Yesterday afternoon, out of nowhere, I got excited at the prospect of playing GSF, so I took it to my Sunday night meetup and four of us ended up playing.
Two of us had played before, but not in quite a while, and two hadn't. We played the recommended opponent and picked random ships and sectors. It felt like a close match, with two sectors overrun pretty quickly and having to fight off a hoard of ships in the third, but we eventually decided to lure the big bad and put it down pretty handily.
I imagine that if we knew more about what we were doing, we would have won in fewer turns. A few rules things popped up, but we didn't worry too much about them and just guessed at what we should do.
When I firtst learned GSF, I found it maddeningly complex. There was just way too much information and I got very frustrated trying to keep it all in mind and figure out what I wanted to do. With some experience and less concern about playing the perfect game, last night was quite fun.
Hi. My name's Andy. Feel free to call me Andy, since, ya know, that's my name. (he/him/his)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If not now, when? If I am for myself alone, what am I? -- Hillel
That's awesome -- glad to hear it!
"See, this is another sign of your tragic space dementia, all paranoid and crotchety. Breaks the heart." - Mal
Unicode U+24BD gets us Ⓗ. (Thanks, Godai!)
It's a lot easier too if you happen to have the expansion Station Cards mixed in. Those tended to have really strong SF sides with very managable flip sides.
I still like playing GSF, but I can't stress enough how much better the game feels with my house-rule set. (Elite mode on Opposition panels active, but no extra energy on Opp ships and you win only with a Flagship kill).
Really happy to hear you found this playthrough more enjoyable! It's great when you don't have to worry about every little thing and can just focus on pulling off cool combos with your own ship.