1) This doesn't mean the release is imminent, though naturally it's getting fairly close. There are a few things to work through before then - one or two I'd probably call big features, a lot of content creation, and a good amount of playtesting. And a few modability improvements.Given the changes to Hullmods, I would bet one of those "big features" is the still unconfirmed Skill revamp...
You caught this one when moving stations around with systems?
- Fixed infinite loop related to system-activated engines being disabled on a ship with no normal engines
Given the changes to Hullmods, I would bet one of those "big features" is the still unconfirmed Skill revamp...
No changes to flak?
No changes to Proximity Charge Launcher?
You caught this one when moving stations around with systems?
AUUUUUGH~!!!! GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY,GOODY~!!! AAAUHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAA-UUAAGH!
What exactly does the tier increase for HM and HVD mean? Does that relate to when you can unlock them via commission? Also, wow, a lot of new ballistic weapons—is the Devastator that flak looking weapon you teased months ago?
Was hoping you'd reveal a brief bit about the new hulls other than the Mora, but, there is always next iteration of them notes.
Base CR for ships is 70%Should we expect Combat Aptitude to add 3% per level then? Or are other skill changes incoming?
Increases post-battle salvage by up to 10% based on the portion of the battle the Salvage Rig spent deployedMy gut reaction is this seems small, seeing as you're burning supplies dragging it out there, and additional supplies to deploy it, and you're likely needing escorts to keep it safe.
Weapons will not reload for the first two seconds of venting or being overloadedI like the change, but my gut says 2 secs is slightly on the high side.
Unstable InjectorIt seems they no longer give overlapping bonuses. Will we now be able to get both on one ship?
Removed acceleration bonus and engine damage penalty
Now reduces weapon range by 25%
Reduced OP cost
Augmented Engines
Removed in-combat speed bonus
Reduced cost
Renamed to "Augmented Drive Field"
Integrated Targeting Unit:I thought that Integrated Targeting Unit was strong before, but it feels like even more of a must-have for capitals now.
Reduced cost to match DTC
Slightly increased range bonus for cruisers (+5%) and capital ships (+10%)
Should we expect Combat Aptitude to add 3% per level then? Or are other skill changes incoming?
My gut reaction is this seems small, seeing as you're burning supplies dragging it out there, and additional supplies to deploy it, and you're likely needing escorts to keep it safe.
I like the change, but my gut says 2 secs is slightly on the high side.
It seems they no longer give overlapping bonuses. Will we now be able to get both on one ship?
I thought that Integrated Targeting Unit was strong before, but it feels like even more of a must-have for capitals now.
Everything else, I feel like I'm gonna have to play to see! I'm looking forward to it! ;D
Hullmods can now be acquired from a "Modspec" item
Dropped by enemies
Found as salvage
Bought on markets
the Aurora kinda did [get nerfed ]
I can see the benefits of converting some (many?) hullmods to rewards for scavenging and exploring. It'd prevent cases of someone leveling up a skill they don't care for just to get that one really good hullmod. It'd also serve to make scavenging/exploration more compelling and rewarding. Hmm.
Anything more you can share about this or still a big fat :-X for now?
I noticed that the Apogee didn't get nerfed while the Aurora kinda did and I'm worried that the AI is just going to waste the Jets at best and get it self killed at worst...
Im curious, what's the etymology of "modspec"? Does it come from to spec something with a mod? Seems a bit abstract, I can't picture how it would work from the word.
True it is supposed to be buffed but the loss of the flux cap plus the way the AI uses M Jets and the lack of decent ENERGY weapons (while ballistics gets two more... *grumbles*) tells me that it is gonna get killed even more in the hands of the AIthe Aurora kinda did [get nerfed ]I believe with the new system it's supposedly an overall buff.
Flamed-out missiles now have a 50% chance to bounce off harmlessly on impactThis looks like it can harm Annihilators. They flame out early then drift a long time.
regarding the DTC/ITU, the idea is that it's a default choice in most cases, but you can still go for a specialized build that doesn't use it. Baking it into the hull would remove that option. But, yeah, 90% of the time you're going to want to install it.So most default variants will have it?
Alex, on the Discord channel you said:
If you have a computer you can use the web version. And granted he wasn't on for very longAlex, on the Discord channel you said:
SHOOT I need to download that onto my new phone, I always miss good stuff
True it is supposed to be buffed but the loss of the flux cap plus the way the AI uses M Jets and the lack of decent ENERGY weapons (while ballistics gets two more... *grumbles*) tells me that it is gonna get killed even more in the hands of the AI
With the Unstable Injector changes, it seems only worth using on ships with either long-range ballistics and beams (e.g., Eagle with Mauler+HVD+Tac Lasers) and can afford the range cut or any high-tech that just should use Safety Override because 600 range energy weapons become 450 with Unstable Injector (same as Safety Override).
QuoteFlamed-out missiles now have a 50% chance to bounce off harmlessly on impactThis looks like it can harm Annihilators. They flame out early then drift a long time.
Minor nit pick: Why is the patch notes release date listed with the day first and the month second while the blog post is the other way around?
I'm not sure if I understand correctly, are new/acquirable hullmods finite? As in you can only enable it depending on how many of the item you have or are you able to install them on any ships as long as you have the item in your inventory?
Are there any hullmods from salvaging that you haven't revealed? I understand I'm asking for REDACTED stuff but one of the reasons why I see all these movement nerfs to current hullmods is to allow new ones that need to be salvaged to fulfill that role.
Maybe Alex does have some plans for special, high-end hullmods but I think that Alex has been meaning to tone down combat speed for quite some time. So, it is possible that, no, there will be no superior +combat speed hullmod.
hope maneuverability gets nerfed too. it's too "cheap" to have a maneuverable battleship.
Alex, on the Discord channel you said:Quoteregarding the DTC/ITU, the idea is that it's a default choice in most cases, but you can still go for a specialized build that doesn't use it. Baking it into the hull would remove that option. But, yeah, 90% of the time you're going to want to install it.So most default variants will have it?
Does the skill revamp include ITU being available at start? If it remains a straight upgrade from DTC, I'm guessing no. Will it still be readily available via the new modspecs?
(The part that bothers me about the cost change is: if 90% of builds are going to have it, it should just be baked into the hull and instead there's a hullmod that gives more OP or other benefits in exchange for removing the range bonus. This reduces the clutter of DTC/ITU appearing all the time, and avoids noob traps where new players don't install it because they don't know they're supposed to.)
That's assuming a lack of range-boosting hullmods and skills, both of which would not help with SO. Also, kind of glossing over the other downsides of SOIt does, especially with the severe peak performance cut, but if the ship works best with Safety Override due to min-max reasons, like current Lasher, then that is what will get used, despite the drawbacks.
Fast ships don't need range as long as they can close the distance without dying and then outperform their longer ranged enemies in close range combat.That may be a bit of a problem high-tech ships have when fighting low-tech or other ships with ballistics. High-tech ships get close, then overload because an exchange between flux-hungry energy weapons and efficient longer-ranged kinetics (or very efficient, high DPS, and short-range machineguns) means ballistics win. Low-tech ships probably will not have a problem - just use the long-ranged stuff. High-tech ships will have even less range if they use Unstable Injector to keep up with other ships that use Unstable Injector.
It occurred to me that if hullmods will be potential loot, and the only way to get a particular one is killing friendliesI don't think the modspecs are ship specific (might be wrong tho).
More mechanics and rules solely for the sake of balance, with little/no intuitive in-world logic Starsector has been developing itself into this corner for a long time and probably the die is cast in this regard, but every once and a while like to point out the limitations of this approach.IIRC in-lore explanations(or at least attempts at handwaving) were done for all of the things you mentioned, and most of them are in-game.
For example:
-Hyperspace slows small fleets more than big fleets.
-Random effects of hullmods e.g. Unstable injector reducing weapons range
and old favorites:
-CR/PPT, of course
-Ship has campaign burn speed, and separate combat speed which is different. (so you have ridiculous situations where one ship can have a faster burn speed and keep catching another ship, but the other ship has a faster combat speed and can keep getting away, necessitating a bunch more pre/post combat dialogue box CR rules)
(so you have ridiculous situations where one ship can have a faster burn speed and keep catching another ship, but the other ship has a faster combat speed and can keep getting away, necessitating a bunch more pre/post combat dialogue box CR rules)Case in point? Condor vs. Gemini. Condor has faster burn speed, but Gemini has faster combat speed. It makes no sense.
Quote(so you have ridiculous situations where one ship can have a faster burn speed and keep catching another ship, but the other ship has a faster combat speed and can keep getting away, necessitating a bunch more pre/post combat dialogue box CR rules)Case in point? Condor vs. Gemini. Condor has faster burn speed, but Gemini has faster combat speed. It makes no sense.
Quote(so you have ridiculous situations where one ship can have a faster burn speed and keep catching another ship, but the other ship has a faster combat speed and can keep getting away, necessitating a bunch more pre/post combat dialogue box CR rules)Case in point? Condor vs. Gemini. Condor has faster burn speed, but Gemini has faster combat speed. It makes no sense.
I like those changes, the obnoxious ships (Heron, every Damper Field-ers) got a slight nerf to what makes them annoying to fight.
The Omen got further buffed with the much stronger EMP emitter, that thing is going to be a fighter's boogeyman. By the way, does the "Flamed-out missiles now have a 50% chance to bounce off harmlessly on impact" affect EMP'd missiles, or just the ones out of fuel?
A question about the Tempest, does the drone reload its blaster when recalled? Hopefully not, the Tempest is already at the top of the foodchain, it doesn't needs a near instant reloading, flux-free AM blaster on top of that.
Also glad to see an armor buff for the Astral, maybe this will even allow some brawler builds. Gotta find a reason to use that new torpedo launcher.
It occurred to me that if hullmods will be potential loot, and the only way to get a particular one is killing friendlies (for example, if Paragon is the only ship with Hardened Shields, and you are commissioned with Tri-Tachyon), then player can travel with transponder off and kill friendly ships, then laugh evilly after scooping up desired loot, and maybe board a rare ship that shops could but refuse to sell.
Maybe ships are drop modspecs they use, just like weapons.
Nice changes but "Removed crew experience levels" means ships without officers will be unable to improve accuracy and CR. I will miss my elite crew.
Nice to see you're still improving the AI. I'm hoping one of the "big content additions" will be the long anticipated addition of industry!
Needless to say there's a lot of cool stuff in this patch which represents a bit step forward in the game development, like the exploration which I've been anticipating a while. Good work.
There are two kinds of games (for the purposes of this discussion anyway):
-Simulation games (flight sims, space world sims, mario sims, etc)
-Abstracted games (board games, chess, go-fish, etc)
-Random effects of hullmods e.g. Unstable injector reducing weapons range
Long story short please try to find balance motivated mechanics that have an in-game logic instead of being arbitrary and non intuitive. Though this would require overhauling the CR system and the combat vs campaign speed disparity issues however.
Also, y'know, holy *** this is gonna be a good Easter.
EDIT: also really excited to see options to compel aggression out of your officers. For christ's sake guys, it's okay if the PD dings your armor a little bit, just run down the blasted Tarsus. Making them become reckless at the player's discretion is also a great workaround for all the issues that normally surround it. You might lose a ship unnecessarily because you told them to go all-in, but it will feel like the consequence of a decision you made rather than just being punished by AI mistakes you have no real control over.
There are two kinds of games
In abstracted games, you memorize a bunch of arbitrary rules
In a simulation, you memorize the in-world characteristics of different items and entities
Imagine that instead of having just a reduced CR% value, the graphic were made in a way that you could see the combat stresses occurring during battle, and the subsequent failure of on-board equipment and crew. Or that the different drive types (combat/burn) were clearly visible and distinct from each other. Then the mechanics would suddenly become intuitive, despite being exactly the same. Intuitiveness has nothing to do with "simulation vs abstraction", but with managing prior player experience and expectation, and providing hooks to which these can connect.
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Not outposts, but there's something in the pipeline as far as the industry aptitude - hopefully it'll pan out, can't wait to talk about it if it does :)
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While that's impractical, I think it would be helpful if in-game texts would mention these things more to, if you will, "paint the picture" in the head of the players.Not everyone cares about lore enough to search every flavor text and lore pieces, so I think it is a good approach to do it.
I don't mean tutorial texts, but conversations, fluff texts, mission descriptions and so on. There are already some short stories which helped me visualize mechanics better, but not much in the game. Of course that only really makes sense once the mechanics are finalized.
While that's impractical, I think it would be helpful if in-game texts would mention these things more to, if you will, "paint the picture" in the head of the players.
I don't mean tutorial texts, but conversations, fluff texts, mission descriptions and so on. There are already some short stories which helped me visualize mechanics better, but not much in the game. Of course that only really makes sense once the mechanics are finalized.
Hey Alex, I've been meaning to ask: How much of a boost is there in combat and what did you do to help speed it up? I know that the UI when displayed has a noticeable effect on low end systems like mine
First time poster, long time lurker...
Just wanted to say that this is amazing work! Great job!
Hmm, maybe. That kind of content is really hard, because nothing is ever really "finalized", you know? Even a hypothetical post-1.0 patch could change a hullmod, and having to edit fluff to account for that is problematic.
I was thinking more of the big mechanics that we only get to see at a high abstraction level - CR, Faction Standing, Burndrive, Salvage(?), Sensor profile, Com Relays, Fighter Replacement etc. It would be great if we could have a peek at those things through they eyes of people who interact with them daily on a personal level, instead of only seeing them from far above. I could add plausibility, immersion and make interactions with these systems more intuitive.I think the weirdest abstraction so far is the way crew losses interacts with fighters, and the non-linear "the more fighters you lose, the less crew you lose per fighter".
I think the weirdest abstraction so far is the way crew losses interacts with fighters, and the non-linear "the more fighters you lose, the less crew you lose per fighter".
EDIT: also really excited to see options to compel aggression out of your officers. For christ's sake guys, it's okay if the PD dings your armor a little bit, just run down the blasted Tarsus. Making them become reckless at the player's discretion is also a great workaround for all the issues that normally surround it. You might lose a ship unnecessarily because you told them to go all-in, but it will feel like the consequence of a decision you made rather than just being punished by AI mistakes you have no real control over.
Hopefully!
And, as you say, if it's not able to, it'll be your own damn fault. But, yes, appreciate the vote of confidence - thank you!
EDIT: also really excited to see options to compel aggression out of your officers. For christ's sake guys, it's okay if the PD dings your armor a little bit, just run down the blasted Tarsus. Making them become reckless at the player's discretion is also a great workaround for all the issues that normally surround it. You might lose a ship unnecessarily because you told them to go all-in, but it will feel like the consequence of a decision you made rather than just being punished by AI mistakes you have no real control over.
Hopefully!
Thought: You mentioned adding in a new officer type that will act reckless no matter what. Are you gonna be changing any of the old officer types to not go reckless when a full assault order is given, unless they're specifically told to? I'd like to have soooome sliver of control over how all-out fleet goes
That seams reasonable. Aggression is risky, and I can tell you that even as a player I still end up reloading saves due to aggressive bravado. I was mostly just concerned that my frigates would interpret that as orders to play catch with strike weapons or press suicidal engagements, but those seem like the kind of obvious problems you would think of immediately which is why I didn't even mention them in my first post.
Well, they're not going to die *on purpose* but they're certainly going to press past the point where it might be wise. The point is to not engage this behavior in situations where it'll end badly; the main use case for it is pursuit, though there are other tactical uses too. But if one were to just use that as the default, one should expect losses.
So: I get what you're saying, and generally agree with it on a more abstract level. But details, man.
Thought: You mentioned adding in a new officer type that will act reckless no matter what. Are you gonna be changing any of the old officer types to not go reckless when a full assault order is given, unless they're specifically told to? I'd like to have soooome sliver of control over how all-out fleet goes
Timid officers won't. Plus you can engage this piecemeal using the "eliminate" assignment.
SS 2.0! Thanks Alex :)
Please note, just because starsector has 2d graphics and non-newtonian mechanics doesn't mean it isn't a simulation
For example all the pre/post combat dialogue box options and what their effects are on CR etc aren't so intuitive, or at least I can never keep them straight.
No chance of having cautious officers maybe only go up to stable or aggressive and not full reckless? I hate the thought of my light support frigates throwing themselves into the fire just because I want my battleships to go in for the steamroll
Can we get a command to kill a target as fast as possible without caring about efficiency? Will "Eliminate" serve this purpose? I've had some situations where a larger ships will refuse to kill a smaller ship inefficiently by using missiles, even if it is one of the only/few threats remaining. Perhaps this is only an issue with Sabots.
Also, will the AI implement the Assault Charge?
Can we get a command to kill a target as fast as possible without caring about efficiency? Will "Eliminate" serve this purpose? I've had some situations where a larger ships will refuse to kill a smaller ship inefficiently by using missiles, even if it is one of the only/few threats remaining. Perhaps this is only an issue with Sabots.
That's largely the point of Eliminate, but it's not going to affect missile use directly. That, I think, is a degree of direct control I don't want to expose.Also, will the AI implement the Assault Charge?
Yeah, very much so. Should make a good deal of difference in terms of how easy it is to solo multiple opponents, especially in the moments between when it gives the order and when you realize that it's done that.
CampaignWhen I first tried out the game I actually though that is how deep hyperspace worked because it literally looks like a nebula. I was pleasantly surprised later when I found out that deep hyperspace doesn't slow you down, only the storms do, so if you were an experienced player you should weave through deep hyperspace while avoiding the storms by seeing the storms build up. I though it was kinda cool that based on "skill" players could take shortcuts and have a faster time moving though.
- Deep hyperspace now functions similarly to nebula (slows down smaller fleets, fleets inside are less visible)
- The slow-down effect is up to 30% (vs 50% for nebula)
This is something I am rather excited for since I always loved the feeling of "warp drive" powering up before moving through space at massive speed. Will it be something similar to this? https://youtu.be/2sCvIkNRV1o?t=7
- Added new ability: "Sustained Burn"
- Increases maximum burn by 10
- Reduces acceleration and sensor range, increases range at which fleet is detected
- Activation results in fleet slowing down and stopping before sustained drive mode is engaged
- Intended for long-range travel while creating a vulnerability if hostile fleets are around
Neat, with all of the speed nerfs, will conquest get some additional love in the speed department, or is it just me that wants a very fast but frail capital ship compared to the others.
- Odyssey, Conquest: increased burn level by 1
CombatI have never found a use for the thumper,what exactly is it supposed to be good for? Rare cases where you have a ship with exposed hull and no shields? But that assumes a crushing winning position anyway, aren't win more weapons kinda useless? (or is it against fighters? But PD and flak are more versatile in that regard)
- Thumper: now fires 1-second burst of 20 shots (100 frag damage each), 3 second delay between bursts
Yeah, I'm not sure this will stay in actually. It has some other problems - it's either always worth it to deploy the rig, or always not, depending on the battle size.
When a ship is disabled, there's a chance this will happen. The chance and min/max number of pieces are set per-ship in ship_data.csv. On average, the chance is around 50%.
Ships that break up won't be available for boarding. For salvage, "destroyed" ships will contribute more than they do now, probably about the same as "disabled".
Yeah, but man does it make so many things on the backend *so* much easier and less bug-prone. Even if this was a subtraction in terms of gameplay (which I don't think it is - it feels cleaner now), it would still be 100% worth it just for how much it makes any related code easier, and for how many more crew-related mechanics are in the game as a result.
I have never found a use for the thumper,what exactly is it supposed to be good for? Rare cases where you have a ship with exposed hull and no shields? But that assumes a crushing winning position anyway, aren't win more weapons kinda useless? (or is it against fighters? But PD and flak are more versatile in that regard)Thumper's problems are numerous. It has slow windup like Storm Needler and it has relatively short shot range for a ballistic. If you did not mind fragmentation damage type, Vulcan or Dual Flak were still better. Vulcan costs less OP for roughly the same DPS, only downside was shorter range (but Vulcan is easier to use than Thumper). Dual Flak has comparable DPS with area-of-effect to hit more than one target, and is the best PD in the game. I even prefer single Flak to Thumper, despite less DPS. Thumper is so bad that it is useless for the player. If it was designed to be a useless (D) weapon for NPC pirate (D) ships to use, it does that job well. However, even similarly cheap stuff like Arbalest and Hellbore are effective. (Too effective for its cost in case of Hellbore.) Thumper is not.
Will the AI be aware of the limitations of the personalities of the officers in its fleet and if its remaining fleet has too many cautious officers to effectively take down, say, a solo ship player, would they be more likely to trigger full assault mode than if they were to be fielding a fleet of ships that necessarily wouldn't need it? I guess my question is, at the first pass how dynamic are we expecting AI use of FA to be?
When I first tried out the game I actually though that is how deep hyperspace worked because it literally looks like a nebula. I was pleasantly surprised later when I found out that deep hyperspace doesn't slow you down, only the storms do, so if you were an experienced player you should weave through deep hyperspace while avoiding the storms by seeing the storms build up. I though it was kinda cool that based on "skill" players could take shortcuts and have a faster time moving though.
With this change though I imagine the navigator perk becomes more useful. But yeah mixed feelings on this.
I have never found a use for the thumper,what exactly is it supposed to be good for? Rare cases where you have a ship with exposed hull and no shields? But that assumes a crushing winning position anyway, aren't win more weapons kinda useless? (or is it against fighters? But PD and flak are more versatile in that regard)
Lastly is there any estimates you can give on when this version will be released? I don't expect a concrete date but I imagine you know if it will take 6 months or 3 months, or 2 or 1...I am not asking for a promise, just an estimate.[/list][/list][/list][/list]
The A.I changes sound great! I hope the "Eliminate" command works well when the attacking ships are under fighter and drone pressure. It will be needed with the fighter changes. Ideally, since in the blog post on fighters you had commented that fighters inherently need to be weak to avoid balance issues with carriers, ships targeting a carrier with the "Eliminate" command should ignore its fighter attacks completely with the intent on closing the distance as quickly as possible since fighters are unlimited in the long run. Otherwise, I am worried game play will bog down again because ships spend too much time trying to thin the fighter herd to lower the fighter replacement bar than actually kill the source of the threat itself. For some carriers that could be effective, sure, but for others that can replace fighters more quickly for a longer period of time not so much.
I am also pleased by the flux vent spam nerf. It was too abusable. Is the A.I aware of this penalty too? Not as much of an issue usually, but it would occasionally come up where I see the A.I vent spam.
With the world so big now, have you done anything to address fuel and supply prices accordingly? I actually kind of felt that they were a tad high before. With things so much bigger I feel I will go bankrupt trying to travel :D
Great work on this update, I see a lot of things really coming together nicely! I think I say this almost every time but this is my most anticipated release ever!
Thanks for the continued work!
Alex, could you please share Heavy Mortar stats with us? Damage/flux per shot and OP cost?
I actually like the idea of travel costs being high so that just going somewhere is a risk or at least an investement, but of course the rewards have to be balanced accordingly as well.
What about adding an option to observe ongoing fights without necessarily joining in? Could help the galaxy feel more alive and I don't imagine it would need *too* much adjustment behind the scenes.
Would also be a nice way to see the ships in action from time to time without worrying about your own losses.
700 range, 110 damage for 90 flux, 2 shots per second average (in 2-shot bursts), 7 OP, and the same anemic shot speed as the light mortar (500).Seems like the only reason to take this over LAG is shot range, which is a big deal admittedly. Matching range with Arbalest (and Railgun) means they probably compliment each other, good for Enforcer and Hammerhead.
What about adding an option to observe ongoing fights without necessarily joining in? Could help the galaxy feel more alive and I don't imagine it would need *too* much adjustment behind the scenes.
Would also be a nice way to see the ships in action from time to time without worrying about your own losses.
Just a random thought! Really looking forward to 0.8 :)
I was thinking, maybe it would be nice to have a good chunk of missions/bounties which take place locally, as opposed to sector-wide ones. Then you'd have the chance to accumulate wealth and ressources in preparation for far jouneys, which could be really expensive and relatively rare and special events.
"Locally" could mean the current system, or the current constellations, depending on what that means. What defines a constellation?
Seems like the only reason to take this over LAG is shot range, which is a big deal admittedly. Matching range with Arbalest (and Railgun) means they probably compliment each other, good for Enforcer and Hammerhead.
Quote from: Alex700 range, 110 damage for 90 flux, 2 shots per second average (in 2-shot bursts), 7 OP, and the same anemic shot speed as the light mortar (500).Seems like the only reason to take this over LAG is shot range, which is a big deal admittedly. Matching range with Arbalest (and Railgun) means they probably compliment each other, good for Enforcer and Hammerhead.
Maybe I missed it and just can't find it, but how will Sector Age affect the game?It controls the colors of the stars and the types of planets and terrain IIRC
It would actually be fun to have a worse, but cheaper ITU available for cap ship purposes, as a modspec drop. "Mark I Targeting Module" or whatever. I think the modspec system is a good opportunity to open up for niche, fine-grained ship customization options. Hell, you could even go full Diablo and procedurally generate hullmods that drop from mysterious REDACTED targets or whatever.Hopefully, not one that yields one or two god-tier options that everyone would cheat and dupe for if Starsector was online multiplayer and the rest crap. Diablo-style item generation is great if you want players to be hooked and focus mostly on items and min-maxing.
If the venting nerf was added because players were abusing it wouldn't it be better to nerf the spam rather than to nerf venting itself?
Something simple like if you vent once it's business as usual, but if you vent within a certain period of the last vent (10/15 seconds?) you'll get the penalty. You can even stack that up if you want to really punish players for being reckless with it.
I wonder if the range penalty for unstable injector maybe should scale a bit with size class? When I think about it, it seems like it will be a nerf to frigates that want to use energy weapons and still go fast. It shouldn't be a no-brainer but flat 25% seems more punishing for frigates than it needs to be.
I wonder if the range penalty for unstable injector maybe should scale a bit with size class? When I think about it, it seems like it will be a nerf to frigates that want to use energy weapons and still go fast. It shouldn't be a no-brainer but flat 25% seems more punishing for frigates than it needs to be.I am concerned about this for the Wolf. Wolf without engine upgrade is too slow against its competitors, but if its range with pulse laser/heavy blaster gets gutted to 450-ish with an engine upgrade (that I should use Safety Override to try to compete with Lasher), then there may be no point to use it. Its attack range will be so short that I might as well use Lasher instead. (If I use all-beams instead, then Wolf gets hard-countered by anything with shields, which is nearly everything past early-game pirates). Lasher can outshoot small stuff in close range and win the flux war. The Wolf cannot with flux-hungry laser/blaster or beams only.
The thing about Wolf: It is not much faster than Lasher. It is slower than Lasher, and possibly other frigates, that are equipped with an engine hullmod if Wolf is not similarly equipped. Because it relies solely on Pulse Laser or a blaster to crack shields, and those weapons are flux hungry and do less damage to shields than kinetics, it will lose the flux war unless it can kite. As for small mounts, it needs at least two, preferably all three, for PD.
Its phase skimmer is its only consolation ever since it lost its Omni shield. The change to front shield has hurt its defenses. Skimmer will not help much if it is forced to fight within range of enemy ballistics, because ballistics (if favoring kinetics) almost always wins.
Wolf is fairly expensive to deploy, and they do not clean up pursuit as efficiently as a Lasher or superior high-tech frigates.
The easiest solution, without changing weapon balance or ship systems, is to change Wolf's missile hardpoints to composites. That way, it can fight kinetics with kinetics, much like Medusa can, so that it is not dead meat as soon as a ballistic bruiser comes in range. EDIT: Or change shield efficiency from 0.8 to 0.6, so its shield can take a beating from machine gun or autocannon fire?
Then why not just add an line or extra transparent layer to the flux bar or something similar that says "ready to vent" and vent is on something like 3 second cool down.
Otherwise maybe just have the whole ui flicker off and then off then on when venting, to visualize flux systems turning off and on.
Is the Devastator Cannon indeed a fragmentation damage type weapon? Do you have any special intents for fragmentation damage going forward or just thought that a large mount frag damage weapon was a niche that needed filling?
Regarding the Wolf:Blue death! Maybe Tempest-lite. More seriously, something that can compete with Lasher much like Medusa competes with Enforcer, and Paragon with Onslaught. (For cruisers, current Aurora is a joke ship while Dominator is top-tier.) Since it costs as much CR to deploy as Tempest, I expect Wolf to outperform Lasher a bit, but it only shines when a group of them can surround a target and tear it apart. Mass Wolf pack used to be feasible for the player during 0.65, but the 25 ship limit and possibly addition of officers (for the enemy) made that sub-optimal for the player. AI can still bring huge numbers to bear against the player, but player cannot do that to the extent possible in 0.65.
What exactly should we expect out of it?
wolf is fine, it just has the problem that every other frigate also does wherein flanking with it is marginally impossible because of the turn speed of heavier ships.
Blue death! Maybe Tempest-lite. More seriously, something that can compete with Lasher much like Medusa competes with Enforcer, and Paragon with Onslaught. (For cruisers, current Aurora is a joke ship while Dominator is top-tier.) Since it costs as much CR to deploy as Tempest, I expect Wolf to outperform Lasher a bit, but it only shines when a group of them can surround a target and tear it apart.
At endgame, I use frigates (aside from Hyperion) as cheap pursuit/clean-up option. Lasher has the best blend of low cost and high firepower. Tempest, Scarab, and phase ships are more useful if the enemy is too fast or too numerous. (If enemy is still capable of significant resistance, better to auto-resolve for the no-risk option.)
a little concerned at the removal of carrier rally though. i know about the fighter changes and all... i just like how carrier rally points create organic objectives in combat, as opposed to the artificial objectives of the beacons.
I am curious @Alex if any inspiration has been taken from other recent work in the genre, like SPAZ 2 or Wayward Terran Frontier.
Devastator Cannon is HE, huh? Well geez, we've got 3 large mount ballistics all sporting HE damage now—Hellbore, Hephaestus Assault and now this! Wasn't the consensus saying the Hephaestus was kinda underpowered and could use some help?
EDIT: If Hellbore is meant to be the super-heavy version of Light and (new) Heavy Mortar, maybe its range could be downgraded to 800, since the other mortars have less range than more expensive assault weapons?
Do the shots fired by the Devastator have an AoE effect, is it still a burst fire weapon?
The wolf, however, for me is almost equivalent to a lasher in combat considerations...
I think a UI Wolf would make a decent pursuit ship, certainly a lot faster than a UI Lasher for only 1 extra supply. Firepower's not the same, though.It's the firepower and flux usage. Lasher can use ammo feeder and flux efficient LMGs (and more) to make shields disappear fast. Annihilators and LAG break armor, then Vulcans and more LMGs tear through hull faster. Lasher is a monster for its size at clean-up. When I try Wolf, I vent-spam a heavy blaster for the most power, and the rest of the weapons have far less DPS than Vulcans. It takes a while to chew through shields and the rest with just one heavy blaster, especially if I miss, with beams doing insignificant damage. My Wolf needs to vent (no Safety Override) often due to flux-hungry weapons. In short, Lasher has much more firepower than Wolf. This is also why I use Lasher instead of a Hound or Kite, which are cheaper and have more top speed.
Any comments on this Alex?This is something I am rather excited for since I always loved the feeling of "warp drive" powering up before moving through space at massive speed. Will it be something similar to this? https://youtu.be/2sCvIkNRV1o?t=7
- Added new ability: "Sustained Burn"
- Increases maximum burn by 10
- Reduces acceleration and sensor range, increases range at which fleet is detected
- Activation results in fleet slowing down and stopping before sustained drive mode is engaged
- Intended for long-range travel while creating a vulnerability if hostile fleets are around
By that I mean that I just hope you give it some visual and possibly audio difference between normal traveling and normal burn drive, so it both looks, sounds and feels different "less burn and more warp" so to speak, which I imagine would both help with "why do the ships need to stop before using this system" question as the ships are using a different system to travel.
From what I gather from the notes right now is that when engaging the "Sustained burn" that the fleet will slow down to a stop and then at a slower acceleration than normal will pick up speed up towards it's maximum plus 10. I also imagine this approach doesn't require a lot of additional work in terms visual differences and sound.
My humble suggestion based purely on my tastes is that:
- You make a fleet slow down and come to a full stop and then "charge up" the warp drive, after which the ships attain their maximum speed plus 10 additional burn speed.(Time spend charging up would be some what relative to the time spend accelerating)
- Reason for this suggestion is that it feels both more punchy to go from fullstop to maximum speed so it might feel nicer.
- Second reason is that players could experience "tight" moments where they are sitting at a fullstop looking at the charge up counting down as a fleet is engaging on them, only to blast away in the last second and nearly escape it. With the gradual slow acceleration you can also achieve a similar feeling but they have a different flavor to them.)
Lastly: Have you though about ship mods that specifically increase "sustained burn" but don't effect in-combat or normal burn speed? So you could have a hullmod that only adds +2 or 3 to sustained burn but nothing else for instance?
Question: What is the order of operations when ship combines Safety Override and Unstable Injector? Does Safety Override limit of 450 come before or after Unstable Injector's range cut?
First thank you for taking time to respond.
It would probably actually feel more unnatural to go from zero to full quickly.
The kind of warp drive effect you're thinking about (going to assume Star Trek) takes a lot of smoke and mirrors to make feel "right".I understand, as mentioned before it probably takes more tinkering, but I believe that simple effects such as distortion can be used to great effect here. All you would really need to do is 1. Give ships a slightly different engine burn that they leave behind. 2. Add a "start up" effect as the ships charge up(which could be something like the space in front of the ships being distorted and pulling the front of the ships into the "vortex" so to speak. Here is something similar https://youtu.be/LSRTn-BoFYE?t=315 Notice how the nose of the ship gets distorted during the charge up.
Plus it'd likely be more boring sitting there waiting for a timer than if you're slowly accelerating, even if the end result is the same. Finally, "low acceleration" is an important feature of making sustained burn work balance-wise.It really depends on just how long the charge up phase is I imagine somewhere between 4-10seconds to be my first bet.
I mean, I get what you're saying, but it sounds like what you're suggesting is an entirely different mechanic that bears only surface similarities to this one.Oh I am just throwing ideas out there and trying to get a better feel for your mindset and the reason for your choices. I would certainly enjoy if there is some effect to simulate the warp feeling, but that is a luxury.
Sustained burn applies fleet-wide, though. So it would be something like, "+2 to the burn level of *this ship* while sustained burn is active", which could be useful on slower ships, yeah. But with stuff like this, you always have to ask, "why?".Why add more customization detail specifically here? Customization in general is more pleasant for the player since it gives them more options but it makes it harder for the dev to balance everything out neatly.
Sure, it could be done, and it'd probably work. But there are literally millions of things like that. "Augmented Engines" already broadly covers "so, you want a hullmod that increases burn level" (and I'm not entirely sure it's a great idea to have in the first place, could go either way on that). Why add more customization detail specifically here, especially if it's something that can work to erase differences between ships?
And is it important enough to clutter up the game with? Every piece of content you add has a price beyond the effort it takes to implement it.Again just throwing out ideas and wishes. I trust the game dev to know at the end of the day what is worth the time and effort to implement and what isn't.
I don't fully agree that it would feel unnatural, here are some examples of it and from my point of view it doesn't seem bad.
http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256666563/movie_max.webm?t=1467765984 Time at 4.27
https://youtu.be/CbWmFv0yZ2E?t=7 Here is another example of more or less how it would feel if the charge up time was around 5-6 seconds
Customization in general is more pleasant for the player since it gives them more options but it makes it harder for the dev to balance everything out neatly.
Again just throwing out ideas and wishes.
Super happy to hear some decent progress, i've had this since i think 2011 and i was beginning to wonder.....but these notes look like the meat is starting to be added to the bones
Looks really solid. Can't wait to play SS again :)
The number of available choices doesn't actually depend on the number of available options, but rather on the number of distinct gameplay uses and situations that the player expects to encounter. The player will always choose the best available option for a given gameplay niche, and so extra options are largely redundant, even if they are reasonably well balanced.The only tier that matters is top-tier, and maybe lesser-tier anomalies that happen to be optimal counter-picks to otherwise god-tier options but get trashed by even mid-tier options. The more viable options competing for the best there are, the better. EDIT: By this, I mean if you have several options, but one is much better than the rest that using it is a no-brainer, then you effectively only have one choice. It would be nice to have at least a few options competing for the best. If you could somehow add arbitrary large number (say a hundred) of options that are equally good, it could very well be too much for the player who does not have encyclopedic knowledge of the whole game, and possibly even for the player who knows what he wants if option bloat causes the UI to breakdown and be a pain to use.
Just don't go aRPG with the loot/mods/weapons—the moment I see a Thunderous Arbalest of the Techno-Gods, I'm out!Like in the Diablo series? If so, I do not blame you. That way leads to a few top-tier items while the rest are junk, and the game is multiplayer, the best gets duped. It is not a pleasant experience, except possibly for the lucky elite that gets the perfect item and use it for max damage PvE.
and it would require a lot more to sell it from the point of view of the moving ship.The same distortion effect that is used during explosions in the graphics lib mod, could be used for the distortion effect, the only problem is that it's not a simple distortion from the center point, similarly the warp travel trail could also be a small distortion trail, much like hot air distorting the background. Only real concern is how much of a performance drain the fancy distortion effect would be compared to simple particle trails.
But, really, coming back to my prior point, "warp" and "sustained burn" are just fundamentally different, not one being a slight tweak of the other.They can be as different as you make them to be. Really my original idea was that balance wise and gameplay wise they would be pretty much the same, with the only real difference being "the feeling" of using it would give.
Let's assume it was all perfectly balanced - which, as you note, is unlikely to be the case if there's a lot of it. Then an extra bit of customization is either an important decision or it's not. If it's not an important decision (and, ok, this is not a well-defined concept, but let's roll with it) then it's just adding noise, making it harder for the player to see what's actually important. This may be ok to some degree if it's also adding flavor or something else valuable.Both of these issues are addressed by limiting the players exposure to the said choices. What I mean by this is that the same way you don't start the game with every single shipmod, weapon, ship available to you, the same way this customization would be only available or relevant later on.
If it *is* an important decision, well, how many of those do you want the player to make before they get to stop customizing and play the rest of the game?
Point is, even well-balanced customization options have downsides if there are too many of them. Basically, imagine if Starsector had ten times the number of hullmods, without UI improvements to help manage this information/decision overload.As mentioned above, even 10 times the ship mods would be okay, as long as players aren't exposed to all of them at the same time at the start, but rather gradually introduced to them. For more advanced players, I imagine extra choices are very pleasant because they have assimilated all the available choices and extra choices are just that, more freedom, rather than overload of decisions.
Both of these issues are addressed by limiting the players exposure to the said choices. What I mean by this is that the same way you don't start the game with every single shipmod, weapon, ship available to you, the same way this customization would be only available or relevant later on.
...
As mentioned above, even 10 times the ship mods would be okay, as long as players aren't exposed to all of them at the same time at the start, but rather gradually introduced to them.
OH SHOOT are we gonna get the ability to filter weapons in the drop down by damage type or size?Please oh please be so
I remember seeing something about them becoming the Persian league which is coming next patchThe Persean League, yes. (If it helps, I pronounce it "Per-see-an", as in a word derived from the name Perseus.)
You ever think of giving the cap sized tanker (Prometheus) the ability to convert various raw resources into fuel? Something like onboard micro-refineries that take volatiles/organics/rare metals and turn'em into fuel? Wouldn't be efficient but certainly nice to have in tight situations considering raw resources will probably be common loot when exploring systems. Could be a hotbar ability that only shows when you have a ship with said refineries in your fleet!
While we are at the topic of too many hullmods, I think even with current amount of hullmods, user experience would benefit from putting them into categories. ...
OH SHOOT are we gonna get the ability to filter weapons in the drop down by damage type or size?Please oh please be so
With the new hull mod acquiring system, would you be able to find hullmods like the special fourteenth battle group one, possible under a different name but withthe exact same affects?
On a side note, any special hullmod for the tri-tachs?
just a quick question ... will/can something be done about maneuverability of fleets? (both in the star system and in hyperspace) ... in battle it takes quite a bit of time to do 360 turn in Onslaught, but on the main map fleet full of Onslaughts changes course just as fast as frigate-only wolfpack fleet. Sure, the max speed/burn is different, but quite often the AI fleets are able to do really uncanny dodge maneuvers, especially when coupled with the maximum burn ability (and their total disregard for supplies/fuel needs)
The Persean League, yes. (If it helps, I pronounce it "Per-see-an", as in a word derived from the name Perseus.)
Battles leave behind short-duration debris fields that can be scavenged
nothing really says that the domain of the domain (heh) has to be contiguous. whatever very-long-distance-FTL is or was in service may enable travel of arbitrary distances, which is why there's nothing of interest past the core of the sector; domain finds interesting worlds using very-long-range-FTL sensor, domain hops in, settles it and then links it through whatever means.
the persean league could very well be from the perseus arm without necessarily having control of everything between here and there.
...right. I wasn't thinking about the gates.
How wide was our Sector(more specifically, our Core World area)?
There's also the Perseus constellation and the various Perseid stars :^)
if that is so they've come a long way.
looking for something, perhaps?
Quote from: AlexBattles leave behind short-duration debris fields that can be scavenged
Do AI fleets scavenge, or are the maybe even specialized scavenger fleets? Sound like fighting/racing other weak fleets for access to debris fields could be a fun early game activity.
My gut reaction is this seems small, seeing as you're burning supplies dragging it out there, and additional supplies to deploy it, and you're likely needing escorts to keep it safe.Yeah, I'm not sure this will stay in actually. It has some other problems - it's either always worth it to deploy the rig, or always not, depending on the battle size.
SALVAGE RIG! YAY!My gut reaction is this seems small, seeing as you're burning supplies dragging it out there, and additional supplies to deploy it, and you're likely needing escorts to keep it safe.Yeah, I'm not sure this will stay in actually. It has some other problems - it's either always worth it to deploy the rig, or always not, depending on the battle size.
I love the idea of this mechanic! I hope it will stay in, pending whatever adjustments to the numbers are needed to make it worthwhile for people willing to lug around a rig in their fleet. It's really cool because it adds a meta-objective to combat for the player: deploy/defend your salvage rig. (and for the AI, to destroy it.) Just for veracity pirate fleets should also sometimes deploy a rig in combat.
Combat needs more stuff like this that the player and AI can both deploy for advantage. It gives both teams something to hunt and something to defend, which overall adds much more options to the way combat can play out.
Here are some more things like that:
-Sensor ship that provide sensor radius increase to all friendlies on the map while deployed.
-Scout ships that improve speed/maneuverability and nebular navigation to all friendlies on combat map (and buffs in campaign map)
-Telemetry spotter ships that provide buffs to missile accuracy and gunfire accuracy/damage to all friendly ships within a certain distance of telemetry ship. (so you'd assign these ships to escort heavy hitters a lot)
-Troop ship that increase chance of successful boarding if deployed to battle. (you didn't deploy the troop ship? Then you can't use it in the post battle boarding dialogue. Don't remember current status of boarding dialogue)
-Medical ships that reduce crew fatalities in/after combat while deployed (if crew even still exist in the game)
-Command and Control ships that increase command points and speed at which friendly ships respond to new orders and do something good to CR. (every capital ship would have this, think of those pits full of guys with computers in star destroyers)
Notice a pattern? It's all replacing stuff that is currently combat map objectives, which don't make sense and aren't particularly fun, or XP skills, which are unbalanced and just reward hours played by the player character, rather than real skill building by the actual player. Basically I think skills are totally wrong for this kind of game. Growth and improved capabilities should come through learning to play the game better, coming up with better strategies, and getting/deploying new and better ships. Not "XP skills" which are points for grinding that magically let you "upgrade your X by Y%" They make sense in a table top RPG, but not in a game that uses the arrow keys.
*Note since officers aren't actual humans who can grow better at the game, there might be more potential for the XP and skills for the officer characters rather than the human player character.
Construction/Salvage rig is ugly.
So in theory it looks good, but I have doubts if it actually would add anything in practice.
It's really cool because it adds a meta-objective to combat for the player: deploy/defend your salvage rig. (and for the AI, to destroy it.)
Here are some more things like that:
...
Construction/Salvage rig is ugly.
(I've redrawn it, btw.)
Details details. Those can be worked out or adjusted.
assuming the engagement does not end in a relatively small amount of time, though, or assuming the enemy can break through, then they should be threatened. adding such a system to the game is probably inevitable, i doubt combat will stay like it is forever.
(Of course the whole concept of "I have a fleet and I bump into an enemy fleet, but somehow I can still choose to not deploy some of my ships and magically hide them from the battle" doesn't really make sense and removes a lot of the spice and jeopardy from combat, but oh well)
The Persean League, yes. (If it helps, I pronounce it "Per-see-an", as in a word derived from the name Perseus.)
Oh, interesting. That implies some things about the extent of the Domain, and maybe even about the location of the Sector. The Perseus arm is the closest spiral arm to the Orion arm (which is home to Sol). It's about 5000 light years from us, in the direction from the galactic center away. If there's a faction in the Sector named after it, then the Sector is either in it, or the faction is powerful enough to have spread across the Domain. Something to look out for in the lore :)
The Persean League, yes. (If it helps, I pronounce it "Per-see-an", as in a word derived from the name Perseus.)
Oh, interesting. That implies some things about the extent of the Domain, and maybe even about the location of the Sector. The Perseus arm is the closest spiral arm to the Orion arm (which is home to Sol). It's about 5000 light years from us, in the direction from the galactic center away. If there's a faction in the Sector named after it, then the Sector is either in it, or the faction is powerful enough to have spread across the Domain. Something to look out for in the lore :)
https://youtu.be/eAvo3S0MD-o?t=1s (https://youtu.be/eAvo3S0MD-o?t=1s) ;)
https://youtu.be/eAvo3S0MD-o?t=1s (https://youtu.be/eAvo3S0MD-o?t=1s) ;)
https://youtu.be/eAvo3S0MD-o?t=1s (https://youtu.be/eAvo3S0MD-o?t=1s) ;)Spoilerhttps://youtu.be/GvKfecT88f4 (https://youtu.be/GvKfecT88f4)[close]
well, I still consider this one to be the best trailer for Starsector, despite being 4+ years old ... showing mostly combat and lots of it, plenty of different ships (some are from mods though), large battles, awesome music. Compared to the fan made trailer the official trailer is kind of ... boring.
I am going to have to heavily disagree on that. The original trailer shows a quick glimpse of the game and what you can expect, the music is fitting and the over all video has pacing to it and while short it does get the message across in an efficient manner.
The fan made trailer has music that makes me cringe because it's as overused as linking park in naruto AMVs, and while certainly it does spend more time showing off combat, it doesn't really give that much overview of the game.
the biggest "problem" I have with the official trailer is that it simply doesn't show gameplay (certainly not for the combat). The last 20 seconds of trailer that shows combat are way too short cuts (22 seconds of total combat coverage, split into 7 different cuts), always only showing extremely short clip of ship(s) firing one salvo and then there is cut and trailer jumps to another scene that again only shows one salvo etc. The fan trailer shows much longer combat scenes, giving much better impression of how the gameplay actually looks like ... and also shows the user interface (in my opinion a good thing, this is what player will be seeing in his game, not the "staged" cinematic shots without UI)A games trailer should not be about just one aspect of the game, neither should it cover it in-depth. It should instead give a brief overview of the entire game, set the pace and tone of the game and spark your interest. After which if people are interested they will look up another trailer, a letsplay, a combat trailer or something like this
and the fan trailer not giving better overview of the game (map, trading, etc) is simply result of many of these things either weren't in the game 4 years ago or were a lot more simplified compared to todays version. Here the official trailer is in a bit of a though spot thanks to the fact that it tries to show a lot more things in only third of the running time (the fan trailer simply shows combat because back then the game was almost entirely about combat ... or things leading directly to combat and not much else).Ah, I see, still the game has more to it than just combat these days so it counts.
Or maybe in (distant) future there could be 2nd trailer (combat trailer?), showing more combat with longer scenes and UI displayed ... and maybe also showing the ship customization in a little more detail.Sure, a trailer that shows off the combat more, is good, but as a secondary trailer, not as the primary.
Yeah!Yeah! Skipped last update, but this one should take me back once again. Waiting for 0.8a
To review, a primary promo trailer must:
and of course No Man's Sky!"
- Good sounding (out of context) quotes from the press
How much have you changed the apogee... don't hurt my baby
Well I have a QUESTION.
Will you fix the bug that beam has, like the wired charge time, wired fire at full charge?
The weapon's progress bar is always wired when is forced to stop.
How much have you changed the apogee... don't hurt my baby
Haven't nerfed it yet. <pats nerf bat>
Well I have a QUESTION.
Will you fix the bug that beam has, like the wired charge time, wired fire at full charge?
The weapon's progress bar is always wired when is forced to stop.
I'm not quite sure what you mean, but I think so, yes, as I do remember fixing a beam weapon bug that sounds like it could be this. And I seem to remember you PMing me about it. So: not 100% sure, but I think so.
Risk of accidents resulting in small losses of crew; mitigated by having heavy machinerySo, we're now carrying around a 3rd stack of resources for something that was already covered by having a stock of supplies?
Risk of accidents resulting in small losses of crew; mitigated by having heavy machinerySo, we're now carrying around a 3rd stack of resources for something that was already covered by having a stock of supplies?
Seems like increasing complexity for it's own sake tbh.
Heh, since heavy machine stuff was already a common drop from fights, I always seemed to be carrying around a stack of the stuff anyways. So, this won't affect me!I'm kinda in this boat too, but I'd also like to note that Jangala is often a decent place to pick Heavy Machinery up, and look, it's right at your starting location!
interesting that alex would decide to make this in particular consume a different commodity while everything else are just supplies. I mean, marines don't need hand weapons and crew don't need food and recreational drugs, why the distinction?
not that I mind, it's just an interesting line to draw
Organizationally, it's a pain having something you want to sell some of but not all of...
It's not specialization - when you're scrambling for money early on most players are at least going to try their hand at scavenging - and carrying heavy machinery for it will basically be mandatory.
I actually like it if commodities get a tangible use, and are not just meaningless trade items. I hope to see more of that. Maybe you could use passenger ships to provide premium pleasure voyages that use up luxury items and lobsters or something :DOrganizationally, it's a pain having something you want to sell some of but not all of...
That's a good point. If you could somehow set stacks aside that would help.
But it was not "already covered" with supplies, since scavenging (of a debris field) is a new mechanic. And heavy machines are also needed for surveying, where they are not consumed. I'd assume that's the same here. So it's something you'd load to specialize your fleet, not a requirement.That's my fault. The way I read it it seemed like another instance of "if you don't have machines with you at all times then bad stuff happens", which is exactly what supplies cover.
What may be kind of fun is if having hand weapons in your cargo give a small bonus to marines' effectiveness if you bring enough (to arm marines) with you. Sort of like equipping ships with rifles, grenades, or nerve gas in the game Endless Sky.That's doesn't make sense unless you go all in and separate all the things the marines need to board a ship (armor, gear, weapons, marines themselves, etc.), and that would just be pointless extra inventory management.
I remember seeing something about them becoming the Persian league which is coming next patchThe Persean League, yes. (If it helps, I pronounce it "Per-see-an", as in a word derived from the name Perseus.)
Based on the faction flags in the game folder, it seems like we're getting 2 more; Persean League and Ko Combine.
The minimum damage is going to seriously reduce the damage done by low per shot weapons... like lmg's and vulcans.
Is Advanced Optics going to get an OP price decrease like DTC and ITU?
1) Can I get the .csv file IDs for the heavy mortar, hammer barrage, and devastator cannon?
2) Only if spoiler-free answers are possible of course: the new fighter hull IDs?
hello alex when are you going to update the patch notes thxNow that you've said that, he just most likely set it back a week!
hello alex when are you going to update the patch notes thx
When determining how far away the release is, would you estimate it using days, weeks, or months?
new starting star systemOh boy! Is it called Tutorion by any chance? Is this the start of the tutorial rework?
Flux Coil Adjunct, Flux Distributor:So can you stick multiples of this on, or is it supposed to be a tiny bonus?
Cost 4/8/12/20 ordnance points
Provide dissipation/capacity at 75% efficiency compared to vents and capacitors
Available from the start
Damn it Alex, i was supposed to go to sleep early today! A bit too sleepy to read all of this in details, but from what i'm seeing, this all sounds pretty good. I'll look into it a bit thoroughly tomorrow.It says "Overall: low dps, very high per-shot damage, very low flux cost", so I assume it's a straight nerf.
By the way, does the Hellbore damage per shot was increased to compensate for the reduced ROF? Or is it a straight nerf to it (asides from the flux reduction)? I mean, it's not like it was an amazing weapon to begin with, so it leaves me a bit curious.
Pretty sure it is supposed to be a tiny bonusQuoteFlux Coil Adjunct, Flux Distributor:So can you stick multiples of this on, or is it supposed to be a tiny bonus?
Cost 4/8/12/20 ordnance points
Provide dissipation/capacity at 75% efficiency compared to vents and capacitors
Available from the startDamn it Alex, i was supposed to go to sleep early today! A bit too sleepy to read all of this in details, but from what i'm seeing, this all sounds pretty good. I'll look into it a bit thoroughly tomorrow.It says "Overall: low dps, very high per-shot damage, very low flux cost", so I assume it's a straight nerf.
By the way, does the Hellbore damage per shot was increased to compensate for the reduced ROF? Or is it a straight nerf to it (asides from the flux reduction)? I mean, it's not like it was an amazing weapon to begin with, so it leaves me a bit curious.
Apogee: replaced ship system with Active Flair LauncherBring it!
I knew it ;D (that something would change when i hit that refresh button :P)
edit: We can eject crew in cargo pods... Why? :)
The hype hurts, Alex! This all sounds so good. Pleased to see some unexpected new ships too, how big is the low-tech carrier? :o
By the way, does the Hellbore damage per shot was increased to compensate for the reduced ROF? Or is it a straight nerf to it (asides from the flux reduction)? I mean, it's not like it was an amazing weapon to begin with, so it leaves me a bit curious.
Two questions on the skill revamp:
1) If there are duplicate boosts in the same skill, do they stack or merge? (IE if my mod had a +10% OP at level three computer systems and so did vanilla, would the boost be 10% or 20%?
2) Can Aptitudes still get boosts in mods? Or are they forever empty?
Oh boy! Is it called Tutorion by any chance? Is this the start of the tutorial rework?
Edit: Also, how are fuel prices and drops now that space is MUCH bigger?
QuoteFlux Coil Adjunct, Flux Distributor:So can you stick multiples of this on, or is it supposed to be a tiny bonus?
Cost 4/8/12/20 ordnance points
Provide dissipation/capacity at 75% efficiency compared to vents and capacitors
Available from the start
QuoteApogee: replaced ship system with Active Flair LauncherBring it!
This changelog is fricking awesome, btw. Can't wait to take it for a spin!
Another question (sorry): Do hull mods need any changes to add into .8? If so, then what? Code? Art? I know they can be found in the wild
P.S. Questions are totally welcome and in fact encouraged :)What da zog is a Phase Charge Launcher? Is it a weapon that fires missiles/mines which can hit phased ships?
What da zog is a Phase Charge Launcher? Is it a weapon that fires missiles/mines which can hit phased ships?
Really glad to see some new ship hulls (especially a new capital ship) even though they are just carriers, maybe I will try piloting one. Any hidden or REDACTED hulls that might make it into this release? :D
About how valuable are we talking with class 5 planet data? Enough to buy a shiny new destroyer or something?
I guess I can't trust the wiki, currently it says the flux/s is 533 on the Mjolnir Cannon and 550 on the Hellbore... ???I would hope that class 5 would mean like a fully fitted Paragon as I would think that is a Paradise level world
Really glad to see some new ship hulls (especially a new capital ship) even though they are just carriers, maybe I will try piloting one. Any hidden or REDACTED hulls that might make it into this release? :D
The course setting feature seems like it'll be a great addition and should cut down on the amount of times one has to open the map to reorient.
About how valuable are we talking with class 5 planet data? Enough to buy a shiny new destroyer or something?
Anyways, a lot of digest here and super excited that we must really be getting close to release now! I'll surely have a few more questions later on...
ModdingRIP Nemean Lion?
- Station weapons now render above all station modules
I guess I can't trust the wiki, currently it says the flux/s is 533 on the Mjolnir Cannon and 550 on the Hellbore... ???Different measures - the wiki is giving you flux per second, while Alex' listing was flux per shot. They're both right.
Annnnd that brings another question! Could we mod in something that allows us to exchange survey data for something other than credits?
Wiki is outdated and not well maintainedI guess I can't trust the wiki, currently it says the flux/s is 533 on the Mjolnir Cannon and 550 on the Hellbore... ???Different measures - the wiki is giving you flux per second, while Alex' listing was flux per shot. They're both right.
Are there any skills which give your ships bonus OP, or effective bonus OP a la the old Ordinance Expertise?
If modspecs can be dropped from ships which have that hullmod installed, can you potentially get a Heavy Ballistics Integration hullmod from killing lots of Conquests?
Damnit Alex, stop being such a Hypester and RELEASE THE BEAST! Leave all the play testing to us!Annnnd that brings another question! Could we mod in something that allows us to exchange survey data for something other than credits?
Certainly. There are other REDACTED that in fact do REDACTED in a related manner.
Not really, the current setup using twiglib already required some shenanigans to make everything render in the right order, and I actually won't have much to change to adapt it to the modules.ModdingRIP Nemean Lion?
- Station weapons now render above all station modules
Well that's good to hear!Not really, the current setup using twiglib already required some shenanigans to make everything render in the right order, and I actually won't have much to change to adapt it to the modules.ModdingRIP Nemean Lion?
- Station weapons now render above all station modules
Neutrino Detector ability (requires Sensors skill)Please define entity.
Detect entities anywhere in-system
Tempest: increased shield arc to 120 degrees (was 90)I'm seeing a bunch of Tempest buffs. Did you feel it was underperforming?
I'd be willing to bet that the Tempest is one of the ships that got a smaller than 10% increase to its ordnance points, though, and the new drone is much less of a distraction / built-in wingman than the previous version. So I guess we'll see.QuoteTempest: increased shield arc to 120 degrees (was 90)I'm seeing a bunch of Tempest buffs. Did you feel it was underperforming?
Alex, Can we adjust the cost of the D mod removal? I can't remember if you said we could or not. Also if you can: would it be per the settings file or per station? (or both?)
QuoteNeutrino Detector ability (requires Sensors skill)Please define entity.
Detect entities anywhere in-system
QuoteTempest: increased shield arc to 120 degrees (was 90)I'm seeing a bunch of Tempest buffs. Did you feel it was underperforming?
I'd be willing to bet that the Tempest is one of the ships that got a smaller than 10% increase to its ordnance points
Somehow, through all this awesome stuff, the one that gets me the most is "Weapons with recoil now retract their barrels while ship is venting". It's the little details like that which make Starsector an incredible game. ;D
I'm kinda bad at math so what happens when you've got Armored Mounts that slow turret speed by 25% and then add Advanced Gyros that speeds up by 50%? I thought it'd be a net gain of 25% faster turrets but what about the new stacking rules and such?
Does this new battlecarrier have at least 1 large ballistic turret? Or does it blow its load on large missiles, flight decks and lots of smaller mounts like the Mora?
So the big Apogee nerf was only gaining 5 more OP as compensation for the overall OP reduction? Hrrm, well I guess it loses its range booster drones too (unless they are built-in now?).
Did the Storm Needler really need the 100 range nerf? You give it somewhat usable flux stats but then you taketh away...
But hey, this means you're damn close to releasing this beast ya?! Just some final polish and playtesting, eh?!
Honestly, I'd say it's still a net buff - in the current game the Storm Needler is basically unusable; the reduced flux cost should make it something that's actually sane to mount on some builds.Did the Storm Needler really need the 100 range nerf? You give it somewhat usable flux stats but then you taketh away...
It really did, yeah. It's somewhat unique among longer-ranged kinetic weapons in that it deals its damage over time rather than a burst, making it very difficult to avoid taking on shields.
I'm curious if it's actually a net performance boost or if the massive expansion of the game world (and thus many more fleets and other things to sim) kinda negates it all. Not that it really matters to me as I keep my hardware up to date, though! >8DI think Alex has said that it is about a 30%? increase?
Honestly, I'd say it's still a net buff - in the current game the Storm Needler is basically unusable; the reduced flux cost should make it something that's actually sane to mount on some builds.Did the Storm Needler really need the 100 range nerf? You give it somewhat usable flux stats but then you taketh away...
It really did, yeah. It's somewhat unique among longer-ranged kinetic weapons in that it deals its damage over time rather than a burst, making it very difficult to avoid taking on shields.
I'm curious if it's actually a net performance boost or if the massive expansion of the game world (and thus many more fleets and other things to sim) kinda negates it all. Not that it really matters to me as I keep my hardware up to date, though! >8DI think Alex has said that it is about a 30%? increase?
So Alex, how many lines of code is Starsector up to now? And how often are you able to copy/paste a decent amount of code when implementing a new feature?
New/adjusted hullmods:
- Expanded Missile Racks:
- Now increases missile ammo by 100% (was: 75%)
- Ordnance point cost increased substantially
- One-shot Reaper torpedo launcher now has a 5 second cooldown
New/adjusted hullmods:
- Expanded Missile Racks:
- Now increases missile ammo by 100% (was: 75%)
- Ordnance point cost increased substantially
- One-shot Reaper torpedo launcher now has a 5 second cooldown
Removed CR reduction for hull damage taken in combat
Transverse Jump ability:
Jump into systems using nascent gravity wells
Jump to hyperspace from anywhere in-system without using a jump-point (costs fuel and a bit of CR)
Unlocked by level 3 Navigation skill
Neutrino Detector ability (requires Sensors skill)
Detect entities anywhere in-system
Added "enableUIStaticNoise" setting to data/config/settings.json to disable UI static noise overlayThank you!
Have ship market prices been adjusted at all? Like say the Onslaught being made more expensive?
Wasn't there gonna be a new defensive-type destroyer or does the Drover somehow fill that slot in? Simply not enough time to squeeze that into this patch?
No tweaks to the Hephaestus Assault Gun, eh? You thinking it's in a pretty okay spot with the nerfs to Hellbore and Mjolnir?
Finally, are you gonna commish a new trailer? Seems like this patch would deserve one... :o
EDIT: Are cargo pods created by just dragging the item you want in them with some supplies into the discard section?
Interesting, Did you find that missiles felt a bit less powerful with the removal of +1 missile ammo? or was this just in response to +75% not being very useful on many launcher ammo counts?
*grabs by the color, shaking and screaming* tell me you left my atropos kite viable! Tell me!
Can the AI also use this? If so, doesn't it become mandatory for the player to also have Transverse Jump, so they can chase targets that do it? And does the AI spam the Neutrino detector? If so, does that basically kill the stealth/smuggling playstyle?
[Edit] And before I forget, tons of stuff looks amazing! I'm looking forward to having a carrier fleet of doom again!
Added "enableUIStaticNoise" setting to data/config/settings.json to disable UI static noise overlayThank you!
Also, for David, about how long does it take you to finalize a frigate sized hull, a capital sized? About 3-5 hours of total work? I'd imagine you've gotten super proficient at busting out ships at this point!
Both are player-only abilities. So is Sustained Burn, actually, at least for the moment.
I think it is to prevent ganks from the AI like with E burn now. And also to prevent bounties from just "NOPE"ing outBoth are player-only abilities. So is Sustained Burn, actually, at least for the moment.
this worries me, especially if we're gonna be flying around the sector under SB and seeing everyone else in normal burn drive
I think it is to prevent ganks from the AI like with E burn now. And also to prevent bounties from just "NOPE"ing outThere's a time delay as well as a fleet slowdown before the +10 Burn buff takes place, so you can't just NOPE out of any situation with Sustained Burn.
Added "Distress Call" player ability; may result in friendly fleet arriving with some fuel or supplies
Yeah I can see this being used by someone *coughmegascough* to draw in fleets to make a big(ger) fightQuoteAdded "Distress Call" player ability; may result in friendly fleet arriving with some fuel or supplies
I had a good chuckle, got the feeling there might be pirates answering it as well?
Are there any skills which give your ships bonus OP, or effective bonus OP a la the old Ordinance Expertise?
Yeah, there's one skill in Technology that gives +10% OP alongside modest increases to max vents/capacitors.If modspecs can be dropped from ships which have that hullmod installed, can you potentially get a Heavy Ballistics Integration hullmod from killing lots of Conquests?
Negative - built-in hullmods can't drop.
Am I the only person who feels carrier distribution between tech levels is backwards? Low-tech now has 3. Midline has 2. High-tech has 1. This is of course discounting not-real-carriers like Gemini and Odyssey.
On the other hand, 6 out of 14 strike craft are high-tech, and it is also the only tech level that fields shielded strike craft.
Am I the only person who feels carrier distribution between tech levels is backwards? Low-tech now has 3. Midline has 2. High-tech has 1. This is of course discounting not-real-carriers like Gemini and Odyssey.
On the other hand, 6 out of 14 strike craft are high-tech, and it is also the only tech level that fields shielded strike craft.
Just curious, how are you defining "strike craft" here? I presume not just fighters, because I'm looking at Starsector's current fighters, and those numbers don't add up. Are you including things like the Hyperion and Tempest?
EDIT: On a personal note and for the sake of discussion, I treat the Dagger as a midline fighter, so I'm not convinced high-tech has a monopoly on shielded fighters.
Target fleets now hide out outside the core worlds area and tend to favor star systems that are also otherwise interesting
Can click minimap in intel message detail to switch to map tab showing location that was on miniamp
That's good. Recently I've been thinking that a key to good open-world game design is not to plaster the place with stuff to do and mark it all on a map, but do lay loose threads between points of interest. If you finish one thing and "naturally" stumble upon the next interesting thing, it feels much more like exploration and as if you have real agency.
(or god help me, a station)
Now that fighters can only be fielded with carriers, it would be a damn shame if smaller high-tech fleets either can't field strike craft or must use lower tech carriers (granted the Heron fulfills high-tech's mobility doctrine pretty well, here's hoping the Drover does too).Do not forget there will be a hullmod that can install a flight deck on non-frigate ships that do not have a deck into an improvised carrier.
Do not forget there will be a hullmod that can install a flight deck on non-frigate ships that do not have a deck into an improvised carrier.
No argument there. Given the changes, I have no idea if adding a deck as a workaround for infinite missiles will be effective. If it is, you can be sure I will exploit it left-and-right. If not, I will quickly abandon it. I probably would not use the deck for bombers, but for interceptors or heavy fighters.Do not forget there will be a hullmod that can install a flight deck on non-frigate ships that do not have a deck into an improvised carrier.
You're right, but I put that in the same basket as Gemini and Odyssey (i.e. even worse than not-real-carriers). If fighter composition is going to be as important as Alex says then one-deck carriers would likely be very limited offensively (especially since converted hangars has a huge penalty for bombers).
No argument there. Given the changes, I have no idea if adding a deck as a workaround for infinite missiles will be effective. If it is, you can be sure I will exploit it left-and-right. If not, I will quickly abandon it. I probably would not use the deck for bombers, but for interceptors or heavy fighters.
this worries me, especially if we're gonna be flying around the sector under SB and seeing everyone else in normal burn driveI think it is to prevent ganks from the AI like with E burn now. And also to prevent bounties from just "NOPE"ing out
Am I the only person who feels carrier distribution between tech levels is backwards? Low-tech now has 3. Midline has 2. High-tech has 1. This is of course discounting not-real-carriers like Gemini and Odyssey.
On the other hand, 6 out of 14 strike craft are high-tech, and it is also the only tech level that fields shielded strike craft.
Yes, the Astral is the pinnacle of carrier design, but high-tech has nothing for fleets smaller than an armada; whereas both low-tech and midline have carriers for most fleet sizes. Unless there are smaller high-tech carriers still under wraps?
Now that fighters can only be fielded with carriers, it would be a damn shame if smaller high-tech fleets either can't field strike craft or must use lower tech carriers (granted the Heron fulfills high-tech's mobility doctrine pretty well, here's hoping the Drover does too).
I had a good chuckle, got the feeling there might be pirates answering it as well?
And yeah the Dagger's definitely high-tech based on aesthetics. Khopesh will be the midline bomber.
QuoteTarget fleets now hide out outside the core worlds area and tend to favor star systems that are also otherwise interesting
That's good. Recently I've been thinking that a key to good open-world game design is not to plaster the place with stuff to do and mark it all on a map, but do lay loose threads between points of interest. If you finish one thing and "naturally" stumble upon the next interesting thing, it feels much more like exploration and as if you have real agency.
I also like the approach that Freelancer and the various Evochron games took; making exploration be about the journey as much as the destination, and have it be time consuming and dangerous.
Just asking, what is difference between 'Integrated Targeting Unit' and 'Dedicated Targeting Core' hull mod (both present and future)?
Am I the only person who feels carrier distribution between tech levels is backwards? Low-tech now has 3. Midline has 2. High-tech has 1. This is of course discounting not-real-carriers like Gemini and Odyssey.
On the other hand, 6 out of 14 strike craft are high-tech, and it is also the only tech level that fields shielded strike craft.
Yes, the Astral is the pinnacle of carrier design, but high-tech has nothing for fleets smaller than an armada; whereas both low-tech and midline have carriers for most fleet sizes. Unless there are smaller high-tech carriers still under wraps?
Now that fighters can only be fielded with carriers, it would be a damn shame if smaller high-tech fleets either can't field strike craft or must use lower tech carriers (granted the Heron fulfills high-tech's mobility doctrine pretty well, here's hoping the Drover does too).
Hmm - I feel like if one is expecting each tech level to provide complete fleets compositions and ship progressions, one is always going to be disappointed. They're meant to be complementary rather than self sufficient. To put another way, avoiding too much overlap between what niches the ships fill is a design goal, where providing comprehensive ship sets for each tech level is not.
I understand tech levels aren't meant to be factions, and I'm not advocating for a full set of carriers for every tech level. But based on how each time period views fighters, I would've expected high-tech to have the most diversity in carrier design and low-tech to have the least. As it is, it's the other way around.
I mean if high-tech's doctrine is supposed to be "dictate engagements" through speed and mobility, you would expect there to be small, high-tech carriers to support this. Instead it has the complete opposite, a slow, lumbering, overwhelming firepower supercarrier, and nothing else.
First of all, backstory-wise, what's available in the Sector is just whatever blueprints happened to be there at the time of the gate collapse. If fewer high-tech carrier blueprints happened to be there, well, that's the breaks - but it's not necessarily indicative of the full (and hypothetical) range of high-tech ships found in the Domain at large.
Second, the high-tech "doctrine" is mostly about what makes sense for those ships. Given the nature of energy weapons, mobility and hit and run are what works. Carriers are naturally more about fighters, so I wouldn't expect them to adhere to a doctrine driven by weapons they don't primarily rely on in the first place.
Speaking or energy weapons, I'm kind a shocked that a new one isn't going to be added with this patch. But oh well, I favor low-tech ships anyways to bring on the ballistic options! >8DIt would be nice if energy weapons in general had something over ballistics. The only two things I can think of is chain-EMP from a few weapons and exploiting shield AI with a cheap long-range beam, and the latter might not work anymore. As is, at least for unmodded game, hybrid mounts are basically ballistic, and universals are composite because energy weapons are usually bad, something to use if your ship cannot use ballistics.
I would've expected ship design to follow doctrine though, as alluded to in the Mora and Heron's backstories (particularly the Heron being a result of the fighter school gaining traction over the cruiser school). A lumbering carrier like the Astral would need something more like the Dominator to hold the line, rather than an Aurora that plasma jets away and leaves the flagship wide open. The Paragon exists of course, but my impression of the Paragon is it's creation is more about Tri-Tachyon ego than an actual battlefield necessity.
Speaking or energy weapons, I'm kind a shocked that a new one isn't going to be added with this patch. But oh well, I favor low-tech ships anyways to bring on the ballistic options! >8DIt would be nice if energy weapons in general had something over ballistics. The only two things I can think of is chain-EMP from a few weapons and exploiting shield AI with a cheap long-range beam, and the latter might not work anymore. As is, at least for unmodded game, hybrid mounts are basically ballistic, and universals are composite because energy weapons are usually bad, something to use if your ship cannot use ballistics.
Yes, it's a bit strange how high-tech weapons are mostly inferior to "crude" ballistics. Makes you wonder why did the Domain switched in the first place. But maybe we Sector savages are just missing something important about them.
Also, what's with the poor Sabot? Is it doomed to oscillate between single warhead and multiple forever? :'(
Are their fleet compositions any different than what they are now? To be honest it gets tiring when the vast majority is just pirates with low tech ships.
...Speaking or energy weapons, I'm kind a shocked that a new one isn't going to be added with this patch. But oh well, I favor low-tech ships anyways to bring on the ballistic options! >8DIt would be nice if energy weapons in general had something over ballistics. The only two things I can think of is chain-EMP from a few weapons and exploiting shield AI with a cheap long-range beam, and the latter might not work anymore. As is, at least for unmodded game, hybrid mounts are basically ballistic, and universals are composite because energy weapons are usually bad, something to use if your ship cannot use ballistics.
I may at some point rebalance things so that energy weapons have lower flux costs (more in line with ballistic) and high-tech ships have worse flux stats but better shield efficiency (leaving them basically as-is in terms of both defense and firepower). That'd help out with the hybrid/universal mount issues. Not a big priority, though, since energy weapons already offer some utility in those slots, and I don't want to make them on-par with ballistics in overall quality regardless. The advantage of energy weapons lies in the hulls that mount them, so to speak.Yes, it's a bit strange how high-tech weapons are mostly inferior to "crude" ballistics. Makes you wonder why did the Domain switched in the first place. But maybe we Sector savages are just missing something important about them.
I think it's clear gameplay-wise, and it's more a backstory question, right?
If so: the high-tech hull designs focus on mobility and shields/flux stats. Let's say there's something intrinsic about that design that doesn't work well with ballistics. Maybe there just isn't room for magazines and ammo conduits. Maybe the design can't handle the amount of recoil. Maybe there isn't room for enough crew to service the more maintenance-intensive low-tech gear. Maybe a bunch of other things.
Thus you end up with weapons that are more or less designed to be used on these hulls - worse in theory, but allowing the use of better hulls.
(Energy weapons also tend to have better alpha-strike capability - and their downsides are offset by the improved stats of the hull - so despite being "worse" on paper, they can work quite well anyway. Plus, there are a number of good utility options there, too - beams, EMP weapons, the AM blaster, etc - that can be situationally good on any ship.)
...
yes! o_o
- Added Drover-class midline carrier, destroyer-sized with 2 fighter bays
YES! O_O
- Added Legion-class low-tech battlecarrier
It's capital-sized, with 4 fighter bays.YES!! @_@
You'll have to see it to get all the detailsNOOOOOOOooooo....... Q___Q
NOOOOOOOooooo....... Q___Q
NOOOOOOOooooo....... Q___Q
Alright, let me post a screenshot of it on Twitter...
Yes, it's a bit strange how high-tech weapons are mostly inferior to "crude" ballistics. Makes you wonder why did the Domain switched in the first place. But maybe we Sector savages are just missing something important about them.Maybe there isn't room for enough crew to service the more maintenance-intensive low-tech gear.
I hate you
Maybe there isn't room for enough crew to service the more maintenance-intensive low-tech gear.
Honestly, this would make a ton of sense if high-tech ships tended to have lower maintenance and deployment costs than low-tech ships;
While the ships breaking apart is cool and a worthwhile addition, it does make me wonder just how many missiles (especially Pilums) will meet their futile end colliding with chunks of wreaked spaceships.yeah.. i honestly think guided missiles shouldn't collide with husks, debris and asteroids (or even instead try to maneuver around them, if that's preferable). it just feels bad when a weapon you can't really aim yourself loses a potentially large part of its effectiveness more or less randomly, even without battleship-sized debris obstructing line of sight. 1 or 2 Hurricanes going into an asteroid rather than the target is a big deal.
yeah.. i honestly think guided missiles shouldn't collide with husks, debris and asteroids (or even instead try to maneuver around them, if that's preferable). it just feels bad when a weapon you can't really aim yourself loses a potentially large part of its effectiveness more or less randomly, even without battleship-sized debris obstructing line of sight. 1 or 2 Hurricanes going into an asteroid rather than the target is a big deal.
The profile pic is pretty old - it's the original Conquest.
EDIT: Could you explain the situation with Maxios and Killa? If we can't trade with them, then what purpose do they serve? :)
EDIT: Could you explain the situation with Maxios and Killa? If we can't trade with them, then what purpose do they serve? :)
A grim reminder.
For other missiles, their trajectories are predictable to a point, and minimizing the risk of them running into asteroids or debris is part of the skill involved in using them. I think it's actually pretty important.not firing missiles straight into a big husk in front of me, yeah. trying to lead a target to hit it with an unguided torpedo at flamed-out max range while trying to avoid any obstacles, absolutely. but a Hurricane or a salvo of Harpoons smashing into an asteroid 2k units from where i launch them? that doesn't feel like something that happens because i made the wrong decision or wasn't quite good enough to pull it off correctly.
Baiting missiles into debris is a time-honored tradition!Good fun for the whole family!
Baiting missiles into debris is a time-honored tradition!Good fun for the whole family!
Oh, that's just evil Alex. Time to break out Photoshop and weld this thing back together so I can board it!
NOOOOOOOooooo....... Q___Q
Alright, let me post a screenshot of it on Twitter...
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/845363297570492425/photo/1 (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/845363297570492425/photo/1)
I hate you
Still had to laugh so much. Very nice trolling Sir!indeed, i actually had to laugh out loud when i saw it. unfortunately, i have a really bad cough at the moment, so that did not go well. ._.
Guys, I, uh, could use some help...Spoiler(http://imgur.com/DhvYWng.jpg)[close]
i think "Duct-Taped Bulkheads" should be a d-mod.
Some one has been watching too much the Guardians of the Galaxynever seen it, actually. :P
Damage decal isn't helping either. but darn, you're way better than me...yeah, that's what i'm thinking too. it probably isn't even the whole ship, and the damage decal will make it impossible to see any details besides rough shape. also doesn't help that we don't know how far the zoom is in the screenshot, so we can't know how much of the ship is missing based on average capital ship size.
Now it occured to me that what we got is not 100% whole parts of a ship - you can "shoot a debris to break it furter" and looks like they've been shot multiple times to prevent the exact job we're doing. Some pieces might have been evaporated, drifted off-screen, or ground to fine dusts and unable to be seen.
still lots of new stuff to look forward to that we didn't know about already! there's one thing missing that i was hoping to see in there though; a suggestion (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10735.0) i made about a year ago. so i'd like to ask: did that just not make it into the changelog, did you try it out and decided not to implement it, or did you forget about it? ^^
*cough*quitters*cough*I'm not done yet - mark my words, a mostly welded-together Legion will appear soon enough!
(About 80-90% of the ship is there.)
Although I'm sure if I were welding this thing together in space, I'd at least have a basic visual representation of what the thing looked likeI'd be yelling at my officers about ammo conservation, excessive response and RoE and stuff.
Oh, hey, yeah! I'm sure I have it written down somewhere, just haven't looked there :) I'll see what I can do - part of it is it's annoyingly non-trivial to add.okay, thanks! :]
PROMETHEUS MK.II
THAT'S ENOUGH OF A CONTEXT!
Alex if ejected cargo is gonna be recoverable how does system patrol interact with it?
So you can...just... eject your contrabands before getting inspected and they don't give a d*mn about what you just ejected out of your ship?Alex if ejected cargo is gonna be recoverable how does system patrol interact with it?
It doesn't, good point.
May I ask how the break points for pieces of ship are calculated when they're destroyed? Tessellations? Fractals (which would be rather fitting)?
So you can...just... eject your contrabands before getting inspected and they don't give a d*mn about what you just ejected out of your ship?
Damnit!!! There goes THAT exploit! /sSo you can...just... eject your contrabands before getting inspected and they don't give a d*mn about what you just ejected out of your ship?Well yeah, what I mean by "good point" is that I need to do something about that :)
Can stabilize orbit of cargo pods for several months; costs supplies based on amount of cargo
As long as scuttling means just entirely destroying a ship I'll probably never do it... I'd rather risk losing the entire fleet than intentionally delete part of it.Well, you never know, that Heavy Machinery you get from it might be worth more than the ship itself on some markets from what I've seen.
I'm also assuming lighter pieces will fly faster than larger pieces when the ship explodes?
Either the number of cutting lines was increased dramatically or you really went ham in destroying those parts, Alex - this is much more severe than the Paragon from about 6 months ago:
http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=11240.0
Makes my job a bit harder, on top of not knowing what the thing looked like in the first place, but I think I'm getting somewhere. Appears to have the rough shape of a Falcon or Eagle, maybe with fighter bays on either side where the missile mounts are abouts. Although how big it is in comparison to other ships or what class it is, I can't tell.
I think Alex scrapped that idea in the patch notes—I dunno what is to become of the Construction Rig at this point. Maybe you'll need to haul around 3-4 of'em to build outposts?
Oh dear. Hint: it looks like you're making it much bigger than it is, hence "not enough bits".Part of the "I have no idea what scale this is at" problem I mentioned earlier. ;) Would you be gracious enough to tease at how close I am?
Ah, cool. I like the idea of a civilian oriented support section of the fleet that extends beyond just freighters. Optional things, obviously, but bringing along a construction rig, or having some kind of dedicated sensor or electronics warfare ship seems like lots of fun :DI think Alex scrapped that idea in the patch notes—I dunno what is to become of the Construction Rig at this point. Maybe you'll need to haul around 3-4 of'em to build outposts?
The construction rig increases both combat and non-combat salvage, yeah. The idea I scrapped was basing the combat salvage bonus on how long the rig spent deployed - that wasn't working well for various reasons.
Welding will continueyou're doing Lud's work, son. bless you.
That said, I did think about it spawning derelict ships - but that just makes it annoying, doesn't it? A multi-step process to get the most resources out of it - first you scuttle, then you salvage the derelicts.
Any word on replacing the trident and longbow into the game??
I'm back onlineRebuilding a Legion-class Battercruiser is a bit more difficult than one might think, even for a logistics officer, since the original shape isn't provided. :P
waves my plasma torch
Still not done?
Thank you for the quick response Alex..but you now must answer the real question..
WHEN BROLY!?
Alex if ejected cargo is gonna be recoverable how does system patrol interact with it?
It doesn't, good point.
IIRC I forced it to split into 15 pieces in one go. It's capital-sized, but the shot is zoomed out quite a bit, so that's probably not much help.Actually, that's a bit rude. :P Also; there's 22 pieces.
Weeell... of the pieces you've got in the latest image, nothing appears to be angled quite right.I'm building it with whatever angles are present with the pieces - mainly because it blurs pretty hardcore if I rotate it, so it benefits the eyes in finding the underlying texture similarities if I can keep myself from rotating every piece.
I'm building it with whatever angles are present with the pieces - mainly because it blurs pretty hardcore if I rotate it, so it benefits the eyes in finding the underlying texture similarities if I can keep myself from rotating every piece.
WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY APOGEE????
WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY APOGEE????
but ma sensors
my range
:'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
There are a couple pieces I'm finding must go together - there's a clear engine section and some other connected pieces with distinctive underlying textures. And something else I just realized, we're mainly working with the bounded zone of the Legion, since that's where the destroyed texture extends to when the sprite doesn't reach the edge. You'd expect there to be more clear, straight edges - but I just can't see any.
I now have 2 rather large chunks that pretty much belong welded together, but then there's the rest of the tiny bits floating around where they're too blurred to make out any textures or colors and the edges are rounded due to the resolution, so I can't really place them anywhere. Maybe if I just weld them there, it'll hold repressurization...
Guys, let's slow down here. Alex is finding this a bit too amusing, and we're setting a dangerous precedent for future updates by feeding into it this hard.I for one rather enjoy this challenge. :) Can't have everything just given to us on a silver platter, anyways - exploration is now in the game, we gotta search for our goodies next patch.
They're in the game, along with some new fighters, too.Kopesh and Claw, right? any word on what weapons the Claw will have?
WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY APOGEE????it kinda needed the combat nerf, but it will now finally become the exploration vessel it was always meant to be! :]
I'm fairly sure I welded everything right...might not. let me know if I missed something. If I did, this gives me 4 pieces that I cannot assemble together...keep in mind that a few pieces are missing, so there should probably be some holes in it somewhere.
There used to be a flux overcharge for higher energy-dps at higher flux levels. Maybe bring it back as a hullmod.There was, but all the energy weapons were weaker too. Pulse lasers were garbage, and beams had higher OP cost and less range. However, mining blaster was very good back then, good enough to compete with heavy blaster even if a bit worse overall. The damage increase make both pulse lasers and heavy blaster useful (but still not enough to compete with ballistics, except heavy blaster when combined with vent spam, which we will not be able to do anymore). Mining blaster did not get enough of a damage increase, while still keeping exorbitant flux cost. Right now, it is only good as fringe shield overload build for Sunder or AM blaster replacement for Hyperion. Beams got cheaper and more range (except Phase Lance, which lost range).
Is there a codex explanation for why the Storm Needler will be the only instance of a family of related weapons where range decreases with size?
Kopesh and Claw, right? any word on what weapons the Claw will have?
oh and something else i just thought of: will the Venture get burn 8 now that even battlecruisers do? i know it will become a more dedicated industrial ship, which i really like, but being limited to 7 max burn just from having a single Venture seems like a bad idea for fleets specializing in surveying and/or mining operations far from the core worlds.
Yeah, now it only has the flux stats of a warship. Or should I say that the warship has the flux stats of an exploration vessel, which doesn't make sense in many ways, along with the loss of the drones...WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY APOGEE????it kinda needed the combat nerf, but it will now finally become the exploration vessel it was always meant to be! :]
Oh gods, NO! PLEASE! I get ganked enough as it is by the damn AI spamming E Burn. I don't need them not losing CR on top of that. Besides, something like E Burn needs to have a resource cost besides fueloh and something else i just thought of: will the Venture get burn 8 now that even battlecruisers do? i know it will become a more dedicated industrial ship, which i really like, but being limited to 7 max burn just from having a single Venture seems like a bad idea for fleets specializing in surveying and/or mining operations far from the core worlds.There are also more tactical options, a possibility for having CR-free emergency burn, etc.
hmm. do you think it would help if we chopped up some old Hounds and put their pieces anywhere they seem to fit(ish)?Hmmmmm... sounds plausible.
Or less-than-stellar targeting, for whatever reason.Budget, obviously.
WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY APOGEE????
It's fiiiiine.
Oh gods, NO! PLEASE! I get ganked enough as it is by the damn AI spamming E Burn. I don't need them not losing CR on top of that. Besides, something like E Burn needs to have a resource cost besides fuelIsn't that a level 3 Industry / Safety Procedures skill perk?
Oh gods, NO! PLEASE! I get ganked enough as it is by the damn AI spamming E Burn. I don't need them not losing CR on top of that. Besides, something like E Burn needs to have a resource cost besides fuelIsn't that a level 3 Industry / Safety Procedures skill perk?
I don't really like the idea of player fleets and AI fleets following radically different rules. Makes everything feel overly "gamey" and arbitrary. =/
A visible nod to them using supplies - such as, perhaps, fleets occasionally acting as if they're out of supplies - would be imo all that's necessary to fully "sell" it here.If by "occasionally acting as if they're out of supplies" you mean stopping every single fleet from spamming E-burn literally all of the time, sure. That's the issue I have with AI E-burn, they just mash it every time it's off cooldown even when it's completely unnecessary, making it very obvious they don't actually use supplies and don't care about losing CR before going into a fight. Two AI fleets that want to get into a fight with each other will both E-burn directly towards each other, which is a ridiculous waste of CR. A fleet that wants to stay close to the player will use E-burn every time it's off cooldown, just to vibrate in place at the edge of the designated safe radius. A player that is totally fine with getting into a fight with an AI fleet doesn't even have to try to bait them into using E-burn and wasting an entire deployment's worth of CR, reducing the combat effectiveness of the entire enemy fleet by a small but noticeable amount. It might even be to the AI's advantage to take away their ability to E-burn because of this. This also means E-burn is useless for smaller fleets trying to escape larger fleets of 1 burn level slower, because a dozen-cruiser AI fleet will spend 250+ supplies every other day just to run down your 3-destroyer fleet and you cannot do the same without running out of CR and going broke.
that's why I'm concerned with the whole no-sustained-burn-for-AI thing
now THAT is a radically different rule if ever I've seen one
I don't really like the idea of player fleets and AI fleets following radically different rules. Makes everything feel overly "gamey" and arbitrary. =/
Finally, not re: SB specifically: conceptually, not all abilities have to be available to all fleets. Some are skill unlocks, some might be granted through events, etc. I don't think any given ability not being available to all and sundry is any sort of inconsistency - though I can see how it might seem that way *now*, given that in the current release this is the case with all abilities. In 0.8a, it's not.
I would say E-burn isn't a very interesting mechanic right now. It doesn't really change the outcome of chases at all, you just have to spend a bunch of extra supplies. The AI generally always pops E-burn if you do so if your fleet is slightly faster, you catch them/escape, slower and you don't, same as it would be without the mechanic. If the fleets are the same speed, you just burn supplies forever. ... IMO right now it's a pointless waste of supplies. It's also super annoying to get chased across an entire system by a patrol constantly E-burning after you and your only options are to burn all your supplies or take an impossible fight.
It doesn't really change the outcome of chases at all, you just have to spend a bunch of extra supplies.If you know how to exploit the AI it can change the outcome of some chases. When both fleets are the same burn speed and the AI is running away, the player can cut inside the AI's trajectory curve and slowly close distance until the AI freaks out and hits E-burn. However, once the AI reaches the distance it considers safe, it won't flee beyond that if it's not a trade fleet. It'll just vibrate back and forth at the radius it considers safe, wasting its E-burn time. Once the AI's E-burn runs out and goes on cooldown, you can E-burn yourself and easily catch it.
Speculation can be a dangerous thing! Obviously we should reserve judgement until we have tested it all for ourselves.Yeah, there's no way we can actually give full balance tips until we've gotten a chance to play 0.8.
So, patch tomorrow?
Speculation can be a dangerous thing! Obviously we should reserve judgement until we have tested it all for ourselves.
So, patch tomorrow?
Speculation can be a dangerous thing! Obviously we should reserve judgement until we have tested it all for ourselves.Yeah, there's no way we can actually give full balance tips until we've gotten a chance to play 0.8.
So, patch tomorrow?
Which means it should be released. Now. For testing and balance purposes, I swear.
Do salvage rigs stack or do you just need one to get a flat bonus? I seem to recall a mention of up to 3-4 could increasing salvage...Salvage Rigs' in combat bonus has been removed
bah, sorry about the omission, I meant it follows from dri's post, not yours
sure, but there's a difference between "not available to every fleet" and "not available to any fleet save for the player's". If SB is even available to the occasional long-haul freight fleet or explorer expeditions, that would feel much better (given the player also has a similar skill needed to unlock it or something)
I'll give it a fair chance, of course, but idk, think I'll just end up disabling SB for myself manually come the update.
You guys realize that every time you ask for the patch, Alex pushes the release back a week right?
Do salvage rigs stack or do you just need one to get a flat bonus? I seem to recall a mention of up to 3-4 could increasing salvage...
So if someone wanted to devout their efforts towards surveying planets, what sorts of challenges would they face out there in the more distant systems? Obviously there is the fuel and supply management challenge but can you share something else? The odd secret pirate base, patrolling drone ships, ancient orbiting defense systems?
Many are concerned about the early game being too punishing—what would you say is the single biggest change/addition to the game that is going to make starting out more manageable? Post battle salvage fields?
Reading through the patch note to translate, I realized one thing: now we can get Mudskipper Mk.II and get rid of its Ill-Advised Modification!
Reading through the patch note to translate, I realized one thing: now we can get Mudskipper Mk.II and get rid of its Ill-Advised Modification!Sounds fun, except that ship still can't support any large weapon effectively and takes hits like an anorexic boxer. At least it won't malfunction, though.
Sounds funThat's the whole point.
Ejecting cargo:
Creates "cargo pods" that will drift away and be lost within a few days
Ship refit now only degrades CR when something is removed. I.E. adding weapons or hullmods will not reduce CR unless something is removed to make room
Mostly applicable for recovered ships - spending their free OP will not tank their CR
Disposable heroes return! Put crew in pods, space 'em, and leave them to die! Nice for those who want to replay a callous, capricious, proud, ruthless, and vengeful tyrant. Space crew for incompetence or even on a whim.
- Ejecting cargo:
- Creates "cargo pods" that will drift away and be lost within a few days
- Can stabilize orbit of cargo pods for several months; costs supplies based on amount of cargo
- Only in-system, not in hyperspace
- Can put crew in cargo pods ("cryosleep" etc)
Optimal-but-tedious strategy: Set sail with unequipped ships and a choice of stored weapons and only when you encounter an enemy put weapons on your ships (that are perfect for the specific encounter). On the next station, de-equip your ships and repeat.That strategy is optimal for that specific fight. Equipping for a specific enemy can easily backfire; for example, a grav/tac beam outfitted Wolf is a tiny god when fighting broken down low-tech pirate ships, but immediately stops working when fighting anything with decent shield efficiency and flux stats, or even just enough armor that the piddly little beams aren't going to break through it before the Wolf completely runs out of CR. Generally speaking you want ships to be generally effective against most enemy types, unless it's a specialist ship you carry around to deal with specific threats your fleet has trouble with, e.g. a phase strike frigate for killing Dominators and Onslaughts. In which case you wouldn't want to refit that ship out of that specific role anyway, because then you lose the ability to deal with that specific threat.
It's stupid, but I thought I'd mention it. Small CR cost for equipping would probably be enough to discourage it.
QuoteEjecting cargo:
Creates "cargo pods" that will drift away and be lost within a few days
You know, that could be a super interesting way to deal with pirates (or corrupt patrols). If they are chasing you and you can't shake them, just drop a respectable amount of valuable cargo pods. They will decelerate to pick them up and give you time to escape. If the AI also drops these distractions when chased, voilà, here's a non-bloodthirsty pirate playstile.
Next step would be something like poisoned supplies that allows you to set a trap for enemies ;D
You know, that could be a super interesting way to deal with pirates (or corrupt patrols). If they are chasing you and you can't shake them, just drop a respectable amount of valuable cargo pods. They will decelerate to pick them up and give you time to escape. If the AI also drops these distractions when chased, voilà, here's a non-bloodthirsty pirate playstile.
Optimal-but-tedious strategy: Set sail with unequipped ships and a choice of stored weapons and only when you encounter an enemy put weapons on your ships (that are perfect for the specific encounter). On the next station, de-equip your ships and repeat.
It's stupid, but I thought I'd mention it. Small CR cost for equipping would probably be enough to discourage it.
Once boarding mechanics get developed
Feels like any special rules to handle this are probably not worth it.how about something simple like: "adding new things never reduces CR below X%". since the main reason for this change seems to be allowing immediate outfitting of recovered ships without CR & supply penalty, even just preventing CR from dropping below 40% (aka into malfunction range) would be enough.
other boarding mechanics are not on the table whatsoever.but you know that won't stop people from making a new boarding suggestion thread every couple months regardless. :D
Once boarding mechanics get developed
Let me stop you right there :) To be perfectly clear: ship recovery replaces boarding entirely, and other boarding mechanics are not on the table whatsoever.
how about something simple like: "adding new things never reduces CR below X%". since the main reason for this change seems to be allowing immediate outfitting of recovered ships without CR & supply penalty, even just preventing CR from dropping below 40% (aka into malfunction range) would be enough.
but you know that won't stop people from making a new boarding suggestion thread every couple months regardless. :D
To add to the SB discussion, I'm also concerned that the limitation to player fleets only will make the game less believable. Like others I'll reserve final judgment until after I play .8, but if there are mechanical problems in adding dynamic code for that have you consider just giving the ability to basic fleets going from A to B? For example heavy trade fleets that launch every once in a while and only use it to go straight to a destination. We won't meet them often but seeing them on the campaign every once in a while will go a long way to make the universe more believable.
Hey, that's a good idea. Done.\o/
it would take some investigating and playtesting to find out either way.it's like some people don't want you to ever be done with 0.8a.. maybe they've become so used to the continuous hype over the last 13 months, they don't know anymore how to handle the excitement of a playable release with so much fancy new stuff. :[
Actually have a todo item somewhere for this sort of thing! Not obvious how to add AI-wsie, but probably going to have a look at it.
Great! Not for this update though, I presume?
BTW, I have no problem at all with unequal skill sets between player and AI. It's admirable how close Starsector stood to the ideal of AI/player-equality in many areas and for a long time, but to generate entertaining gameplay is still the most important thing. I have a hard time thinking of other games which combined both as successfully as Starsector.
Then a moderator can update the "Frequently Made Suggestions" and add "Boarding" to the list where other frequently-made suggestions like "Multiplayer" are. After that, then the community can (optionally) mock or scold newcomers who fail to read the FMS topic.other boarding mechanics are not on the table whatsoever.but you know that won't stop people from making a new boarding suggestion thread every couple months regardless. :D
As the proud owner of a Star Citizen Refund, I think it can safely be said that "stretch goal" is a four letter word when your patch cycle breaks a year!
Still wanna know when BROLY.Apparently, judging based on your posts, the BROLY is now.
British English dialect term for an umbrella, surely?
Still wanna know when BROLY.
Yep, well aware :)
Then give BROLY! >:(
Does this mean no more cheap marines from there?Marines won't be used for capturing ships in 0.8 anyway, they'll just be a trade commodity. maybe they'll get new uses for exploration or industry stuff at some point though.
Does this mean no more cheap marines from there?Marines won't be used for capturing ships in 0.8 anyway, they'll just be a trade commodity. maybe they'll get new uses for exploration or industry stuff at some point though.
Basically. See this blog for more details: http://fractalsoftworks.com/2017/01/20/ship-recovery/ (TL;DR: Ship Salvaging, which uses supplies and crew, now replaces boarding)Does this mean no more cheap marines from there?Marines won't be used for capturing ships in 0.8 anyway, they'll just be a trade commodity. maybe they'll get new uses for exploration or industry stuff at some point though.
So you use crew for that now?
"Maxios and Killa - decivilized markets - now do not participate in the economy; can't be traded with"Probably, even if marines are no longer needed for seizing ships, being able to buy thirty marines per month at 233 credits each that can be resold for 1000 minus tariffs elsewhere is still easy money. Not to mention other occasional useful bargains found at their black markets. The easiest fix is to remove exploits with decivilized markets is to remove them. Makes enough sense, things are too unstable or chaotic for a marketplace.
Does this mean no more cheap marines from there?
New Alex Tweet with new ship! https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/846772589959806981
Looks like Alex has shown some mercy and given us the pic of the Legion
New Alex Tweet with new ship! https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/846772589959806981Huh, it's quite unlike anything I expected to weld together. Despite being low-tech, it's got a very midline feel to it, and almost a high-tech layout. I half-expected it to have a giant flight deck down the center, reminiscent of the then-ancient Earth-bound aircraft carriers.
Looks like Alex has shown some mercy and given us the pic of the Legion
Because right now they are unstopable and just a couple of pods can delete any ship from existence instantly.
Because right now they are unstopable and just a couple of pods can delete any ship from existence instantly.
So is the problem with Sabot missiles, the fact that due to system mechanics and how damages are handled, they're pretty much an all-aspect weapon?Not only that, second stage Sabots evade PD and combined with anti-shield kinetic damage, and the damage is high enough to punch big holes in armor despite half damage, they are effectively unblockable. Sabots' main weakness, aside from low ammo, is the delay before it enters the second unblockable stage, making it less ideal as a twitch punisher, but it is good for reliable damage.
@ Tartiflette: More like less optimal. We do not want Sabot overcompensated to be useless, only not overwhelming against equal or smaller-sized player fleets.
I am indifferent to the Sabot change.
Baiting ammo from AI ships as the best defense feels bad. MIRVs should become weaker regenerators again. Currently, they are much like the original MIRV, except more damaging, and the AI wastes them. It may save one as a revenge attack to fire right before it dies, but otherwise, it just fires n-1 MIRVs like no tomorrow. Better just wait out the MIRV barrage with the appropriate counter.So is the problem with Sabot missiles, the fact that due to system mechanics and how damages are handled, they're pretty much an all-aspect weapon?Not only that, second stage Sabots evade PD and combined with anti-shield kinetic damage, and the damage is high enough to punch big holes in armor despite half damage, they are effectively unblockable. Sabots' main weakness, aside from low ammo, is the delay before it enters the second unblockable stage, making it less ideal as a twitch punisher, but it is good for reliable damage.
(How does a solid lump of metal generate EMP anyway?)
(How does a solid lump of metal generate EMP anyway?)
Shards of metal could sever wires, create sparks, cause short circuits?
woolen sweaters.Next patch notes: changing sabots from missiles to socks. But what if they're socks... With bricks inside?!
They were changed to single because most of the spread usually missed entirely making them weak, if not useless.actually, i think the main reason for the somewhat recent spread-to-single-shot change was that just toggling shields off for a fraction of a second could easily negate the Sabot's effect, which is problematic for a limited-ammo weapon. EMP does alleviate that issue, without the current "press to kill"-button problem when you have a lot of them.
And I don't think EMP will make up for that.
The way Alex has worded it doesn't make sense (no offence).KEPs being worse at penetrating armour doesn't make sense either, but hey, it's a game. Besides creating new mechanic to achieve the same effect is pointless.
Kinetic rounds are less effective against REACTIVE armor per-mass/accelerant than payloads of shaped explosives of the same mass. Against a solid plate armor it makes sense that a kinetic shell will do more damage but SS vessels aren't using solid plate armor, they're using
IE if you fire 100 pounds of kinetic shell at a ship with reactive armor, your round will do 0 damage to the insides of the ship & wipe out exactly 100 pounds worth of reactive armor, while also expending 100 pounds of accelerant getting your kinetic round to velocity, meaning you've expended more than the defending ship.
If you fire a HEP payload that has enough explosive compound packed in to generate the explosive force of 100 pounds of kinetic, because you're using shaped chemical rounds which detonate at point blank range you're actually firing smaller shells than the force-equivalent kinetic round & triggering (disabling) the same amount of reactive armor, using less shell and accelerant in the process.
The drawback is that HE doesn't work in a vacuum so it'd only maintain peek efficiency when striking a solid, malleable surface (armor) and otherwise, without an atmosphere helping contain the explosion, blows the explosion out into vacuum, hence it being best against armor and worst against shields (in vacuum) and hull (no solid striking surface)
Re: Sabots
The problems with previous shotgun Sabot were individually weak shots. All the ship needed to do was drop shields and the fragments would hit for insignificant damage. The AI was aware of that and always dropped shields to eat the hits. At that point, the only use for Sabot was to force the AI to drop shield so that high-tech ship can blast enemies with blasters. The only ships that would take damage on the shield would be those piloted by inexperienced players.
Re: Sabots
The problems with previous shotgun Sabot were individually weak shots. All the ship needed to do was drop shields and the fragments would hit for insignificant damage. The AI was aware of that and always dropped shields to eat the hits. At that point, the only use for Sabot was to force the AI to drop shield so that high-tech ship can blast enemies with blasters. The only ships that would take damage on the shield would be those piloted by inexperienced players.
uhhh, isn't that the point of sabots? I thought the problem with the current-build sabots is that dropping shields against sabots, even if the enemy fires nothing else, is itself a death sentence?
Hopefully the skill revamp also makes EMP more relevant. I haven't played in a while but I remember disabled weapons being practically irrelevant at high skill levels because they come back online in a second or two.
The way Alex has worded it doesn't make sense (no offence).KEPs being worse at penetrating armour doesn't make sense either, but hey, it's a game. Besides creating new mechanic to achieve the same effect is pointless.
Hey, do weapons on a fighter generate flux? I seem to recall mention that they no longer would be in 0.8.There was a mention of a built-in hull mod that was used to make weapons on shielded fighters no longer generate flux. There was also mention of flux stats limiting fire rate on... I think it was broadswords, making them less of a buzz-saw against shields?
Heh, I hope they don't cost flux! I remember when the Phase Beam became the Lance and those poor Xyphos didn't have the flux capacity to fire one all that well, lolWell don't forget, Alex also put Tachyon Lances on Wasps
Awww, don't delay the patch for a frackin' tutorial...save that for 0.8.1! :'(You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we all needed a campaign tutorial after this honestly ground-shattering update to the campaign.
Awww, don't delay the patch for a frackin' tutorial...save that for 0.8.1! :'(You know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we all needed a campaign tutorial after this honestly ground-shattering update to the campaign.
Very soontm. Wrapping things up, basically - major features are all done. Right now about halfway through adding a proper campaign tutorial, then it's a bit more playtesting and balancing/polish, and a few modding things, and it should be good. So - however long that all takes.
Very soontm. Wrapping things up, basically - major features are all done. Right now about halfway through adding a proper campaign tutorial, then it's a bit more playtesting and balancing/polish, and a few modding things, and it should be good. So - however long that all takes.
I hope "proper" doesn't mean intrusive... Learning by doing with some guidance seems fine, "This thing you currently don't care about works like this, try it now" would be a bit daunting. Especially if it happens several times in a row.
I'm hoping it'll be a standalone tutorial in the same sense as the combat tutorials, with the old Hammerhead loadout. I can deal with an in-game one, but we already have the help popups for that, don't we?Tips and popups that people just click-through and ignore, then B**** when something happens... One note though: Could we get a place where all the help popups are stored so that people that click through them can reread them if they want?
Skip the tutorial, also bring back Kiting Hounds without updating the patch notes.
I hope "proper" doesn't mean intrusive... Learning by doing with some guidance seems fine, "This thing you currently don't care about works like this, try it now" would be a bit daunting. Especially if it happens several times in a row.
i think getting a tutorial ready for launch with 0.8a is great! both for introducing experienced players to the massive amount of additions and changes, and because i imagine this eagerly awaited release will generate some publicity as well, as new let's-play-series are started, and 'old' players will tell their friends about all the new fun they're having.
starting out as a completely new player has become more and more difficult and frustrating with additional campaign complexity of the last few big patches, and 0.8a would likely continue that trend (even if there are now more/easier ways to progress in the early-game, players still need to learn a lot to even know how to). as much as i'm hyped to get to play it myself, we've survived the wait for over a year at this point already anyway. ^^ i think we can manage a couple weeks longer, if it means new players will be able to hopefully enjoy 0.8a as much as i'm sure the people posting here will.
Two schools of thought on tutorials
1) leave them until last, so you're not having to continually maintain them as the code & game mechanics change over time
2) introduce them from the start, so you know the capability to easily integrate them is present.
So if crew can be put into pods andcondemned to certain deathput in cryosleep, does this mean that we will sometimes be able tocapture as blood slavesrescue crew after battles and when salvaging debris fields? This would be nice.
Could at least tell us an estimated release date? I bought SC but didn´t play much (just enough to get hang of basics) because I noticed there is going to be big new update soon and didn´t want to burn out myself. Right now Im checking every single day like an idiot for some kind of release date...
Minor quality of life idea- when picking up loot (weapons) or buying at a market, any chance you could add a line in the tooltip that pops up telling you how many you already have in your cargo? It would save me playing snap with the weapon image and manually checking the inventory.
For example:
After battle, 2 light machine guns are available to pick up.
The existing tooltip just shows LMG stats, the new tooltip would show stats and also would say "you currently have XX LMGs in cargo".
Minor quality of life idea- when picking up loot (weapons) or buying at a market, any chance you could add a line in the tooltip that pops up telling you how many you already have in your cargo? It would save me playing snap with the weapon image and manually checking the inventory.
For example:
After battle, 2 light machine guns are available to pick up.
The existing tooltip just shows LMG stats, the new tooltip would show stats and also would say "you currently have XX LMGs in cargo".
... Don't you already get this with the dual-screen system? Like, in a market or collecting salvage after a battle, you have the market/salvage screen on top and your inventory below, so you can see both at once.
... Don't you already get this with the dual-screen system? Like, in a market or collecting salvage after a battle, you have the market/salvage screen on top and your inventory below, so you can see both at once.
Sort of, but if your inventory is quite large then it means scrolling and searching to compare the icons (remember a weapon icon is quite different if only a single item is available, compared to if you have five in cargo). To be fair, more an issue when mods are installed. Like I said, minor quality of life, I just notice myself having to do this a lot after battles, and I assume others must be doing the same.
... Don't you already get this with the dual-screen system? Like, in a market or collecting salvage after a battle, you have the market/salvage screen on top and your inventory below, so you can see both at once.
Sort of, but if your inventory is quite large then it means scrolling and searching to compare the icons (remember a weapon icon is quite different if only a single item is available, compared to if you have five in cargo). To be fair, more an issue when mods are installed. Like I said, minor quality of life, I just notice myself having to do this a lot after battles, and I assume others must be doing the same.
Ah, I suppose if you play with a lot of mods and a very big fleet this could get problematic.
In that case, I have a better idea: When you mouse over an item in a salvage/market inventory, it highlights the weapon [stack] in your inventory if you have it, maybe just by putting a yellow glow over the grid square. It could work the same in the other direction when you mouse over something in your inventory, so you could quickly determine if a market has another weapon to match one you already have (happens a lot for someone like me who likes symmetrical loadouts, but often finds theirself salvaging weapons one at a time). I'd prefer this as it wouldn't add any additional numbers.
Minor quality of life idea- when picking up loot (weapons) or buying at a market, any chance you could add a line in the tooltip that pops up telling you how many you already have in your cargo? It would save me playing snap with the weapon image and manually checking the inventory.
For example:
After battle, 2 light machine guns are available to pick up.
The existing tooltip just shows LMG stats, the new tooltip would show stats and also would say "you currently have XX LMGs in cargo".
... Don't you already get this with the dual-screen system? Like, in a market or collecting salvage after a battle, you have the market/salvage screen on top and your inventory below, so you can see both at once.
Another salvage QoL request: Warn if you are not taking anything from that battle or salvage op. Many times I have accidentally brushed the hotkey to leave just as the screen appears and have lost out on that juicy lootDoesn't a debris field spawn after battle now? I mean, not saying that such a warning wouldn't be bad (in fact, I totally want it as well), but it seems if you do accidentally close out of the menu, there's a good chance you can just interact with the field after that to pick them up (not sure about the mechanics of Salvaging vs just interacting with stuff like that).
What if it also showed stacks in storage, regardless of market. That could also apply to commodities.that's what i was thinking as well, showing the total amount of a good or weapon i have in storage somewhere would be more useful to me than showing the total amount i currently have in my cargo holds.
A visible nod to them using supplies - such as, perhaps, fleets occasionally acting as if they're out of supplies - would be imo all that's necessary to fully "sell" it here.If you don't mind me starting up the e-burn discussion again, I think I have a better idea.
I've got a question about combined storage inventory.
For now, if I lost one cargo ship in battle, my upper limit of fleet cargo capacity will change, but, I still have everything I used to have.
The strange thing is, actually, people divide goods into several cargo ships, and if I lost one of them, the goods in that ship definitely wrecked.
What about show separated ship cargo inventory, and fleet captain could distribute their goods into definite ship, just like uncharted waters 2 of KOEI
Hi, welcome to the forum!
Actually, that sounds more like a suggestion than a question :) The simple answer to "why no per-ship cargo management" is: because it would be a hassle. You'd have to spent much more time in the inventory screen to distribute your cargo just right. And then you'd have to keep track of what ship carries what cargo, so you don't accidentally put a ship with valuable cargo into a dangerous situation. Or suppose you're on a mission to deliver 200 hand weapons, and in an ambush you lose a frigate that carried 10 of them. So now you have only 190 hand weapons and cannot fulfill the contract. Wouldn't that be annoying?
Also explained way back. This one I think: http://fractalsoftworks.com/2011/11/22/crew-management-and-you/
Updated! All playtesting and bugfixes/minor tweaks from here on out.
Updated! All playtesting and bugfixes/minor tweaks from here on out.
o.0 ready to download!!!!!!!!!!
"Paragon: reduced OP by 30, added built in "Advanced Targeting Core" - +100% weapon range"2K range tac lances anyone?
Long live the new cap king!
"Paragon: reduced OP by 30, added built in "Advanced Targeting Core" - +100% weapon range"2K range tac lances anyone?
Long live the new cap king!
Solar Shielding: modified description to mention that it also protects against hyperstorms
"Paragon: reduced OP by 30, added built in "Advanced Targeting Core" - +100% weapon range"2K range tac lances anyone?
Long live the new cap king!
2.2K as increases are all additive nowQuoteSolar Shielding: modified description to mention that it also protects against hyperstorms
Oh! Now that is interesting. Might even be worth it."Paragon: reduced OP by 30, added built in "Advanced Targeting Core" - +100% weapon range"2K range tac lances anyone?
Long live the new cap king!
Plus advanced optics - 2.4k.
Paragon really is a monster now—gone are the days of being able to kite/snipe it with a Gauss Cannon.that will still be possible against anything other than a beam Paragon, though not quite as easy anymore. 1.2k of Gauss +60% of the buffed ITU still far outranges even a Paragon's Autopulses, Plasma Cannons, or Heavy Blasters.
2.2K as increases are all additive nowQuoteSolar Shielding: modified description to mention that it also protects against hyperstorms
Oh! Now that is interesting. Might even be worth it."Paragon: reduced OP by 30, added built in "Advanced Targeting Core" - +100% weapon range"2K range tac lances anyone?
Long live the new cap king!
Plus advanced optics - 2.4k.
reduced cargo/feul capacities for combat ships; new fuel and supply icons. very nice indeed!Beatable now - the trick for me was to use enough phase lances. With the player controlling
paragon changes good. capital ships should be capital. Maybe Forlorn hope beatable now?
reduced cargo/feul capacities for combat ships; new fuel and supply icons. very nice indeed!Beatable now - the trick for me was to use enough phase lances. With the player controlling
paragon changes good. capital ships should be capital. Maybe Forlorn hope beatable now?
the targeting, they let you "pop" the kiting frigates and destroyers one at a time, before they have the chance to retreat, vent, and come back in.
Why are the two difficulty levels "easy" and "normal." Since these are purely relative terms, why not just call them "easy" and "hard." It's like a pizza place only having "small" and "medium" pizzas.Presumably normal is the intended difficulty, and easy mode is for elementary schoolers. Calling the difficulty that the game is supposed to be played on "hard" would discourage new players from using the intended difficulty, when playing on easy mode just makes the game trivial.
more Shepherd buffs! O:
i honestly think it might need a little nerf with all this. like putting cargo capacity at ~75, same as Hound with which it shares supply costs, so at least Wayfarer and Cerberus are still the better options for frigate-level cargo ships.
on another note, and sorry if i'm getting annoying, did you take a look at that "holding right-click will immediately reactivate shield/cloak" thing? ^^
Out of curiosity, what do the new supply and fuel icons look like? Am I saying goodbye to my yellow lunchboxes/crates and luscious red lipstick tubes/torpedoes? :D
What do the sensor changes mean for gameplay?
Why are the two difficulty levels "easy" and "normal." Since these are purely relative terms, why not just call them "easy" and "hard." It's like a pizza place only having "small" and "medium" pizzas.
Advanced Targeting Core seems like it would be mutually exclusive with other range hullmods, but it doesn't explicitly say so in the patch notes...
- Second ship: Kite with officer
The changes to the sensor mechanics are promising, it was really too opaque. It's a little bit strange that 5 frigates now have the same profile as 30 frigates, but it shouldn't matter much in practice.
Have you considered getting rid of fleet-variable sensor strength altogether (with only environmental reduction remaining)? It would allow to display the absolute range at which your fleet will be detected in various states (dark, burning) and makes thinks very clear. Small fleets would always detect big fleets first, but I can't think of a reason why that would be bad at the moment. I'm probably missing something :D
freighters were only relevant for traders.I've used freighters many times when bounty-hunting since sometimes I'm overburdened with all that loot. It only gets worse when privateering.
Did I miss a download link somewhere?
Sensor math: one frigate, two frigates, three frigates, four frigates, many frigates :)
Thought about it, yeah. It gets weird with sensor bonus/penalty ships, and if you have any of that, then you basically have the two numbers. May be worth it in the end, though, not entirely decided on it one way or the other.
Did I miss a download link somewhere?
High Resolution Sensors give a flat +60 to sensor strength
What if all ships contributed to sensor profile but only top 5 to sensor strength?
It makes perfect sense that stacking more of the same quality sensors will get you only so far, but it doesn't make sense that stacking more identical ships will stop making them easier to detect as a group. This is not an appeal to realism, I just think this is one of those situations where making it simpler will actually make it more difficult to understand, because it diverges too far from default expectations that are based on reality.
This will of course remove the symmetry that always makes two fleets detect each other at the same time, regardless of size, if neither have special modifiers. But I've never understood why that is a good thing anyway. Why shouldn't a smaller fleet have a stealth advantage over a bigger fleet? I might be missing something, but isn't that what stealth is for?
Well, to have a mechanic just so some entities can give a bonus to it seems a bit backwards, no? Alternative bonus for high res sensor could be earlier identification of unidentified fleets or less sensor penalty from environments.
it really doesn't make any sense that sensor "strength" scales with ship size. sensor strength should scale with ship technological sophistication. ECM/EW capability can scale with the size of your powerplant, but sensors require very little power generally, compared to the massive amount any starship is going to produce.
to put it another way without muh realism
if a wolf has 1 sensor of X strength, and an onslaught has 500 sensors at X strength, that doesn't actually mean the onslaught sees better. it just means that the onslaught can see the same area at the same strength. what matters is the strength of the sensor, not how many there are. pooling sensors doesn't actually increase their strength, it just allows the onslaught to see around it's own hull.
QuoteHigh Resolution Sensors give a flat +60 to sensor strength
Is this to the ship, or to the fleet?
Example: Say I have 5 capitals, each with 150 sensor strength. Does my frigate with 30 strength and High Resolution sensors do anything?
I do agree that tech level should be a factor in sensor quality though.
sensors were not too complex before. it wasn't perfect for many reasons, but tying strength directly to hull size?
Mechanics-wise, having all ships contribute to either stat linearly is not viable. Either ships don't contribute an individually impactful amount, or the number gets too high on the high end of fleet size.
But why is it a problem that huge fleets would have huge sensor profiles? If it means that I can see an enormous battlefleet across half a system, then... well, why wouldn't I?
I guess my overall point is that whenever I think of stealth in a military situation, the by far most important application for it that comes to mind is a small scouting force keeping an eye on a bigger force that cannot see it. It's the most basic function of a sensor model, something I would definitely want to try and expect to work in a game. But the sensor model in Starsector is specifically designed to make that impossible, by making small fleets exactly as blind as large fleets are visible, which really confuses me.
Sensor math: one frigate, two frigates, three frigates, four frigates, many frigates :)I guess that's what you get for using troll sensors. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Discworld)#Literacy_and_Numeracy)
I guess that's what you get for using troll sensors. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Discworld)#Literacy_and_Numeracy)
Also some part of early game difficulty is that pirates often came out guns blazing out of nowhere, even if it was bigger fleet.
I'm still kind of skeptical but it does make sense.Maybe lore can explain it - maybe the Domain created an efficient form of sensor technology that could be installed on every ship, though never updated it as they progressed because it was as good as they though they could make it. And then similarly to the Tachyon Lance, the understanding of how it worked was lost with the Collapse. So ask no questions asked on how it works, just let the autofactory do it's thing. Though I'd need David's help for that. :)
Or maybe there have been significant improvements in sensor technology, but they're been retrofitted into previous hulls, much like the Onslaught's shield generator.I'm still kind of skeptical but it does make sense.Maybe lore can explain it - maybe the Domain created an efficient form of sensor technology that could be installed on every ship, though never updated it as they progressed because it was as good as they though they could make it.
My idea for overcomplicating it:
Fleet profile = (profile of 5 highest ships) + sqrt(profile of other ships)
This is identical to the new system for small fleets, while adding diminishing returns for additional ships. So they still matter somewhat (and people don't wonder why they don't) without making the fleet stat grow to excessive levels.
What I want to know is if there are some special weapons or ships that can only be acquired through exploration and/or salvaging! Did you have the time/resources to add something awesome like that?
Or maybe there have been significant improvements in sensor technology, but they're been retrofitted into previous hulls, much like the Onslaught's shield generator.That can work too. Simple enough upgrade the old hulls with the new tech (if it isn't too big a jump) and then updating the autofactory blueprints with the improved sensor systems. I'm sure a military as large as the Domain kept older models of ship in service or possibly in production due to simplicity, as shown by the XIV upgraded ships despite there probably existing the high-tech ships at the time. Pretty much exactly like how modern militaries today do it - they kept WWII-era battleships like the USS New Jersey in service far past their original expiry date by upgrading the radar and replacing various weapons systems.
Finally, a real purpose for auxiliary ships! I can't remember the last time I had a tanker in my fleet, and freighters were only relevant for traders. Very nice.Tankers are occasionally useful when the commodity you want to trade lots of fuel, or just simply hauling lots of fuel from Sindria to whatever system has your primary storage base. Freighters are useful mainly for two things: bulk transport jobs (e.g., transport thousands of lobsters) or looting. My warmongers need freighters the most, looting either from chain-battling multiple enemy defense fleets or intercepting a lucky Atlas fleet. One time, I intercepted an Atlas fleet with 5000 or so supplies, and my toolbox war fleet happened to have two or three empty Atlas of my own to loot everything. It was a huge payday, and I did not need to buy supplies for a long time.
Otherwise we will be using them in our fleets but never actually seeing them lol
And because I can't make a post on this forum without asking about modding:
So, 1-10 how moddable is that tutorial right now? ;D
@PCCL well, for one thing, it won't be aliens if I recall correctly. Alex said there wouldn't be any. So I guess DoM's experiments gone wrong.
The campaign tutorial? 10, I'd say. Unless I'm forgetting something, 100% of it is done in a "how a mod would do it" way. Which necessitated a few additions to the API, but then that's kind of the point of doing it like that to begin with!
@Jonlissla Funnily enough it's quite probable - what megacorporation is in the sector and is known to have partake in development in borderline illegal AI?HERETIC! Burn in the fires of LUDD!LUDDICHURCH OBVIOUSLY
That, or it's just Alex trolling us. Or something else, there's a ton of dark secrets to put in derelicts.
The campaign tutorial? 10, I'd say. Unless I'm forgetting something, 100% of it is done in a "how a mod would do it" way. Which necessitated a few additions to the API, but then that's kind of the point of doing it like that to begin with!
modding related question: How easy/difficult would it be to seed manned stations/inhabited planets operated by factions in the outer worlds? Is it much the same way REDACTED are seeded into the outer worlds? Or would there be more nuance to it?
this progressive dumbing-down of the game is starting to disturb me honestly. sensors were not too complex before. it wasn't perfect for many reasons, but tying strength directly to hull size? any reasonable person wouldn't understand it, physically it doesn't make sense and it's not good for the game, either.
I don't think I've ever anticipated any game release as much as I'm anticipating this upcoming starsector patch.
I have to agree. Been checking the Reddit/official site like three times a day!The discord is the most active place besides the forums
We have a reddit????We have a Discord?
Yes. Here it is: https://discord.gg/TBhcFNhWe have a reddit????We have a Discord?
So, not sure if it's been answered anywhere, but what happens to the fighters if their home carrier gets destroyed? It feels logical that the fighters would continue to engage with the last target that the carrier had until destruction, though not sure if it works that way.they'll stick around to fight for a bit, then retreat off the borders of the map.
https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/853794425440481280
Don't get too excited, I remember one time the RC had a very bad issue that pushed back the release a couple weeks.
Were there any major changes made to the procgen between now and the most recent blog post? It would be nice to follow in Salvage Dave's footsteps and see how I fair.
Are timid officers useful as carrier captains? Will they use their fighters and still manage to steer clear of combat, or will they cower in the corner with an escort?
Does the Apogee have built in High resolution sensors/ Give a boost to a fleets sensor strength?Yes. Also, it has the "Surveying Equipment" hullmod.
What about the sensor drones/boost in weapon range?
Is It still viable as a flagship?
Is Salvage Gantry unique to the Shepherd? What other ships have it?The Construction Rig (or Salvage Rig as it's now know as) has it instead of the Repair Gantry.
Does the Apogee have built in High resolution sensors/ Give a boost to a fleets sensor strength?Yes. Also, it has the "Surveying Equipment" hullmod.What about the sensor drones/boost in weapon range?
It has no drones anymore, it has double active flare launchers now.Is It still viable as a flagship?
Sure, but I guess it is best for an exploration focused play stile now. As it should be.
It was OP as all hell, especially with the out of combat boosts and the range boosting dronesDoes the Apogee have built in High resolution sensors/ Give a boost to a fleets sensor strength?Yes. Also, it has the "Surveying Equipment" hullmod.What about the sensor drones/boost in weapon range?
It has no drones anymore, it has double active flare launchers now.Is It still viable as a flagship?
Sure, but I guess it is best for an exploration focused play stile now. As it should be.
But it's not as good of a combat flagship anymore, damn, that was my baby...
It was OP as all hell, especially with the out of combat boosts and the range boosting dronesDoes the Apogee have built in High resolution sensors/ Give a boost to a fleets sensor strength?Yes. Also, it has the "Surveying Equipment" hullmod.What about the sensor drones/boost in weapon range?
It has no drones anymore, it has double active flare launchers now.Is It still viable as a flagship?
Sure, but I guess it is best for an exploration focused play stile now. As it should be.
But it's not as good of a combat flagship anymore, damn, that was my baby...
Just checked - yep, the Shepherd does have reinforced bulkheads. Apparently I was thinking along similar lines while kitting those out.heh, nice! it does kinda fit the "trusty industrial & mining ship" theme, too.
I would love missions in progressive orders... something like mini-campaings including 3-10 missions.
So 0.8 release is tomorrow / this weekend?No. Within six months.
Whoa let's not get ahead of ourselves.So 0.8 release is tomorrow / this weekend?No. Within six months.
old men are the future
It could even be already released an we didn't notice yet O.O
Congrats!
Tempest: increased Terminator drone speed, now armed with Ion PulserWHAT
QuoteTempest: increased Terminator drone speed, now armed with Ion PulserWHAT
Congratulations! Installing now!
Just here to join the hype, thanks for all the work Alex!
Thanks Alex!
Command and Control rank 2 description "50 faster command point recovery (fleet)" is missing the % sign.
Fighter Doctrine and Carrier Command skill effect descriptions are identical.
File is so hot off the presses that Avast won't even open it because of suspicions it's a virus.
Paragon's Advanced Targeting Core modified to only add 50% range for PD weapons (still 100% for other weapons)Interesting! As I can't download/play until later, I'm going to bother you with questions ;). If I have tac lasers, will putting IPDAI on them cause the range reduction? I would imagine so.
QuoteParagon's Advanced Targeting Core modified to only add 50% range for PD weapons (still 100% for other weapons)Interesting! As I can't download/play until later, I'm going to bother you with questions ;). If I have tac lasers, will putting IPDAI on them cause the range reduction? I would imagine so.
@Falcon speed to 9: Yay!
Ugh. Was a problem before with another antivirus for a previous version, too. Could you possibly report it as a false positive, if that's an option?
<goes back to waiting for bug reports to come in>
Avast sends the file to their "lab" to analyze it. It's possible to run the program anyway, and I've already reported the file as legit.
is 3rd lvl helmsmanship supposed to work at 1% flux? probably forget the 0 perhaps?just 1% is correct, yes. basically you can use shields and very rapidly / continuously firing weapons if you've got enough dissipation, but not much besides that. it's not meant to really be a speed boost during actual combat.
<goes back to waiting for bug reports to come in>
I mean, if the past is any indication, then a hotfix for something or other will be in order. It'd be nice to buck the trend, though.
35185 [Thread-4] ERROR com.fs.starfarer.combat.CombatMain - java.lang.RuntimeException: Filenames are case-sensitive, [C:\Users\Rob\Programs\Starfarer\starsector-core\..\mods\LazyLib\jars\LazyLib.jar] vs [C:\Users\Rob\Programs\Starfarer\mods\LazyLib\jars\LazyLib.jar]
java.lang.RuntimeException: Filenames are case-sensitive, [C:\Users\Rob\Programs\Starfarer\starsector-core\..\mods\LazyLib\jars\LazyLib.jar] vs [C:\Users\Rob\Programs\Starfarer\mods\LazyLib\jars\LazyLib.jar]
at com.fs.starfarer.loading.scripts.ScriptStore$3.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Aha, I found a problem already, you hack!
Screenshot, I believe that's intended to say ships. (https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/806551261315130934/F181BB4FF33EE1236204DC887FDAA1259047C94F/)
No, really, this is looking to be a great release.
It would've been really nice if there was a mechanism introduced to "Retrofit" (D) class vessels
Not really a big issue given most first time players are veeery unlikely to run into it, but if you have one-click jump points enabled, the game will freeze at one point in the tutorial.
I also fell into the trap of not seeing the quicksave instruction before heading to the Hegemony planet.
Saw an oddball thing where you could open the market window with Pontus or something. It displayed the default market blurb on the left about sleek attack ships or whatever.
I think in the tutorial when the station commander tells you to go and "activate an Active Sensor Burst" it would make more sense if they said to "use an Active Sensor Burst".
Overall, with many false starts and significant irritation at trying to lay a course and constantly getting sent to the planet screen, it took me about an hour to get through the tutorial. I think most of my trouble was starting on the next step before it told me to. :-X
So excite!
I have a question: Is there any way to swap "Show info" and "Lay in course", got used to clicking on a planet to go there and the info option makes things awkward, but other than that it's awesome.
I'm not sure what you mean - what are you calling the "mission notification"? Also, defeating the pirates at the station isn't part of the tutorial, so I'm further confused.
Thanks for the update Alex! That pesky sleep requirement won't allow me to go too far into the campaign for now, but i found something about the carrier skills :Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/mv1M0U8.png)[close]
Those two are pretty much identical. Is something missing or it's just WIP?
To echo SainnQ, the Strip button removes D hullmods from proc-gen D ships.DAMNIT!!!
I have a question: Is there any way to swap "Show info" and "Lay in course", got used to clicking on a planet to go there and the info option makes things awkward, but other than that it's awesome.
Let me think about that one.
So I installed the update, now my save files are not loading and are missing, what do?
Also here's a photo of a salvaged sunder before & after, I seem to have got a 85%? "Free" restore" by simply Stripping it.
https://ibb.co/d4zW1Q
Will also add a +1 in swapping lay course and show planet info on the mouse drop. It's simply after playing the older version I'm used to one-click maneuvering.
Found one typo, something like "It won't me a milk run" when it should probably be "It won't be a milk run"
Mh, is the occasional random flickering of UI elements intentional? Could be part of a immersive UI, so I'm not sure. I noticed it first with the portraits in the character creation menu (which I only spent like 15 minutes starting at,hehe). It's in the trade menus too, though.
To echo SainnQ, the Strip button removes D hullmods from proc-gen D ships.
So I installed the update, now my save files are not loading and are missing, what do?
Am I correct in assuming that Planet Survey is not one of the few more lucrative endeavors for the player, aside from Pirate Bountying?
The resale on D-Proc ships is abysmal
Mh, I can supposedly salvage stuff with a rating up to 25%, but I have 0 salvage skill. Salvage skill 1 is supposed to allow me to salvage stuff with 25% rating.Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/V63Cfr7.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/lF9E0HL.png)[close]
Something to consider with "lay in course" from the map - for things that got no info option (fleets etc.) it's always the first option, so it happens with a simple click and is thus inconsistent with how it works for planets.
Will saves created right now be compatible with the upcoming hotfix or should I wait? Abouts do you think you'll get that hotfix out—later tonight or tomorrow?
Edit #2: Fixed!
Not really a bug, but might turn out to be an issue: When you go through the combat tutorial, and destroy a ship, it's disabled wreckage pieces float about, and can get in the way when everything is reset/moved onto the next part.
I don't think this description is fitting for Tetra, an uninhabited, radiated planet without atmosphere:Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/S9CX8oh.png)[close]
I'm enjoying the tutorial immensely, so far :)
I'm losing CR despite there being no enemy ships anywhere near me.
This is amazing. Just started the tutorial, really nice so far.
Erm, The in campaign tutorial start, is either not working properly for me, or not explaining itself. I started out, with it telling me to go salvage from debris, which I did, and then nothing else after. I don't have access to turning my transponder on either, so I can't go near the hegemony station.
... -facedesks- My bad. I thought it was just a tip, not an instruction. Whoops.Erm, The in campaign tutorial start, is either not working properly for me, or not explaining itself. I started out, with it telling me to go salvage from debris, which I did, and then nothing else after. I don't have access to turning my transponder on either, so I can't go near the hegemony station.
Press F5 to quicksave and it'll move on to the next step.
(Made a note to make the instruction to do that more prominent. It's on the bottom of the screen, above the abilities.)
Erm, The in campaign tutorial start, is either not working properly for me, or not explaining itself. I started out, with it telling me to go salvage from debris, which I did, and then nothing else after. I don't have access to turning my transponder on either, so I can't go near the hegemony station.I had the same issue. So Hegemony went hostile on me after I failed to turn on the transponder.
Is the number actually going down, or is it just because it says "degrading readiness"? I *suspect* it's saying "degrading readiness" but the number isn't going down (which is still an issue if that's the case, that's definitely confusing.)It was actually going down when I took the screenshot, but a couple of seconds later it stopped. The interesting thing is there was a ship I was running away from that wasn't in my sensor range, and I think it was just on the edge of being visible. There might be a slight mismatch in visual range vs in-combat range.
i salvaged the stuff around tetra but it says i need to go to tetra and salvage things
also there's no option to say i did it or any indication that progressing is possible
hep
i salvaged the stuff around tetra but it says i need to go to tetra and salvage thingsHit F5
also there's no option to say i did it or any indication that progressing is possible
hep
Alex, I think this is one reason why people are getting hung up in the ship salvage area: http://imgur.com/a/0u0zwErm, The in campaign tutorial start, is either not working properly for me, or not explaining itself. I started out, with it telling me to go salvage from debris, which I did, and then nothing else after. I don't have access to turning my transponder on either, so I can't go near the hegemony station.
Press F5 to quicksave and it'll move on to the next step.
(Made a note to make the instruction to do that more prominent. It's on the bottom of the screen, above the abilities.)
Very first play through of the tutorial got hung up on the salvage ship section. Even after salvaging/pounding everything (I detonated the Condor), The mission never completed. On a second playthrough, I noticed that after adding the Condor to my fleet, the exclamation point over the planet went away. Perhaps you should be more explicit that you should take every ship available?While I'd agree with you that there is a mis-balance, I'm not sure it actually needs fixing.
I'm probably an outlier because I have past playing experience but that seemed to sequence-break the tutorial.
Speaking of: the fleet you leave the tutorial with (in addition to the credits, weapons, skill points, etc.) is leaps and bounds superior than the quick start. I get you can get a decent ship at start in the tutorial with the 30k credits but flying around with 6-7 ships at "start" is a huge leg up in the early game. I'm not sure if I should say "bravo!" (which I will anyway: the tutorial is fantastic) or "tutorial is pretty much mandatory."
Very first play through of the tutorial got hung up on the salvage ship section. Even after salvaging/pounding everything (I detonated the Condor), The mission never completed. On a second playthrough, I noticed that after adding the Condor to my fleet, the exclamation point over the planet went away. Perhaps you should be more explicit that you should take every ship available?I actually did and it didn't advance even after quicksaving
Very first play through of the tutorial got hung up on the salvage ship section. Even after salvaging/pounding everything (I detonated the Condor), The mission never completed. On a second playthrough, I noticed that after adding the Condor to my fleet, the exclamation point over the planet went away. Perhaps you should be more explicit that you should take every ship available?
Speaking of: the fleet you leave the tutorial with (in addition to the credits, weapons, skill points, etc.) is leaps and bounds superior than the quick start. I get you can get a decent ship at start in the tutorial with the 30k credits but flying around with 6-7 ships at "start" is a huge leg up in the early game. I'm not sure if I should say "bravo!" (which I will anyway: the tutorial is fantastic) or "tutorial is pretty much mandatory."
Is the number actually going down, or is it just because it says "degrading readiness"? I *suspect* it's saying "degrading readiness" but the number isn't going down (which is still an issue if that's the case, that's definitely confusing.)It was actually going down when I took the screenshot, but a couple of seconds later it stopped. The interesting thing is there was a ship I was running away from that wasn't in my sensor range, and I think it was just on the edge of being visible. There might be a slight mismatch in visual range vs in-combat range.
The "degrading readiness" indicator did not go away even after the CR number stopped going down.
The Flash Bomber's description states it uses proximity charges that "employs the principles of the phase cloak". Is this purely flavour or has the prox. charge launcher changed in some way? The description of the weapon itself doesn't seem to suggest any changes.
The damage type explanations for Energy and Fragmentation both mention hull damage, but it doesn't for Explosives and Kinetics. Given that hull damage is always 100% it's probably unnecessary information anyway, although might be worth adding it to everything for the sake of new players? Either way seems fine.
The Devastator Cannon's description keeps mentioning frag damage and how terrible it is against armour, but given it's actually Explosive it seems like it would be reasonable against armour. Granted I haven't actually tried it out yet, so it may be as terrible as the description keeps telling me.
The Harbinger's new description has a minor typo: last line of first paragraph, "Everything that can possible can wrong does".
Is there a point to the Salvage Rig when the Shepherd has the exact same hullmod and is just generally a lot more useful?
There are no more Assault Fighters. :( I get why this is with the new fighter changes, but the tab still exists in the Codex. Also some more fighters might be better under "Support Fighters" (e.g. Claw, and previously Longbow), as it is it's just Xyphos: unless Support Fighters are now only meant to be long-ranged support.
Something for the hotfix: If you sell degraded ships, you don't get paid the normal price for their weapons. I just sold a degraded Condor with 2 LPCs for 900 space bucks (which is a major annoyance in Iron Mode). Don't know how it is for normal ships.
Alex, I think this is one reason why people are getting hung up in the ship salvage area: http://imgur.com/a/0u0zw
There is no indicator to quicksave after salvaging everything
Good job Alex!
Very impressive expansion to the scope of the campaign!
Now pls nerf Harpoons; they're the single most obnoxious weapon to face in the very early game!
Incredibly easy for your ship to simply get 'deleted' by a barrage of them from 2 frigates. (whether or not you're overloaded)
I'm having a lot of fun with the update, but one thing that detracts from the enjoyment a bit is fairly poor performance in campaign mode. With stock JRE, I was getting some stuttering and drops below 60 FPS in normal time, and severe stuttering with <40 FPS with shift held down. Switching to 64-bit JRE and giving it double memory helped significantly, but it's still not as good as I'd like, considering that this is a high-end system (i7-6700HQ, GTX 980M) and the game has no mods.
Combat is silky smooth though.
A thought for new players.
In the tutorial it tells you to move up to the salvage field, but it doesn't tell you how. Press W? Up arrow? Left click? Right click? We've all played this game for ages so we know how things work, but a player completely new to SS probably won't. Saying "move up" makes me think of W/up arrow, but if you actually press W it changes the ability bar and then you can't press "Salvage".
Alex, I think I know why the campaign isn't advancing: lack of D mods on your ships that you salvage. If someone takes the skill that reduces the chance of D mods on ships, it can make ships not have D mods and allow you to get 2 or more pristine ships, locking up the tutorial
A few things:
First, good god Talons are dirty little bastards now.
Second, one of the combat skills (something countermeasures) has a description that says that the skill allows various defenses to excel in their roles, yet it boosts shields against high explosive and armor against kinetic. Is this supposed to be a case? If so, I find the skill description a little confusing.
Third, did you remove the pause at the end of the combat dialog? Was there one to begin with?
Lastly, is there any way to influence the new skills that your officer might learn? Kinda frustrating when you want an officer that can fly a really good fast attack frigate, but the game keeps insisting they get carrier skills.
Hmm, that doesn't make a lot of sense. My system is probably worse and I don't get that - very occasional dips to below 60 with shift held down, at worst. And double memory should not help *at all* here.
Updating the graphics drivers may be worth a shot? Or just a reboot? Or closing other applications/browser tabs playing video/etc? This really seems abnormal, I wonder what's causing it.
I mean, yes, the campaign screen in hyperspace is probably the most intensive part of the game performance-wise, but that still doesn't explain what you're seeing.
Second, one of the combat skills (something countermeasures) has a description that says that the skill allows various defenses to excel in their roles, yet it boosts shields against high explosive and armor against kinetic. Is this supposed to be a case? If so, I find the skill description a little confusing.
Third, did you remove the pause at the end of the combat dialog? Was there one to begin with?
Lastly, is there any way to influence the new skills that your officer might learn? Kinda frustrating when you want an officer that can fly a really good fast attack frigate, but the game keeps insisting they get carrier skills.
It's not too bad, but I'm flying around in Askonia with shift hovering at 55 FPS and there's clearly lots of jitter (I normally can't tell 45 and 60 FPS apart if both are consistent, but I can easily see the lack of smoothness here). Worlds better than it was before I replaced the JRE, though.
Reboot and closing stuff doesn't seem to have made a difference. Drivers are newest. Also I'm 100% sure I'm running the game on the dedicated GPU, because I'm playing it on an external monitor and programs on external monitors can't run on the integrated GPU at all.
(Also, I just recovered a Prometheus from a random, very small debris field o_o)
Second, one of the combat skills (something countermeasures) has a description that says that the skill allows various defenses to excel in their roles, yet it boosts shields against high explosive and armor against kinetic. Is this supposed to be a case? If so, I find the skill description a little confusing.
The "role" of armor is to block kinetic damage, isn't it? I mean, I can sort of see how one would think offensively and consider armor's role as "to get mauled by high explosive damage", but...
Or am I missing something?
Lastly, is there any way to influence the new skills that your officer might learn? Kinda frustrating when you want an officer that can fly a really good fast attack frigate, but the game keeps insisting they get carrier skills.
I think if one is judicious about when to pick a new skill and when to increase an existing one, one will end up with something reasonable most of the time, just given how the probabilities work out.
You can if you take on the station fleet, which isn't hard at allAlex, I think I know why the campaign isn't advancing: lack of D mods on your ships that you salvage. If someone takes the skill that reduces the chance of D mods on ships, it can make ships not have D mods and allow you to get 2 or more pristine ships, locking up the tutorial
That would do it, but can you even get 6 skill points by then? Seems like it'd be tough.
You can if you take on the station fleet, which isn't hard at allI checked the hullmods file and the only new column is their monetary value, I think. There's probably some LPC stuff that needs to be done but I didn't check.
Also, is there anything new to do to carriers or hullmods to get them into the game?
The REDACTED come in all sizes, including some seriously scary ones.So far I've just met the absurdly weak ones, the annoying Wolf-like ones and the Ion Pulser ones. Do they scale with distance from the center of the sector? I kind of want to fight the destroyer-sized ones, which hopefully doesn't result in my fleet being wiped. I've got a Wolf, Hammerhead, Mora, Condor and the Odyssey, plus a Kite and Shepherd. Need some cash before I can fill out my flagship's large mounts.
Can you salvage /REDACTED/ ships guarding derelicts?Don't think so. None of the high-tech frigate-sized ones are worth it, anyway, though maybe the larger ones are better. Better off just buying a Wolf or something. The midline ones are basically crappier Hounds.
Flagship and ships with an officer in command nearly guaranteed to be recoverable if lostWhy nearly? And how is it determined?
Did it blow up in its entirety, with the big whiteout and everything?
Edit: just gave it a quick go and it seems to end properly for me, hmm.
I found a rather gamebreaking bug. I can't load my savegame. This was after I had quit from a three fleet pirate ambush mid-battle and was trying to reload at the main menu. It just gave the standard error message.
Fought a Mudskipper MK2 with a hellbore. Killed it, got the Hellbore. Salvaged the wreckage, got ANOTHER hellbore. What.You obviously built a hellbore from a mudskipper, duh.
Fought a Mudskipper MK2 with a hellbore. Killed it, got the Hellbore. Salvaged the wreckage, got ANOTHER hellbore. What.
You obviously built a hellbore from a mudskipper, duh.
I can't load my savegame.whenever you save your game, it also automatically creates a backup copy of your previous save point. you'll still lose the progress you've made between those two save points, but at least you don't have to start an entirely new campaign if one save gets corrupted.
Edit: All is good made a new game and skipped tutorial, :D Awesome update btw
I found a rather gamebreaking bug. I can't load my savegame. This was after I had quit from a three fleet pirate ambush mid-battle and was trying to reload at the main menu. It just gave the standard error message.
Are the Talon Interceptors really that good? They seem weak unless your stacking fighter skills for that -50% Damage Resistance.They still die easily, but they are free (0 OP), crew losses notwithstanding, and they have HE damage from their new Swarmers (that they effectively stole from Broadswords) plus the hull-melting Vulcan. Small ships without shields and sufficient PD will die.
I wish Odyssey had two flight decks.it has only a single fighter bay? that's disappointing. i know Legion is the new combat-carrier-hybrid capital ship now, but i think Odyssey deserves 2 bays, and it would still have only half as many as Legion.
Yes, it would be nice if the tutorial is optional from the start. That is like forcing Easy difficulty on you until you have a save to unlock it. Reminds me of the Hardcore unlock in Diablo 2, which I think Blizzard eventually abolished.Edit: All is good made a new game and skipped tutorial, :D Awesome update btw
That only works if you haven't deleted your previous saves, apparently. :/
Two decks on Odyssey sounds reasonable.I only use beams as PD on Astral. I favor three heavy blasters on Astral, and possibly leaving missiles empty if I do not have enough OP for blasters and PD beams. Works out to be a slower and fatter Odyssey with more flight decks.
The decision to make Advanced Optics built-in for the Astral is sound, but... what if I wanted to build a non-beam Astral? As stupid as that sounds. :-X
By the way, do randomly-generated systems ever have markets? All I've encountered are lifeless systems, except for the one with REDACTED and the occasional bounty fleet.
Was there any rating required to get that free Legion?
Hotfix is up - grab it here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2017/04/20/starsector-0-8a-release/). Full list of bugfixes in OP.Should I restart (not quite finished campaign tutorial quite yet), or are the changes minor enough that I can proceed with saved game without problems?
Hotfix is up - grab it here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2017/04/20/starsector-0-8a-release/). Full list of bugfixes in OP.thanks! :]
What are the rewards of improved surveying and salvaging? Unskilled, it seems viable targets are very limited.
I've run into a problem to finish a delivery mission...
Picked up a delivery contract in Asher in the Canaan system to deliver freight to Gilead in the same system.
When I reached Gilead all i could select was "Leave", there was no text for the planet info present.
I was shortly afterwards controlled by a Luddic fleet, retried after that, same result. I've also left the system and jumped back in, still only "Leave" available.
Right before I picked up the mission at Asher I visited Gilead and I was able to interact with normally.
Any idea what might cause the problem?
Edit: this was with RC 17, I've reloaded the save under RC 18 with the same result.
Could you mail me your save with the mission active? fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com.
Sustained burn seems to trivialise sneaking into markets. It doesn't seem to increase your sensor profile by an appreciable amount and you can use it to get away from large fleets guarding the market fairly easily. They can eat my space dust as I supercruise through at burn 19 with my transponder off, (very briefly) stop to buy a ship off the black market, then continue powering away at high burn before they even get underway.
I can see why you would think that, but when the options for three straight levels are "increase this skill or get strike commander", and strike commander was STILL an option when I had to select a new skill, it starts to get a little frustrating. I guess I just got a bad draw.
* you can't lay in course to a nebula from the system info screen, the button does nothing (which I suppose makes some kind of sense because there isn't a body selected, but in that case it should lay in course to a jump point, which is what it does when you lay in course to a nebula from the map)
* when you kill a bounty target but part of the fleet survives, it still has the yellow exclamation mark symbol even though you've killed the target and the bounty is complete.
While doing campaign tutorial, salvaging Domain Probes multiple times always guarantee a Gamma Core drop each time. I...don't think it's supposed to be happening?
For the mission log "Acquire jump-point data at Derinkuyu", the summary says "contact $dataContactName"... also in the very first transmission from the Ancyra commander, at one point he/she says something like "we're cut off from Sector like the Sector is cut off from the Domain", should probably be "we're cut off from the Sector".
Also, is there anything new to do to carriers or hullmods to get them into the game?
The supposedly abandoned station in Asharu seems to not be so abandoned, judging from it's description.
Question: is there any way to tell how many times a field has been salvaged? I ran into an issue where it was a field I had already salvaged, so I took hefty losses.
So far I'm loving .8! Marvelously done Alex!
Can you salvage /REDACTED/ ships guarding derelicts?
QuoteFlagship and ships with an officer in command nearly guaranteed to be recoverable if lostWhy nearly? And how is it determined?
I would love to be able to tell my second-in-command to fight automated defenses. Beyond the first few times they really are just a stomp, and getting through that screen to the tasty tasty loot faster would be nice.
I think I figured out the problem. One of the ships (the cruiser) never entered the battle.
EDIT: Decided to try and retreat to see what happens... and the moment I unpause after ordering a full retreat, the rest of the enemies charge in. Weird.
I found a rather gamebreaking bug. I can't load my savegame. This was after I had quit from a three fleet pirate ambush mid-battle and was trying to reload at the main menu. It just gave the standard error message.
Fought a Mudskipper MK2 with a hellbore. Killed it, got the Hellbore. Salvaged the wreckage, got ANOTHER hellbore. What.
i think i found a bug: with my first 4 skill points in the tutorial, i initially put 2 into Technology aptitude and 2 into Sensors, but then reset the points and went for something else rather than confirming the selection. however, it seems the 25% sensor-profile reduction from Sensors rank 2 was still permanently applied to my fleet, despite not having committed any points to that skill now. at least that's what the sensor-profile modifiers in the tooltip and the total number show, i can't say whether the actual numbers used in calculating detection ranges are affected as well.
Are the Talon Interceptors really that good? They seem weak unless your stacking fighter skills for that -50% Damage Resistance.
Edit: I wanted to explore hyperspace right away but i need to do the tutorial right? Forced tutorials make me rage even though this one is really good :(
Edit: All is good made a new game and skipped tutorial, :D Awesome update btw
1) Can other fleets have these skills (eg. Hegemony Strike fleet)
2) If you join a battle between Heg and pirates that has these skills, do u gain the bonus? do your ships count toward the bonus?
3) If you have the skill does it affect only ur ships or all allied ships?
4) Do Nav bouy bonuses count towards the total coord manouvre bonus or is it separate? (does this mean that without the skill nav bouys do nothing?)
5) Do Nav relays count towards the total? (if not what is the max bonus for nav relays?)
6) Does ECM follow the above pattern?
Fighters are absolutely unbelievable now. I expected them to be improved, but this is more than I ever dreamed of. Visually, fighter swarms are stunning! They function almost like a glue between ships and can bind a loose aggregation into a coherent entity, where now even the smallest frigate is not easy pickings any more. Tactically, they now dominate the battlefield. But not just with brute force, there is rhythm to them, and all other ships have to dance to the beat they provide. Their carrier performs as the conductor, controlling the ebb and tide of the music. Among them, the Astral is the most virtuous. Seriously, I just played against and then as an Astral, it might be my favorite ship now.
What are the rewards of improved surveying and salvaging? Unskilled, it seems viable targets are very limited. I suppose in the full game, a good survey could let you find an ideal planet to build your base (and eventual war machine to take over the sector). But, in 0.8, what is the ultimate benefit? Merely more cash only? If so, then that is not much different than the crew XP skill from pre-0.8, which the mean reason for me to get it would be to train more crew from green to elite quickly and sell for cash (although Making Do perk was good, but not as good as zipping around and killing everything with combat skills).
If I need salvaging to capture unusual Domain/alien ships or weapons, or even merely stupidly rare items like more Hyperions and Light Needlers, then I probably want to max the skill so I can get more goodies. But, if all I get is more unusual but useless commodities or junk like metal to sell for more cash, then I may just pass on them so I can focus more on combat-related skills instead of convenient grind-less-in-the-campaign skills. Same thing with surveying. If all I get is datapads to sell, then it is just easier-way-to-get-cash at the expense of maximum combat potential.
The decision to make Advanced Optics built-in for the Astral is sound, but... what if I wanted to build a non-beam Astral? As stupid as that sounds. :-X
I came across a lifeless planet with a market. :D
Gotta say, about 5 hours in so far and this is unbelievable. Just found an officer on a derelict ship that had precisely the stats I was looking for to find a recovered Scarab(!) just floating around. The exploration/salvage mechanics have been wonderful because every time I'm out trying to survey something and running dangerously low on supplies/fuel, I end up finding a debris field or ship graveyard to pillage and keep on rolling. Bravo, sir.
I have not run across one yet but I'm hoping to find an active Comm Relay out in the remote regions because I've missed a few bounties (when I was in the system!) because I had no idea they were there. As bounty fleets are spawning "out there," if you are "out there," you never receive any messages. Not a big deal but annoying nonetheless.
Finally, I think it's been mentioned but I just went to a Tri-Tach world with 5 officers available and 4/5 had a carrier-based skills on them. Confirmation bias and all but it seems there is disproportionate weight on those skills.
Skills are also feeling pretty good but I have to admit I'd gotten used to the speed of .7 and .8 feels "slow" now. I'm still trying to figure out which skills I want because so many are good. I will say using a point to "advance a tree up" never feels all that satisfying, though I know it's a long-term gain. Even a token boost to some minor stat would give me less buyer's remorse.
Been only playing the new version for a short while and so far I'm really impressed. The game is coming along so nicely Alex ;D
- When leaving stations or planets, etc, it would be nice if our fleet wasn't given an initial velocity. During the tutorial, I sneaked into the pirate mining station successfully but when I left, my fleet was pushed directly at the nearby pirates and I was detected.
- Detection ranges / sensor ranges: I understand what the numbers mean, but I find the system unreliable. With the pirate mining base example, I had no idea how close I could be from the pirate fleet before being detected. I'm guessing this is intentional to make the system feel organic / exciting / etc.
I dig this update. You're putting some 10+ man teams to shame with this pace of content.
Could you mail me your save with the mission active? fractalsoftworks [at] gmail [dot] com.
Mail sent
Skills are also feeling pretty good but I have to admit I'd gotten used to the speed of .7 and .8 feels "slow" now. I'm still trying to figure out which skills I want because so many are good. I will say using a point to "advance a tree up" never feels all that satisfying, though I know it's a long-term gain. Even a token boost to some minor stat would give me less buyer's remorse.I think some of speed skills may be mandatory on all of my characters just to make things not agonizingly slow. Especially, now since the only speed hullmod guts shot range too much for some ships. With Wolf, if I take Unstable Injector, my shot range is so short that I might as well use Safety Override too for even more speed, but Lasher is much better at that game.
Hmm - do you see the three arcs around the enemy fleet? Or is it with those that it's still feeling unreliable?
- Detection ranges / sensor ranges: I understand what the numbers mean, but I find the system unreliable. With the pirate mining base example, I had no idea how close I could be from the pirate fleet before being detected. I'm guessing this is intentional to make the system feel organic / exciting / etc.
Bug: If you have a course laid down but are currently in manual mode, crossing a jump point will make autopilot switch back on by itself. (This is usually not an issue because you'll override it immediately, but sometimes your fleet will try to jump back through the point you just came through, forcing you to click through the popup)
With the higher number of available officer skills, and the increased specialization in skills (not every ship has fighters, or even missiles, and there are less "always nice to have" skills), maybe giving the option of three instead of two might be a simple fix.I can see why you would think that, but when the options for three straight levels are "increase this skill or get strike commander", and strike commander was STILL an option when I had to select a new skill, it starts to get a little frustrating. I guess I just got a bad draw.
Yeah, that's some bad luck. I'd like to keep some randomness in the process, though, so that's a downside of it.
Bug: If you have a course laid down but are currently in manual mode, crossing a jump point will make autopilot switch back on by itself. (This is usually not an issue because you'll override it immediately, but sometimes your fleet will try to jump back through the point you just came through, forcing you to click through the popup)
Happened to me quite a few times, too. Wasn't sure if it was a lay course thing or if I was clicking on the jump point by accident.
Also, does the "max skills for player" button on the mission refit screen do anything? It doesn't seem to in the simulator but I haven't tried it in the mission proper.
Salvaged this in a near core system.
...Question: is there any way to tell how many times a field has been salvaged? I ran into an issue where it was a field I had already salvaged, so I took hefty losses.
There's some text about how likely you're to find anything when you run "scavenge". For subsequent attempts, it should indicate there's not a lot to find. Also, the visual density of the field goes down significantly.
...
"A silent ring of adamantine material, derelict of a former age." Surrounded by half-working derelicts and dead debris.
>Fly through the gate
"Your (!) order your fleet to traverse the dead gateway. Your bridge crew is especially quiet during the passage."...Spoiler"Nothing happens."[close]
I know what they feel. It is not pretty.
But the narration is excellent.
Thanks for the response! In the tutorial at least this was not the case - the debris fields looked the same and the text did not change. I will keep an eye out and try to verify.
A question about black market trading: is it supposed to be so lenient? I almost always buy supplies and fuel on the black market, and I sell everything from my exploration runs and planet surveys there, too. The patrols always intercept and scan me, but of course they don't find anything suspicious - I just sold it, after all. Or it is just supplies and fuel. I think only once so far I got a reputation hit, when I bought particularly many supplies. But even here I'm not sure what happend, because the patrol captain didn't specify which of my wares he found suspicious, and didn't take anything from me.
A question about black market trading: is it supposed to be so lenient?
Working as intended.
A question about black market trading: is it supposed to be so lenient?
Working as intended.
That might be true for buying stuff, but it doesn't make sense for sales. I'm selling 100ks worth of of survey data and AI cores on the black market, without any ramifications. So paying tariffs on those would just be me being stupid? That doesn't seem right.
1. After you defeat the first pirate and level up, if you assign those points immediately, you won't get a dialog telling you about skills and the campaign wouldn't progress. If you approach Hegemony world after that you will be asked to turn on your transponder, which you can't do because you don't have this ability yet and they will attack you immediately afterwards.
2. While salvaging the ship graveyard, if you decline one of the ship for some reason (I decided I didn't need a crappy carrier with 3 negative mods), you will never be able to complete the quest. Now I need to start the campaign over.
oh, and i think i've only posted some questions and complaints so far, so i just wanna say that overall i love 0.8!! ^_^
Hardpoint vs turret sprite, I think.
Oh geez, I didn't even know there were separate sprites based on that. Are there other weapons with two sprites based on mounting?
Thanks for the response! In the tutorial at least this was not the case - the debris fields looked the same and the text did not change. I will keep an eye out and try to verify.
Same here. I actually had a number of accidents, because I came across debris fields that, apparently, some else had already scavenged.
I made a test save after cheating up max level to see if I can get everything I want at level 40 and... there are not quite enough to get all of the most desirable skills (maybe a few short). So far, Gunnery Implants 3, Power Grid Modulation 3, Evasive Maneuvers 1, and Helmsmanship 2 are must-take for every character for me, because I got to have my speed (max speed, maneuverability, and venting) and shot range. Then, I get to a variety of skills I very much like to take.
And this is ignoring damage boosts, heavy armor, command points, navigation, and fighter skills.
In a way, I am glad that the neutrino ability is annoying. (I will not bring along another fuel to power a dubious ability that kills Sustained Burn and consume cargo space and money.) That saves me the trouble of considering the sensor skill.
I did this to see if I can get by with max skills minus high Industry (for max surveying and salvaging). I do not think I can do this without giving up stuff.
So far, Leadership is the least useful for me if I do not focus on fighters. Fleet Logistics and more officers look very nice, but I do not think I can afford it all. Just Leadership 1 to get Coordinated Maneuvers 1 (more speed!) and six officers is what I can settle for.
Technology 3 is non-negotiable. Must have shot range and max dissipation regardless who I play. Combat 2 will be a given due to more speed (Helmsmanship 2)! Industry 2 seems like a minimum. I really like Safety Procedures 2, and I suspect I need at least 2 for surveying and salvaging to explore the game.
While level 40 max seems okay for now, despite coming up a little short to get everything I deem necessary, I shudder to think how lack of points will hurt if more skills fill out the attributes.
I just beat a "domain era survey mothership", but when I killed it and all its allies, the battle didn't end. My ships just sit there around the mothership (which also has no description).
edit: nvm, just took enemy fleet a minute to finish deploying other ships...
It would be nice if putting skill points into one of the 4 main categories gave something. It's not very enjoyable getting that sweet level up only to invest it in upgrading a main category skill but get nothing directly out of it.I agree, I've thought the same.
Doesn't even need to be major. Small things like more command points, better scavanging/post-fight looting results, and the sort. Just something to make it feel like it's not a lost point.
Salvaged this in a near core system.Meanwhile I have yet to see a single damn REDACTED fleet in my game. Maybe it is because of the smaller sector?
(http://i.imgur.com/XvTvIEFl.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/XvTvIEF.jpg)
That is all, it's perfect.
Have to say, I love the update so far. Salvaging is a lot much fun, and man, I got lucky and found a dominator class cruiser in a debris field. Though, it seems sort of odd, that I can outright recover it without any losses with only the first skill in salvaging. I'm certainly not complaining though.
Heya Alex, I bought this game some time ago, and I think I already spent my money's worth in time played, and then some. I have yet to play this update, but even aside the content, I am so happy to see this game is still being developed, as I absolutely love the premise. I'm sure it would not take much for me to have that adventure all over again, and I'm so grateful for the work of FSW!
Also I know I'm late to the party, but to our modders who might read this, you contributed so much to my love of this game, and I very much hope that our so-talented modders will have fun expanding this awesome game even further once again!
Meanwhile I have yet to see a single damn REDACTED fleet in my game. Maybe it is because of the smaller sector?
Edit: Hey Alex, are hull mods supposed to be stupid rare drops from fleets? Out of the hundreds of normal and drone ships I faced, I have gotten like two MOD drops. Fighters are fine though
Hey Alex, loving the update! But I've got an issue that I think might be a bug. Whenever I salvage a Falcon, it's always missing the two middle small energy hardpoints in the middle of the ship. If I pay to remove all the D mods, it doesn't fix the issue. And if I exit the interface and re-enter it after fixing the ship, it gives me the option to remove D mods again and pay another hefty 68k which does nothing. This can be repeated forever with no effect. And yes, I am running the latest version. Thanks!Does it have something like "destroyed/ damaged/ downsized weapon mounts"?
Does it have something like "destroyed/ damaged/ downsized weapon mounts"?
I know why. The first two are premade ones I think while the last one is a generated one. You also might want to try the latest hotfix as wellDoes it have something like "destroyed/ damaged/ downsized weapon mounts"?
No. It has no D mods at all. Nor are any listed on the info screen that I can see unless I'm missing something. Here's a couple of screenshots I took through Steam where you can see the lack of mounts without any D mods listed. In the first shot you can even see that it lists the total number of small energy mounts as 2 but it should be 4. In the second shot, you can also see that I can pay to "Restore" the ship even though it isn't damaged. Finally, in the 3rd shot you can see another Falcon that I bought from a shop (yes, I love Falcons) that does have a couple of D mods and yet those 2 middle mounts are operational.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/811054860947735510/46B183F52EADDC10AF0DAFEC5DCE039E6F7B2DD4/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/811054860947735994/2E7C1A41AC35C20ECDCA47A5BFA819F7BA400DC9/
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/811054860947752848/06D5367B5735266859DFCB7C5FCFA8B42FB7FCE1/
I know why. The first two are premade ones I think while the last one is a generated one. You also might want to try the latest hotfix as well
Why would premade vs generated matter? It just seems to me that if two of my mounts are permanently damaged or whatever that it should show that somewhere. Although, I've salved a dozen or more other ships and never had this problem. It's only the Falcon's and it's on every single one that I've salaved (4 in total). And I am using the latest hotfix (RC19).
Hey alex, big fan of the game and i give it tunnnns of play time for a indy sandbox game =)
gald to see the updates are still churning out, you are doing great work keep it up dude, honestly if you went main stream like steam id rep ya ++++ stats =)
thanks for being a good dev to us fans
Alex is there a use-case in which auto-fit is supposed to put your OP in the red? Went to refit after finally finding my second hammer rack for my Kite_A, popped over to my Mora to double check it doesn't need a mod upgrade & it's at 102 out of 70-- I think my autofit put safety overrides back on after I had removed it to add on the two base mods that I then marked as "always prioritize", maybe there's a conflict between the two behaviors?
Do you have the hotfix? Fairly sure that should be resolved by it....Nope. I'm a dork. My bad, once again. Will I need a new fresh save?
Ok, this has happened four times already. It's so easy to undock with super-overfilled cargoholds/people and then lose -40 cargo/day until you can IIIINCH yourself, milimeter by milimeter back to the station. There should be a flat out warning or a denial of undock if you're overfilled like, 100%+.You can always throw stuff away. Also, in the lower left corner is cargo bar and it goes red when overfilling.
There desperately needs to be a way to segregate officers between fighter and combat skills. It's one thing to get stuck with a suboptimal roll for a combat skill, but fighter skills do stone nothing for most officers and getting a permanent dead level on one feels bad. Prospective hires also seem prone to generating with these kind of frankenskills, which makes finding decent officers harder than it's meant to be. Top of the head suggestion: the game goes into some detail already about how fighter command and combat piloting are entirely different skillsets, so make them into two different kinds of officer. Making traditional officers is pretty easy; they just roll picks from the same pool as 0.72 plus Power Grid Modulation. Carrier commanders are a bit harder, since in addition to wanting fighter skills you could also make a reasonable argument for them wanting any of the skills on the previous list, especially now that the Mora means there is a carrier that cares a whole lot about guns. I'm not sure exactly what to do for them yet.
Fighting the automated defenses on Domain wrecks gets tedious very quickly. The fact that they behave differently than regular ships is initially interesting and helps emphasize that you aren't fighting against human crews who value their own survival over victory, but their simple behavior means there just isn't a whole lot going on when you fight them, and combined with the lack of risk for most of the encounters it feels more like a chore than gameplay. I'm at level 20 on an exploration run and I'm already at the point where I will probably deal with them by turning the ship over to autopilot and going to get a drink or something.
EDIT: also I will literally never remember to turn my transponder back on when I'm coming back from the black. Is this a problem with other people or am I just an idiot? If it's the former, it might be nice to have the game give you some sort of reminder that you're about to commit a minor crime.
--- In that regards, wouldn't it be recommended to have ships you freshly loot be 'mothballed'? I don't think anyone wants repairs to start up ASAP on salvaged, not-your-own-previously-owned ships.
I guess I messed up, economically.
You do like, a starter quest... and it says you have to go salvage these ships.
So I go to salvage one of them.
It's total crap, so I go back to base to buy crew and supplies to heal it up.
That cleaned out all my money though.
But the quest didn't continue. I guess I have to salvage all the ships for the quest.
So I go salvage the rest of the ships.
Bring them back to base... maybe to sell or whatever.
But then the quest guy is like "yeah, we will upgrade and repair them for free for you"
"But you have to buy the crew"
So like... I wasn't supposed to use all my money for the first ship I salvage... the quest was going to give me free repairs, and let me just buy the crew.
Anyway, I can't beat the mission, so I am stuck there. So... I guess I gotta start the tutorial over.
On one hand a third AI war seems inevitable at some point. On the other hand... it feels rehashed if it becomes the main plot point (assuming SS ever will have such a thing as "main plot points") unless it ends with something decisive (unlikely for a Sandbox game). Plus there are other plot threads to follow, and the tutorial mission kind of changes things by making the dead gates something people are still actively investigating, rather than "backstory for how the Sector went to *** and no one important cares anymore".It feels like it could erupts into another world war, with or without DBZ-style escalation as done in some anime/manga with the world war plot.
Looks like there is a possibility of seeing them in a future version, most likely as an endgame enemy.
I also think Transverse Jump should have a charge-up time, it's way too trivial to escape using it right now, makes Navigation a must-have. Navigation is back to being one of the absolute best skills in the game between that and the Sustained Burn bonus.And worst of all, I cannot afford it with my planned character skills.
So Alex/David, is the Sindrian Diktat part of the Persean League now? That's my take from their allied status.
I just got a medusa named "Balor One-eye"
......... so which one of you read the golden torc series? Alex/David??
is Jack the Bodiless also available as a ship name??
Has anyone else successfully pulled off a scan mission with the target 'in the heart of the X system'? Every one I've been on has had stuff near the star, but hasn't given me the option to scan it.
Why the flares for the apogee? It has 360 degree shields so its not like a missile will sneak up its tailpipe, wouldn't a different system make more sense? Doesn't have to be something like sensor drones(though I'd love you if it was). Just something that effects it's engines or shields or something.
every "in the heart of [xxxx]" mission ive had so far i found the target in the sun's corona
the solar shielding has value now me thinks ......
I built an underwater fortress and ran an in-game kickstarter via twitter wherein I wrote propagandistic haikus and drew leader portraits to get other players to give me the gold and gems required to keep fighting and at least be annoying 'til the end of the game.
EDIT: also I will literally never remember to turn my transponder back on when I'm coming back from the black. Is this a problem with other people or am I just an idiot? If it's the former, it might be nice to have the game give you some sort of reminder that you're about to commit a minor crime.
Final thoughts: the background of the REDACTED and their surrounding lore, the overall atmosphere of the game, and Alex's views towards risk vs reward and encouraging the player to make ethically questionable decisions for a quick buck suggests that selling all your AI cores to the Tri-Tachyons is going to prove to be an extremely good idea in future versions of the game and I cannot wait to find out how right I am.
Not sure if this was posted already but there is a minor bug with distress calls:
When you get rescued you have the option of paying for the stuff you get, it was always 20k for me so far. If you select that option you pay 20 (not 20k) and get relation bonuses. That sounds like it can be cheesed really easily.
The flip side is that reacting to distress calls also only pays 1/1000th of what it should pay if you read the log.
I've only recently realised that once in a system where I have e.g. the location of a ship in my logs I can go to the log, click the black window saying "In-System" and then it will reveal the location on the system map.
For me that seems not really intuitive. Wouldn't it be easier to just add an according marker to the system map?
Sure, but when you're switching between ships in your fleet, you sometimes just exit with 600 extra crew. I wouldn't exactly want to vent 500 crew for 20 meters to dock back (at 1m/s ) which would mean i'm going to lose -666 supplies/second. :P Lose-lose either way.
Tutorial feedback
My friend who just bought this game for 0.8a experienced this early on in the tutorial that has caused him to basically fail the tutorial.Basically he didn't realize he needed to salvage all the ships and would get free repairs. So he wasted all of his supplies and money fixing up the first salvaged ship, only to find out that it would have been free and now he has nothing.SpoilerQuoteI guess I messed up, economically.
You do like, a starter quest... and it says you have to go salvage these ships.
So I go to salvage one of them.
It's total crap, so I go back to base to buy crew and supplies to heal it up.
That cleaned out all my money though.
But the quest didn't continue. I guess I have to salvage all the ships for the quest.
So I go salvage the rest of the ships.
Bring them back to base... maybe to sell or whatever.
But then the quest guy is like "yeah, we will upgrade and repair them for free for you"
"But you have to buy the crew"
So like... I wasn't supposed to use all my money for the first ship I salvage... the quest was going to give me free repairs, and let me just buy the crew.
Anyway, I can't beat the mission, so I am stuck there. So... I guess I gotta start the tutorial over.[close]
Really enjoying the game so far. :) One thing I've noticed is that if you set your destination to a jump point and then jump through it, you will still keep trying to go towards that jump point once you get out on the other side by default. Would be a good QoL feature to clear that once you go through or something, it's annoying those times you forget to do it.
I also think Transverse Jump should have a charge-up time, it's way too trivial to escape using it right now, makes Navigation a must-have. Navigation is back to being one of the absolute best skills in the game between that and the Sustained Burn bonus.
This essentially removes bounty hunting from the activities a new player will consider viable as a typical starter fleet has an effective range of ~3-5ly. Bounties appear at 10+ ly.
...
I could ditch my fleet and go forth with a couple of frigates, but what would be the point? I certainly couldn't take on a bounty with that.
So I've managed to get myself into a position where I am trapped in a system becasue I cannot afford fuel, and have no means of getting it elsewhere. I don't have enough crew to man my ships, and I have barely enough supplies to run them. Essentially game over.
Lumen are tedious.
Why the flares for the apogee? It has 360 degree shields so its not like a missile will sneak up its tailpipe, wouldn't a different system make more sense? Doesn't have to be something like sensor drones(though I'd love you if it was). Just something that effects it's engines or shields or something.
Its shield is Frontal, so there is a point to the flares if you're caught with your shields down. Plus even if it were Omni you don't always want to eat a torpedo to your shields. And overall the Apogee was too good (still a bit too good I'd argue), it needed a nerf.
I agree that the Atropos should at least have 1250 damage (the flippin' Hammer has 1500) if it's going to keep the slower speed...
I feel this weapon was nerfed purely because the Trident bombers have them.
Hold up do torps get affected by flares? And while we're at it, ECM?
Hold up do torps get affected by flares? And while we're at it, ECM?
I noticed Reapers magically swerving away from ships for some reason so... maybe? They really shouldn't even have the capability to turn though, so bug?
Another thing I remember: Helmsmanship 3, 0-flux speed at 1% flux.
This not very practical. Before, I could have shields up and flux-efficient weapons fire at fleeing ships. Now, with limited skill points, the benefit seems too marginal for the cost. 25% from before may be excessive, but 1% is very limiting. Maybe I can have the shield up before I make first contact, but as soon as something sneezes on it or the ship opens fire, the bonus is gone.
Overall, it probably is not the worst perk, but with the 42 point max budget, I will probably leave Helmsmanship at 2 (which I consider must-get for all of my characters since I like a faster-paced game).
i don't think basically removing one weapon that was in a decent spot just so fighters can have something that uses the same name and sprite is a good idea.
Ah, Daggers were swapped to have Hammers in earlier patch notes. I guess the complaint that having a super low-tech torpedo for a high-tech bomber was heard, heh...
Or maybe even 1500 damage Hammers were still too OP for Daggers. >_>
I really don't think they were in a decent spot, though. Definitely felt too strong for me.with vanilla stats, i would agree. the Starsector+ mod changed them a bit, reducing speed to make them easier to dodge or shoot down, while keeping their 2500 damage. that felt pretty good, to me.
with only 1000 damage, they just aren't a reasonable Reaper-alternative anymore. more like Harpoon-alternative. not that i mind having the latter, but i still would like to also have the former in some way. Hammers are alright at the lower-end, but i feel also have a rather different focus than Reapers.
On reflection, my feeling is that a "reasonable Reaper alternative" that's guided is... well, not going to say it's impossible, but that's just a dicey premise to start from.hmm, yeah. how about something that's also unguided, but trades damage and durability for speed? better for hitting smaller/faster targets or exploiting short windows of opportunity, but 1. not quite as devastating when it hits, 2. still needs proper aiming, and 3. doesn't just dash right through mediocre PD screens.
with only 1000 damage, they just aren't a reasonable Reaper-alternative anymore. more like Harpoon-alternative. not that i mind having the latter, but i still would like to also have the former in some way. Hammers are alright at the lower-end, but i feel also have a rather different focus than Reapers.
That's fair. On reflection, my feeling is that a "reasonable Reaper alternative" that's guided is... well, not going to say it's impossible, but that's just a dicey premise to start from.
Why the flares for the apogee? It has 360 degree shields so its not like a missile will sneak up its tailpipe, wouldn't a different system make more sense? Doesn't have to be something like sensor drones(though I'd love you if it was). Just something that effects it's engines or shields or something.
Its shield is Frontal, so there is a point to the flares if you're caught with your shields down. Plus even if it were Omni you don't always want to eat a torpedo to your shields. And overall the Apogee was too good (still a bit too good I'd argue), it needed a nerf.
Speaking of drones, the Prometheus still uses PD drones for its system.
And my suggestion for transponder re-activation: this really needs to go into the 'jump into system' dialog; you don't need to change the current options, just add a third one for "jump into system and turn transponder on" - and color it red; that way even if the player is just clicking through those, simply seeing that red line will serve as an immediate reminder.
I also think that Talons are a bit OP, probably better than some more expensive alternatives. Their swarming behavior makes it impossible for frigates to defend against them.agreed. i think they should either lose the Swarmers, or get some mini-Vulcan that doesn't have as high dps as the normal one.
Watching my tempests getting swarmed by them was horrifying.And my suggestion for transponder re-activation: this really needs to go into the 'jump into system' dialog; you don't need to change the current options, just add a third one for "jump into system and turn transponder on" - and color it red; that way even if the player is just clicking through those, simply seeing that red line will serve as an immediate reminder.
Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
I also think that Talons are a bit OP, probably better than some more expensive alternatives. Their swarming behavior makes it impossible for frigates to defend against them.
Maybe account for this new flexibility of meaningful skill point distribution with three choices instead of two, and only one of them influenced by already learned skills?
Maybe account for this new flexibility of meaningful skill point distribution with three choices instead of two, and only one of them influenced by already learned skills?i think it needs more flexibility in general, yeah. 3 choices at the least, with 1 guaranteed to be a new one, and 1 guaranteed to be an already known one.
Talons are op, my mora does more damage with two talons than a broadsword warthog mix, even two kopeshes against a buffalo mk 2 are less effective than just two talonstbf, Buffalo MK.II have no shield at all, awful armor for a destroyer (despite what their codex description implies) and usually poor PD. it makes sense that tons of frag damage + a stream of light HE would be more effective against them than pretty much anything else.
Maybe account for this new flexibility of meaningful skill point distribution with three choices instead of two, and only one of them influenced by already learned skills?
This exact idea occurred to me, as well. +1.
If you take the Swarmers away then the Talons are gonna be back to utter trash tier.hardly. they're still the only zero-OP fighters, aside from the Mining Pods.
It would make sense, but it will hurt. Either way, it still would not make 0-flux speed a 1% any less of a lemon, just an annoying near-dead level barely better than an aptitude increase or skill point tax.Another thing I remember: Helmsmanship 3, 0-flux speed at 1% flux.
This not very practical. Before, I could have shields up and flux-efficient weapons fire at fleeing ships. Now, with limited skill points, the benefit seems too marginal for the cost. 25% from before may be excessive, but 1% is very limiting. Maybe I can have the shield up before I make first contact, but as soon as something sneezes on it or the ship opens fire, the bonus is gone.
Overall, it probably is not the worst perk, but with the 42 point max budget, I will probably leave Helmsmanship at 2 (which I consider must-get for all of my characters since I like a faster-paced game).
I think what you're describing is rather "as intended", though perhaps it might make sense to switch levels 2 and 3 for Helmsmanship.
If you take the Swarmers away then the Talons are gonna be back to utter trash tier.hardly. they're still the only zero-OP fighters, aside from the Mining Pods.
and 5% minimum armor reduction is not a huge change for something that doesn't have a good amount of armor to begin with, namely other fighters, some of the more fragile frigates, and small civilian ships. Talons are supposed to be interceptors, aka good vs other fighters and bombers, not ship-killers.
Tutorial feedback
My friend who just bought this game for 0.8a experienced this early on in the tutorial that has caused him to basically fail the tutorial.Basically he didn't realize he needed to salvage all the ships and would get free repairs. So he wasted all of his supplies and money fixing up the first salvaged ship, only to find out that it would have been free and now he has nothing.SpoilerQuoteI guess I messed up, economically.
You do like, a starter quest... and it says you have to go salvage these ships.
So I go to salvage one of them.
It's total crap, so I go back to base to buy crew and supplies to heal it up.
That cleaned out all my money though.
But the quest didn't continue. I guess I have to salvage all the ships for the quest.
So I go salvage the rest of the ships.
Bring them back to base... maybe to sell or whatever.
But then the quest guy is like "yeah, we will upgrade and repair them for free for you"
"But you have to buy the crew"
So like... I wasn't supposed to use all my money for the first ship I salvage... the quest was going to give me free repairs, and let me just buy the crew.
Anyway, I can't beat the mission, so I am stuck there. So... I guess I gotta start the tutorial over.[close]
Hmm. Given that the tutorial asks you to quicksave, I think this is ... not ideal, but maybe alright?
I guess it could always be made a bit more clear, but different things are clear to different people, and putting the tutorial on strict rails is tricky given how much you can actually do.
Restoring (D) variant ships is all or nothing.
Being allowed to pick and choose which garbage hullmods to fix would be p. helpful.
Eg: I don't care at all about glitched sensors on a dustbin Wolf, but I very much care about degraded engines.
The game seems FAR harder than previously due to the crippling lack of money, and having most avenues of making said money being out of reach without significant investment. Catch 22.
Procurement contracts seem to be entirely composed of 100+ unit requests which are not really useful for a starting player. Both with the space and the upfront cost of goods required.
System bounties seem to be much less frequent. And when they do appear there is seldom any pirate activity with which to claim said bounty.
Low level named bounties are now quite difficult to get to without a non-trivial investment in fuel and supplies as they all seem to appear in distant unmapped systems.
This essentially removes bounty hunting from the activities a new player will consider viable as a typical starter fleet has an effective range of ~3-5ly. Bounties appear at 10+ ly.
Suggest allowing any named bounty to spawn anywhere, but vastly skew the low-end bounties toward appearing in a "core" systems and larger ones in the wilds.
Even with several decent survey results pulling in nearly 60k I've had little ability to travel beyond the core systems to pursue bounties with a meaningful fleet. I could ditch my fleet and go forth with a couple of frigates, but what would be the point? I certainly couldn't take on a bounty with that.
So I've managed to get myself into a position where I am trapped in a system becasue I cannot afford fuel, and have no means of getting it elsewhere. I don't have enough crew to man my ships, and I have barely enough supplies to run them. Essentially game over.
I'll try a new start and stick to frigates and surveys, see if that helps.
Stars above how I LOATHE flying frigates.
Sabot are, once again, utterly underwhelming.
They don't hit hard enough to make a shielded ship back off unless it soaks the full shot.
But most of the shards miss anything smaller than a cruiser.
And now the 1st stage moves even slower than they used to, giving them a tiny range.
So how DO you restore them? Haven't stumbled over that knowledge in game yet.
- Salvaging seems like a waste of time, i barely get anything worthwhile. Is it possible for salvage points to be a single event with the entire loot given at once?
Being able to remove only certain D-mods for a reduced price feels a little bit cheaty, and also hugely impractical. You would never go to a repair shop with your car and say "Yeah, fix the broken windshield, but leave the tyres flat - I like 'em that way." Think about the looks you'd get.
Talons aren't just good against frigates; I've seen a Condor with two wings of these handily defeat an SO Hammerhead-D (IIRC the sole D-mod was damaged engines) in close combat.Talons are the bane of all REDACTED ships. All of them, high and low. The swarms of Talons with their Swarmers can kill just about every variant, even some of the bigger ones. A Drover, a pair of talons, and an escort frigate or two are all you need to explore the system.
I also feel that the Atropos got overnerfed. It was ridiculously killy before, but halving a key stat is often an excessive move when balancing things. It also needs more differentiation from the Harpoon.
I'd raise the damage again and reduce its maneuverability. This sets clear roles for it and Harpoon: one general-purpose that can be used against large targets if needed, and one specialized for killing large ships (while still being more forgiving with the aiming than Reaper).
Sounds like you haven't faced a station yet then.Talons aren't just good against frigates; I've seen a Condor with two wings of these handily defeat an SO Hammerhead-D (IIRC the sole D-mod was damaged engines) in close combat.Talons are the bane of all REDACTED ships. All of them, high and low. The swarms of Talons with their Swarmers can kill just about every variant, even some of the bigger ones. A Drover, a pair of talons, and an escort frigate or two are all you need to explore the system.
I also feel that the Atropos got overnerfed. It was ridiculously killy before, but halving a key stat is often an excessive move when balancing things. It also needs more differentiation from the Harpoon.
I'd raise the damage again and reduce its maneuverability. This sets clear roles for it and Harpoon: one general-purpose that can be used against large targets if needed, and one specialized for killing large ships (while still being more forgiving with the aiming than Reaper).
Sounds like you haven't faced a station yet then."Some of the larger ones" being the destroyer-sized ones. :) And yea, I still haven't found a station yet. Annoying since I've practically searched every corner of the sector and I haven't found a single Red Beacon - just a lot of the less-impressive ones.
Speaking of which, do the Remnant battle stations respawn?
And I feel like they should have a fleet with them as no military would leave a station like that completely unguarded
Dev mode (console is semi updated) and go into hyperspace. Then do Control D I think to disable sensors and be able to see ALL the becons. I had 9 in my small mixed sector.Sounds like you haven't faced a station yet then."Some of the larger ones" being the destroyer-sized ones. :) And yea, I still haven't found a station yet. Annoying since I've practically searched every corner of the sector and I haven't found a single Red Beacon - just a lot of the less-impressive ones.
Speaking of which, do the Remnant battle stations respawn?
And I feel like they should have a fleet with them as no military would leave a station like that completely unguarded
EDIT:
And as a completely random side note, Alex has 10k posts!
Dev mode (console is semi updated) and go into hyperspace. Then do Control D I think to disable sensors and be able to see ALL the becons. I had 9 in my small mixed sector.Yea, saw that post about it a little while ago. A bit meh to do that because this is still my first ever game from 0.8a release day. :/ Spoil the exploration a bit.
Also, does the composition of the sector change how many Warning beacons there are?
I'm not going to read through 70 pages of comments so sorry if i repeat some stuff:
- I somehow managed to fail the tutorial. The hegemony fleet just killed me for no reason, nothing i could do. After a few tries the tutorial managed to trigger for some reason and i got the transponder button. Are the triggers actual areas in the map?
- I couldn't Restore D ships' penalty hullmods one by one, having to do all at once. Let me do one at a time please.
- Salvaging seems like a waste of time, i barely get anything worthwhile. Is it possible for salvage points to be a single event with the entire loot given at once?
- Readiness is still annoying to deal with. Any way to disable it or turn it to 9999?
- Clicking on anything on the map automatically goes into Show Info, i have to hold the mouse to Lay in a Course. Any way to swap those two around so it lays a corse by default?
Well I was thinking of like how recent the AI war wasDev mode (console is semi updated) and go into hyperspace. Then do Control D I think to disable sensors and be able to see ALL the becons. I had 9 in my small mixed sector.Yea, saw that post about it a little while ago. A bit meh to do that because this is still my first ever game from 0.8a release day. :/ Spoil the exploration a bit.
Also, does the composition of the sector change how many Warning beacons there are?
I think the sector age changes the type of stars and planets, so more Blue Giants and Volcanic worlds if it's younger, for example. Not nessesarily the number of warning beacons. Not sure if that's changed from when Alex did it, though.
Logging on OS X: will now produce Contents/starsector.log, which gets overwritten with every game run
For probes check all system planets and jump-points using active sensor bust on top of them. Check star close orbit too.I did it and its not like I didn't find any probes. Few small ones and one big but none that fulfill the contract.
I did it and its not like I didn't find any probes. Few small ones and one big but none that fulfill the contract.
I think it could be related to that I take 2 probe contracts at once.
I now flying over darkness and use sensor but there is nothing and it just no fun at all.
So I am asking if there is always probe for contract or sometimes there is none?
- Scavenging relics/Surveying planets. I really dislike the 'you must put skills in these things to be able to even do them'. I can do combat without any skill in any combat skills, even if it's harder and i'll take losses. Allow the same for scavenging/surveying. Get poorer results/accidents to ships/make my time be worth less than it would be if i had the skills. Don't just cut it off outright. (I can understand 'smashing' as a 'weaker' result, but for surveying?)
Scavenging relics/Surveying planets. I really dislike the 'you must put skills in these things to be able to even do them'.This.
Adding market stability to the information available in the planet info and intel screens would be helpful now things depend on this. Even if it's just a "it was like this when you saw it last" snapshot of a thing.i'd like to see something like that as well.
Hunting around for a stable enough market to warrant selling some things is quite dull.
I kind of disagree on the matter. If alex's intention is to have different play styles, it's not like being a salvager/surveyor is required for bounty hunting and what not. Seems neater to me to make the player choose between how they want to play.Quote- Scavenging relics/Surveying planets. I really dislike the 'you must put skills in these things to be able to even do them'. I can do combat without any skill in any combat skills, even if it's harder and i'll take losses. Allow the same for scavenging/surveying. Get poorer results/accidents to ships/make my time be worth less than it would be if i had the skills. Don't just cut it off outright. (I can understand 'smashing' as a 'weaker' result, but for surveying?)
You can survey 0% hazard rating planets with no skill. Those are fairly uncommon but also easy to identify at a glance so you can go around looking for them.
I can do combat without any skill in any combat skills, even if it's harder and i'll take losses. Allow the same for scavenging/surveying. Get poorer results/accidents to ships/make my time be worth less than it would be if i had the skills. Don't just cut it off outright.i don't think turning salvage and especially survey skills into "you can do it, but you may not be able to do it well" would be a good idea, for the reasons Alex explained in the blog post (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/06/09/planetary-surveys/). it would encourage the player to either tediously surveying the same planets multiple times at multiple stages in the game (if the player gets higher survey skill at some point, and the game allows re-surveying to improve previous results) or not doing any surveying at all until late-game in order to not 'waste' planets (if the player is thinking about maybe getting the skill at some point, and the game doesn't allow improving previous results).
I can do combat without any skill in any combat skills, even if it's harderI have a lucky class V planet a short distance away from the tutorial system (found it with my first bounty fleet), but I need to max Surveying to get that easy one-time six-figure payday. I cannot bring myself to sink six points into Surveying when I want my max combat speed, vents, and shot range NOW! There are few Industry skills I like to get eventually (like Safety Procedures 2 and maybe 3 and a few others that enable Industry-style combat), but those will wait. I do not like sacrificing skills for a short term one-time payday. That is what I mean by "crutch cash skill". I will grind for the cash the slow way so I can have more skills for combat later.
and i think the difference in survey data value is too extreme as well. yeah, it feels awesome to find level-IV data during the early game. so much money, yay! but it also makes profit (or lack thereof) extremely RNG-reliant. getting lucky and finding a couple level-IV or even a level-V trivializes large parts of early game progression. and investing a bunch of money and skill points into getting your fleet ready for lots of surveying, and then getting unlucky, can feel rather frustrating -- especially during a stage of the game where buying Supplies, Heavy Machinery, Crew and maybe a couple related civilian ships can very quickly drain a player's entire bank.
Question. With the neutrino scanner, do low emission things always end up being stuff, or can they be false positives?
I ask, because I'm in a system with intermitten pings, but they go way off the system map. I'm wondering if it's actually something I should look for, or not bother.Question. With the neutrino scanner, do low emission things always end up being stuff, or can they be false positives?
"Low-emission" means the pings will be intermittent rather than regular.
If it goes way off the system map, it's got to be a false positive.
Haven't gotten around to hiding anything there (yet?).
110 fuel? Are you using Ox tugs? They burn a HELL of a lot.
Survey data may go away entirely, or it may take on a different form. It's just there now so there's a reason to do surveying.just wanna mention that i really appreciate the placeholder being there. even with outposts, surveying is a fun new thing to do, and it'd be a shame if there was no actual reason to ever do it or use any of the related skill, ability, hullmod, etc for the next year+. the visuals and sound effects of discovering planetary conditions through a full survey are also really satisfying. :]
Can someone tell me why do these ships have different OP?one of them is a normal Hammerhead that got some d-mods pasted on when it was recovered, the other is a (D)-specific Hammerhead variant, mostly used by pirates. if you look closely, the sprites are a bit different.
After all you you can reduce supply use by 50% but fuel use only by 25%.
Well I'm not sure if volcanic planets around blue supergiants have more ore than volcanic planets elsewhere (it sure feels like it, but I don't keep records to know) but blue supergiants have tons of volcanic planets.
it does seem rather confusing though. i still think the two versions shouldn't share the exact same (D) designation in their names, even if they use the same d-hullmods.
Question: Is there any point in repeating distress calls? Can a distress call stay unanswered?
e/ And is it possible this is related to how much fuel you have left? I send a distress call with 50 fuel left (1000+ capacity) and nothing happened for weeks now.
Random idea for eventual replacement of survey data: missions that task you with finding a planet that matches specific criteria, e.g. "find a planet that's not extremely cold or extremely hot and has rich ores or better". It would have the player use their knowledge about what kind of planets have what conditions to narrow down the search and I think it'd be more interesting than surveying everything in sight hoping for a good roll.
(Seriously though, when I first saw the Colossus in the Codex I thought it was a bugged low-res sprite.)
Speaking of off-centre weapon mounts, one of the Astral's small turrets (2nd from the top on the left) isn't aligned with the mounting.
(Seriously though, when I first saw the Colossus in the Codex I thought it was a bugged low-res sprite.)
Heresy! I love that sprite.
David said he was determined not a draw another brick when designing the Mora. Then we got the Drover and, possibly the most brick-like ship of all, the Colossus. :D (Seriously though, when I first saw the Colossus in the Codex I thought it was a bugged low-res sprite.).
Re: surveying - how it works now is entirely placeholder in terms of rewards. Ultimately the idea is that the main reward for surveying is finding a planet to *use*, with lower survey skill limiting your pool of available planets.I knew that there was mechanical reason for all these modifiers! If that wasn't obvious anyway... Please make outposts (when they happen) end-game money/resource sinks. Along with multi-fleet control and all that...
Survey data may go away entirely, or it may take on a different form. It's just there now so there's a reason to do surveying. It sounds like it could use a bit of a nerf in value for the .1 release.
(Seriously though, when I first saw the Colossus in the Codex I thought it was a bugged low-res sprite.)i was actually thinking the same... <_<
(Seriously though, when I first saw the Colossus in the Codex I thought it was a bugged low-res sprite.)i was actually thinking the same... <_<
on closer inspection, the details look alright, and i quite like the shape -- a massive brick, to be sure, but an interesting brick. but at first glance, it looks very blocky and flat. and the color and style of what looks to be heavy armor plating doesn't match other vanilla ships, nor does the ship actually have high armor/hull stats, even for a non-combat ship. it has only about as much durability as a Tarsus.
i love that we finally have a cruiser sized freighter in vanilla now though, and even more so that it doesn't suffer from the usual civilian sensor penalties! :]
Inb4 patch notes: fixed bug where the Colossus-class heavy freighter did not have the "Civilian-grade hull" hullmod.i was already a bit scared to mention it. xD
There seems to be a display bug for the salvage rig:
Crew complement: 20/20
Maximum crew: 2
Skeleton crew required: 20
Irl that's correct, salvage rig isn't self-sustainable
No that's okay, it's the only ship that's like that and I really think there should be more to justify shuttlesIrl that's correct, salvage rig isn't self-sustainable
In that case ignore my post. ::)
There's also always the "scuttle stuff, dump crew and cargo into pods, stabilize 'em, and strike for the core worlds" option.
Unstabilised work well enough for enough time if you don't have to go system to system. In-system it works well enough, like after a fight or such. But yeah, stabilising takes a load of supplies. I'd rather it use token mats, like the useless Metals.
the supplies that scuttling my ships brought me are not enough to stabilize the ships' cargo (only the valuable parts btw). I can barely stabilize the crew (cost 45), but then I don't have enough to get home. So, this could need some re-balancing, I think. Uh, is there any point in going back for un-stabilized pods?
I really wish there were other options, like leaving intact ships behind or converting other cargo into supplies/fuel.
Made stabilizing 2x cheaper, it was indeed a bit much.
Um, are you considering another hot fix? Or will things like the permanent faction war and non-functional pulsars have to wait for 8.1?
Regarding distress signals. Er... Which jump point is closest, Fringe, or Outer? They're at opposite sides of the star, and I can't tell. Kind of important, since the help is supposed to come via the closest to the star jump point.Inner - outer - fringe.
Thanks!Regarding distress signals. Er... Which jump point is closest, Fringe, or Outer? They're at opposite sides of the star, and I can't tell. Kind of important, since the help is supposed to come via the closest to the star jump point.Inner - outer - fringe.
@facc00
1. IIRC not a roadmap, but Alex spoiled here and there some future plans.
2. Will go to Steam when "OMG NO UPDATE IN X MONTHS THIS GAME IS DEAD" will not be a threat.
The game is much easier to play and most enjoyable now the early game hurdle has been jumped.
It seems every version makes the game harder and harder early on. :P
@ Devs when will outpost features be added in? Is there a roadmap someone that I missed up to and beyond release?i'm not one of the devs, but i think i can answer these anyway:
What are the plans on steamthere will most likely be a steam release eventually, once the game is 'done'.
will there be a workshop feature?probably not, as almost all the important mod authors have said they would not want to put their mods onto the steam workshop. that has several reasons, but mainly it's about steam's terms of service being rather unfair to those who actually put their time and effort into creating the mods.
Has anyone tried to dock at Pirates while they are Vengeful (-100 rep) and your transponder is on? I tried that twice recently and they let me land. I remember that they refuse clearance unless your transponder is off. My fleet could land with transponder on.yeah, i noticed that. seems they now have a few settings in their faction file that make them willing to deal with the player regardless of reputation or Transponder status:
I've found unstable injector very useful on my Drovers - they don't really have any guns and the extra speed lets them get out of dodge.yep, UI seems like a no-brainer on most carriers. maybe it should actually give some small fighter-specific penalty.
Before I go to bed, I just want to say this: I've been spending most of my weekend with Starsector, and it was a great weekend. The update is everything I hoped for, and in many respects more. Bravo, Alex!
btw, @Alex: does the range penalty also apply to missiles?
Not sure how hard this would be to code, but what if Unstable Injector made it so when an engine flames out, it explodes (potentially causing a chain reaction, heh)? Cut the cost if it's too prohibitive.
Alex I want to ask about scan derelict missions.
Are there sometimes no object to scan or find?
Because I get few missions where i can not find a quest object.
I could find some other derelicts in expected places but none of the quest ones even if I start scanning empty space.
Alex I want to ask about scan derelict missions.
Are there sometimes no object to scan or find?
Because I get few missions where i can not find a quest object.
I could find some other derelicts in expected places but none of the quest ones even if I start scanning empty space.
Shouldn't be, but sometimes it could be on a pretty far orbit (a bit beyond the outermost entity) so it's hard to find.
Also: if you take two missions targeting the same type of entity in the same system, and they happen to be the *same* entity, only one mission will be completable. Which is a bug.
I give civilians (like tankers and freighters) Survey Equipment hullmodi think that's actually a bit of an issue with that hullmod. i like that there are non-combat-benefit hullmods, but it's too easy to reduce survey cost to almost nothing by stacking it on non-combat ships.
I give civilians (like tankers and freighters) Survey Equipment hullmodi think that's actually a bit of an issue with that hullmod. i like that there are non-combat-benefit hullmods, but it's too easy to reduce survey cost to almost nothing by stacking it on non-combat ships.
can even put it on every ship in the fleet at a market, survey all planets in the system, then fly back to refit back to combat loadouts... it's tedious, but there is no real downside to doing this.
I give civilians (like tankers and freighters) Survey Equipment hullmod— far more useful than Unstable Injector since your civies should almost never be in combat anyways. It costs basically 5 supplies for me to survey any non-gas giant planet now and Class V survey data can sell for ~quarter million at a high stability market like Sindria!But that only works if you can survey the planet in the first place. You can only get +25% from ships (right?), which is a drop in the bucket compared to 75+% many planets demand. If I still need max Surveying to scan most of the planets, that does me no good (if I have no points in surveying).
You can make bank with Surveying.
Increases fuel cost, which is a multiplicative based on the length of your haul and disproportionately affects survey fleetsthat doesn't do anything to discourage the 2nd issue i mentioned though. makes it even worse, actually, as you're further encouraged to avoid having the hullmod on your ships while traveling through hyperspace.
But that only works if you can survey the planet in the first place. You can only get +25% from ships (right?), which is a drop in the bucket compared to 75+% many planets demand.the hullmod doesn't increase survey ability, it only reduces cost by a flat amount.
Increases fuel cost, which is a multiplicative based on the length of your haul and disproportionately affects survey fleetsthat doesn't do anything to discourage the 2nd issue i mentioned though. makes it even worse, actually, as you're further encouraged to avoid having the hullmod on your ships while traveling through hyperspace.But that only works if you can survey the planet in the first place. You can only get +25% from ships (right?), which is a drop in the bucket compared to 75+% many planets demand.the hullmod doesn't increase survey ability, it only reduces cost by a flat amount.
you're probably confusing it with the Salvage Gantry hullmod, which also only increases loot gained, not ability to survey something in the first place, but it is capped at whatever rating your target has. so a derelict with a difficulty rating of 25% can't benefit from more than 25% total increase in loot from the hullmod.
I had strange bug recently.
Scavenger fleet was shown red and when I attacked them they were marked as pirates.
But I reload and let them go do their buisness and when I trun my drive on they chase me demand transponder on and when I agree then greet me as independent.
So I go look for a derelict and they find me again and these time were on red and aggressive and attack me as pirates.
Are there technical or gameplay reasons that stabilized cargo pods only stay that way for 100 days? I'd love to put down permanent emergency stashes in far away systems, for when I get in trouble later. Which, inevitably, will happen :)
You go back to it, only to find that bunch or [redacted] drones have found it and are harvesting your supplies? :) I'd be down for that.would be a shame if someone had strapped a few Reapers to that "emergency stash". :3
Things were ok for a while, but then while my AI controlled Apogee focused on one Sunder (the Autopulse laser version); the AI thought to drop the shields, ignoring the other Sunder with the High intensity laser frying my left flank.Yeah, it looks like the AI doesn't recognize that an un-shielded HIL is actually dangerous - I'm guessing this is the code that prevents the AI from getting locked into shields-up by one tactical laser that doesn't properly distinguish between a tactical laser and an HIL... but who knows, it could be something else entirely.
It was almost like the second Sunder wasn't there; and the damage didn't register with my AI controlled Apogee (it didn't try to turn to avoid further damage in that region). I was under half flux at the time, so there was no reason to drop the shields then.
Are there technical or gameplay reasons that stabilized cargo pods only stay that way for 100 days? I'd love to put down permanent emergency stashes in far away systems, for when I get in trouble later. Which, inevitably, will happen :)
Didn't want it to step on potential hypothetical things. I mean, if it's permanent it's basically an outpost.
Not if passing by ships yoink your loot or at least destroy your stash. They can do that right? At least yoinking loot.Seen that happen, yea. Dropped some Harvested Organs I picked up while exploring so I wouldn't lose rep with the patrol that was stopping me. Of course they stopped me, then went right ahead and picked up my dropped organs soon as the dialogue exited. Damn.
@Baqar79: when you say heavy damage, is it mostly armor damage with some hull, or is it actually losing the fight because of it? The AI is now much more willing to take some damage on armor (and a bit on hull) to avoid costing itself flux, so unless it's actually losing these fights, this may be normal.
Even if it *could* raise shields and block the damage, that'd still cost it a bunch of dissipation, so it's not a super-obvious decision. It should also get more careful once armor is stripped/hull starts going down.
If this is indeed an issue: seeing your specific loadout would help so I can run it against the 2 sim Sunders and take a look.
I was using gryphon in battle and game crashed.
Get some message about missiles in combat environments.
Is there a easy way to report bugs and is there some logs that I can attach to this(and if they are where I can find them)?
Not if passing by ships yoink your loot or at least destroy your stash. They can do that right? At least yoinking loot.
Does the AI maybe focus more on armor/hull status when it does the assessment to drop shields, and not so much on how good its armor is in the first place? I'm asking because I just hunted a Monitor in with two Wolfs, and it kept dropping it shields occasionally. Long enough actually so I could hit it twice with a blaster, bringing it down to 30% hull integrity (and almost killing it). After that it kept its shield up, and almost made it off the map.
The Monitor is one of the most extreme examples of shield/armor strength disparity, though.
Seen that happen, yea. Dropped some Harvested Organs I picked up while exploring so I wouldn't lose rep with the patrol that was stopping me. Of course they stopped me, then went right ahead and picked up my dropped organs soon as the dialogue exited. Damn.
I once saw a Hammerhead with ~65% flux levels dropping its shields with a constant stream of heavy mortar rounds inbound (single gun, no other weapons). It kind of looked like it thought the rounds were kinetic and it wanted to save its flux pool. I haven't seen this behavior repeated so haven't reported it, but it does seem relevant.
a pirate fleet i killed just dropped a Flux Distributor Modspec, which is already known from the start. is that supposed to happen?
I once saw a Hammerhead with ~65% flux levels dropping its shields with a constant stream of heavy mortar rounds inbound (single gun, no other weapons). It kind of looked like it thought the rounds were kinetic and it wanted to save its flux pool. I haven't seen this behavior repeated so haven't reported it, but it does seem relevant.
It's not so much whether those are kinetic or not, right? They can still deal appreciable shield damage, and the flux situation may make taking some HE hits on armor necessary. I don't know whether it was the right call in that particular situation - but, well, how did it play out?
Yes. You can still sell it!that's what i did. :]
...I once saw a Hammerhead with ~65% flux levels dropping its shields with a constant stream of heavy mortar rounds inbound (single gun, no other weapons). It kind of looked like it thought the rounds were kinetic and it wanted to save its flux pool. I haven't seen this behavior repeated so haven't reported it, but it does seem relevant.
It's not so much whether those are kinetic or not, right? They can still deal appreciable shield damage, and the flux situation may make taking some HE hits on armor necessary. I don't know whether it was the right call in that particular situation - but, well, how did it play out?
question: why would I ever run a salvage rig instead of a shepherd? I feel like the one that requires a shuttle and a tug should probably have SOME advantage over the shepherd.Quick math:
2 Salvage Gantries give a 50% bonus for 14 supplies/month.
5 Shepherds give a 50% bonus for 15 supplies/month.
workderfulworkderful indeed. :D
I remapped the campaign switch to ability set 1 and 2 to A and Z because AZERTY keyboard. And now the resume course shortcut (ie A) doesn't work.yeah, would be nice if we could remap resume & cancel course.
I might have been using some outdated numbers. Oops.2 Salvage Gantries give a 50% bonus for 14 supplies/month.
5 Shepherds give a 50% bonus for 15 supplies/month.
2 salvage rigs are 6 supplies/month. Or am I missing something here?
I might have been using some outdated numbers. Oops.2 Salvage Gantries give a 50% bonus for 14 supplies/month.
5 Shepherds give a 50% bonus for 15 supplies/month.
2 salvage rigs are 6 supplies/month. Or am I missing something here?
Fixing my post.
Hold up so a salvage rig counts as, what, a cruiser? I think ship size needs to be a little clearer now that so many ships have a special classification instead of just frigate/destroyer/cruiser/capitalSalvage Rigs are destroyers. Salvage Gantry hullmod is 10/25/30/40% increased salvage amount.
workderful indeed. :D
Is there anywhere in game to see what built in hullmods like the gantry do?sadly not, no. the codex will probably include hullmods eventually, but will get a general rework as well, so Alex doesn't want to spend time on making changes or additions to it now.
The choice between 2 Dram's and a Phaeton seems a little close aswell, there seems to be no real benefit to upsizing.agreed. i'd argue 2 Drams is actually the better choice, since they are much faster. with UI, they can usually escape any pursuing fleet's frigates without taking damage. Phaeton on the other hand is just as vulnerable as a Buffalo.
Sadly I continued playing the game so log is probably worth nothing.SS keeps several play sessions of logs so you probably should still send him your log(s)
Will send another if its happen. Hopefully not.
Here is a sample of the graphical glitches I am talking about.
It can be shapes like this one that to me they look like they get a texture stretched, or they can have solid colours. They happen all the time in battles, from one to multiple times, but I have seen them out of battles only 1-2 times.
Stabilizing caches is too expensive. Looks like this has already been addressed by others, so I won't wheeze on about it.
Spoiler
- since Kumari Aru is a holy place of (and presumably well protected by) the Luddics, it seems rather unfitting that i can do a normal survey on it, and then sell the data to anyone who might be interested in starting some resource extraction or manufacturing industry there. it should probably just have a bit of text similar to the various abandoned stations within the systems that can't really be interacted with.
[close]
First things first, great update, great game, thanks Alex.
About scan / survey missions: the rewards seem to stay proportionate to the distance of the target system relative to your overall travel distance potential, meaning when just starting you may get a derelict ship scan mission in a system barely outside of the core, which given your terrible fuel total will still manage to be just within a round trip range, and that will pay something between 50 and 90k, very approximately.
Fast forward to the lategame, you now have a Prometheus and your round trip range is about the broad side of the sector - scan / survey missions will still pay 50 to 120k, but this time the 100k pay range is like 1300 fuel units away instead of 80.
These don't seem to scale up at all, compared to bounties which steadily go up with fleet power or number of bounties cleared, I'm not too sure, but they definitely go up and can still earn you enough to keep the lights on (generally). As a result the payouts in scan missions seem a bit too high for the effort in the early game, and taper off quickly to the point of not being worth it in the lategame.
Is the pay to distance ratio intended to stay like this, should it go up in reward, should the baseline start from lower so they reach the current ceiling?
Thanks for your kind words! And for the bug reports; everything duly noted.
About the flickering issue - hmm. So part of the problem is I can't reliably reproduce it on my system, and when it *does* happen, it's nowhere near as pronounced as, say, in Weltall's video. The most I've seen myself is a very intermittent flickering of an icon, or a bit of text getting brighter for a split second, or some such - and it doesn't happen at all on most runs of the game.
However, I've made a small tweak that could potentially resolve the issue. Would someone who runs into this on a more regular basis mind giving this build (https://s3.amazonaws.com/fractalsoftworks/preview/starsector_install-0.8a-RC19-flicker1.exe) a whirl?
Had 4 battles and not one flicker. With the normal one I would constantly get flickering, so it really feels it was fixed. It is almost 3 am here and tomorrow I need to wake early, so I can't test further today, but obviously I will beplayingtesting more tomorrow. Thanks a lot Alex!
!!! That's awesome news, thank you so much for testing! Sorry about your impending lack of sleep :)
some feedback on Kumari Aru and its Beholder Station:Spoiler
- i love it! the beautiful shrine painting, heavy music, and well-written flavor text combine into an amazing atmosphere. i think i might actually start my first Luddic campaign now. ^_^
- since Kumari Aru is a holy place of (and presumably well protected by) the Luddics, it seems rather unfitting that i can do a normal survey on it, and then sell the data to anyone who might be interested in starting some resource extraction or manufacturing industry there. it should probably just have a bit of text similar to the various abandoned stations within the systems that can't really be interacted with.
- there's a typo in the text when choosing the "visit" option at the Beholder Station: "approaches to escorts you"
[close]
uhh, they should probably ATTACK you if you attempt to survey the planet
uhh, they should probably ATTACK you if you attempt to survey the planetSpoilerthere's no military base or fleet there though. i think it's "well protected" more in the political sense: defile it, and you (and your people) will face the full force of Ludd's Holy Wrath.[close]
Spoileryou don't need a military market to keep a strike fleet in dark mode nearby :-) /spoiler][close]
Are there technical or gameplay reasons that stabilized cargo pods only stay that way for 100 days? I'd love to put down permanent emergency stashes in far away systems, for when I get in trouble later. Which, inevitably, will happen :)
Didn't want it to step on potential hypothetical things. I mean, if it's permanent it's basically an outpost.
@Baqar79: when you say heavy damage, is it mostly armor damage with some hull, or is it actually losing the fight because of it? The AI is now much more willing to take some damage on armor (and a bit on hull) to avoid costing itself flux, so unless it's actually losing these fights, this may be normal.
Even if it *could* raise shields and block the damage, that'd still cost it a bunch of dissipation, so it's not a super-obvious decision. It should also get more careful once armor is stripped/hull starts going down.
If this is indeed an issue: seeing your specific loadout would help so I can run it against the 2 sim Sunders and take a look.
@Sy: yep, reported earlier and fixed.
Thanks for your kind words! And for the bug reports; everything duly noted.
About the flickering issue - hmm. So part of the problem is I can't reliably reproduce it on my system, and when it *does* happen, it's nowhere near as pronounced as, say, in Weltall's video. The most I've seen myself is a very intermittent flickering of an icon, or a bit of text getting brighter for a split second, or some such - and it doesn't happen at all on most runs of the game.
However, I've made a small tweak that could potentially resolve the issue. Would someone who runs into this on a more regular basis mind giving this build (https://s3.amazonaws.com/fractalsoftworks/preview/starsector_install-0.8a-RC19-flicker1.exe) a whirl?
Played a good few hours with that build and it seems to have sorted the issue. Thanks for the excellent and fast work ;D
Looked at the ship behavior - looks like there was indeed an issue; it was rather underestimating what a "safe" amount of damage was. Turned it down, feels much better now. The Apogee (sans skills) reliably beats the two Sunders with the change, though it does take some heavy damage in the process.
However, I've made a small tweak that could potentially resolve the issue. Would someone who runs into this on a more regular basis mind giving this build (https://s3.amazonaws.com/fractalsoftworks/preview/starsector_install-0.8a-RC19-flicker1.exe) a whirl?
However, I've made a small tweak that could potentially resolve the issue. Would someone who runs into this on a more regular basis mind giving this build (https://s3.amazonaws.com/fractalsoftworks/preview/starsector_install-0.8a-RC19-flicker1.exe) a whirl?
Yep, works for me, too. I'm curious what this "small tweak" was.
Funny, but I'm almost missing the little flickers now, as part of a diegetic UI they contributed to the withered-technology feel of the Sector :)
Just realized the (d) Sunder I scavenged and repaired has 3 medium energy hardpoints. Is this intended?
The Neutrino Detector makes it a easier though not foolproof to find those obscure probes. It requires 1 point in the Sensors skill in the Technology Aptitude and costs 1 Volatile per day upkeep.
How can I find a probe on the outskirts of a nebula?
I really wish the aptitude skills gave you something. Anything.On the first, I think that's intentional. The aptitude tax is supposed to discourage over-generalization. 12 points that 'do nothing' probably means you're picking and choosing the 'best' skills. If you only buy one skill from an aptitude, you're paying double price for it.
Potentially 12 of your 40 levels are worth nothing.
As much as I love the things, Sparks are probably a little too good for thier cost and (relative) ease of aquisition.
Shepherds seem far more aggressive than I remember them being.
When I deploy them I frequently have to waypoint them out of the big furball that inevitably forms and hope they don't get stepped on.
I get that they need to be somewhat close to be 'in range' of it's drones, but I don't think they should dive into a mess of ships firing back and forth.
The Neutrino Detector makes it a easier though not foolproof to find those obscure probes. It requires 1 point in the Sensors skill in the Technology Aptitude and costs 1 Volatile per day upkeep.
For me it's actually harder with the neutrino detector, because it's always leading me nowhere and I end up going further away from the probe.
Easier to just fly around more or less randomly until I get it.
When can we expect Starsector to pop on steam (early access?).steam, yes. most likely. once it's done.
BTW Is solar shielding work as intended?
I slap some of them on support ships and did not notice any effect in supplies used when in storm or in sun corona.
BTW Is solar shielding work as intended?it reduces the speed at which your ships lose CR. but since ships always recover CR at the same, full speed, the supplies-per-day consumption is always the same when your ships are below max-CR.
I slap some of them on support ships and did not notice any effect in supplies used when in storm or in sun corona.
If it's in a nebula, it's not going to be orbiting anything.
been awhile since i've played, in this new patch im still not a fan of the skill system existing despite improvements. in a game like this it truly just makes the entire experience worse. Hey guy, pick between guns that shoot straight, ships that dont lose readyness mid fight and ability to do fun industry stuff! whats that, you're bored already and don't want to have to mod the game because it messes up the balance? Nah, just remember your ships, weapons, hull, literally everything functons completely differently in arbitrary ways because you decided to spend a skillpoint in combat instead of somewhere else.
same with peak readyness, added to balance out gamey teleports and similar uneccassry ultra kiting abilities on ships that could already kite very well, just a chain of poor design decisions. This is alex's game to develop as he wishes of course im just so dissapointed at the direction it's gone in some places, while in some other places the game feels and plays fantastic and has come a long way.
Aside from easy money in early-game, Industry is useful if you want rely on damaged ships as your fleet backbone. If you go without commission, you cannot buy very much and recovering ships is the easiest way to get rare ships. Also, damaged ships cost less to deploy, sometimes significantly less. It also has that nice half malfunction cutoff, but I am not sure that is very useful for those who deploy big fleets (although it is useful for Safety Override ships or anything with damaged/degraded subsystems.) If you rely on damaged ships, then that perk that halves all penalties from damaged mods is very nice.been awhile since i've played, in this new patch im still not a fan of the skill system existing despite improvements. in a game like this it truly just makes the entire experience worse. Hey guy, pick between guns that shoot straight, ships that dont lose readyness mid fight and ability to do fun industry stuff! whats that, you're bored already and don't want to have to mod the game because it messes up the balance? Nah, just remember your ships, weapons, hull, literally everything functons completely differently in arbitrary ways because you decided to spend a skillpoint in combat instead of somewhere else.
In 0.72 I could get pretty much all skills I wanted. Now a specialization is required.
1st branching point is whether you take Industry. It offers very little in terms of end-game fleet performance, but gives you tons of money early and dramatically increases progression speed.
2nd is whether you take Leadership. Not taking it pretty much means going for Solo or small fleet strategy, since you'll have only 4 officers. I don't think Solo is viable in 0.8 though. Single Onslaught doesn't feel anywhere as powerful as it was in 0.72. And AI has become much more competent at avoiding it.
3rd optional branching point is Carrier - Direct combat (if you already chose Leadership). You have to choose early and stick to one. If you chose Carrier, ignoring Technology is an option (otherwise flux and range skills are too important, not having +10% OP always hurts though).
Then you have a batch of lesser decisions of what to cut. Unless you go for Solo-centric play, you can't get all relevant combat skills.
I ignored Industry and went for mix of other 3 trees, with focus on direct combat and moderate fleet size (8 officers, 1st levels in both Coordinated Maneuvers and Electronic Warfare).
So I obviously don't want any of that in endgame fleet.True, although if the game is hard enough, I do not want to reload the game every time I lose a ship. The main reason is not logistics benefit, but anti-frustration. EDIT: Although deployment costs are significant to me at the moment (in midgame). If I cannot solo fleets with one elite ship, then I can try to gang up on fleets with multiple clunkers that cost as much as one elite ship.
Also recovering them multiple times will keep accumulating D-mods to point of uselessness (as far as I understand, haven't tried). It makes losses hurt less, but doesn't make them free.Not free, but if there is a limit, then simply hurt less enough that it does not matter much. Sure, I want an elite ship I want to pilot, but the AI can just take a bunch of clunkers, die, and I will not care because there is more where the clunkers came from.
The autofit system doesn't put the redacted fighters on carriers, even if the variant you tell it to use has redacted fighters in it. I.e if you make an Astral variant with 4 Flash Bombers and 2 Lux Heavy Fighters, the autofit will leave all the fighter slots empty rather than put redacted fighters on the carrier.
The fleet fuel range circles on the hyperspace map do not take into account the Level 2 Navigation bonus. As you travel, the circles will move in the same direction you're moving, "extending" your range.
Now if Salvaging is good to get more special loot like Sparks wings, and there is no other way to get them, I may highly desire that skill. Otherwise, I will pass.
QuoteAlso recovering them multiple times will keep accumulating D-mods to point of uselessness (as far as I understand, haven't tried). It makes losses hurt less, but doesn't make them free.Not free, but if there is a limit, then simply hurt less enough that it does not matter much. Sure, I want an elite ship I want to pilot, but the AI can just take a bunch of clunkers, die, and I will not care because there is more where the clunkers came from.
Is there a particular technique to using the Neutrino Detector? Every time I use it, the signals are either like "yeah, there's a planet in that direction" or obviously false.planets and such show different signals though, static ones. only man-made objects (and false positives that don't have an actual source at all) do the flashing, ticking thing. as orost said, since false positives always stay in the same direction from your fleet rather than rotating around it (relative to your own movement), it's usually possible to check if something is real by moving perpendicular to the direction it indicates. although it can take quite some distance traveled to accurately tell what is real and what isn't, depending on how large and spread out the system is.
Yes, I sound vaguely annoyed because you clearly haven't bothered looking deeply into stuff other than "only shoot stuff if I get paid".I admit it, you are right, because shooting things up is what I got the game for. When Starsector first got skills, I loved it because then I could hot rod through speed and kill everyone like a classic shmup. I do not care much about other stuff like trade unless they are much more rewarding than combat. You know what? I did not find food runs immediately in 0.65, but I found them eventually (because levelling via combat was slow at endgame and I did a food run on a whim), and when I saw how rewarding they were, I exploited them.
In case no one mentioned it yet, autofit strips the built in cannons off the onslaughtoh dear. o_o
If you grab the 2nd hotfix, that resolves the issue. Edit: but thank you :)
Alex are you plan to implement more detailed combat losses after battle? Mostly about fighters.
Like how many fighters get destroyed, how many unmanned drones, how many pilots died. It would help with managing fighter fleet.
Also small question.
What cause some defeated enemy ships to become derelict and drift after battle(still possible to check and scavenge) or drift inside debris field(still able to scavenge if check field) instead of being able to scavenge after battle?
Also can we have some hope for getting more detailed info about scavenging debris fields?
I did not notice any difference in text that mention amount or risk and it can wary from plenty to none.
Hey could I gets some help? I'm having trouble getting fighters to do what I want how do I get them to attack who I want or stay and guard the carrier.
ook update from there, start a new game after a clean install... and now it crashes inbetween the push 5 to get to that place and that place. right at the nebula/asteroid ring did a fresh install again same issue.. so now I don't get to play the new update
I think we misunderstood each other.Alex are you plan to implement more detailed combat losses after battle? Mostly about fighters.
Like how many fighters get destroyed, how many unmanned drones, how many pilots died. It would help with managing fighter fleet.
Also small question.
What cause some defeated enemy ships to become derelict and drift after battle(still possible to check and scavenge) or drift inside debris field(still able to scavenge if check field) instead of being able to scavenge after battle?
Also can we have some hope for getting more detailed info about scavenging debris fields?
I did not notice any difference in text that mention amount or risk and it can wary from plenty to none.
Re: small questions
A) luck. There's a passive chance for all ships to be recoverable (15%? correct me plz), some officer skills or hullmods can make it %100 for certain ships
B) Not feasible with the current system. The way salvaging fields works is you don't know what's out there unless you go out and physically collect it and see what's there, which is the pull you get. You can do it multiple times but the haul is substantially smaller every time. You will never find a ship salvaging a debris field-- ship recovery and debris salvaging are two different things that are only done the same in the aftermath of a battle you're involved in, because all the debris is still there in the fighting area and hasn't had time to scatter. If there's a ship to be gotten from the battle that produced a debris field, it'll show up separately as a derelict.
C) The game doesn't currently tell you what the risk is but meeting the machinery requirement makes a salvage op safer (cost less). You can salvage without heavy machinery but doing so will likely cost you crew, or at least more so than doing it safely does. If you NEED what was dropped in a debris field then you can still try to recover it without machinery but it's less cost effective
Refurbishment costs also seem excessive. I understand that refurbishment is primarily meant to be a way to gain access to ships that can't be bought with money, but it doesn't need to anywhere near the current level of expense to accomplish that goal. If a ship is readily available off the market, it doesn't matter how many times more expensive it is to have it refurbished; as soon as buying a new one becomes the cheaper option, that's what will be preferred. Paying six figures to have a Tempest rebuilt is...harsh.
Small thing, shouldn't (at least the initial) "capture" assignment for sensor jammers etc. be called "deploy"?calling the initial one "deploy" could be nice, yeah. after that it should really be "capture" though, since that word is kinda key to communicating to (new) players how the related gameplay works. "go here / send units here and wait until capture-point progress bar fills green" is a pretty common mechanic in various games.
Capture is more accurate. Lore may say we deploy, but that is a weak excuse to what is really happening - go to some magic spot with a ghost gizmo that everyone can see and capture it!
If we are really deploying, it makes the best sense to drop it where your ships spawn, then maybe remove it and take it to where your deathball hangs out and drop it back down there later.
We really are just capturing a magic thing.no, we are deploying a magic thing. :P
ook update from there, start a new game after a clean install... and now it crashes inbetween the push 5 to get to that place and that place. right at the nebula/asteroid ring did a fresh install again same issue.. so now I don't get to play the new update
Hmm - what's the error message? And what's at the end of the logfile? The last 100 lines or so would be good, you can find it in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Fractal Softworks\Starsector\starsector-core\starsector.log
Edit: also, obligatory - have you tried rebooting & are your graphics drivers up-to-date?
On a similar note, I've noticed that the Neutron star cores seem to be larger than the white dwarf ones. They're pretty easy to tell apart because of the jets, but it would be nice if they actually were a little smaller visually. I understand scale doesn't even enter into the equation, without changing everything in game, but perhaps the neutron star could be shrunk a little so that it appears smaller than a white dwarf without actually changing gameplay too much?
Also, it's looking like the distinction between Pirate D vessels and regular D vessels is indeed causing quite a bit of confusion for the people who don't read the game forums. I accept that weapon mounts can't be refurbished for technical reasons, but is there any similar barrier to just calling it a Wolf (P) instead or something, especially given that you have already done this for Pather ships? On a similar note, is Destroyed Weapon Mounts on the table for random rolls? Because if it is, I'd probably argue that it shouldn't be as long as it's irreparable damage. If part of the purpose of the new salvage mechanics was to improve access and retention of rare ships, having a chance to have them be randomly crippled runs counter to that design without adding meaningful amounts of depth to the salvage system.
Refurbishment costs also seem excessive. I understand that refurbishment is primarily meant to be a way to gain access to ships that can't be bought with money, but it doesn't need to anywhere near the current level of expense to accomplish that goal. If a ship is readily available off the market, it doesn't matter how many times more expensive it is to have it refurbished; as soon as buying a new one becomes the cheaper option, that's what will be preferred. Paying six figures to have a Tempest rebuilt is...harsh.
If anything, I'd probably want to see the price for having a single D-mod removed at somewhat less than the price of buying a new hull. This still leaves refurbishment the more expensive option for the vast majority of ships you recover from enemies because they are usually going to be in worse shape, but it provides a mechanism for players who aren't running junk fleets to keep their ships in peak condition without constantly replacing their damaged ships with new hulls (or mashing F5), and maybe helps them feel a bit more connected to the ships in their fleets.
Also, it's looking like the distinction between Pirate D vessels and regular D vessels is indeed causing quite a bit of confusion for the people who don't read the game forums. I accept that weapon mounts can't be refurbished for technical reasons, but is there any similar barrier to just calling it a Wolf (P) instead or something, especially given that you have already done this for Pather ships? On a similar note, is Destroyed Weapon Mounts on the table for random rolls? Because if it is, I'd probably argue that it shouldn't be as long as it's irreparable damage. If part of the purpose of the new salvage mechanics was to improve access and retention of rare ships, having a chance to have them be randomly crippled runs counter to that design without adding meaningful amounts of depth to the salvage system.
Yeah, untangling that now. It's definitely confusing, and mostly for time constraint reasons rather than intent.
Edit: random d-hulls can't get destroyed weapon mounts, no.
Just wondering, what's the untangling looking like right now? Are ship skins with changes beyond the d-mods all getting new designations?
D-hulls, restoration:
Pre-made, non-pirate etc d-hulls now have same weapon mounts and OP as base hulls
Will convert to the base hull when restored
Hulls with paintjobs (e.g. pirate, luddic path, etc) will retain original sprite and skin properties (OP, weapon mounts)
Clarified restoration dialog: now says that it will remove d-mods rather than "restore to peak condition", which implies more changes than restoration actually does
Removed "destroyed weapon mounts" hullmod; was more confusing than clarifying the matter
Pirate-paint-job d-hull names now end in (P) instead of (D)
Reduced ship restoration cost somewhat (still higher than cost to buy brand-new)
From my internal patch notes:sounds good!
On a similar note, I've noticed that the Neutron star cores seem to be larger than the white dwarf ones. They're pretty easy to tell apart because of the jets, but it would be nice if they actually were a little smaller visually. I understand scale doesn't even enter into the equation, without changing everything in game, but perhaps the neutron star could be shrunk a little so that it appears smaller than a white dwarf without actually changing gameplay too much?
Just to clarify, do you mean on the map or in-game?
Are we no longer allowed to use Java 8 and the Out of Memory vpparams setup with 0.8a?I don't know if you have fixed this issue but while yes, java 8 is blocked, the memory fix isn't. You just use java 7 64 bit instead
I've got quite a few mods loaded. And I'm getting a out of memory error.
Waitwaitwaitweait.I've been using Java 8 all the time, so far without issues.
Can I or can't I use Java 8? And should I? Will is cause problems?
Waitwaitwaitweait.
Can I or can't I use Java 8? And should I? Will is cause problems?
I like the binary way restoring is handled. For super rare ships I don't care about the price, for bread and butter ships I don't care about some d-mods. There's not really any middle ground for me.I've had the opposite feeling.
I like the binary way restoring is handled. For super rare ships I don't care about the price, for bread and butter ships I don't care about some d-mods. There's not really any middle ground for me.I've had the opposite feeling.
There have been some recovered ships I've wanted to use but couldn't because they had one d-mod which essentially made it worthless, when I either didn't care about or could work around the rest.
Tbh, that's usually degraded engines. Lower burn speed is not great but you can work around it. Lower combat speed is horrible but workable. Slower turn rate is just pure NOPE.
I don't suppose it helps much that while I have seen dozens of rare and valuable ships, NONE of them have been recoverable. They have all gone to salvage so far.
So I've not seen anything that's been "worth" restoring completely yet. But if only I could fix the engines on this beat up dominator I could actually use it for something.
Are you playing with the junk-fleet related industry skills? With them, I find every d-ship workable. And even if they get more often damaged and destroyed than normal ships, it doesn't matter too much.Yes. I currently have that industry skill. And I agree that it does lessen the problem, although it is still a problem.
Without the skills, I only use d-auxiliaries, the occasional early cruiser find (temporarily) and rare ships for restoration. If I'd try to use Ds for normal combat without the related skills, I'd not be happy either. Maybe that's the reason for our different experiences?
Has anyone managed to get any utility out of the Remote Survey skill?yes, for two reasons:
When can we expect Starsector to pop on steam (early access?).steam, yes. most likely. once it's done.
steam early access, definitely not.
Within the solar system view; the animated star itself; The core seems to be larger than that of a white dwarf. I posted a comparison here:
http://imgur.com/a/cL3qT
I know my last post was a little long; but don't forget to rename F-class stars so they are named differently from White Dwarfs:
http://imgur.com/a/LPDO5
Hmmm, I just noticed that the White dwarf in Arcadia is a lot bigger than the one on Magec...so I guess the size of Neutron stars/White Dwarfs might vary anyway.
@Alex, is it intentional that autofit doesn't save weapon-group configurations? my Enforcer keeps putting Sabots and Reapers into the same group (which is just a terrible idea in general), same with HE and KI weapons (which probably doesn't matter for the AI, but it does in case i ever wanna pilot it myself).
Reporting potential bug.
Taking contract for metal delivery.
Having three cargo freighters and some other ships.
Loaded to the max with metal(about 1000) and supplies, heavy machinery and some weapons(~650 cargo space). Max capacity.
After doing jump to hyperspace on my way to jengala i get approached by pirates who demand to hand them stuff.
Refused and try to run but failed.
3 cargo haulers get destroyed(mule, Gemini and colossus).
I run with two shepards, tanker and wolf.
Thing is I have only crew and fuel left.
Nothing completely nothing in cargo. I should at last have some supplies or metal I transported or spare weapons. But there is nothing.I still have ~+250 cargo capacity and was full(minus few supplies that was eaten).
I do not think that something like that should happen.
I will try to recreate it . Back log if anyone interested can send.
David. I love you.<3
(Even now, not-Zakharov looks more like Michio Kaku (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku) than anyone else)You got me; totally used Michio Kaku as the reference because I think he looks more like Zakharov than Zakharov does.
Also, not-Miriam's look matches her personality much better than the original portrait ever did. :DThat one is based on Louise Fletcher (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001221/) (who played Kai Winn on Deep Space 9 and Nurse Rached in One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest). She'd be the perfect Miriam in SMAC: The Movie.
Hi - welcome to the forum, and thank you for your feedback!
(Hey, someone's using Operations Center! That's really cool.)
Made a quick note re: carrier AI and orders - I think they may not be obeying "eliminate" properly with regards to fighter targeting, I'll take a look. Will think about the other stuff some more.
I'm not sure how much of it is real and how much is confirmation bias but I have a feeling that officer personalities might be causing some trouble with carrier AI. My Cautious carrier commander seems reluctant to send fighters to engage, preferring to keep them withdrawn or escorting a friendly ship, which results in him not getting much done compared to a Steady officer. Given how expendable fighters are it's not desirable behavior, Cautious or not. (if it's real)
@Alex
I'm not sure how much of it is real and how much is confirmation bias but I have a feeling that officer personalities might be causing some trouble with carrier AI. My Cautious carrier commander seems reluctant to send fighters to engage, preferring to keep them withdrawn or escorting a friendly ship, which results in him not getting much done compared to a Steady officer. Given how expendable fighters are it's not desirable behavior, Cautious or not. (if it's real)
Made a note - right now it just auto-assigns.okay. i guess the Sabot+Reaper thing is an issue with auto-assign then.
I'm asking here because if you say "full deployment cost no matter what happens on the battlefield (besides running out of peak time)" whole idea is pointless.
@Cosmitz:
I haven't noticed exactly what you're describing. I suspect it may have to do with orders given, skills picked, ships deployed, etc - if you happen to have a save handy where a battle like that is about to happen, I'd be happy to take a look.
@Allectus:
There's a blog post on the fighter redesign, here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/08/24/fighter-redesign/). In brief: you have control over the fighters launched from the ship you pilot, while other carriers control their own fighters. There's more tactical depth to using carriers, and more decisions about how to fit them - making them attractive flagships - but less strategic aspects.
I appreciate that you were enjoying the way they worked formerly. Unfortunately, that way had some design issues that 1) made fighters woefully underpowered and 2) made it difficult to improve them without becoming broken when fielded in numbers. There were also other issues and awkwardness in how they worked on the campaign level. Basically, the whole thing was a giant bandaid until now, even if it had some redeeming qualities.
So: all I can say is my apologies, but I feel like this change is very much for the best overall, even if it does nuke this particular playstyle.I'm asking here because if you say "full deployment cost no matter what happens on the battlefield (besides running out of peak time)" whole idea is pointless.
Aside from a partial CR recovery if the enemy didn't fight, yeah, I don't see changing that.
@alex: what do you think is the tone you want for the game? It's obvious there's a whole range of players in that regard from those who want a slow grind in a decaying society to those who want an arcady shooter to blow stuff up in and (presumably) everything in between. Where on the spectrum do you stand? Is the current tone (I use this term as a shorthand for pace, progression speed, and player power level) something you're happy with? Where do you see your game sitting in the tone scale between say guardian of the galaxy/the new star trek and battlestar galactica reimagined/the expanse
I'm genuinely not sure why I shouldn't just play Starpoint Gemini 2 or SPAZ at this point as they treat drones/fighters in exactly this way but execute the combat much better.i'm sorry you dislike the fighter changes so much that they ruin the game for you, but i still have to say that i vehemently disagree with the notion that either of these two games "execute the combat much better" than Starsector...
@alex: what do you think is the tone you want for the game? It's obvious there's a whole range of players in that regard from those who want a slow grind in a decaying society to those who want an arcady shooter to blow stuff up in and (presumably) everything in between. Where on the spectrum do you stand? Is the current tone (I use this term as a shorthand for pace, progression speed, and player power level) something you're happy with? Where do you see your game sitting in the tone scale between say guardian of the galaxy/the new star trek and battlestar galactica reimagined/the expanse
I find this a bit confusing, as the question contrasting backstory tone with gameplay feel. That said: probably in the middle, with variation depending on playstyle etc.
... It's not quite perfect, for example you are hampered by a lack of feedback from your ships...
Well the current carrier AI can be quite suicidal. I think something is not right with them.
Is there really no way to mark enemy ships as 'fighter target' or 'fighter escort' so some carriers send their fighters to either attack or defend it?
Currently they are really limited in operational range.
(How am I supposed to win that mission, anyway? I can't chase down the Condors. Should I grab a book and wait until they run out of CR?)i actually managed to 100% it earlier, for the first time. \o/
I have seen the AI Carriers rally their fighters to my Hammerhead, so much so it's a giant screen reminiscent of the ending scene of Enders Game.yep, i love that as well. even a fighter escort from a single Mora does much to increase the survivability (and consequently the aggressive potential) of a fast destroyer flagship.
It in fact, they saved my Hammerhead after an overload where a ton of interceptors flew in front of my ship as Reapers started coming. One brave Talon pilot gave the ultimate sacrifice to save my flagship. Godspeed pilot. ;DRIP!
or the enemy fleet as a whole needs to be better aware of the Paragon's range, and maneuver to surround it at a distance before closing-in as a large group.
I know that you can assign them to some tasks already but seriously I have feelings that AI is struggling right now and sometimes its kind of borked and totally not aggressive enough.
I have plenty of battles right new in my current amp where either side(as I mostly use autopilot) managed to actually fight successfully in battle time and the battle was decided but who endure it better(mostly by CR). Kind of not fun.
- Putting 3 Sabots on the front of a Gryphon.. it doesn't use them whatsoever. Even with expanded missile racks so it's not running into issues of 'not enough'. It gleefully shoots the Squalls or whatever it gets put in the large, as well as MRM's off the side. Facing off against a Sunder in the sim, it just stutters helplessly as its getting pummeled.
PS: The AI is also really defensive with it, waiting too long for the 'perfect' situation (seen the Gryphon idle like 20 seconds once) instead of using the missiles as actual weaponry/ammo.
I know that you can assign them to some tasks already but seriously I have feelings that AI is struggling right now and sometimes its kind of borked and totally not aggressive enough.
Let me put it this way: in this case, it probably makes more sense to fix up whatever is wrong than to make things more complex - that's unlikely to improve the situation :)
I'd be content if we had the ability to at least have the carrier to move to one spot while the fighters attacked another. With most other ships, excepting the super long range ones (which should perhaps be treated similarly) you know that if you issue a defend/attack/move command the ship in question is going to move into a reasonably tight area around the waypoint. With longer range ships it may be the case that you want them on top of that point right now, or alternatively super far away leveraging their range. The issue with far away is that you lose control over their positioning the moment you tell them to attack (since half the sector may be in range of the attack point and they may move in a suicidal way) or, alternatively, you lose control over where they attack when you issue a movement command (since again, they can select a target spanning half of the sector).
With other ships a single order is sufficient to get both approximate position and target orders. This is not true for longer range ships, including carriers. That's my most significant beef with the change.
Hmm. I think for carriers, a right-click on empty space ("rally task force") would more or less do the job - they may choose from a lot of targets, but they will tend to choose targets already under attack, which in most cases is going to be what you want anyway.
Carriers without deployment flexibility just feel like super LRM boats to me though :(
(This is kind of making me want to add a "fighter attack target" command of some sort... would have to fix up eliminate w/ regard to carriers and see how well that works first, though, to see if something fighter-specific is warranted. One of the things I want to do there is make sure carriers don't get suicidal when given that order, provided there are allies they can hide behind.)
Hmm. I think for carriers, a right-click on empty space ("rally task force") would more or less do the job - they may choose from a lot of targets, but they will tend to choose targets already under attack, which in most cases is going to be what you want anyway.
Seems like patrols that stop you for a cargo scan don't much care about any illegal AI cores on-board. :D I've been searched at least twice by both Hegemony and Independents while carrying cores around and they just let me go.Same. A hold full of AI cores, organs, drugs, and guns, and the scan report says "nothing found".
Edit: Also, the small ballistic hardpoint on the Mora is driving me crazy. What am I supposed to do with it? :DLeave it empty. Gun hardpoints are silly things. :P
Seems like patrols that stop you for a cargo scan don't much care about any illegal AI cores on-board. :D I've been searched at least twice by both Hegemony and Independents while carrying cores around and they just let me go.Same. A hold full of AI cores, organs, drugs, and guns, and the scan report says "nothing found".
Maybe it was all hidden by shielded holds, but I only have 1 ship which has that mod so I feel like either it was dumb luck or something isn't working.
This is kind of making me want to add a "fighter attack target" command of some sort...i'd love that!
I've seen multiple times that changing the target of the flagship does change what the fighters are attacking.that's definitely the case, yeah. kinda annoys me as well. it does make intentionally switching fighter target a little bit quicker and more convenient, but it means i can't have my fighters attack (or escort) one target while my missiles and autofiring weapons focus on another. for pure carriers like Condor that might not matter too much, but for any sort of close-range or combat-carrier-hybrids it's an issue.
Also a minor QoL improvement, when you first burn into the battlefield I'd request that fighters default to regroup rather than engage. Engage eliminates the flux bonus, and can lead to them zipping off before you're ready if you're not paying attention.that was mentioned before (i think in another thread) and iirc Alex said he'd change it. :]
Also, the small ballistic hardpoint on the Mora is driving me crazy. What am I supposed to do with it? :Doh god, don't remind me....
Also did carriers can run out of spare fighters like in old builds?
That's what I'm trying to do but it doesn't really work. I have rally points far behind the defended point/s yet still they're going to charge the frontlines even past the actual line ships...
that was mentioned before (i think in another thread) and iirc Alex said he'd change it. :]
I did not!oh, sorry!
Hmm, yeah, ok. Made the change.nice, thanks! :D
(Put some guns in those small weapon slots, some Typhoons in the missile slots, and use the Mora to brawl. Do ittt.)i am doing that. or rather, i plan on doing that once i find a Mora that doesn't suffer from armor, hull, and flux d-stats. ^^
It would be nice if crewed fighters would fight some time after their carrier was destroyed, but drones died the moment theirs carrier goes boom.
Could even go further and have drones automatically overload (or just do nothing for a bit) if their carrier is overloaded.
These are relatively small details, but the would fit perfectly to differentiate drones from crewed fighters, both in gameplay and lore.+1
Hah, that might fall into "Making a change just for the sake of realism is no good". Still, kinda neat.actually, i'm pretty sure most real drones are well able to follow simple (relatively speaking) tasks autonomously. they don't just shut-off or explode just because they lose connection to an operator. :P
(Put some guns in those small weapon slots, some Typhoons in the missile slots, and use the Mora to brawl. Do ittt.)Yeah, I just got blasted twice in different battles by surprise Reapers from a Mora. The AI gets it, for sure.
BTW Will you get officers with no combat skills?My thoughts exactly. This would give much more freedom and depth into our own character progression and fleet-assembly progression.
Like officer who buff salvaging skills or scavenging, faster repairs, surveying capability outside skills etc.
Its strange that I can offset my no combat character by having combat oriented officer but can not find and bring master engineer, explorer or scavenger with me.
BTW Will you get officers with no combat skills?the issue with that is that it would make the these non-combat skills rather useless for the player character. giving an officer a skill from the combat tree and a few similar ones isn't the same, because those skills are specifically chosen to affect exclusively the ship that said officer is piloting. if you want 10 ships with a combat skill, you'll need 10 officers with that skill. and your flagship will never be able to get these combat skills unless you get them yourself.
Hah, that might fall into "Making a change just for the sake of realism is no good". Still, kinda neat.
Mh, not really. Drones have a huge advantage in that they don't use crew, and no downsides whatsoever. This would be a balancing factor.
I also think it just feels wrong that they flee the battle when their carrier is destroyed. "Feeling" in this case being related, but not identical to realism. It's more about how what the game tells you what happens ("this are fearless drones") is related to what it shows you what happens ("drones fleeing").
Concerning cargo inspections not finding illegal goods, I don't have any ships with Shielded Cargo Holds, so that's not it.
Concerning cargo inspections not finding illegal goods, I don't have any ships with Shielded Cargo Holds, so that's not it.
There's some randomness, and smaller quantities are much less likely to be found, especially when accompanied by legal goods. There's also the "nothing illegal found, but you're carrying plenty of stuff and are suspected of smuggling due to recent BM trade" result.
I feel like the balancing factor here is OP. "What happens when the carrier is destroyed or overloaded" doesn't seem like a viable balancing lever. It's too situational/only touches on the "already losing" cases/etc.i don't think it would have a big impact on balance either way, but isn't "losing lots of crew through heavy fighter losses" an "already losing" case as well?
I get what you mean re: drones retreating feel-wise, but it'd get weird mechanically (the game kind of relies on fighters fleeing at that point for combat to end)drones self-destructing instead of retreating shouldn't be an issue for that though, and would still help a bit in making them feel different from piloted fighters.
So I was sort of right here. But I was thinking that actually a BM bought ship could be "detected" as stolen good? Cuz as I said above, I've been inspected a few times after BM ship purchases and were loosing reputation as scans were coming out "positive".
i don't think it would have a big impact on balance either way, but isn't "losing lots of crew through heavy fighter losses" an "already losing" case as well?
drones self-destructing instead of retreating shouldn't be an issue for that though, and would still help a bit in making them feel different from piloted fighters.
drones overloading as the carrier overloads could also help with that, even if it's too situational to be a significant balancing factor.
So I was sort of right here. But I was thinking that actually a BM bought ship could be "detected" as stolen good? Cuz as I said above, I've been inspected a few times after BM ship purchases and were loosing reputation as scans were coming out "positive".
Patrols will only confiscate what's explicitly illegal. If you bought a ship or some (otherwise legal) supplies etc on the black market, they'll only suspect, which will lead to a rep drop but no confiscation.
Ah - to me it feels a bit like unnecessary fiddliness, if I'm being honest. Or, at least, nothing I want to spare time for right now when there are more important things to do for 0.8.1a, given that this sort of change could easily lead to bugs.that's fair. :]
I might be thick, but is there a game design reason for why Medium/Large missile slots can't take small missile slot items?Multi type slots can't downsize and large mounts can only downsize to mediums
Fighter Doctrine and Carrier Command are overpowered, and it’s screwing with the AI. The AI wants to hang back and destroy fighters until the replacement rate is sufficiently low then engage when the carriers have a minimal fighter screen, but +50% fighter replacement rate and -50% fighter damage taken means that’ll never actually happen. The two skills compound upon each other; the fighters take 2x as long to kill, and are replaced 1.5x as fast, so it ultimately takes 3x times as long as normal to drive down the carrier’s replacement rate. The enemy AI ends up hanging back forever while the fighters just pick everything apart. This is compounded by the EWar skill reducing enemy ships range, which makes them even less aggressive than they normally are.
I might be thick, but is there a game design reason for why Medium/Large missile slots can't take small missile slot items?
Yeah, I'm definitely going to tone fighters down a bit in the .1 release. It's pretty clear they're currently OP, but it feels like a few relatively minor adjustments (along with some judicious nerfs of specific fighters) can bring them in line. Combat skills could possibly use a slight buff, as well.Damn. Well, there goes rolling around in a Legion, a pair of Moras and a pair of Herons curbstomping everything but the biggest REDACTED.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to tone fighters down a bit in the .1 release. It's pretty clear they're currently OP, but it feels like a few relatively minor adjustments (along with some judicious nerfs of specific fighters) can bring them in line. Combat skills could possibly use a slight buff, as well.I might be thick, but is there a game design reason for why Medium/Large missile slots can't take small missile slot items?
Mostly visual, really. They look weird in large slots.
I might be thick, but is there a game design reason for why Medium/Large missile slots can't take small missile slot items?
I'm not sure the piloted ship only buffs even make sense anymore as something the player can get. Just make all the piloted only exclusive to officers and all the fleet-wide exclusive to the player and let the player personally fly ships even when they've got an officer.
Mostly visual, really. They look weird in large slots.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to tone fighters down a bit in the .1 release. It's pretty clear they're currently OP, but it feels like a few relatively minor adjustments (along with some judicious nerfs of specific fighters) can bring them in line. Combat skills could possibly use a slight buff, as well.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to tone fighters down a bit in the .1 release. It's pretty clear they're currently OP, but it feels like a few relatively minor adjustments (along with some judicious nerfs of specific fighters) can bring them in line. Combat skills could possibly use a slight buff, as well.
Personally, I think the "unlimtied ammo" and now "unlimited fighters" are both terrible decisions that murder any strategy or gravitas in ship usage or logistics.
I think the exact opposite of this. Both of these were good decisions for the game's overall playability, and Carriers actually being fun to fly now is a pretty huge deal for me, so thank you for an excellent patch, Alex.agreed!
Though I admit, I am going to be sad when the Talon goes back to being at the bottom of the food chain. I'm glad the little guys got to be king *** of doomball mountain for a bit.Talons can still fill a unique(ish) niche by being OP-free though. so hopefully they'll still see use, including in some player-made loadouts, even if they're weaker than pretty much all other fighters. :]
Didn't you say somewhere that venting would now take a minimum of 2 seconds? That doesn't seem to be happening.It seems player can vent spam somewhat like before, but since everything is slower all around, I cannot tell if the two second delay is actually happening or not.
The problem with flagship buffs is that either you buff your entire fleet to make every ship in your fleet better, which scales with its size... Or buff your flagship, which either will be underwhelming to prevent soloing/roflstomping everything in sight OR overpowered, because your flagship is as good as an entire fleet. It's hard to balance, because fleetwide buffs are too good or scale too much.
TL;DR: combat aptitude is hard to balance because buffs to your flagship have to be as good as buffs to your entire fleet, which means your flagship has to be equal in power to an entire fleet.
I'm certain it is for realism.
At least I can mod the ammo thing simply enough, but what about fighters?
I can't change that to my preference even if I want to.
QuoteDidn't you say somewhere that venting would now take a minimum of 2 seconds? That doesn't seem to be happening.It seems player can vent spam somewhat like before, but since everything is slower all around, I cannot tell if the two second delay is actually happening or not.
Isn't the desired balance basically "upgraded flagship+average sized normal fleet = normal flagship+average sized upgraded fleet"?You just said what's the problem! If you call that a problem, that is. What I've meant is that one of the options is going to be stronger. Before it was combat aptitude, now it's leadership and others. I guess when Alex adds end-game or simply more content we'll see more benefits in not going for horribly powerful fleet as a goal.
The combat skills should allow you to run a smaller fleet and be more efficient, the fleet wide skills in turn allow a higher power ceiling. Seems pretty good to me.
It's not that venting takes longer, it's that weapons don't reload for the first couple seconds of a vent.What I meant was without all of the dissipation and venting bonuses, venting is slow enough that I do not notice the reload delay caused by venting. I have not obtained all of the bonuses that make extreme vent spamming possible. I can fire two or three heavy blaster shots, vent, and proceed as usual without delay; probably because my venting is not fast enough.
Out of curiosity is there an ETA on the next I guess "Major" hotfix to 8.1?
QuoteFighter Doctrine and Carrier Command are overpowered, and it’s screwing with the AI. The AI wants to hang back and destroy fighters until the replacement rate is sufficiently low then engage when the carriers have a minimal fighter screen, but +50% fighter replacement rate and -50% fighter damage taken means that’ll never actually happen. The two skills compound upon each other; the fighters take 2x as long to kill, and are replaced 1.5x as fast, so it ultimately takes 3x times as long as normal to drive down the carrier’s replacement rate. The enemy AI ends up hanging back forever while the fighters just pick everything apart. This is compounded by the EWar skill reducing enemy ships range, which makes them even less aggressive than they normally are.
Pretty much this.
I know that now carriers manufacture fighters but the old way having limited spare fighters that carrier could easily run off was much better for balance.
Now fighters just run and *** on everything and most of PD do not even scratch them and even if its do there comes another wave.
Reducing buff from skills and increasing replacement rate could do a thing.
Gonna check if I can test it.
QuoteFighter Doctrine and Carrier Command are overpowered, and it’s screwing with the AI. The AI wants to hang back and destroy fighters until the replacement rate is sufficiently low then engage when the carriers have a minimal fighter screen, but +50% fighter replacement rate and -50% fighter damage taken means that’ll never actually happen. The two skills compound upon each other; the fighters take 2x as long to kill, and are replaced 1.5x as fast, so it ultimately takes 3x times as long as normal to drive down the carrier’s replacement rate. The enemy AI ends up hanging back forever while the fighters just pick everything apart. This is compounded by the EWar skill reducing enemy ships range, which makes them even less aggressive than they normally are.
Pretty much this.
I know that now carriers manufacture fighters but the old way having limited spare fighters that carrier could easily run off was much better for balance.
Now fighters just run and *** on everything and most of PD do not even scratch them and even if its do there comes another wave.
Reducing buff from skills and increasing replacement rate could do a thing.
Gonna check if I can test it.
I'd just like to note that if you wait until a carrier has either expended all of it's fighters (in a limited fighter world) or has a seriously degraded replacement rate (in an unlimited world) then you've basically allowed the enemy to extract full utility from that carrier. I'd contend that the optimal approach for the AI (discounting the difficulty in actually accomplishing it) should be to kill the carriers ASAP so that it's not dealing with an infinite stream of damage. This is both practical (in that it doesn't let the enemy expend all of its ordinance), and thematic in that it can provide some structure to the battlefield where defensive lines to protect carriers form and flanking can be a meaningful endeavor rather than just the deathballing that seems quite common in this version. Sitting back and waiting should, in a normative sense, very rarely be a good idea.
I'm not sure what levers need to be tweaked on the design side (both in terms of balance, as well as AI design) to accomplish that, though.
I'm looking for a mechanic where you can essentially shut down the fighter bays while attacking the carrier so you don't have to wait for that point.i agree something like that might be needed.
Would something simple like giving fighters a flux cost to launch be enough? Im thinking somewhere in the 500-1000 rangenot by itself, because there is currently no way to choose whether they are launched, or which wings are launched while others are on hold. but a ship needs to be able to control its own flux build-up.
Could make ion dmg temporarily tank refit times to 0 until the ion damage wears offmost ships/loadouts aren't able to deal (significant) EMP damage though, so i don't think that alone would be enough. low-tech ships especially have barely any access to EMP weapons, even assuming the loadouts they use would include it.
Would something simple like giving fighters a flux cost to launch be enough? Im thinking somewhere in the 500-1000 rangenot by itself, because there is currently no way to choose whether they are launched, or which wings are launched while others are on hold. but a ship needs to be able to control its own flux build-up.
Would something simple like giving fighters a flux cost to launch be enough? Im thinking somewhere in the 500-1000 rangenot by itself, because there is currently no way to choose whether they are launched, or which wings are launched while others are on hold. but a ship needs to be able to control its own flux build-up.Could make ion dmg temporarily tank refit times to 0 until the ion damage wears offmost ships/loadouts aren't able to deal (significant) EMP damage though, so i don't think that alone would be enough. low-tech ships especially have barely any access to EMP weapons, even assuming the loadouts they use would include it.
few ships can't load a salamander :)good luck disabling a Condor's or Drover's flight decks with Salamanders, let alone anything bigger :P
Id personally like a lot more fine fighter control for my carrier, but current implementation is still pretty good for how minimal it is
Ehh, I'd rather not have Fighter commands. They're just too annoying to use and eat up OP when the ship AI already does that. I'm fine with the current fighter AI, in fact I'm able to leverage strike craft so much better with it than I was able to previously due to how quickly I can order my fighters around. I'd rather keep it as-is.
I could imagine extended fighter commands as unlockables in the leadership aptitude. That way they would not clog the command UI for people who'll never use them.
Do any of the salvage or recovery skills increase the chance of being able to recover derelict ships, or do they only apply to ships after combat?
I'm going to leave this for a while until 8.1 releases or something, i'm certain that it's the current patch that is crashing my computer, as I have updated my drivers, and it still BS' my computer.
IIRC one of the ideas of the ECM Package/Nav Relay was to install them on auxiliaries to make it worth deploying them in combat. For me, its still far from being worth the risk, especially when there are alternatives.
- The Front Shield Generator is a hullmod you'd only need at the very beginning of the game, when you still use the Hound and Cerberus. I usually find it late game. Maybe make it a default mod or at least abundant at stations?
-Augmented Drive Field seems pointless in a world of Sustained BurnUsually, yes. But right now, I have one or two capital clunkers (with Degraded Engines) that I would not mind having that hullmod to raise SB speed from 16 to 17. I will not buy a tug because my fuel consumption is already high enough without deadweight slurping more fuel.
True that some useful ships from factions of interest are locked behind a commision, can't find an independent world that sells stuff like Scarabs and Medusa's often (I have to do commisions, but don't want to make an enemy out of Hegemony, they're your early buddies)Scarab is a Tri-Tachyon exclusive ship that no one else sells, at least in 0.72. Although even if you are commissioned, it is as rare as Hyperion, which is so rare that your best bet to get one is to fight a fleet and recover the ships.
Would the autorefit put other weapons other fleet's ships if there's no stock for the original weapon?
And can variants be randomized in vanilla?
@Voyager I: Thanks! Made a few notes.Would the autorefit put other weapons other fleet's ships if there's no stock for the original weapon?
Autofit will use other weapons, yeah, trying to pick the most similar ones available. It will take weapons from cargo, but not from your other ships.
If you give two ships "strip" permissions, will they?the "strip before autofit" only applies during that autofit, and only to the ship being autofitted. as in, it will try to match the goal variant as closely as possible, even removing weapons or hullmods that were already installed, if those are not part of the goal variant. with that option disabled, it will keep what's already there, and try to build around it. so basically disable that if you want autofit to just 'fill in the gaps' rather than build an entire loadout from scratch.
After doing my civic duty helping out during a battle I noticed that my fleet had last some crew even though none of my ships had been destroyed or even damaged, since most of the battle was already over before I reached the main battle. It seems that if one of allied fleets loses crew/ships you pay the price.that doesn't seem quite right.. are you sure you didn't just lose a few fighter pilots in the short skirmish?
I just figured if you have two ships set to "strip" before refitting, and those two *** autofitted at the same time, they could both (instantly and invisibly to the player) strip, dump their weapons into cargo & then reassemble themselves from the shared pool. So if one ship autofits a pair of hammers because it can't get the harpoons it wants, and then you pick up a ship covered in harpoons that you switch to a template that wants torpedoes, they won't be gridlocked forever without player intervention. In my head it sounds like it wouldn't have to take too much effort to make work, but then I don't java so clearly I am the best authority on this and Alex should definitely do everything I think ofthat sounds like a terrible idea to me, to be perfectly honest... and not because of how it would need to be coded. ^^
After doing my civic duty helping out during a battle I noticed that my fleet had last some crew even though none of my ships had been destroyed or even damaged, since most of the battle was already over before I reached the main battle. It seems that if one of allied fleets loses crew/ships you pay the price.that doesn't seem quite right.. are you sure you didn't just lose a few fighter pilots in the short skirmish?I just figured if you have two ships set to "strip" before refitting, and those two *** autofitted at the same time, they could both (instantly and invisibly to the player) strip, dump their weapons into cargo & then reassemble themselves from the shared pool. So if one ship autofits a pair of hammers because it can't get the harpoons it wants, and then you pick up a ship covered in harpoons that you switch to a template that wants torpedoes, they won't be gridlocked forever without player intervention. In my head it sounds like it wouldn't have to take too much effort to make work, but then I don't java so clearly I am the best authority on this and Alex should definitely do everything I think ofthat sounds like a terrible idea to me, to be perfectly honest... and not because of how it would need to be coded. ^^
what you're describing would need an entirely new settings thing, because the current autofit options all only apply during autofit of that ship, they aren't saved seperately for each individual ship (as that wouldn't really make sense with their current functions). and then it still needs "player intervention" anyway because you need to specifically enable it for those ships that you know have weapons that another ship would need -- because if you enable it for all ships, you're constantly gonna end up with half-finished or unnecessarily frankensteiny loadouts as each ship tries to take stuff from the others.
the only case where this would work without issues is if two or more ships have exactly the weapons another ship needs, and those weapons are exactly the ones that each ship which currently has them doesn't need, and both of these conditions apply for every single one of the ships involved, perfectly mirroring each other... which is virtually never gonna happen in any not-super-tiny fleet, and those super-tiny fleets are already the ones where any reduction of necessary micromanagement is needed the least anyway.
in short: no. :D
I'd say that this would be a terrible idea, since you'd have to go through ships from which weapons were taken and (auto)fit them again. It's super counterintuitive.
Desh.. i really don't mean to be rude, but, again: what you're describing would only work in very specific cases, and would be anything between just pointless and actually actively counterproductive most of the time. and if you have to enable it yourself for these very specific cases anyway, it defeats the entire purpose of reducing the need to manage the weapons transfer manually in the first place.
it's just not a good idea, sorry. there's way too little benefit, with way too many issues attached to it.
@Alex
remember when I complained about poor performance in campaign mode? I figured it out, well, sort of. Chrome has this thing where it lingers in the background even after you close it, and I'd forgotten to turn it off on this computer, and it was messing with Starsector somehow - when Chrome's not running, the game runs fine.
It's still a mystery why Chrome sitting there not doing anything and using 0.1% CPU has such an impact on SS, especially given that it doesn't happen with any other game, but at least it's easily solvable.
There is a general option in settings or something that causes your ship to point towards the mouse as default control...is that what you want?
If you are holding down the button alot, you might want to invert the behavior in the settingsThere is a general option in settings or something that causes your ship to point towards the mouse as default control...is that what you want?
Yes, but while in combat. I find that is often useful to switch between modes, but it would be nice to toggle with a button rather than holding down shift. This is especially true with omni shields, sometimes you want to angle the ship, other times you want to angle the shield, and holding down a button gets tiresome after a bit.
Autofit will use other weapons, yeah, trying to pick the most similar ones available. It will take weapons from cargo, but not from your other ships.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" in any case :)
-The number one problem is still missing the "quicksave" promt. For new players who have nor parsed the UI yet the promt is just not visible enough. I'd say go ugly big on this one. Maybe progressively growing font?
Having finally gotten around to playing the new update, I'm not sure if the "safety procedures" rank 3 bonus (reduced stat-penalties from d hullmods) is working correctly. The d-mods' tooltips don't seem to have changed - are the actual effects correctly being reduced or if it is supposed to only work for d-mods that happen after learning that skill?
getting over being sick
Having finally gotten around to playing the new update, I'm not sure if the "safety procedures" rank 3 bonus (reduced stat-penalties from d hullmods) is working correctly. The d-mods' tooltips don't seem to have changed - are the actual effects correctly being reduced or if it is supposed to only work for d-mods that happen after learning that skill?
Are you sure? It seems to work for me. It'll work for all d-mods, and the tooltips reflect the reduced penalties.
*If there was a cheap hullmod that gave a ship ~90% protection from death explosions I would probably put it on all my phase frigates.
A final note - the Brawler TT is basically a joke ship. It doesn't have enough hardpoints to beam spam effectively and it's too slow to use the shorter-ranged weapon options. It needs some kind of Paragon-style innate range bonus to have any hope of finding a useful configuration. You've said yourself many times recently that energy weapons are balanced around the expectation that they will be mounted on mobile platforms, and hoooo boy do we get an ugly result when that is not the case.Without Unstable Injector and only toned down speed bonuses from skills, many high-tech ships that used to be fast and agile are sluggish and mildly slow now. High-tech ships are not much faster than other ships, not enough to matter. Trying to kill many ships with Wolf or Medusa was a pain because their weapons are short-ranged and inefficient. Enemy high-tech ships (like Remnants or even pirate Wolves) just kite and kite more, and it is hard to flux lock them when my weapons are flux inefficient. Others just spam kinetics, sometimes with better range, and win the flux war outright.
Did Aux. Thrusters always depend on flux level to determine rotation speed?
Ships with them fitted seem to turn faster when at zero flux and turn at normal rates with any flux buildup, and I don't remember this being a thing previously.
Is this just a faulty memory or some wierd fever dream?
The Paragon's Advanced Targeting Core is actually slightly worse than ITU when it comes to boosting weapons labelled as PD (50% vs 60%). Shouldn't it be at least equivalent? Same goes for the Targeting Supercomputer for stations.
The Paragon's Advanced Targeting Core is actually slightly worse than ITU when it comes to boosting weapons labelled as PD (50% vs 60%). Shouldn't it be at least equivalent? Same goes for the Targeting Supercomputer for stations.
I believe the Devs discussed this briefly in one of the blogs - at least, the Targeting Supercomputer on stations they did. Hang on, here's the relevant bit:
"Gameplay-wise, this presents a clear pitfall – if anything outranges the station, it’ll be able to damage it with impunity, because the station can’t move. This isn’t very different from what large and slow ships face already, though, so the solution is a more extreme version of the “dedicated targeting core” hullmod that most large ships install to increase their weapon range and ensure they outrange smaller opponents.
Thus: station modules are fitted with a “targeting supercomputer” that triples weapon range, with the exception of non-beam point defense weapons – a Flak Cannon with that sort of range turned out to be a bit ridiculous. The supercomputer also improves weapon accuracy, to help with scoring hits at extreme ranges."
That answer your question?
Thus: station modules are fitted with a “targeting supercomputer” that triples weapon range, with the exception of non-beam point defense weapons – a Flak Cannon with that sort of range turned out to be a bit ridiculous. The supercomputer also improves weapon accuracy, to help with scoring hits at extreme ranges."[/i]
That answer your question?
Also question to Alex: why do all PD weapons suffer from this penalty equally? Beam PD are weak enough already, and as was stated above, only Flaks were real problem.
The Paragon's Advanced Targeting Core is actually slightly worse than ITU when it comes to boosting weapons labelled as PD (50% vs 60%). Shouldn't it be at least equivalent? Same goes for the Targeting Supercomputer for stations.
Unstable Injector is too punishing for all. If anything, it is even more punishing for small ships. The shot range penalty should be a flat -15% to offset Gunnery Implants 3.
It defaults to that so that if someone doesn't know how to control fighters, at least they default to a "not looking broken" state. The tutorial does mention it etc, but I'd imagine lots of new players will take a bit to catch on to how it works.
... then again, maybe it's better to have them pulled back at the start - then it'll raise questions about how to let them attack, where if they start out attacking, it's less obvious that pulling back is an option. Hmm, yeah, ok. Made the change.
And it went from 'put it on everything' to 'put it on nothing except pure missile boats and non-combatants'. It is too niche. The penalty is excessive.not for me. as someone who prefers to use large fleets, i often find speed more important for my flagship than range. most other ships don't get it -- besides the obvious: carriers, missile ships and specialized pursuit ships -- but some still do. so overall, i think UI is alright as it is now.
It can also be used to make SO build even more extreme.I know, but I cannot afford both (comfortably) unless I have Loadout Design 3. Safety Override costs so much, and I barely have enough OP left with standard OP to outfit my ship decently.
Just looked at the description for Stabilized Shields, maybe it should say "Reduces the amount of *soft* flux raised shields generate by 50 percent". People might mistake it for a 50% damage-to-shields reduction hullmod as it is now, and would be technically correct in assuming that from the description.
Loving the latest build. Thanks for this Alex!~
Thank you all for your feedback etc! Not quite up for a detailed response (getting over being sick), but I appreciate it.Having finally gotten around to playing the new update, I'm not sure if the "safety procedures" rank 3 bonus (reduced stat-penalties from d hullmods) is working correctly. The d-mods' tooltips don't seem to have changed - are the actual effects correctly being reduced or if it is supposed to only work for d-mods that happen after learning that skill?
Are you sure? It seems to work for me. It'll work for all d-mods, and the tooltips reflect the reduced penalties.
I get where you're coming from, but since there's no player choice here between the two, this doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Yep, it's slightly worse than the ITU for PD weapons.
It's a massive buff to the Paragon. You get + 100 / 50 instead of + 60 / 60, and you get it for free! I wouldn't call a lack of ten percent a legitimate nerf; you'll barely notice it.
Firstly, having to invest hard earned points into "aptitude levels" is punishing, not fun. In previous patches, aptitude levels used to give a bonus of some kind, but now they give nothing. They are just a hard cap that you need to raise to get to the fun stuff. This is not fun, and it is not a choice.
Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, this would be the exact same system as we have now, just presented more positively.i quite like that idea, but it would need to be shown/explained in a very clear manner. otherwise you're bound to get new players who think there's a bug that doesn't let them spend their skill point.
My feeling is that they're being vastly underrated now simply because they've been nerfed compared to their prior "finger of death" state...I am not sure about that.
@Gothars: I think that's probably too complicated in terms of UI and explaining to the player. Kind of what I end up doing anyway while playing - no reason to just spend an aptitude point w/o a skill point somewhere unlocked by that aptitude - but actually joining these up would be pretty clunky.
Could someone please explain to me what these numbers mean?
(http://i.imgur.com/iZcLm69.png)
Could someone please explain to me what these numbers mean?Coordinated Maneuvers: X%
(http://i.imgur.com/iZcLm69.png)
That said, I kind of like the idea of an aptitude providing a small bonus based on the skill points spent - but it's not clear what that should be in every case. Combat is the easy one, but other aptitudes have applications on several game layers, so there really isn't a fully-representative effect. It's just a lot cleaner to only have them unlock new skill levels.I wish that in the far, far future, every aptitude point allows you to have more officers of a given specialisation rather than "just" give you a bonus. Having 2 more captains gives the player more than balanced damage bonus. The problem is, though, we don't have any other than combat officers... But some day we could have more!
@SCC: It'll warn you if you have help popups enabled, though.
@Embolism: Yeah, made a note.
Mildly controversial statement about aptitudes: one not wanting to spend points on them just means it's working as intended and the game is clear about conveying the function of aptitudes.
That said, I kind of like the idea of an aptitude providing a small bonus based on the skill points spent - but it's not clear what that should be in every case. Combat is the easy one, but other aptitudes have applications on several game layers, so there really isn't a fully-representative effect. It's just a lot cleaner to only have them unlock new skill levels.
Mildly controversial statement about aptitudes: one not wanting to spend points on them just means it's working as intended and the game is clear about conveying the function of aptitudes.
That said, I kind of like the idea of an aptitude providing a small bonus based on the skill points spent - but it's not clear what that should be in every case. Combat is the easy one, but other aptitudes have applications on several game layers, so there really isn't a fully-representative effect. It's just a lot cleaner to only have them unlock new skill levels.
@SCC: It'll warn you if you have help popups enabled, though.
That said, I kind of like the idea of an aptitude providing a small bonus based on the skill points spent - but it's not clear what that should be in every case. Combat is the easy one, but other aptitudes have applications on several game layers, so there really isn't a fully-representative effect. It's just a lot cleaner to only have them unlock new skill levels.
You said it yourself. Paragon is the only long-range option now. The previous long-range option - Tach Lance - got nerfed into the ground for doing what the Paragon now does with *all* onboard beams. Range is the stat that trumps it all. I hate having to bring a Paragon just to fight a Paragon.
someone should mod in an adjustment to the Paragon's built-in that reduces its bonus to 2x the gain of the next best alternative available to a comparable non-paragon. You can have the Paragon being the game's dedicated long-range artillery cruiser, without it being rediculousThe Paragon has +100% range. The next best is is another Capital with ITU, at +60% range. Your suggestion here is to 'reduce' the Paragon's range bonus from +100% to +120%?
someone should mod in an adjustment to the Paragon's built-in that reduces its bonus to 2x the gain of the next best alternative available to a comparable non-paragon. You can have the Paragon being the game's dedicated long-range artillery cruiser, without it being rediculousThe Paragon has +100% range. The next best is is another Capital with ITU, at +60% range. Your suggestion here is to 'reduce' the Paragon's range bonus from +100% to +120%?
And comparatively, a Paragon has only 25% more range with a given weapon than another capital with ITU installed.
...and free.
...and free.
Didn't the Paragon take an OP nerf when when that built-in hullmod was introduced?
Can you add a no fighter/carrier mode for 0.81, they are really anti-fun for me.
Can you add a no fighter/carrier mode for 0.81, they are really anti-fun for me.
Could someone please explain to me what these numbers mean?Coordinated Maneuvers: X%
(http://i.imgur.com/iZcLm69.png)
+Y% Top Speed (Ship: Z%)
X is the total maximum speed bonus.
Y is the bonus speed your ship gets.
Z is the percent your ship contributes to the total maximum bonus speed. This number is subtracted from the total maximum bonus speed to find the speed bonus that is applied to your ship, as your ship can't benefit from coordinating with itself.
80% would be reasonable. It'd be a mere 20% decrease from what it had, but still 20% better than the best anyone else can get, and free.80% sounds fine on paper, but the primary reason that Paragon got this range increase in the first place is that its large profile and very low mobility run counter to the usual high-tech ship focus -- and energy weapons are balanced with that focus on mind. beams aside, energy weapons have significantly shorter range than comparable ballistic assault weapons, because high-tech ships generally have a similarly significant mobility advantage, allowing them to choose where and when to engage enemies of equal size/strength.
Is there any way to make damaged fighters dock for repairs? Feels strange that you sometimes can't muster your full fighting potential as a carrier captain.
It would be nice if damaged fighters would dock during regroup-inactivity, or if you could force them to dock by holding Z.
Swamers have limited ammo, but they've got a lot of ammo. 60 SRMs by default (so 12 volleys). Twice that with Expanded Missile Racks. Swamers also deal HE damage, hence why they were able to cut down unshielded frigates.
Which is a shame, because I like having those cute little ships around.yeah, same here. at the smaller ship sizes, i think fuel consumption shouldn't be exactly the same for all ship of a size-class.
Which is a shame, because I like having those cute little ships around.yeah, same here. at the smaller ship sizes, i think fuel consumption shouldn't be exactly the same for all ship of a size-class.
Any ETA on when we can expect 0.8.1a patch notes?
Any ETA on when we can expect 0.8.1a patch notes?
Not sure - haven't decided about putting partial notes up before the actual release or not.
BTW Anyone also noticed that ship losses also almost all the time equal full crew losses?
BTW Anyone also noticed that ship losses also almost all the time equal full crew losses?
That should not be the case if you use the safety procedures and/or damage control skills. Or the blast doors hullmod.
I guess the installation of escape pods would be part of the safety? procedures skill :)
And here I assumed that escape pods came pre-installed but ships were such death-traps in the heat of battle that without safety precautions no one ever reaches them in time.Or they get used as flares! I mean where else would they come from?
@Jyi: just real quick, since I'm going to bed: you can change the level cap by setting playerMaxLevel in data/config/settings.json.
@Jyi: just real quick, since I'm going to bed: you can change the level cap by setting playerMaxLevel in data/config/settings.json.
Well, this really made the game a lot more enjoyable for me. Thanks! I figured there was a way to do this, but didn't know it was so easy.
To me, it seems like something like lvl50 would be a better official cap, considering we now have to "waste" 12 points on aptitudes to get skills on lvl3. It's especially annoying if you want to pick skills from all skill groups and not just heavily invest in one. Feels a bit constricting.
On a more positive note: I've been playing this game for like a week straight. Shows just how addictive and fun it is.
we now have to "waste" 12 points on aptitudes to get skills on lvl3. It's especially annoying if you want to pick skills from all skill groups and not just heavily invest in one. Feels a bit constricting.you're by no means the only one to think so, but that's actually intentional: getting rank 3 in all 4 aptitudes is not meant to be the ideal way to spend your points. you're supposed to think about how you want to specialize, instead of always getting all the best skills from every aptitude. that is also why the aptitudes themselves do not offer any bonuses anymore.
the downside is that, as you say, the system feels constricting, and spending a point on something that doesn't by itself give any bonuses whatsoever isn't satisfying either. rather, that point is an investment into future bonuses.
I forgot to mention we will need more skill points if more skills get added, especially since aptitudes other than Combat are not full. I bet there will be more for outpost management once that feature comes.
Because there are already too few skill points, and adding more skills makes the squeeze even worse.I forgot to mention we will need more skill points if more skills get added, especially since aptitudes other than Combat are not full. I bet there will be more for outpost management once that feature comes.Why though? More skills just mean more choice and more viable different play stiles. They don't have to mean a higher power ceiling.
Mildly controversial statement about aptitudes: one not wanting to spend points on them just means it's working as intended and the game is clear about conveying the function of aptitudes.
That said, I kind of like the idea of an aptitude providing a small bonus based on the skill points spent - but it's not clear what that should be in every case. Combat is the easy one, but other aptitudes have applications on several game layers, so there really isn't a fully-representative effect. It's just a lot cleaner to only have them unlock new skill levels.
... possibly it's just a UI issue.
A pirate fleet responded to me blowing a research station around a black hole. As I hid in the ring system, they activated a sensor burst... too close to the even horizon. They then drifted in, feebly attempting to escape, until their fleet was consumed in the center of the abyss.
Have I mentioned how much I love this update?
To me, it seems like something like lvl50 would be a better official cap, considering we now have to "waste" 12 points on aptitudes to get skills on lvl3. It's especially annoying if you want to pick skills from all skill groups and not just heavily invest in one. Feels a bit constricting.
On a more positive note: I've been playing this game for like a week straight. Shows just how addictive and fun it is.
Since solo is not a thing anymore, going pure personal skills at cost of fleetwide ones will just reduce my overall power.
There are so many things that I just have to take to be able to field a fun fleet; like supply usage and fuel usage reductions.
Skill tree.
Bad drivers. wdf01000.sys is Logitech SetPoint, nvlddmkm.sys is NVidia graphics. ntoskrnl.exe can possibly be related to graphics as well.
I don't know what you tried exactly, but ideally when changing graphics drivers you'll want to
- Uninstall the old ones,
- Boot into safe mode and run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller),
- Boot normally and install the new ones.
(Surveying is... well, I've said it before, but it's very much a stub. If anything, I'd say "skill-point efficient" play requires not taking it.)It is, but it sure makes raising money much slower. I got used to how bounties work, and I can slowly build a profit. Not so much that I can restore ships willy-nilly.
This is true, but presumably at some point there'll be more of a reason to have a more compact but more powerful pound-for-pound fleet. That's already true to some extent - fuel and logistical costs, deployment costs, etc - so combat skills, while technically weaker in terms of total fleet power, do make you more efficient.
Honestly Alex, I think the soft cap did the job fine. In practical terms it still limits the development of the player and forces them to make meaningful decisions about how to allocate their skill points, but it still lets you feel like you're making progress. I know you're not trying to make some Korean MMO Skinner Box but the empty levels in aptitudes and hard cap do create some feelbads and I don't think they're necessary for you to realize your design goals.
This is true, but presumably at some point there'll be more of a reason to have a more compact but more powerful pound-for-pound fleet. That's already true to some extent - fuel and logistical costs, deployment costs, etc - so combat skills, while technically weaker in terms of total fleet power, do make you more efficient.
I don't think that kind of approach can apply to whole play-through.
Moderate investment into personal skills makes sense as early to mid-stage, but cleaning up endgame challenges (currently Remnant Station is the only example) would likely require fully optimized fleet.
5 D-mods - Bug or just rare?
5 D-mods - Bug or just rare?Rare. I've had six d-mods on a ship before (started at four, then recovered twice by the virtue of reinforced bulkheads, taking it to six).
(http://i.imgur.com/TiGbDzK.png)
Rare. I've had six d-mods on a ship before (started at four, then recovered twice by the virtue of reinforced bulkheads, taking it to six).
Combat Endurance skill under Combat aptitude has fleetwide -50% malfunction chance at level 2. Is it intended?No, that can't be right <digs through the files>
This is true, but presumably at some point there'll be more of a reason to have a more compact but more powerful pound-for-pound fleet. That's already true to some extent - fuel and logistical costs, deployment costs, etc - so combat skills, while technically weaker in terms of total fleet power, do make you more efficient.
I don't think that kind of approach can apply to whole play-through.
Moderate investment into personal skills makes sense as early to mid-stage, but cleaning up endgame challenges (currently Remnant Station is the only example) would likely require fully optimized fleet.
We have no real idea of what the final end game challenges will look like, and if we really need to command the most powerful fleet for it. Maybe we can unite the Sector peacefully, or solve the riddle of the gates, or boot out other factions trough market manipulation, or build the strongest industry infrastructure and dominate that way. Or if we fight an boss enemy, maybe as an elite core of a big allied fleet, or as a mobile raider interrupting enemy supply lines.
Quick question: If range debuff from ECM is capped, say from 30% to 10%, does ECCM reduce the original total or the capped total? In other words, with the 30 capped at 10 example, does the object with ECCM hullmod get -15% (capped at -10%) or -5% to its shot range.
If it is applied to capped total, then adding ECCM hullmods to the battlestation (sections) can be a quick and dirty way to prevent player from stacking ECM to let beam Paragon outrange the battlestation. Player absolutely needs to inflict the full -25%, and stack every range buff (from Gunnery Implants 3 and Advanced Optics hullmod) to do that. Even -20% is not enough all of the time. (That makes Command & Control 3 mandatory for a battlestation killer character.)
Anyone feel that there is not enough skills for officers?At 21 skillpoint officers already have more personal skills than player, unless you go for personal skills at cost of giving up fleet-wide essentials. I'd rather see officers have less skill-points (or player should get more).
I think I'll just make sure the station AI "officer" always gets gunnery implants - it's thematic, and would probably do the job.Probably. Player needs to get and min-max everything range related (three skills, Advanced Optics hullmod, no Glitched Sensors allowed) to get guaranteed range superiority with beam Paragon. If -20% was sufficient, I would not have touched Command & Control. Occasionally, -20% sometimes lets the Paragon outrange it, but the range difference is too narrow, and the Paragon is too slow to adjust position as the station's arms rotate. Paragon really needs -25% to outrange. Adding any range to the battlestation should stop that exploit.
Anyone feel that there is not enough skills for officers?At 21 skillpoint officers already have more personal skills than player, unless you go for personal skills at cost of giving up fleet-wide essentials. I'd rather see officers have less skill-points (or player should get more).
I'd like to see better skill selection for officers though. Under current system I often face choice - either accept ones who failed to reach goal skills (like carrier without all 3 fighter skills), or fire-hire them till I find ones that get right skills.
Just a quick note re: officers - for .1, a) an officer without carrier skills is guaranteed a non-carrier skill choice on levelup and b) an officer with carrier skills is guaranteed at least one carrier skill choice on levelup.
Just a quick note re: officers - for .1, a) an officer without carrier skills is guaranteed a non-carrier skill choice on levelup and b) an officer with carrier skills is guaranteed at least one carrier skill choice on levelup.
Just a quick note re: officers - for .1, a) an officer without carrier skills is guaranteed a non-carrier skill choice on levelup and b) an officer with carrier skills is guaranteed at least one carrier skill choice on levelup.
Wait.
So if I want have no carrier officer then he is always forced to have carrier skill to choose on level up - its fairly limiting leveling of no carrier officers.
Unless its more than 2 choices on level up.
I think I agree with TaLaR. With the combination of personal skills a shadow of what they used to be, weakened Unstable Injector, and much more craven AI, soloing fleets with one ship is not practical, assuming it is viable in the first place.This is true, but presumably at some point there'll be more of a reason to have a more compact but more powerful pound-for-pound fleet. That's already true to some extent - fuel and logistical costs, deployment costs, etc - so combat skills, while technically weaker in terms of total fleet power, do make you more efficient.
I don't think that kind of approach can apply to whole play-through.
Moderate investment into personal skills makes sense as early to mid-stage, but cleaning up endgame challenges (currently Remnant Station is the only example) would likely require fully optimized fleet.
If I want more compact but more powerful pound-for-pound fleetFor that, my first instinct would be to put at least two (if small battle map size) or three (bigger battle map size) in the skill that increases maximum officers. They can focus hard on all of the combat skills my character cannot afford to take (without giving up everything else). If I need to deploy about ten ships in endgame fights, that what is more effective than little old me with all the combat skills is four or six more wingmen with more Combat skills than I can afford.
Bad drivers. wdf01000.sys is Logitech SetPoint, nvlddmkm.sys is NVidia graphics. ntoskrnl.exe can possibly be related to graphics as well.
I don't know what you tried exactly, but ideally when changing graphics drivers you'll want to
- Uninstall the old ones,
- Boot into safe mode and run DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller),
- Boot normally and install the new ones.
Just a quick note re: officers - for .1, a) an officer without carrier skills is guaranteed a non-carrier skill choice on levelup and b) an officer with carrier skills is guaranteed at least one carrier skill choice on levelup.
- -50% weapon recoil?As someone who played Star Control 2 and Transcendence before finding Starfarer, my initial guess would be it reduces how far your ships get propelled backwards after firing a heavy weapon, but Starfarer/Starsector does not do that. It took me a while to figure out that it chokes the spread of your scatterguns.
I have trouble thinking of a good use for level 1 and 2 of Advanced Countermeasuresyeah, that one seems really, really weak compared to pretty much all the others. especially when we have perks in other skills that reduce all armor or shield damage by the same amount, rather than only from the damage sources that are already weak against them.
maybe we should be given a third option per officer level; discard this level? Bumps the officer back down to one level less (not losing any excess XP they may have) so you can re-roll that skill choice if or when you get that level backi'd prefer to just be offered 3 or 4 options on each level-up, but that idea isn't bad either. it would still be a bit frustrating to 'lose' the progress of that level, but that's still a lot better than getting to a point where i'm forced to take a skill i really didn't want to take (and that is not only an issue for carrier skills specifically, even if those are the worst offenders).
@Jyi: just real quick, since I'm going to bed: you can change the level cap by setting playerMaxLevel in data/config/settings.json.
I have been playing this game since the early times when it was still called Starfarer. I think I probably played the first public release when it came out, but I have very rarely commented anything on the forums. First, I have to state that I absolutely love this game; it's on the top10 list of my all-time favorite games.
Are there more changes to officer leveling? Because, that still leaves the problem that it's hard to only level up to level one or two of a skill, as the system keeps offering you these "unfinished" skills until you eventually run out of better alternative offers.
In general, one issue I see with the skill system is that it sometimes fails to explain the implications of a given skill. What you want to ask if you choose a skill is what ship, situation or play stile actually benefits from it.
The are some examples where I couldn't answer that question:
- What does "+150 armor for damage reduction calculation only" imply, other than "better armor"? How does it compare with the "+50% armor..." perk?
- All the "- crew lost due to hull damage" perks apply to total ship loss too... right? While technically stated (as ship loss is technically 100% hull damage), ship destruction is intuitively another category than hull damage. So it's easy to miss this connection here.
- I have trouble thinking of a good use for level 1 and 2 of Advanced Countermeasures
And some others are incomprehensible for new players. They must be thinking "What is the point of:"
- -50% weapon recoil?
- 0-flux boost at up to 1% flux?
- +50% weapon hitpoints?
- +50% missile hitpoints?
One or two explanatory sentences here and there could go a long way at making skills less opaque.
One suggestion considering that change: since we're essentially committing to a carrier/non-carrier officer right from the beginning, it may be a good idea to draw attention to that somehow during the officer hiring screen. The more I thought about this, the more I realized that even after playing for years, I still haven't memorized the names for all the skills (especially the new ones) but I do recognize the icons.
@Alex re: Officer change
That sounds good. One suggestion considering that change: since we're essentially committing to a carrier/non-carrier officer right from the beginning, it may be a good idea to draw attention to that somehow during the officer hiring screen.
@Alex re: Officer change
That sounds good. One suggestion considering that change: since we're essentially committing to a carrier/non-carrier officer right from the beginning, it may be a good idea to draw attention to that somehow during the officer hiring screen.
I agree but I think the officer distinction should be made more of a thing. Differentiate between officers focused on direct combat roles (regular as is now), officers meant for carriers (as carrier skill split works now) and expand it to at least two others: officers with a combat support role (guaranteed defensive combat skills the way carrier officers are guaranteed fighter skills) meant for vigilances & geminis who can pull from non-combat fleet & industry skills for their second choice, and non-combatant fleet logistics officers (who belong in shuttles & freighters) who draw a guaranteed fleet & industry skill and one random (weighted towards defensive/escaping combat) general skill
And, liven up the boring "plus x officers" leadership skill with a perk that grants a small & increasing per level XP share for officers not deployed, so officers on, say, a Hermes could still level up for a ship you want them to pilot if/when they get x skill without risking losing that ship to an unskilled officer
With fuel being such an important factor now, I have to ask:What is the reason frigate fuel consumption was unified to 1/ly back at...was it .7? Somehow now I have a hard time justifying shuttles like the Mercury, Hermes or Kite around, which all used to consume 0.5 fuel/ly. Which is a shame, because I like having those cute little ships around.
Alright - reduced to 0.5/ly, and turned the fuel capacity down to 15 (from 25).
Well, the Wayfarer and the Cerberus both have more cargo capacity, fuel capacity, crew capacity and combat capability than the Hound, and still need the same fuel...
Did you know the "Hound and the Hangar" painting hangs in my bedroom? Just saying to avoid any impression that I might be unbiased towards this ship ;D
To be honest, game could use some economical rebalance in the future, but there are many more things that should go first.
I am enjoying the direction the game is heading, Great stuff, a hybrid invention of action and strategy.You can reverse the shift-key behaviour in the settings menu, so your ship points to your mouse by default.
Would it be possible to have a finer mouse control of the shop window, the game is nearly entirely playable on mouse, presuming you relinquish control of the battles to your captains. It's just the case that my cocoa spills on my T-shirt moving from a recline to an upright to reach for that shift key.
Regards,
Basildazz
(I have not tested the combatSpeedMult option in settings.json, yet.)Ever since I learned of it, I set it to 2f, and the game plays much more smoothly for me. 1f is just way too slow. 3f is a bit too fast at times. 2f will be my default speed from now on, although I try to practice at 3f at times so I can get used to it and maybe graduate to 3f as my preferred speed.
Have you tried 2.5? I'm pretty sure that will workQuote(I have not tested the combatSpeedMult option in settings.json, yet.)Ever since I learned of it, I set it to 2f, and the game plays much more smoothly for me. 1f is just way too slow. 3f is a bit too fast at times. 2f will be my default speed from now on, although I try to practice at 3f at times so I can get used to it and maybe graduate to 3f as my preferred speed.
Regardless of speed, newbies will not play perfectly. They need all of the help they can get.
As an aside, it's kinda shocking to me how many players don't control their own ship and instead use autopilot.Don't pilot your ship in early game because you don't know how, don't pilot your capitals because you don't have skills/AI is better at this... Jesus Christ.
Just a note: setting the combat speed mult to values >1 changes the game a bit, since it's a direct multiplier to the per-frame step size. Setting it to 2 should be alright, since the game is meant to work at 30 fps (which doubling the step size at 60 fps roughly amounts to), but higher values can mean missed collisions, poor AI performance, etc. As can setting it to 2 and then having the frame rate dip. That setting is meant to slow the game down rather than speed it up, and doesn't retain simulation fidelity when speeding up.So much for the idea of me posting a request to make this setting accessible in the settings menu in-game. The game plays much better at 2f than 1f, at least for me.
Mh, is the enemy supposed to retreat 0% CR ships? I can't tell, because these ships have so much trouble moving, but it doesn't seem so. At the moment an enemy ship with low CR is a real treasure in a difficult, deployment point limited battle. They take up enemy deployment points without adding any combat strength, which is sometimes enough to tip the balance in my favor. I actually put avoid orders on them so they stay save.
It's possible the AI just struggles to find good situations to say, "Okay, you're hurt but currently in the clear, take a breather than get off the battlefield."
It's a bit strange that Borer drones (100su/s) are slower than their host ship (140su/s), especially in escape scenarios were they trail behind. When the enemy comes from the sides that's a real disadvantage.
as someone who's been looking for a way to slow down combat in this game since v0.52... WHY DIDNT I KNOW THIS OPTION IS A THING
0.7x speed feels so good to me (along with some other changes)
As an aside, it's kinda shocking to me how many players don't control their own ship and instead use autopilot.Don't pilot your ship in early game because you don't know how, don't pilot your capitals because you don't have skills/AI is better at this... Jesus Christ.
As an aside, it's kinda shocking to me how many players don't control their own ship and instead use autopilot.Don't pilot your ship in early game because you don't know how, don't pilot your capitals because you don't have skills/AI is better at this... Jesus Christ.
I am for sure a much better pilot than the ai, I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I'd say that omni shield is highly dependent on the weapon group you're controlling. Hard-points or missiles make it that you just have to point your ship the right way with keyboard and point your shield with mouse. Turreted firegroups are going to be impossible to aim because you either aim correctly weapons or shield, but not both.
Alex, you aren't planning on disabling friendly fire for bombs, are you? I ask because when I'm piloting an Aurora I've been repeatedly flying into Flashes' bombs because I either don't spot them in time or because they missed their target and hit me. It's a bit worse because GUI doesn't show they're bombs because they're "yours" and your PD doesn't shoot them, but they hit you all the same. I suspect that if I used a frigate it would be even worse.
...fun habit of dropping them directly behind you...
Bombs seem fine imo, the dark color makes them a threat if they're coming from the enemy and you aren't paying attention.I don't have problems with those, I always spot them because I pan my view towards enemy. Bombs from my bombers, on the other hand, are hard to spot because they come from behind, exactly where you're not looking because enemy is ahead, not behind. That's why I hated being hit by bombs from my bombers, they literally hit me from nowhere.
Debris fields only spawn after medium to big battles with, like, several destroyers lost at leat. Maybe you only saw smaller battles?
Derelicts spawn even in small battles,, too. Sounds like a bug... What mods are you running with?
Is there a reason we still have run of the mill premade (D) hulls? Looks to me like these can all eventually be replaced with a system that randomly assigns d-mods to certain hulls in markets/AI fleets
Is there a reason we still have run of the mill premade (D) hulls? Looks to me like these can all eventually be replaced with a system that randomly assigns d-mods to certain hulls in markets/AI fleets
Yeah, bombers need to 1) lead their target and 2) try avoiding friendly fire.3) drop thier bombs a LOT closer to thier targets.
I was just thinking, it would be nice if there was any incentive to put Nav Relay/ECM package on combat ships. Some direct buff, like +10%maneuverability/+10% peak readiness time. As it is, every time I want to use these hull mods I'm feeling like I'm making a mistake.ECM could be a secondary ITU if you have OP to burn and you do not plan to deploy a big fleet.
It's not going to be too long - yeah, it's taken longer (in part because I was sick for a week) but also, .1 this time is what .2 was last time around - meaning it's got a bunch of balancing and polish in addition to bugfixes. That said, it's coming together really well.
(in part because I was sick for a week)
Have we never been able to put ships into storage hanger or is this a new bug?
In "fleet" window, the GUI seems to suggest you can put ships into the storage but I tried everything and there didn't seem to be any way to move a ship over...
Thanks guys, yeah, I'm feeling a lot better. It was the typical post-release plague.Have we never been able to put ships into storage hanger or is this a new bug?
In "fleet" window, the GUI seems to suggest you can put ships into the storage but I tried everything and there didn't seem to be any way to move a ship over...
Hover over the ship and press "s" to "store" - that's the top right button in the ship's overlay.
despite only interacting with piratesThis might be the problem - I don't know if it's in 0.8, but didn't previous versions give pirate rep for black market transactions with other factions (if there's a pirate station in system)? Something like that. I'm not too sure on the details, because I haven't tried a pirate run-through.
Before 0.8, they did if relations were not at Vengeful. (I do not know today, relations hit Vengeful before I did any significant trading with them in 0.8.)despite only interacting with piratesThis might be the problem - I don't know if it's in 0.8, but didn't previous versions give pirate rep for black market transactions with other factions (if there's a pirate station in system)? Something like that. I'm not too sure on the details, because I haven't tried a pirate run-through.
Starfarer used to be an excellent space shooter with light tactical elements. Starsector, especially this latest release, completely buries that under a heap of tedious management chores that consist of bars that fill up and deplete and cooldowns that need to be waited through. If I had to name the two most uninspired and boring gameplay mechanics ever invented, it would be those, and Starsector uses them in abundance. Improvements to the core space combat gameplay have been marginal at best in the last few updates, and some features actually detract from it (e.g. CR depletion in combat, which effectively puts a time limit on the battle). The fun part of the game is blowing up enemy ships, and almost all the new features serve no other purpose than to delay or obstruct the player getting to that part.
... the HUD colors of enemies and allies are still extremely similar...
Enemies are RED. Allies are YELLOW. Friendlies are GREEN. What part of those colours are "extremely similar"?
If those were the colors used in the game, there would indeed be no problem whatsoever. But they aren't.
"yellowTextColor":[255,215,0,255], # ALLY
"textFriendColor":[155,255,0,255], # FRIENDLY
"textEnemyColor":[255,100,0,255], # ENEMY
The space battlefield is still constrained by an artificial boxYour CPU is thankful for not having to render every single ship in both fleets.
the AI is still inhumanly perfect when it comes to things like timing phase cloak or shields but at the same time is perfectly happy to park a friendly frigate right between your ship's guns and an enemy you're shooting atThere are some things AI can do better and many things it's worse at and making very life-like AI would be too ardours and too hard to spend time trying to achieve it. It's still very good for this kind of game.
there's still no way of giving more nuanced fleet-wide orders than "full assault" and "full retreat" (maybe something along the lines of "hey guys, we're outnumbered three to one, maybe stick together instead of suiciding into the enemy fleet one by one")Escort, capture, eliminate, engage, avoid... What exactly would you want? Flanking (which AI does already on its own) or what?
Edit: Also, are you supposed to be able to recover ships that broke into pieces during the battle?IIRC yes, it's just harder and ruins ships with D-mods.
I was going to guess that the problem might have beenEnemies are RED. Allies are YELLOW. Friendlies are GREEN. What part of those colours are "extremely similar"?
If those were the colors used in the game, there would indeed be no problem whatsoever. But they aren't.
"colorblindMode":trueActually, GraphicsLib has a somewhat experimental colorblindness modeI was going to guess that the problem might have beenEnemies are RED. Allies are YELLOW. Friendlies are GREEN. What part of those colours are "extremely similar"?
If those were the colors used in the game, there would indeed be no problem whatsoever. But they aren't.Codein settings.json, since the colors in the forum post are comparable to the colors used in the game and the forum post colors are distinct. However, when I tried this no colors obviously changed on a game in progress; only the intro screen was clearly adjusted for red-green colorblindness. (Blue-yellow is much rarer and I wouldn't expect a color blind setting to work for that.)"colorblindMode":true
QuoteIf those were the colors used in the game, there would indeed be no problem whatsoever. But they aren't.Spoiler(http://fractalsoftworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/battle_combat.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/A8JRXEn.png)[close]
You might want to take a look at it with another monitor than the one you're currently using, because that's definitely not normal.
Also the blue channel could actually be used.
That is proof positive it's your monitor/driver combination; this looks typical for a software gamma correction that isn't needed.QuoteIf those were the colors used in the game, there would indeed be no problem whatsoever. But they aren't.Spoiler(http://fractalsoftworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/battle_combat.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/A8JRXEn.png)[close]
You might want to take a look at it with another monitor than the one you're currently using, because that's definitely not normal.
Colors AxleMC131 used in his post: xxxxxxxx
Colors used in the game itself: xxxxxxxx
I had been holding off on installing GraphicsLib until I had a mod that used it, because of the warnings that it didn't play nice with integrated motherboard graphics (which the six-year-old target machine for SS is using). If that setting only works with GraphicsLib, that's fine.I was going to guess that the problem might have beenActually, GraphicsLib has a somewhat experimental colorblindness mode.Codein settings.json, since the colors in the forum post are comparable to the colors used in the game and the forum post colors are distinct."colorblindMode":true
That is proof positive it's your monitor/driver combination; this looks typical for a software gamma correction that isn't needed.Checking in a paint program shows that the colours Sordid is posting are almost exactly the same as the colours in HELMUT's pictures; a burnt orange, and a burnt greenish yellow. Checking on both my mac laptop and my windows desktop shows those same colours. As far as I can tell, those are pretty much the colours as requested by SS. They're certainly far closer to the in-game colours than AxleMC's bright red and bright yellow.
The colors on your monitor are nowhere close to what is requested by SS.
@ Sordid: Can you be more specific with "more menus to grind", among other things?
That is proof positive it's your monitor/driver combination; this looks typical for a software gamma correction that isn't needed.
The colors on your monitor are nowhere close to what is requested by SS.
That's why I said "gamma correction": that makes the colors in screenshots disagree with the colors requested by SS. I did not find AxleMC131's use of forum shorthand colors rather than measured colors helpful to his credibility (his yellow is indeed way off from what is either used, or requested, in game.)That is proof positive it's your monitor/driver combination; this looks typical for a software gamma correction that isn't needed.
The colors on your monitor are nowhere close to what is requested by SS.
You do realize I can't sample the colors from my monitor, right? I can't make them appear on your screen the same way they appear on mine. They're are just sampled from game screenshots. That's what they look like in-game. Feel free to take some screenshots and sample them yourself if you don't believe me.
That's why I said "gamma correction": that makes the colors in screenshots disagree with the colors requested by SS.
alpha transparency means we can't simply say the configured colors are what is requested. (I'm seeing some background color bleed-through so I think that's how the dimming is applied), so "proof positive" is not valid.
On the tactical screen, we measure about the same ally color, but my enemy-actual is nowhere close to your enemy-actual (both do have an orangeish tinge in spite of not having blue coordinates, but mine is much closer to a pure red i.e. easier to distinguish). That suggests my monitor is using a different gamma factor/correction than yours, as alpha transparency is in the color specification but the monitor's gamma factor isn't. (Gamma correction is converting the color coordinate from 0..255 to 0..1, raising the floating-point numeral to the power of the gamma correction, then back-converting to the 0..255 range. This leaves 0 and 255 fixed, but brightens/dims intermediate color coordinates in a reasonably intuitive way.)
Most reasonable cause. I've seen this trash screenshots before -- of images I have on the hard drive.That's why I said "gamma correction": that makes the colors in screenshots disagree with the colors requested by SS.
What? No it doesn't.
Thank you. I was checking a wide variety of possible locations.Quotealpha transparency means we can't simply say the configured colors are what is requested. (I'm seeing some background color bleed-through so I think that's how the dimming is applied), so "proof positive" is not valid.
Colors were sampled from ship health bars, which have no transparency.
You're talking gobbledygook.One of my former jobs was website design implementation. Would linking an authoritative web page have been more credible than inlining the required definitions?
Take a screenshot, sample the color.I did before posting; wasn't relevant without an agreed measurement procedure. My measured color for the enemy health bar is xxxx
My measured color for the enemy health bar is xxxxWow! It's nothing!
The *configured* color is xxxx
Most reasonable cause. I've seen this trash screenshots before -- of images I have on the hard drive.
For example the new features, planet surveying and ship recovery/salvage. I get it, gotta give the player something else to do besides just constantly fighting. An alternative way of earning XP and money. Good idea in principle. Thing is, the combat path involves actual gameplay, whereas surveying and salvaging is just clicking through menus. If you choose to be a prospector who avoids combat and goes around scanning things, you remove the interesting part of SS's gameplay and you're left with nothing but the laggy and tedious overworld map navigation punctuated by occasionally clicking through a menu. As far as I can tell those features are a complete waste of everyone's time, the dev's as well as the players'. And sure, you can say "you don't have to do it". That's true, but the development time used to implement these things could have been used to do something more worthwhile instead.
Speaking of the overworld map, that's actually been made worse as well. I don't think I'm alone in hating how laggy and rubberbandy it feels. Instead of working on that and making it more responsive, the dev introduced Sustained Burn. The speed bonus from this is so good that it's basically mandatory to use it, and it makes your fleet feel even more laggy and unresponsive than before. And it stops you for a couple seconds as it activates. Wanna go fast? You gotta wait for that! Same thing with the Active Sensor Burst. Wanna know what's around you? Better stop and wait! So two more things for you to click on that will annoy you every single time you do.
Every new feature seems to just be an item in a menu somewhere or a button to click. While I appreciate the complexity that goes on behind the scenes, clicking menu options and buttons isn't exactly engaging gameplay.
Well part of it is that I'm comparing ally/enemy, not player/enemy. But your colors do indeed look much more vivid than mine. WTF is going on with this.
(By the way - WTF is with taking screenshots of Starsector? Pressing Print Screen doesn't actually capture what's on the screen at the moment, but something that used to be there a while ago - I kept getting the loading bar or a pause screen, and had to download Fraps to get a proper screenshot)
For example the new features, planet surveying and ship recovery/salvage. I get it, gotta give the player something else to do besides just constantly fighting. An alternative way of earning XP and money. Good idea in principle. Thing is, the combat path involves actual gameplay, whereas surveying and salvaging is just clicking through menus. If you choose to be a prospector who avoids combat and goes around scanning things, you remove the interesting part of SS's gameplay and you're left with nothing but the laggy and tedious overworld map navigation punctuated by occasionally clicking through a menu. As far as I can tell those features are a complete waste of everyone's time, the dev's as well as the players'. And sure, you can say "you don't have to do it". That's true, but the development time used to implement these things could have been used to do something more worthwhile instead.Well, for some people reading text in menus is actually fun and enough motivation to go around the sector. There aren't just menus to go through, but also lorebits, feelings of loneliness in space and of wonder of discovery.
Speaking of the overworld map, that's actually been made worse as well. I don't think I'm alone in hating how laggy and rubberbandy it feels. Instead of working on that and making it more responsive, the dev introduced Sustained Burn. The speed bonus from this is so good that it's basically mandatory to use it, and it makes your fleet feel even more laggy and unresponsive than before. And it stops you for a couple seconds as it activates. Wanna go fast? You gotta wait for that! Same thing with the Active Sensor Burst. Wanna know what's around you? Better stop and wait! So two more things for you to click on that will annoy you every single time you do.What do you mean by "laggy and rubberbandy"? Do you mean ship inertia? By the way, Sustained Burn is MASSIVE improvement, it makes going anywhere actually bearable. Also, you know that reduced manoeuvrability and wind-up are there for a good reason. Namely, to stop you from having godlike mobility even with battleships and not to make Emergency Burn redundant (because Sustained Burn without wind-up would be a better EB).
Every new feature seems to just be an item in a menu somewhere or a button to click. While I appreciate the complexity that goes on behind the scenes, clicking menu options and buttons isn't exactly engaging gameplay.Like I said - maybe not for you if you skip any and all text, but for some it's actually engaging. *insert EVE Online spreadsheet simulator meme here*
Well part of it is that I'm comparing ally/enemy, not player/enemy. But your colors do indeed look much more vivid than mine. WTF is going on with this.Could be GraphicsLib; it's advertised as doing that sort of thing. I certainly would have intentionally disabled it as part of trying to estimate context, just like I tested the color blindness configuration.