skill is known from the start.
Low Tech style ships are generally too slow to dictate whether they are engaged or not. They do have a significant advantage dictating whether the enemy must back off due to a flux advantage from being able to drop shields & armour tank. Low Tech also has excellent access to ballistic weapons, particularly ballistic kinetic, which tends to be flux efficient. The enemy decide whether to fight you but you decide who wins that battle.
High Tech[]
High Tech ships tend to have a bluish hue, high speed, mostly energy weapons, low armor & hull and above average to great shields
Try to kite the opponent with superior speed & long range weapons. Always be mindful that you will need to keep shields up and back off to a safe distance to vent.
The Wolf is a stereotypical High Tech ship and a Pulse Laser has reasonable range. Use the Phase Skimmer ship system (F) to maintain range or back off to vent. It is available as a starting ship.
High Tech ships are generally faster than their opponents, being able to dictate the engagement and have superior flux dissipation to allow them to keep re-engaging. This allows them to perform hit & run attacks, damaging the enemy across multiple attacks, until the enemy overload. High Tech is also often nimble, able to flank enemy to attack weak points. They often can't win individual fights, but can decide when and where to engage the enemy.
Midline[]
Midline ships tend to be tan in color and average speed, shields, armor & hull. They generally have a large scope for customization and tend to rely on advanced knowledge and skilled piloting to use well.
A good starting Midline ship is the Hammerhead Destroyer, a very good combat ship that's reliable and able to take a good amount of punishment and deal just as much back. A good starting fit is equipping one with Heavy Mortars, Railguns and Sabots and fitting the last 2 slots with Point Defense weaponry.
Mid Tech or Midline style ships have the widest scope for extreme customization but also lack a sort of generalized strength that other ships possess. Instead, they have a narrow significant advantage- an unusual weapon configuration, or a niche they would excel at filling. For example, some Midline ships can be fit for extreme salvos of missiles, potentially destroying a single opponent outright and thus negating any of their advantages, but this will fail against too many concurrent opponents or very strong point defence. It is not unusual to see Midline ships with empty weapon slots, as they do not have the stats to be everything all at once so compromises must be made. They aren't the best performers all-around, but if you can play to their strengths, they will win.
Intel[]
Just fighting or trading randomly is often unprofitable and exploring regularly gives you very little and is boring. So make sure you look at the intel screen. Factions regularly put bounties up for specific fleets and bases and sometimes on all enemies in one of their systems which will make fighting a lot more profitable. Dockside bars may also offer procurement or transport missions where they'll ask for a specific amount of a resource and will pay around 3x the normal price with no tariffs. Factions also put out exploration missions either to survey a planet or scan a derelict ship or structure in the fringe systems, offering a monetary reward as well as the chance to salvage additional loot in the process.
Exploration[]
When you are exploring the system, look around everything including the star, gas giants, jump points and gates. The good stuff like research stations tend to be around the most annoying places like black holes and neutron stars. With surveying, survey every Terran, Jungle, Arid and Tundra world. They are often really good and their survey data sells for more. Also you should look at every world in systems that you visit because you can tell which ones have ruins as they have bits of rock orbiting them and ruins are great. The more orbiting rocks the bigger the ruins.
Trade[]
The first thing to know is that repetitive trade appears unprofitable on the open market, due to the high tariffs. Instead you should look for or create opportunities to acquire or sell commodities very profitably. The trade page contains full details and the Piracy page may be of interest.
Raiding[]
If you plan to come across a hostile planet without a station (either naturally or you just blew it up) then you should plan to raid it for loot. The effectiveness of the raid depends on how many marines you have, if you have specific ships and the defences of the planet. Planet defences can get pretty crazy high, however once there is no station you can tactically bombard the planet with fuel to disable the defence structures and now it only depends on the colony size, stability and skills which means often it won't be high. So take around 300 marines and 3 Colossus Mark 3 and you'll do well.
Other Material[]
- Newbie Guide Thread/FAQ
- Economy, how to manage supplies and fuel.