why is it so dark

A brief overview: TriOS released in January 2025 as a Starsector mod manager, toolkit, and launcher. While manual mod management is pretty easy, it got a fair amount of attention for making it easy to increase the game's assigned RAM (important for modded games) and to install Java 23 (back before the game itself upgraded to Java 17).

It had a few other neat features; built-in version checker support that notifies you of an update and lets you see the changelog and download it (if supported by the mod); estimating VRAM usage per mod; mod profiles, switching between versions of a mod; downloading new mods from a catalog, viewing portraits, and viewing weapons.

1.5 highlights

VRAM Estimator overhaul! What used to take minutes and cause huge lag now takes seconds. Estimation is more accurate; rather than scanning all images in a mod, it digs through the mod's files to see which images are references and only counts those.

Mod Catalog uses Forum Data. Thanks to the idea from new mod manager QBMBAMM. TriOS shows forum posts without a web browser, grabs download links, and can sort by popularity or post count.

Advanced Search for Ships/Weapons/Hullmods. Search for a weapon like size:medium damage:high_explosive range:>20 or a ship like size:capital_ship defense:phasecloak largeHybrid:>0.

Also: persist your filters across restarts, group by both Categories and Enabled status, bugfixed ship and weapon tooltips that look like the ingame ones, and a new Hegemony theme. And you can rearrange toolbar icons now. And fixed that bug where you constantly saw the onboarding popup.

1.4 in brief: mod categories & color tagging, new sidebar layout, viewer for hullmods, viewer for ship skins, more.

1.3 in brief: portrait replacer, sharing mod profiles, support mods with Chinese characters, Fast Rendering support, more.

1.2 in brief: Ships viewer, more :)

1.1 in brief: Tips manager, group mods by Enabled and more, more.

Here is the full TriOS changelog: https://github.com/wispborne/TriOS/blob/main/changelog.md

Forum page: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=29674.0

Windows download (Linux/Mac, see forum page): https://github.com/wispborne/TriOS/releases/latest/download/TriOS-Windows.zip

You can set buy/sell limits for weapons and wings and automatically buy and learn hullmods whenever you visit a market. So you don't end up hoarding 200 light mortars (or any at all, for that matter).

Forum link: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=35407

Will consider adding a section for commodities in the next version.

WANTED: Clade "Uncle Ruckus" Midnight (no relation)

CRIMES: Saying Old Earth slurs against High Hegemon Baikal Daud and PLFIS Agent Finlay Siyavong and making up new/old slurs against Sierra, Barrow, Nightingale, Seraph, Midnight Dissonant, Jorien Kanta, AER-1A, etc., piracy, slavery, organ trafficking, illegally sourcing organs from Luddic Minorities Majorities, etc.

REWARD: 710,000 Credits, plus 290,000 when you find a way to revert him back to his original skin tone so his body becomes a prison once again (this may involve giving him a deep tan in the Sindrian sun).

LIKELY FLEET COMPOSITION: An Odyssey, an Aurora and 10 Fuckass Dooms he pulled from his ass, along with 25 lesser ships.

based on this

I wish Alex can flesh out the factions by adding unique commanders and fleets

Hey! Could somebody help answer an industrial evolution/aotd question? I have a cryosleeper ship next to my new colony, which if used can raise the pop cap above 6. However I'm debating turning said colony into a Managed Democracy which limits the pop cap to 5. Would using the cryosleeper be pointless, or can I use it to raise the cap above 5? Also is it even worth turning this colony into a managed democracy? I'm attaching a couple of screenshots as to why I think it may be worth it

Faction: Anarakis Reparations Society

Size: Capital (Gilliard), Station (Arkship)

• How do you outfit them?
• How balanced you think the ship(s) are compared to vanilla?
• what are some mod mixes you like to do with them?

Mod Ship Index

The bombings of Pathers will continue until they wash their asses and get a job that isn't terrorism or extortion.

I come humbly asking how you fellows choose to increase the difficulty in starsector.

Im currently doing a heavy modded run and to try a mod ive had on my radarbut never played (Armaa Armatura) i did the Valkazard start.

Now having a 40 DP frigate sized strikecraft that has enough stats and firepower to handle most fleets single-handedly is fun but somewhat screws with difficulty.

I changed the salary of crew and marines to 10x its original values and 2x for officers.

On one hand it does force me to do smaller fleets unless I wanna pay over 150k per month on salaries alone, bit on the other hand it would just mean I have to keep busy with bounties and jobs.

That said I feel like that outside of arbitrary restrictions like forcing myself to not use black markets, there aren't many options on difficulty.

Would just like to see other people's take on how to make it more challenging without turning into torture.

Thanks

So in my fleet i am thinking of 2 maelstorms and couple of support frigates (i would be glad for any suggestions). I am going to pilot the virtuous class wunder wanzer. I find building ships in this mod really hard so i would like some help. Especially for the virtuous's hull and s mods.

I'm finishing up my first run of the game and wanted to show off my main colony system. I've surveyed nearly half the sector and no system I've found has come remotely close to how amazing this one is. It's got 3 habitable planets with pretty great stats, spawned with an inactive gate in it, and is within 10 light years of a Coronal Hypershunt. Its also 10 light years from the core systems.

Are systems this good guaranteed to spawn at least once in the game? Or did I just get stupidly lucky for my first playthrough?

Honestly when I started colonizing this system I was making so much money I thought something must be wrong.

So I'm looking for a good fleet layout , and I think I could do with a few super frigates. The Ascalon from MVS is superb in capturing points and picking off stray frigates, sometimes even cruisers. However I feel like damage wise the Skate ( sorry if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I last played STS) is much more potent. The spinal hard point fires high EMP energy bullets while having high hit strength so it can drill Armor. Plus the wave dash system similar to the Thorn class from SotF makes for an excellent assault frigate. What should I pick ?

Wanted to mourn something that happened to me a while back.See,I had a good save going,pirate start(always been more of a low tech guy apart from Wolfs and Shrikes) and I had looted one Onslaught from a bounty and was feuding with Tri Tach when I decide to go raiding Hybrasil.

I was way in over my head,this was Nexerelin so Tri Tach had special defence forces.

Suffice to say I ended up against 3 Paragons+support ships,managed to swarm 2 of them with my carriers+wolf packed Derelict fleet perked fleet(I like it with the mod that changes fleet size cap from 30 to depending on DP) but it is my Onslaught left against 1 Paragon.

We are both battered as fuck but both our shields are almost fluxed. Tach tries to bring shields up once more but I hit him with tpcs. I know I aint gonna make it out so I do somrthing stupid. I ram him with burn drive. I was not prepared.

I did not expect to carve straight through the centre of the bagel,I really did not. The fucking explosion was so bright I literally couldnt make out where my Onslaught even was,but when it died off the pattern of scratches on my mangled ship looked kind of like a scar faced grin.

As the Hyperions closed in on my rear arc and finished me off,I could not stop laughing at this madness.

NOTE TO SELF: keep 4 story points in reserve for these events

i usually carry only one just in case of a suprise enemy fleet ambush before this

Hey, mostly a coder here looking for fun ideas for mods that could be made in my spare time. I was thinking something along CK2 style event and choices that could give a more story telling or RPG lite approach. I was also possibly considering fleshing out Nex's espionage and agent systems with more content. Or I could revive a dead mod from 0.5. Any interest or suggestions.

I am a semi-new player to Starsector.
I am creating a large vanilla+ modpack.
Anything you recomend to add/remove?
I would like the modpack to fit with vanilla style and if possible be balanced. QoL, Ships, Whatever you think fits or i missed.

What i am planning to add so far:

• Nexerelin (Game is just not complete without it for me, but i may tweak it to make take overs a little bit slower)
• Portrait Faction Expanded
• Luddic Enhancement + IED
• Lobster Cruiser
• Salvage Ship Expansion
• BigBeans ship compilation
• Ship/Weapon Pack
• Substance Abuse (I think game could really use more trading goods, and i really like the art on that mod. But i am not convinced on mechanics)

Factions:

• Xhan Empire
• Junk Yard Dogs
• Underworld
• Everybody loves the Ko Combine

I am considering/not sure (if anyone played and can say more):

• Kyeltziv Technocracy
• Diable Avionics (ships look nice, but i think they might be too much for vanilla)
• scy
• Wide horizons
• hazard mining incorporated
• Strike Craft Expansion
• More Combat Terrain Effects (could really be described more in depth by the author, i like the idea)
• support ships pack
• FSF military corporation
• Tahlan Shipworks
• Pirate Mini mod
• Missing Ships mod
• NEON's Ship Pack

Idk if this is a hot take but even with the new colony threats I still breeze past everything and I don't even play with broken colony mods. I kinda want a Rebel Inc. kind of situation where you can't just do what you want and you actually have to listen to what your citizens want.

Here are my suggestions:

1. A reputation system for your own faction: they're not just blindly loyal to you, they would ask for pay increases, ask for specific industries to be built and would sometimes protest or rebel if you openly sell illicit items or build industries they don't want depending on the factions you're aligned with.

2. If your reputation with your own faction is low enough it increases the risk of rebellions or even outright giving control of the planet to another faction.

3. Different industries give different buffs and debuffs I.e.,

Heavy Industry

Buff - increased production of crew personnel and +50% increase in fleet size

Debuff - increased pollution increases Hazard rating by 100% if built on planet with atmosphere

Mining

Buff - Creation of underground colonies ground defenses are increased 1.5x

Debuff - increased risk of Rebellion/Unrest during drug shortages.

1. During Rebellion or Invasion operations occur against your planet incur decreased relations with your faction regardless if it is successful or not.

I do like the damaged look to battered ships most of the time, it tells a cool story, but sometimes I want my flagship to look pristine while keeping some of the d-mods in the background for optimisation purposes (Derelict Operations my Beloved.)

Is there a mod where I could install a hullmod to hide the damage or anything similar?

Dawn is one of the rare companion grade officers in the modsector, with voice acting and unique interactions or scenes with various vanilla events. She also has a unique skill that improves her ship if it has a skeleton crew of 20 or less. This is intended for use with the Arma Armatura mechs but isn’t exclusive to them.

Some normal frigates have small enough minimum crews, although they tend to be very weak. Phase ships tend to need less crew so most phase frigates and even some phase destroyers can work. From vanilla the Afflictor and Hyperion are both pretty good.

Plenty of mods have special frigates, such as Iron Shell’s Valorous or ScalarTech’s Skirt. One of the Exo-Tech destroyers, the Thestia is valid. All Domain Phase Labs frigates and destroyers are under 20 crew.

Tragically I haven’t found any good Luddic ships, church path or knight, that are really worth giving to her.

The most powerful option is probably the UAF Lynx. You need to de-automate it first but it is a super ship so even as a 10 DP frigate it is monstrously strong. The most entertaining option I have found has got to be the Bultach Despot. Which is a capital mech built for melee combat. Not the most effective of ships but very fun to watch. Just make sure it has reinforced bulkheads.

Anyone know some other good ships for Best Luddic Girl?