I'm seeing screws over the combat loving player
Edit: Are combat costs going to be dropped at all or the AI tweaked to deploy less?
Because much of what I'm seeing screws over the combat loving player since the AI doesn't have to worry about supply costs or losses.
Also, how are officers affected?
So considering the limited nature of skill points now, Will there be any way to respec skill points without starting a new character?
It does not (and I would even recommend it not being) have to be cheep, but with the limited nature of choices, the possibility to change one's decisions should be available. While we can hire and fire officers until we get what we want for skills/temperaments I think it would be beneficial to extend any possible player skill re-specialization to officers as well.
Also, is the skill cap modifiable? (I take it it will be in the settings file if it is)
force certain builds on skills that avoid hull mod unlocks
I see even more issues with early game with this thanks to the fact that the AI deploys as much as possible and doesn't worry about costs or losses.
I doubt the early game is going to be any more unforgiving than it already is. Adjustments will be made and players will learn.
I like the encouragement for large tactical fleet engagements. There was one thing that there is no mention of though:
The speed boost from leadership seems like it could be very punishing if you are trying to run away from a much larger fleet. This is already one of the nastier aspects of the early-mid game that makes me run frigate & destroyer packs doing combat missions rather than cargo-hauling (essentially forcing a certain playstyle).
Now I don't need any details, but will this make disengaging even harder? Or will there be new ways of evening the odds a bit.
Oh hey, another thing: player fleet cap versus those two bonuses: Now even an endgame fleet can get screwed by those scouts that grab you for their death fleet friends... Great...
Oh and let's not forget that the more outnumbered you are, the LESS you can deploy!
Would it be an idea to make the leadership bonuses increase per-ship over time (and EW effects decrease per-ship over time)? To a certain limit of course.
man that's a lot to sink my teeth into! Really good stuff though, I like it a lot. I'm curious how hard missile specialization is getting hit, and also about all those intriguing new icons.
Plus it's so hard to envision what you mean by new combat playstyle... RTS style building of disposable drone ships or something?
I doubt the early game is going to be any more unforgiving than it already is. Adjustments will be made and players will learn.
There's also a bunch of stuff in the works to make it easier.
man that's a lot to sink my teeth into! Really good stuff though, I like it a lot. I'm curious how hard missile specialization is getting hit, and also about all those intriguing new icons.
Missile spec:
+25% speed/maneuverability
+50% missile/bomb/torpedo/etc hitpoints
+25% missile damage
Missile spec:
+25% speed/maneuverability
+50% missile/bomb/torpedo/etc hitpoints
+25% missile damage
Don't get your hopes upMissile spec:
+25% speed/maneuverability
+50% missile/bomb/torpedo/etc hitpoints
+25% missile damage
Will there be a re-balance of missile ammo or a buff to expanded missile racks hullmod?
not QUITE sure what CM means by "depends on ship size"
The way I understand it, a frigate increases speed by 1 percent, a destroyer by 2, cruiser by 3, cap by 4. Am I about right in that?
Hmm... the HP increase was unexpected, but perhaps there is a new PD efficiency skill to match?
If its in a state to share, mind telling us what has happened to the speed increase skill? To me it was always the most frustrating to deal with on enemies.
Will there be a re-balance of missile ammo or a buff to expanded missile racks hullmod?
Off the top of my head, and numbers subject to change, the new Helmsmanship:Are there any turn rate bonuses at all?
+50% acceleration only (not turn rate etc)
+10% top speed
Zero-flux bonus at up to 1% flux. So, can keep it while shields are on and while firing beams, but that's about it.
skills that focus on improving the fleet’s performance in the campaign. Bonuses to abilities, sensor stats, movement, etc.
hitting the level cap isn't particularly time-consuming
There's actually a skill that buffs damage dealt to missiles and fighters, yeah.
But basically, the idea here was for a buff that made missiles more reliable instead of more damaging in the best case.
Off the top of my head, and numbers subject to change, the new Helmsmanship:
+50% acceleration only (not turn rate etc)
No, why? What I mean is, how are you relating that to the missile spec changes?
hmm, I wonder if the way CM and EW bonuses are calculated encourages frigate swarms since they have a lot more bonus per supply/cost than larger ships
I'm very much in favor of making fleet combat more attractive but I'm not sure the planned changes are the best way to do so. Electronic Warfare sounds particularly rough and in combination with Coordinated Maneuvers it may actually have the opposite effect. When facing a considerably larger enemy fleet a skilled player would probably be able to work around the range and speed limits but the AI not so much, so unless I'm on a somewhat equal footing I might be better off not bringing any allies to the fight.
It also seems like it would make hard battles even harder and easy battles even easier. I guess we'll see how it plays out. If it's strictly about the number of ships and not the total tonnage then frigate spam may become the new early to mid game meta.
I'm not sure how I feel about the fleet bonuses. I prefer the stately fleet actions of older versions of Starsector and things definitely needed to swing back in that direction from the ultra-lethal officer combat of the current patch, but I've seen things end badly when developers try to push their vision of the right way to play their game too hard and it seems like having a bonus attached to raw ship hulls is going to be prone to being gamed. Will have to see how it plays out in practice, though.
If people are upset about having their range crimped in fleet actions, you could always try repackaging the effect into a range bonus for the fleet with stronger sensor strength. It makes slightly less thematic sense, but people historically respond much better to conditional bonuses than penalties even when the functional outcome is literally identical (see: rested XP in WoW, which was initially an experience penalty for grinding).
Are there any turn rate bonuses at all?
Quoteskills that focus on improving the fleet’s performance in the campaign. Bonuses to abilities, sensor stats, movement, etc.
This is a bit vague, does it mean new campaign abilities are unlocked via skills? Or just upgraded?
hitting the level cap isn't particularly time-consuming
This worries me a little bit. Is it just a acknowledgement of the current missing content, so your growth ends when you've done everything (and the span can be extended as the game growths)? Or do you also expect a play-through in the finished game to be a fairly short affair? Or do you plan for character growth to end before a player has finished a play through?
+50% acceleration is too much in my opinion, why not just +25%? +50% is such a huge boost that it wont even resemble the base handling of the ship at all. Especially when combined with hullmods...
I guess what I'm asking is that, Is this a direct nerf to the overall ammo count on small missile launchers? If so, I would love to see more interesting hullmods for missile systems on small ships. For example a +1 missile ammo hullmod, or a Hull mod that changes ammo launchers into slow recharge launchers like how salamanders or pilums currently work for things like small single harpoon launchers.
hmm, I wonder if the way CM and EW bonuses are calculated encourages frigate swarms since they have a lot more bonus per supply/cost than larger ships
and from what has been said, it seems the bonuses may update in combat when you destroy a ship
hmm, I wonder if the way CM and EW bonuses are calculated encourages frigate swarms since they have a lot more bonus per supply/cost than larger ships
The second prong involves more directly making battles difficult for a side that’s heavily outnumbered. While that’s almost always going to be the player, what we also want to do is add ways to interact with that system and come out ahead while being outnumbered, but only if the player deploys multiple ships.
Getting to the cap or close enough to it could be preparation for late-game, for example. And there could be ways to gain character points outside of gaining levels.
OK, I'm a bit confused here. Wasn't one of the main points of deployment costs to encourage the player to deploy as little as possible? And now there's also an incentive to deploy as much as possible? I guess I'll have to aim very precisely for the golden middle, then...
Although, this mechanic makes it harder to find it, I guess, since the combat strength of individual ships will vary a lot depending on the fleet environment. A ship that could easily knock out an enemy Brawler in 1vs1, might be unable to if in a uneven fleet battle. That doesn't make the minimum necessary strength to win a fight easier to gauge, does it?
I'll have to test it of course, just a bit worried it will complicate things.
I'm ambivalent on the officer cap mentioned; at present, it's more or less a cap on the number of vessels which can usefully be brought into combat, at least at higher levels, and if that's still the case after the skill revamp then the skill increasing the cap is pretty much mandatory for anyone who wants to have anything more than a very minimal fleet supporting them in combat.
...Industry lets you produce allied fleets to fight alongside you?
Also, this was sorta drowned out in the initial discussions, but thank god for fixing command points.
One more thing I wanted to add: the maximum total bonus from CM, for example, is what the enemy fleet might have now due to holding two Nav Buoys, just to put it in perspective in terms of effectiveness or how much of a problem it would be to deal with. Or is it less than that? I forget if Nav Buoys are +10% or +15% right now. So if one has concerns about it being too hamfisted or mandatory to get as the player, I think that's a useful point of reference.
The implication there seems to be that industry will let you have more ships, but that...doesn't really seem like something that would need to be teased?If that is the case then alot of stress about early game would relieved and it would make ship losses not an instant quick load for non ironman games
I will say that Fighter LPCs and the newly unveiled modspecs look suspiciously like they could share a framework with the manufacturing blueprints that were meant to be a core part of the game since forever.
The implication there seems to be that industry will let you have more ships, but that...doesn't really seem like something that would need to be teased?If that is the case then alot of stress about early game would relieved and it would make ship losses not an instant quick load for non ironman games
I will say that Fighter LPCs and the newly unveiled modspecs look suspiciously like they could share a framework with the manufacturing blueprints that were meant to be a core part of the game since forever.
The implication there seems to be that industry will let you have more ships, but that...doesn't really seem like something that would need to be teased?The suggestion that one or more skills in the Industry aptitude will help with making large fleets viable without needing to pick up the 'more officers' skill, coupled with the suggestion that the way by which this is done is through something to do with cost suggests to me that repair/replacement costs, and maybe deployment costs, are reduced in some way by the industry skills, not necessarily that the industry skill(s) will allow you to have more ships. One possibility would be that Field Repairs moved from Technology to Industry and now also reduces repair and CR recovery costs in addition to (or perhaps instead of) increasing repair and CR recovery rates.
I tend to feel that that'd be more of a relief for mid- or late-game stresses than for early-game stresses; I would think it unlikely for the player to have low-cost access to anything more than very basic ships in the early stages of the game.The implication there seems to be that industry will let you have more ships, but that...doesn't really seem like something that would need to be teased?If that is the case then alot of stress about early game would relieved and it would make ship losses not an instant quick load for non ironman games
I will say that Fighter LPCs and the newly unveiled modspecs look suspiciously like they could share a framework with the manufacturing blueprints that were meant to be a core part of the game since forever.
I'm ambivalent on the officer cap mentioned; at present, it's more or less a cap on the number of vessels which can usefully be brought into combat, at least at higher levels, and if that's still the case after the skill revamp then the skill increasing the cap is pretty much mandatory for anyone who wants to have anything more than a very minimal fleet supporting them in combat.
I like the hard cap. It puts a limit to compulsive grinding done by perfectionists who think no such thing as too much power (or do not feel perfect without having everything). For people who are hardcore and have lots of free time, their level cap may be much higher than someone who is casual or who (may be hardcore but) cannot afford the time to grind characters. It is nice (and possibly refreshing these days) for a game to say "You played enough! You have enough power! Beat the game with what you have and play something else or get a life!"
@ DownTheDrain:
The game may be the sandbox, but your character may not necessarily be a demigod with unlimited potential. Human is still human, not an immortal god of war.
My point is your character may not be superhuman enough to have unlimited power potential that is attainable with sufficiently long grinding or training. (Sorry, you are not the one (Neo)! You are not Son Goku!) This would be represented by a hard cap that will be reached late enough in the game.@ DownTheDrain:
The game may be the sandbox, but your character may not necessarily be a demigod with unlimited potential. Human is still human, not an immortal god of war.
That's... an extremely odd way of reasoning. I don't even know how to properly respond to that.
Considering my character still needs to take a ship into combat and can't just float through space on his own while melting enemies with mind-beams or some such, I'd argue that he is very much human and not "an immortal god of war".
Not to mention that your argument would eliminate about 98% of all RPGs and possibly the entire genre.
My point is your character may not be superhuman enough to have unlimited power potential that is attainable with sufficiently long grinding or training. (Sorry, you are not the one (Neo)! You are not Son Goku!) This would be represented by a hard cap that will be reached late enough in the game.@ DownTheDrain:
The game may be the sandbox, but your character may not necessarily be a demigod with unlimited potential. Human is still human, not an immortal god of war.
That's... an extremely odd way of reasoning. I don't even know how to properly respond to that.
Considering my character still needs to take a ship into combat and can't just float through space on his own while melting enemies with mind-beams or some such, I'd argue that he is very much human and not "an immortal god of war".
Not to mention that your argument would eliminate about 98% of all RPGs and possibly the entire genre.
Admittedly, in Starsector, your character is special. He can respawn like a lich! He can scuttle his last ship at will and respawn in a brand new ship to replace his broken shuttle or to escape being stranding in an uninhabited system.
As for eliminating so-called RPGs, maybe, at least online ones. I guess it would hurt those that want grinding to keep their servers populated for whatever gain.
well, a hard cap isn't the only way to do that. While we cannot train up infinitely, we do get a LITTLE better if we keep training. A (sufficiently steep) soft cap works pretty well for that, I thinkSure, but it varies from player to player, depending how much time can be spared. Some might spend lots of time, maybe too much, and get lots of power. Some may not spend enough time to get the expected level of power.
Sure, but it varies from player to player, depending how much time can be spared. Some might spend lots of time, maybe too much, and get lots of power. Some may not spend enough time to get the expected level of power.
The main benefit for hard cap is the game making upper limit of power obvious and to stop excessive grinding. Without caps, some may choose to grind excessively willingly... or compulsively (the latter not unlike addiction).
Since it is strictly singleplayer the amount of time someone else spends grinding has zero influence on your enjoyment of the game.That is not the issue. The issue is to stop excessive grinding for whatever reason, even if the player may enjoy grinding itself or grudgingly tolerates grinding as a means to the end he wants (usually power).
Since it is strictly singleplayer the amount of time someone else spends grinding has zero influence on your enjoyment of the game.That is not the issue. The issue is to stop excessive grinding for whatever reason, even if the player may enjoy grinding itself or grudgingly tolerates grinding as a means to the end he wants (usually power).
@DownTheDrain
I hope you know Megas is a bit ... eccentric when it comes to how he plays his games. Most of the time he plays it so vastly differently from the rest of us that we just kinda set him aside.
Didn't Alex clearly state that the reason why the cap was introduced was to make early game choices more significant? I'm not sure why you guys are so focused on the grinding aspect.
Since it is strictly singleplayer the amount of time someone else spends grinding has zero influence on your enjoyment of the game.That is not the issue. The issue is to stop excessive grinding for whatever reason, even if the player may enjoy grinding itself or grudgingly tolerates grinding as a means to the end he wants (usually power).
I like the hard cap. It puts a limit to compulsive grinding done by perfectionists who think no such thing as too much power (or do not feel perfect without having everything). For people who are hardcore and have lots of free time, their level cap may be much higher than someone who is casual or who (may be hardcore but) cannot afford the time to grind characters. It is nice (and possibly refreshing these days) for a game to say "You played enough! You have enough power! Beat the game with what you have and play something else or get a life!"
Let me just say this: whatever the level cap ends up being, it'll be super easy to change if you want to.How easy? In an ideal case I would just have a soft cap where gaining additional levels becomes harder. This is not so I can get the power I need or grind because I feel incomplete, but so I can continue playing and have a sense of progression.
Zero-flux bonus at up to 1% flux. So, can keep it while shields are on and while firing beams, but that's about it.Rip speed builds. Used to be able to make a specific build with maxed out vents and capacitors to be able to fire Gauss cannons on conquest while keeping the speed bonus.
Let me just say this: whatever the level cap ends up being, it'll be super easy to change if you want to.How easy? In an ideal case I would just have a soft cap where gaining additional levels becomes harder. This is not so I can get the power I need or grind because I feel incomplete, but so I can continue playing and have a sense of progression.
looks good, my only concern is the 25 ship limit. it seems kind of strange to literally force the player to be outnumbered in the late game when the AI doesn't have to follow that rule. can it be removed?
looks good, my only concern is the 25 ship limit. it seems kind of strange to literally force the player to be outnumbered in the late game when the AI doesn't have to follow that rule. can it be removed?
looks good, my only concern is the 25 ship limit. it seems kind of strange to literally force the player to be outnumbered in the late game when the AI doesn't have to follow that rule. can it be removed?
I for one am glad people who pay money for games are treated as the dirty addicts they are. Now if only we could make the game shut itself off every 1 hour and tell the player he needs a break and also limit to 2 hours per day. Finally the game should permanently uninstall itself after 50 hours of total gameplay and we could have the nanny game we all deserve.
Let me just say this: whatever the level cap ends up being, it'll be super easy to change if you want to.How easy? In an ideal case I would just have a soft cap where gaining additional levels becomes harder. This is not so I can get the power I need or grind because I feel incomplete, but so I can continue playing and have a sense of progression.
I just hope the "perks" don't end up with League of legends favor, where you get +2% here and another +1% there and +10 hp there. Yes, you have a statistical advantage, but it doesn't feel significant.
Another concern is that a lot of the times what ever "overpowered" thing gets nerfed that only forces people to move to something else(so at best you are forcing people to change playstyles) which leads to that thing getting nerfed as well, which leads to everything being watered down.
Assuming impact of officers stays big enough, practical limit is going to be 4-10. So, the only kind of fleet no-leadership character could effectively employ would be 5 cruisers and capitals (+ surplus player ships and non-combat utility).
...I kind of miss frigate swarms of old :(
"maxShipsInFleet":25,
change to 100
Capital spam seems also kind of encouraged by these new scaling mechanics.
Given 5 skill-sets (player + 4 officers), only Capitals will be able to reap full benefits (+20%), while frigates get only ignorable 5%.
EW strength should be independent of class and depend on tech level and specialization, probably. that way you could have a small raiding fleet with a very high jamming/sensor strength.
So considering the limited nature of skill points now, Will there be any way to respec skill points without starting a new character?
It does not (and I would even recommend it not being) have to be cheep, but with the limited nature of choices, the possibility to change one's decisions should be available. While we can hire and fire officers until we get what we want for skills/temperaments I think it would be beneficial to extend any possible player skill re-specialization to officers as well.
Probably not. The nature of many skills is such that not having the skill anymore after having had it gets weird. Quick example: "officer management" raises the officer limit. What happens to the extra officers if you were to respec?
I'm sure there is a reasonable answer to that one specifically, but combine it across many skills where it's a potential issue, and it gets too messy to deal with.
On the other hand, hitting the level cap isn't particularly time-consuming, compared to getting to level 50-60+ in the current release.
You mentioned that OP bonuses are gonna be less, but was the "cheaper weapons" also removed from skills?I wonder about the "Optimized Assembly" perk. If that is gone, we lose more than 20% OP. Optimized Assembly is effectively a ton of free OP. Getting that perk alone is worth Combat 10 even if you do not care about the other Combat skills. But if you get Optimized Assembly, then you might as well get the other Combat skills too.
Basically, I don't want players to feel like they have to keep grinding to be in the best place possible before they start doing Big Things.That would be me. Playing enough permadeath (roguelike) games taught me one thing: Overpreparing and stacking the deck as much as possible before going past the point of no return and triggering the endgame is generally good for maximizing chances for the win. Sometimes, player ends up steamrolling the final battle, but better safe than sorry.
Basically, I don't want players to feel like they have to keep grinding to be in the best place possible before they start doing Big Things.That is easily fixed when players aren't heavily punished for trying. So players who save are much more likely to experiment and try things, if they don't have the skills or equipment to succeed they just don't get rewarded but there is no huge punishment since they can just load.
1-4% to top speed of allied ships, depending on ship size (all ships in fleet)
10% total maximum
So Alex and David, what are your favorite ships to pilot now that all these changes are being worked in?
I guess what I'm asking is that, Is this a direct nerf to the overall ammo count on small missile launchers? If so, I would love to see more interesting hullmods for missile systems on small ships. For example a +1 missile ammo hullmod, or a Hull mod that changes ammo launchers into slow recharge launchers like how salamanders or pilums currently work for things like small single harpoon launchers.
Ah, gotcha: yes, yes it is. As much fun as +1 missile ammo was, it was also, if we're being honest, quite broken for a lot of weapons.
Regarding missiles in general, I'm aware there's an opinion that they're not quite good enough, but I'd like to see where it goes once deploying more ships is a viable way to go. If a ship's goal goes from "solo entire enemy armada" to "score 2-3 kills", then all of a sudden having a couple of racks of Harpoons is a whole lot more attractive.
In response to the technical challenges of respeccing (how to avoid having the benefit of the skill after losing it), how about having the respec points require that you first divest yourself of the resource? For example, a player has the max number of officers, but wants to get rid of a point of that skill. First they need to fire 2 officers. Off the top of my head the skills as they stand don't have complicated conditions to check for, but that could have changed.
You mentioned that OP bonuses are gonna be less, but was the "cheaper weapons" also removed from skills?
Non-level skill points is probably spoiler territory, so I'm only going to ask this on the subject: Are these going to have their own cap, or will repeatedly hitting up wherever-they-come-from become a thing?
Is a "+1 fleetwide burn speed" skill is coming back?
What is officer skill allocation going to be like?
With the +1 missile bonus disappearing, could we see the possibility of Expanded Missile Racks being buffed to +100% instead of +75%? Or are double-reapers/quad-atropos/hexa-harpoons gone for good? (Also, the +75% drove me crazy with the last salvo of Annihilators and Swarmers)
Looks through and well considered per usual Alex, looking forward to playing!
With the OP changes, my gut instinct is to assume that carrier OP is probably going to get more of a boost than average given that fighters now eat OP on a ship like weapons,
but is there any plan to, for example, give low-tech ships a lesser (say 7-10%), or midline/high tech a greater (12-15%), boost in base OP? That would match the thematic difference in styles (low-tech is cheap, effective, and robust, but less expandable, while fragile high-tech has more room for customization, and midline splits the difference).
the last days i checked up to 4 times/day the dev blog for news, was time for an entry ;)
SpoilerWhat if the 'respec' is actually some form of like... retirement/generational thing? Like how we sorta pick our upbringing and background to start off, perhaps a respec can be a voluntary choice that maybe sets someone back by half or something with a ingame tie in of becoming a new person such as a first officer who got promoted and brings his skills to the table or your son/daughter taking over who was taught by you and maybe learned a thing or two.
So, it wouldn't be a full respec but an option to redo and pick with a full say, 20 levels worth if maxed at 40 or 10 if at 20, etc. This way it could even have some penalty while still giving the benefit of changing a playstyle and options and being very beneficial say in early levels when dropping from 6 to 3 is far less of an issue if you hated your first choices without having to start all over. Since you could potentially retain critical ship captures and supplies.
Ooh, fresh thought. You could make it interesting by having a variety of choices for said 'respec' all with varying benefits and penalties. The next generation sort of choice could be the least disruptive with like the first thought of just halving your levels while keeping everything else, since it'd be more like just passing the baton.
A second choice could be like a mutinous officer or rogue captain, you get to pick a single ship to keep in your fleet and then have to lose everything else (to a fun independant fleet you could try to destroy) but retain all levels.
Simple retirement, you earned what you wanted and decide to retire someplace, leaving your first officer to take over. He/she is well experienced and retains 75% of your levels but maybe you lose most of your funding and officers (maybe even ships too, just spit balling).
Has a nice Starsectory feel to it if it could be done.[close]
I'm imagining a universal installable CIC hull mod that can be installed at a cost and improve combat ability in certain radius, the radius is determined by the modded ship.
(i.e. a capital owns larger CIC bonus radius than a destroyer, very legit IMO)
The CIC effect should be unstackable BTW.
I've always found building up my ship and my character until they are super strong and soloing stuff with maybe one or two wingman ships tops to be much more fun.
I think I wrote something here once about this, suggesting that this problem could be lessened if knockouts in combat usually resulted in ships being disabled, crippled, heavily damaged, requiring an expensive overhaul, captured (to be possibly recaptured), whatever, anything... instead of most probably disappearing forever in a poof. The point being that if a potentially very quick mistake means a serious permanent loss, the game is going to give me the urge to alt-F4 it a lot, unless I happen to be feeling exceptionally patient, so that I can prepare and choose my battles meticulously enough to consistently avoid it.
The phrasing doesn't make clear that all ships in the fleet apply a stacking bonus to all other ships. It could also mean that it is a flat bonus that is applied to all ships in the fleet.
Why not just write: "Every ship grants 1-4% (depending on ship size) to top speed of allied ships."
Same with ECM.
Another question that came to my mind is does the 1-4% bonus apply only if you get the relevant objective? The phrasing of the skill makes it ambiguous whether getting the objective is required for the ships to get the extra bonus beyond the 5%.
Okay, I can get the need for this, but are we ever going to roll in a "retreat once out of missiles" hullmod for ships that rely primarily on missiles or torpedoes for punching power? I won't mind not getting to use a kite_a as a flagship in midgame if I can at least field a reasonable fleet of kite torpedo bombers in the late game that doesn't require micromanaging
Remember that we're also getting more access to command points in the coming patch (we start with more initially and gain more naturally over time), so we'll have a bit finer control over our fleets now.
I'm a bit concerned about the EW/CM stuff and how it might come to completely define battles, as in that you'd want to optimize your fleet for it always using ships with hullmods that affect it, possibly cheap ones that you order to hug the bottom corners of the map. (assuming it isn't dependent on ships actually sitting on the objective to get the bonus)
It's good that it forces the player to hold at least 50% of the objectives, which means that it will rarely come into play unless you are severely outnumbered or overdeploy against a weak enemy - but I'm concerned about the ability to "exploit" the system and if this would devolve into a simple way to ensure you are always faster and have longer range than your enemy. I consider it to be the most volatile aspect out of everything new that is being introduced, but it's hard to say without hands-on gameplay. Most of the time I expect each fleet's EW/CM to be equal, and that it will cause a snowballing victory as soon as one side loses control of the map. Which makes me wonder if will affect things in a much bigger way than getting in the way of soloing, which I feel is going to get hit hard simply by the risk of an AI death charge on your flagship with the new admiral orders.
It's really hard to say, though. I just wonder if it will define battles too much.
... when the game goes live on Steam, you're gonna get people complaining ...
Good luck with that, it'll be a source of concern for certain!
I'm a bit concerned about the EW/CM stuff and how it might come to completely define battles
optimize your fleet for it always using ships with hullmods that affect it, possibly cheap ones that you order to hug the bottom corners of the map.
So Alex and David, what are your favorite ships to pilot now that all these changes are being worked in?
Definitely the REDACTED.
why do you guys have to be such a tease -_-
SpoilerQuote from: Blogpost1-4% to top speed of allied ships, depending on ship size (all ships in fleet)The phrasing doesn't make clear that all ships in the fleet apply a stacking bonus to all other ships. It could also mean that it is a flat bonus that is applied to all ships in the fleet.
10% total maximum
Why not just write: "Every ship grants 1-4% (depending on ship size) to top speed of allied ships."
Same with ECM.[close]
Not sure if I want go and adjust the blog post at this point, but yeah, fair point.
What is officer skill allocation going to be like?
Same as now - if you'll notice, it already acts as if skills had 3 levels.
Now if the question is what was my favourite recent ship that I've drawn? ... Definitely the REDACTED.
Now if the question is what was my favourite recent ship that I've drawn? ... Definitely the REDACTED.
(Just to be sure - the quote was on a screenshot, so it should be adjusted in the game :) )
In 0.7.x, it behaves as if officers' skills had 4 levels. They go 1/4/7/10, and a level 20 officer can max out 5 skills. With the overhaul... a level 20 officer will max out 6 skills with 2 extra points. (And unlike the player, not have to worry about aptitudes or fleetwide skills)
and because it sounds like there will be more "buoys" overall than before
And yeah, deploying useful auxiliaries is a nice concept, but it could mean that you will deploy them after your main fleet as a "chore" and tell them to hug the absolute bottom of the map where they are unlikely to ever encounter an enemy.
While we're talking about fleet commanding, here's a related question. Right now, when a ship is retreating from the battle, it turns to face the side of the map it's withdrawing towards. While this is helpful for conveying to the player what the ships is doing, it's often a suicidal behavior with no upside for the ship in question. Ships aren't faster moving in one direction than another, so all they're doing is making themselves an easier target for pursuers (especially when the ship in question is one with primarily forward weapons and front shields!). It's a little jarring to see the AI ships doing this, though when it's making them easier to kill I'm not necessarily concerned...but when it's my own fleet, I have stronger emotions.
Do you have any thoughts about retreating ships behaving a bit more rationally?
While we're talking about fleet commanding, here's a related question. Right now, when a ship is retreating from the battle, it turns to face the side of the map it's withdrawing towards. While this is helpful for conveying to the player what the ships is doing, it's often a suicidal behavior with no upside for the ship in question. Ships aren't faster moving in one direction than another, so all they're doing is making themselves an easier target for pursuers (especially when the ship in question is one with primarily forward weapons and front shields!). It's a little jarring to see the AI ships doing this, though when it's making them easier to kill I'm not necessarily concerned...but when it's my own fleet, I have stronger emotions.
Do you have any thoughts about retreating ships behaving a bit more rationally?
Hmm. ... yeah, I should probably adjust this. I mean, there's arguments for it (that I've made before), but the fact that a proper retreat is a two-step operation (order it to move away, then later on order an actual retreat) isn't good. Made a note to take a look.
In 0.7.x, it behaves as if officers' skills had 4 levels. They go 1/4/7/10, and a level 20 officer can max out 5 skills. With the overhaul... a level 20 officer will max out 6 skills with 2 extra points. (And unlike the player, not have to worry about aptitudes or fleetwide skills)
tell them to hug the absolute bottom of the map where they are unlikely to ever encounter an enemy.
I didn't see these at the time. Can you link them or briefly rehash them?
I'd argue there are currently 2.5 functional level at best: Level 1+4 bring a small bonus, while 6 and 10 contain the two perks. Selecting just level 1 for any skill has no discernible effect.
... I didn't say they were particularly compelling. Mainly it's that, as you note, it's more clear visually what's going on. And that when you do it and a ship dies, it's a clearly-your-fault type of situation, i.e. they don't just do this randomly without an explicit order.
I'm not sure I'd agree with the blame assessment. The AI is very good about overall reasonable behaviors, and so I generally expect orders to be carried out in that fashion.
Alternatively, you probably wouldn't lose much by just exempting player ships from the 'turn to flee' mechanic entirely. Player ships only retreat with explicit orders anyways, so it's not like there's a pressing need for that sort of explicit visual cue. I don't know if having separate behaviors for player and enemy AI ships is something the game currently supports or a direction you feel comfortable taking the game in.
Now that skills merge (if I remember correctly), would it be possible to add in your own skills through modding?
Ahh, another reason I forgot about: stuff like burn drive. Makes a huge difference for a ship being able to flee successfully or not, and requires turning away.This reminds me, is there a way to keep ships from using burn drive to charge ahead and ending up directly in the middle of the enemy fleet and instantly dying?
So, we have enemy fleet admirals now?
I'm not sure I'd agree with the blame assessment. The AI is very good about overall reasonable behaviors, and so I generally expect orders to be carried out in that fashion.
Right, but that's only true until you know how it works. From that point, regardless of how you might like it to work, you know how it actually works, and it's predictable, so what happens when you give the order is entirely on you.
Ahh, another reason I forgot about: stuff like burn drive. Makes a huge difference for a ship being able to flee successfully or not, and requires turning away. That's a big problem, actually. If you take away predictable retreat behavior, then ships with burn drive will get a lot worse at retreating, and there'll be nothing you can do to force the current behavior. The benefit of the current behavior is that it gives the ship the fastest exit time.
This would be a lot more problematic than the current behavior, which *does* have the "just order them away from the fighting, and then retreat as a 2nd stage" solution. And, come to think of it, maintaining a "ships pulled back from fighting" waypoint in the back, and then mass-ordering a retreat (for just 1 point) when a few ships are ready to isn't so bad.
We always had, but that's only the term for the part of the game that gives orders to AI fleets (deployment, retreat, capture), nothing tangible within the game world.I mean enemy admirals have actual skills like the player does now.
I've always found building up my ship and my character until they are super strong and soloing stuff with maybe one or two wingman ships tops to be much more fun.
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to still do that to a great degree. I mean, we're not talking about two ends of a spectrum where it's "solo is the only thing you can do" vs "fleets are the only thing you can do". More like, it's shifting from .4 to .6 (if that) if that spectrum is 0 to 1. If I can generalize a bit, it feels like a lot of concern I see expressed assumes it's going all the way to the other end.
mass-ordering a retreat (for just 1 point)just a little note here, it's possible to give an unlimited amount of retreat orders for one point (assuming the tactics screen isn't closed in between) but it's not possible to order more than one ship to retreat with a single order. having more than one ship selected hides the order-buttons, and even the hotkey for ordering them to retreat doesn't work. it's the most minor of annoyances, but would still be nice if the hotkey worked, so i don't have to individually select and give the order for several ships. ^^
This feels like a pretty technical kind of correct. You're right that an experienced player is ultimately responsible for how they use the tools a their disposal, but that doesn't inherently excuse a mechanic that isn't functioning ideally and creating potential gotchas for new players is a real cost.
The workaround you're proposing now are still not ideal. You've worked hard to make a game that minimizes the amount of micromanagement required (and rewarded) by the player, and this is going to involve a fair deal of hassle and attention (and checking to make sure a rogue Medusa isn't prowling your extraction point). With the current implementation of Command Points it's not even mechanically feasible most of the time, though that may no longer be as much of restriction in the coming patch. Even if it's possible, the level of babysitting involved isn't in line with the AI's general capacity for autonomy. If it's just not a big enough problem to be worth investigating a complicated solution then I can certainly understand, especially with how much other stuff is already going on presently.
It seems like the problem you're mentioning with Burn Drive can be simplified into two clearly defined categories: ships with mobility systems that require them to be facing their direction of travel, and everything else. For the former, the current behavior is likely ideal, but for the latter their odds of survival would be significantly improved even if they did the exact same beeline but with their shield arcs facing towards their threats. I get the sense you try to have as few ship/module specific AI exceptions as possible and you definitely don't want to have to hard code some kind of retreat behavior variable into every single hull, but would it be feasible to teach the AI to recognize the difference?
Well that certainly encouraging. :) I kinda wonder what that means, though. When you say you're making soloing weaker and fleet actions stronger (that's what this boils down to, correct me if I'm wrong), does that mean it's more difficult/longer to get to the point where you can solo everything? Or do you actually lower the ceiling of what's possible to solo? Because the blog post kinda reads like you're doing the latter. I don't mind taking a longer route as long as I get to where I want to go, but not being able to reach my destination at all, that I wouldn't be happy about.
This looks like a pretty elegant re-work, and I'm glad you identified the right direction to fix the combat mode and went that way. I just think you may have gotten a bit of a skewed impression by a very small but very vocal minority of people (lookin' at you, Megas ;)). Players really don't solo fleets that much. I've never found it easy or rewarding to do, not even in earlier versions.
And discouraging it by adding skills that improve stats the more ships you have deployed is, well, problematic because the larger fleet already has an easier time winning a fight. I think these buffs may work a bit too well against a rather insignificant problem. Other than that, nicely done.
1) several of the skills could use clearer wording. i see Gothars already mentioned it for CM and EW, but the "+X% post-battle salvage" in the screenshot of the Salvaging skill also isn't clear (to me) whether it's a total or cumulative over the three ranks.
2) if officers will have 7 skills, how about keeping 20 as max level and giving them a bonus point at lvl 1? since it works similarly for player skills, and then you can keep the round 20.
3) the EW skill says "the uncapped total for each fleet is compared". since the higher ranks only increase the cap, doesn't that mean getting more than one rank will only ever be useful while significantly outnumbering the enemy? since in all roughly even battles (not just while soloing), the higher max won't have any effect, regardless of how high the opponent's skill is. or am i reading something wrong here?
just a little note here, it's possible to give an unlimited amount of retreat orders for one point (assuming the tactics screen isn't closed in between) but it's not possible to order more than one ship to retreat with a single order. having more than one ship selected hides the order-buttons, and even the hotkey for ordering them to retreat doesn't work. it's the most minor of annoyances, but would still be nice if the hotkey worked, so i don't have to individually select and give the order for several ships. ^^
Any comment on what is replacing this? While I agree that it is likely too strong for large hull HP ships (capitals mostly) in prolonged fights, is it just getting replaced with a more flat survival bonus?
Regarding the retreat order, how about giving officers different behaviors? Cautious officers for example would always keep their guard up while retreating, allowing the player the option of having ships behave like that.
3) the EW skill says "the uncapped total for each fleet is compared". since the higher ranks only increase the cap, doesn't that mean getting more than one rank will only ever be useful while significantly outnumbering the enemy? since in all roughly even battles (not just while soloing), the higher max won't have any effect, regardless of how high the opponent's skill is. or am i reading something wrong here?
Spoiler! I completely missed that it compares uncapped ECM rating. Uh... does a cap for ECM rating even exist then? The way I'm reading it now the cap is only for the range effect. But talking of uncapped anything implies the existence of a cap at some point...
Also, the text does not specify that only the enemy range can be reduced more with a higher skill. So, taken face value, investing in the skill can reduce your own weapon range, if the enemy has higher ECM.
Here's an attempt to phrase things clearer:
Each fleet has an ECM rating, influenced by sensor jammers (+5% each) and respective hullmods. The total ECM of both fleets is compared, and the losing side's weapon range is reduced by the difference, up to an maximum of 10% without skills. Does not apply to fighters, affects all weapons including missiles.
Level 1
Every ship grants 1-4% (depending on ship size) to ECM rating.
Enemy weapon range reduced by up to 10%
Level 2
Enemy weapon range reduced by up to 15%
Level 3
Enemy weapon range reduced by up to 20%[close]
... or when they want to use special systems like burn drive.
While I'm going to miss some of the loadouts, less OP is going to be better gameplay than more.Not so sure about that. I disliked how few OP I got in 0.53 (or in missions, which is why, among glacially slow pace, I refuse to play them), and when skills came, I could afford to put stuff on ships. More often than not, I left mounts empty because of too few OP. I can see totally dropping Graviton Beam for Tactical Laser just to save OP for stuff my ship really needs. Heavy Needler looks much less attractive than Heavy AC when OP is low.
All i have to say about the general op reduction:You think that's bad. In my case literally everything I used to make my Conquest the faster than some cruisers has been nerfed. I had it with maximum venting and capacity, so one side of the ship could fire off at maximum range while keeping zero flux boost bonus constantly up. With the nerf to speed skills, zero flux perk down to 1%, hullmods, max OP I don't think my speedy speed boy is going to drift through space at incredible speed any time soon.
GoodBye my friend.
It's cumulative. Let me think about how to adjust that...thanks. :)
Well, you can also deploy sensor jammers, deploy ships with hullmods that enhance the ECM rating, etc, so it's not just outnumbering.ah, right.
You think that's bad. In my case literally everything I used to make my Conquest the faster than some cruisers has been nerfed.look at it this way: it'll give you an opportunity to experiment with new loadouts for your favorite ship again. maybe you'll even find a new playstyle that you'll enjoy more than kiting.
look at it this way: it'll give you an opportunity to experiment with new loadouts for your favorite ship again. maybe you'll even find a new playstyle that you'll enjoy more than kiting.
The loss of Optimized Assembly perk + only getting 10% OP boost from Tech is pretty damn brutal—gonna ruin pretty much all my favorite builds. Yes, I'll have to think of new ones now, but they'll all obviously be less powerful and I won't soon forget that!IMO, the reason it makes builds more fun is that there is more differentiation between builds. Right now it is not that complicated to make a god ship for fighting everything, between good combat skills and good fitting skills. It also creates much more synergy between your fleet and your flagship; for example, a battleship will benefit much more from dedicated escort builds, since it's much more difficult to modify the battleship to the point that it can maneuver with the average enemy cruiser at a minimum. You do lose some flexibility in how far you can push particular ships, but this increases variety since ships will feel more explicitly different.
Nerfs suck! I can't really figure how this will make building ships more fun and satisfying now that I have to use fewer hullmods and lower grade weapons. But oh well, all in the name of balance, huh?
The loss of Optimized Assembly perk + only getting 10% OP boost from Tech is pretty damn brutal—gonna ruin pretty much all my favorite builds. Yes, I'll have to think of new ones now, but they'll all obviously be less powerful and I won't soon forget that!I agree. It is not more satisfying building ships with crushing OP shortage. That was why I welcomed more OP and speed (from skills) with open arms in 0.54. It also means I did not need all battleship or all carrier and fighter fleets in 0.53. For fighting, smaller ships could compete better.
Nerfs suck! I can't really figure how this will make building ships more fun and satisfying now that I have to use fewer hullmods and lower grade weapons. But oh well, all in the name of balance, huh?
The loss of Optimized Assembly perk + only getting 10% OP boost from Tech is pretty damn brutal—gonna ruin pretty much all my favorite builds. Yes, I'll have to think of new ones now, but they'll all obviously be less powerful and I won't soon forget that!yeah, nerfs aren't fun, but having 30% more OP, even without the reduced weapon cost perk, is a huge advantage, which causes some pretty serious issues:
Nerfs suck! I can't really figure how this will make building ships more fun and satisfying now that I have to use fewer hullmods and lower grade weapons. But oh well, all in the name of balance, huh?
I have experimented with the current options and slow juggernaut that has massive frontal firepower while very effective is just boring for me(same with fleet swarms). I have found that glass cannon is what feels best for me since it lets me be active much more often. If I could I would strip away all my armor form the Conquest to make it go faster if I could.i quite like glass-cannon builds as well. but when it's rather easy to make a loadout that can keep firing at enemies without giving them much chance to shoot back (because they have neither the firing range nor the speed required to do so) then all other loadouts quickly become suboptimal. it's understandable that it's frustrating when your preferred playstyle is the one getting hit with the nerf-bat, but it's because right now that playstyle is pretty much just the best one. so for all players who do not prefer kiting at long range over all other playstyles, this should hopefully make their preferred ones more viable.
there's some ships clearly designed with that in mind like the destroyer (?) with the fortress shield.the Monitor, yes. it's a frigate, but it can tank ridiculous amounts of damage with the Fortress Shield and unique hullmod. doesn't have any noteworthy firepower, but it's got good built-in PD, and if you put two Ion Cannons on it, enemies can't easily ignore it. i quite like using a couple of them in vanilla fleets.
Well that certainly encouraging. :) I kinda wonder what that means, though. When you say you're making soloing weaker and fleet actions stronger (that's what this boils down to, correct me if I'm wrong), does that mean it's more difficult/longer to get to the point where you can solo everything? Or do you actually lower the ceiling of what's possible to solo? Because the blog post kinda reads like you're doing the latter. I don't mind taking a longer route as long as I get to where I want to go, but not being able to reach my destination at all, that I wouldn't be happy about.
I mean, there's already a ceiling to how much you can do solo, and it's already lower than what you can do with a fleet. Toning down skills is going to lower that ceiling some, that's just unavoidable, regardless of the details of how they're toned down. I'd also like to note that "being able to win the hardest battles solo" is not a design goal and never was - however, that's very different from whether soloing is a viable way to play or not.
But there's no real endgame, still, so it's hard to really talk about with specifics. Suppose there are ways to "win" the game - is taking on the hardest combat challenge necessary to win? What exactly does winning mean? Etc. Flying solo or with a small fleet has plenty of natural advantages - cheaper, sneakier. If it also gives you the same amount of power as running a large fleet, it'd be pretty broken, wouldn't it? But again the question is, why are you fighting? Probably because of some larger goal. If there are other ways to accomplish that goal that don't involve taking on the biggest enemies all at the same time, and that running a small fleet facilitates, then that's another possibility.
i quite like glass-cannon builds as well. but when it's rather easy to make a loadout that can keep firing at enemies without giving them much chance to shoot back (because they have neither the firing range nor the speed required to do so) then all other loadouts quickly become suboptimal. it's understandable that it's frustrating when your preferred playstyle is the one getting hit with the nerf-bat, but it's because right now that playstyle is pretty much just the best one. so for all players who do not prefer kiting at long range over all other playstyles, this should hopefully make their preferred ones more viable.Glass cannon with range is not the most efficient path and hardly the must have. As I mentioned I have tried different options.
and it's not like the goal is to make the glass-cannon with long range builds unusable. the goal is to make that build one of several, close-to-equally powerful choices. :]
The one concern I have with reducing the ordnance point bonuses is that it takes certain builds out of the running entirely; the most obvious example of this being the plasma cannon Sunder. Without maxed skills, it just doesn't work. With maxed skills... it only barely works.
So removing glass cannons to "encourage" players to play slow builds is silly, considering all playstyles did well in the Singleplayer game.but glasscannon builds aren't getting "removed". you can still have a glasscannon with long range, just less speed. and you can still have a glasscannon with high speed (even it's not as high anymore), at the cost of range.
Instead if you feel the playstyle is too powerful increase the penalties on the play style, make the cannon more glass, rather than removing it's strengths such as mobility, range, firepower.that wouldn't change much. if the balance problem is that the combination of long range and high speed allows you to kill enemies without giving them the chance to retaliate, how would a more fragile ship solve it? the issue is that this build allows you to almost completely avoid taking any damage in the first place.
That's just a minor point, though, I want to mainly talk about the question you posed. "Why are you fighting?" Because it's fun. The battles are the meat of the game, everything else is there just as filler between the fun bits. I'm sure it stings a bit to hear it put so bluntly, but that's how it is. The number of weapons, ships, hull mods, loadouts, fleet combinations, and combat situations the player can encounter in battles makes for an incredibly varied and fun experience. The overworld gameplay can't ever hope to match that, it will always be less complex and less exciting.
... and grinding the menus to replace the losses. ...
I am kinda worried about the skill cap. I have always disliked when games put limits on your possible progression. I find such limits demotivating.
I am worried what it will mean for combat-oriented player. The goal is usually to become as powerful in combat as possible.
Which means having as much combat skills unlocked as possible. Which means neglecting non-combat skills, not because they would delay progression in combat skills, but because they would make combat skill progression unachievable once you reach the skill cap. Which means possible chosing to miss other features of the game (like exploration). So yeah demotivating.
Imho it would be much better if there was a soft limit on skills. rather than hard limit. The required experience could grow exponentially after a certain point, making further progression very slow, but not impossible, giving late-game player still something left to achieve.
Other than that, great news!
but glasscannon builds aren't getting "removed". you can still have a glasscannon with long range, just less speed. and you can still have a glasscannon with high speed (even it's not as high anymore), at the cost of range.So you only nerfed the speed, and the range(and possibly damage based on the fact there is less OP to use). I mean yeah if you consider blanket nerf across the board to the play style then yes, it's fine.
and i just don't agree that other playstyles are as powerful (for a player piloted flagship, not talking about AI) as the one that allows you to both outmaneuver and outrange most enemies. i'm not saying other playstyles aren't possible at all right now, far from it, but they are suboptimal. the most powerful loadouts for your flagship are the ones that allow you to kill enemies with impunity. other loadouts might kill quicker, but none of them are as good at taking out huge numbers of enemies of all types and sizes all by yourself.I didn't say other playstyles are as powerful. I said they are more powerful while being more slow and less engaging. I took on 4 flagships with that conquest in the video and soon after my combat readiness would start to drop and I would not get very far with it against the rest of the fleet. Consider the fact that I took a "slow, but powerful frontal fire" ship approach and ditched the conquest and the glass cannon build and I worked through almost all of the fleet available with another capital ship by just being slow and fighting things head on with overwhelming power and shields.
that wouldn't change much. if the balance problem is that the combination of long range and high speed allows you to kill enemies without giving them the chance to retaliate, how would a more fragile ship solve it? the issue is that this build allows you to almost completely avoid taking any damage in the first place.Oh yes, would you look at that, the conquest built for speed and range that has a high leveled player to boot, is out maneuvering the slowest ships in the game that don't have any back up(Any fight outside of the simulator has capital ships backed up by many smaller ships), don't have any officers or mods. Hmmm.
in that video of yours, even if your Conquest had literally 0 armor, you still wouldn't even have come anywhere close to dying. and, i'm sorry, but.. that's a problem. even if it's fun for you (and for lots of other players as well, i'm sure) it is still unbalanced.
But, in terms of what's fun - that makes sense, but I don't think it's measured in the total number of enemy ships you're taking on, so there probably isn't a direct relationship between a "lower ceiling of what you can take on" and "less fun". It might even be more fun to deal with a larger challenge instead of just sweeping it aside and then moving on to look for another one.
QuoteWhile I'm going to miss some of the loadouts, less OP is going to be better gameplay than more.Not so sure about that. I disliked how few OP I got in 0.53 (or in missions, which is why, among glacially slow pace, I refuse to play them), and when skills came, I could afford to put stuff on ships. More often than not, I left mounts empty because of too few OP. I can see totally dropping Graviton Beam for Tactical Laser just to save OP for stuff my ship really needs. Heavy Needler looks much less attractive than Heavy AC when OP is low.
The loss of Optimized Assembly perk + only getting 10% OP boost from Tech is pretty damn brutal—gonna ruin pretty much all my favorite builds. Yes, I'll have to think of new ones now, but they'll all obviously be less powerful and I won't soon forget that!
Nerfs suck! I can't really figure how this will make building ships more fun and satisfying now that I have to use fewer hullmods and lower grade weapons. But oh well, all in the name of balance, huh?
But, in terms of what's fun - that makes sense, but I don't think it's measured in the total number of enemy ships you're taking on, so there probably isn't a direct relationship between a "lower ceiling of what you can take on" and "less fun". It might even be more fun to deal with a larger challenge instead of just sweeping it aside and then moving on to look for another one.
I'm super happy that we're mostly on the same page, but the above really caught my eye. It made me realize there's one more reason why I prefer solo play. Not only does that playstyle have less downtime, I think there actually is a direct relationship between the total number of enemy ships that you're taking on and how much fun you're having. Blowing up enemy ships myself is huge fun, watching my AI sidekicks blow up enemy ships less so. If I'm alone, I fight all the enemies and therefore have all the fun. If I run a large fleet, my AI sidekicks get to have most of the fun... That's not to say that kind of thing can't be entertaining, I absolutely loved playing a necromancer in Diablo 2 and watching my army of 60 minions slaughter everything (and in fact I stopped playing D2 when they patched it to reduce the maximum number of minions). In Starfarer, though, the actual combat gameplay is so good that just sitting back, watching the map, and coordinating AI units kinda feels like a waste of a great space shooter.
I think there actually is a direct relationship between the total number of enemy ships that you're taking on and how much fun you're having. Blowing up enemy ships myself is huge fun, watching my AI sidekicks blow up enemy ships less so. If I'm alone, I fight all the enemies and therefore have all the fun. If I run a large fleet, my AI sidekicks get to have most of the fun...
Question: The OP boost for all ships, was the hammerhead OP boost figured in before the across the board increase in OPs?
You listed it as getting a 5 OP boost so I take it that was before the revamp?Question: The OP boost for all ships, was the hammerhead OP boost figured in before the across the board increase in OPs?
Haven't gone through and done it yet, so not sure. Going to do every ship on an individual basis, at least to some degree.
You listed it as getting a 5 OP boost so I take it that was before the revamp?
To me that sounds like the ideal place for ship design to be: you have to make choices. If you have very high OP you can just stuff all the best stuff on.I made those so-called choices before on unskilled ships, and they were not fun. Not being able to fill every mount on many ships. Missiles were almost always left empty. (It did not help back then that most missiles were too slow and easily stopped before 0.65.) Even today with +30% OP and Optimized Assembly, some ships still have difficulty affording everything. Hammerhead certainly cannot, at least not enough to compete with Enforcer, who can afford just about everything. If player gets Flux Dynamics 10 and wants double max vents, he is very OP hungry and something will likely get sacrificed to get double vents.
I don't think 10% OP vs 30% OP is going to ruin gameplay.Not just 10% vs 30%, but 10% and no Optimized Assembly vs. 30% plus Optimized Assembly. (Optimized Assembly freed a significant chunk of OP.) Unless ships have a higher baseline OP than now, it is a severe OP cut to almost no-skill level (where you cannot afford enough unless you are Onslaught or Paragon).
I don't think it's even clear-cut at that point. It really depends on the tactical situation - turning around to burn could be suicide or it could be acceptable damage in exchange for getting away.
Was thinking about this while driving today; got an idea that I think might work without needing to recognize the difference. Something like a "Retreat Waypoint" task you can give instead of ordering a retreat (better name, perhaps?) where if a ship is assigned to it, it'll go there and then automatically engage the normal retreat behavior when it reaches it. Or, you can order it to retreat immediately.
So that way there's a choice about what you want done. The UI flow is not super great - click to create waypoint, press shortcut to make it a "retreat waypoint", select ship and then right-click on the waypoint to give the order. Gets better if you reuse the same waypoint, though, and does cover most of the bases mechanically - only one command point spent, gives choice of behavior, doesn't require further babysitting. I think I like this, made a note to take a look. If it's not too involved will probably code it up.
I didn't say other playstyles are as powerful. I said they are more powerful while being more slow and less engaging.(first of all, i'm not sure if that was a misunderstanding or just your way of writing, but just in case: since you keep saying "you only nerfed the speed", "you are watering down the playstyle", etc i feel i need to point out that i'm not in any way involved in the development of this game, aside from posting suggestions on this forum. i'm just another random player, same as you. :))
I took on 4 flagships with that conquest in the video and soon after my combat readiness would start to drop and I would not get very far with it against the rest of the fleet.yeah, because that Conquest of yours only has 300 seconds of peak performance, for some reason. i assume you put the Maximized Ordnance hullmod on? that hullmod is part of the Ship & Weapon Pack mod, it doesn't exist in vanilla. vanilla PPT of Conquest is 600 seconds, or 900 with Hardened Subsystems. the fight in your video lasted 266 seconds. you can also retreat at any point and re-engage, losing only 15% CR each time, if you didn't take any hull damage. so at 100% CR, you can do that 5 times before you start getting into malfunction range. 5 * 900 = 4500 seconds, or 75 minutes of non-stop fighting. and it's not like that Maximized Ordnance is required for a build similar to (even if not the exact same as) the one in your video. so no, CR is not an inherent issue with capital ship speed&range glasscannon builds. :P
Oh yes, would you look at that, the conquest built for speed and range that has a high leveled player to boot, is out maneuvering the slowest ships in the game that don't have any back up(Any fight outside of the simulator has capital ships backed up by many smaller ships), don't have any officers or mods. Hmmm.with 90-190 (140 for most of the fight) speed, you're gonna outmaneuver anything larger than a frigate, not just "the slowest ships in the game". the fastest vanilla ship that isn't a frigate is Medusa, with a base max speed of 100 + Phase Skimmer ship system. the Burn Drive system provides a lot of speed to some otherwise slow ships, but not in a way that is well suited to geting close to a fast-kiting enemy, and it disables shields while active, making the ship very vulnerable for the duration.
I like how you just look at a situation and say "clearly this is op, look at the ease at which this was done" you don't even stop to consider the context of the situation, not why it was easy, how often this situation would pop up in the actual game, lastly and more importantly how under same circumstances other tactics would perform.
I bet you would look at these webms and consider this as proof that missiles are OP as well http://webmshare.com/DmP3V http://webmshare.com/WJynD, because clearly a destroyer grade ship should never be able to take down a capital ship.... that's a problem. Let's not ask how or why it was able to do it, or if this could be done consistently or maybe how often this would happen in a real game and not a simulator.this is kinda besides the point, but: yes, actually. i do think that these webms point to there being a balance issue with those missiles. not because these exact scenarios happen in a campaign game, i'm well aware that they don't. but because what is shown is so over-the-top powerful, that it shows there's a potential problem with how these missiles combine with the missile skill. which, as it happens, is getting nerfed as well in 0.8. that Reaper spam won't be doable anymore, that Harpoon spam will also be less crazy, and i know that many mod authors (who've spent hundreds and even thousands of hours on playing, modding and balancing this game) are of the opinion that Harpoons really are in a problematic spot balance-wise, especially when combined with the current missile skill.
There is plenty of ways to punish a high speed, high range ships that doesn't effect the main gameplay. Ships could do less damage, have a shorter deployment time, take more damage, take far more engine damage with longer flameouts or other effects.kinda repeating myself here, but i just disagree. if the combination of high speed and high range is the problem, changing everything except the speed and range will not fix said problem. reducing the damage you deal would only make this playstyle more boring, not more challenging. shorter PPT would have to be a massive change (something like reducing it by 90% or more!) to have any meaningful impact. being far more vulnerable to damage, again, is pointless when the main issue is that you can avoid almost all damage in the first place.
CR is not an inherent issue with capital ship speed&range glasscannon builds.It is for a solo capital against a sufficiently large fleet. Time is not on a sniping Conquest's side if it attempts to solo the simulator or equivalent. It takes about fifteen minutes, maybe more or less, for a capital to solo a simulator. Perhaps even more so in 0.72 since enemy ships can kite your ship if they cannot surround or overwhelm your ship.
Time is not on a sniping Conquest's side if it attempts to solo the simulator or equivalent.yeah, because you only have one battle to do it. but there are no standalone missions with that many enemies, and in the campaign you can easily just retreat and immediately re-engage (several times, if you want to) to reset the timer, assuming you didn't take a lot of hull damage.
Time is not on a sniping Conquest's side if it attempts to solo the simulator or equivalent.yeah, because you only have one battle to do it. but there are no standalone missions with that many enemies, and in the campaign you can easily just retreat and immediately re-engage (several times, if you want to) to reset the timer, assuming you didn't take a lot of hull damage.
I think there actually is a direct relationship between the total number of enemy ships that you're taking on and how much fun you're having. Blowing up enemy ships myself is huge fun, watching my AI sidekicks blow up enemy ships less so. If I'm alone, I fight all the enemies and therefore have all the fun. If I run a large fleet, my AI sidekicks get to have most of the fun...
I can see that - it's subjective, for sure, but I can definitely see that. But! Is it really about the number of ships you blow up? E.G. if you spend 15 minutes taking down, I don't know, 20 enemy ships, vs spending the same 15 minutes taking down 10 ships, that's not necessarily less fun. Either one of those could be a boring slog or a tense, tactical fight - it just entirely depends on how that plays.
I could easily see the smaller fight being more fun if, for example, the ships in the larger fight blow up too quickly for it to be satisfying. This is of course heavily subjective. For me, personally, maxed-out combat feels a bit too fast, and I'd like to pull it back to where it's more tactical, especially in larger ships. I definitely don't want a slog, but, again, what that means is subjective.
I think I saw Alex mention a higher baseline, but I couldn't find it when I went back for it.I don't think 10% OP vs 30% OP is going to ruin gameplay.Not just 10% vs 30%, but 10% and no Optimized Assembly vs. 30% plus Optimized Assembly. (Optimized Assembly freed a significant chunk of OP.) Unless ships have a higher baseline OP than now, it is a severe OP cut to almost no-skill level (where you cannot afford enough unless you are Onslaught or Paragon).
i'm just another random player, same as you. :))I know.
right. i still disagree with the "more powerful" part. they kill quicker, yes. but they have to put themselves in a bit of danger as a return. if you go against a large fleet with a single slow Onslaught (and don't exploit the edge of the map, which is an issue) you're gonna get surrounded and killed. a Conquest that can kite at 90-190 speed with ~2k range can just stay out of danger, even against a large number of enemies.As I said, with enough fire power and sane positioning you just chew through a lot of the things trying to surround you, the AI isn't that good.
yeah, because that Conquest of yours only has 300 seconds of peak performance, for some reason. i assume you put the Maximized Ordnance hullmod on? that hullmod is part of the Ship & Weapon Pack mod, it doesn't exist in vanilla. vanilla PPT of Conquest is 600 seconds, or 900 with Hardened Subsystems. the fight in your video lasted 266 seconds. you can also retreat at any point and re-engage, losing only 15% CR each time, if you didn't take any hull damage. so at 100% CR, you can do that 5 times before you start getting into malfunction range. 5 * 900 = 4500 seconds, or 75 minutes of non-stop fighting. and it's not like that Maximized Ordnance is required for a build similar to (even if not the exact same as) the one in your video. so no, CR is not an inherent issue with capital ship speed&range glasscannon builds. :PI play without retreating to magically refill your peak operating time, what you just mentioned is nearing exploit levels of cheating the system. You have one fight and you fight to the death(unless you never initiated the fight and were trying to run away to begin with).
with 90-190 (140 for most of the fight) speed, you're gonna outmaneuver anything larger than a frigate, not just "the slowest ships in the game". the fastest vanilla ship that isn't a frigate is Medusa, with a base max speed of 100 + Phase Skimmer ship system. the Burn Drive system provides a lot of speed to some otherwise slow ships, but not in a way that is well suited to geting close to a fast-kiting enemy, and it disables shields while active, making the ship very vulnerable for the duration.Oh yeah, okay, so if I run my conquest point blank into the other capital ships and my shields or armor can't withstand their damage output(other ships strengths), does that mean that armor and OP of other ships needs to be nerfed? I mean even without mods, those other ships have better shields or armor.
if they happen to have officers with maxed out Helmsmanship, some destroyers might be able to keep up, but that's it. and keep in mind, with the upcoming nerfs to your hullmods and skills, the enemy's hullmods and officer skills will be nerfed in the same way. so i don't see how the fact that you have the speed skill and hullmods in that video while the enemy doesn't is an argument that said speed skill and hullmods do not need a nerf? if anything, i'd actually say it demonstrates quite well why they do need a nerf, because the difference between having and not having them has too much of an impact.
this is kinda besides the point, but: yes, actually. i do think that these webms point to there being a balance issue with those missiles. not because these exact scenarios happen in a campaign game, i'm well aware that they don't. but because what is shown is so over-the-top powerful, that it shows there's a potential problem with how these missiles combine with the missile skill. which, as it happens, is getting nerfed as well in 0.8. that Reaper spam won't be doable anymore, that Harpoon spam will also be less crazy, and i know that many mod authors (who've spent hundreds and even thousands of hours on playing, modding and balancing this game) are of the opinion that Harpoons really are in a problematic spot balance-wise, especially when combined with the current missile skill.So let's ignore the fact that the officer was picked for their missile skills, or the fact that the enforcer was geared for this one shot attack on the capital ship and that if it miss-times or aims the burndrive wrong it can't out maneuver it with such ease, or the fact that it was on easy difficulty. Or with the hammerhead, the fact that the missiles were hitting the ship right as it was in burn drive and thus no shields, or the fact again, it was on easy difficulty and this situation would very very rarely play out in a real battle. But no, the potential for awesome moments or "all or nothing" ships is just Too over powered in your mind such things should not only be extremely rare, but actually impossible and until we nerf it to that point it's just too unbalanced in a single player game to have fun.
kinda repeating myself here, but i just disagree. if the combination of high speed and high range is the problem, changing everything except the speed and range will not fix said problem. reducing the damage you deal would only make this playstyle more boring, not more challenging. shorter PPT would have to be a massive change (something like reducing it by 90% or more!) to have any meaningful impact. being far more vulnerable to damage, again, is pointless when the main issue is that you can avoid almost all damage in the first place.Again disagree 90% reduction is overkill unless you plan to retreat all the time to replenish it, as I said earlier on, that should be removed and having your PPT restore fully only if you have fully recovered CP.
i feel we're going in circles a bit here, so i'd rather not continue this argument much further.But why, we are having such a lovely time arguing.
and, look.. i get that you're frustrated. i get that having your favorite playstyle nerfed isn't fun. honestly, that is 100% understandable. but, personally, i genuinely believe that these changes will be positive for the game as a whole.Maybe, maybe not, I trust Alex has some kind of idea going and hopefully everything falls into place, I am just listing my main concerns sooner, rather than later.
I think I saw Alex mention a higher baseline, but I couldn't find it when I went back for it.I don't think 10% OP vs 30% OP is going to ruin gameplay.Not just 10% vs 30%, but 10% and no Optimized Assembly vs. 30% plus Optimized Assembly. (Optimized Assembly freed a significant chunk of OP.) Unless ships have a higher baseline OP than now, it is a severe OP cut to almost no-skill level (where you cannot afford enough unless you are Onslaught or Paragon).
A side note here – previously, Technology granted a 30% bonus to ordnance points available on each ship to equip weapons, hullmods, etc. This was rather extreme and very “must-get”, more so because enemy ships didn’t have access to this bonus. Now, the maximum bonus is down to 10%, but the base ordnance points of ships will go up some as well – keeping the total maximum points reduced slightly, but more importantly reducing the point difference between your and enemy ships.
Oh yeah, okay, so if I run my conquest point blank into the other capital ships and my shields or armor can't withstand their damage output(other ships strengths), does that mean that armor and OP of other ships needs to be nerfed? I mean even without mods, those other ships have better shields or armor.What's that got to do with anything? No, seriously. Conquests don't need to be faster than Medusas to outmaneuver other BBs, and if anything their relative advantage will be more pronounced when you can't amp up ship's speed as far.
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The total OP for a fully-skilled character will be less than it is currently, but base OP is being increased somewhat to compensate, as the stated goal is to narrow the difference between ships with and without the skill as it is to reduce the raw power of ships.
It's definitely not a perfect solution, but as far as simplest-possible-first-implementations go it provides a substantial improvement for every ship without burn drive while at least leaving those that have it no worse off.
AI wise, I guess retreat behavior could be part of the code for the ship system? Presumably they all come with instructions to begin with, so it wouldn't be fundamentally adding a new AI behavior or something.
I believe you when you say teaching the AI how to use it intelligently is a significant challenge, though is it really that much more difficult than teaching it how to Vent?
You're absolutely right, how fun a fight is depends on what specific ships are involved and how those engagements play out. The actual number doesn't really matter as such, the point is it's huge fun to fight outnumbered. Being the underdog and coming out on top? Boy does that feel good!
But, like I said earlier, you can't really do that with a small fleet, you have to go solo. It's more tactical and difficult than you might think. Positioning and situational awareness are key, you have to carefully manage your flux, you have to choose which enemies to blow up quickly as they arrive and which to 'juggle' by making them back off to vent and repair. Now this playstyle wouldn't be possible if the AI was smart enough to just mob the solo ship instead of going in one by one, but it isn't (thankfully!). The problem is that the very same AI that can be exploited to destroy enemy fleets piecemeal also means that your own fleets get picked apart by the enemy, because they're not smart enough to not go in one by one either. Since AI can't keep itself from getting overwhelmed when outnumbered like the player can, killing a large enemy fleet without suffering significant losses yourself requires either using a solo ship and relying on your piloting skill or using a similarly sized fleet and relying on your numbers.
What's that got to do with anything? No, seriously. Conquests don't need to be faster than Medusas to outmaneuver other BBs, and if anything their relative advantage will be more pronounced when you can't amp up ship's speed as far.The point was that conquest main thing over other ships is it's speed and maneuverability, just like some have much better armor or better shields.
Conquests don't need to be faster than MedusasIt doesn't, but it feels nice. As I explained, I choose speed because it feels fun, not because I am desperate to win battles. I believe players having the freedom to sacrifice points into what ever playstyle they wish, is valid.
Hmm. I'll probably just add a "fighting retreat" order alongside the normal retreat.
Honestly, it seems a more difficult. Venting, you can assume that the ship is turning to maximize damage taken on armor, you can assume that its PD and shields aren't working, and you have a clear timeframe for when it stops being vulnerable. It's basically a calculation of "how much damage am I likely to absorb in this time window?" combined with "how much do I actually want to vent"? Not simple, but at least it's fairly easy to define what you're trying to figure out.
Turning to activate burn drive, man, that's rough. The ship is turning its vulnerable arc towards the enemy, there's engine damage and risk of flameout to consider, it's not utilizing armor as best it can, it may or may not be able to use its PD, the timeframe is more open-ended (not safe the second burn commences, but some time after - or maybe not at all), etc.
It's complicated to the point where I don't want to attempt it - it's guaranteed to mess up fairly frequently, and the price of a mistake is very likely to be the loss of the ship. Which is why in this case, I think predictable player-ordered behavior is the only workable answer.
Saying "well my slow ship that has better frontal firepower and better shields can't catch up to that heavily modded Conquest is silly, because you are expecting to get have both the strengths of slow captial ships while at the same time matching the biggest perk of the conquest.
There's also ongoing AI work to enable it to survive when facing larger number of enemies. It's quite capable of it, at least when it's using a faster ship - and more defensive officer skills will be another part of that puzzle. As will some currently REDACTED stuff.
I feel a sympathetic twinge pain every time you have to solve a problem with a new button on the UI
I should add though, that even using the GTFO command to make ships evacuate at best speed, for ships without directional mobility systems there's still no reason for them not to present their most durable facing to the enemy while retreating. Is that kind of binary distinction feasible? Sorry if I'm being stubborn about this, but I think I might be on a bit of a different page in terms of perspective. In my mind, the new idea you're discussing is the ordinary, default definition of retreat. In a world where ships have omnidirectional movement, there's just no reason for them to at least not present their shields while making for the exist. It's the current behavior that is the aberration, starting as a contrivance to convey information to the player and living on as an exception for the handful of ships that do have a reason to face their direction of travel. Essentially, you're not adding a new button to make ships retreat carefully; you're fixing the ordinary retreat behavior and then adding a new button so the players can tell the guy in the Tarsus to forget all that jazz and just to floor it.
Forgive me for arguing with the guy who makes the game about how he should think about his game.
That sounds really interesting,
... currently even speed-maxed Tempests tend to eventually (or even quite early) die against much slower opponents. There is no mechanical reason for that - without obvious mistakes they could kite at least till CR malfunction levels.
It's hard to say without seeing what you're talking about. It could just be that they're trying to engage and it's a fight they can't win - but that they could if they had more support nearby. Sometimes, even flying in enough to take a few shots - or even to start taking shield damage - is enough to take hull damage too, if the damage is bursty enough.
If you want a Tempest to avoid fighting more, there are a few tools: a timid officer, the "avoid" command, or, if it's a lone enemy ship, "harass".
The point was that conquest main thing over other ships is it's speed and maneuverability, just like some have much better armor or better shields.
It's kind of funny to see current state of Conquest presented as overpowered.i don't mean to continue this whole discussion, but it seems this here is a simple misunderstanding: i did not argue that Conquest is inherently too mobile, let alone overpowered in general. i do not think it is either of these things.
(since forward acceleration is better than backwards or sideways, sometimes considerably so)
You know, a lot of these changes are aimed at making the middle ground possible, as well - that is, making "outnumbered-but-not-solo" something that works better than it does now. Incidentally, I tend to go for that a fair bit already in my playthroughs, and it works well to a point - faster ships, equipped with long range or support weapons, it can be *really* fun stuff. I remember kitting out a Vigilance with an Ion Beam and a Salamander Pod, and it was great fighting alongside it. Never died (even when it was the only ally deployed vs a larger force) and caused an amazing amount of chaos. But that falls apart a little bit when high-level enemy officers come into play in numbers, or just when there's more and better enemy ships.
There's also ongoing AI work to enable it to survive when facing larger number of enemies. It's quite capable of it, at least when it's using a faster ship - and more defensive officer skills will be another part of that puzzle. As will some currently REDACTED stuff. What I'd love is if you could bring an ally into a tough fight - say, a friendly Enforcer - and then play around them, and have them survive provided you play it well. Which doesn't mean you couldn't solo the fight instead; I'd just imagine it would take a different set of skills and perhaps a different loadout.
The problem with retreating and reengaging, is you forfeit the loot, but not XP, from all ships you have killed so far before retreat. For example, you kill everyone except enemy Onslaught, retreat, reengage and kill Onslaught. You may get XP of all enemies killed, but you only get the loot from the Onslaught you killed. The loot from everyone else is lost.Time is not on a sniping Conquest's side if it attempts to solo the simulator or equivalent.yeah, because you only have one battle to do it. but there are no standalone missions with that many enemies, and in the campaign you can easily just retreat and immediately re-engage (several times, if you want to) to reset the timer, assuming you didn't take a lot of hull damage.
That sounds really interesting, currently even speed-maxed Tempests tend to eventually (or even quite early) die against much slower opponents. There is no mechanical reason for that - without obvious mistakes they could kite at least till CR malfunction levels.There is a reason: Tempest has terrible shot range (or beams that are hard-countered by shields). If your ship has the best speed in the game, but terrible shot range plus an imperfect shield, the ship, if it wants to attack, it will get shot back, and possibly take hits. I tried non-Hyperion frigates against elite Onslaught with Combat 10 in 0.65, too hard to win (I do not remember if I actually win such a matchup). Ship may be fast, but bullets are faster. At least Medusa could shield tank a bit and wait until Onslaught ran out of ammo. All of this is just one opponent. It gets worse with more.
Though I'm not sure why are officers strictly necessary. As long as you have >+50 speed over every enemy ship, you can only be caught in corner (unless enemy has ship system that effectively make them faster and you don't). At something like +100 speed you are simply impossible to catch or corner (except by Hyperion).
... Phase ships are so rare in campaign that I tend to forget they exist. So I guess they go in same category as Hyperion in terms of catching-ability.
That sounds really interesting, currently even speed-maxed Tempests tend to eventually (or even quite early) die against much slower opponents. There is no mechanical reason for that - without obvious mistakes they could kite at least till CR malfunction levels.There is a reason: Tempest has terrible shot range (or beams that are hard-countered by shields). If your ship has the best speed in the game, but terrible shot range plus an imperfect shield, the ship, if it wants to attack, it will get shot back, and possibly take hits. I tried non-Hyperion frigates against elite Onslaught with Combat 10 in 0.65, too hard to win (I do not remember if I actually win such a matchup). Ship may be fast, but bullets are faster. At least Medusa could shield tank a bit and wait until Onslaught ran out of ammo. All of this is just one opponent. It gets worse with more.
Though I'm not sure why are officers strictly necessary. As long as you have >+50 speed over every enemy ship, you can only be caught in corner (unless enemy has ship system that effectively make them faster and you don't). At something like +100 speed you are simply impossible to catch or corner (except by Hyperion).
... Phase ships are so rare in campaign that I tend to forget they exist. So I guess they go in same category as Hyperion in terms of catching-ability.
That's the thing, AI doesn't understand when approaching single or group target is suicide (in sense that no reliable getaway is possible). Of course perfect AI would just *know* when it should not approach, but that's hardly a reasonable expectation.
For single targets it can be mitigated by Avoid order. For groups the only thing that could help is Timid behavior - but it's too rigid and limited. Getting several Timid officers is a choice you have to commit to for the whole campaign, and it severely limits possible playstyles (Timids are mostly useless in *normal* fleet on fleet action, so I'm locked into chaining flagships with Timid distractions).
All of that sounds great, and I can't wait to see how the changes work in practice. I would absolutely love to run a small fleet of powerful ships that can take on huge swarms of enemies. That would mean having to spend only a small amount of time ordering them around, allowing the player to concentrate on the fun combat gameplay. It would mean having those underdog moments. It would also mean the player would care more about his ships. A smaller cast of characters (or ships) means you get more invested in and emotionally attached to them. All of those sound like good things to me, and if the next version goes in that direction, it's going to be amazing.
Hey, been waiting a long time for the skill overhaul, nice job, it looks much more rewarding than now.
One thing I'm still concerned about is the viability of frigate as a flagship in the endgame (not talking about soloing with one or more frigates here). I like the gameplay of most frigates the most, but I feel like I have to mod the game not to be penalized for using them. Frigates were a poor choice when skills were added, and a terrible one when CR was added. Why waste combat skills on a frigate, which is going to be deployed for a limited time, when you can afford capital ships ? Not to mention a player can do better than AI with any ship, and having more firepower emphasizes this. A capital ship as a flagship is much more efficient.
I've been thinking about it for some time, but can't come up with a better idea than having frigates with stats actually worth increasing through skills. The kind of frigate that would cost as much as a capital ship, in terms of buying price, maintenance and deployment points. Some mods do it, in an unbalanced way IMO. Other solution would be to add a skill that directly or undirectly favor frigates.
Right now all I do is mod a frigate of my choice to have about x10 maintenance and deploy point cost, and about twice as many ordnance points and deployment time. It seems fine in terms of balance since I get the same results in battle with it or with a capital. It seems to achieve what I want too: make most frigates viable, and doesn't change the way they're played too much. More OP always means better ships, but the issue with this is it's boring, as too many OP means less choices. I'm not sure it could be made into a true, balanced game mechanic.
What you're suggesting is, for a "committed retreat" in a ship without burn drive to still face towards the enemy as it pulls back. This seems binary at first glance, but, let's just think this through.
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"Evacuate at best speed" is the player making the call that yes, in this situation, you just need to go for it 100%. Overriding that decision is asking for trouble - after all, if the ship does not have a forward-mobility system, why did the player not just tell it to make a fighting retreat? The AI deciding to ignore that is making the decision that the player didn't mean something that they explicitly said they meant.
If i understand the skills correctly, CM and EW only give you a boost if you successfully capture Objective Points.
A heavy handed solution to the retreat issue would be to deactivate weapons on a retreating ship and give it 360° shields.
Perhaps naming-wise, it might make sense to also rename regular retreat as "Committed Retreat" or something like that.i think having two different retreat options sounds like a pretty decent solution, and yeah, i think both the new and the current order should have a more descriptive name to highlight the difference.
Man, coding AI is hard.
The whole Coordinated Maneuvers and Electronic Warfare change leaves me a bit dubious. Yes, it will definitely help against solo-ing, but i personally didn't considered solo-ing that much of an issue since the introduction of CR. I'm also a tad worried about it later on in the campaign, when the player finally reach the dreaded 25 ships limit.
Edit : I also realized that some of my worries were more or less answered in previous posts, that what i get for not reading the whole thread.
Someone who salvages is called a salvor, not a salvager. I demand this be changed or I'll make a whiny forums sig about it.
Objectives- what is their status now? You get to deploy them to specific locations yourself now? What determines how many/where they are?
The CM should mention telemetry and triangulation, not 'drive tuning.' No need for technobabble if there are real life reasons.
Objectives- what is their status now? You get to deploy them to specific locations yourself now? What determines how many/where they are?
It's been this way for a while - some patches ago, objective sprites got a lot smaller, the text that comes up when you capture an objective point talks about deploying a Nav Buoy or whatever, and the graphic that's there pre-capture is transparent.
The idea is your fleet deploys these at suitable locations on the battlefield, those locations being suitable for <handwave technobabble> reasons.
I guess what I am trying to say is depending how the game plays, you may want to use skills you may not want for your final build, but you may need them now to live, and wish you can get rid of them when they outlive their usefulness.
1) Regarding the skill ui, from the blog image I see that the Combat tree is fully decked out, can we add another skill via mods? Will there be a arrows to navigate right and left? Or will we need to change an existing skill in that tree? I know character points are limited and the options are more then overwhelming but considering that the cap be increased via mods will we be able to add new skills to a tree without removing exiting ones?
2) Weapon groups, can we get more of them :)? Some capital ships have a wide selection of weapons and for me at least 5 slots its usually not enough. What I like to do is keep slot 5 empty so I can switch to it from an auto firing slot and keep the slots weapon range overlay.
That way I can focus on maneuvers with the weapon ranges displayed and let the ai handle the firing, however this brings me down to 4 weapon slots and as on most ships 1 is always reserved for manual fire missiles and 1 for hardpoint weapons. The remaining 2 slots are not always enough to separate point defenses and other main weapons. Tho its probably not the best solution its the only workaround I know for having the weapon range displayed of a specific auto fire slot.
PS: Love the game, its been on a steady but worthwhile update track, thank you and good job :)
Hey since you guys talked about the AI retreat i would like to ask could the Lasher behave like a normal ship in stead of only following orders when explicitly told so. For instance the control and defend orders.
Could we have a hullmod that removes the shield or the active system and add a few OP.(i could think of one or another ship to put these ones)
As for the respec, there was another game I played a long time ago, City of Heroes, where it was common practice to respec your entire character once you hit the level cap. By that time, you knew what you wanted but because of early decisions (which were perfectly justifiable at the time), you couldn't quite reach your full potential. So you respec'd the character to get the abilities and "slots" all lined up so that you could maximize your build: which may be completely different from the same guy next to you though he is playing the same character. In SS, a max-level respec may be appropriate, perhaps if earned. It's not so much that you get a re-do but rather a way to refine what you were already doing if you made a "mistake" early on. It's also hard to gauge what you want in the early game because you have no idea what ships you'll end up with in the end and often your fleet make-up can determine your play style.
I guess what I am trying to say is depending how the game plays, you may want to use skills you may not want for your final build, but you may need them now to live, and wish you can get rid of them when they outlive their usefulness.
I suppose you've considered making them player deployable to a range of locations depending on ships, skills, etc? How about just eliminating them entirely? I don't know that they add all that much to the combat, now that you have these fleet skills and regenerating command points.
P.S. I know I haven't been here since the beginning but this feels like the most extensive patch to date. It's almost a new game at this point. This excites me to no end. :)
Being careful to design skills so that their bonuses - especially the level 3 ones - remain useful throughout and aren't just a "phase of the game" thing.i'm fine with not having a respec option in general, but one of the skills shown in the blogpost seems problematic to me: Strike Commander (in the first screenshot) does not give any bonus whatsoever if my flagship doesn't have flight decks. the hullmod that adds a single inferior flight deck allows to get some benefit from the skill, but iirc that flight deck is especially inferior to normal ones when it comes to using bombers (which is what the skills seems to focus on). not to mention that simply not every loadout will want to use that hullmod.
Another suggestion: what are your thoughts on giving Sabot SRMs the Salamander treatment?i quite like this idea!
Maybe those drawbacks can be lessened or removed with carrier skills?huh. yeah, i think that could work. still wouldn't make a difference for loadouts that just don't wanna spend the OP on fighters, but making the hullmod closer to a normal flight deck, or even requiring the skill to unlock such a hullmod in the first place, could help quite a bit. i think it's better than my two suggestions, at least! ^^
You can already make burst-damage builds, with several vessels having systems explicitly built for it; there's no need to slot missiles into doing that for every vessel.that's part of why i think it would be a good idea, though: Sabots already allow kinda ridiculous bursts that can kill small(ish) targets outright. and there's usually not much said target can do to avoid or counter this burst, unless it is mobile enough to just evade it entirely. the number of these bursts Sabots can do is limited by ammo, yes. but even if it can't be done an unlimited number of times, the potential power of such a burst is still an issue. and a ship with 2 medium Sabot Pods and Expanded Missile Racks can do 5 bursts of 8 Sabots each. Gryphon can do 10 burst of 12 Sabots each, and still have all its small slots free for other missiles. that's of course the most extreme example, but i think it still shows that there's an issue despite the ammo limitation.
Huh, it's hard to add a new weapon group? If I may ask to have my curiosity indulged, is this a UI thing, a code thing or both?2) Weapon groups, can we get more of them :)? Some capital ships have a wide selection of weapons and for me at least 5 slots its usually not enough. What I like to do is keep slot 5 empty so I can switch to it from an auto firing slot and keep the slots weapon range overlay.Honestly, probably not, though I get what you're saying. I might get around to adding one more but it's kind of a pain, so it being non-essential, priority is always going to be very low.
That way I can focus on maneuvers with the weapon ranges displayed and let the ai handle the firing, however this brings me down to 4 weapon slots and as on most ships 1 is always reserved for manual fire missiles and 1 for hardpoint weapons. The remaining 2 slots are not always enough to separate point defenses and other main weapons. Tho its probably not the best solution its the only workaround I know for having the weapon range displayed of a specific auto fire slot.
Hullmods that modify OP get weird because there's all sorts of edge cases about what to do when you remove them.The Ship & Weapon Pack hullmod that adds OP readds itself if it was present before and the player takes it off after making use of its added OP (thereby putting themselves over the limit). A vanilla implementation would presumably just not allow removing the hullmod if it would drop max OP below current OP (possibly with warning message), the inverse of not being able to add a weapon, hullmod or vent/cap if it would go over the limit.
If Sabot got Salamanderized it could have it stats configured to behave like a ballistic weapon that happens to go into missile mounts. This would remove the need for certain annoying traits it has at present, like "cleaves right through frigate armor" and "moves so fast it's practically teleporting" (aside from preventing counterplay, it also looks rather... can't-take-seriously).
Hullmods that modify OP get weird because there's all sorts of edge cases about what to do when you remove them.The Ship & Weapon Pack hullmod that adds OP readds itself if it was present before and the player takes it off after making use of its added OP (thereby putting themselves over the limit). A vanilla implementation would presumably just not allow removing the hullmod if it would drop max OP below current OP (possibly with warning message), the inverse of not being able to add a weapon, hullmod or vent/cap if it would go over the limit.
The failure case that occurred to me (other than newbies briefly wondering why they can't take off the hullmod) is when a variant in a mission has over-limit OP and the player could accidentally install a +OP hullmod that ends up giving them drawbacks for no benefit. But this can only normally happen in missions (where it can be fixed by the Reset button) and the same thing can already occur if they remove stuff and can't put it back on.
i'm fine with not having a respec option in general, but one of the skills shown in the blogpost seems problematic to me: Strike Commander (in the first screenshot) does not give any bonus whatsoever if my flagship doesn't have flight decks. the hullmod that adds a single inferior flight deck allows to get some benefit from the skill, but iirc that flight deck is especially inferior to normal ones when it comes to using bombers (which is what the skills seems to focus on). not to mention that simply not every loadout will want to use that hullmod.
so investing into a skill that will become completely useless if i ever switch to a flagship that doesn't use fighters doesn't seem fun, even if the skill is quite good for when i do pilot ships with fighters. other skills that increase the combat power of the flagship will have at least a small benefit even for dedicated carriers (i assume). a missile skill might not do anything for a ship that doesn't use any missiles, but there are a looot more ships without a flight deck than ones that don't have a single missile mount. ^^
i do like the idea of being able to specialize into piloting carriers though, so i don't really know a good way to solve this. :/
maybe it could be a hybrid skill that gives fighter bonuses to ships with in-built flight decks, and other bonuses to ships without them? not at all ideal, but at least it would prevent feeling like 3 skillpoints are completely wasted whenever i switch to a fighter-less flagship. or fighter skills could include both decent bonuses for flagship carriers and small bonuses for all other carriers in the fleet, rather than being split into flagship-exclusive and fleet-wide skills.. although that would somewhat go against being able to specialize into carrier flagships in particular, even if those get stronger bonuses than the rest of the fleet.
Maybe those drawbacks can be lessened or removed with carrier skills?huh. yeah, i think that could work. still wouldn't make a difference for loadouts that just don't wanna spend the OP on fighters, but making the hullmod closer to a normal flight deck, or even requiring the skill to unlock such a hullmod in the first place, could help quite a bit. i think it's better than my two suggestions, at least! ^^
Huh, it's hard to add a new weapon group? If I may ask to have my curiosity indulged, is this a UI thing, a code thing or both?
The Ship & Weapon Pack hullmod that adds OP readds itself if it was present before and the player takes it off after making use of its added OP (thereby putting themselves over the limit). A vanilla implementation would presumably just not allow removing the hullmod if it would drop max OP below current OP (possibly with warning message), the inverse of not being able to add a weapon, hullmod or vent/cap if it would go over the limit.
The failure case that occurred to me (other than newbies briefly wondering why they can't take off the hullmod) is when a variant in a mission has over-limit OP and the player could accidentally install a +OP hullmod that ends up giving them drawbacks for no benefit. But this can only normally happen in missions (where it can be fixed by the Reset button) and the same thing can already occur if they remove stuff and can't put it back on.
... might also have to add a few more carriers along the way, to make this more appealing.i'd love to see more carrier options in general! :]
Although, I doubt that having one fighter bay on a battleship would be consolation enough for 9 point spent.right, it wouldn't actually make a big difference. but just in general, the difference between "only very minor benefit for what i'm using now, compared to other skills that would be much more effective" still just feels a lot better (to me) than "literally 0 benefit for what i'm using now, might as well not have spent those 3 points at all".
i'd love to see more carrier options in general! :]
in particular, i think it would be a good idea to have another option besides Condor in the destroyer category, something better suited for flagship duty and maybe more high-techy, especially since Gemini is becoming an actual freighter hybrid. and Odyssey is currently the only real combat-carrier hybrid (Mora and Heron might be able to fight at the front line, but they still rely almost entirely on their fighters to do damage), which is a role that will become a lot more interesting to play with the revamp, i think.
right, it wouldn't actually make a big difference. but just in general, the difference between "only very minor benefit for what i'm using now, compared to other skills that would be much more effective" still just feels a lot better (to me) than "literally 0 benefit for what i'm using now, might as well not have spent those 3 points at all".
In my mind, "piloting a carrier" is going to be a pretty specialized thing that you'll want to stick with for an entire playthrough.
Waaa, I wanna try that now!same :D
About half the point of objectives is to help spread larger battles out a bit. It gets too crowded otherwise.
Hmm, you guys actually have issues with Sabots? I guess I can see them being an issue for ships with < 600 armor but anything higher than that mostly laughs at them. Heh, high tech ships laugh at Harpoons and shield tank'em, low tech laughs at Sabots and armor tanks'em!In fleet battles, I have more problems with Harpoons than other missiles because they are ubiquitous, and as soon as a ship gets high flux, the enemy launches a Harpoon storm at it. If one of them has max Missile Specialization, you can kiss that ship goodbye!
Plus it's so hard to envision what you mean by new combat playstyle... RTS style building of disposable drone ships or something?
Ahh, :-X. I want so badly to talk about it, but no.
But serious guess? In combat turrets and other supportive emplacements.
hundreds of planets in a game, I don't think you can really be done with surveying.I won't be so sure about that, though...