Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: psychobarge on January 15, 2020, 08:49:42 AM
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I bought this amazing game recently and played it a lot. ;D
I love it but since the beginning something feels weird to me.
I think it's weird because in most sci-fi universes, most of the time, ships travel alone.
There are number of examples, in star wars, star trek, stargate, battlestar galactica, and so much more, many protagonists travel alone. Bounty hunters (Boba Fett ?), lone smugglers (han solo ?), merchants, etc...
On the occasion, ships are temporary put together for a purpose like waging a war, defending a planet or exploring a distant distress signal And some fleets are of course permanent, battlestar galactica again, Wake, etc...
Now i'm not saying you should not be able to have a fleet or fleet should disapear from the game, not at all ! the current fleet mechanics are amazing !
I'm saying there should be a LOT more lone ships.
The game would benefit of encouraging the player to choose between fleet or solo ship. Now i know it is possible today in the game, but let's face it, you cannot do a lot with one tiny ship, and if you want to play Boba Fett, well you'll have trouble defeating the enemy fleet alone :-[. Again if you want to travel anywhere, you need a tanker, so two ships (and thats a fleet !) etc...
This would require some adjustments, in the form of diverse bonuses when in solo mode :
- massive decrease of fuel utilisation (which would be balanced by the lack of cargo space)
- ridiculously low radar signature :-X
- massive bonus to ordnance points to fully customize your ship.
- ...
And some new rules :
- You cannot salvage a ship and add it to your fleet.
- You could change from solo to fleet mode when on a colony but you'd loose all your bonuses and would have to refit your ships
- You could change from fleet to solo mode when on a colony but you'd have to sell all your other ships !
- ...
This would enable other mission types from contractors :
- get right inside a fleet, dock on the flagship, assassinate the leader and escape.
- get right inside a fleet, and sabotage the fuel tankers.
- get right inside a fleet, and upload a virus or retrieve information for your contractor.
- go in orbit of a base/planet and upload a virus or retrieve information for your contractor.
- ...
these would not involve a lot of user action but could be only text missions with percentages.
I know its a lot and probably won't be a priority ever :D but i thought of it and wanted to share...
Imagine how great it would feel to approach a big pirate fleet, dock on a cruiser with your tiny heavily modified kite without being spotted, assassinate the pirate leader and leave unharmed while the fleet ships turns against one another 8)
Thanks for this game :)
Sorry for my bad english.
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I think it's weird because in most sci-fi universes, most of the time, ships travel alone.
And this isn't one of them. With mechanics as they are currently, there are very few ships that could stand up to entire fleets, with clever piloting and proper skills, and none of them are any good at logistics (besides Odyssey, maybe? I don't remember). Current refit mechanics also wouldn't provide any diverse experience. Changing the gameplay to make it suited for a single ship would lead to basically remaking 2/3rds of the game into another game entirely... Which is a solution of sorts for you. Playing a different game.
Starsector takes after World War II-ish naval warfare, which evidently includes taking support ships. Some ships (called cruisers after cruising, which initially meant long-range, typically independent missions) could travel alone, but only for a time and, perhaps more importantly to Starsector, they couldn't do much, besides going somewhere and shooting that somewhere. Something like that is presumably the justification for why you have a fleet: because a single, multipurpose ship is impractical and inflexible and if no one designed such ships, there are none for the player to use them. Why you can't actually use your ships independently is another matter entirely (if I recall correctly, because Alex considers it not worth it. A shame).
Most of the time, you have a fleet, with the goal of destroying another fleet, hauling a couple months' worth of space rocks or going on a prospecting spree. Those things are complicating logistics a lot. Millenium Falcon was mostly a taxi for main characters to go around the galaxy. Enterprise, to my knowledge, was mostly an exploration vessel, not a "steal everything that isn't nailed down" one. Ferrying a dozen people or visiting the stars is something you can do with a single ship already! It just isn't what you actually do for the living in Starsector.
Another reason as to why those many pop culture entries constrain themselves to just a single ship is to make it more meaningful, to characters and to the audience, and to prevent the scale from growing above what an average Joe can empathise with, because he's the one that's paying for the book, movie, game, whatever.
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Solo ship captain (or nearly-solo) is a playstyle that worked okay for some of the very early versions of campaign mode (back when we only had the Corvus system to run around in), but has since fallen off significantly in viability.
I do miss it.
But the current game structure really makes it non-viable; when an end-game enemy fleet has a half-dozen capital ships, you're not going to deal with that on your own no matter what you're flying. We've been told the in-development version tunes those numbers down some, so I guess we'll see where that goes.
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If you want to have a single ship fleet so badly then try the Caliph super capital from the Kadur Remnants mod (you'll have to spawn it using console commands) still it's not really all that fun with the Caliph handling like a brick, although it can be funny to ram a star fortress to death and retake Oasis for the glory of the Theocracy. And having the entire game revolving around text events like you suggested sounds pretty lame, I doubt anyone would play that mode since the whole appeal of this game is the combat.
And even with some ships that would be considered the best of their faction (DME's Snow Goose, Tri Tach's Astral or Paragon, Blackrock's Nevermore and even the Caliph with all of its might) soloing an entire fleet can be often impossible so you likely won't ever see fleet combat in this game mode you suggested.
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Solo ship captain (or nearly-solo) is a playstyle that worked okay for some of the very early versions of campaign mode (back when we only had the Corvus system to run around in), but has since fallen off significantly in viability.
It was doable before 0.8a. Did not mean it was as good as a big fleet (for hauling), but it could be done.
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I think it's weird because in most sci-fi universes
Right off the bat, I would say that just because it's that way in x y and z, doesn't mean it should be in starsector..and even then, AFAIK the best those single ships would do is blow up a few fighters or shoot some weak spot to cripple 1 or 2 ships..
But besides that, this game is designed for fleet vs fleet battles, so this would complete upend that mechanic.
I can relate though because I prefer to play at a smaller scale, which can get difficult later in the game ):
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And having the entire game revolving around text events like you suggested sounds pretty lame, I doubt anyone would play that mode since the whole appeal of this game is the combat.
The "whole" appeal of the game is not the combat. If that were the case everyone would just be playing the missions and not the actual game. The game could actually use more text events, named characters and questlines. But I don't think that should take priority as I think the whole appeal of this game is the dynamic freedom you have: Smuggling Lobsters, raiding convoys, waging war and exploring the Sector, and anything in between is possible and up to you.
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The "whole" appeal of the game is not the combat. If that were the case everyone would just be playing the missions and not the actual game.
Not in earlier versions. I thought missions with unskilled ships were boring. Combat was more fun (for me) with skills, and skills were much stronger before 0.8a. Skills were only available in the campaign.
Today, ships are too OP starved without Loadout Design 3.
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Star wars, Star trek, Stargate all have battles between large numbers of ships. Stargate doesn't really have ships as a method of travel anyways, with it's namesake rather unsuprisingly being the main method of travel.
Anyhow, you can play with one ship, it's just that in a hostile universe you will have to hide and run an awful lot. Which is fairly realistic. Boba Fett never had to fight off pirates. Starsector is not. Boba Fett never fight anything more than a single ship; in fact in the original trilogy, his ship doesn't ever enter combat. The Star Wars universe appears to be a rather safe universe. In starsector you can hunt bounties with a single ship, but you have to pick your targets carefully and play well. You can trade with a single ship. You can't make as much profit, but why should you?
I don't see the sense in forcing the player to choose to play a restricted solo mode or a normal mode, even before starting the game. Whatever happened to freedom to do what you would like?
Today, ships are too OP starved without Loadout Design 3.
They are not. The point of OP as customisation is to make choices. If the opposing ships have the same OP then there are no difference between your ships and the enemy's ships so what's the difference?
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They are not. The point of OP as customisation is to make choices. If the opposing ships have the same OP then there are no difference between your ships and the enemy's ships so what's the difference?
Difference being the number of viable builds. Many ships have horrible flux stats and not a lot of OP so they have pretty much only one or two safe builds. It takes away the freedom when almost anything you want ends up lacking.
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Even with Loadout Design 3, I often need to skimp on something to make something effective. Without Loadout Design 3, I need to skimp even more. That is no fun.
Mounts are meant to be filled, and there is often not enough OP to do that (without giving up more important caps, vents, and/or critical hullmods). Carriers are unarmed, some warships may leave most mounts empty just so they can use the few they have left well.
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At the core of the game is fleet combat. 1-vs-fleet doesn't work well and shows you quite quickly why this 'storytelling' approach to lone 1-man frigate vs. the world belongs in fiction and not warfare. It's a nice idea but this isn't the game for it. There are enough other space shooters that pin your solo ship vs. a manageable amount of enemies.
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I feel like, except for a few outliers like the Heron, I can make good builds without loadout design 3. With loadout design 3 I can fill every slot with the best weapons, max out at least vents and often have decent caps, and install several of the best hullmods. I am looking forward to loadout design 3 being removed - its much more interesting to design ships when there are design tradeoffs, instead of just loading the best of everything.
@Megas
Are you making heavy use of logistics hullmods on warships and reinforced bulkheads? I remember that in that past you have. Thats a lot of OP.
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@Megas
Are you making heavy use of logistics hullmods on warships and reinforced bulkheads? I remember that in that past you have. Thats a lot of OP.
On ships without officers, I use Reinforced Bulkheads because if I lose the ship, I immediately reload the game. I have no problem using clunkers I pick up off the ground until endgame when I have all blueprints and the industry to crank out pristine ships left and right on a budget. By endgame, once I can rebuild anything with rock bottom prices I do not care as much. However, some ships are OP starved enough that I must forgo Reinforced Bulkheads, and those ships get priority for officers for the synergy with ship recovery perk from Fleet Logistics.
I use Augmented Engines on capitals so I can reach burn 20 without too many tugs. With Augmented Engines on ships with burn 6 or 7 and Navigation 3, I only need two tugs to reach burn 20. Without Navigation or without Augmented Engines, I need four, which is a bit much for comfort. If I tried without Augmented Engines and Navigation, I would need six, which is too much. Would rather put Augmented Engines on Onslaught, Paragon, or Astral instead of bringing two more tugs. Conquest and Odyssey cannot afford Augmented Engines, but at least they have burn 8, so they do not need it (if I have slower ships in fleet). Burn 20 is very important when the sector is constantly on fire (which is a reason why I often want to destroy all core worlds so there is nothing left to save from burning to the ground, aside from my worlds).
I really like Efficiency Overhaul for extending fuel range and faster CR recovery for faster chain battling. Being a combat monster does not mean much if the ships break the bank or drink more fuel than core worlds can stock and replenish.
Thing is, some ships can fit campaign mods without much problem while others cannot. If I cannot mitigate those on the more OP starved ships, they simply do not get used. Shrike is one where I have a real hard time squeezing a campaign mod.
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I am looking forward to loadout design 3 being removed - its much more interesting to design ships when there are design tradeoffs, instead of just loading the best of everything.
I bet by endgame of the next release, all ships in the player's fleet will have at least two built-in mods, which will probably be worth more OP than Loadout Design 3.
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They are not. The point of OP as customisation is to make choices. If the opposing ships have the same OP then there are no difference between your ships and the enemy's ships so what's the difference?
Difference being the number of viable builds. Many ships have horrible flux stats and not a lot of OP so they have pretty much only one or two safe builds. It takes away the freedom when almost anything you want ends up lacking.
Even with Loadout Design 3, I often need to skimp on something to make something effective. Without Loadout Design 3, I need to skimp even more. That is no fun.
Mounts are meant to be filled, and there is often not enough OP to do that (without giving up more important caps, vents, and/or critical hullmods). Carriers are unarmed, some warships may leave most mounts empty just so they can use the few they have left well.
Can either one of you can give an example of such a ship? One that isn't a carrier? You aren't supposed to be able to take every OP option. The only one I can think of is Shrike which has been purposefully left with less OP than normal and Dominator and only because I want to put heavy armor on it, and with it a ton of other hullmods to cover for its vulnerable rear. Post your ship, and I'll post mine and we can see the difference in our builds.
@Megas
Are you making heavy use of logistics hullmods on warships and reinforced bulkheads? I remember that in that past you have. Thats a lot of OP.
On ships without officers, I use Reinforced Bulkheads because if I lose the ship, I immediately reload the game. I have no problem using clunkers I pick up off the ground until endgame when I have all blueprints and the industry to crank out pristine ships left and right on a budget. By endgame, once I can rebuild anything with rock bottom prices I do not care as much. However, some ships are OP starved enough that I must forgo Reinforced Bulkheads, and those ships get priority for officers for the synergy with ship recovery perk from Fleet Logistics.
I use Augmented Engines on capitals so I can reach burn 20 without too many tugs. With Augmented Engines on ships with burn 6 or 7 and Navigation 3, I only need two tugs to reach burn 20. Without Navigation or without Augmented Engines, I need four, which is a bit much for comfort. If I tried without Augmented Engines and Navigation, I would need six, which is too much. Would rather put Augmented Engines on Onslaught, Paragon, or Astral instead of bringing two more tugs. Conquest and Odyssey cannot afford Augmented Engines, but at least they have burn 8, so they do not need it (if I have slower ships in fleet). Burn 20 is very important when the sector is constantly on fire (which is a reason why I often want to destroy all core worlds so there is nothing left to save from burning to the ground, aside from my worlds).
I really like Efficiency Overhaul for extending fuel range and faster CR recovery for faster chain battling. Being a combat monster does not mean much if the ships break the bank or drink more fuel than core worlds can stock and replenish.
Thing is, some ships can fit campaign mods without much problem while others cannot. If I cannot mitigate those on the more OP starved ships, they simply do not get used. Shrike is one where I have a real hard time squeezing a campaign mod.
Well, there's your problem. You don't want to make hard choices. You want everything, including some quite unnecessary ones like Reinforced Bulkhead, Augmented Engines and Efficiency overhaul all at the same time, whilst being able to have the OP available as if you don't have those hullmods. I'm perfectly happy without any of these hullmods on my ships. You are essentially asking the game to be changed to suit your unique build, rather than adapting your build to suit the game. I'm perfectly happy with using Shrikes. You are not. Your loss really. As it is, I'm not opposed to giving every ship +10% OP normally and removing Loadout Design 3 entirely, but I don't have the same problem you do.
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@Plantissue
Lol even you agree that carriers are crippled. Fine here are all vanilla non carrier ships I can think of right now (didn't play vanilla only for a while so I'll probably forget something):
- Shrike, Scarab, Atlas Mk.II, Onslaught, Odyssey, Vigilance, Enforcer
Now unlike Megas I don't put Augmented Engines since it's too expensive, I usually give cruisers and up Efficiency Overhaul because I think ships are too expensive to maintain in your fleet without it. Tbh that should be baseline, and EO should give even more of an upgrade. Also some of the ships I mentioned just lack a ton of vents for the mounts they have, so everytime you have to spend everything to improve flux stats just so the ship is doing alright.
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I did say post your ship. How can we talk if you just post names of ships? I did mention Shrike before, but it's also the lowest DP destroyer with massive innate flux stats. Never felt OP starved on Atlas MK II if I don't put a burn speed hullmod on it. Never felt lacking for OP on Onslaught of all things nor on any of the other ships either.
If your issue is weapon mounts left unmounted, it's like carriers. There are simply better OP uses than on certain weapon mounts. Those weapon mounts either have poor coverage like on the Atlas MK II, or it's because small weapons have diminishing uses on ships with medium and large mounts. Even then, just the other day, someone posted an Odyssey with full weapons in an anti-fighter missile frigate role, and please note, an Odyssey has fighter bays so you shouldn't had included it anyways. Vigilance is a bit of a funny ship being a small fast 4 DP with medium missile. Enforcer does not lack for OP. It's got possible the most OP for its DP out of all the normal dstroyers. Post your ships. Then we can talk about something concrete.
I excluded carriers, not becuase they are OP starved, but because the carrier's best weapons are its fighters and their best defences aren't normal weapons but speed. If tomorrow all carriers had +10 OP per fighterbay, those new OP will not go into short ranged weapons, but all go into Flux Capacitor and Flux Vents and hullmods like Hardened Shield and Insulated Engine Assembly and Resistant Flux Conduits or into Longbows, Daggers, Cobras and Tridents.
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Reinforced Bulkhead, Augmented Engines and Efficiency overhaul all at the same time
Rarely all on the same ship.
Reinforced Bulkheads is pure QoL. Game goes faster if I simply play than either reload the game or grind for too long to replace what I lost. (Reloading the game is faster than grinding another replacement the hard way.) Reinforced Bulkhead is a big QoL improvement when I cannot get an officer in the ship. I could not care less about the hp boost. All I get bulkheads for is the ship recovery if I cannot get that effect elsewhere. I use this hullmod liberally early in the game, when I cannot easily replace losses. Later, I do not need this as much.
Yes, Augmented Engines is expensive, but worth it if I want more time to explore and do fun stuff before being either chained to colonies (mine or core worlds) or chasing zombie pirate bases. I had fleets with four tugs, and they are a drag, especially without Navigation. Usually, Augmented Engines is limited to battleships (and capital haulers that never get deployed).
Efficiency Overhaul is a must without Navigation. Otherwise, fuel range is usually too short for long-range trips with a proper war fleet. Even if they are, if fleet is big enough, they can still drink too much fuel (if shops do not stock enough). Even with Navigation, it is convenient, and lets ships recover faster after CR attrition from chain battling. Most ships can afford this without much trouble.
I excluded carriers, not becuase they are OP starved, but because the carrier's best weapons are its fighters and their best defences aren't normal weapons but speed. If tomorrow all carriers had +10 OP per fighterbay, those new OP will not go into short ranged weapons, but all go into Flux Capacitor and Flux Vents and hullmods like Hardened Shield and Insulated Engine Assembly and Resistant Flux Conduits or into Longbows, Daggers, Cobras and Tridents.
And that is a real shame. What is the point of weapon mounts if it is clearly sub-optimal to use them? Be better if the sprites were updated so that the mounts were rubbed out. (Most carriers were made before fighters became missiles.) I would prefer that combat carriers like in the 0.5.4a and the 0.6.x releases were made good again. It is fun when a carrier with good guns can wade into melee and bully small ships, while still fully supporting any sort of fighters you wanted. Heron used to be good at that. Same with Venture before it became a full-blown mining ship.
Filling all mounts used to be a useful option. Now they are not.
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I too would like to see all mounts being filled. But if they are not, it is not due to lacking for OP, but rather than there are much better uses for OP than another small weapon, or than for a mount with poor coverage. Once a ship has a certain amount of weapons, it has diminishing returns. A ship with 2 Plasma Cannons or 2 Gauss Cannons will not care much for an IR Pulse Laser for damage for another 5 OP. Perhaps there could be an argument in there to greatly increase the flux dissipation of all ships, but that 5OP will probably be used for something that isn't another weapon.
I too use reinforced bulkheads. I continue to use it even with officers and Fleet Logistics 1 and/or Damage control 3. That +40% HP for its OP cost is juicy. I have no idea how those skills and hullmod interact.
As for reloading the game from losing a ship, I don't do that. Only for rare ships I enjoy using that are low availability like Doom and I don't have a tri-tachyon commission. I'm perfectly fine with losing say a astral, if I gain 2 legions from it. I gain more per time, than reloading the game again to fight the same battle. Who knows, maybe the next battle I acquire an astral, by the time you finished refighting that battle.
I use Augmented Drive Field as well, but at that point you want the OP available as if you don't have those hullmods. Hard choices have to be made. A long time ago i made an Astral Paragon fleet with Augmented Drive Field, and it was weaker than one without, but you know what, it was fine and it's to be perfectly expected that it is weaker.
Efficiency Overhaul is not needed ever. Shops stock enough. I can fight the biggest bounties fleets without it, without losing a single ship, so I can't see why you cannot. Get a smaller more leaner fleet. Long muti system explorations usually nets me a fuller tank than I started off with.
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I too would like to see all mounts being filled. But if they are not, it is not due to lacking for OP, but rather than there are much better uses for OP than another small weapon, or than for a mount with poor coverage. Once a ship has a certain amount of weapons, it has diminishing returns. A ship with 2 Plasma Cannons or 2 Gauss Cannons will not care much for an IR Pulse Laser for damage for another 5 OP. Perhaps there could be an argument in there to greatly increase the flux dissipation of all ships, but that 5OP will probably be used for something that isn't another weapon.
Yeah, it may not be another weapon, it will probably be vents so that player has even more dissipation, unless OP that can be spent on caps/vents gets slashed to half or more (and related hullmods removed). Then player might get weapons because he has the dissipation to use them (especially if flux stats go back to pre-0.8a skill levels). As for carriers, as long as fighters stay as missiles and cost OP and there are carrier hullmods, dedicated carriers will never have incentive to get proper guns. Fighters probably need to go back to being ships and decoupled from carrlers as in pre-0.8a releases for armed carriers (that can brawl and maul stuff) to happen again. However, with fleet slots, having enough fighters means not enough room for enough ships and no significant capacity to haul stuff.
For the rest...
Early in the game, when I use Shrike (P), I use whatever I find, which is probably (IR) pulse laser or mining blaster, light autocannon (because dual AC is surprisingly rare early, though not as much as railgun/light needler), maybe Ion Cannon, and Salamander (Sabot Pod is kind of rare too, often not available when I want it). By the time I have unlimited choice of weapons, I outgrow Shrikes, Enforcers, and Mules and use cruisers and bigger, plus few specialist ships. If I use Shrike (P) very late just to play around (in the sim), it will have a railgun and not either autocannon.
Efficiency Overhaul is not needed provided player has Fleet Logistics (a given due to how good it is for everything) and Navigation (mostly campaign QoL, less tugs means more slots for better ships). Without Navigation, I cannot haul a fleet about as big as NPCs can (multi-capitals) without burning too much fuel (bringing two or three Prometheus). With Navigation and fewer tugs, it is possible to bring a big fleet and wreck stuff like NPC fleets can.
I played games without Navigation, in an attempt to squeeze more skill points for combat (while I took colony skills before I knew of the Pather bug and other semi-hidden things about alpha cores and inspections). In the end, I get sick of burning too much fuel, then later, traveling from my colony to jump point, and crossing pulsar beams more times instead of T. Jumping directly to the planet where a pirate base constantly respawned at... and I took Navigation to remove two tugs and a Prometheus. I suppose if I remove Efficiency Overhaul from all of my combat ships, I can bring back the two tugs and Prometheus.
P.S. Back to Shrike, I might use single AC over dual depending what else it has. If it has Mining Blaster because that is all I have at hand (maybe Apogee just found a plasma cannon and the mining blaster it had goes to another ship...), I would use light AC over dual (if I have it) to help keep flux use down. More likely, I probably have multiple Shrike (P)s, and I do not have enough ideal weapons to arm them optimally.
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Yeah, come off it Megas. We all know you wouldn't quibble over that 1 OP for light autocannon over dual light Autocannon for Shrike (P) as you'll happily pay an extra 3 OP premium to mount a railgun instead of those inferior options.
As for the rest, taking skills is a choice I am happy to take over taking hullmods. I don't see why you have made the choice to take hullmods over skills, if you are unhappy about it. It is possible that it is your choice to mount Efficiency Overhaul instead of taking Fleet Logistics skills or your choice to take Augmented Drive Field over the Navigation skill that causes your ships to be weaker than they need to be, which is why you feel like they need a more OP. Or that you feel like you need Efficiency Overhaul becuase otherwise you will need tugs as you don't have Navigation skill. But before I get those skills I don't feel like I need Efficiency Overhaul anyways. It's a choice.