Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => General Discussion => Blog Posts => Topic started by: Alex on July 17, 2016, 06:09:36 PM

Title: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 17, 2016, 06:09:36 PM
Blog post here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/07/17/exploration-salvage/).
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Lanvrik on July 17, 2016, 06:54:24 PM
Must say I'm continually pleased by everything I see coming out of these blogs. I hope everything pans out or at least leads to interesting new possibilities. I like the idea of running in after a Hegemony defense fleet saves me and rescuing some of the stranded crew.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: sycspysycspy on July 17, 2016, 06:55:12 PM
 :-[ guess this means we can not have 0.7.3a sooner. Still I am glad to see more contents being added up to the game. I am just wondering how many differences does it make compare to what some mods have added to the game.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Orikson on July 17, 2016, 07:06:57 PM
Oohh, shiny! (New items in salvage screen).

I'm really curious what this will turn out to be like (and how will mods have to be modified to fit these new systems. Guess I'll work on basics first.)

Also, is that a dark star I see in the first pic? Or a jumpgate?.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: gruberscomplete on July 17, 2016, 07:16:28 PM
Updated radar in pictures!

Cool new systems with two suns, a black hole, and a tiny planet --> would never happen in vanilla  :) .

Exciting salvage and "free stuff" at every planet!

Eventually leads up to outposts ... will we encounter outposts of other factions?
Do the outposts make factions stronger?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: TheDTYP on July 17, 2016, 07:18:45 PM
"In Starsector, Derelict salvages you"= WIN
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Dri on July 17, 2016, 07:20:54 PM
Sweet! Looks like Starsector development is getting into that super fun 'more content, more assets, more meaty stuff HOOOO!' phase. I also spy an official radar map, yay!

Debris fields are a great idea to help ease early game supply/money woes! I also love that exploration can have you running into unique enemies/defenses/whatever else! Procedural generation can work, but only if you've got enough unique content to seed it with, yeah. Repeating the same 5-10 chunks of content across 100 star systems is hopefully not the route you intend to take for exploration...
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: FasterThanSleepyfish on July 17, 2016, 07:22:57 PM
Awesome! Seeing some lore flesh added to the bones of this game is great.  ;D

An FTL: Faster than Light total conversion is looking more and more possible with the addition of a salvage system! Custom wrecks simulating random events and randomly generated sectors... hohoho.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Nick XR on July 17, 2016, 08:15:53 PM
I have nothing useful to add other than the more I read, the more excited I get!!!
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 17, 2016, 09:00:39 PM
Must say I'm continually pleased by everything I see coming out of these blogs. I hope everything pans out or at least leads to interesting new possibilities. I like the idea of running in after a Hegemony defense fleet saves me and rescuing some of the stranded crew.

I don't know about finding crew in debris fields, but maybe.


:-[ guess this means we can not have 0.7.3a sooner.

Yeah, it was always going to take a bit. I'm super excited about the new stuff - the ratio of, ah, immediate coolness to dev effort is pretty high - but it's all so interrelated.


Also, is that a dark star I see in the first pic? Or a jumpgate?.

It's a black hole. When alone or in a black hole binary, it also (usually) gets an accretion disk, but in a close trinary situation, there isn't one.


Cool new systems with two suns, a black hole, and a tiny planet --> would never happen in vanilla  :) .

Huh? :)

Exciting salvage and "free stuff" at every planet!

I don't know about every planet, but let's say at "most systems".

Eventually leads up to outposts ... will we encounter outposts of other factions?
Do the outposts make factions stronger?

Ahh, not really prepared to talk about them. They're certainly the elephant in the room, though, as all this stuff is building up to them, isn't it.


"In Starsector, Derelict salvages you"= WIN

:D


Debris fields are a great idea to help ease early game supply/money woes! I also love that exploration can have you running into unique enemies/defenses/whatever else! Procedural generation can work, but only if you've got enough unique content to seed it with, yeah. Repeating the same 5-10 chunks of content across 100 star systems is hopefully not the route you intend to take for exploration...

Yeah, that's very much the plan. There's a pretty long list of "things you can find" I've got somewhere; will see how far along it I manage to get. Kind of a question of spending time on content here vs time on more related features, but the content here is very important and arguably part of the feature. Like, it's hard to get away with an "exploration" feature if it's stubbed out with only a few things you can find. The "specials" really help mix things up, though - the same "derelict probe" can have at the moment something like 4 or 5 different things going on, I think. Or nothing at all.


An FTL: Faster than Light total conversion is looking more and more possible with the addition of a salvage system! Custom wrecks simulating random events and randomly generated sectors... hohoho.

Hmm. That does sound kind of neat! Traveling through some randomly generated systems/constellations, entirely dependent on salvage to progress.


Nothing motivates me to buckle down on modding like knowing more about how you're going to break whatever I work on with the next update :).

Yeah, I do apologize about breaking things, though :) Just totally unavoidable.


This is really good; having more stuff to do than cruise around looking for fights with other fleets and trade is compelling, especially salvage.

Hopefully, yeah. With the caveat that it's not all in place yet, I'm optimistic about how especially the new early game is shaping up. Start with some scavenging, build up to salvage, but fight automated defenses in the process, too. It just seems like it'll be a muuuch smoother curve, and one that can be taken at the player's discretion, as well. You can spend more time scavenging, decide which fights with defenses to pick, etc. And it feels like it'll be more varied! Will have to see how it pans out, though. The best laid plans and all that.


I have nothing useful to add other than the more I read, the more excited I get!!!

Same here! :)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: PCCL on July 17, 2016, 09:01:12 PM
interesting point about the implied parity between players and other fleets, and how adding a weak AI faction helps with the game's difficulty curve. I feel like, as of now, the implied parity the other way is more concerning (that might just be due to me having played a lot of SS though)

What I mean by that is currently there's no real end game challenge that relies on anything other than numerical advantage, and numerical advantage doesn't really hold up well when the player can solo defense fleets with a single frigate. The implied parity between AI ships and player ships then fall apart simply because the player becomes too good for the AI. That, to me, is the source of a huge disconnect.

I'm not really sure how one goes about addressing that, short of having better AI which can only go so far, but something to think about, I suppose. Another possible solution is having a domain era "boss faction" of really good ships that's unavailable to players, though I imagine that carries with it its own series of problems
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 17, 2016, 09:12:20 PM
What I mean by that is currently there's no real end game challenge that relies on anything other than numerical advantage, and numerical advantage doesn't really hold up well when the player can solo defense fleets with a single frigate. The implied parity between AI ships and player ships then fall apart simply because the player becomes too good for the AI. That, to me, is the source of a huge disconnect.

Yeah, this is a very good point, but I think this will be largely addressed by the skill revamp.

For example, hypothetically speaking, let's say the revamp involved 1) increasing all base ship OP by 10%, and 2) limiting the OP gain from skills to 10%. And then optionally giving access to that 10% bonus to some AI fleets. That by itself would go a long way towards bringing some parity back - the player is always going to be better, right, but the goal is just to make sure that deploying allies is a good option.

And then if you emphasize defensive skills a bit more in the revamp, while scaling the total impact of skills back a bit, it helps with that (allied ships survive better), and it also helps rein in the amount of damage a lone player ship can do, while at the same time making high-end combat a little slower-paced and more tactical.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Dark.Revenant on July 17, 2016, 09:50:38 PM
FYI Alex, close black hole binaries (that being two black holes orbiting each other) are probably extremely rare due to their short lifespan (they tend to merge due to gravitational waves) and relative scarcity of black holes compared to other stellar bodies.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 17, 2016, 10:13:34 PM
The odds of that are... hmm. Something like 1 in a 1000 systems generated, maybe even less likely than that. So not likely to show up every often :)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Cyan Leader on July 17, 2016, 10:18:24 PM
I wonder how much of a challenge the procedural generation is being for you Alex. I mean, when I install mods that makes my game have over 30 systems it already makes the journey between one end of the sector to another take forever, even with time dilation. If procedural generation is going to allow us to have hundreds of star systems, are you looking into changing the speed in which the player traverses hyperspace? I can't imagine forcing myself to go really far off to established outposts in order to defend them. It might take a full month to get there especially if I'm fielding capitals.

Another thing is, have you addressed the memory and performance issues of having too many populated systems? Again, if we have hundreds of systems and players decide to make an outpost in every one of them, wouldn't the economy and fleet simulation boggle down?

Now what makes me the most excited about what you showed is the possibility of exploration elements inside the combat gameplay. You've already shown defense mechanisms, I suppose they fly out like ships (?), but part of me wishes that in the middle of the field there is this huge derelict ship with a few active guns with their own HP and you have to go there shoot them down. This would be great in scenarios like defending or attacking outposts, I would love if those battles are different from regular battles. As in, if I'm assaulting the station, I want to physically shoot at it and its defenses during combat, not just deal with defense fleets. Kinda like SPAZ in that regard but I always felt that their stations were too small.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 17, 2016, 10:28:59 PM
I wonder how much of a challenge the procedural generation is being for you Alex. I mean, when I install mods that makes my game have over 30 systems it already makes the journey between one end of the sector to another take forever, even with time dilation. If procedural generation is going to allow us to have hundreds of star systems, are you looking into changing the speed in which the player traverses hyperspace? I can't imagine forcing myself to go really far off to established outposts in order to defend them. It might take a full month to get there especially if I'm fielding capitals.

There's some stuff to help with that, in the active abilities department - as part of improving the exploration experience - but it's not implemented yet so I'd prefer not to go into detail. As far as the number of systems, right now aiming at 200 at the very high end. Might end up going below that, will have to see how much I can squeeze in performance wise, and also how many feels right. At some point, as what you're saying gets at, having more systems is not actually a good thing.

Kind of balance between how much stuff there is in any given system vs how many systems there are. The more stuff there is per system, the less total systems you want to have.

Another thing is, have you addressed the memory and performance issues of having too many populated systems? Again, if we have hundreds of systems and players decide to make an outpost in every one of them, wouldn't the economy and fleet simulation boggle down?

I don't want to get into outpost details, but pretty positive you're not going to be able to create *that* many outposts. Beyond the performance issues, it'd be a management nightmare, too. That's just not the scope of the game.

Now what makes me the most excited about what you showed is the possibility of exploration elements inside the combat gameplay. You've already shown defense mechanisms, I suppose they fly out like ships (?), but part of me wishes that in the middle of the field there is this huge derelict ship with a few active guns with their own HP and you have to go there shoot them down. This would be great in scenarios like defending or attacking outposts, I would love if those battles are different from regular battles. As in, if I'm assaulting the station, I want to physically shoot at it and its defenses during combat, not just deal with defense fleets. Kinda like SPAZ in that regard but I always felt that their stations were too small.

:-X
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Aeson on July 17, 2016, 10:31:19 PM
A few questions about the new salvage system, if you don't mind:
- Are you planning to replace the current post-battle salvage screen with debris field salvage operations?
- Do you intend to allow the player to interrupt the salvage operation and get a partial haul, or do you want the player to have to complete a full operation in order to recover stuff from a debris field or derelict?
- Are debris fields going to stick around for a while even after the player or a computer-controlled fleet salvages the field, and is this dependent upon whether or not there is still salvage left in the field after a fleet completes a salvage operation? E.g. I complete a salvage operation and decide I don't want everything, or am unable to fit everything I collected into my cargo bays; will this stuff vanish instantly, or does the debris field stick around for a little while?
- Will computer-controlled fleets be competing with the player in some fashion for the salvage from debris fields (e.g. attempt to get to the most recent fields first, attempt to chase the player away from fields that both the player and the computer fleet are aware of, etc)?
- Will certain factions feel a degree of 'possessiveness' about debris fields, particularly if those fields are in "their" space or include derelicts which were once part of the faction's fleet? E.g. will Hegemony patrols attempt to chase off scavengers attempting to loot a debris field which was formerly a System Defense Fleet or something like that?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Tartiflette on July 17, 2016, 11:48:55 PM
Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.... I am really REALLY happy to see the update taking that turn. And that will help me a hell of a lot with Seeker, even if I already see that I have to change a couple of the same ideas I had ><

I totally approve of the intend to make the salvaging a time consuming task on the campaign map: I think it will be great to build tension while balancing the fact that being able to salvage other fleets remains make the game much easier (as we saw with the old Tradewind mod)

Now, questions:
 - Does exploration implies reworking the codex too?
 - I see the radar is back, is it related to a skill or hullmod??? Or a permanent UI element? Can it be improved by skills and hullmods?
 -
Quote
something that entails a choice
does that hint at overarching quests, or ones that can start on a discovery?
 - 200 systems, the hyper map must have grown a hell of a lot. But will there be some "shortcuts"? The game mentioned whormhole could connect to hyperspace "or other places" so will we see super whormholes that directly send you to another part of the sector? Some form of optional hyper-lanes connecting constellations together??? Or will the performances issues force you to cut the sector in a few separate instances connected by hyper-wormholes?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: borgrel on July 17, 2016, 11:50:42 PM
everybody hold out your hands ......

*starts chopping off thumbs left and right*
*carefully lines all the thumbs up artfully on a pretty table*

......

53 thumbs up alex, well done!
*smiles guilelessly*
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Doom101 on July 18, 2016, 01:13:30 AM
Oh my god i'm moderately on time for a blog post for once.
So other than my usual gushing I actually get to ask a few questions since not everyone has asked everything before I got here!

questions-
Do black holes actively pull you in?
If so is touching a black hole instant death? ( while this might seem harsh i think generally the population, especially those interested in sci fi games, know what black holes do by default, no tutorial needed on that one.)
Do black holes cause time dilation the closer you get to them?
Do automated security forces default to hostile? or can they be neutral/allied as well?

I'll hold the rest of my questions until we get to talk about outposts since I know you want to leave a lot about exploration for us to discover ourselves.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: orost on July 18, 2016, 01:22:19 AM
Now that we'll be braving the space-wilds and robbing space-tombs, will we also get cool ship equipment to find (in addition to commodities and those mysterious outpost/survey related items)?

It's always bugged me that there are no "rare drop" weapons in Starsector, nothing that would be exciting to find a provide a substantial advantage, because even the rarest and most powerful weapons are only moderately more difficult to acquire and more effective than the common junk. But digging through ancient derelicts means a lot of opportunities for finding powerful lost technology.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: joe130794 on July 18, 2016, 02:24:11 AM
What about proper automated stations that fire at you. And will we ever get use of the gates? I assume they act like supergates passing between systems.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 18, 2016, 03:14:13 AM
My guess for the new items: Neural skill-implants, red for combat-, yellow-green for leadership- and blue for technology-aptitude. Those little tails remind me of neuron dendrites :)


The mini map seems like a huge QOL improvement, pausing to game just to get your bearings is pretty annoying. Although I hope it's not the final design, doesn't look as polished as the TRIPAD UI (and why is it so often this WW2 era radar interface?).



Concerning debris fields and scaveneging; any plans to try an weave the boarding mechanic into it? Seems like a good place for a more active boarding scenario/decisions between salvaging hulls or cargo.
E.G, imagine you actually see when a chunk of the debris field suddenly re-activates engines and tries to leave it, instead of just reading it. And then you have to get to it and board/shoot it before it reaches the edge of the field or it becomes a real fleet again.

Also, I'm assuming the old salvage screen is totally replaced by scavenging debris field? So you have to invest some time after each battle to get the spoils?


Also, thank you for trying to avoid exploration spoilers, it's appreciated :) I'm getting giddy with excitement for this coming update ;D



(BTW, the second paragraph of "What makes exploration fun?" ends with a ",.".)



Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Spoorthuzad on July 18, 2016, 03:26:12 AM
It is always a joy reading your blogposts Alex ;D

Will salvaging salvagefields take time ingame? or is it instant?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 18, 2016, 04:01:39 AM
Will salvaging salvagefields take time ingame? or is it instant?

Seems to me that salvaging wrecks with the salvage skill will be instant, while scavenging debris fields is an active ability that will take campaign time.



I would love to try and play as/encounter a professional scavenger even in later game, someone with a big but really slow fleet that can't chase anything down, but lumbers near whenever a big battle took place any scares off all smaller vultures.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Megas on July 18, 2016, 05:37:39 AM
What I mean by that is currently there's no real end game challenge that relies on anything other than numerical advantage, and numerical advantage doesn't really hold up well when the player can solo defense fleets with a single frigate. The implied parity between AI ships and player ships then fall apart simply because the player becomes too good for the AI. That, to me, is the source of a huge disconnect.

Yeah, this is a very good point, but I think this will be largely addressed by the skill revamp.

For example, hypothetically speaking, let's say the revamp involved 1) increasing all base ship OP by 10%, and 2) limiting the OP gain from skills to 10%. And then optionally giving access to that 10% bonus to some AI fleets. That by itself would go a long way towards bringing some parity back - the player is always going to be better, right, but the goal is just to make sure that deploying allies is a good option.

And then if you emphasize defensive skills a bit more in the revamp, while scaling the total impact of skills back a bit, it helps with that (allied ships survive better), and it also helps rein in the amount of damage a lone player ship can do, while at the same time making high-end combat a little slower-paced and more tactical.
Aside from Missile Specialization, I focus on skills that give more speed (top speed, maneuverability, venting), range, and OP to afford everything my ships need.  Kiting with long range weapons and fast dissipation is what works best.  Add hull regeneration from Damage Control 10, and the flagship can stay as long as CR is high enough.  The Ordnance Expert skill is useful mostly for Optimized Assembly perk at 10, which frees a ton of OP for ships, effectively making it an +OP skill.  The faster shots perk is only useful for an IPDAI combo.  The damage increase from Ordnance Expert is just a minor bonus to the Optimized Assembly perk.  Target Analysis, a pure damage skill, is one of the very last skills I would touch.

Huge numerical advantage of the enemy means my AI ships will die; they get overwhelmed.  This is like back in the day when I try to kill Hegemony Defense fleets with 40 OP worth of frigates, and the only way I could pull it off was to chain-flagship the frigates.  Deploying all as a fleet got the frigates killed quickly by Onslaughts or what not.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: frag971 on July 18, 2016, 08:25:34 AM
I can't wait to be my own faction, set up my own bases and research lost tech.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Weltall on July 18, 2016, 08:31:26 AM
The AR was a joke, but the way things go, I can see VR in the future! MWAHAHAHA!. Well, something like Virtual Boy though, goggles with 3D view XD

I feel I decided to come back into the game and in extension the forums at the right time! Whoever says that "It is better to wait for the game to get to the release version" is absolutely wrong. Even without the mods, 0.6.2a, 0.6.5.2a, 0.7.1a and 0.7.2a all felt different. I enjoyed playing the vanilla game again, cause it felt I was playing something different from before :D I feel so lucky I found Starsector in the Good Clean Gaming channel on youtube, especially cause he jsut did an episode and not a let's play. Thank you Youtube suggestions. I am even more lucky that Starsector was not on steam or whatnot and I was able to buy it with VAT, since I can't buy anything anymore from sites that ignore VAT.

Now, time to let my imagination run wild about how awesome it will be to play this over again when the next patch is released :D
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 08:34:27 AM
- Are you planning to replace the current post-battle salvage screen with debris field salvage operations?

No - that seems like it'd be a bit rough in terms of UI flow (win, then you always need to use an ability), and I don't think it's necessary.

- Do you intend to allow the player to interrupt the salvage operation and get a partial haul, or do you want the player to have to complete a full operation in order to recover stuff from a debris field or derelict?
I totally approve of the intend to make the salvaging a time consuming task on the campaign map: I think it will be great to build tension while balancing the fact that being able to salvage other fleets remains make the game much easier (as we saw with the old Tradewind mod)
Also, I'm assuming the old salvage screen is totally replaced by scavenging debris field? So you have to invest some time after each battle to get the spoils?
Will salvaging salvagefields take time ingame? or is it instant?

The debris field salvaging is actually instant - using the ability as the player brings up a somewhat modified salvage dialog.

I did mess around with making it gradual, but that causes ... problems.

One thing I'm thinking about now, though, is adding a few seconds worth of wind-up time to the ability before it fires, and making it be interrupted by combat. Right now it has a slight cooldown, but it might be interesting to put at least some of that on the front end.



- Are debris fields going to stick around for a while even after the player or a computer-controlled fleet salvages the field, and is this dependent upon whether or not there is still salvage left in the field after a fleet completes a salvage operation? E.g. I complete a salvage operation and decide I don't want everything, or am unable to fit everything I collected into my cargo bays; will this stuff vanish instantly, or does the debris field stick around for a little while?

Salvaging the field makes it look less dense visually, but won't make it go away any faster. They also act like ring system terrain :)

As far as cargo: it'll vanish instantly, same as not picking up all the post-battle salvage. Thinking about possibly creating a "cargo pods" entity to handle these things, but ultimately it'd be created for another purpose and reused to handle this, if that makes sense. What I mean is "stuff vanishing" like this doesn't seem like a problem that needs solving, and if "solved" could create undesirable consequences. For example, would the player feel obligated to go back and collect every single thing that dropped? That could get pretty boring.


- Will computer-controlled fleets be competing with the player in some fashion for the salvage from debris fields (e.g. attempt to get to the most recent fields first, attempt to chase the player away from fields that both the player and the computer fleet are aware of, etc)?
- Will certain factions feel a degree of 'possessiveness' about debris fields, particularly if those fields are in "their" space or include derelicts which were once part of the faction's fleet? E.g. will Hegemony patrols attempt to chase off scavengers attempting to loot a debris field which was formerly a System Defense Fleet or something like that?

Mmmmaybe. Sort of tangential to the work going on now, but have been thinking about these kinds of things.


- Does exploration implies reworking the codex too?

Eventually, probably yes. I just keep putting it off because it's never urgent.
 
 
- I see the radar is back, is it related to a skill or hullmod??? Or a permanent UI element? Can it be improved by skills and hullmods?

"Back"?

It's a permanent UI element, but I could see something like, say, an ability increasing its range or moving its center for a bit. Not because that's the core benefit of an ability (the radar extends to the maximum sensor range), but because another effect of the ability makes it useful for the radar to change function in some way.
 
 
 
-
Quote
something that entails a choice
does that hint at overarching quests, or ones that can start on a discovery?

It does hint at them, but there's nothing concrete there quite yet.

 
 
- 200 systems, the hyper map must have grown a hell of a lot. But will there be some "shortcuts"? The game mentioned whormhole could connect to hyperspace "or other places" so will we see super whormholes that directly send you to another part of the sector? Some form of optional hyper-lanes connecting constellations together??? Or will the performances issues force you to cut the sector in a few separate instances connected by hyper-wormholes?

I don't know right now. I haven't generated a properly laid out 200 system Sector yet, and so have no idea how that feels.

I did generate (and save) a 1000 system Sector at one point :) That went... surprisingly well. I don't think it'd hold up with every system having surveyable planets and stuff to find, but a lot can be optimized. But I digress.

So, yeah: sort of in the "putting together the whole toolbox" phase right now. I.E. you can plop down a constellation anywhere you like, but the code to "plop down a bunch of constellations in roughly these places" isn't in place yet.

(Going to probably entail reworking map things, too.)


Do black holes actively pull you in?
If so is touching a black hole instant death? ( while this might seem harsh i think generally the population, especially those interested in sci fi games, know what black holes do by default, no tutorial needed on that one.)
Do black holes cause time dilation the closer you get to them?

They do once you're inside the event horizon - which is, uh, being taken some liberties with in that you can escape from it. Once you get really close, though, escaping can be quite hard.

It's not instant death, but it drains CR *very* quickly, which causes accidents and loss of ships. I'd say within a few days of circling the drain.

No time dilation in the campaign, I'm afraid :)

Do automated security forces default to hostile? or can they be neutral/allied as well?

They default to hostile, yes. (Maybe? The answer will make itself clear during the Great Contenting.)

I'll hold the rest of my questions until we get to talk about outposts since I know you want to leave a lot about exploration for us to discover ourselves.

Appreciated :)


Now that we'll be braving the space-wilds and robbing space-tombs, will we also get cool ship equipment to find (in addition to commodities and those mysterious outpost/survey related items)?

It's always bugged me that there are no "rare drop" weapons in Starsector, nothing that would be exciting to find a provide a substantial advantage, because even the rarest and most powerful weapons are only moderately more difficult to acquire and more effective than the common junk. But digging through ancient derelicts means a lot of opportunities for finding powerful lost technology.

The issue with "rare drops" is that'd pretty much all you'd want to use once you found 'em. Usually you see those kinds of mechanics in games where there's a very explicit level-up treadmill, so your "rare drop" is at best a temporary leg up. In Starsector, your "reward" for getting a rare drop would be making other weapons much less viable, and reducing the "good" loadout choices.


What about proper automated stations that fire at you. And will we ever get use of the gates? I assume they act like supergates passing between systems.

Ah, you know, :-X



My guess for the new items: Neural skill-implants, red for combat-, yellow-green for leadership- and blue for technology-aptitude. Those little tails remind me of neuron dendrites :)

Hmm. Both very wrong and very right at the same time.

The mini map seems like a huge QOL improvement, pausing to game just to get your bearings is pretty annoying. Although I hope it's not the final design, doesn't look as polished as the TRIPAD UI (and why is it so often this WW2 era radar interface?).

Working through the icons ("exactly the same as the map" doesn't quite seem to work well), but wasn't thinking of updating the widget itself. Maybe David will come up with something, though.

WW2 radar: well, it needs to be round. And then the concentric circles indicate range - in the radar, they're spaced at 2000 unit increments, same as the map grid. Once you've got those things, that's pretty much the design right there... just seems entirely driven by its function.

Concerning debris fields and scaveneging; any plans to try an weave the boarding mechanic into it? Seems like a good place for a more active boarding scenario/decisions between salvaging hulls or cargo.
E.G, imagine you actually see when a chunk of the debris field suddenly re-activates engines and tries to leave it, instead of just reading it. And then you have to get to it and board/shoot it before it reaches the edge of the field or it becomes a real fleet again.

Was thinking about something along these lines, yes - a "special" finding a repairable hull inside the debris field, something like that maybe.

(BTW, the second paragraph of "What makes exploration fun?" ends with a ",.".)

Thank you, fixed that up.


I would love to try and play as/encounter a professional scavenger even in later game, someone with a big but really slow fleet that can't chase anything down, but lumbers near whenever a big battle took place any scares off all smaller vultures.

I'd love for that sort of thing to be viable - though I think you'd probably want to graduate to more "proper" salvage. But being a really big, slow fleet there should also work!


Aside from Missile Specialization, I focus on skills that give more speed (top speed, maneuverability, venting), range, and OP to afford everything my ships need.  Kiting with long range weapons and fast dissipation is what works best.  Add hull regeneration from Damage Control 10, and the flagship can stay as long as CR is high enough.  The Ordnance Expert skill is useful mostly for Optimized Assembly perk at 10, which frees a ton of OP for ships, effectively making it an +OP skill.  The faster shots perk is only useful for an IPDAI combo.  The damage increase from Ordnance Expert is just a minor bonus to the Optimized Assembly perk.  Target Analysis, a pure damage skill, is one of the very last skills I would touch.

Huge numerical advantage of the enemy means my AI ships will die; they get overwhelmed.  This is like back in the day when I try to kill Hegemony Defense fleets with 40 OP worth of frigates, and the only way I could pull it off was to chain-flagship the frigates.  Deploying all as a fleet got the frigates killed quickly by Onslaughts or what not.

(The hull regen will definitely go away, and the speed bonuses are getting significantly toned down.)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Dri on July 18, 2016, 10:12:22 AM
Ooof, nerfing max bonus OP from 30% down to 20% is really saddening. The +30% total OP is pretty much the most fun buff there is! If +30% from Technology alone is too much please consider cutting 10% from Tech and adding it to an Industry skill in some way!
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 10:22:11 AM
I did say I was speaking hypothetically :)

However, hypothetically speaking, this would be something less than an 8% overall reduction - not all *that* much. Plus, I feel like having a few less OP on the high end will make the choices more interesting. The way it is now, too many things are "must have" in large part because there's enough OP to get all of them.

But, I'd really prefer not to get into a detailed discussion about skills here - not quite ready to talk about all of it, and discussing individual hypotheticals in isolation without talking about the bigger picture is a bit tough.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: HELMUT on July 18, 2016, 10:22:45 AM
- I see the radar is back, is it related to a skill or hullmod??? Or a permanent UI element? Can it be improved by skills and hullmods?

"Back"?

(http://i.imgur.com/4LRsjeI.png?1)



The big thing that made me happy with this blog-post was the presence of automated enemies, which i suspect to be turrets of some kind. The weakest will probably be nothing more than debris with a still functional guns strapped on it. The bigger ones however... I'll speculate on proper space stations battles between factions in the future.

Also, this will maybe add the possibility of "inactive" turrets on the battlefield that could be reactivated through strategic points. Capturing the arbitrary +10% damage dispenser isn't as fun as taking over that conveniently placed ancient doomsday device.

What is that thing you boarded in the second screenshot by the way? Some kind of colony ship? It clearly got some kind of engines tubes-things, plus it's huge compared to your little Medusa. Or just a placeholder?

I'm quite happy as well for the salvage change. Blasting stuff apart could finally become lucrative outside of bounty hunting, which would be handy for pirates and other Luddite terrorists.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 10:31:46 AM
Ah - but that was in combat. (Man, that screenshot looks rough. Neat to see, though.)

What is that thing you boarded in the second screenshot by the way? Some kind of colony ship? It clearly got some kind of engines tubes-things, plus it's huge compared to your little Medusa. Or just a placeholder?

I'm not quite sure what you mean. The thing under the dialog, that you can barely see? That's the Domain survey ship that's being interacted with.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Cycerin on July 18, 2016, 10:35:07 AM
Excellent stuff Alex. One of my favorite parts of the Escape Velocity games was the feeling of exploring off into unknown systems, with a limited fuel supply, wondering if you would find something interesting. And there wasn't really that much to find in those games. This will be much better. Especially for difficulty curve.

Are you procedurally generating markets as well?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 10:43:01 AM
One of my favorite parts of the Escape Velocity games was the feeling of exploring off into unknown systems, with a limited fuel supply, wondering if you would find something interesting.

That was so my favorite part of Star Control 2.

Are you procedurally generating markets as well?

Not at the moment. I could see something doing something limited along those lines - such, as, say, a faction establishing an outpost because it needs X resource, or an isolated hidden colony type thing. I do want to keep the core worlds pre-made, though.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 18, 2016, 10:48:20 AM

Working through the icons ("exactly the same as the map" doesn't quite seem to work well), but wasn't thinking of updating the widget itself. Maybe David will come up with something, though.

WW2 radar: well, it needs to be round. And then the concentric circles indicate range - in the radar, they're spaced at 2000 unit increments, same as the map grid. Once you've got those things, that's pretty much the design right there... just seems entirely driven by its function.

It's just, the campaign UI we have is in-universe, with the little metal bits holding it in place, and the buttons, and the information parts being "projected" and the TRIPAD writing and all. The radar on the other hand just floats there. Some little metal parts framing the text and projecting the radar could really help to sell it.





What is that thing you boarded in the second screenshot by the way? Some kind of colony ship? It clearly got some kind of engines tubes-things, plus it's huge compared to your little Medusa. Or just a placeholder?

It's a "derelict survey ship left from the initial Domain exploration of the Sector", according to the description:)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 10:58:38 AM
It's just, the campaign UI we have is in-universe, with the little metal bits holding it in place, and the buttons, and the information parts being "projected" and the TRIPAD writing and all. The radar on the other hand just floats there. Some little metal parts framing the text and projecting the radar could really help to sell it.

Ah, gotcha, that makes sense. I was thinking that it's in the same style as the ability widget and that'd be enough, but yeah, some bits and bobs in the tripad style probably wouldn't hurt to add. Made a note!
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Megas on July 18, 2016, 11:09:57 AM
Quote
However, hypothetically speaking, this would be something less than an 8% overall reduction - not all *that* much. Plus, I feel like having a few less OP on the high end will make the choices more interesting. The way it is now, too many things are "must have" in large part because there's enough OP to get all of them.
Not sure about this.  I would certainly dump the luxuries (e.g., more capacitors, bigger missiles, extra weapons), but the critical stuff like Augmented Engines, ITU, and (maybe) Hardened Subsystems will stay.  Also, may gravitate toward cheap but effective weapons (e.g., Tactical Laser over Graviton Beam, Heavy Mauler or Hellbore over HAG, Heavy AC instead of Heavy Needler, etc.) and dump the missiles (especially if Missile Specialization gets whacked hard).  It would also make the Flux Dynamics perks a joke (I almost never take advantage of double max vents because there is not enough OP to take advantage without giving up more important stuff).  If anything, I think less OP would reduce interesting choices, not expand them, unless the must-haves are weakened enough, integrated into ships (e.g., shot range builtin for all ships like in some mods), or changed into skill bonuses.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 11:39:14 AM
Yeah, that's kind of why talking about individual changes in isolation doesn't make a lot of sense. There are so many "unless" cases.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 18, 2016, 11:43:02 AM
If anything, I think less OP would reduce interesting choices, not expand them, unless the must-haves are weakened enough, integrated into ships (e.g., shot range builtin for all ships like in some mods), or changed into skill bonuses.

I think interesting choices while refitting a ship should depend more on the intended role of the ship. At the moment you can just build a fleet of general purpose ships that is sufficient to tackle any and all (vanilla) obstacles. That is due to two things, firstly the superior stats of your ships, and secondly the lack of variety in combat scenarios. We have one scenario where special fast ships are required, that is pursuit. For everything else any kind of combat ship will do, be it missile, long-range laser or strike. You just have to make it as generally powerful as you can. Cutting player OP will mitigate the issue, but I think that's only half the rent.


If some more scenarios were introduced were one kind of ship had a huge advantage, that would be motivation to make some new and interesting choices while refitting your ships. Maybe the derelicts would be a good start for that. You know, drones that have great weapons but no PD, or super heavy armor but no shields, stuff like that.
A next step would be more tactically specialized UI fleets, where you can get a real advantage by counter-specializing.


I know that you are not a fan of hard-counters, Alex, and that's not what I'm suggesting. You can still beat those opponents with a general purpose fleet, but it would take much more ships on your side. At least some dashes of the stone-paper-scissors principle would help to mix things up in a good way, I believe.
 


Ah, gotcha, that makes sense. I was thinking that it's in the same style as the ability widget and that'd be enough, but yeah, some bits and bobs in the tripad style probably wouldn't hurt to add. Made a note!

 :)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: mendonca on July 18, 2016, 12:55:53 PM
Love it.

I also found the automated domain-era drones section of the blog rather exciting.

Also the inferral of perhaps more powerful drones that you may come across in, say, more Special Circumstances.

Spoiler
I've just re-read almost all the Culture Series books, I can't stop myself thinking like this anymore.

*mendonca glands Calm*
[close]

Several like this in the blog post - nice, simple additions that hit bang-on with the current flavour of the world and the game and should only add to the experience.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Megas on July 18, 2016, 01:16:33 PM
Quote
I think interesting choices while refitting a ship should depend more on the intended role of the ship. At the moment you can just build a fleet of general purpose ships that is sufficient to tackle any and all (vanilla) obstacles. That is due to two things, firstly the superior stats of your ships, and secondly the lack of variety in combat scenarios. We have one scenario where special fast ships are required, that is pursuit. For everything else any kind of combat ship will do, be it missile, long-range laser or strike. You just have to make it as generally powerful as you can. Cutting player OP will mitigate the issue, but I think that's only half the rent.
Currently, there are only three necessary roles in a fleet:  brute force, cargo hauling, and tugs to raise burn speed of capitals to 9 (or 8 in case of Atlas).  Of the three, only one is relevant in a fight.

Cutting OP only helps if you cut so much that your combat ships cannot afford all of the necessities.  If you cut some OP but leave just enough to get all of the bare necessities, then ships will just get all of the bare necessities and nothing else fun.  Unskilled ships have so few OP it hurts.  Even with +30% OP and Op. Assembly perk, some ships still do not have enough OP to get everything, especially if Flux Dynamics perks were unlocked.

When some ships can do more than its peers, I simply pass on the underperforming ships.  I always pick Enforcer over Hammerhead, because everything Hammerhead can do, Enforcer does better (except mix ion cannons with ballistics, which is not enough), and I always pick two Medusa or one Eagle over one Aurora.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on July 18, 2016, 01:49:40 PM
Until the AI learns to focus fire on a ship until it is dead (especially with skills becoming more defensive, thus increasing the TTK) and the AI doesn't get to basically IGNORE CR, supply consumption and damage/ losses, OP and skill changes will only HURT ship build diversity. Hell I'm already limited since the AI will almost always close to knife fight range so why would I give them long range guns?
Hopefully skills will be merge-able next time so I can make my own and add back in the OP that gets lost...
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 18, 2016, 01:53:06 PM
Cutting OP only helps if you cut so much that your combat ships cannot afford all of the necessities.  If you cut some OP but leave just enough to get all of the bare necessities, then ships will just get all of the bare necessities and nothing else fun.  

What I'm saying is that the "necessities" you speak of are necessary only for the brute force approach. Making other approaches far superior in certain situations would turn other skills into the must-haves for those situations.

Of course toning down the best mods a bit can help, but there will always be a set of optimal mods for a general purpose (i.e. brute force) build. So we need reasons for other builds.


Hell I'm already limited since the AI will almost always close to knife fight range so why would I give them long range guns?

I think you got it the wrong way, the engagement range the AI chooses is dependent on it's weapon loadout.  If you only give it long range weapons it will keep its distance (sufficient mobility provided).
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Megas on July 18, 2016, 02:08:53 PM
Quote
Until the AI learns to focus fire on a ship until it is dead (especially with skills becoming more defensive, thus increasing the TTK) and the AI doesn't get to basically IGNORE CR, supply consumption and damage/ losses, OP and skill changes will only HURT ship build diversity.
When I used to fight with fleets, I would spend excess CP by selecting every ship in my fleet, and click an enemy I want dead now.  There is no kill like overkill.  I am not fond of my ships automatically splitting up to engage enemies in multiple duels.  If I cannot gang-up on the enemy with superior numbers, it becomes time to leave the fleet undeployed and solo or chain-flagship the enemy.

@ Gothars:  More viable roles would need to be added first.  Brute force is the only role ship configuration supports.  For other roles, just slap Augmented Engines and maybe Blast Doors hullmods, then put some Vulcans for anti-missile, and they are good-to-go - and they will probably still die if caught by a combat ship.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Midnight Kitsune on July 18, 2016, 02:16:56 PM
Hell I'm already limited since the AI will almost always close to knife fight range so why would I give them long range guns?

I think you got it the wrong way, the engagement range the AI chooses is dependent on it's weapon loadout.  If you only give it long range weapons it will keep its distance (sufficient mobility provided).
That's the thing that I'm talking about with the loss of builds! You can't build a ship the way YOU want it, you have to build a ship in a way the AI can use it, meaning that most of the experimental builds can only happen on your ship even though they really only work/ are fun to use on AI ships
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 02:21:40 PM
It's a question of what opponents you're facing, which is I believe what Gothars is getting at.

If you're facing shieldless enemies, for example, then an "EMP support" role is a thing. If there's a lot of fighters, or an enemy is very missile-heavy, then dedicated PD may be worth it. There are a few other configurations that could be specialized into, provided the right kind of enemy existed. Right now, enemies don't specialize very much, and so balanced, can-handle-anything player ship designs are more optimal.

I know that you are not a fan of hard-counters, Alex, and that's not what I'm suggesting. You can still beat those opponents with a general purpose fleet, but it would take much more ships on your side. At least some dashes of the stone-paper-scissors principle would help to mix things up in a good way, I believe.

The thing I don't want to do is force the player to redesign their ships often due to this kind of thing. If you go to war with, say, the Luddic Church and their fleets are light on shields - that's one thing. If you're encouraged to redesign from encounter to encounter, that's something else.

But, yes, been thinking along similar lines myself, but more in terms of differentiating factions. Will have to see how it plays out.


(Boy, this is getting awfully off-topic.)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: FooF on July 18, 2016, 03:00:57 PM
You mentioned the core worlds will be "set" but as we explore further and further out, are there (for lack of better term) "levels" or "depth" of just how far out from inhabited space you are? For example, you have the core worlds, the vicinity just beyond them (that the player needs to explore for their own information), the region beyond that where the current factions may still be exploring/exploiting, and then perhaps a swath of systems that haven't been touched since the Domain-era and no one really knows about.

A part of me wants both the comfort of knowing that I haven't "gone off the map" yet (i.e. still colonies/outposts to trade with and whatnot) but if I really want to, I can be the "first" to explore a system, perhaps even planting a Hegemony flag on it if I were so incentivized. If the procedural generation doesn't have an internal logic to it, it breaks the immersion. I wouldn't want to go from a system that seems unexplored, travel seemingly further from civilization and find a  system teeming with every faction. 

If that makes sense.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Dri on July 18, 2016, 03:28:54 PM
Just imagine it: you're exploring one of the most distant, hard to reach systems in game and your exploration/salvage fleet flies up to a planet and suddenly something blips into sensor range! A capital sized ship, long dormant! With your max salvage skills you manage to successfully board and reactive its essential systems! It's revealed the ship was a part of some hyperspace jumping experiment gone wrong!

BAM! After dumping hundreds of supplies to repair it you are now the proud owner of an ancient, powerful and unique capital ship from a long lost era! Man, that'd be totally awsome for something like that to be one of the high-end rewards for exploration/salvage!

:D
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Serenitis on July 18, 2016, 03:44:19 PM
Oh my....
So much yes.
Exploration is probably one of my favourite things in games, so this is looking to be rather fun.

Are salvaged/found items going to be random commodities, or is there going to be equipment in there as well?
Is it going to be possible to "find" usable/repairable hulls?
Is there going to be "unique" things to find that can't be obtained any other way?

A little sad to hear the hull regen perk is going away, as that is one of the best tools for keeping AI friends alive.
But overall, just imagine me turning purple then jumping round in a circle saying "yes" repeatedly. I might even knock some things over, but I won't even notice because yes.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 09:33:30 PM
You mentioned the core worlds will be "set" but as we explore further and further out, are there (for lack of better term) "levels" or "depth" of just how far out from inhabited space you are? For example, you have the core worlds, the vicinity just beyond them (that the player needs to explore for their own information), the region beyond that where the current factions may still be exploring/exploiting, and then perhaps a swath of systems that haven't been touched since the Domain-era and no one really knows about.

A part of me wants both the comfort of knowing that I haven't "gone off the map" yet (i.e. still colonies/outposts to trade with and whatnot) but if I really want to, I can be the "first" to explore a system, perhaps even planting a Hegemony flag on it if I were so incentivized. If the procedural generation doesn't have an internal logic to it, it breaks the immersion. I wouldn't want to go from a system that seems unexplored, travel seemingly further from civilization and find a  system teeming with every faction. 

If that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. Procedural generation naturally will try to follow some kind of internal logic for what goes where; I'm sure it'll produce something funky now and again, but it'll aim for things that "make sense" in general. (And it won't produce "teeming" systems in the first place!)



Just imagine it: you're exploring one of the most distant, hard to reach systems in game and your exploration/salvage fleet flies up to a planet and suddenly something blips into sensor range! A capital sized ship, long dormant! With your max salvage skills you manage to successfully board and reactive its essential systems! It's revealed the ship was a part of some hyperspace jumping experiment gone wrong!

BAM! After dumping hundreds of supplies to repair it you are now the proud owner of an ancient, powerful and unique capital ship from a long lost era! Man, that'd be totally awsome for something like that to be one of the high-end rewards for exploration/salvage!

:D

Yeah, I like the sound of that :)



Are salvaged/found items going to be random commodities, or is there going to be equipment in there as well?

There'll be weapons, at least. Possibly some other things. Pure commodities aren't super exciting right now, but for example heavy machinery will have more meaning now that it's used for surveying and salvage. Hopefully a few others will follow suit.

Is it going to be possible to "find" usable/repairable hulls?

Maybe :)

Is there going to be "unique" things to find that can't be obtained any other way?

Also maybe? One thing about that is if it's something that's vital to have, then it's probably not a good idea to rely on the RNG serving it up, so I'd expect there would be some reliable (but more expensive?) ways of obtaining those kinds of things. But something unique and non-vital (i.e. a custom ship?), that could very well happen.

But overall, just imagine me turning purple then jumping round in a circle saying "yes" repeatedly. I might even knock some things over, but I won't even notice because yes.

:D
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 18, 2016, 10:04:50 PM
Also the inferral of perhaps more powerful drones that you may come across in, say, more Special Circumstances.

I've just re-read almost all the Culture Series books, I can't stop myself thinking like this anymore.

Ahhh yes. Those are some good books; I should re-read them. (Have you read "Against a Dark Background"? Also Banks, and also really good; read it due to David recommending it a while back.)

Several like this in the blog post - nice, simple additions that hit bang-on with the current flavour of the world and the game and should only add to the experience.

Not quite sure what you mean here - maybe there's a word missing or something? I mean, I get the general drift, but even so.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 19, 2016, 03:03:16 AM

The thing I don't want to do is force the player to redesign their ships often due to this kind of thing. If you go to war with, say, the Luddic Church and their fleets are light on shields - that's one thing. If you're encouraged to redesign from encounter to encounter, that's something else.

Makes sense. So, you're saying the factions will be further differentiated in their loadouts and fleet compositions?

An approach I could imagine is that for battles where you need a fleet (e.g. faction wars) loadouts have to rarely change, but battles where you only need a ship (if you do it right) can require more variation, since you can just select the most apropriate ship. For example, while big pirate fleets remain relatively well-rounded, small pirate fleets could be very specialzed in different ways (missile, fighter, . Then you can of course take out those small fleet with your whole fleet, but you can also be more cost-efficient and choose just the one of your specialist ships thats strong against their special. That would give those specialzed ships a reason to exist, without requiering frequent re-design. 

For me at least the cases were I defeated an enemy very efficiently because I had just the right tools were a lot of fun.

 
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Troll on July 19, 2016, 06:47:12 AM
One huge leap after another. Two updates with large content addition and mechanics, nice.
I really like where it goes.

Just imagine it: you're exploring one of the most distant, hard to reach systems in game and your exploration/salvage fleet flies up to a planet and suddenly something blips into sensor range! A capital sized ship, long dormant! With your max salvage skills you manage to successfully board and reactive its essential systems! It's revealed the ship was a part of some hyperspace jumping experiment gone wrong!

BAM! After dumping hundreds of supplies to repair it you are now the proud owner of an ancient, powerful and unique capital ship from a long lost era! Man, that'd be totally awsome for something like that to be one of the high-end rewards for exploration/salvage!

:D

Any X player thinking of the Aran here (X3 TC more precisely)?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Cycerin on July 19, 2016, 07:24:43 AM
Haha, unique hulls and weapons would be fun. For some reason my brain automatically goes to Diablo-style prefixed modifier hulls and weapons. Ancient Ceremonial Onslaught. Retrofit Reverse-Engineered Hypervelocity Driver of Smiting.

Not what the game needs, but yeah, the dangling carrot of finding something unique (even if it isn't strictly better) would be good.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 19, 2016, 07:54:41 AM
Makes sense. So, you're saying the factions will be further differentiated in their loadouts and fleet compositions?

Not exactly "will", but it's one of many many things that had been discussed internally at one point and viewed in a positive light :)

That'd be good, right? If we're talking about something that's a "fun multiplier" for combat, that mixes it up and gets more mileage out of it - without even fundamentally changing it - that sounds like a lot of bang for the buck.

An approach I could imagine is that for battles where you need a fleet (e.g. faction wars) loadouts have to rarely change, but battles where you only need a ship (if you do it right) can require more variation, since you can just select the most apropriate ship. For example, while big pirate fleets remain relatively well-rounded, small pirate fleets could be very specialzed in different ways (missile, fighter, . Then you can of course take out those small fleet with your whole fleet, but you can also be more cost-efficient and choose just the one of your specialist ships thats strong against their special. That would give those specialzed ships a reason to exist, without requiering frequent re-design. 

For me at least the cases were I defeated an enemy very efficiently because I had just the right tools were a lot of fun.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?

Right now, the low-end pirate ships are designed so that each variant is different to play against, with different strengths and weaknesses, but stuff that's meant to be (mostly) overcome tactically. I think that turned out pretty well, especially if one looks at pirates as sort of an introduction to tougher fights. Changing small pirate fleets to be specialized would largely throw this out.


Ancient Ceremonial Onslaught.

... is it wrong that I want one?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Megas on July 19, 2016, 08:01:32 AM
Rather than find ancient ships and weapons of domination, I prefer to find blueprints or autofactories that let me build modern ships and weapons of domination.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 19, 2016, 08:07:47 AM
Rather than find ancient ships and weapons of domination, I prefer to find blueprints or autofactories that let me build modern ships and weapons of domination.

Well yes, that's the Responsible thing to do design-wise.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Serenitis on July 19, 2016, 08:45:49 AM
It would be quite a lot of fun if sometimes in hidden places you could find little add-on things you could bolt on to a ship to enhance it.
Find a "mysterious device" and it prompts you to pick a ship to attach it to, and when you do it gives that ship a buff to doing a certain thing.
Have the boost given determined when the loot is spawned so savescumming does nothing.
(I can think of so many boosts this could give....)

Ahhh yes. Those are some good books; I should re-read them. (Have you read "Against a Dark Background"? Also Banks, and also really good; read it due to David recommending it a while back.)
It would be p. cool (and amusing) if you could work in a band of solopsist mercenaries somewhere.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: mendonca on July 19, 2016, 12:50:59 PM
Several like this in the blog post - nice, simple additions that hit bang-on with the current flavour of the world and the game and should only add to the experience.

Not quite sure what you mean here - maybe there's a word missing or something? I mean, I get the general drift, but even so.

Huh, yeah it does read a bit like a chat-bot or something, I guess.

Maybe I have always been a chat-bot?

It was just that the new features; of themselves; don't appear particularly complicated additions (at face value, at least). They don't really add much content or change the game too much when taken individually and treated simply.

Like the debris field; big deal it's just a different way to get to the salvage screen.
Automated drones; big deal it's just another poxy new entry-level enemy.
Procedural systems; whatever we got mods to do that.
&c.

But in each point - there is something in addition to just being simple new toys ... in that they are implemented sufficiently cleverly and carefully that you can almost feel the self-reinforcing, reverberant nature of all the new things bouncing off each other AND the current iteration of the game as we know it.

There's kind of a feeling about it ... It just makes me feel like it's all going to 'work'.

(Have you read "Against a Dark Background"? Also Banks, and also really good; read it due to David recommending it a while back.)

You know what, I haven't. I read  'The Algebraist' (awesome) pretty much immediately after David's literary blog-post; but then that just got me sucked in to finishing off all the Culture stuff after remembering how much I enjoyed Banks. It'll go next on the list though, cos why not?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Cycerin on July 19, 2016, 01:29:31 PM
Right now, the low-end pirate ships are designed so that each variant is different to play against, with different strengths and weaknesses, but stuff that's meant to be (mostly) overcome tactically. I think that turned out pretty well, especially if one looks at pirates as sort of an introduction to tougher fights. Changing small pirate fleets to be specialized would largely throw this out.

You need to gain situational awareness to fight them successfully, can't let the Wolf-D's sneak up on you. Their variants are perfectly designed to screw over inexperienced players, but since they are so cheesy, they don't do much else. Which is good imo. Each ship is pretty wonk on its own but dangerous if you let them work together against you. The only thing pirate fleets need is unique Buffalo IIs with their own annoying all-in loadouts.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 19, 2016, 01:59:54 PM
Maybe I have always been a chat-bot?

*shudder*

It was just that the new features; of themselves; don't appear particularly complicated additions (at face value, at least). They don't really add much content or change the game too much when taken individually and treated simply.

Like the debris field; big deal it's just a different way to get to the salvage screen.
Automated drones; big deal it's just another poxy new entry-level enemy.
Procedural systems; whatever we got mods to do that.
&c.

But in each point - there is something in addition to just being simple new toys ... in that they are implemented sufficiently cleverly and carefully that you can almost feel the self-reinforcing, reverberant nature of all the new things bouncing off each other AND the current iteration of the game as we know it.

There's kind of a feeling about it ... It just makes me feel like it's all going to 'work'.

Ah, thank you for elaborating. That's very cool - the idea of making individual mechanics super simple, but making them interact with other stuff feels like it's really been clicking lately. It's just really neat to hear that this comes across.

You know what, I haven't. I read  'The Algebraist' (awesome) pretty much immediately after David's literary blog-post; but then that just got me sucked in to finishing off all the Culture stuff after remembering how much I enjoyed Banks. It'll go next on the list though, cos why not?

Hope you enjoy it!


The only thing pirate fleets need is unique Buffalo IIs with their own annoying all-in loadouts.

Genetic re-sequencing to go along with the conservation efforts? Hmm.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Weltall on July 19, 2016, 02:27:30 PM
I wonder if there could be a way to actually "acquire" auto defense bots/ships but for example have a skill that would a or more points only for that, making it both useless and useful, depending the play style. Not so much as using it in battle, which would not be that bad, but I guess it could be complicated, but as an event. As in you try to survey a planet and an event talks about bots. Either you shoot them, making their force smaller to fight or try to hack them, in hopes to get them on your side, but failing makes this much worse.

As for getting ancient ships and weapons, I think the best would be to make it as hard as possible. Meaning to have to both have to find a old almost non functional one and to be able to repair it, it would need to look for it's blueprint. I would say both should be totally random, but if the universe is too large, it might make it more frustrating than fun. Maybe something like a mission started by an event for getting the Ancient Ceremonial Onslaught and pointing you towards where the blueprint could be >.>

(Sorry I really liked the idea of something that could be really powerful and hard to get XD)

Also maybe debris would attract salvagers (Independent) and Pirates. At least the ones that are large and can spell "profitssss". Obviously I do not mean non stop, but more like random and rarely, just to give a feeling that in this galaxy you are not the only one that would salvage from them when they appear.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Tartiflette on July 19, 2016, 11:08:32 PM
In other tweeter news, this. (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/755585123186159617)

But look closely:

(http://i.imgur.com/U9a0k4k.jpg)

I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...

I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 20, 2016, 03:04:12 AM
Whaaat, you just about doubled combat performance, Alex? Ok then...


I wonder if this has any implications for game mechanics, like a higher standard amount of deployment points or even new combat scenarios...


The new hulls all look like drones to me, don't really wan' to see them yet, actually.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: borgrel on July 20, 2016, 03:06:14 AM
Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?

How about giving each ship a bunch (less than 30% of total?) of 'rotatable hardpoints' where u can place up to 3 weapons in the same hardpoint (config 1, config 2 and config 3) (you have to purchase all the weapons and they are all on the ship even if only 30% of then are usable in each battle, so there is greater risk involved if its lost) and when u deploy the ship you chose which config it uses (config 1: point defence, config 2: missile boat, config 3: EMP for eg. - however the player has labelled them)

this allows for ship flexibility and limitted countering without needing to have a fleet 3x bigger?
maybe even allow players to choose the AI script attached to each config when they label it?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Weltall on July 20, 2016, 03:10:12 AM
In other tweeter news, this. (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/755585123186159617)

But look closely:

Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/U9a0k4k.jpg)
[close]

I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...

I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.

Thanks Tartiflette =) Dat Not-a-centurion!

It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.

I do wonder how they will act when on our side. Like, will they accept orders? Maybe they should be just fully automated, but have a hullmod that will waste their points, so we can control them. Also, since they will not have a pilot, maybe hullmods to insert different kind of personalities in them, or default personality, for people that do not want to waste points.

It makes me want to dive in again. Can't resist!
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 20, 2016, 03:22:44 AM
Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?

Ah, but the whole point of the exercise is to motivate the player to have a diverse fleet, which should not "sacrifice total fleet strength". Ideally, the differently specialized ships complement each other (and the generalists) in a fleet context, having no negative or even a small positive (when they can each single out the opponent they were designed for) impact on overall fleet performance. While, and this is the central point, having a great impact on combat diversity and thus making the battles more fun to play and watch.




It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.

I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Weltall on July 20, 2016, 04:29:09 AM
I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.

I always hold a small basket, when I see many cherries.. not sure that makes sense in English. Well even if it will be impossible to get them, I will be fine. Spacefarers are dreamers! ...well at least I am.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Megas on July 20, 2016, 05:47:38 AM
I do not want "motivation" to have a diverse fleet.  Currently, I am motivated to have a small fighting fleet plus lots of vacancies for boarding.  When I chain-battle, I need to have thousands of cargo space to loot stuff (I need three Atlases and three tugs) and several empty slots for ships I capture (boarding is fun).

I miss being able to bring a fleet of forty ships and smashing endgame fleets in a big free-for-all.  With only eleven fighting ships at most (and some specialized for pursuit), there is no way I can fight epic fleet vs. fleet battles efficiently.  That leaves god-of-war (solo/chain-flagship) vs. 40+ ship enemy fleet.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 20, 2016, 08:22:37 AM
(Sorry I really liked the idea of something that could be really powerful and hard to get XD)

Yeah, I've been a fan of that ever since artifacts in the original TES:Arena.

Also maybe debris would attract salvagers (Independent) and Pirates. At least the ones that are large and can spell "profitssss". Obviously I do not mean non stop, but more like random and rarely, just to give a feeling that in this galaxy you are not the only one that would salvage from them when they appear.

Been thinking about that too; nothing concrete to say though.


In other tweeter news, this. (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/755585123186159617)

But look closely:
Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/U9a0k4k.jpg)

I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...

I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.
[close]

Whoa, I've really got to keep on my toes.


Whaaat, you just about doubled combat performance, Alex? Ok then...

I prefer to think of it as releasing previously untapped performance reserves.

Sort of like having "sleep(100 - versionNumber)" built into the code somewhere. Performance increase on every release!


I wonder if this has any implications for game mechanics, like a higher standard amount of deployment points or even new combat scenarios...

I don't think so. This is more about making the high end of the battle size workable on more computers, and being able to do some fancier things in smaller battles. That many ships deployed actually isn't very fun - it's too crowded for the kind of maneuvering that the game is really about.


How about giving each ship a bunch (less than 30% of total?) of 'rotatable hardpoints' where u can place up to 3 weapons in the same hardpoint (config 1, config 2 and config 3) (you have to purchase all the weapons and they are all on the ship even if only 30% of then are usable in each battle, so there is greater risk involved if its lost) and when u deploy the ship you chose which config it uses (config 1: point defence, config 2: missile boat, config 3: EMP for eg. - however the player has labelled them)

this allows for ship flexibility and limitted countering without needing to have a fleet 3x bigger?
maybe even allow players to choose the AI script attached to each config when they label it?

I think this kind of thing might work in a game that was really focused on refitting to counter a specific threat - hard counters etc - but Starsector very much isn't that. It just seems too complicated for something of marginal benefit, you know?


Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?

Ah, but the whole point of the exercise is to motivate the player to have a diverse fleet, which should not "sacrifice total fleet strength". Ideally, the differently specialized ships complement each other (and the generalists) in a fleet context, having no negative or even a small positive (when they can each single out the opponent they were designed for) impact on overall fleet performance. While, and this is the central point, having a great impact on combat diversity and thus making the battles more fun to play and watch.

Hmm. Counterpoint! If the specialized variants work in a general fleet context, then it's not necessary to provide specialized opponents for them to be useful.

Come to think of it, I had a lot of fun one playthrough with a 2nd ship being a Vigilance with a cautious officer, unstable injectors, an Ion Beam, and a Salamander Pod. That's a totally specialized support ship and it was super effective early game - best case scenario it disables things all the time, worst case it's a distraction. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talk about using Kites in a similar fashion. Specialized PD ships seem like they could be quite useful as well, as long as there's a priority target that needs guarding. It's probably just not *necessary*, in part due to max skills being good enough to just wipe the floor with anything on your own.


It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.

I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.

Yeah, this is just "run simulator with max battle size, and deploy the most possible frigates on both sides".


I miss being able to bring a fleet of forty ships and smashing endgame fleets in a big free-for-all.  With only eleven fighting ships at most (and some specialized for pursuit), there is no way I can fight epic fleet vs. fleet battles efficiently.  That leaves god-of-war (solo/chain-flagship) vs. 40+ ship enemy fleet.

Just want to say that bringing back bigger battles on the high end is something I'd really like to see, myself. Skills are part of it, but other stuff I'm not quite ready to talk about factors in as well.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Cyan Leader on July 20, 2016, 12:51:22 PM
I welcome this performance increase. One of the reasons I tend to drop the game in the late game is because battles start dipping a lot in FPS, especially when using mods that have a lot of ships with dozens of missile ports, so many thanks for that Alex.

I'd still love to see other ways this could be taken advantage of, like 3 way battles and such. But alas, I trust in your design decisions for exploration surprises, I'll be more than happy with that.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Bastion.Systems on July 21, 2016, 02:53:22 AM
I really appreciated the feature in Total War games that big battles leave behind a map marker with some details about the battle, makes the game feel more alive and let's you remember your earlier exploits.

Also a question on the subject of performance, could the time acceleration on the map made faster, even if it makes it more jerky and/or crashy, my desktop has a watercooled i5 with a rather nice overclock but the time acceleration has the same factor on my *** laptop, I am pretty sure it could be somehow made to go faster.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 21, 2016, 01:06:36 PM
Quote from: Alex' Blogpost
What makes exploration fun?
On a basic level, exploration is about finding stuff and being rewarded for it in some way. Mechanically, this tells us two things: 1) we need lots of variety, so that the player isn’t finding exactly the same things over and over again, (i.e. a large part of this is content, even if it’s combined procedurally to get more mileage) and 2) there have to be rewards.
Then you’ve got the second-to-second gameplay of exploring new star systems. A lot of that is going to involve flying around; there’s no avoiding that.

I think one point that could be added here is "anticipation". From what I understand exploration is mostly about flying around and occasionally stumbling about something interesting (the post is a bit vague here). If true, I think that misses the opportunity of having a treasure hunt, where part of the fun comes from the rewards, some might come from the travel through terrain - but a big part comes from finding and following hints and knowing that you're getting closer to something!

Imagine searching through an abandoned station, and finding pre-collapse logs with the last known position and course of an overdue freighter, extrapolating the course data to an asteroid field, and then scavenging that field to discover the wreck and its cargo. Or hearing a rumor about this crazy pirate who again and again ventures into the unknown to come back with a broken ship. So you secretly follow him out of sensor range to find him fighting the drones of a ancient colony ship. Will you ally with him or take all for your self?
Doesn't that sound more fun then just arbitrarily criss-crossing a star system and randomly stumbling over treasure?




Hmm. Counterpoint! If the specialized variants work in a general fleet context, then it's not necessary to provide specialized opponents for them to be useful.

Come to think of it, I had a lot of fun one playthrough with a 2nd ship being a Vigilance with a cautious officer, unstable injectors, an Ion Beam, and a Salamander Pod. That's a totally specialized support ship and it was super effective early game - best case scenario it disables things all the time, worst case it's a distraction. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talk about using Kites in a similar fashion. Specialized PD ships seem like they could be quite useful as well, as long as there's a priority target that needs guarding. It's probably just not *necessary*, in part due to max skills being good enough to just wipe the floor with anything on your own.

Well, I think specialist ships take more consideration and looking after in combat. E.G. you have to make sure that a missile ship doesn't waste its ammunition against a PD-heavy target, and that a fast light kiter doesn't tangle with a beam ship. So, if the game provides no good reason to have specialists, it's easier to just go with all-round ships only.

But yeah, maybe the situation will already be much improved just by cutting down the raw late-game power of your fleet. In early game specialist ships seem far more useful.

Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 21, 2016, 01:36:11 PM
Also a question on the subject of performance, could the time acceleration on the map made faster, even if it makes it more jerky and/or crashy, my desktop has a watercooled i5 with a rather nice overclock but the time acceleration has the same factor on my *** laptop, I am pretty sure it could be somehow made to go faster.

Hmm. I don't like the idea of the game working differently depending on the performance of the computer, once certain baseline requirements are met. The only thing I could *maybe* see doing here is adding a settings.json value for the time multiplier; going to give that a bit of thought.



I think one point that could be added here is "anticipation". From what I understand exploration is mostly about flying around and occasionally stumbling about something interesting (the post is a bit vague here). If true, I think that misses the opportunity of having a treasure hunt, where part of the fun comes from the rewards, some might come from the travel through terrain - but a big part comes from finding and following hints and knowing that you're getting closer to something!

Imagine searching through an abandoned station, and finding pre-collapse logs with the last known position and course of an overdue freighter, extrapolating the course data to an asteroid field, and then scavenging that field to discover the wreck and its cargo. Or hearing a rumor about this crazy pirate who again and again ventures into the unknown to come back with a broken ship. So you secretly follow him out of sensor range to find him fighting the drones of a ancient colony ship. Will you ally with him or take all for your self?
Doesn't that sound more fun then just arbitrarily criss-crossing a star system and randomly stumbling over treasure?

Yeah, this is... part of the stuff I didn't want to talk about due to potential ruining etc. Also due to it not being all done, but, yes, "breadcurmbs" for things are something I'm looking at very closely. Spoiler for an example that's in right now:

Spoiler
You might find a probe with partially readable memory banks, indicating that, say, there are ultrarich ore deposts on a toxic world orbiting a red star nearby. The general idea is that more common things you find might point you towards more rare things, but, again, not implemented so will have to see to what extent this will actually work out. It's not exactly easy to nail down, either content or design-wise.
[close]
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Gothars on July 21, 2016, 01:42:42 PM
OK, awesome ;D 


...I will not open that spoiler. I will not. No.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Linnis on July 21, 2016, 11:22:52 PM
Yeah, this is... part of the stuff I didn't want to talk about due to potential ruining etc. Also due to it not being all done, but, yes, "breadcurmbs" for things are something I'm looking at very closely. Spoiler for an example that's in right now:

Breadcrumbs should not lread to something trivial or normal bonuses. But rather shouldent they be handcrafted to lead to epic things, even if just lore wise. Like thoes rainbow worlds that lead in starcontrol
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Deshara on July 22, 2016, 01:49:15 AM
Come to think of it, I had a lot of fun one playthrough with a 2nd ship being a Vigilance with a cautious officer, unstable injectors, an Ion Beam, and a Salamander Pod. That's a totally specialized support ship and it was super effective early game - best case scenario it disables things all the time, worst case it's a distraction. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talk about using Kites in a similar fashion.

IT WAS ME!
So is the introduction of automated derelics as low-tier exploration-based foes going to be focused on drones? Cause I'm not a fan of that thought, the already has the framework in place to justify crewless combat ops, and the mechanics to make it a scaling threat (is derelicts having more perminent critical malfunctions the more in disarray they are)
I mean, ships don't need crew to fire their guns and a onslaught with one guy (pilot?) can auto fire all its turrets the same as a fully staffed ship, it's just that damage it takes won't be repaired and systems that are broken stay broken, which totally plays into the low-end aspect of the mechanic. It would be super simple to make investing aptitude points in the industry tree skill itself (and not the salvage skill itself) increase your crews capability to identify how combat functional a derelict hulk would be if its auto fire turned out to still function/correctly identify hulks. Like, an 80% chance to be within x minus 9 critical malfunctions, where x is the relevant skill, so that if you found a derelict onslaught as a newbie even with just one aptitude point if the initial scan came back with less than 10 critical malfunctions you would have an 80% chance that if you approached engagement range and it didn't turn out to be a hulk (it's power system disable) and was in fact a ship that lost it's crew and was left adrift with it's autopilot on you would be facing a fully functioning onslaught, whereas being within 10 of the maximum amount of critically disabled combat systems means that the onslaught is either a hulk, or a severely crippled one.
Ionno, just a thought to systemise it and tie it into the CR mechanics
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Megas on July 22, 2016, 05:19:40 AM
Breadcrumbs should not lread to something trivial or normal bonuses. But rather shouldent they be handcrafted to lead to epic things, even if just lore wise. Like thoes rainbow worlds that lead in starcontrol
Rainbow worlds in Star Control 2 were nothing more than a big chunk of "credits" (i.e., less lifeform grinding needed) and some resources.  Now if the dev encounter at Groombridge actually made it in the game...
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 22, 2016, 03:30:11 PM
Breadcrumbs should not lread to something trivial or normal bonuses. But rather shouldent they be handcrafted to lead to epic things, even if just lore wise. Like thoes rainbow worlds that lead in starcontrol

More or less what I was saying in the previous reply :)


So is the introduction of automated derelics as low-tier exploration-based foes going to be focused on drones?

To a large degree. I think that offers a lot more opportunity for enemy variety than yet more beat-down versions of "normal" ships. Not that there's anything wrong with that, specifically, but it feels nice to add some more variety.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Dri on July 22, 2016, 06:31:58 PM
Was that spoiled 2nd ship (from that massive frigate pile pic) another drone? I'd imagine there'd be several types of drones.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 22, 2016, 08:02:03 PM
... I don't know, who's to say? :-X
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: David on July 22, 2016, 08:26:45 PM
... I don't know, who's to say? :-X
Truly, it is a mystery.
An enigma most perplexing.
A shadow hidden within a riddle buried somewhere beyond the horizon of understanding.
Who are we that attempt to ken that which is not for us - and nay, not of us? Indeed, it is but our fate as mere human beings to grasp for truths we cannot reach. 
:-X
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Dri on July 22, 2016, 09:50:36 PM
You guys... sheesh!

Hmm, looking like it has two wide-arced turrets up front and possibly one or two hardpoints between them. It does appear to have coloration similar to the other known drone, so, I'll have to say it is a drone ship as well! AHA!
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Cycerin on July 23, 2016, 05:04:37 PM
... I don't know, who's to say? :-X
Truly, it is a mystery.
An enigma most perplexing.
A shadow hidden within a riddle buried somewhere beyond the horizon of understanding.
Who are we that attempt to ken that which is not for us - and nay, not of us? Indeed, it is but our fate as mere human beings to grasp for truths we cannot reach.  
:-X

*eye twitches*
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Phyroks on July 26, 2016, 05:13:38 AM
been long summer waiting, still waiting, soon summer gone :(

someday  :)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Jerry on July 26, 2016, 06:48:25 AM
Hey Alex!

Just wanted to drop some encouragement!
The game is looking great. I keep coming back to this over all my other space games which includes X3, SPAZ, Starpoint Gemini 2, among others.
This latest blog entry of yours has me really excited. I like the randomization factor for non-important sectors to make it fresh every time. Salvaging sounds like fun. Next update can't come soon enough!
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 26, 2016, 09:03:32 AM
Thank you!

(Pet peeve: people calling systems "sectors" :) There's only one Sector in the game! Ahem.)
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: borgrel on July 26, 2016, 09:31:20 AM
/me feeds the pet some candy
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Linnis on July 26, 2016, 09:41:42 AM
The only thing I could *maybe* see doing here is adding a settings.json value for the time multiplier; going to give that a bit of thought.

Starsector overclocking.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Harmful Mechanic on July 26, 2016, 04:05:32 PM
/me feeds the pet some candy

You know, if you feed pet peeves after midnight, they turn into rabid grudges.

I like being breadcrumbed towards a variety of stuff in a game; it feels better than knowing every time I get hinted at I should jump in that direction at high speed.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Morrokain on July 26, 2016, 09:30:59 PM
Hey awesome exploration is the bread and butter of these games for me! Sounds like the groundwork is pretty solid and I love the "breadcrumbs" discussion.

As a modder, one thing I wanted to ask in regards to the procedural generation portion of exploring and content:

How "easy" do you anticipate it to be for a modder to get their own stuff into the procedural portion of the game? Will this be supported at all?

I ask this specifically because the move to procedural generation made fleet spawning awfully messy mod-wise (at least for me). I've spent hours and hours trying to get the right ship distribution in my more fighter-heavy mod. Even with the selection process being broken down in another forum post, things are not currently flexible enough to guarantee certain ship doctrines without accessing the jar files and editing the way the spawning system works. I've gotten very.. frustratingly close. But there are still too many weird fringe cases that break both the immersion and the balance.

I know modding is definitely secondary to the base game and procedural generation is great for that, I just want to get a basic feel for how much freedom I am going to have in the end. I had a whole lot before when it was a text file and I could just edit the exact variants that spawned and fairly easily write the code to spawn them wherever I wanted. Now I have to make the 8-12-16 unit group point system try and play nice when certain ships require others to be effective.  :-[
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 26, 2016, 09:49:16 PM
As a modder, one thing I wanted to ask in regards to the procedural generation portion of exploring and content:

How "easy" do you anticipate it to be for a modder to get their own stuff into the procedural portion of the game? Will this be supported at all?

I'm definitely keeping it in mind as I'm working on this, so I suppose the answer is "as easy as I could possibly make it".

In some cases, that's pretty easy. In other cases, it may be a bit more involved. Sorry this is kind of a non-answer.

Ok, an example: adding new planet types to the built-in procedural generator is easy. Adding new star types, on the other hand, is more difficult, because star types are columns in some of the spreadsheets involved where planets are rows - for example, a row for a planet in a specific spreadsheet will have probability multipliers for specific star types.

It's still possible to add new star types, however, because the data in the row is exposed and can be altered by code on application load. So you'd add a new star type (a row in a specific sheet) and the on load, iterate through all the planet specs - where star types are columns - and set whatever multipliers you need to with code. (If you don't, they'll all default to 1, meaning that star will be exactly average.)

(To complicate things further, planet types can *also* be columns, such as when a certain planet type has a higher chance for other planet or terrain types to be orbiting it. But that's not the case that often, where for stars, the whole point of adding a new star type is usually what kind of stuff orbits it.)

For salvage/exploration related entities, it *should* be on the easier side, but I haven't finished all the work on the data spec.


I had a whole lot before when it was a text file and I could just edit the exact variants that spawned and fairly easily write the code to spawn them wherever I wanted. Now I have to make the 8-12-16 unit group point system try and play nice when certain ships require others to be effective.  :-[

It sounds like the easier way to go for you would be to write custom fleet generation code for your faction. You don't actually *have* to use the doctrines or the FleetFactoryV2 stuff, it's just there but you're not required to use it. IIRC you can even write code using the old system - not 100% sure on that, but I don't recall taking out support for it. Of course, that's not aware of markets/stability/etc. But your custom code could be.

This is sort of the approach I'm taking, right - there's a default way of doing something, but if that doesn't work, then you can roll your own. Likewise, for procedural generation, there's nothing stopping you from not hooking into the procgen system and instead doing your own pass over the Sector once procgen is finished.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Cyan Leader on July 26, 2016, 09:52:05 PM
But won't it get messy if multiple mods starts fuzzing with the generation too much?
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Alex on July 26, 2016, 10:16:12 PM
Probably - I mean, what else is going to happen, right? Sort of by definition of "too much" :)

It's largely up to mods to use good judgment when doing this. For example, if a mod is adding a special planet type they only want to ever show up around a specific star, then probably sticking it into procgen isn't a good idea and it's a better fit for "just add it in a post-procgen pass with code".
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Orikson on July 26, 2016, 10:20:31 PM
Ok, we'll see what details have to be added/modified once the update drops. It'll be fun for sure once everything is in place.
Title: Re: Exploration & Salvage
Post by: Jerry on July 27, 2016, 06:40:57 AM
Thank you!

(Pet peeve: people calling systems "sectors" :) There's only one Sector in the game! Ahem.)

I can understand that pet peeve! I just typed it without thinking. Thanks for the correction.