2D and 3D have vastly different gameplay styles. I'd call it a sidegrade. Just look at the difference in gameplay between Starsector and Everspace. People are also limited in both skill and equipment, so 2D is also more accessible. Good luck and burn bright!

What mod is that capital from?

Oddy needs skill and strategy to shine. Just like the Conquest. It's also kinda bad in AI hands. Just like the Conquest. I'd use a MIRV on the large and some sabots on the mediums for better burst, but that's just me. Alternatively some [REDACTED] or [SUPER ALABASTER].

Small context for anyone else stumbling on this (from what I remember):
- The "malware" was just some code that would mangle your save if you were playing with a certain unsavory mod (which is banned from most starsector places)
- Moderators did moderator things
- Things got exaggerated a lot

oh yeah? how many stars have you sectored today

That's very cool. Reminds me of a corvette from Dreadnought with the side parts.

Once upon a stardust moon... a lucky, or perhaps unlucky Starfarer might chance upon a planetary body, orbiting just outside a black hole's horizon... You know what must be done. May Omega watch over you.

Greetings fellow sicko. Have you considered... obtaining the Star of the Sector (black hole colony).

It depends on what you mean large-scale. But practically not really. You need to edit the game's config file and increase the battle size from the default 400 to like 2k+ and fill it all up before you'd start seeing actual lag considering your hardware.

Just you wait until there's 20 capital ships, a few hundred smaller ones, some 1k+ fighters and 10x those in projectiles. You did come at the right time tho, it just recently got updated from using java 7 to java 17, extreme performance boost. Burn bright Starfarer.