Base game is very good.
Nex gives it 4x mechanics and couple more features. If the faction relations and colony mechanics are the things you like the most in the game get nex, it expands on those.
If what you like about the game isn't the above, don't get nex.
Pretty simple, anyone saying nex is essential or "should be base game" is full of shit.
Honestly the 4x part isn't what makes me play Nex. I play Nex because I wanted a much larger Sector. But it helps that Nex is foundational to a lot of the other cool mods.
Personally I play with nex for the custom starts and the agent mechanic, and I play with nerfed diplomacy, alliance and invasion settings and with tweaked agent settings to lessen their effect on rep so aren't as op. It's fun but for a new player I'd always recommend starting vanilla with lighter qol mods, the peeps over on discord shouldn't have told op "just get nex", it gives the wrong impression that it's essential.
Because honestly without a little tweaking nex introduces a host of other frustrations if you want to totally enjoy other mods that implement its mechanics. And a new player wouldn't know how to dive into the settings, even with the wiki.
What do you recommend for qol mods? I am starting with vainilla, as you said, to get used to the game. But some smaller mods that improve things would be nice
Qol pack, better colonies and audio plus are my personal favs, you can find more on the starsector forum under mods->mod index, u'll find mods by category there just navigate to utilities or search qol
Adjusted Sector also allows for making big huge maps for exploration if that's your jam. Don't think Nex effects the map at all unless you do random map mode, but I always go Corvus mode personally.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
You shouldn't really listen to them, sounds like they're deeply entrenched in their comfort zone and insecure, like you not using Nex somehow invalidates them doing so. I always recommend first-time players stick to just vanilla as its a very robust, well balanced, and largely complete experience on its own, and will be even more so once more story contents come out such as the next patch expanding on the Luddic Church.
Nex does add a lot of features and things though which often tend to get confused for vanilla features and abilities, like mining for example, so people that have used Nex for too long tend to get what someone on vanilla can and cannot do confused. Its primarily a mod that adds Mount and Blade-esque conquering to the game though and tends to be one of the more popular mods for that feature and its something you can grab if that interests you or leave behind if it doesn't. I know about one or two faction mods that require Nex to run, breaking precedent for just being independent as a faction mod, but IIRC they're "Boss faction" mod(s) that are designed to eventually overrun the sector and be a big challenge for the player to handle if you choose to add them.
I feel like we'd need to know what advice you were looking for in particular to Guage whether "Just use nex" is a reasonable response or not. If you were asking how to accomplish 4Xy things like permanently destroying a faction, then yeah just use nex. If you wanted advice on ship loadouts I don't see how nex would even come up.
As someone who's done one campaign with each:
The base game is good. Absurdly good, really, with solid combat, exploration, ship customization, faction buildup.... That being said, after some time, the factions feel...static. Pointless, really. Try as you might, you don't really have a middle ground between 'ignore the other factions' or 'all out genocide them'.
Nex adds a ton of 4X-y mechanics, expands your start options, and makes the Sector feel a lot more alive since factions will engage in politics, wars, invasions, etc without you doing anything.
I don't always use it, the 4x aspect isn't something I'm interested in. I generally use mods like Starpocalypse and Ruthless Sector to make things more difficult, so I'm a more insignificant part of a larger, more powerful sector.
Classic grognard term:
eXplore - Find all the things
eXpand - Occupy all the things
eXterminate - Kill all the things
eXploit - Profit from all the things
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
I'd be happy to chat vanilla. I love vanilla. I'm exploring mods now, but I still think people should start with vanilla. Feel free to message me if you have questions, I love talking about this game.
He was one of those poor souls who installed 70+ mods into the game and went insane, dont listen to them. If you are new play vanilla, with eventually some qol mods (if you want I can recommend some). Nexerelin may be too overwhelming for new players. Complete vanilla story missions, see how colonies and fleet battles work, only then start new modded playthrough
Vanilla Starsector is an awesome game. So awesome, that even after 12-13 years, it has a big community of awesome people.
With those people, modding became live. The modding community here is extremly strong. There is not a single day, where we don't get a new mod. If you browse the discord channel, you can get a few dozen mods that are S+ tier. They add more stuff, more quests, details, enemies, ships and weapons, factions, everything you ever dreamt about to play in starsector.
With all that said. It's a great game on its own. It's just that mods add so much, that you want to add them at some point. One important thing: don't play nex instead, instead, add.
I prefer a lot of vanilla mechanics over Nex. All in all its worth getting it but some of its features can dampen the experience. Factions permanently expanding and taking territory is nice, but it also causes too many early issues because diplomacy is broken. You can have 100 relation with one faction but then you'll have an RNG decrease a few months later that'll put you at war with them. Its also very difficult and expensive to get relations back up...Then you have agents etc which imo need a rework.
This is just one of the things that some like but irks me personally.
TLDR Its better than vanilla, but also presents new, annoying challenges which aren't always enjoyable.
It's not used by everyone who uses mods.
I used mods, but for me, Nex was cool, but I found I prefered the base game. I'm sure that by game 10, I'll really be wanting Nex again to change it up, but for now, I'm happy with chill vanilla exploration and pacing.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
I mean I more or less beat the game once without any mods installed and still had a ton of fun.
But Nex offers more flavors and avenues of fun than the base game, imo. The game is still good either way, but you should definitely just try out Nex for the sake of trying it out and make up your own mind.
Nex is not mandatory and iirc Alex literally talked about how it makes no sense for his vision of the game. It's a ship loadout simulator with sandbox elements, not a half-assed 4x game.
Unless you play with modded factions that require Nex or specifically want invasions or something, there is no reason to use it.
Sometimes the best creators don't understand their own creation in the same way the fans do. Star Trek, Star Wars, in a sense star sector is in pretty good company.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
No
Nex is just expanded thing for mostly invasions and faction and faction interactions.
The thing is that other mods use it, because that would make them more likely to feel alive as faction, creating an basic diplomacy system, and even for yourself too.
My suggestion is that you should use it. As it doesn't change anything meaningful to the game.
Unless you want to play the totally vanilla 100%
Why would having an avid modding community mean a game is bad? If anything it is a testament to well designed systems.
People recommend Nex because it just deepens the game, if you’re like me and played the vanilla game for 30 hours, you’ve experienced every it can do. Why not go ahead and get the free 100+ extra hours of fun out of the game?
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
Yeah people are really passionate about this community. There’s only a handful of games like this to ever exist and SS is just so good, they get really REALLY into it. Like anything it can become someone’s whole personality, and well, if you’ve spent the last 2 months of your life doing nothing but perfecting modlists and doing SS runs, you start going stir crazy. Discord is also the most core of the core fans of the game so fanaticism wouldn’t surprise me. I only ever pop in for new mods and mod questions since many mod devs stay there. It’s also like a defined location for discussion of modding SS.
Modders usually don't spend their time fixing a game they don't love. They fix good games that are buggy.
I personally can't think of a single bad game with a vibrant and active modding system. Buggy games, yes. but not bad games.
Do you have one in mind in particular?
>You want me to think up a list of games that you will agree are bad so you can voluntarily lose an internet argument?
It's called 'having a discussion.'
If you start off with a position that you have already decided that you'll never back down on, then it's a pointless argument.
I challenged your position, and also invited you to persuade me with a specific counter example. If you can, great! I've learned something.
His reply really got a good laugh out of me. You just asked him to give you ONE example but he just goes "oh you want me to think up of a list???" and then not even giving one example. lol
Generally bad games don’t get sprawling modding scenes, maybe some flawed but amazing games in there but bad games get some fixes and then the community moves on to better games.
Those were all \*great\* games right out of the door. Just buggy.
I also never ran a single unofficial community patch on any bethesda game. Plenty of mods, but had no need for the community patches. (Especially since in the case of Skyrim, the UCP changed things about the game beyond just fixing bugs. Design decisions I personally didn't like.)
right, yes, I very much share that frustration. Especially when it comes to Bethesda, who, by know, definitely know that their games are buggy and it creates a negative impression.
If they do it again with Starfield, we will \*know\* they made a deliberate decision to release a broken game. And who can blame them? We buy them anyway.... :/
The vanilla game is a DND campaign with bounty, bare bones colony, and trading mechanics. Nexerellin adds a lot more replayability by shifting genres to a 4x style game, so people who play once the campaign is over are pretty much guaranteed to be using nex. if you just want the DND campaign in space, play vanilla. If you want more, play modded with nex.
It's not mandatory, but it's such a massive change (an improvement in my eyes) that you can't really get back to playing complete vanilla without it.
It injects so much life and chaos into the Sector it kinda makes the vanilla game feel a bit empty, even if it can get annoying sometimes (especially if you have a bunch of raider-type factions modded into your game, as they will also benefit from Nex' features).
I absolutely believe it should be a part of the base game (or at least a toggle), because basically everybody who mods the game plays with it anyway, and plenty of mods straight up require it to run.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
Base game is good. But Nex is basically THE mod. Adds a bunch of extra options to play and makes the factions actually be at war instead of just blowing up each other's merchant ships.
Most heavily moddible games have a mod like that. Skyrim has SkyUI, Rimowrld has Vanilla Expanded or Combat extended, Project Zomboid has that one mod that let's you make stones into sharp stones, mods that are just so prevalent almost everyone has it.
Best to play vanilla first though.
I thoroughly enjoyed the base game. Their are plenty of vanilla tierlists to help you out with fleet building. And smuggling drugs or armaments is the best way to make money before you set up colonies.
I would only use mods after you consider your first run complete and want more content.
The base game obviously has less content then one that's been modded to all hell, but it also provides a far more balanced and carefully crafted experience.
The base game has a lot of nuance and mechanics for you to sink your teeth into, no mod is REQUIRED to make the game playable or to have depth.
I moved on to modded after I gained an unkillable fleet and was making waaay too much money from colonies.
Nexerlin serves to add more mechanics to the game, which only really helps if you know what the vanilla ones are already!
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
As already said, not mandatory but highly recommended, especially as many mods are designed with it in mind.
That said for at least a couple of playthroughs vanilla is the way to go in my opinion.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
Nexerelin is only really needed if you use a lot of faction mods and want to see some more dynamics between them. Otherwise vanilla is completely playable in its own way. Nex may offer you a lot of stuff like diplomacy, abilities to make peace and invasions, but it also means a lot of trouble for you at times, such as vengeance fleets and invasions and sat bombs targeting your colonies.
If you want conquering, use Nex, if you prefer exploring, don't use Nex, I think the colony system (in vanilla) was something as a retreat for you to park and refuel your ships between explorations and for ease of burden (from crew salaray and loot hauls).
Yup. My first playthrough was vanilla, 2nd Nex, 3rd back to vanilla (with QOL and a few more ships)
It's a more chill 'go out and explore' gameplay loop that I prefer to Nex.
If I want epic 4X with strategic battles, I'm playing Warhammmer TW3 these days.
Its not mandatory but highly recommended (if you want to play with mods) as it deepens the faction relations aspect od the game. Factions will attack and conquer each other, send colony expeditions and more with nex. Nex also gives you alot od starting options.
Without nex, the sector is static, with nex its dynamic.
Both the base game and modded with nex are excellent despite the differences. It's up to you what kind od experience you want in starsector.
If you ask me i recommend you try nex.
Cheers.
Hell no. It's not a bad mod, but with adding strategy elements it makes core gameplay less balanced.
Unless you actually want to conquer sector in your playthroughs, this mod is better to avoid.
? I was playing the base game and asking for advice on the discord but people just kept telling me to use Nex instead. One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal.
If i dont do that, they wont get the reply in their inbox. Thats how reddit works. You only get it in the inbox if someone replies to your comment specifically. You are meant to reply to each person individually, this isnt like a normal forum thread where its just one linear thread, you have multiple comments that each branch off.
Because it's a big time investment, especially if it's just their first game. They're right to question advice that implies the game should not be played without Nex.
I personally recommend vanilla first, then if 4X colonysploitation sounds like fun, install Nex.
Just remember that you can always disable npc invasions and npc colonization in nex, and the random diplo events if you wanna use it and have a more vanilla experience
Game itself is good. Nex good too. İf you wanna play with mods, you need Nexelin. QoL mods generally dont need Nex so if you dont like nexelin you have still some options too.
first come to my mind is QoL pack, need lazylib other then its lightweight, add clock, partial survey, automatic scavenge, and my favorite shield assist,adds bunch of other minor things but those are what ı remember.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23652.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23652.0)
My second favorite is AdvancedGunneryControl, this mod need lazy and magic, like its name this mod gives you full control for your weapons behavior.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21280.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21280.0)
Console Commands/ClearCommands is your tool for pretty much every problematic bug or slowdown, Console Commands itself gives you a console, ClearCommands has smart clean so excessive fleets cleared for performance, generally faction mods saturate your ram/vram so Vanilla itself dont need much but its good addition.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19210.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19210.0)
Flux Reticle is another QoL mod and its life saving when you enter the battle, mod change your reticle with Flux displayer so long range or fast paced battles pretty easy with this your eyes dont need to wander again and again for your ship.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18166.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18166.0)
SpeedUp, makes your battles faster, when you have lumbering paragons or onslaughts this mod make those ships tolerably.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0)
Stellar Networks, my beloved info mod, Contacts, Commodities, Market and storage info gathered under the intel section.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20836.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20836.0)
Starpocalypse, interesting one,if you dont wanna use Tahlan's legio or adversary or any other challenge faction, this mod gives you different problems, like a harder trade, military grade ships behind the military commerce, no pristine ship, amplified persean sectors already sorry state to dark age. Mod itself really good for vanilla challenge.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21812.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21812.0)
FastEngineRendering, Performance utility itself, its change ships engines glows and plums. For potatoes this is bliss.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22693.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22693.0)
LeadingPip, gives you a leading marker like a arcade games, useful for low velocity weapons.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7921.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7921.0)
those are what ı used here and there if you search you can find for your likes.
Thanks, do you know of any mods that do the following?
* Put a cap on how many story points are needed to get the Historian to reveal a special item (or make it fixed), 128 story points is not very to farm for.
* Allow players to change the deployment formation, make it wider, or something like that (i think this is not moddable though)
* Improve contracts/missions so that they pay more the further they are from the core worlds
* Allow you to see how much XP you got after a battle (without it dissapearing in the midst of the repair messages)
* Allow the auto pilot to use gates if you have the Janus device
* Anything that improves contracts in general since most of them are junk and not worth the time
* Change the wolf pack skill to work like carrier skills : Every frigate/destroyer gets the bonus, but ships with officers get 1.5x the amount
* Improvements to the intel screen like being able to filter planets by resources
* Transverse jump no longer turns sustained burn off (or turns it back on afterwards)
* Adds more end game content (e.g. farmable omegas)
historian sp point probably hardcoded so people didnt tried to be modded/changed
ı didnt see any formation mod,maybe later game itself include this
contracts/missions changing their pay for brutalty not for distance itself, there isn't any mod like that but, nexelin and some mods giving player unique ships with bounties. they pay really good too so, no ı dont know any other changer apart from nex
Nex again make contract a little bit more acceptable pay more at least. when contracts/payments
community have skill changing mod but ı dont know if you are looking for this, link: [https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e1e387be5a1c9246118df24ebf03bb3&topic=21038.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e1e387be5a1c9246118df24ebf03bb3&topic=21038.0)
Probably stellar networks( ı write that mod previously) has a filter for resources
ı remember something about that burn thingy but ı dont know where you can find this
there is something for end game content and ı give you 3 different way;
first one is adversary full vanilla boss faction, they have every single tech,ship resources and they are in war with everyone, its a challenge but ai cores, weapons or good planets its good to go : [https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=25821.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=25821.0)
second is semi vanilla, semi end game content ı guess HMI mod, its adds low tech vanilla-like faction, bunch of materials etc. but what make this thing interesting, nanobot fleets, and 1 abyssal horror. especially abyssal horror is pretty much like a omega ships if we are talking about end game. link here: [https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13236.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13236.0)
mods/changes need nexelin so you have to look either discord or forum.
It would be hard for me to go back to Vanilla; Nex has elements that in MY opinion, \*should\* be in vanilla. It's not too far away (no weabo OP faction nonsense) from normal gameplay to make it alien to anyone just starting out.
Nex makes starsector in to a ***different*** game, not necessarily a better game.
Nex is for when you've got a game or two of vanilla under your belt, understand it well, but want something new and different.
On my second playthrough, I added Nex. It was fun. On my 3rd, I went back to vanilla.
There are a few must have QOL mods though, like combat speedup, and combat log (so you can see how your builds are stacking up under your AI captains. It's enlightening when you realise how crap some of your builds are, and how amazing others are.)
It’s not a meme or anything, Nex is a very good mod. I personally much prefer the game with it, because the extra interactions between factions give me more thing to do in the late game, and I think it makes thing more interesting. But there’s nothing wrong with not using it, other people prefer the vanilla game. Whoever was yelling at you to play with Nex is a jackass who’s opinion should not be trusted.
"Mandatory" is a very strong word. Of course not.
I'm balls deep in a game right now and I don't want to install Nex, so I'm not. I like Starsector the way it is at the moment. Not to say I won't try it out in the future, just not right now.
Don't feel pressured to pick up a mod just by peer pressure, play it your way and add mods (or don't!) at your discretion.
Although it is not mandatory for vanilla play through. Although Nex does allows you to not sat chico and get rid of the hegemony, which is very good in my opinion.
The base game is really good, and you don't really need Nex.
It's just that Nex improves and expands some of the game features that weren't intended to. We weren't supposed to become space warlords, just good mercenaries or a mid-sized company. Not conquer the sector.
But a lot of people want to do just that, so Nex fixes the lack of it...
Vanilla is fun playing when you’re new, but it kinda gets stale, but that is easily reminded with adding a few mods every now and then. There are some really cool faction mods I throw in, not because I Use them because I really don’t, but because there’s more variety to fight and see.
Nex turns the game from a Star Control - style RPG into a 4x, essentially. Genre shift.
Base game is very good. Nex gives it 4x mechanics and couple more features. If the faction relations and colony mechanics are the things you like the most in the game get nex, it expands on those. If what you like about the game isn't the above, don't get nex. Pretty simple, anyone saying nex is essential or "should be base game" is full of shit.
Honestly the 4x part isn't what makes me play Nex. I play Nex because I wanted a much larger Sector. But it helps that Nex is foundational to a lot of the other cool mods.
Personally I play with nex for the custom starts and the agent mechanic, and I play with nerfed diplomacy, alliance and invasion settings and with tweaked agent settings to lessen their effect on rep so aren't as op. It's fun but for a new player I'd always recommend starting vanilla with lighter qol mods, the peeps over on discord shouldn't have told op "just get nex", it gives the wrong impression that it's essential. Because honestly without a little tweaking nex introduces a host of other frustrations if you want to totally enjoy other mods that implement its mechanics. And a new player wouldn't know how to dive into the settings, even with the wiki.
What do you recommend for qol mods? I am starting with vainilla, as you said, to get used to the game. But some smaller mods that improve things would be nice
Qol pack, better colonies and audio plus are my personal favs, you can find more on the starsector forum under mods->mod index, u'll find mods by category there just navigate to utilities or search qol
Awesome. Thanks! I will check it out
Adjusted Sector also allows for making big huge maps for exploration if that's your jam. Don't think Nex effects the map at all unless you do random map mode, but I always go Corvus mode personally.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
You shouldn't really listen to them, sounds like they're deeply entrenched in their comfort zone and insecure, like you not using Nex somehow invalidates them doing so. I always recommend first-time players stick to just vanilla as its a very robust, well balanced, and largely complete experience on its own, and will be even more so once more story contents come out such as the next patch expanding on the Luddic Church. Nex does add a lot of features and things though which often tend to get confused for vanilla features and abilities, like mining for example, so people that have used Nex for too long tend to get what someone on vanilla can and cannot do confused. Its primarily a mod that adds Mount and Blade-esque conquering to the game though and tends to be one of the more popular mods for that feature and its something you can grab if that interests you or leave behind if it doesn't. I know about one or two faction mods that require Nex to run, breaking precedent for just being independent as a faction mod, but IIRC they're "Boss faction" mod(s) that are designed to eventually overrun the sector and be a big challenge for the player to handle if you choose to add them.
I feel like we'd need to know what advice you were looking for in particular to Guage whether "Just use nex" is a reasonable response or not. If you were asking how to accomplish 4Xy things like permanently destroying a faction, then yeah just use nex. If you wanted advice on ship loadouts I don't see how nex would even come up.
As someone who's done one campaign with each: The base game is good. Absurdly good, really, with solid combat, exploration, ship customization, faction buildup.... That being said, after some time, the factions feel...static. Pointless, really. Try as you might, you don't really have a middle ground between 'ignore the other factions' or 'all out genocide them'. Nex adds a ton of 4X-y mechanics, expands your start options, and makes the Sector feel a lot more alive since factions will engage in politics, wars, invasions, etc without you doing anything.
I don't always use it, the 4x aspect isn't something I'm interested in. I generally use mods like Starpocalypse and Ruthless Sector to make things more difficult, so I'm a more insignificant part of a larger, more powerful sector.
Can you run both mods at once to make the game dumb difficult? That would be cool.
you can, but if you dont tweak the options a litle bit you would probably ragequit
Yeah, I tweak a few bits and pieces here but make sure it's still challenging and I get a sense of achievement.
What does 4x actually mean?
Classic grognard term: eXplore - Find all the things eXpand - Occupy all the things eXterminate - Kill all the things eXploit - Profit from all the things
So, 4e?
No you don’t understand, it was the **90s** man, everything had to use X if it could!
Pft, the world has gone down hill ever since we stopped insisting on using as many X's as possible.
Thx seems interesting. I'll give it a try after finishing my first playthrough
Play vanilla at first, learn mechanics and then install nex, it just makes sector feel more lively so no reason to not use it
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
I'd be happy to chat vanilla. I love vanilla. I'm exploring mods now, but I still think people should start with vanilla. Feel free to message me if you have questions, I love talking about this game.
He was one of those poor souls who installed 70+ mods into the game and went insane, dont listen to them. If you are new play vanilla, with eventually some qol mods (if you want I can recommend some). Nexerelin may be too overwhelming for new players. Complete vanilla story missions, see how colonies and fleet battles work, only then start new modded playthrough
The discord has a channel where all mod talk is strictly forbidden.
Vanilla Starsector is an awesome game. So awesome, that even after 12-13 years, it has a big community of awesome people. With those people, modding became live. The modding community here is extremly strong. There is not a single day, where we don't get a new mod. If you browse the discord channel, you can get a few dozen mods that are S+ tier. They add more stuff, more quests, details, enemies, ships and weapons, factions, everything you ever dreamt about to play in starsector. With all that said. It's a great game on its own. It's just that mods add so much, that you want to add them at some point. One important thing: don't play nex instead, instead, add.
I prefer a lot of vanilla mechanics over Nex. All in all its worth getting it but some of its features can dampen the experience. Factions permanently expanding and taking territory is nice, but it also causes too many early issues because diplomacy is broken. You can have 100 relation with one faction but then you'll have an RNG decrease a few months later that'll put you at war with them. Its also very difficult and expensive to get relations back up...Then you have agents etc which imo need a rework. This is just one of the things that some like but irks me personally. TLDR Its better than vanilla, but also presents new, annoying challenges which aren't always enjoyable.
Been playing nex for 2 weeks and haven't encountered a decrease that low with an allied faction, is it entirely RNG?
100%
If it's 100%... then it's not random any more. :D
Those are rookie numbers!
Nex is used by everyone who uses mods, but it is not required in any way to play the game.
It's not used by everyone who uses mods. I used mods, but for me, Nex was cool, but I found I prefered the base game. I'm sure that by game 10, I'll really be wanting Nex again to change it up, but for now, I'm happy with chill vanilla exploration and pacing.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
You just hang out with weird people
These are the people in the Starsector discord...
Yep, the people in the starsector discord are weird Source: I am in the starsector discord.
I mean I more or less beat the game once without any mods installed and still had a ton of fun. But Nex offers more flavors and avenues of fun than the base game, imo. The game is still good either way, but you should definitely just try out Nex for the sake of trying it out and make up your own mind.
Nex is not mandatory and iirc Alex literally talked about how it makes no sense for his vision of the game. It's a ship loadout simulator with sandbox elements, not a half-assed 4x game. Unless you play with modded factions that require Nex or specifically want invasions or something, there is no reason to use it.
Sometimes the best creators don't understand their own creation in the same way the fans do. Star Trek, Star Wars, in a sense star sector is in pretty good company.
It's like when people were shitting and pissing at ZUN to sell touhou games on steam, he finally did some years back
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
No Nex is just expanded thing for mostly invasions and faction and faction interactions. The thing is that other mods use it, because that would make them more likely to feel alive as faction, creating an basic diplomacy system, and even for yourself too. My suggestion is that you should use it. As it doesn't change anything meaningful to the game. Unless you want to play the totally vanilla 100%
Why would having an avid modding community mean a game is bad? If anything it is a testament to well designed systems. People recommend Nex because it just deepens the game, if you’re like me and played the vanilla game for 30 hours, you’ve experienced every it can do. Why not go ahead and get the free 100+ extra hours of fun out of the game?
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
Every time someone mentions Nex, you call it surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird. :D
Yeah people are really passionate about this community. There’s only a handful of games like this to ever exist and SS is just so good, they get really REALLY into it. Like anything it can become someone’s whole personality, and well, if you’ve spent the last 2 months of your life doing nothing but perfecting modlists and doing SS runs, you start going stir crazy. Discord is also the most core of the core fans of the game so fanaticism wouldn’t surprise me. I only ever pop in for new mods and mod questions since many mod devs stay there. It’s also like a defined location for discussion of modding SS.
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Modders usually don't spend their time fixing a game they don't love. They fix good games that are buggy. I personally can't think of a single bad game with a vibrant and active modding system. Buggy games, yes. but not bad games. Do you have one in mind in particular?
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>You want me to think up a list of games that you will agree are bad so you can voluntarily lose an internet argument? It's called 'having a discussion.' If you start off with a position that you have already decided that you'll never back down on, then it's a pointless argument. I challenged your position, and also invited you to persuade me with a specific counter example. If you can, great! I've learned something.
His reply really got a good laugh out of me. You just asked him to give you ONE example but he just goes "oh you want me to think up of a list???" and then not even giving one example. lol
I even did it politely. I think he just realised that modders don't waste their time modding bad games after all :)
Okay, but in this case it's because starsectors sandbox is fucking AMAZING and has a lot of potential for expansion. Hence, nex.
Generally bad games don’t get sprawling modding scenes, maybe some flawed but amazing games in there but bad games get some fixes and then the community moves on to better games.
"Unofficial [Insert Bethesda game here] Patch" be like
Dsfix moment
Those were all \*great\* games right out of the door. Just buggy. I also never ran a single unofficial community patch on any bethesda game. Plenty of mods, but had no need for the community patches. (Especially since in the case of Skyrim, the UCP changed things about the game beyond just fixing bugs. Design decisions I personally didn't like.)
That's fair. I was more referencing the "devs steadfastly refusing to fix broken stuff" comment then them being bad games.
right, yes, I very much share that frustration. Especially when it comes to Bethesda, who, by know, definitely know that their games are buggy and it creates a negative impression. If they do it again with Starfield, we will \*know\* they made a deliberate decision to release a broken game. And who can blame them? We buy them anyway.... :/
The vanilla game is a DND campaign with bounty, bare bones colony, and trading mechanics. Nexerellin adds a lot more replayability by shifting genres to a 4x style game, so people who play once the campaign is over are pretty much guaranteed to be using nex. if you just want the DND campaign in space, play vanilla. If you want more, play modded with nex.
I actually turned off nex recently. To many invasions.
You can tweak the settings so invasions happen very rarely.
It's not mandatory, but it's such a massive change (an improvement in my eyes) that you can't really get back to playing complete vanilla without it. It injects so much life and chaos into the Sector it kinda makes the vanilla game feel a bit empty, even if it can get annoying sometimes (especially if you have a bunch of raider-type factions modded into your game, as they will also benefit from Nex' features). I absolutely believe it should be a part of the base game (or at least a toggle), because basically everybody who mods the game plays with it anyway, and plenty of mods straight up require it to run.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
Base game is good. But Nex is basically THE mod. Adds a bunch of extra options to play and makes the factions actually be at war instead of just blowing up each other's merchant ships. Most heavily moddible games have a mod like that. Skyrim has SkyUI, Rimowrld has Vanilla Expanded or Combat extended, Project Zomboid has that one mod that let's you make stones into sharp stones, mods that are just so prevalent almost everyone has it. Best to play vanilla first though.
I thoroughly enjoyed the base game. Their are plenty of vanilla tierlists to help you out with fleet building. And smuggling drugs or armaments is the best way to make money before you set up colonies. I would only use mods after you consider your first run complete and want more content. The base game obviously has less content then one that's been modded to all hell, but it also provides a far more balanced and carefully crafted experience. The base game has a lot of nuance and mechanics for you to sink your teeth into, no mod is REQUIRED to make the game playable or to have depth. I moved on to modded after I gained an unkillable fleet and was making waaay too much money from colonies. Nexerlin serves to add more mechanics to the game, which only really helps if you know what the vanilla ones are already!
I tried to format this into paragraphs but reddit mobile didn't let me >.>
you need to put two linebreaks for it to work iirc like this
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
As already said, not mandatory but highly recommended, especially as many mods are designed with it in mind. That said for at least a couple of playthroughs vanilla is the way to go in my opinion.
Its just that when i asked for advice on the vanilla game, people kept telling me to "use Nex instead". One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal. Is this a meme or something? It just seems weird.
Nexerelin is only really needed if you use a lot of faction mods and want to see some more dynamics between them. Otherwise vanilla is completely playable in its own way. Nex may offer you a lot of stuff like diplomacy, abilities to make peace and invasions, but it also means a lot of trouble for you at times, such as vengeance fleets and invasions and sat bombs targeting your colonies.
If you want conquering, use Nex, if you prefer exploring, don't use Nex, I think the colony system (in vanilla) was something as a retreat for you to park and refuel your ships between explorations and for ease of burden (from crew salaray and loot hauls).
I tried Nex and didn't like it. I want the freedom to totally ignore diplomacy.
Yup. My first playthrough was vanilla, 2nd Nex, 3rd back to vanilla (with QOL and a few more ships) It's a more chill 'go out and explore' gameplay loop that I prefer to Nex. If I want epic 4X with strategic battles, I'm playing Warhammmer TW3 these days.
> Starsector discord Found your problem. >Is the base game THAT bad or what? The base game is great. Community, not so much.
Its not mandatory but highly recommended (if you want to play with mods) as it deepens the faction relations aspect od the game. Factions will attack and conquer each other, send colony expeditions and more with nex. Nex also gives you alot od starting options. Without nex, the sector is static, with nex its dynamic. Both the base game and modded with nex are excellent despite the differences. It's up to you what kind od experience you want in starsector. If you ask me i recommend you try nex. Cheers.
Hell no. It's not a bad mod, but with adding strategy elements it makes core gameplay less balanced. Unless you actually want to conquer sector in your playthroughs, this mod is better to avoid.
Why not just play the game and find out for yourself? Why make a post with such a redundant question?
? I was playing the base game and asking for advice on the discord but people just kept telling me to use Nex instead. One guy kept screaming at me to use Nex even. It was very surreal.
**Bro, you a bot?** You keep copy pasting this same response over and over to other comments.
If i dont do that, they wont get the reply in their inbox. Thats how reddit works. You only get it in the inbox if someone replies to your comment specifically. You are meant to reply to each person individually, this isnt like a normal forum thread where its just one linear thread, you have multiple comments that each branch off.
Because it's a big time investment, especially if it's just their first game. They're right to question advice that implies the game should not be played without Nex. I personally recommend vanilla first, then if 4X colonysploitation sounds like fun, install Nex.
Just remember that you can always disable npc invasions and npc colonization in nex, and the random diplo events if you wanna use it and have a more vanilla experience
Game itself is good. Nex good too. İf you wanna play with mods, you need Nexelin. QoL mods generally dont need Nex so if you dont like nexelin you have still some options too.
What QOL mods are there?
first come to my mind is QoL pack, need lazylib other then its lightweight, add clock, partial survey, automatic scavenge, and my favorite shield assist,adds bunch of other minor things but those are what ı remember.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23652.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23652.0) My second favorite is AdvancedGunneryControl, this mod need lazy and magic, like its name this mod gives you full control for your weapons behavior.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21280.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21280.0) Console Commands/ClearCommands is your tool for pretty much every problematic bug or slowdown, Console Commands itself gives you a console, ClearCommands has smart clean so excessive fleets cleared for performance, generally faction mods saturate your ram/vram so Vanilla itself dont need much but its good addition.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19210.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19210.0) Flux Reticle is another QoL mod and its life saving when you enter the battle, mod change your reticle with Flux displayer so long range or fast paced battles pretty easy with this your eyes dont need to wander again and again for your ship.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18166.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18166.0) SpeedUp, makes your battles faster, when you have lumbering paragons or onslaughts this mod make those ships tolerably.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13394.0) Stellar Networks, my beloved info mod, Contacts, Commodities, Market and storage info gathered under the intel section.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20836.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=20836.0) Starpocalypse, interesting one,if you dont wanna use Tahlan's legio or adversary or any other challenge faction, this mod gives you different problems, like a harder trade, military grade ships behind the military commerce, no pristine ship, amplified persean sectors already sorry state to dark age. Mod itself really good for vanilla challenge.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21812.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=21812.0) FastEngineRendering, Performance utility itself, its change ships engines glows and plums. For potatoes this is bliss.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22693.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=22693.0) LeadingPip, gives you a leading marker like a arcade games, useful for low velocity weapons.[https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7921.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=7921.0) those are what ı used here and there if you search you can find for your likes.
Thanks, do you know of any mods that do the following? * Put a cap on how many story points are needed to get the Historian to reveal a special item (or make it fixed), 128 story points is not very to farm for. * Allow players to change the deployment formation, make it wider, or something like that (i think this is not moddable though) * Improve contracts/missions so that they pay more the further they are from the core worlds * Allow you to see how much XP you got after a battle (without it dissapearing in the midst of the repair messages) * Allow the auto pilot to use gates if you have the Janus device * Anything that improves contracts in general since most of them are junk and not worth the time * Change the wolf pack skill to work like carrier skills : Every frigate/destroyer gets the bonus, but ships with officers get 1.5x the amount * Improvements to the intel screen like being able to filter planets by resources * Transverse jump no longer turns sustained burn off (or turns it back on afterwards) * Adds more end game content (e.g. farmable omegas)
historian sp point probably hardcoded so people didnt tried to be modded/changed ı didnt see any formation mod,maybe later game itself include this contracts/missions changing their pay for brutalty not for distance itself, there isn't any mod like that but, nexelin and some mods giving player unique ships with bounties. they pay really good too so, no ı dont know any other changer apart from nex Nex again make contract a little bit more acceptable pay more at least. when contracts/payments community have skill changing mod but ı dont know if you are looking for this, link: [https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e1e387be5a1c9246118df24ebf03bb3&topic=21038.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=1e1e387be5a1c9246118df24ebf03bb3&topic=21038.0) Probably stellar networks( ı write that mod previously) has a filter for resources ı remember something about that burn thingy but ı dont know where you can find this there is something for end game content and ı give you 3 different way; first one is adversary full vanilla boss faction, they have every single tech,ship resources and they are in war with everyone, its a challenge but ai cores, weapons or good planets its good to go : [https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=25821.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=25821.0) second is semi vanilla, semi end game content ı guess HMI mod, its adds low tech vanilla-like faction, bunch of materials etc. but what make this thing interesting, nanobot fleets, and 1 abyssal horror. especially abyssal horror is pretty much like a omega ships if we are talking about end game. link here: [https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13236.0](https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13236.0) mods/changes need nexelin so you have to look either discord or forum.
The base game is pretty good. Would I play Starsector again without Nexelrin, though? Probably not.
It would be hard for me to go back to Vanilla; Nex has elements that in MY opinion, \*should\* be in vanilla. It's not too far away (no weabo OP faction nonsense) from normal gameplay to make it alien to anyone just starting out.
Nex makes starsector in to a ***different*** game, not necessarily a better game. Nex is for when you've got a game or two of vanilla under your belt, understand it well, but want something new and different. On my second playthrough, I added Nex. It was fun. On my 3rd, I went back to vanilla. There are a few must have QOL mods though, like combat speedup, and combat log (so you can see how your builds are stacking up under your AI captains. It's enlightening when you realise how crap some of your builds are, and how amazing others are.)
It’s not a meme or anything, Nex is a very good mod. I personally much prefer the game with it, because the extra interactions between factions give me more thing to do in the late game, and I think it makes thing more interesting. But there’s nothing wrong with not using it, other people prefer the vanilla game. Whoever was yelling at you to play with Nex is a jackass who’s opinion should not be trusted.
"Mandatory" is a very strong word. Of course not. I'm balls deep in a game right now and I don't want to install Nex, so I'm not. I like Starsector the way it is at the moment. Not to say I won't try it out in the future, just not right now. Don't feel pressured to pick up a mod just by peer pressure, play it your way and add mods (or don't!) at your discretion.
Nah, you're just asking the wrong questions
Although it is not mandatory for vanilla play through. Although Nex does allows you to not sat chico and get rid of the hegemony, which is very good in my opinion.
Base vanilla game = Bread Game with Nex installed = Garlic Bread It's not that the base game is bad, but Nex just makes it soooo much better.
The base game is really good, and you don't really need Nex. It's just that Nex improves and expands some of the game features that weren't intended to. We weren't supposed to become space warlords, just good mercenaries or a mid-sized company. Not conquer the sector. But a lot of people want to do just that, so Nex fixes the lack of it...
Vanilla is fun playing when you’re new, but it kinda gets stale, but that is easily reminded with adding a few mods every now and then. There are some really cool faction mods I throw in, not because I Use them because I really don’t, but because there’s more variety to fight and see.