I held my breath until the you can “restore” a ship to peak condition bit.
What happens when a several times over rescued ship has all d-mods already on it? Is it just non-recoverable from then on? Does it just stay there?
Autofit! Does that imply procedural variants on ships generated in the campaign as well?
So, have you ever considered giving players in-gameplay ways of increasing their ability to capture ships? Using things like EMP weapons to disable it before/instead of killing it; it would be time-consuming and tactically not very viable (as other ships can come in to assist before you're done) but if you're clever enough or simply have the overwhelming firepower to do so it would allow you to more easily secure ships.
If boarding is gone, are marines gonna just be another commodity for now (a few things current hint at ground/station based ops), or are they kaput entirely?I'm 99% sure that boarding is still in the game
Very interesting, but I already maxed out my "looking forward to play this update" already... Oo
I have a couple of questions though:
Does construction rigs have any role regarding recovering ships during the battle? Or do they just stand back in a corner?
And how does the variant auto outfit manages mods? If weapons have to mention what they are upgrade or downgrade of, it could represent several hundreds of weapons to check with all the currently active mods. What kind of tags can we expect to have?
This is going to be... Interesting to do a D sprite version of every single ship in mods.
If boarding is gone, are marines gonna just be another commodity for now (a few things current hint at ground/station based ops), or are they kaput entirely?
What are the stats on the new D-mods anyhow? I mean, currently, its something like 30-50% reduction in whatever it effects. Guessing a 10-20%?
Will you be able to remove the (D) hullmods from Luddic Path ships? If so, I would be willing to spend the credits and turn them into front line ships to hold the enemy back before my main fleet makes it to the middle of the map.
I'm 99% sure that boarding is still in the game
Wow, no more boarding is a surprise!
Oh and does SS now only use the generated D sprites or does it use the old, already made sprites? If it uses already made sprites then what about the new ships? Do they have new D sprites?
If you repair a (for example) pirate (d) hound would it keep the pirate sprite or would it change to a normal hound sprite.Heh, I remember making a custom wolf ship that used the red pirate wolf sprite
I would love to make a pirate fleet that doesn't have all the (d)ownsides. ;)
If you repair a (for example) pirate (d) hound would it keep the pirate sprite or would it change to a normal hound sprite.
I would love to make a pirate fleet that doesn't have all the (d)ownsides. ;)
As for construction rig ideas, if you haven't already thought of this, you could have them reduce the chance of d-mods when recovering, or even allow you to remove them outside of port. Actually, I think an interesting mechanic is where construction rigs could consume supplies to remove d-mods over time, like how your ships repair automatically. Having more rigs supports "de-downgrading" more ships at the same time.
Hm. So if you grab a D-class Sunder, the central energy slot is stuck at medium size, isn't it?
Autofit! Does that imply procedural variants on ships generated in the campaign as well?
Not for this release, but there's definitely the potential for it. Performance-wise, it's probably not good enough to do for every ship being created, so would have to be a bit more clever (e.g. outfit enemy ships when you encounter them), etc.
Performance being an issue is strange to me. Dynasector's variant creator is by no means particularly well-optimized and it can handle even the worst spawning habits in the 0.7 campaign. A lot of the trick is that it does a bunch of legwork at init, storing coefficients for all sorts of things in memory based on the calculations made then. The actual outfitter just uses these coefficients in the end as part of its random picker. It's O(n*m) where n is the number of slots and m is the number of weapons that can fit into each slot for that faction.
It also works similarly to your outfitter; I've essentially got a set of tags and faction-dependent weights for each weapon, and efficacy is sorted by OP and tier. It doesn't try to match a specific variant, but it does try to fit a general theme/archetype and uses existing variants as raw data for coefficients (namely which roles to use in which slots).
Beyond that, there are a lot of assumptions that can be made when spawning variants from scratch, since limited supply of objects is not a factor.
d-mods reduce the amount of supplies it takes a ship to recover combat readiness lost from being deployed in battle
But if you, say, recover a normal non-(D) Hound, it'll be a Hound (D) with the same sprite as a regular Hound.
If you repair a (for example) pirate (d) hound would it keep the pirate sprite or would it change to a normal hound sprite.
I would love to make a pirate fleet that doesn't have all the (d)ownsides. ;)
It keeps the pirate sprite. On a related note, if you restore the pirate Wolf, it does *not* get its two missing turrets back. The flipside of this is the restored Mudskipper Mk.2 gets to keep its large weapon mount.Hm. So if you grab a D-class Sunder, the central energy slot is stuck at medium size, isn't it?
Only if it started out as a (D)-class Sunder using that custom skin. If the Sunder started the battle as a regular Sunder, you'll get a different (D)-class with a large weapon mount.
If I'm reading this correctly, there is still a significant RNG component to recovering ships: skewing much more favorably for the player if it's a.) for his/her own fleet ships being recovered and/or b.) if you invest in the specific Industry skills. I noticed that "base chance" is X (numbers may get tweaked) but is that across all ships or do certain hulls or classes of ships have modifiers to that base chance? I.e. a frigate is "easier" to recover than a destroyer (or vice versa) or a phase ship is harder to recover, etc.?
I'm curious if during your play testing if "zerging" larger/better equipped fleets with tons of chaff ships is viable. Perhaps through attrition and re-deployments. It also begs the question if the 25 ship limit affects this kind of play style. I guess it also makes credits more valuable because recovering/fixing ships won't be cheap. This change has a lot of meta-gameplay implications!
Out of curiosity, does Reinforced Bulkheads continue to give +50% hull or has that been removed now that it's a "get out of jail free" card for ships?
Oddly specific wording, does the game now differentiate between battle and environmental CR loss?
How about applying some of the visual damage layer to it permanently? You know, like the weapon impact craters and such. Maybe with some new textures that look more like rust, use and repairs. That would give (D) variants more individuality and would be nice for mod ships, too.
Spontaneous idea: Certain ships (e.g. passenger liner) can "cost" negative crew to recover, i.e. you gain crew from them. Of course all enthusiastic volunteers (after having had a chance to thoroughly inspect the airlocks).
Last but not least: Is 0.8a (big-) feature complete now? :)
So it's all or nothing on removing (d) mods? Any thought to making that a choice of from 1-4?
Given the above, I wonder how viable it'd be to use SS's ship recovery as a source of semi-disposable cannon fodder, around a core of a few officered and well-maintained ships (the "companion" equivalent). If an individual ship ends up with too many D-hullmods after repeated deaths, just don't recover it, there's always more where it came from.
...I'd expect this'll use up crew at an unacceptable rate, and the player might also eventually run out of weapons to fit the cannon fodder ships. Oh well!
- Destroyed Weapon Mounts can't appear as a randomly added hullmod, right?
- For mods, does this mean we can attach arbitrary hullmods to FleetMembers that can't be removed from the refit screen? Can they be made so the restoration function won't remove them either?
- The "X ordnance points remaining" text kind of sticks out. It is something that should be drawn to the player's attention, but perhaps the font could be a bit smaller and the message moved to a corner of the ship's box?
It might be time for Pirate variants to get their own designation a-la Luddic ships to differentiate them from generic D ships, since they're no longer the same base hull. A Sunder (D) that I recovered from pirates isn't the same thing as a generic Sunder with battle damage, it never will be, and the game should make that distinction as clear to the player as possible before they spend a bunch of supplies and money refurbishing a ship only to find out it still doesn't have its main selling point.
For ships like the Pirate Sunder it could be worth creating a new defect like Compromised Hardpoint that say, picks one of the largest hardpoints on a ship and downgrades it to one size smaller*, and make it into a Sunder (D) with that defect so players have the option of restoring it to full working order. Otherwise I fear that the Pirate Sunder will forever remain a garbage mook ship that players never willingly use, and it seems like part of this patch is moving away from that role for damaged ships, though maybe I'm being too pessimistic.
*actually having this as a regular battle damage outcome will probably be screwy since it can either completely cripple a ship or be largely negligible, but it could be something that specifically comes preinstalled on Pirate Sunders since they're already something of a unique case.
The "do you want to restore this ship" dialog actually has a bit of text to make that clear, but yeah.
Yeah, for regular battle damage, it's a bit too complex. Could probably be made to work but doesn't seem worth all the effort.
Re: (D) Sunder, I don't know - it might be reasonable to use without restoration, just due to the low deployment cost. In general, I'd imagine restoring most ships isn't going to be worth the cost, so it likely never being the case for the pirate (D) Sunder isn't actually a big deal; it's only supposed to be used in special cases.
So it's all or nothing on removing (d) mods? Any thought to making that a choice of from 1-4?
Hmm. Not 100% sure, but I think it might get too fiddly if you allowed that. Right now, whether you want to restore a ship is one big decision, and you're not likely to decided to do that very often. If you could choose to remove individual d-mods, I'd be concerned that it would turn into a chore to figure out where it's worth removing and where it isn't, and could become something you do as a normal part of refitting.
Aw snaps, things are in the home stretch now!
While I am very glad that Starsector is getting another well-supported playstyle, I do have to admit that it isn't one I can see myself playing often, heh. You did certainly mention your efforts to make the current Industry skills attractive to those who didn't intend to go down that combat route, but it does still seem like they are all heavily based around losing ships—as is needed for that playstyle. I guess what I'm getting at is that Industry combat seems a more polarizing playstyle than most, so I hope the Outpost related skills will also be added to Industry as currently those players who concentrate on not losing ships to begin with will find much of the Industry tree irrelevant to them.
I do really like that you've added several surefire ways to ensure your ships can be recoverable (in case of freak accidents) and that you can also remove d-mods, even it it is ridiculously expensive! Perhaps a large enough player Outpost will have the facilities necessary to remove d-mods for supplies rather than massive amounts of credits?
Individual Dmod repair would probably be a big thing in the early game while the fleet is small. If through some quirk of fate a new game drops a D Hammerhead on the player early on, the inclination would be to spent many times the cost of the ship to overhaul it in installments if the player doesn't have access to markets or the amount of money to buy a new one outright.
By mid to end game, yes, it'll be a wasted feature. D ships will be sold and the mythical Odyssey and Hypherions will be retrofitted with the large amounts of credits at the player's disposal without too much consideration.
I also think it may be a more helpful feature in Iron Man than standard games.
While I am very glad that Starsector is getting another well-supported playstyle, I do have to admit that it isn't one I can see myself playing often, heh. You did certainly mention your efforts to make the current Industry skills attractive to those who didn't intend to go down that combat route, but it does still seem like they are all heavily based around losing ships—as is needed for that playstyle.
I guess what I'm getting at is that Industry combat seems a more polarizing playstyle than most, so I hope the Outpost related skills will also be added to Industry as currently those players who concentrate on not losing ships to begin with will find much of the Industry tree irrelevant to them.
I do really like that you've added several surefire ways to ensure your ships can be recoverable (in case of freak accidents) and that you can also remove d-mods, even it it is ridiculously expensive! Perhaps a large enough player Outpost will have the facilities necessary to remove d-mods for supplies rather than massive amounts of credits?
Yeah I have to agree, with the new skill cap and no respec these skills sound nice but why not just quickload and try again, not getting your ship blown up and saving several skill points in the process. If respec was an option then I'd say they are great for newbies and early game!
overall i like it, although it still leaves you SOL if god forbid you actually lose a battle..
overall i like it, although it still leaves you SOL if god forbid you actually lose a battle..
A surrender button, maybe, that doesn't make all of your ships go boom?
Now:
* 50% combat readiness loss from being in star corona or similar terrain
This seems very minor. How often does one end in star corona?
I'm not quite sure individual Dmod repair is desirable.
I totally see myself intentionally keeping sensors or armor/hull(on shield based ships) debuff for better supply efficiency. At least in some cases.
So I've got an actual question: with these changes to salvaging and recovery is it possible that it'll be viable to go around salvaging ships and then simply selling them off? Or is the profit margin still going to be so small that it won't be worth the time? Like, will a max Industry skilled player be able to make some seriously nice dosh fixing up recovered ships from battle (and where ever else it might be possible) and then hauling them to a station and cashing in?
1) Do all AI fleets also recover and redeploy battle-captured ships? If so, can we have an option in the faction file to disable this behavior on a faction by faction basis? It prevents modders from trying to keep factions' doctrines centered around a certain tech or ship style. In game, it makes sense for factions like pirates and independents to do this, not so much luddic path or tri-tachyons.
2) I am a little confused as to the way the game differentiates between the current (D) class ships and "battle-made" ones. Am I correct when I say (D) ships are still normal ships to the game, and just have d-mods to start and a different sprite? Then if THOSE are destroyed, they become battle-made (D) ships and have the same sprite and more d-mods? I guess what I am getting at is +1 to custom (D) sprites since I made a bunch and want to use them haha
Cool changes especially removal of D mods at spaceports. Kind of sad marines out of action now. Maybe in the future they can be used to explore some ruins or derelicts?
overall i like it, although it still leaves you SOL if god forbid you actually lose a battle..
Right, I feel that's now the only thing left nudging you toward the quickload key. If outright losing is possible without completely screwing you over, I feel that would make game flow perfect (and allow newbies to play the game without starting over so often).
A surrender button, maybe, that doesn't make all of your ships go boom?
Maybe some "I'll give myself up, but let my fleet go" kind of deal. Then your character is transported to a station and locked up (as judicial punishment or for ransom, depending on faction). Upon release or escape you have to find your way back to your fleet in a single ship (e.g. your old flagship or a stolen shuttle).
Now I kind of want to be defeated while that system applies, ha^^
Boarding is going away, and I'm of two minds about what's replacing it. Yes, the industry tree offers a lot of helpful perks, but it is still a hell of a downgrade going from recovering fully functional ships to vessels with 2-4 d-mods.
I would definitely like the option to mod it so that recoverable ships get 0-4 d-mods.
Perhaps, if it isn't easy to expose to modding, make the "restore to pristine condition" price moddable.
I might still want an option in there somewhere to allow the player to have 100% retention of weapons as well, even if costly, but weapons are no ships. I'm perfectly happy with this.
* 50% of hull and armor damage taken is repaired immediately after combat ends
* 100% faster ship repairs
These two seem quite strong, they would be useful even with half of these bonuses. Just my two cents, I know the numbers may change.
By the way does "after combat ends" mean after one engagement or after whole battle?
Now:
* 50% combat readiness loss from being in star corona or similar terrain
This seems very minor. How often does one end in star corona?
On the other hand:
* 50% reduced combat readiness range in which malfunctions and other negative effects occur
* The "Emergency Burn" ability no longer reduces combat readiness
This has two good bonuses. Perhaps the emergency burn bonus could be moved to Level 2, so Level 2 actually becomes a solid boost to exploration?
(it also relates thematically: heat protection from both star corona and engine burn)
Will I be able to salvage every disabled ship? It could be done with a bit of balancing... Instead of receiving the ship for "free" and paying for the repairs perhaps it would be logical to be able to recover every disabled ship in the battle but pay to actually rebuild it.
If a ship is severely damaged it may be more expensive to repair it than to buy a new one instead, so there would be some kind of balance while still allowing players to recover every ship they have disabled in battle.
There is too much dice rolling right now regarding this and it looks like the saga will continue with the new version, although less "dicy rolly" than it was before.
Forgot to ask earlier: Could friendly ships recovered after a battle automatically attempt to autofit back to their previous state? Would be a nice QoL improvement.
Also, a mechanic tie-in idea: How about opportunities to recover derelict ships found during exploration, or from someone else's battle?
Only briefly scanned the blog, but... Level 3 Safety Procedures no longer costs CR to use Emergency Burn?! Looks like the new Navigation 10 from 0.65, maybe. Spam it as much as possible when you need to be somewhere in a hurry! The main thing that discourages EB spam (for me) is supply cost.
EDIT: Does it still chug fuel? If so, that could be a limiter. CR drain is a much bigger deal.
Yeah, the tools to manage the randomness almost entirely apply to the player's ships. I don't know - some randomness is fine, and I'm not on a quest to eradicate it entirely. Also, being able to recover everything would probably make ramping up a d-fleet too easy, and if it was more expensive, then it could get *too* expensive for that and only serve as a tool from rare ship recovery.
Hmm. What I could see possibly doing is adding a cost - say, some heavy machinery - to the initial recovery, that would range from 0 (for ships currently rolled as "recoverable") to a lot (for ships that would currently not be recoverable at all). But it's just more complexity and I'm not sure it's necessary; would like to see how things play out first.
My one suggestion/reservation: The distribution of the various skills in the 4 aptitudes is thematically confusing. Like, the crew saving skill is in, industry, rather than leadership where it would be expected. And yet, for some reason the ship saving thing, called "Fleet logistics skill" is over there in leadership. (Also work a bit more on the explanation). That one seems like it could be in technology.
It is all a bit confusing. What I mean is; don't be afraid to totally rearrange or eliminate the aptitude categories for skills. Possibly you'll rebrand these in a way that makes sense; right now on paper it just seems a bit disorientating.
Soo since you have ship-breaking worlds, any chance of adding in a new contract for bringing d-class ships to a ship-breaking world?
Alex since you said some time ago that salvage was temporary.
Can you make the salvage permanent but there was other fleets that would salvage too. Some ting like all battles Player vs NPC or NPC vs NPC would create a salvage and and every faction would have salvage fleets that would roam their space. that would cause the salvage that were in highly frequented zones to disappear quickly and on more remotes zones would last a long time if not forever. And the not picked ships are in that salvage.
I'm kinda curious if you've taken note of the average price of 1 unit of Supplies in your dev build (the one that has all the new economy changes). We talking like 40-50 credits per unit? Industry playstyle seems like it'll be hungry for Supplies even with its skills...
If boarding has been replaced by field repairs, and outposts are not yet featured, then what good are marines for now? If marines are no longer needed for boarding, then Black Markets do not need them, and that money loop can be closed.
I really think marking the current D class ships as something else would greatly reduce the confusion of new players as I can see someone grabbing a D class ship and thinking they can fix it up like the other "D" class
In a battle involving allied fleets, how does it decide what the player gets to recover?
"Picking up a lot of radiation. They’re operating without core containment. That’s… That’s suicide."
How cool will it be to just play as a pirate and amass a rabble of really horrible expendable D ships to terrorize everyone with?
The only thing missing, so that I'd never have to land at all, is the ability to recover enemy crew from the captured ships, and use them as your own crew.
I have a vague memory that Fractalsoftworks has scruples about putting slavery in the game, but you must ask yourselves: what is happening to the crew of disabled vessels otherwise? They are just getting spaced, or all killed during the combat. Isn't it kinder to enslave them? Also I like to think it is a liberation. I mean, the sindrian diktat is not a nice place and freeing all their guys from the engine room to become pirates is better for them.
Repairing hull damage is one thing but adding hullmods or weapons in deep space has some pretty hefty costs attached. Is there anything that mitigates this?access to hullmods while out exploring and there isn't a port to be found.
Ha - if things were to go that way, might as well have the crew be available as part of salvage. But I don't know if I want to go there, a bit too grim, isn't it.
Base chance to for disbaled ships to be recovrable
I don't really see the need to draw a line there, I feel the game is quite a bit more grim at other places already. The game just needs to acknowledge that working prisoners/slaves are a morally ..."ambiguous" thing. For a faction that sees itself as virtuous they should be a illegal "commodity".
BTW, two typos in the Recovery Operations text:QuoteBase chance to for disbaled ships to be recovrable
I also feel the explanation is a bit roundabout, with first making a general statement and then contradicting it immediately ("Base chance for disabled ships to be recoverable is 25%, or 50% for your ships."). Since ships from allied fleets are not recoverable it is also incorrect.
Why not just say: "If disabled, the base chance to be recoverable is 25% for enemy ships, and 50% for your ships. Weapons have a 25% base chance to be recoverable from enemy ships, 50% from your ships."
It's not something you just want to throw in casually.
I don't really see the need to draw a line there, I feel the game is quite a bit more grim at other places already. The game just needs to acknowledge that working prisoners/slaves are a morally ..."ambiguous" thing. For a faction that sees itself as virtuous they should be a illegal "commodity".
There's being grim in backstory/text, and then there's tying that sort of stuff directly to mechanics. I'm less comfortable with the latter.
(Yeah, sure, you're also shooting lots of people, but you're shooting "ships" and the people are kind of swept under the rug. If you bring that front and center, it gets weird.)
Anyway, I'm certainly not opposed to mechanical things being grim or unpleasant. What I'm sure I don't want is for "run around enslaving people" to be part of a core playstyle. You'd have to really handle it well and make a game be about that. It's not something you just want to throw in casually.
Other stuff could work here, though. Some crew just shows up in the salvage screen? Sure, why not. You get a message from an escape pod and X crew offer to join? That works too. (... and then they steal one of your ships and run off. If you can't trust desperate crew you 've picked up from an escape pod after you've shot their ship out from under them, then who can you trust?)BTW, two typos in the Recovery Operations text:QuoteBase chance to for disbaled ships to be recovrable
I also feel the explanation is a bit roundabout, with first making a general statement and then contradicting it immediately ("Base chance for disabled ships to be recoverable is 25%, or 50% for your ships."). Since ships from allied fleets are not recoverable it is also incorrect.
Why not just say: "If disabled, the base chance to be recoverable is 25% for enemy ships, and 50% for your ships. Weapons have a 25% base chance to be recoverable from enemy ships, 50% from your ships."
Thanks! Updated to mostly match your suggestion, it was indeed pretty awkward.
Why? The game isn't about teaching morality or educating the youth. It's about space dystopia. Throwing it in casually totally fits with the rest of the game.
Let the more optimistic imagine them as grateful volunteers.
Let the more pessimistic imagine them as something else.
Is faster repair going to cost less or does faster also include more supply use per time spent?
1) Do all AI fleets also recover and redeploy battle-captured ships? If so, can we have an option in the faction file to disable this behavior on a faction by faction basis? It prevents modders from trying to keep factions' doctrines centered around a certain tech or ship style. In game, it makes sense for factions like pirates and independents to do this, not so much luddic path or tri-tachyons.
They don't do this at all. Except for conceptually, off-screen :)2) I am a little confused as to the way the game differentiates between the current (D) class ships and "battle-made" ones. Am I correct when I say (D) ships are still normal ships to the game, and just have d-mods to start and a different sprite? Then if THOSE are destroyed, they become battle-made (D) ships and have the same sprite and more d-mods? I guess what I am getting at is +1 to custom (D) sprites since I made a bunch and want to use them haha
Hah - yeah, I'll see if I can work that in.
Basically - every ship hull or skin whose name doesn't end in (D) gets an auto-generated (D) version. Then, during recovery, the hull of the ship gets changed to the (D) version, but for ships that are already (D) - either because they started that way, or because they got converted as a result of previous recovery - that doesn't happen.
Alex right now when you repair recover CR or BOTH it is only used the same amount of supplies could there be a repair cost and a CR recovery cost?
It feels weird when the costs to repair a 1% hull and CR ship to 100% are the same to repair a 100% hull and 1% CR to 100%.
These used to be separate and it was just a whole lot of extra stuff to keep track of and show in the UI for no real benefit. I get what you're saying, but it's just not worth it.
[
(Anyway, I'm certainly not opposed to mechanical things being grim or unpleasant. What I'm sure I don't want is for "run around enslaving people" to be part of a core playstyle. You'd have to really handle it well and make a game be about that
Thinking about it some more, how does it handle the case where the (D) version has the "Destroyed Weapon Mounts" d-mod? Will it ignore that one in particular (since its the only one that cannot be undone if I read that correctly) if a normal hull gets destroyed and converted to the (D) version through combat even though the sprite lacks the weapon mounts? If it doesn't though, then that would make it a permanent debuff to the ship. Seems likely its "between a rock and a hard place" territory without going to the trouble of making it reversible. Changing the weapon mounts to hidden/decorative instead of outright removing them might be a solution there.
Regarding the weapon role/strength hints for the new auto-outfitter: You said hints get auto-generated if they aren't there to begin with, am I correct in assuming we can set these ourselves in weapons.csv? Is that the only thing added to that file? I am actually pretty excited to see how that all works out.
On the campaign overview you could show the number when we see the "full report of supplies consumption" instead of showing one number for all repairs it would show the two and in the fleet screen where we have the supplies consumption for each ship there would be a number that would be all the numbers together and that number would have a tooltip showing all the individuals consumptions and the suspend repairs would not get changed as recovering CR could be taken in account as a repair.
This is how i would implement and it wouldn't be for no real benefit. As it would reward/penalise (not)/taking hull damage.
Maybe I missed it but are you just as likely to be able to recover a Paragon after battle as you are a Lasher? All just a roll of the same dice for everything?
Also, what is the chance again for a ship to break apart when disabled?
Maybe I missed it but are you just as likely to be able to recover a Paragon after battle as you are a Lasher? All just a roll of the same dice for everything?
Yep.
You'd have to beat the rest of the fleet as you still only get to recover (enemy) ships on wins.Maybe I missed it but are you just as likely to be able to recover a Paragon after battle as you are a Lasher? All just a roll of the same dice for everything?
Yep.
Also, related question. Do we NEED to have the sufficient prize crew to capture the ship, or is that just a suggestion and we can immediately 'mothball' it or accept malfunctions? If so what's to stop us from stuffing a hound with supplies and (somehow) disabling a capital ship and capturing it?
add increased weapon recovery chance to the Armored Weapon Mounts hullmod.
you could still keep marines for boarding, as part of the new system
You'd have to beat the rest of the fleet as you still only get to recover (enemy) ships on wins.pretty much this. and the chance to recover enemy ships is still only 25% base without skill, 40% with skill (assuming the numbers stay as they are, which they might not), and further halfed if the ship broke apart, which happens to about half of the total killed ships... which makes 18.75% and 30%? so you'll usually have to fight several fleets with a Paragon in them until you're able to recover one, if you're after that specific ship.
The new mechanic is more salvage than a boarding action, though.right, i worded it a bit poorly. i meant: since the removal of boarding means marines will (for now) not have any use besides being a trade commodity, boarding could still be kept (in different form) as part of the new ship salvage mechanics.
I'd love boarding as a separate mechanic, not to get hulls, but as a less violent alternative to battle. E.g., a outgunned trader could agree to let you send marines over to confiscate some of their cargo.hmm, if the trader already surrendered to avoid being shot to pieces, why would you need marines to secure the cargo? ^^
Also, as some one mentioned, exploration of derelicts.yeah, that sounds cool! :]
hmm, if the trader already surrendered to avoid being shot to pieces, why would you need marines to secure the cargo? ^^
Were any of these features for patch 0.8a extremely difficult for you as a programmer to get up and running? What system (or cluster of similar systems) took the lion's share of effort?
Will the procedural D ships have the same description as current D ships? If so, might non-procedural D ships get more unique descriptions to differentiate them?
1) since a few people mentioned that losing battles is still just as punishing as ever if you can recover ships only from won battles: you mentioned a while ago (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2016/07/17/exploration-salvage/) that you were thinking about making all battles produce a debris field that fleets can then pick through, rather than immediately giving loot. is that still a thing/possibility? with ship wrecks now becoming a pretty big deal, and the ability to keep specific ships in your fleet from ever being destroyed completely, debris fields could provide an opportunity to recover some of your losses even after a defeat or retreat.
depending on whether the enemy fleet who got you is sticking around to pick through the debris themselves (pirates probably would, patrols and traders probably wouldn't), you might have to hide somewhere nearby until they're gone, but could then return to see if there's anything left for you to salvage. even if the enemy took the most valuable wrecks and pieces for themselves, you might still be able to partially recover your losses through stuff they left behind, especially if you're already specialized in this industry combat playstyle.
3) you could add increased weapon recovery chance to the Armored Weapon Mounts hullmod. i understand not wanting to put it together with the guaranteed ship recovery of Reinforced Bulkhead, to avoid making that one feel like a requirement (and i actually feel it might need a bit of a nerf, maybe to something like 30% increased hull, more in line with Blast Doors). but for some loadouts, the weapons are quite a bit more valuable than the ship they're on, so it would be nice to have some option to at least make recovery more likely, even if not guaranteed (for that specific loadout, in addition to the overall increased chance from the skill).
4) since autofit has an option to automatically apply Reinforced Bulkheads, could you add one for Blast Doors as well? seems like that would also be a good idea to have on many of the recovered disposables.
5) if all d-mods from ships like the pather skins can be removed while keeping their beneficial built-in ones, i think those ships could use some nerf to their base stats. i do like that capturing and restoring these ships can be a way to produce a more powerful version (since it takes a bit of luck, work, and more credits than just buying an unaltered version), but getting a 15 OP frigate hullmod for 0 OP instead does seem a little bit crazy. ^^
6) with these new features about making low-quality ships worth fielding as the player that are currently only really useful as low-difficulty enemies: can Buffalo MK.II get some love as well? :D like reduced cost and maybe even a bit beefed up durability? i believe lorewise, it's supposed to be a weak but cost-effective alternative to proper military ships, with above average armor to partially offset its poor mobility and lack of shield. but in reality it's not ever worth buying. it actually has significantly less durability than other, shielded destroyers (less than a Hound, even!), only 120 seconds PPT for some reason, and yet it costs almost as much as an Enforcer...
7) you could still keep marines for boarding, as part of the new system: make a portion (something like ~20%?) of recoverable ships cost marines to recover, with the benefit of adding no or less d-mods to the ship and maybe increasing weapon recovery chance. with how the new system works, it should probably just state a number of required/consumed marines rather than a probability of success based on the number of marines in your fleet, something like "boarding and capturing this ship will require a team of at least 50 marines, with expected losses between 5 and 20 marines". the average cost of 'consumed' marines would be lower than having to restore the ship at a port, but still high enough to only do it for ships the player wouldn't treat as just disposable cannon-fodder, and with the added requirement of shipping a large number of marines around.
this would probably be more about flavor that any significant gameplay impact, so i understand if it's just not worth figuring out the exact mechanics and numbers, but i still quite like the idea of keeping some troop transports filled with marines around for boarding opportunities.
anyway, i'm excited, in case you couldn't tell. or, well, i was excited already.. but now i have another thing to be excited about! \o/
Also, related question. Do we NEED to have the sufficient prize crew to capture the hsip, or is that just a suggestion and we can immediately 'mothball' it or accept malfunctions? If so what's to stop us from stuffing a hound with supplies and (somehow) disabling a capital ship and capturing it?
A Hound won't do, but I can imagine a tactic were you take some missile boat (e.g. Kite) to assist an allied fleet, finish off damaged enemies and expand your fleet that way. Don't see anything wrong with that :)
The new mechanic is more salvage than a boarding action, though.
I'd love boarding as a separate mechanic, not to get hulls, but as a less violent alternative to battle. E.g., a outgunned trader could agree to let you send marines over to confiscate some of their cargo. Also, as some one mentioned, exploration of derelicts.
Unrelated Suggestion: It seems needlessly complex that when ships DON'T break up there is still a chance you WON'T to be able to recover them, and how if they DO break up, and there is a chance you WILL recover them.
Maybe just keep it real simple: If a ship breaks up, you can't salvage it. If it doesn't break up, you can salvage it. And adjust the frequency of breakups accordingly, plus throw in ways to modify the breakup frequency by using ion cannons or skills.
Given the talk about pirate Sunders and such, I have to ask: If a regular ship becomes a (D) from damage, will it return to the non-D hull version (in terms of appearance and hull class name) if fully restored?
Otherwise it'd be a bit odd to have a (D) ship that's actually indistinguishable stats-wise from the pristine version. Though full consistency would also require that the handcrafted D skins (that don't have destroyed mounts) to have a "turn into this hull if fully restored" tag.
Regarding the confusion about different types of (D)-hulls, I'd suggest to unify them all into fully reversible versions. Meaning, no damages that can't be fixed, even on pre-(D) hulls. Otherwise you have a discrepancy between gameplay and lore, like a (very mild) version of the "main character is much weaker/stronger in cut scenes than in game play" issue.
Possible counterpoints... I don't recall how many OP Reinforced Bulkheads costs, if it's low enough it may well be worth the opportunity cost anyway. Also, if I understood Alex's post right, enemy ships will get 2-4 d-mods, but your own ships only one? If I'm reading that right, what's the reasoning behind that?
Side note, while I'm not super hot on Reinforced Bulkheads, Armored Turrets preserving weapons would make me very happy to throw it on a specific selection of ships. Again, maybe due to a quirk of my playstyle, but when only using captured ships and weapons I always run shorter on weapons than hulls, and that seems like it'll only become more pronounced with 0.8.
Actually, any thoughts on weapon drop rate in relation to hull salvaging availability, Alex? Was there ever an intention to make weapons available at a certain rate relative to hulls, or are they independent as far as you're concerned?
Why not call the degraded pirate version of hulls that can't be restored "(P)" versions of the ship? "P" for either "Pirate" and/or "Permanent." (D) versions retain their "degraded" status, though they may get restored, while the (P) versions are immediately recognized as unalterably damaged. Seems to me that would clear up a lot of confusion.
Another reason why I have wanted the the hand crafted D hulls to be seperate from the generated ones: Modder burn out. The reason why I say this is because several modders are now lamenting the fact that they will basically HAVE to make D skins for ALL of their ships because vanilla has some hand built D skins. And knowing how perfectionistic some of these guys get, I know that it will just lead to more and more stress for themWhy not call the degraded pirate version of hulls that can't be restored "(P)" versions of the ship? "P" for either "Pirate" and/or "Permanent." (D) versions retain their "degraded" status, though they may get restored, while the (P) versions are immediately recognized as unalterably damaged. Seems to me that would clear up a lot of confusion.
It feels like adding an extra "type" of damaged ships could add to the confusion instead of helping clear things up. And, per what I said previously, it doesn't seem like this'll actually come into play, so the problem seems largely theoretical, no?
Another reason why I have wanted the the hand crafted D hulls to be seperate from the generated ones: Modder burn out. The reason why I say this is because several modders are now lamenting the fact that they will basically HAVE to make D skins for ALL of their ships because vanilla has some hand built D skins. And knowing how perfectionistic some of these guys get, I know that it will just lead to more and more stress for them
If I might offer a potential idea: Why not utilize a overlay to signify that a ship is a (D) variant? Something like the standard battle-damage overlay, but probably a lot more subtle. Seems like the (D) variants in general seem a bit desaturated, and have some basic wear and tear on them--at least in my mind, it doesn't seem too crazy to accomplish those visuals with an overlay on the ship sprite. Added benefit: (D) variants can be randomized a bit so they don't all share the same sprite (and will no longer lack visuals indicating degradation), and the intensity of the overlay could be ramped up based on how many (D) mods it has--could allow some interesting moments in combat where players can quickly take out hostiles that are clearly degraded.Another reason why I have wanted the the hand crafted D hulls to be seperate from the generated ones: Modder burn out. The reason why I say this is because several modders are now lamenting the fact that they will basically HAVE to make D skins for ALL of their ships because vanilla has some hand built D skins. And knowing how perfectionistic some of these guys get, I know that it will just lead to more and more stress for them
... but vanilla mostly doesn't have custom D skins for everything. And for started-normal-but-became-(D)-from-being-recovered ships, all of them are currently using the basic default sprite.
So right now actually the hand-made D hulls are separate from the generated ones, in the way you're thinking. Unless I'm missing something?
How about applying some of the visual damage layer to it permanently? You know, like the weapon impact craters and such. Maybe with some new textures that look more like rust, use and repairs. That would give (D) variants more individuality and would be nice for mod ships, too.
In theory, sure, but the damage decal rendering is probably the most performance-intensive rendering vanilla does, so I don't want to toss it around lightly. It also tends to obscure weapon mounts heavily, so it'd take a lot of tweaking. So, I don't know - if it came to that, I think I'd probably rather have separate (D) graphics for each ship. According to David, that wouldn't be super labor-intensive.
@ Psiyon:Derp somehow missed that.
[overlay rendering stuff]
That's how it works in real life, isn't it? :) Customs, units of military blockades and such have to physically board vessels to inspect them, and if there's danger of resistance they have to go armed.right, but IRL it's usually a bit more complicated than "give us your stuff or we will just obliterate your ship and everyone on it". at least i would think it is.
Debris fields post-battle are in the dev build. Currently considering ship recovery in relation to that - my feeling is it should be a more rare event than just being able to recover everything that got disabled. After all, chances are if it wasn't taken with the winning fleet, it was broken for salvage. So there'll probably be a small chance to find a recoverable ship.hmm. maybe most fleets just wouldn't spend the required time to salvage? i think most mercantile and faction-military fleets wouldn't really bother with that, even assuming they'd have the necessary cargo space available to take a good amount of loot, as it would be a distraction more so than anything else from whatever they were doing. like getting to a resource-starved market in time to exploit a shortage of specific goods before everyone else does, or patrolling a system for threats to a nearby station, or continuing a carefully planned campaign into enemy territory to take advantage of a temporary weakness in hostile fleet movements.
I see what you mean, but the problem is, I think, that it would be the only layer of defense and would thus feel mandatory. If I were to do that, it'd probably be hullmod, officer skill, limited-global skill or some such - like it is for ships - so that nothing specific feels mandatory.add more things, then! ;D
Good call; reduced its deployment/maintenance cost to 4 supplies. Hopefully that'll be enough.i think that's the most important change, yes. 4 sounds good. :]
I'm curious, how many people think they will make heavy use of Reinforced Bulkheads? Maybe I'm an outlier, but I don't see myself burdening my ships with the hullmod when I'm already intending to make heavy use of the salvaging system. The enemy will be serving up plenty of hulks, I'll just take one of theirs!i think i'm gonna be using it (or the other options that do the same thing) pretty often, but usually for rare ships and/or ones without a bunch of d-mods. keep in mind that the options for guaranteed ship recovery aren't actually tied to the industry combat playstyle or its skills, they just use the same ship recovery system. it's probably more useful for fleets that don't use a large number of disposable rust buckets.
Possible counterpoints... I don't recall how many OP Reinforced Bulkheads costs, if it's low enough it may well be worth the opportunity cost anyway.5 OP on a frigate (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C24PtnaXEAEcBTE.jpg:large), assuming those numbers don't get adjusted before release.
i think most mercantile and faction-military fleets wouldn't really bother with that, even assuming they'd have the necessary cargo space available to take a good amount of loot, as it would be a distraction more so than anything else from whatever they were doing.
I think military fleets would at least try to salvage their own ships.even if it means taking a bunch of mothballed or only barely combat ready ships with them, being either dead weight or consuming a large junk of their available supplies and crew for little immediate benefit, and still requiring expensive repairs at the nearest station just to get them back up to average performance -- and all of this without specialized industrial personal and equipment?
I don't want to shoehorn marines into this just because they used to be involved. There's no mechanical reason for this that I can see, and there are likely future things where they'll fit in much more naturally.
I don't want to shoehorn marines into this just because they used to be involved. There's no mechanical reason for this that I can see, and there are likely future things where they'll fit in much more naturally.
I think military fleets would at least try to salvage their own ships.even if it means taking a bunch of mothballed or only barely combat ready ships with them, being either dead weight or consuming a large junk of their available supplies and crew for little immediate benefit, and still requiring expensive repairs at the nearest station just to get them back up to average performance -- and all of this without specialized industrial personal and equipment?
I think military fleets would at least try to salvage their own ships.even if it means taking a bunch of mothballed or only barely combat ready ships with them, being either dead weight or consuming a large junk of their available supplies and crew for little immediate benefit, and still requiring expensive repairs at the nearest station just to get them back up to average performance -- and all of this without specialized industrial personal and equipment?
Yes, in real life militaries and navies were/are extraordinarily likely to scuttle their own ships and materiel. If they are obviously outgunned, they'll just destroy the stuff and run off before the fight even starts.
@ Psiyon:Derp somehow missed that.
[overlay rendering stuff]
Alex: Solid reasons, that stuff definitely takes a lot of tweaking to get right. Didn't know how performance intensive it was, though--that's a pretty good reason to not do it.
the strangely low PPT and disproportionally high credit cost (for those rare times someone might actually buy one) also seem quite out of place to me, although i doubt either of them is gonna make a real difference in whether it's worth using a few salvaged ones as industry player.
sidenote: i kinda stopped responding to all your individual responses to my points when i don't really have anything more to add than "thanks!" or "okay, fair enough", but i really appreciate you taking the time. :]
SpoilerI really love this, it makes good sense and solves issues we've been having for a long time.
But i'm still unconvinced about the ship recovery itself. Using dmods is great, and there's something to be said between disabling/destroying/nuking even the dead hulk to maanage a percentage chance, but it'd like to be more play there, with the world map as well.
What would be nice would be some risk/reward to it all. I assume as is we have a chance to recover on each and all of the enemy ships, if they don't make it, you can't pick it for salvaging. I'd consider the ability to salvage any enemy or friendly, ship. Nuked hull gets something low like 5%. Destroyed say 15%. Disabled 30%, modifiable with skills, and functioning on a 'band' for dmods. Either way, have each 'roll' consume crew/supplies scaling up per class. On a first-roll-success, you pay out the crew/supplies, then roll for the dmod. Say on the above 30%, rolling just under 60 gets you a dmod, rolling up from 60 gets you the ship in good condition (well, 'good', you still need to repair it to full from nothing).
Failing the initial recover roll, you lose the supplies/crew, the price increases for the new roll, and the ship gets a dmod (cap it out at all of them :P). Call it a failure to salvage. You can eventually, with enough supplies/crew get the ship you want, even if it'll require huge tuneups in station to get it to pristine condition. Either way, this puts forward a very straight path to getting the ship you want, if at a cost of time, dedicated procedure and huge cost. (The repair at a station should be per d-mod though in this case, and using LIFO methodology, not just a flat sum)
The mention of the world map, as to not abuse the ability to scavange all the ships, would be that for each ship you stay 'still' and do salvage ops for a period of time. Ideally per ship, in the order that you want them salvaged, cancellable permanently at any time, and with no repairs getting done to any of your existing fleet of ships during it.
You can salvage an entire enemy fleet, but the question remains if you can afford to sit still, not repairing any of your ships, and wasting supply/day upkeeping them, while you dilly-dally salvaging, after paying out your nose in crew/supply for them. I can imagine it'd make for some fun times 'waiting' for a ship to salvage while an enemy fleet homes in on you, then full burning away at the last moment. Or not, and get stuck in a battle you really didn't want to have at that moment.[close]
This style of thinking is why I and the rest of the Something Awful crew love you as a developer, just to say. So many games get cluttered up with inane mechanics that don't add anything but more buttons to click and numbers to track because more = better and of course a game in Genre X needs to include Y! It's truly refreshing to have a dev that can not only tell himself No, but is even willing to do the needful and cull mechanics that aren't pulling their weight anymore no matter how long they've been around (RIP and good riddance, ballistic weapon ammunition).
I'm not sure I've read about it anywhere, so how does this "industry" playstyle compare to the "tech-combat" playstyle from a financial standpoint? From what I understand, industry basically means you'll be burning through ships and replacing them with whatever you can salvage after successful battles, having a "safety-in-numbers" approach to combat, as opposed to the "few-but-strong-ships" playstyle we are all used to right now.
Is the cost of repairing burner ships/replacing crew losses offset by the industry skill set/other changes? The idea of having a fleet of disposable ships which you can "burn through" sounds really appealing to me, but I must confess, I really can't see myself choosing this style of play if it means less $$$ thanks to really expensive fleet maintenance.
Also, choosing industry from the really early game (1 to 3 ships) sounds like it might make an already difficult start even worse. I'm not sure if it actually does, but I think this is worth keeping in mind going forward through development.
I get what you're saying here, yeah. The reason it works the way it does is the breakup chance for hulls is partially set for "feel" reasons rather than purely mechanical ones. So, for example, lighter and flimsier hulls break into pieces more often.
Regarding the cost of the industry playstyle, it seems that a lot of that is going to revolve around the cost of supplies. Vanilla SS has done a good job at having that be a reasonable number, but I know that a lot of the mods struggle with imbalancing the economy and having supplies suddenly be hundreds of credits (and not always in a reproducible way when it comes to the procedurally generated stuff).
Any thoughts on having supplies have a more regulated price than other commodities? Some hidden damping factors that drive them back towards a value that balances the industry playstyle?
So many games get cluttered up with inane mechanics that don't add anything but more buttons to click and numbers to track because more = better and of course a game in Genre X needs to include Y!i'm the one who made the suggestion to shoehorn something in, in this case, but i still very much agree in general. ^^ the game is incredibly well thought-out and polished, particularly for a game still in alpha!
Militaries operate on a completely different scale and philosophy than private firms. They would repair disabled ships simply because it is faster than building new ships, costs be damned.even if cost isn't really a factor irl, it very well could be in the dystopian setting of Starsector. plus, part of why i think many fleets might not do much salvaging is because i think it would not be fast, especially for fleets who aren't specialized in doing it. maybe major factions have their own scavenger fleets that seek out debris of recent battles to bolster their own forces, but that could still allow the player a window of opportunity between when the combat fleet leaves after only minimal salvaging and when the nearest scavenging fleet arrives to strip the debris of anything remotely useful.
Any thoughts on having supplies have a more regulated price than other commodities? Some hidden damping factors that drive them back towards a value that balances the industry playstyle?hopefully the economy revamp should already take care of that, part of its goal is to make prices less fickle and volatile.
oh btw, since i don't think it has been mentioned yet, and someone in discord just reminded me: that improved Sunder is looking awesome, David! ;D
finally it has the mid-tech style it deserves.
wait...there it is again, the bane of our miserable existence. q_q
Regarding the cost of the industry playstyle, it seems that a lot of that is going to revolve around the cost of supplies. Vanilla SS has done a good job at having that be a reasonable number, but I know that a lot of the mods struggle with imbalancing the economy and having supplies suddenly be hundreds of credits (and not always in a reproducible way when it comes to the procedurally generated stuff).
Any thoughts on having supplies have a more regulated price than other commodities? Some hidden damping factors that drive them back towards a value that balances the industry playstyle?
A minor suggestion: add a chance for (D) hull mods on ships that turn up in the black market - and perhaps a slight increase to the number and variety of available hulls. Finding, for example, a pristine XIV-Variant Dominator on the black market is (and should be!) a very rare occurrence. Finding one that's been pounded to scrap and patched together often enough, and it makes more sense for some Hegemony logistics officer to be able to write it off as scrap (in exchange for a hefty finder's fee, of course...)
Nice! I appreciate you taking that direction with the break-apart mechanic. Is overkill a factor there as well? For instance, will smaller ships (destroyers and such) unlucky enough to eat a Cyclone salvo rightly get evaporated? >:D
Nice! I appreciate you taking that direction with the break-apart mechanic. Is overkill a factor there as well? For instance, will smaller ships (destroyers and such) unlucky enough to eat a Cyclone salvo rightly get evaporated? >:D
It's entirely random, actually. But I'm sure confirmation bias will make it seem not so :)
the breakup is about a cool visual effect -- so having a machine gun bullet potentially trigger it sort of undermines that effect....The target area is a small thermal exhaust port...
Hmm. Many games use a mechanic whereby the "exploding death" animation isn't used unless the damage the character sustained in the last moments of its life meets a certain threshold. It will look ridiculous when you see a fighter machine gunning a nearly dead capital ship that then does that ridiculous death flare and breaks into pieces when one last little bullet hits it.
I know the "odds" of salvage are a concern, which is tied to whether the ship broke up or not, but the breakup is about a cool visual effect -- so having a machine gun bullet potentially trigger it sort of undermines that effect.
Hmm. Many games use a mechanic whereby the "exploding death" animation isn't used unless the damage the character sustained in the last moments of its life meets a certain threshold. It will look ridiculous when you see a fighter machine gunning a nearly dead capital ship that then does that ridiculous death flare and breaks into pieces when one last little bullet hits it.
I know the "odds" of salvage are a concern, which is tied to whether the ship broke up or not, but the breakup is about a cool visual effect -- so having a machine gun bullet potentially trigger it sort of undermines that effect.
Right, yeah, was thinking about that while working on it - but the breakup happens after the ship explosion, so it's tied to that rather than the last couple of hits the ship took, in terms of "why does it look like this happened".
(And personally, I think a fighter plinking a few last shots into a capital ship and causing a massive explosion is a very cool visual.)
I especially love the fact that this dev makes an active effort towards reducing frustrating and tedious game mechanics, whereas many similar games would rather use them as "difficulty" gimmicks to rip off pretend-hardcore gamers.If a game requires people to spend as much time as possible playing (on a server) for the devs or company to make money, then forced grinding and other tedium can be useful to keep people playing who get hooked.
I have a thought that stems from the ability to restore ships to their "factory condition", or however you want to describe the painstaking removal of D-mods from damaged ships. Will we ever see the ability to massively overhaul one ship class into another? Obviously I'm referring to ship classes that are described as being conversions from others (Tarsus to Condor, Buffalo to Buffalo MkII), and I think it could be really cool to upgrade/modify/convert a Tarsus freighter into a Condor carrier. I don't doubt that this would take massive quantities of resources, and I'm not sure of the practical uses in the campaign, but it could be worth thinking about what with all the other factors being added with ship recovery here.
Thoughts?
(Been playing Starsector for a few years, but I'm new to the forums)
SpoilerAbsolutely adoring the concept of Autofit. :D Something I've wanted in some form or other for a long time, and you've absolutely cracked it.
I have a thought that stems from the ability to restore ships to their "factory condition", or however you want to describe the painstaking removal of D-mods from damaged ships. Will we ever see the ability to massively overhaul one ship class into another? Obviously I'm referring to ship classes that are described as being conversions from others (Tarsus to Condor, Buffalo to Buffalo MkII), and I think it could be really cool to upgrade/modify/convert a Tarsus freighter into a Condor carrier. I don't doubt that this would take massive quantities of resources, and I'm not sure of the practical uses in the campaign, but it could be worth thinking about what with all the other factors being added with ship recovery here.
Thoughts?
(Been playing Starsector for a few years, but I'm new to the forums)[close]
Sounds like the convert button will never get used then...SpoilerAbsolutely adoring the concept of Autofit. :D Something I've wanted in some form or other for a long time, and you've absolutely cracked it.
I have a thought that stems from the ability to restore ships to their "factory condition", or however you want to describe the painstaking removal of D-mods from damaged ships. Will we ever see the ability to massively overhaul one ship class into another? Obviously I'm referring to ship classes that are described as being conversions from others (Tarsus to Condor, Buffalo to Buffalo MkII), and I think it could be really cool to upgrade/modify/convert a Tarsus freighter into a Condor carrier. I don't doubt that this would take massive quantities of resources, and I'm not sure of the practical uses in the campaign, but it could be worth thinking about what with all the other factors being added with ship recovery here.
Thoughts?
(Been playing Starsector for a few years, but I'm new to the forums)[close]
Hi and welcome to the forum :)
Re: autofit, whether it'll be good or not I think largely depends on the quality of variants produced by the algorithm. Hopefully it'll be good enough; early testing seems to be positive. At the very least, it's much easier to use than "manage variants" was.
As far as conversions, I don't think those will pan out - they'd be cool in those specific instances, yeah, but those are so minor that it really doesn't warrant a front-row place in the refit UI, or the effort/complexity of adding something for it that's just a one-off, more or less. It's just a couple of ships out of, at this point, what, a couple of dozen?
As far as conversions, I don't think those will pan out - they'd be cool in those specific instances, yeah, but those are so minor that it really doesn't warrant a front-row place in the refit UI, or the effort/complexity of adding something for it that's just a one-off, more or less. It's just a couple of ships out of, at this point, what, a couple of dozen?
Yeah, the main work here is "game system design", and since there's no real driver for it in terms of "solving other design problems" (and, as you point it, it could potentially conflict with other design goals), my feeling is it's not a good idea to go down that path.
It would slightly bug me if there is something in the game world that clearly should be possible for the player, but inexplicably isn't. I mean, how can the Sector be filled with converted ship if there's no way to convert them?
...not that I'd actually want to convert them all that often. I'd just consider it a nice touch for world building.
From what I saw about XIV variants, the "...performed by pre-collapse industrial methods (or techniques)..." (caveat: may not be exact text, but close enough if not) could just mean Hegemony could build new XIV ships with pre-collapse industry tech. Survivor of original XIV does imply the ship is likely pre-collapse.
Now, obviously, you'd need an appropriate reputation & commission with a faction that can do the conversions. And I don't think it deserves its own front-row button in the ship UI - a conversion is, much like refurbishing a (D)-class ship, something that would be expensive and not to be undertaken lightly.
Why not mix credits, supplies and heavy machinery (and any other related commodity) as a "currency" used to remove D-mods?
D-mods would use diffirent elements depending on their nature/origin, and and ships would get theose more in line with their function, so civilian ship would more likley loose structural integrity, primitive military suffer from armour micro-damages, tugs and frigates engine failures and advanced prism/teleport craft get some electronic glitches.
There was an old saying about those "restorations" (as i worked in this branch for time) and even more common in recent times for everyone..."it might be more cost-effective to buy a new one"...mostly due to policy of mostly electronic-oriented companies and an extreme example for industry. For balance purposes costs need to be high, but "several times the cost of buying a new hull" is balance-breaker in other way around. Same as new one would work, as you already payed in supplies to drag it out of debrie field costs are higer, two times would give you a pause...but several times - i hope its a hyperbole.
As for boarding...i love boarding in almost every other game...lets say taking over is my little "fixation" from dungeon keeper to Homeworld (where in main storyline I captured all enemy ships above corvete, not destroyed even one exept bugged attack carrier of turanic raiders) ...so new system even if a large step forward brings mix of smile and sadness.
I still hope for good boarding system...but more oriented around EMP weaponry and specialized to this role craft, like we have a carrier for fighters maybe reffited salvage/mining rigs. Then use marines, who had easy time in their power armors killling those officers. Or infiltrator frigates.
We can't play pirates or get immersive feeling without it. Firefly and Serenity would not stand for it =P
Its more fun when those large ships struggle and struggle rather than volatile exploding, what about making their chunks break off like in SCY Nation, as i see Orbital Stations/Platforms almost have it?
Its more fun when those large ships struggle and struggle rather than volatile exploding, what about making their chunks break off like in SCY Nation, as i see Orbital Stations/Platforms almost have it?
Stations are basically that, yeah. For regular ships, I don't want to do that for... various reasons :) (Complexity in various aspects, not necessarily mechanically desirable, etc.)
That feels like adding-detail-for-sake-of-"realism". As with adding complexity anywhere, the question is, what does it get us mechanically?
This has come up a bunch, but the short answer is I don't like the idea of mixing boarding directly into combat. It's too much to try to cram in, I think - consider how it would affect the AI, and just in general how combat plays out. If it's an alternate way to defeat ships *and profit from it*, there's a high risk that the player would feel forced to do it even if they don't want to, too.As an example, the game Endless Sky has this problem. Until depreciation was introduced, looting and boarding were the most profitable activity by far (and may still be, though not as much as before), and since only the flagship (which you control) can loot and board, Bactrian was (and may still be) the no-brainer flagship choice for optimal play, despite stronger combat ships available later in the game.
I'd argue that giving meaning to commodities for players that aren't traders is a worthy addition. As a combat focused player I only look at them as money that I will soon trade for at the next station I dock with. However, if I need metals (or other specific materials) to repair D-mods I might consider not scuttling it for other more expensive commodities every single time, thus making the choice of what to keep post-battle more interesting. It'd also make players think if they should sell everything while docking or use their station storage.
That's a bit circular, isn't it? Giving more meaning to something can be a nice bonus, but it shouldn't be the main reason. If that's the case, the right design move is probably to remove both things.
For commodities in particular, a lot of them don't have a point right now and mostly act as background flavor, so it's totally expected they're "just credits". That'll change gradually (the next release will give more meaning to a couple, etc), but stuff that gives them meaning will be stuff that's good to add for *other reasons*, i.e. commodities are a projected part of the implementation of that stuff, just added to the game early. Some commodities may change/be removed/etc during this process.
We're pushing up on the one-month mark again. Wasn't this the last major feature to be blogged about?
Currently working on exploration content (putting all those features to work!); after that, some end-to-end playtesting.
Currently working on exploration content (putting all those features to work!); after that, some end-to-end playtesting.
:O Not too long until the update then. Can't wait!
...and now i kinda really want a Mule with built-in Borer drones. :D
I'll whip one up for you right now in a micro-mod! XD Just kidding, but in reality wouldn't be that hard.yeah, i know. i imagine just adding a built-in wing will be as easy as adding a built-in hullmod. but it would be nice if the sprite also got a shiny flight deck similar to the Shepherd's, maybe replacing the rear turret. Borers are gonna be pretty good though, so it would likely need additional nerfs in other areas as well.
i imagine just adding a built-in wing will be as easy as adding a built-in hullmod. but it would be nice if the sprite also got a shiny flight deck similar to the Shepherd's, maybe replacing the rear turret. Borers are gonna be pretty good though, so it would likely need additional nerfs in other areas as well.
probably, yeah. ^^
thanks, i'll give it a try (tomorrow)! :D
If I'm honest I've never tried "Kitbashing" or "Frankenspriting" or whatever you call it, but I'd actually be down for making a bunch of mini-mods that do things like this. Just small changes and additions that some people might say, "You know what, I've always wanted this in the game," without creating a whole huge mod.
Hmm... This is sounding less and less silly.
Just fair warning, its a very, very slippery slope my friend. ;D I said that EXACT thing back in 2013. "Oh I would love a couple more small mounts and a flight deck on that Eagle. It would really be like a SD then!"
...Now here I am 4 years later still working on a conversion mod that changes just about every ship in the game in some way, and adds a bunch more custom stuff I'm still working on. It just.. kind of happens. lol
Also Morrokain, I'm guessing that converted Eagle you mentioned is the one currently set as your profile image? ;)
The closest current equivalent to that in the mod would be this.
It seems a bit OP and boring to me. .5 shields, 3 decks, no ship system, 4 medium missiles, and 14 small energies?! I mean, geez...The closest current equivalent to that in the mod would be this.
Whoa. :o Fairly surprised you're still referring to that as a Heavy Cruiser, what with all those upgrades. I'd note it as a Battlecruiser at least.
Whoa. :o Fairly surprised you're still referring to that as a Heavy Cruiser, what with all those upgrades. I'd note it as a Battlecruiser at least.It seems a bit OP and boring to me. .5 shields, 3 decks, no ship system, 4 medium missiles, and 14 small energies?! I mean, geez...